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"I will be as brief," he said, "as possible, consistent with stating all that is requisite for me to state, and I must commence by asking you if you are aware under what circumstances it was that Mark Ingestrie was abroad?" "I am aware of so much, that a quarrel with his uncle, Mr. Grant, was the great cause, and that his main endeavour was to better his fortunes, so that we might be happy, and independent of those who looked not with an eye of favour upon our projected union." "Yes, but, what I meant was, were you aware of the sort of adventure he embarked in to the Indian seas?" "No, I know nothing further; we met here on this spot, we parted at yonder gate, and we have never met again." "Then I have something to tell you, in order to make the narrative clear and explicit." They both sat upon the garden seat; and while Johanna fixed her eyes upon her companion's face, expressive as it was of the most generous emotions and noble feelings, he commenced relating to her the incidents which never left her memory, and in which she took so deep an interest. "You must know," he said, "that what it was which so much inflamed the imagination of Mark Ingestrie, consisted in this. There came to London a man with a wellauthenticated and extremely well put together report, that there had been discovered, in one of the small islands near the Indian seas, a river which deposited an enormous quantity of golddust in its progress to the ocean. He told his story so well, and seemed to be such a perfect master of all the circumstances connected with it, that there was scarcely room for a doubt upon the subject. The thing was kept quiet and secret; and a meeting was held of some influential meninfluential on account of the money they possessed, among whom was one who had towards Mark Ingestrie most friendly feelings; so Mark attended the meeting with this friend of his, although he felt his utter incapacity, from want of resources, to take any part in the affair. But he was not aware of what his friend's generous intentions were in the matter until they were explained to him, and they consisted in thisHe, the friend, was to provide the necessary means for embarking in the adventure, so far as regarded taking a share in it, and he told Mark Ingestrie that, if he would go personally on the expedition, he should share in the proceeds with him, be they what they might. Now, to a young man like Ingestrie, totally destitute of personal resources, but of ardent and enthusiastic temperament, you can imagine how extremely tempting such an offer was likely to be. He embraced it at once with the greatest pleasure, and from that moment he took an interest in the affair of the closest and most powerful description. It seized completely hold of his imagination, presenting itself to him in the most tempting colours; and from the description that has been given me of his enthusiastic disposition, I can well imagine with what kindness and impetuosity he would enter into such an affair." "You know him well?" said Johanna, gently. "No, I never saw him. All that I say concerning him is from the description of another who did know him well, and who sailed with him in the vessel that ultimately left the port of London on the vague and wild adventure I have mentioned." "That one, be he who he may, must have known Mark Ingestrie well, and have enjoyed much of his confidence to be able to describe him so accurately." "I believe that such was the case; and it is from the lips of that one, instead of from mine, that you ought to have heard what I am now relating. That gentleman, whose name was Thornhill, ought to have made to you this communication; but by some strange accident it seems he has been prevented, or you would not be here listening to me upon a subject which would have come better from his lips." "And was he to have come yesterday to me?" "He was." "Then Mark Ingestrie kept his word; and but for the adverse circumstances which delayed his messenger, I should yesterday have heard what you are now relating to me. I pray you go on, sir, and pardon this interruption." "I need not trouble you with all the negotiations, the trouble, and the difficulty that arose before the expedition could be started fairlysuffice it to say, that at length, after much annoyance and trouble, it was started, and a vessel was duly chartered and manned for the purpose of proceeding to the Indian seas in search of the treasure, which was reported to be there for the first adventurer who had the boldness to seek it." "It was a gallant vessel. I saw it many a mile from England ere it sunk beneath the waves, never to rise again." "Sunk!" "Yes; it was an illfated ship, and it did sink; but I must not anticipatedlet me proceed in my narrative with regularity. The ship was called the Star; and if those who went with it looked upon it as the star of their destiny, they were correct enough, and it might be considered an evil star for them, inasmuch as nothing but disappointment and bitterness became their ultimate portion. And Mark Ingestrie, I am told, was the most hopeful man on board. Already in imagination he could fancy himself homewardbound with the vessel, ballasted and crammed with the rich produce of that shining river. Already he fancied what he could do with his abundant wealth, and I have not a doubt but that, in common with many who went on that adventure, he enjoyed to the full the spending of the wealth he should obtain in imaginationperhaps, indeed, more than if he had obtained it in reality. Among the adventurers was one Thornhill, who had been a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and between him and young Ingestrie there arose a remarkable friendshipa friendship so strong and powerful, that there can be no doubt that they communicated to each other all their hopes and fears; and if anything could materially tend to beguile the tedium of such a weary voyage as those adventurers had undertaken, it certainly would be the free communication and confidential intercourse between two such kindred spirits as Thornhill and Mark Ingestrie. You will bear in mind, Miss Oakley, that in making this communication to you, I am putting together what I myself heard at different times, so as to make it for you a distinct narrative, which you can have no difficulty in comprehending, because, as I before stated, I never saw Mark Ingestrie, and it was only once, for about five minutes, that I saw the vessel in which he went upon his perilous adventurefor perilous it turned out to beto the Indian seas. It was from Thornhill I got my information during the many weary and monotonous hours consumed in a homebound voyage from India. It appears that without accident or cross of any description the Star reached the Indian ocean, and the supposed immediate locality of the spot where the treasure was to be found, and there she was spoken with by a vessel homewardbound from India, called the Neptune. It was evening, and the sun had sunk in the horizon with some appearances that betokened a storm. I was on board that Indian vessel; we did not expect anything serious, although we made every preparation for rough weather, and as it turned out, it was well indeed we did, for never within the memory of the oldest seamen, had such a storm ravished the coast. A furious gale, which it was impossible to withstand, drove us southward; and but for the utmost precautions, aided by courage and temerity on the part of the seamen, such as I had never before witnessed in the merchantservice, we escaped with trifling damage, but we were driven at least 200 miles out of our course; and instead of getting, as we ought to have done, to the Cape by a certain time, we were an immense distance eastward of it. It was just as the storm, which lasted three nights and two days, began to abate, that towards the horizon we saw a dull red light; and as it was not in a quarter of the sky where any such appearance might be imagined, nor were we in a latitude where electrophenomena might be expected, we steered toward it, surmising what turned out afterwards to be fully correct." "It was a ship on fire!" said Johanna. "It was." "Alas! alas! I guessed it. A frightful suspicion from the first crossed my mind. It was a ship on fire, and that ship was" The Star was bound upon its adventurous course, although driven far out of it by adverse winds and waves. After about half an hour's sailing we came within sight distinctly of a blazing vessel. We could hear the roar of the flames, and through our glasses we could see them curling up the cordage, and dancing from mast to mast, like fiery serpents, exulting in the destruction they were making. We made all sail, and strained every inch of canvas to reach the illfated vessel, for distances at sea that look small are in reality very great, and an hour's hard sailing in a fair wind, with every stitch of canvas set, would not do more than enable us to reach that illfated bark; but fancy in an hour what ravages the flames might make! The vessel was doomed. The fiat had gone forth that it was to be among the things that had been; and long before we could reach the spot upon which it floated idly on the now comparatively calm waters, we saw a bright shower of sparks rush up into the air. Then came a loud roaring sound over the surface of the deep, and all was stillthe ship had disappeared, and the water closed over it for ever." "But how knew you," said Johanna, as she clasped her hands, and the pallid expression of her countenance betrayed the deep interest she took in the narration, "how knew you that the ship was the Star? might it not have been some other illfated vessel that met with so dreadful a fate?" "I will tell you although we had seen the ship go down, we kept on our course, straining every effort to reach the spot, with the hope of picking up some of the crew, who surely had made an effort by the boats to leave the burning vessel. The captain of the Indiaman kept his glass at his eye, and presently he said to me,'There is a floating piece of wreck, and something clinging to it; I know not if there be a man, but what I can perceive seems to me to be the head of a dog.' I looked through the glass myself, and saw the same object; but as we neared it, we found it was a large piece of the wreck, with a dog and a man supported by it, who were clinging with all the energy of desperation. In ten minutes more we had them on board the vesselthe man was the Lieutenant Thornhill I have before mentioned, and the dog belonged to him. He related to us that the ship, we had seen burning was the Star; and that it had never reached its destination, and that he believed all had perished but himself and the dog; for, although one of the boats had been launched, so desperate a rush was made into it by the crew that it had swamped, and all perished. Such was his own state of exhaustion, that, after he had made this short statement, it was some days before he left his hammock; but when he did, and began to mingle with us, we found an intelligent, cheerful companionsuch a one, indeed, as we were glad to have on board, and in confidence he related to the captain and myself the object of the voyage of the Star, and the previous particulars with which I have made you acquainted. And then, during a nightwatch, when the soft and beautiful moonlight was more than usually inviting, and he and I were on the deck, enjoying the coolness of the night, after the intense heat of the day in the tropics, he said to me,'I have a very sad mission to perform when I get to London. On board our vessel was a young man named Mark Ingestrie; and some short time before the vessel in which we were went down, he begged of me to call upon a young lady named Johanna Oakley, the daughter of a spectaclemaker in London, providing I should be saved and he perish; and of the latter event, he felt so strong a presentiment that he gave me a string of pearls, which I was to present to her in his name; but where he got them I have not the least idea, for they are of immense value.' Mr. Thornhill showed me the pearls, which were of different sizes, roughly strung together, but of great value; and when we reached the river Thames, which was only three days since, he left us with his dog, carrying his string of pearls with him, to find out where you reside." "Alas! he never came." "No; from all the inquiries we can make, and all the information we can learn, it seems he disappeared somewhere about Fleetstreet." "Disappeared!" "Yes; we can trace him to the Templestairs, and from thence to the barber' shop, kept by a man named Sweeny Todd; but beyond there no information of him can be obtained." "Sweeny Todd!" "Yes; and what makes the affair more extraordinary, is, that neither force nor persuasion will induce Thornhill's dog to leave the place." "I saw itI saw the creature, and it looked imploringly, although kindly, in my face; but little did I think, when I paused a moment to look upon that melancholy but faithful animal, that it held a part in my destiny. Oh! Mark Ingestrie, Mark Ingestrie, dare I hope that you live when all else have perished?" "I have told you all that I can tell you, and, according as your own judgment may dictate to you, you can encourage hope, or extinguish it for ever. I have kept back nothing from you which can make the affair worse or betterI have added nothing; but you have it simply as it was told to me." "He is losthe is lost." "I am one, lady, who always thinks certainty of any sort preferable to suspense; and although, while there is no positive news of death, the continuance of life ought fairly to be assumed, yet you must perceive, from a review of all the circumstances, upon how very slender a foundation all our hopes must rest." "I have no hopeI have no hopehe is lost to me for ever! It were madness to think he lived. Oh, Mark, Mark! and is this the end of all our fond affection? did I indeed look my last upon that face, when on this spot we parted?" "The uncertainty," said Colonel Jeffery, wishing to withdraw as much as possible from a consideration of her own sorrows, "the uncertainty, too, that prevails with regard to the fate of poor Mr. Thornhill, is a sad thing. I much fear that those precious pearls he had, have been seen by some one who has not scrupled to obtain possession of them by his death." "Yes, it would seem so indeed; but what are pearls to me? Oh! would that they had sunk to the bottom of that Indian sea, from whence they had been plucked. Alas, alas! it has been their thirst for gain that has produced all these evils. We might have been poor here, but we should have been happy. Rich we ought to have been, in contentment; but now all is lost, and the world to me can present nothing that is to be desired, but one small spot large enough to be my grave." She leant upon the arm of the gardenseat, and gave herself up to such a passion of tears that Colonel Jeffery felt he dared not interrupt her. There is something exceeding sacred about real grief which awes the beholder, and it was with an involuntary feeling of respect that Colonel Jeffery stepped a few paces off, and waited until that burst of agony had passed away. It was during those brief moments that he overheard some words uttered by one who seemed likewise to be suffering from that prolific source of all affliction, disappointed affection. Seated at some short distance was a maiden, and one not young enough to be called a youth, but still not far enough advanced in existence to have had all his better feelings crushed by an admixture with the cold world, and he was listening while the maiden spoke. "It is the neglect," she said, "which touched me to the heart. But one word spoken or written, one message of affection, to tell me that the memory of a love I thought would be eternal, still lingered in your heart, would have been a world of consolation; but it came not, and all was despair." "Listen to me," said her companion, "and if ever in this world you can believe that one who truly loves can be cruel to be kind, believe that I am that one. I yielded for a time to the fascination of a passion which should never have found a home within my heart; but yet it was far more of a sentiment than a passion, inasmuch as never for one moment did an evil thought mingle with its pure aspirations. "It was a dream of joy, which for a time obliterated a remembrance that ought never to have been forgotten; but when I was rudely awakened to the fact that those whose opinions were of importance to your welfare and your happiness knew nothing of love, but in its grossest aspect, it became necessary at once to crush a feeling, which, in its continuance, could shadow forth nothing but evil." "You may not imagine, and you may never knowfor I cannot tell the heartpangs that it has cost me to persevere in a line of conduct which I felt was due to youwhatever heartpangs it might cost me. I have been content to imagine that your affection would turn to indifference, perchance to hatred; that a consciousness of being slighted would arouse in your defence all a woman's pride, and that thus you would be lifted above regret. Farewell for ever! I dare not love you honestly and truly; and better is it thus to part than to persevere in a delusive dream that can but terminate in degradation and sadness." "Do you hear those words?" whispered Colonel Jeffery to Johanna. "You perceive that others suffer, and from the same cause, the perils of affection." "I do. I will go home, and pray for strength to maintain my heart against this sad affliction." "The course of true love never yet ran smooth; wonder not, therefore, Johanna Oakley, that yours has suffered such a blight. It is the great curse of the highest and noblest feelings of which humanity is capable, that while, under felicitous circumstances, they produce to us an extraordinary amount of happiness; when anything adverse occurs, they are most prolific sources of misery. Shall I accompany you?" Johanna felt grateful for the support of the colonel's arm towards her own home, and as they passed the barber's shop they were surprised to see that the dog and the hat were gone. CHAPTER VII. THE BARBER AND THE LAPIDARY. It is night; and a man, one of the most celebrated lapidaries in London, but yet a man frugal withal, although rich, is putting up the shutters of his shop. This lapidary is an old man; his scanty hair is white, and his hands shake as he secures the fastenings, and then, over and over again, feels and shakes each shutter, to be assured that his shop is well secured. This shop of his is in Moorfields, then a place very much frequented by dealers in bullion and precious stones. He was about entering his door, just having cast a satisfied look upon the fastening of his shop, when a tall, ungainlylooking man stepped up to him. This man had a threecornered hat, much too small for him, perched upon the top of his great hideouslooking head, while the coat he wore had ample skirts enough to have made another of ordinary dimensions. Our readers will have no difficulty in recognising Sweeney Todd, and well might the little old lapidary start as such a very unprepossessinglooking personage addressed him. "You deal," he said, "in precious stones." "Yes, I do," was the reply; "but it's rather late. Do you want to buy or sell?" "To sell." "Humph! Ah, I dare say it's something not in my line; the only order I get is for pearls, and they are not in the market." "And I have nothing but pearls to sell," said Sweeney Todd; "I mean to keep all my diamonds, my garnets, topazes, brilliants, emeralds, and rubies." "The deuce you do! Why, you don't mean to say you have any of them? Be off with you! I am too old to joke with, and am waiting for my supper." "Will you look at the pearls I have?" "Little seed pearls, I suppose; they are of no value, and I don't want them, we have plenty of those. It's real, genuine, large pearls we want. Pearls worth thousands." "Will you look at mine?" "No; good night!" "Very good; then I will take them to Mr. Coventry up the street. He will, perhaps, deal with me for them if you cannot." The lapidary hesitated. "Stop," he said; "what's the use of going to Mr. Coventry? he has not the means of purchasing what I can pay present cash for. Come in, come in; I will, at all events, look at what you have for sale." Thus encouraged, Sweeney Todd entered the little, low, dusky shop, and the lapidary having procured a light, and taken care to keep his customer outside the counter, put on his spectacles, and said "Now, sir, where are your pearls?" "There," said Sweeney Todd, as he laid a string of twentyfour pearls before the lapidary. The old man's eyes opened to an enormous width, and he pushed his spectacles right upon his forehead as he glared in the face of Sweeney Todd with undisguised astonishment. Then down came his spectacles again, and taking up the string of pearls he rapidly examined every one of them, after which, he exclaimed, "Real, real, by Heaven! All real!" Then he pushed his spectacles up again to the top of his head, and took another long stare at Sweeney Todd. "I know they are real," said the latter. "Will you deal with me or will you not?" "Will I deal with you? Yes; I am not quite sure they are real. Let me look again. Oh, I see, counterfeits; but so well done, that really for the curiosity of the thing, I will give fifty pounds for them." "I am fond of curiosities," said Sweeney Todd, "and as they are not real, I will keep them; they will do for a present to some child or another." "What give those to a child? you must be madthat is to say, not mad, but certainly indiscreet. Come, now, at a word, I'll give you one hundred pounds for them." "Hark ye," said Sweeney Todd, "it neither suits my inclination nor my time to stand here chaffing with you. I know the value of the pearls, and, as a matter of ordinary and everyday business, I will sell them to you so that you may get a handsome profit." "What do you call a handsome profit?" "The pearls are worth twelve thousand pounds, and I will let you have them for ten. What do you think of that for an offer?" "What odd noise was that?" "Oh, it was only I who laughed. Come, what do you say, at once; are we to do business or are we not?" "Hark ye, my friend; since you do know the value of your pearls, and this is to be a downright business transaction, I think I can find a customer who will give eleven thousand pounds for them, and if so, I have no objection to give you eight thousand pounds." "Give me the eight thousand pounds," said Sweeney Todd, "and let me go. I hate bargaining." "Stop a bit; there are some rather important things to consider. You must know, my friend, that a string of pearls of this value are not be bought like a few ounces of old silver of anybody who might come with it. Such a string of pearls as these are like a house, or an estate, and when they change hands, the vendor must give every satisfaction as to how he came by them, and prove how he can give to the purchaser a good right and title to them." "Pshaw!" said Sweeney Todd, "who will question you, you are well known to be in the trade, and to be continually dealing in such things?" "That's all very fine; but I don't see why I should give you the full value of an article without evidence as to how you came by it." "In other words you mean, you don't care how I came by them, provided I sell them to you at a thief's price, but if I want their value you mean to be particular." "My good sir, you may conclude what you like. Show me that you have a right to dispose of the pearls, and you need go no further than my shop for a customer." "I am no disposed to take that trouble, so I shall bid you good night, and if you want any pearls again, I would certainly advise you not to be so wonderfully particular where you get them." Sweeney Todd strode towards the door, but the lapidary was not going to part with him so easy, so springing over his counter with an agility one would not have expected from so old a man, he was at the door in a moment, and shouted at the top of his lungs "Stop thief! Stop thief! Stop him! There he goes! The big fellow with the threecornered hat! Stop thief! Stop thief!" These cries, uttered with great vehemence as they were, could not be totally ineffectual, but they roused the whole neighbourhood, and before Sweeney Todd had proceeded many yards a man made an attempt to collar him, but was repulsed by such a terrific blow in the face, that another person, who had run halfway across the road with a similar object, turned and went back again, thinking it scarcely prudent to risk his own safety in apprehending a criminal for the good of the public. Having got rid thus of one of his foes, Sweeney Todd, with an inward determination to come back some day and be the death of the old lapidary, looked anxiously about for some court down which he could plunge, and so get out of sight of the many pursuers who were sure to attack him in the public streets. His ignorance of the locality, however, was a great bar to such a proceeding, for the great dread he had was, that he might get down some blind alley, and so be completely caged, and at the mercy of those who followed him. He pelted on at a tremendous speed, but it was quite astonishing to see how the little old lapidary ran after him, falling down every now and then, and never stopping to pick himself up, as people say, but rolling on and getting on his feet in some miraculous manner, that was quite wonderful to behold, particularly in one so aged and so apparently unable to undertake any active exertion. There was one thing, however, he could not continue doing, and that was to cry "stop thief!" for he had lost his wind, and was quite incapable of uttering a word. How long he would have continued the chase is doubtful, but his career was suddenly put an end to, as regards that, by tripping his foot over a projecting stone in the pavement, and shooting headlong down a cellar which was open. But abler persons than the little old lapidary had taken up the chase, and Sweeney Todd was hard pressed; and, although he ran very fast, the provoking thing was, that in consequence of the cries and shouts of his pursuers, new people took up the chase, who were fresh and vigorous and close to him. There is something awful in seeing a human being thus hunted by his fellows; and although we can have no sympathy with such a man as Sweeney Todd, because, from all that has happened, we begin to have some very horrible suspicion concerning him, still, as a general principle, it does not decrease the fact, that it is a dreadful thing to see a human being hunted through the streets. On he flew at the top of his speed, striking down whoever opposed him, until at last many who could have outrun him gave up the chase, not liking to encounter the knockdown blow which such a hand as his seemed capable of inflicting. His teeth were set, and his breathing became short and laborious, just as a man sprung out at a shopdoor and succeeded in laying hold of him. "I have got you, have I?" he said. Sweeney Todd uttered not a word, but, putting forth an amount of strength that was perfectly prodigious, he seized the man by a great handful of his hair, and by his clothes behind, and flung him through a shopwindow, smashing glass, framework, and everything in its progress. The man gave a shriek, for it was his own shop, and he was a dealer in fancy goods of the most flimsy texture, so that the smash with which he came down among his stockintrade, produced at once what the haberdashers are so delighted with in the present day, namely, a ruinous sacrifice. This occurrence had a great effect upon Sweeney Todd's pursuers; it taught them the practical wisdom of not interfering with a man possessed evidently of such tremendous powers of mischief, and consequently, as just about this period the defeat of the little lapidary took place, he got considerably the start of his pursuers. He was by no means safe. The cry of "stop thief!" still sounded in his ears, and on he flew, panting with the exertion he made, till he heard a man behind him, say, "Turn into the second court on your right, and you will be safeI'll follow you. They shan't nab you, if I can help it." Sweeney Todd had not much confidence in human natureit was not likely he would; but, panting and exhausted as he was, the voice of any one speaking in friendly accents was welcome, and, rather impulsively than from reflection, he darted down the second court to his right. CHAPTER VIII. THE THIEVES' HOME. In a very few minutes Sweeney Todd found that this court had no thoroughfare, and therefore there was no outlet or escape, but he immediately concluded that something more was to be found than was at first sight to be seen, and casting a furtive glance beside him in the direction in which he had come, rested his hand upon a door which stood close by. The door gave way, and Sweeney Todd, hearing, as he imagined, a noise in the street, dashed in, and closed the door, and then he, heedless of all consequences, walked to the end of a long dirty passage, and, pushing open a door, descended a short flight of steps, to the bottom of which he had scarcely got, when the door which faced him at the bottom of the steps opened by some hand, and he suddenly found himself in the presence of a number of men seated round a large table. In an instant all eyes were turned towards Sweeney Todd, who was quite unprepared for such a scene, and for a minute he knew not what to say; but, as indecision was not Sweeney Todd's characteristic, he at once advanced to the table and sat down. There was some surprise evinced by the persons who were seated in that room, of whom there were many more than a score, and much talking was going on among them, which did not appear to cease on his entrance. Those who were near him looked hard at him, but nothing was said for some minutes, and Sweeney Todd looked about to understand, if he could, how he was placed, though it could not be much a matter of doubt as to the character of the individuals present. Their looks were often an index to their vocations, for all grades of the worst of characters were there, and some of them were by no means complimentary to human nature, for there were some of the most desperate characters that were to be found in London. Sweeney Todd gave a glance around him, and at once satisfied himself of the desperate nature of the assembly into which he had thrust himself. They were dressed in various fashions, some after the manner of the citysome more gay, and some half military, while not a few wore the garb of countrymen; but there was in all that an air of scampish, offhand behaviour, not unmixed with brutality. "Friend," said one, who sat near him, "how came you here; are you known here?" "I came here, because I found the door open, and I was told by some one to come here, as I was pursued." "Pursued?" "Ay, some one running after me, you know." "I know what being pursued is," replied the man, "and yet I know nothing of you." "That is not at all astonishing," said Sweeney, "seeing that I never saw you before, nor you me; but that makes no difference. I'm in difficulties, and I suppose a man may do his best to escape the consequences?" "Yes, he may, yet that is no reason why he should come here; this is the place for free friends, who know and aid one another." "And such I am willing to be; but at the same time I must have a beginning. I cannot be initiated without some one introducing me. I have sought protection, and I have found it; if there be any objection to my remaining here any longer, I will leave.
" "No, no," said a tall man on the other side of the table, "I have heard what you have said, and we do not usually allow any such things; you have come here unasked, and now we must have a little explanationour own safety may demand it; at all events we have our customs, and they must be complied with." "And what are your customs?" demanded Todd. "This you must answer the question which we shall propound unto you; now answer truly what we shall ask of you." "Speak," said Todd, "and I will answer all that you propose to me, if possible." "We will not tax you too hardly, depend upon it who are you?" "Candidly, then," said Todd, "that's a question I do not like to answer, nor do I think it is one that you ought to ask. It is an inconvenient thing to name oneselfyou must pass by that inquiry." "Shall we do so?" inquired the interrogator of those around him, and gathering his cue from their looks, he, after a brief space, continued "Well, we will pass over that, seeing it is not necessary, but you must tell us what you arecutpurse, footpad, or what not?" "I am neither." "Then tell us in your own words," said the man, "and be candid with us. What are you?" "I am an artificial pearlmakeror sham pearlmaker, whichever way you please to call it." "A sham pearlmaker! that may be an honest trade for all we know, and that will hardly be your passport to our house, friend sham pearlmaker!" "That may be as you say," replied Todd, "but I will challenge any man to equal me in my calling. I have made pearls that would pass with almost a lapidary, and which would pass with nearly all the nobility." "I begin to understand you, friend; but I would wish to have some proof of what you say; we may hear a very good tale, and yet none of it shall be true; we are not men to be made dupes of, besides, there are enough to take vengeance, if we desire it." "Ay, to be sure there is," said a gruff voice from the other end of the table, which was echoed from one to the other, till it came to the top of the table. "Proof! proof! proof!" now resounded from one end of the room to the other. "My friends," said Sweeney Todd, rising up, and advancing to the table, and thrusting his hand into his bosom and drawing out the string of twentyfour pearls, "I challenge you, or any one, to make a set of artificial pearls equal to these; they are my make, and I'll stand to it in any reasonable sum, that you cannot bring a man who shall beat me in my calling." "Just hand them to me," said the man who had made himself interrogator. Sweeney Todd threw the pearls on the table carelessly, and then said "There, look at them well, they'll bear it, and I reckon, though there may be some good judges amongst you, that you cannot any of you tell them from real pearls, if you had not been told so." "Oh, yes, we know pretty well," said the man, "what these things are, we have now and then a good string in our possession, and that helps us to judge of them. Well, this is certainly a good imitation." "Let me see it," said a fat man "I was bred a jeweller, and I might say born, only I couldn't stick to it; nobody likes working for years upon little pay, and no fun with the gals. I say, hand it here!" "Well," said Todd, "if you or anybody ever produced as good an imitation, I'll swallow the whole string; and knowing there's poison in the composition, it would not be a comfortable thing to think of." "Certainly not," said the big man, "certainly not, but hand them over, and I'll tell you all about it." The pearls were given into his hands; and Sweeney Todd felt some misgivings about his precious charge, and yet he showed it not, for he turned to the man who sat beside him, saying "If he can tell true pearls from them, he knows more than I think he does, for I am a maker, and have often had the true pearl in my hand." "And I suppose," said the man, "you have tried your hand at putting the one for the other, and so doing your confiding customers." "Yes, yes, that is the dodge, I can see very well," said another man, winking at the first; "and a good one too, I have known them do so with diamonds." "Yes, but never with pearls; however, there are some trades that it is desirable to know." "You're right." The fat man now carefully examined the pearls, set them down on the table, and looked hard at them. "There now, I told you I could bother you. You are not so good a judge that you would not have known, if you had not been told they were sham pearls, but what they were real." "I must say, you have produced the best imitations I have ever seen. Why you ought to make your fortune in a few yearsa handsome fortune!" "So I should, but for one thing." "And what is that?" "The difficulty," said Todd, "of getting rid of them; if you ask anything below their value, you are suspected, and you run the chance of being stopped and losing them at the least, and perhaps entail a prosecution." "Very true; but there is risk in everything; we all run risks; but then the harvest!" "That may be," said Todd, "but this is peculiarly dangerous. I have not the means of getting introduction to the nobility themselves, and if I had I should be doubted, for they would say a working man cannot come honestly by such valuable things, and then I must concoct a tale to escape the Mayor of London." "Ha!ha!ha!" "Well, then, you can take them to a goldsmith." "There are not many of them who would do so they would not deal in them; and, moreover, I have been to one or two of them; as for a lapidary, why, he is not so easily cheated." "Have you tried?" "I did, and had to make the best of my way out, pursued as quickly as they could run, and I thought at one time I must have been stopped, but a few lucky turns brought me clear, when I was told to turn up this court; and I came in here." "Well," said one man, who had been examining the pearls, "and did the lapidary find out they were not real?" "Yes, he did; and he wanted to stop me and the string together, for trying to impose upon him; however, I made a rush at the door, which he tried to shut, but I was the stronger man, and here I am." "It has been a close chance for you," said one. "Yes, it just has," replied Sweeney, taking up the string of pearls, which he replaced in his clothes, and continued to converse with some of those around him. Things now subsided into their general course; and little notice was taken of Sweeney. There was some drink on the board, of which all partook. Sweeney had some, too, and took the precaution of emptying his pockets before them all, and gave them a share of his money to pay his footing. This was policy, and they all drank to his success, and were very good companions. Sweeney, however, was desirous of getting out as soon as he could, and more than once cast his eyes towards the door; but he saw there were eyes upon him, and dared not excite suspicion, for he might undo all that he had done. To lose the precious treasure he possessed would be maddening; he had succeeded to admiration in inducing the belief that what he showed them was merely a counterfeit; but he knew so well that they were real, and that a latent feeling that they were humbugged might be hanging about; and that the first suspicious movement he would be watched, and some desperate attempt made to make him give them up. It was with no small violence to his own feelings that he listened to their conversation, and appeared to take an interest in their proceedings. "Well," said one, who sat next him, "I'm just off for the northroad." "Any fortune there?" "Not much; and yet I mustn't complain these last three weeks, the best I have had has been two sixties." "Well, that would do very well." "Yes, the last man I stopped was a regular looby Londoner; he appeared like a don, complete tiptop man of fashion; but, Lord! when I came to look over him, he hadn't as much as would carry me twentyfour miles on the road." "Indeed! don't you think he had any hidden about him?they do do so now." "Ah, ah!" returned another, "well said, old fellow; 'tis a true remark, that we can't always judge a man from appearances. Lor! bless me, now, who'd 'a thought your swell cove proved to be out o' luck? Well, I'm sorry for you; but you know 'tis a long lane that has no turning, as Mr. Somebody saysso, perhaps, you'll be more fortunate another time. But come, cheer up, whilst I relate an adventure that occurred a little time ago; 'twas a slice of good luck, I assure you, for I had no difficulty in bouncing my victim, out of a good swag of tin; for you know farmers returning from market are not always too wary and careful, especially as the lots of wine they take at the market dinners make the cosy old boys ripe and mellow for sleep. Well, I met one of these jolly gentlemen, mounted on horseback, who declared he had nothing but a few paltry guineas about him; however, that would not doI searched him, and found a hundred and four pounds secreted about his person." "Where did you find it?" "About him. I tore his clothes to ribands. A pretty figure he looked upon horseback, I assure you. By Jove, I could hardly help laughing; in fact, I did laugh at him, which so enraged him, that he immediately threatened to horsewhip me, and yet he dared not defend his money; but I threatened to shoot him, and that soon brought him to his senses." "I should imagine so. Did you ever have a fight for it?" inquired Sweeney Todd. "Yes, several times. Ah! it's by no means an easy life, you may depend. It is free, but dangerous. I have been fired at six or seven times." "So many?" "Yes. I was near York once, when I stopped a gentleman; I thought him an easy conquest, but not as he turned out, for he was a regular devil." "Resisted you?" "Yes, he did. I was coming along when I met him, and I demanded his money. 'I can keep it myself,' he said, 'and do not want any assistance to take care of it.'" "But I want it," said I; "your money or your life." "You must have both, for we are not to be parted," he said, presenting his pistol at me; "and then I had only time to escape from the effect of the shot. I struck the pistol up with my ridingwhip, and the bullet passed by my temples, and almost stunned me. I cocked and fired; he did the same, but I hit him, and he fell. He fired, however, but missed me. I was down upon him; he begged hard for life." "Did you give it him?" "Yes; I dragged him to the side of the road, and then left him. Having done so much, I mounted my horse and came away as fast as I could, and then I made for London, and spent a merry day or two there." "I can imagine you must enjoy your trips into the country, and then you must have still greater relish for the change when you come to Londonthe change is so great and so entire." "So it is; but have you never any run of luck in your line? I should think you must at times succeed in tricking the public." "Yes, yes," said Todd, "now and then we dobut I tell you it is only now and then; and I have been afraid of doing too much. In small sums I have been a gainer; but I want to do something grand. I tried it on, but at the same time I have failed." "That is bad; but you may have more opportunities by and by. Luck is all chance." "Yes," said Todd, "that is true, but the sooner the better, for I am growing impatient." Conversation now went on; each man speaking of his exploits, which were always some species of rascality and robbery, accompanied by violence generally; some were midnight robbers and breakers into people's houses; in fact, all the crimes that could be imagined. This place was, in fact, a complete house of rendezvous for thieves, cutpurses, highwaymen, footpads, and burglars of every grade and descriptiona formidable set of men of the most determined and desperate appearance. Sweeney Todd hardly knew how to rise and leave the place, though it was now growing very late, and he was most anxious to get safe out of the den he was in; but how to do that, was a problem yet to be solved. "What is the time?" he muttered to the man next to him. "Past midnight," was the reply. "Then I must leave here," he answered, "for I have work that I must be at in a very short time, and I shall not have too much time." So saying he watched his opportunity, and rising, walked up to the door, which he opened and went out; after that he walked up the five steps that led to the passage, and this latter had hardly been gained when the streetdoor opened, and another man came in at the same moment, and met him face to face. "What do you do here?" "I am going out," said Sweeney Todd. "You are going back; come back with me." "I will not," said Todd. "You must be a better man than I am, if you make me; I'll do my best to resist your attack, if you intend one." "That I do," replied the man; and he made a determined rush upon Sweeney, who was scarcely prepared for such a sudden onslaught, and was pushed back till he came to the head of the stairs, where a struggle took place, and both rolled down the steps. The door was thrown open, and every one rushed out to see what was the matter, but it was some moments before they could make it out. "What does he do here?" said the first, as soon as he could speak, and pointing to Sweeney Todd. "It's all right." "All wrong, I say." "He's a shampearl maker, and has shown us a string of sham pearls that are beautiful." "Psha!" "I will insist upon seeing them; give them to me," he said, "or you do not leave this place." "I will not," said Sweeney. "You must. Here, help mebut I don't want help, I can do it by myself." As he spoke, he made a desperate attempt to collar Sweeney and pull him to the earth, but he had miscalculated his strength when he imagined that he was superior to Todd, who was by far the more powerful man of the two, and resisted the attack with success. Suddenly, by an Herculean effort, he caught his adversary below the waist, and lifting him up, he threw him upon the floor with great force; and then, not wishing to see how the gang would take thiswhether they would take the part of their companion or of himself he knew nothe thought he had an advantage in the distance, and he rushed up stairs as fast as he could, and reached the door before they could overtake him to prevent him. Indeed, for more than a minute they were irresolute what to do; but they were somehow prejudicial in favour of their companion, and they rushed up after Sweeney just as he had got to the door. He would have had time to escape them, but, by some means, the door became fast, and he could not open it, exert himself how he would. There was no time to lose; they were coming to the head of the stairs, and Sweeney had hardly time to reach the stairs, to fly upwards, when he felt himself grasped by the throat. This he soon released himself from; for he struck the man who seized him a heavy blow, and he fell backwards, and Todd found his way up to the first floor, but he was closely pursued. Here was another struggle; and again Sweeney Todd was the victor, but he was hard pressed by those who followed himfortunately for him there was a mop left in a pail of water, this he seized hold of, and, swinging it over his head, he brought it full on the head of the first man who came near him. Dab it came, soft and wet, and splashed over some others who were close at hand. It is astonishing what an effect a new weapon will sometimes have. There was not a man among them, who would not have faced danger in more ways than one, that would not have rushed headlong upon deadly and destructive weapons, but who were quite awed when a heavy wet mop was dashed into their faces. They were completely paralysed for a moment; indeed, they began to look upon it as something between a joke and a serious matter and either would have been taken just as they might be termed. "Get the pearls!" shouted the man who had first stopped him; "seize the spy! seize himsecure himrush at him! You are men enough to hold one man!" Sweeney Todd saw matters were growing serious, and he plied his mop most vigorously upon those who were ascending, but they had become somewhat used to the mop, and it had lost much of its novelty, and was by no means a dangerous weapon. They rushed on, despite the heavy blows showered by Sweeney, and he was compelled to give way stair after stair. The head of the mop came off, and then there remained but the handle, which formed an efficient weapon, and which made fearful havoc on the heads of the assailants; and despite all that their slouched hats could do in the way of protecting them, yet the staff came with a crushing effect. The best fight in the world cannot last for ever; and Sweeney again found numbers were not to be resisted for long; indeed, he could not have physical energy enough to sustain his own efforts, supposing he had received no blows in return. He turned and fled as he was forced back to the landing, and then came to the next stairhead, and again he made a desperate stand. This went on for stair after stair, and continued for more than two or three hours. There were moments of cessation when they all stood still and looked at each other. "Fire upon him!" said one. "No, no; we shall have the authorities down upon us, and then all will go wrong." "I think we had much better have let it alone in the first place, as he was in, for you may be sure this won't make him keep a secret; we shall all be split upon as sure as fate." "Well, then, rush upon him, and down with him. Never let him out! On to him! Hurrah!" Away they went, but they were resolutely met by the staff of Sweeney Todd, who had gained new strength by the short rest he had had. "Down with the spy!" This was shouted out by the men, but as each of them approached, they were struck down, and at length, finding himself on the second floor landing, and being fearful that some one was descending from above, he rushed into one of the inner rooms. In an instant he had locked the doors, which were strong and powerful. "Now," he muttered, "for means to escape." He waited a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow, and then he crossed the floor to the windows, which were open. They were the oldfashioned baywindows, with the heavy ornamental work which some houses possessed, and overhung the low doorways, and protected them from the weather. "This will do," he said, as he looked down to the pavement"this will do. I will try this descent, if I fall." The people on the other side of the door were exerting all their force to break it open, and it had already given one or two ominous creaks, and a few minutes more would probably let them into the room. The streets were clearno human being was moving about, and there were faint signs of the approach of morning. He paused a moment to inhale the fresh air, and then he got outside of the window. By means of the sound oaken ornaments, he contrived to get down to the drawingroom balcony, and then he soon got down into the street. As he walked slowly away, he could hear the crash of the door, and a slight cheer, as they entered the room; and he could imagine to himself the appearance of the faces of those who entered, when they found the bird had flown, and the room was empty. Sweeney Todd had not far to go; he soon turned into Fleetstreet, and made for his own house. He looked about him, but there were none near him; he was tired and exhausted, and right glad was he when he found himself at his own door. Then stealthily he put the key into the door, and slowly entered the house. CHAPTER IX. JOHANNA AT HOME, AND THE RESOLUTION. Johanna Oakley would not allow Colonel Jeffery to accompany her all the way home, and he, appreciating the scruples of the young girl, did not press his attention upon her, but left her at the corner of Forestreet, after getting from her a half promise that she would meet him again on that day week, at the same hour, in the Templegardens. "I ask this of you, Johanna Oakley," he said, "because I have resolved to make all the exertion in my power to discover what has become of Mr. Thornhill, in whose fate I am sure I have succeeded in interesting you, although you care so little for the string of pearls which he has in trust for you." "I do, indeed, care little for them," said Johanna, "so little, that it may be said to amount to nothing." "But still they are yours, and you ought to have the option of disposing of them as you please. It is not well to despise such gifts of fortune; for if you can yourself do nothing with them, there are surely some others whom you may know, upon whom they would bestow great happiness." "A string of pearls, great happiness?" said Johanna, inquiringly. "Your mind is so occupied by your grief that you quite forget such strings are of great value. I have seen those pearls, Johanna, and can assure you that they are in themselves a fortune." "I suppose," she said sadly, "it is too much for human nature to expect two blessings at once. I had the fond, warm heart that loved me without the fortune, that would have enabled us to live in comfort and affluence; and now, when that is perchance within my grasp, the heart, that was by far the more costly possession, and the richest jewel of them all, lies beneath the wave with its bright influences, and its glorious and romantic aspirations, quenched for ever." "You will meet me then, as I request of you, to hear if I have any news for you?" "I will endeavour so to do. I have all the will; but Heaven knows if I may have the power." "What mean you, Johanna?" "I cannot tell what a week's anxiety may do; I know not but a sick bed may be my restingplace, until I exchange it for the tomb. I feel even now my strength fail me, and that I am scarcely able to totter to my home. Farewell, sir! I owe you my best thanks, as well for the trouble you have taken, as for the kindly manner in which you have detailed to me what has passed." "Remember," said Colonel Jeffery, "that I bid you adieu, with the hope of meeting you again." It was thus they parted, and Johanna proceeded to her father's house. Who now that had met her and had chanced not to see that sweet face, which could never be forgotten, would have supposed her to be the once gay and sprightly Johanna Oakley? Her steps were sad and solemn, and all the juvenile elasticity of her frame seemed like one prepared for death; and she hoped that she would be able to glide, silently and unobserved, to her own little bedchamberthat chamber where she had slept since she was a child, and on the little couch, on which she had so often laid down to sleep that holy and calm slumber which such hearts as hers can only know. But she was doomed to be disappointed, for the Rev. Mr. Lupin was still there, and as Mrs. Oakley had placed before that pious individual a great assortment of creature comforts, and among the rest some mulled wine, which seemed particularly to agree with him, he showed no disposition to depart. It unfortunately happened that this wine, of which the reverend gentleman partook with such a holy relish, was kept in a cellar, and Mrs. Oakley had had occasion twice to go down to procure a fresh supply, and it was on a third journey for the same purpose that she encountered poor Johanna, who had just let herself in at the private door. "Oh! you have come home, have you?" said Mrs. Oakley; "I wonder where you have been to, gallivanting; but I suppose I may wonder long enough before you will tell me. Go into the parlour, I want to speak to you." Now poor Johanna had quite forgotten the very existence of Mr. Lupinso, rather than explain to her mother, which she knew would beget more questions, she wished to go to bed at once, notwithstanding it was an hour before the usual time for so doing. She walked unsuspectingly into the parlour, and as Mr. Lupin was sitting, the slightest movement of his chair closed the door, so she could not escape. Under any other circumstances probably Johanna would have insisted upon leaving the apartment; but a glance at the countenance of the pious individual was quite sufficient to convince her that he had been sacrificing sufficiently to Bacchus to be capable of any amount of effrontery, so that she dreaded passing him, more especially as he swayed his arms about like the sails of a windmill. She thought at least that when her mother returned she would rescue her; but in that hope she was mistaken, and Johanna had no more idea of the extent to which religious fanaticism will carry its victim, than she had of the manners and customs of the inhabitants of the moon. When Mrs. Oakley did return, she had some difficulty in getting into the apartment, inasmuch as Mr. Lupin's chair occupied so large a portion of it; but when she did obtain admission, and Johanna said "Mother, I beg of you to protect me against this man, and allow me a free passage from the apartment!" Mrs. Oakley affected to lift up her hands in amazement, as she said "How dare you speak so disrespectfully of a chosen vessel? How dare you, I say, do such a thingit's enough to drive any one mad to see the young girls nowadays!" "Don't snub herdon't snub the virgin," said Mr. Lupin; "she don't know the honour yet that's intended her." "She don't deserve it," said Mrs. Oakley, "she don't deserve it." "Never mind, madamnever mind; wewewe don't get all what we deserve in this world." "Take a drop of something, Mr. Lupin; you have got the hiccups." "Yes; II rather think I have a little. Isn't it a shame that anybody so intimate with the Lord should have the hiccups? What a lot of lights you have got burning, Mrs. Oakley!" "A lot of lights, Mr. Lupin! Why, there is only one; but perhaps you allude to the lights of the gospel?" "No; II don't, just at present; damn the lights of the gospelthat is to say, I mean damn all backsliders! But there is a lot of lights, and no mistake, Mrs. Oakley. Give me a drop of something, I'm as dry as dust." "There is some more mulled wine, Mr. Lupin; but I am surprised that you think there is more than one light." "It's a miracle madam, in consequence of my great faith. I have faith in ssssix lights, and here they are." "Do you see that, Johanna?" exclaimed Mrs. Oakley, "are you not convinced now of the holiness of Mr. Lupin?" "I am convinced of his drunkenness, mother, and entreat of you to let me leave the room at once." "Tell her of the honour," said Mr. Lupin"tell her of the honour." "I don't know, Mr. Lupin; but don't you think it would be better to take some other opportunity?" "Very well, then, this is the opportunity." "If it's your pleasure, Mr. Lupin, I will. You must know, then, Johanna, that Mr. Lupin has been kind enough to consent to save my soul, on condition that you marry him, and I am quite sure you can have no reasonable objection; indeed, I think it's the least you can do, whether you have any objection or not." "Well put," said Mr. Lupin, "excellently well put." "Mother," said Johanna, "if you are so far gone in superstition, as to believe this miserable drunkard ought to come between you and heaven, I am so lost as not to be able to reject the offer with more scorn and contempt than ever I thought I could have entertained for any human being; but hypocrisy never, to my mind, wears so disgusting a garb as when it attires itself in the outward show of religion." "This conduct is unbearable," cried Mrs. Oakley; "am I to have one of the Lord's saints under my own roof?" "If he were ten times a saint, mother, instead of being nothing but a miserable, drunken profligate, it would be better that he should be insulted ten times over, than that you should permit your own child to have passed through the indignity of having to reject such a proposition as that which has just been made. I must claim the protection of my father; he will not suffer one, towards whom he has ever shown an affection, the remembrance of which sinks deep into my heart, to meet with so cruel an insult beneath his roof." "That's right, my dear," cried Mr. Oakley, at that moment pushing open the parlourdoor. "That's right, my dear; you never spoke truer words in all your life." A faint scream came from Mrs. Oakley, and the Rev. Mr. Lupin immediately seized upon the fresh jug of mulled wine, and finished it at a draught. "Get behind me, Satan," he said. "Mr. Oakley, you will be damned if you say a word to me." "It's all the same, then," said Mr. Oakley; "for I'll be damned if I don't. Then, Ben! Ben! comecome in, Ben." "I'm a coming," said a deep voice, and a man about six feet four inches in height, and nearly twothirds of that amount in width, entered the parlour. "I'm a coming, Oakley, my boy. Put on your blessed spectacles, and tell me which is the fellow." "I could have sworn it," said Mrs. Oakley, as she gave the table a knock with her fist,"I could have sworn when you came in, OakleyI could have sworn, you little snivelling, shrivelledup wretch, you'd no more have dared to come into this parlour as never was with those words in your mouth, than you'd have dared to have flown, if you hadn't had your cousin, Big Ben, the beefeater, from the Tower, with you." "Take it easy, ma'am," said Ben, as he sat down in a chair, which immediately broke all to pieces with his weight. "Take it easy, ma'am; the devilwhat's this?" "Never mind, Ben," said Mr. Oakley, "it's only a chair; get up." "A cheer," said Ben; "do you call that a cheer? but never mindtake it easy." "Why, you big, bullying, idle, swilling and guttling ruffian!" "Go on, marm, go on." "You goodfornothing lump of carrion; a dog wears his own coat, but you wear your master's, you great stupid, overgrown, lurking hound. You parishbroughtup wild beast, go and mind your lions and elephants in the Tower, and don't come into honest people's houses, you cutthroat, bullying, pickpocketing wretch." "Go on, marm, go on." This was a kind of dialogue that could not last, and Mrs. Oakley sank down exhausted, and then Ben said "I tell you what, marm, I considers youI looks upon you, marm, as a female wariety of that ere animal as is very useful and sagacious, marm." There was no mistake in this allusion, and Mrs. Oakley was about to make some reply, when the Rev. Mr. Lupin rose from his chair, saying "Bless you all! I think I'll go home." "Not yet, Mr. Tulip," said Ben; "you had better sit down againwe've got something to say to you." "Young man, young man, let me pass. If you do not, you will endanger your soul." "I aint got none," said Ben; "I'm only a beefeater, and don't pretend to such luxuries." "The heathen!" exclaimed Mrs. Oakley, "the horrid heathen! but there's one consolation, and that is, that he will be fried in his own fat for everlasting." "Oh, that's nothing," said Ben; "I think I shall like it, especially if it's any pleasure to you. I suppose that's what you call a Christian consolation. Will you sit down, Mr. Tulip?" "My name aint Tulip, but Lupin; but if you wish it, I don't mind sitting down, of course." The beefeater, with a movement of his foot, kicked away the reverend gentleman's chair, and down he sat with a dab upon the floor. "My dear," said Mr. Oakley to Johanna, "you go to bed, and then your mother can't say you have anything to do with this affair. I intend to rid my house of this man. Good night, my dear, good night." Johanna kissed her father on the cheek, and then left the room, not at all sorry that so vigorous a movement was about being made for the suppression of Mr. Lupin. When she was gone, Mrs. Oakley spoke, saying "Mr. Lupin, I bid you good night, and, of course, after the rough treatment of these wretches, I can hardly expect you to come again. Good night, Mr. Lupin, good night." "That's all very well, marm," said Ben, "but before this ere wild beast of a parson goes away, I want to admonish him. He don't seem to be wide awake, and I must rouse him up." Ben took hold of the reverend gentleman's nose, and gave it such an awful pinch, that when he took his finger and thumb away, it was perfectly blue.
"Murder! oh, murder! my nose! my nose!" shrieked Mr. Lupin, and at that moment Mrs. Oakley, who was afraid to attack Ben, gave her husband such an openhanded whack on the side of his head, that the little man reeled again, and saw a great many more lights than the Rev. Mr. Lupin had done under the influence of the mulled wine. "Very good," said Ben; "now we are getting into, the thick of it." Big Ben Compels Mr. Lupin To Do Penance. Big Ben Compels Mr. Lupin To Do Penance. With this Ben took from his pocket a coil of rope, one end of which was a noose, and that he dexterously threw over Mrs. Oakley's head. "Murder!" she shrieked. "Oakley, are you going to see me murdered before your eyes?" "There is such a singing in my ears," said Mr. Oakley, "that I can't see anything." "This is the way," said Ben, "we manages the wild beastesses when they shuts their ears to all sorts of argument. Now, marm, if you please, a little this way." Ben looked about until he found a strong hook in the wall, over which, in consequence of his great height, he was enabled to draw the rope, and then the other end of it he tied securely to the leg of a heavy secretaire that was in the room, so that Mrs. Oakley was well secured. "Murder!" she cried. "Oakley, are you a man, that you stand by and see me treated in this way by this big brute?" "I can't see anything," said Mr. Oakley; "there is such a singing in my ears; I told you so beforeI can't see anything." "Now, ma'am, you may just say what you like," said Ben; "it won't matter a bit, any more than the grumbling of a bear with a sore head; and as for you, Mr. Tulip, you'll just get down on your knees, and beg Mr. Oakley's pardon for coming and drinking his tea without his leave, and having the infernal impudence to speak to his daughter." "Don't do it, Mr. Lupin," cried Mrs. Oakley"don't do it." "You hear," said Ben, "what the lady advises. Now, I am quite different; I advise you to do itfor, if you don't, I shan't hurt you, but it strikes me I shall be obliged to fall on you and crush you." "I think I will," said Mr. Lupin "the saints were always forced to yield to the Philistines." "If you call me any names," said Ben, "I'll just wring your neck," "Young man, young man, let me exhort you. Allow me to go, and I will put up prayers for your conversion." "Confound your impudence! what do you suppose the beasts in the Tower would do, if I was converted? Why, that 'ere tiger, we have had lately, would eat his own tail, to think as I had turned out such an ass. Come, I can't waste any more of my precious time; and if you don't get down on your knees directly, we'll see what we can do." "I must," said Mr. Lupin, "I must, I suppose;" and down he flopped on his knees. "Very good; now repeat after me.I am a wolf that stole sheeps' clothing." "Yes; 'I am a wolf that stole sheeps' clothing'the Lord forgive me." "Perhaps he may, and perhaps he mayn't. Now go onall that's wirtuous is my loathing." "Oh dear, yes'all that's wirtuous is my loathing.'" "Mr. Oakley, I have offended." "Yes; I am a miserable sinner, Mr. Oakley, I have offended." "And asks his pardon, on my bended" "Oh dear, yesI asks his pardon on my bendedThe Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!" "KneesI won't do so no more." "Yes,knees, I won't do so no more." "As sure as I lies on this floor." "Yes,as sure as I lies on this floor.Death and the devil, you've killed me!" Ben took hold of the reverend gentleman by the back of the neck, and pressed his head down upon the floor, until his nose, which had before been such a sufferer, was nearly completely flattened with his face. "Now you may go;" said Ben. Mr. Lupin scrambled to his feet; but Ben followed him into the passage, and did not yet let him go, until he had accelerated his movements by two hearty kicks. And then the victorious beefeater returned to the parlour. "Why, Ben," said Mr. Oakley, "you are quite a poet." "I believe you, Oakley, my boy," said Ben, "and now let us be off, and have a pint round the corner." "What!" exclaimed Mrs. Oakley, "and leave me here, you wretches?" "Yes," said Ben, "unless you promises never to be a female variety of a useful animal again, and begs pardon of Mr. Oakley, for giving him all this trouble; as for me, I'll let you off cheap, you shall only give me a kiss, and say you loves me." "If I do, may I be" "Damned, you mean." "No, I don't; choked I was going to say." "Then you may be choked, for you have nothing to do but to let your legs go from under you, and you will be hung as comfortable as possiblecome along, Oakley." "Mr. Oakleystop, stopdon't leave me here. I am sorry." "That's enough," said Mr. Oakley; "and now, my dear, bear in mind one thing from meI intend from this time forward to be master in my own house. If you and I are to live together, we must do so on very different terms to what we have been living, and if you won't make yourself agreeable, Lawyer Hutchins tells me that I can turn you out and give you a maintenance; and, in that case, I'll have my sister Rachel home to mind house for me; so now you know my determination, and what you have to expect. If you wish to begin, well, do so at once, by getting something nice and tasty for Ben's supper." Mrs. Oakley made the required promise, and being released, she set about preparations for the supper in real earnest, but whether was really subdued or not we shall, in due time, see. CHAPTER X. THE COLONEL AND HIS FRIEND. Colonel Jeffery was not at all satisfied with the state of affairs, as regarded the disappointment of Mr. Thornhill, for whom he entertained a sincere regard, both on account of the private estimation in which he held him, and on account of actual services rendered to Thornhill by him. Not to detain Johanna Oakley in the Templegardens, he had stopped his narrative, completely at the point when what concerned her had ceased, and had said nothing of much danger which the ship "Neptune" and its crew and passengers had gone through, after Mr. Thornhill had been taken on board with his dog. The fact is, the storm which he had mentioned was only the first of a series of gales of wind that buffeted the ship about for some weeks, doing it much damage, and enforcing almost the necessity of putting in somewhere for repairs. But a glance at the map will be sufficient to show that, situated as the "Neptune" was, the nearest port at which they could at all expect assistance, was the British Colony, at the Cape of Good Hope; but such was the contrary nature of the winds and waves, that just upon the evening of a tempestuous day, they found themselves bearing down close in shore, on the eastern coast of Madagascar. There was much apprehension that the vessel would strike on a rocky shore; but the water was deep, and the vessel rode well; there was a squall, and they let go both anchors to secure the vessel, as they were so close in shore, lest they should be driven in and stranded. It was fortunate they had so secured themselves, for the gale while it lasted blew half a hurricane, and the ship lost some of her mast, and some other trifling damage, which, however, entailed upon them the necessity of remaining there a few days, to cut timber to repair their masts, and to obtain a few supplies. There is but little to interest a general reader in the description of a gale. Order after order was given until the masts and spars went one by one, and then the orders for clearing the wreck were given. There was much work to be done, and but little pleasure in doing it, for it was wet and miserable while it lasted, and there was the danger of being driven upon a lee shore, and knocked to pieces upon the rocks. This danger was averted, and they anchored safe at a very short distance from the shore in comparative security. "We are safe now," remarked the captain, as he gave his second in command charge of the deck, and approached Mr. Thornhill and Colonel Jeffery. "I am happy it is so," replied Jeffery. "Well, captain," said Mr. Thornhill, "I am glad we have done with being knocked about; we are anchored, and the water here appears smooth enough." "It is so, and I dare say it will remain so; it is a beautiful basin of waterdeep and good anchorage; but you see it is not large enough to make a fine harbour." "True; but it is rocky." "It is, and that may make it sometimes dangerous, though I don't know that it would be so in some gales. The sea may beat in at the opening, which is deep enough for anything to entereven Noah's ark would enter easily enough." "What will you do now?" "Stay here a day or so, and send boats ashore to cut some pine trees, to refit the ship with masts." "You have no staves, then?" "Not enough for such a purpose; and we never do go out stored with such things." "You obtain them wherever you may go to." "Yes, any part of the world will furnish them in some shape or other." "When you send ashore, will you permit me to accompany the boat's crew?" said Jeffery. "Certainly; but the natives of this country are violent and intractable, and should you get into any row with them, there is every probability of your being captured, or some bodily injury done you." "But I will take care to avoid all that." "Very well, colonel, you shall be welcome to go." "I must beg the same permission," said Mr. Thornhill, "for I should much like to see the country, as well as to have some acquaintance with the natives themselves." "By no means trust yourself alone with them," said the captain, "for if you live you will have cause to repent itdepend upon what I say." "I will," said Thornhill; "I will go nowhere but where the boat's company goes." "You will be safe then." "But do you apprehend any hostile attack from the natives?" inquired Colonel Jeffery. "No, I do not expect it; but such things have happened before today, and I have seen them when least expected, though I have been on this coast before, and yet I never met with any illtreatment; but there have been many who have touched on this coast, who have had a brush with the natives and come off second best, the natives generally retiring when the ship's company muster strong in number, and calling out the chiefs, who come down in great force, that we may not conquer them." The next morning the boats were ordered out to go ashore with crews, prepared for cutting timber, and obtaining such staves as the ship was in want of. With these boats old Thornhill and Colonel Jeffery went both of them on board, and after a short ride they reached the shore of Madagascar. It was a beautiful country, and one in which vegetables appear luxuriant and abundant, and the party in search of timber for shipbuilding purposes soon came to some lordly monarchs of the forest, which would have made vessels of themselves. But this was not what was wanted; but where the trees grew thicker and taller, they began to cut some tall pinetrees down. This was the wood they most desired; in fact, it was exactly what they wanted; but they hardly got through a few such trees, when the natives came down upon them, apparently to reconnoitre. At first they were quiet and tractable enough, but anxious to see and inspect everything, being very inquisitive and curious. However, that was easily borne, but at length they became more numerous, and began to pilfer all they could lay their hands upon, which, of course brought resentment, and, after some time, a blow or two was exchanged. Colonel Jeffery was forward, and endeavouring to prevent some violence being offered to one of the woodcutters; in fact, he was interposing himself between the two contending parties, and tried to restore order and peace, but several armed natives rushed suddenly upon him, secured him, and were hurrying him away to death before any one could stir in his behalf. His doom appeared certain, for, had they succeeded, they would have cruelly and brutally murdered him. However, just at that moment aid was at hand, and Mr. Thornhill, seeing how matters stood, seized a musket from one of the sailors, and rushed after the natives who had Colonel Jeffery. There were three of them, two others had gone on to apprise, it was presumed, the chiefs. When Mr. Thornhill arrived, they had thrown a blanket over the head of Jeffery; but Mr. Thornhill in an instant hurled one down with a blow from the buttend of his musket, and the second met the same fate, as he turned to see what was the matter. The third, seeing the colonel free, and the musket levelled at his own head, immediately ran after the other two, to avoid any serious consequences to himself. Thornhill Rescues Colonel Jeffery From The Savages. Thornhill Rescues Colonel Jeffery From The Savages. "Thornhill, you have saved my life," said Colonel Jeffery, excitedly. "Come away, don't stop hereto the ship!to the ship!" And as he spoke, they hurried after the crew and they succeeded in reaching the boats and the ship in safety; congratulating themselves not a little upon so lucky an escape from a people quite warlike enough to do mischief, but not civilized enough to distinguish when to do it. When men are far away from home, and in foreign lands with the skies of other climes above them, their hearts become more closely knit together in those ties of brotherhood which certainly ought to actuate the whole universe, but which as certainly do not do so, except in very rare instances. One of these instances, however, would be found in the conduct of Colonel Jeffery and Mr. Thornhill, even under any circumstances, for they were most emphatically what might be termed kindred spirits; but when we come to unite to that fact the remarkable manner in which they had been thrown together, and the mutual services that they had it in their power to render to each other, we should not be surprised at the almost romantic friendship that arose between them. It was then that Thornhill made the colonel's breast the depository of all his thoughts and all his wishes, and a freedom of intercourse and a community of feeling ensued between them, which when it does take place between persons of really congenial dispositions, produces the most delightful results of human companionship. No one who has not endured the tedium of a sea voyage, can at all be aware of what a pleasant thing it is to have some one on board, in the rich stores of whose intellect and fancy one can find a neverending amusement. The winds might now whistle through the cordage, and the waves toss the great ship on their foaming crests, still Thornhill and Jeffery were together, finding in the midst of danger, solace in each other's society, and each animating the other to the performance of deeds of daring that astonished the crew. The whole voyage was one of the greatest peril, and some of the oldest seamen on board did not scruple, during the continuance of their night watches to intimate to their companions that the ship, in their opinion, would never reach England, and that she would founder somewhere along the long stretch of the African coast. The captain, of course, made every possible exertion to put a stop to such prophetic sayings, but when once they commenced, in a short time there is no such thing as completely eradicating them; and they, of course, produced the most injurious effect, paralysing the exertions of the crew in times of danger, and making them believe that they are in a doomed ship, and consequently all they can do is useless. Sailors are extremely superstitious on such matters, and there cannot be any reasonable doubt, but that some of the disasters that befel the Neptune on her homeward voyage from India, may be attributed to this feeling of fatality getting hold of the seamen, and inducing them to think that, let them try what they might, they could not save the ship. It happened that after they had rounded the Cape, a dense fog came on, such as had not been known on that coast for many a year; although the western shore of Africa at some seasons of the year is rather subject to such a species of vaporous exhalation. Every object was wrapped in the most profound gloom, and yet there was a strong eddy or current of the ocean, flowing parallel with the land, and as the captain hoped, rather off than on the shore. Still there was a suspicion that the ship was making leeway, which must eventually bring it on shore, by some of the low promontories that were by the maps indicated to be upon the coast. In consequence of this fear, the greatest anxiety prevailed on board the vessel, and lights were left burning on all parts of the deck, while two men were continually engaged making soundings. It was about halfanhour after midnight, as the chronometer indicated a storm, that suddenly the men, who were on watch on the deck, raised a loud cry of dismay. They had suddenly seen close on to the larboard bow, lights which must belong to some vessel that, like the Neptune, was encompassed in the fog, and a collision was quite inevitable, for neither ship had time to put about. The only doubt, which was a fearful and an agonising one to have solved, was whether the stronger vessel was of sufficient bulk and power to run them down, or they it; and that fearful question was one which a few moments must settle. In fact, almost before the echo of that cry of horror which had come from the men, had died away, the vessels met. There was a hideous crashone shriek of dismay and horror, and then all was still. The Neptune, with considerable damage, and some of her bulwarks stove in, sailed on; but the other ship went, with a surging sound, to the bottom of the sea. Alas! nothing could be done. The fog was so dense, that coupled, too, as it was with the darkness of the night, there could be no hope of rescuing one of the illfated crew of the ship; and the officers and seamen of the Neptune, although they shouted for some time, and then listened, to hear if any survivors of the ship that had been run down were swimming, no answer came to them; and when in about six hours more, they sailed out of the fog into a clear sunshine, where there was not so much as a cloud to be seen, they looked at each other like men newly awakened from some strange and fearful dream. They never discovered the name of the ship they had run down, and the whole affair remained a profound mystery. When the Neptune reached the port of London, the affair was repeated, and every exertion was made to obtain some information concerning the illfated ship that had met with so fearful a doom. Such were the circumstances which awakened all the liveliest feelings of gratitude on the part of Colonel Jeffery towards Mr. Thornhill; and hence was it that he considered it a sacred duty, now that he was in London, and had the necessary leisure to do so, to leave no stone unturned to discover what had become of him. After deep and anxious thought, and feeling convinced that there was some mystery which it was beyond his power to discover, he resolved upon asking the opinion of a friend, likewise in the army, a Captain Rathbone, concerning the whole of the facts. This gentleman, and a gentleman he was in the fullest acceptance of the term, was in London; in fact, he had retired from active service, and inhabited a small but pleasant house in the outskirts of the metropolis. It was one of those oldfashioned cottage residences, with all sorts of odd places and corners about it, and a thriving garden full of fine old wood, such as are rather rare near to London, and which are daily becoming more rare, in consequence of the value of land immediately contiguous to the metropolis not permitting large pieces to remain attached to small residences. Captain Rathbone had an amiable family about him, such as he was and might well be proud of, and was living in as great a state of domestic felicity as this world could very well afford him. It was to this gentleman, then, that Colonel Jeffery resolved upon going to lay all the circumstances before him concerning the probable fate of poor Thornhill. This distance was not so great but that he could walk it conveniently, and he did so, arriving, towards the dusk of the evening, on the following day to that which had witnessed his deeply interesting interview with Johanna Oakley in the Templegardens. There is nothing on earth so delightfully refreshing, after a dusty and rather a long country walk, as to suddenly enter a wellkept and extremely verdant garden; and this was the case especially to the feelings of Colonel Jeffery, when he arrived at Lime Tree Lodge, the residence of Captain Rathbone. He met him with a most cordial and frank welcomea welcome which he expected, but which was none the less delightful on that account; and, after sitting awhile with the family in the house, he and the captain strolled into the garden, and then Colonel Jeffery commenced his revelation. The captain, with very few interruptions, heard him to an end; and, when he concluded by saying "And now I am come to ask your advice upon all these matters;" the captain immediately replied, in his warm, offhand manner "I am afraid you won't find my advice of much importance; but I offer you my active cooperation in anything you think ought to be done or can be done in this affair, which, I assure you deeply interests me, and gives me the greatest possible impulse to exertion. You have but to command me in the matter, and I am completely at your disposal." "I was quite certain you would say as much. But, notwithstanding the manner in which you shrink from giving an opinion, I am anxious to know what you really think with regard to what are, you will allow, most extraordinary circumstances." "The most natural thing in the world," said Captain Rathbone, "at the first flush of the affair, seemed to be, that we ought to look for your friend Thornhill at the point where he disappeared." "At the barber's in Fleetstreet?" "Precisely. Did he leave the barber, or did he not?" "Sweeney Todd says that he left him, and proceeded down the street towards the city, in pursuance of a direction he had given him to Mr. Oakley, the spectaclemaker, and that he saw him get into some sort of disturbance at the end of the market; but to put against that, we have the fact of the dog remaining by the barber's door, and his refusing to leave it on any amount of solicitation. Now the very fact that a dog could act in such a way proclaims an amount of sagacity that seems to tell loudly against the presumption that such a creature could make any mistake." "It does. What say you, now, to go into town tomorrow morning, and making a call at the barber's, without proclaiming we have any special errand, except to be shaved and dressed? Do you think he would know you again?" "Scarcely, in plain clothes. I was in my undress uniform when I called with the captain of the Neptune, so that his impression of me must be of decidedly a military character; and the probability is, that he would not know me at all in the clothes of a civilian. I like the idea of giving a call at the barber's." "Do you think your friend Thornhill was a man likely to talk about the valuable pearls he had in his possession?" "Certainly not." "I merely ask you, because they might have offered a great temptation; and if he has experienced any foul play at the hands of the barber, the idea of becoming possessed of such a valuable treasure might have been the inducement." "I do not think it probable, but it has struck me that, if we obtain any information whatever of Thornhill, it will be in consequence of these very pearls. They are of great value, and not likely to be overlooked; and yet, unless a customer be found for them, they are of no value at all; and nobody buys jewels of that character but from the personal vanity of making, of course, some public display of them." "That is true; and so, from hand to hand, we might trace those pearls until we come to the individual who must have had them from Thornhill himself, and who might be forced to account most strictly for the manner in which they came into his possession." After some more desultory conversation upon the subject, it was agreed that Colonel Jeffery should take a bed for the night at Lime Tree Lodge, and that, in the morning, they should both start for London, and, disguising themselves as respectable citizens, make some attempts, by talking about jewels and precious stones, to draw out the barber into a confession that he had something of the sort to dispose of; and, moreover, they fully intended to take away the dog, with the care of which Captain Rathbone charged himself. We may pass over the pleasant, social evening which the colonel passed with the amiable family of the Rathbones, and, skipping likewise a conversation of some strange and confused dreams which Jeffery had during the night concerning his friend Thornhill, we will presume that both the colonel and the captain have breakfasted, and that they have proceeded to London and are at the shop of a clothier in the neighbourhood of the Strand, in order to procure coats, wigs, and hats, that should disguise them for their visit to Sweeney Todd. Then, arm in arm, they walked towards Fleetstreet, and soon arrived opposite the little shop within which there appears to be so much mystery. "The dog, you perceive, is not here," said the colonel; "I had my suspicions, however, when I passed with Johanna Oakley that something was amiss with him, and I have no doubt but that the rascally barber has fairly compassed his destruction." "If the barber be innocent," said Captain Rathbone, "you must admit that it would be one of the most confoundedly annoying things in the world to have a dog continually at his door assuming such an aspect of accusation, and in that case I can scarcely wonder at his putting the creature out of the way." "No, presuming upon his innocence, certainly; but we will say nothing about all that, and remember we must come in as perfect strangers, knowing nothing of the affair of the dog, and presuming nothing about the disappearance of any one in this locality." "Agreed, come on; if he should see us through the window, hanging about at all or hesitating, his suspicions will be at once awakened, and we shall do no good." They both entered the shop and found Sweeney Todd wearing an extraordinary singular appearance, for there was a black patch over one of his eyes, which was kept in its place by a green riband that went round his head, so that he looked more fierce and diabolical than ever; and having shaved off a small whisker that he used to wear, his countenance, although to the full as hideous as ever, certainly had a different character of ugliness to that which had before characterised it, and attracted the attention of the colonel. That gentleman would hardly have known him again any where but in his own shop, and when we come to consider Sweeney Todd's adventures of the preceding evening, we shall feel not surprised that he saw the necessity of endeavouring to make as much change in his appearance as possible, for fear he should come across any of the parties who had chased him, and who, for all he knew to the contrary, might, quite unsuspectingly, drop in to be shaved in the course of the morning, perhaps to retail at that acknowledged mart for all sorts of gossipa barber's shopsome of the very incidents which he has so well qualified himself to relate. "Shaved and dressed, gentlemen?" said Sweeney Todd, as his customers made their appearance. "Shaved only." said Captain Rathbone, who had agreed to be principal spokesman, in case Sweeney Todd should have any remembrance of the colonel's voice, and so suspect him. "Pray be seated," said Sweeney Todd to Colonel Jeffery. "I'll soon polish off your friend, sir, and then I'll begin upon you. Would you like to see the morning paper, sir? it's at your service. I was just looking myself, sir, at a most mysterious circumstance, if it's true, but you can't believe, you know sir, all that is put in newspapers." "Thank youthank you," said the colonel. Captain Rathbone sat down to be shaved, for he had purposely omitted that operation at home, in order that it should not appear a mere excuse to get into Sweeney Todd's shop. "Why, sir," continued Sweeney Todd, "as I was saying, it is a most remarkable circumstance." "Indeed!" "Yes, sir, an old gentleman of the name of Fidler had been to receive a sum of money at the westend of the town, and has never been heard of since; that was yesterday, sir, and here is a description of him in the papers of today. 'A snuffcoloured coat, and velvet smallsblack velvet, I should have saidsilk stockings, and silver shoebuckles, and a goldheaded cane, with W. D. F. upon it, meaning "William Dumpledown Fidler"a most mysterious affair, gentlemen.'" A sort of groan came from the corner of the shop, and, on the impulse of the moment, Colonel Jeffery sprang to his feet, exclaiming "What's thatwhat's that?" "Oh, it's only my apprentice, Tobias Ragg. He has got a pain in his stomach from eating too many of Lovett's pork pies. Aint that it, Tobias, my bud?" "Yes, sir," said Tobias with another groan. "Oh, indeed," said the colonel, "it ought to make him more careful for the future." "It's to be hoped it will, sir; Tobias, do you hear what this gentleman says it ought to make you more careful in future. I am too indulgent to you, that's the fact. Now, sir, I believe you are as clean shaved as ever you were in your life." "Why, yes," said Captain Rathbone, "I think that will do very well; and now, Mr. Green"addressing the colonel by that assumed named"and now, Mr. Green, be quick, or we shall be too late for the duke, and so lose the sale of some of our jewels." "We shall indeed," said the colonel, "if we don't mind. We sat too long over our breakfast at the inn, and his grace is too rich and too good a customer to losehe don't mind what price he gives for things that take his fancy, or the fancy of his duchess." "Jewel merchants, gentlemen, I presume," said Sweeney Todd. "Yes, we have been in that line for some time; and by one of us trading in one direction, and the other in another, we manage extremely well, because we exchange what suits our different customers, and keep up two distinct connexions." "A very good plan," said Sweeney Todd. "I'll be as quick as I can with you, sir. Dealing in jewels is better than shaving." "I dare say it is." "Of course, it is, sir; here have I been slaving for some years in this shop, and not done much goodthat is to say, when I talk of not having done much good, I admit I have made enough to retire upon quietly and comfortably, and I mean to do so very shortly. There you are, sir, shaved with celerity you seldom meet with, and as clean as possible, for the small charge of one penny. Thank you, gentlementhere's your change; good morning." They had no resource but to leave the shop; and when they had gone Sweeney Todd, as he stropped the razor he had been using upon his hand, gave a most diabolical grin, muttering "Cleververy ingeniousbut it won't do. Oh dear, no, not at all! I am not so easily taken indiamond merchants, ah! ah! and no objection, of course, to deal in pearlsa good jest that, truly, a capital jest. If I had been accustomed to be so easily defeated, I had not now been here a living man. Tobias, Tobias, I say." "Yes, sir," said the lad, dejectedly. "Have you forgotten your mother's danger in case you breathe a syllable of anything that has occurred here, or that you think has occurred here, or so much as dream of?" "No," said the boy, "indeed I have not. I never can forget it, if I were to live a hundred years." "That's well, prudent, excellent, Tobias. Go out now, and if those two persons who were here last, waylay you in the street, let them say what they will, and do you reply to them as shortly as possible; but be sure you come back to me quickly and report what they do say. They turned to the left, towards the citynow be off with you.
" "It's of no use," said Colonel Jeffery to the captain; "the barber is either too cunning for me, or he is really innocent of all participation in the disappearance of Thornhill." "And yet there are suspicious circumstances. I watched his countenance when the subject of jewels was mentioned, and I saw a sudden change come over it; it was but momentary, but still it gave me a suspicion that he knew something which caution alone kept within the recesses of his breast. The conduct of the boy, too, was strange; and then again, if he has the string of pearls, their value would give him all the power to do what he says he is about to doviz., to retire from business with an independence." "Hush! There, did you see that lad?" "Yes; why it's the barber's boy." "It is the same lad he called Tobiasshall we speak to him?" "Let's make a bolder push, and offer him an ample reward for any information he may give us." "Agreed, agreed." They both walked up to Tobias, who was listlessly walking along the streets, and when they reached him, they were both struck with the appearance of care and sadness that was upon the boy's face. He looked perfectly haggard and carewornan expression sad to see upon the face of one so young; and, when the colonel accosted him in a kindly tone, he seemed so unnerved that tears immediately darted to his eyes, although at the same time he shrank back as if alarmed. "My lad," said the colonel, "you reside, I think, with Sweeney Todd, the barber. Is he not a kind master to you, that you seem so unhappy?" "No, nothat is, I mean yes, I have nothing to tell. Let me pass on." "What is the meaning of this confusion?" "Nothing, nothing." "I say, my lad, here is a guinea for you, if you will tell us what became of the man of a seafaring appearance, who came with a dog to your master's house, some days since, to be shaved." "I cannot tell you," said the boy, "I cannot tell you what I do not know." "But, you have some idea, probably. Come, we will make it worth your while, and thereby protect you from Sweeney Todd. We have the power to do so, and all the inclination; but you must be quite explicit with us, and tell us frankly what you think, and what you know concerning the man in whose fate we are interested." "I know nothing, I think nothing," said Tobias. "Let me go, I have nothing to say, except that he was shaved, and went away." "But how came he to leave his dog behind him?" "I cannot tell. I know nothing." "It is evident that you do know something, but hesitate either from fear or some other motive to tell it; as you are inaccessible to fair means, we must resort to others, and you shall at once come before a magistrate, who will force you to speak out." "Do with me what you will," said Tobias, "I cannot help it. I have nothing to say to you, nothing whatever. Oh, my poor mother, if it were not for you" "What then?" "Nothing! nothing! nothing!" It was but a threat of the colonel to take the boy before a magistrate, for he had really no grounds for so doing; and if the boy chose to keep a secret, if he had one, not all the magistrates in the world could force words from his lips that he felt not inclined to utter; and so, after one more effort, they felt that they must leave him. "Boy," said the colonel, "you are young, and cannot well judge of the consequences of particular lines of conduct; you ought to weigh well what you are about, and hesitate long before you determine keeping dangerous secrets we can convince you that we have the power of completely protecting you from all that Sweeney Todd could possibly attempt. Think again, for this is an opportunity of saving yourself perhaps from much future misery, that may never arise again." "I have nothing to say," said the boy, "I have nothing to say." He uttered these words with such an agonized expression of countenance, that they were both convinced he had something to say, and that, too, of the first importancea something which would be valuable to them in the way of information, extremely valuable probably, and yet which they felt the utter impossibility of wringing from him. They were compelled to leave him, and likewise with the additional mortification, that, far from making any advance in the matter, they had placed themselves and their cause in a much worse position, in so far as they had awakened all Sweeney Todd's suspicions if he were guilty, and yet advanced not one step in the transaction. And then, to make the matter all the more perplexing, there was still the possibility that they might be altogether upon a wrong scent, and that the barber of Fleetstreet had no more to do with the disappearance of Mr. Thornhill than they had themselves. CHAPTER XI. THE STRANGER AT LOVETT'S. Towards the dusk of the evening of that day, after the last batch of pies at Lovett's had been disposed of, there walked into the shop a man most miserably clad, and who stood for a few moments staring with weakness and hunger at the counter before he spoke. Mrs. Lovett was there, but she had no smile for him, and instead of its usual bland expression, her countenance wore an aspect of anger, as she forestalled what the man had to say, by exclaiming "Go away, we never give anything to beggars." There came a flush of colour for the moment across the features of the stranger, and then he replied "Mistress Lovett, I do not come to ask alms of you, but to know if you can recommend me to any employment?" "Recommend you! recommend a ragged wretch like you?" "I am a ragged wretch, and, moreover, quite destitute. In better times I have sat at your counter, and paid cheerfully for what I wanted, and then one of your softest smiles has ever been at my disposal. I do not say this as a reproach to you, because the cause of your smile was well known to be a selfinterested one, and when that cause had passed away, I can no longer expect it; but I am so situated, that I am willing to do anything for a mere subsistence." "Oh, yes, and then when you get into a better case again, I have no doubt but you have quite sufficient insolence to make you unbearable; besides, what employment can we have but piemaking, and we have a man already who suits us very well with the exception that he, as you would do if we were to exchange him, has grown insolent, and fancies himself master of the place." The Stranger At Mrs. Lovett's pie Shop. The Stranger At Mrs. Lovett's Pie Shop. "Well, well," said the stranger, "of course, there is always sufficient argument against the poor and destitute to keep them so. If you will assert that my conduct will be the nature you describe, it is quite impossible for me to prove the contrary." He turned and was about to leave the shop, but Mrs. Lovett called after him saying "Come in again in two hours." He paused a moment or two, and then, turning his emaciated countenance upon her, said "I will if my strength permit mewater from the pumps in the street is but a poor thing for a man to subsist upon for twentyfour hours." "You may take one pie." The halffamished, miserablelooking man seized upon a pie, and devoured it in an instant. "My name," he said, "is Jarvis Williams; I'll be here, never fear, Mrs. Lovett, in two hours; and, notwithstanding all you have said, you shall find no change in my behaviour because I may be well kept and better clothed; but if I should feel dissatisfied with my situation, I will leave it, and no harm done." So saying, he walked from the shop, and when he was gone, a strange expression came across the countenance of Mrs. Lovett, and she said in a low tone to herself "He might suit for a few months, like the rest, and it is clear that we must get rid of the one we have; I must think of it." There is a cellar of vast extent, and of dim and sepulchral aspectsome rough red tiles are laid upon the floor, and pieces of flint and large jagged stones have been hammered into the earthen walls to strengthen them; while here and there rough huge pillars made by beams of timber rise perpendicularly from the floor, and prop large flat pieces of wood against the ceiling, to support it. Here and there gleaming lights seem to be peeping out from furnaces, and there is a strange hissing, simmering sound going on, while the whole air is impregnated with a rich and savoury vapour. This is Lovett's pie manufactory beneath the pavement of Bellyard and at this time a nightbatch of some thousands is being made for the purpose of being sent by carts the first thing in the morning all over the suburbs of London. By the earliest dawn of day a crowd of itinerant hawkers of pies would make their appearance, carrying off a large quantity to regular customers who had them daily, and no more thought of being without them, than of forbidding the milkman or the baker to call at their residences. It will be seen and understood, therefore, that the retail part of Mrs. Lovett's business, which took place principally between the hours of twelve and one, was by no means the most important or profitable portion of a concern which was really of immense magnitude, and which brought in a large yearly income. To stand in the cellar when this immense manufacture of what, at first sight, would appear such a trivial article was carried on, and to look about as far as the eye could reach, was by no means to have a sufficient idea of the extent of the place; for there were as many doors in different directions and singular lowarched entrances to different vaults, which all appeared as black as midnight, that one might almost suppose the inhabitants of all the surrounding neighbourhood had, by common consent given up their cellars to Lovett's pie factory. There is but one miserable light, except the occasional fitful glare that comes from the ovens where the pies are stewing, hissing, and spluttering in their own luscious gravy. There is but one man, too, throughout all the place, and he is sitting on a low threelegged stool in one corner, with his head resting upon his hands, and gently rocking to and fro, as he utters scarcely audible moans. He is but lightly clad; in fact, he seems to have but little on him except a shirt and a pair of loose canvas trousers. The sleeves of the former are turned up beyond his elbows, and on his head he has a white nightcap. It seems astonishing that such a man, even with the assistance of Mrs. Lovett, could make so many pies as are required in a day; but then, system does wonders, and in those cellars there are various mechanical contrivances for kneading the dough, chopping up the meat, c., which greatly reduced the labour. But what a miserable object is that manwhat a sad and soulstriken wretch he looks! His face is pale and haggard, his eyes deeply sunken; and, as he removes his hands from before his visage, and looks about him, a more perfect picture of horror could not have been found. "I must leave tonight," he said, in coarse accents"I must leave tonight. I know too muchmy brain is full of horrors. I have not slept now for five nights, nor dare I eat anything but the raw flour. I will leave tonight if they do not watch me too closely. Oh! if I could but get into the streetsif I could but once again breathe the fresh air! Hush! what's that? I thought I heard a noise." He rose, and stood trembling and listening; but all was still, save the simmering and hissing of the pies, and then he resumed his seat with a deep sigh. "All the doors fastened upon me," he said, "what can it mean? It's very horrible, and my heart dies within me. Six weeks only have I been hereonly six weeks. I was starving before I came. Alas, alas! how much better to have starved! I should have been dead before now, and spared all this agony." "Skinner!" cried a voice, and it was a female one"Skinner, how long will the ovens be?" "A quarter of an houra quarter of an hour, Mrs. Lovett. God help me!" "What is that you say?" "I said, God help me!surely a man may say that without offence." A door slammed shut, and the miserable man was alone again. "How strangely," he said, "on this night my thoughts go back to early days, and to what I once was. The pleasant scenes of my youth recur to me. I see again the ivymantled porch, and the pleasant village green. I hear again the merry ringing laughter of my playmates, and there, in my mind's eye, appears to me the bubbling stream, and the ancient mill, the old mansionhouse, with its tall turrets, and its air of silent grandeur. I hear the music of the birds, and the winds making rough melody among the trees. 'Tis very strange that all those sights and sounds should come back to me at such a time as this, as if just to remind me what a wretch I am." He was silent for a few moments, during which he trembled with emotion; then he spoke again, saying "Thus the forms of those whom I once knew, and many of whom have gone already to the silent tomb, appear to come thronging round me. They bend their eyes momentarily upon me, and, with settled expressions, show acutely the sympathy they feel for me. I see her, too, who first, in my bosom, lit up the flame of soft affection. I see her gliding past me like the dim vision of a dream, indistinct, but beautiful; no more than a shadowand yet to me most palpable. What am I nowwhat am I now?" He resumed his former position, with his head resting upon his hands; he rocked himself slowly to and fro, uttering those moans of a tortured spirit, which we have before noticed. But see, one of the small arch doors open, in the gloom of those vaults, and a man, in a stooping posture, creeps ina halfmask is upon his face, and he wears a cloak; but both his hands are at liberty. In one of them he carries a doubleheaded hammer, with a powerful handle, of about ten inches in length. He has probably come out of a darker place than the one into which he now so cautiously creeps, for he shades the light from his eyes, as if it were suddenly rather too much for him, and then he looks cautiously round the vault, until he sees the crouchedup figure of the man whose duty it is to attend the ovens. From that moment he looks at nothing else; but advances towards him, steadily and cautiously. It is evident that great secresy is his object, for he is walking on his stocking soles only; and it is impossible to hear the slightest sounds of his footsteps. Nearer and nearer he comes, so slowly, and yet so surely, towards him, who still keeps up the low moaning sound, indicative of mental anquish. Now he is close to him, and he bends over him for a moment, with a look of fiendish malice. It is a look which, despite his mask, glances full from his eyes, and then grasping the hammer tightly, in both hands, he raises it slowly above his head, and gives it a swinging motion through the air. There is no knowing what induced the man that was crouching on the stool to rise at that moment; but he did so, and paced about with great quickness. A sudden shriek burst from his lips, as he beheld so terrific an apparition before him; but, before he could repeat the word, the hammer descended, crushing into his skull, and he fell lifeless, without a moan. "And so, Mr. Jarvis Williams, you have kept your word," said Mrs. Lovett to the emaciated, careworn stranger, who had solicited employment of her, "and so, Jarvis Williams, you have kept your word, and come for employment?" "I have, madam, and hope that you can give it to me I frankly tell you that I would seek for something better, and more congenial to my disposition, if I could; but who would employ one presenting such a wretched appearance as I do? You see that I am all in rags, and I have told you that I have been half starved, and therefore it is only some common and ordinary employment that I can hope to get, and that made me come to you." "Well, I don't see why we should not make a trial of you, at all events, so if you like to go down into the bakehouse, I will follow you, and show you what you have to do. You remember that you have to live entirely upon the pies, unless you like to purchase for yourself anything else, which you may do if you can get the money. We give none, and you must likewise agree never to leave the bakehouse." "Never to leave it?" "Never, unless you leave it for good, and for all; if upon those conditions you choose to accept the situation, you may, and if not, you can go about your business at once, and leave it alone." "Alas, madam, I have no resource; but you spoke of having a man already." "Yes; but he has gone to his friends; he has gone to some of his very oldest friends, who will be quite glad to see him, so now say the wordare you willing or are you not, to take the situation?" "My poverty and my destitution consent, if my will be averse, Mrs. Lovett; but, of course, I quite understand that I leave when I please." "Oh, of course, we never think of keeping anybody many hours after they begin to feel uncomfortable. If you be ready, follow me." "I am quite ready, and thankful for a shelter. All the brightest visions of my early life have long since faded away, and it matters little or indeed nothing what now becomes of me; I will follow you, madam, freely, upon the conditions you have mentioned." Mrs. Lovett lifted up a portion of the counter which permitted him to pass behind it, and then he followed her into a small room, which was at the back of the shop. She then took a key from her pocket, and opened an old door which was in the wainscoting, and immediately behind which was a flight of stairs. These she descended, and Jarvis Williams followed her, to a considerable depth, after which she took an iron bar from behind another door, and flung it open, showing her new assistant the interior of that vault which we have already very briefly described. "These," she said, "are the ovens, and I will proceed to show you how you can manufacture the pies, feed the furnaces, and make yourself generally useful. Flour will be always let down through a trapdoor from the upper shop, as well as everything required for making the pies but the meat, and that you will always find ranged upon shelves either in lumps or steaks, in a small room through this door, but it is only at particular times you will find the door open; and whenever you do so, you had better always take out what meat you think you will require for the next batch." "I understand all that, madam," said Williams, "but how does it get there?" "That's no business of yours; so long as you are supplied with it, that is sufficient for you; and now I will go through the process of making one pie, so that you may know how to proceed, and you will find with what amazing quickness they can be manufactured if you set about them in the proper manner." She then showed him how a piece of meat thrown into a machine became finely minced up, by merely turning a handle; and then how flour and water and lard were mixed up together, to make the crust of the pies, by another machine, which threw out the paste thus manufactured in small pieces, each just large enough for a pie. Lastly, she showed him how a tray, which just held a hundred, could be filled, and, by turning a windlass, sent up to the shop, through a square trapdoor, which went right up to the very counter. "And now," she said, "I must leave you. As long as you are industrious you will go on very well, but as soon as you begin to be idle, and neglect the orders which are sent to you by me, you will get a piece of information which will be useful, and which if you be a prudent man will enable you to know what you are about." "What is that? you may as well give it to me now." "No; we seldom find there is occasion for it at first, but, after a time, when you get well fed, you are pretty sure to want it." So saying she left the place, and he heard the door by which he had entered, carefully barred after her. Suddenly then he heard her voice again, and so clearly and distinctly, too, that he thought she must have come back again; but upon looking up at the door, he found that that arose from her speaking through a small grating at the upper part of it, to which her mouth was closely placed. "Remember your duty," she said, "and I warn you, that any attempt to leave here will be as futile as it will be dangerous." "Except with your consent, when I relinquish the situation." "Oh, certainlycertainly, you are quite right there, everybody who relinquishes the situation goes to his old friends, whom he has not seen for many years, perhaps." "What a strange manner of talking she has!" said Jarvis Williams to himself, when he found he was alone. "There seems to be some singular and hidden meaning in every word she utters. What can she mean by a communication being made to me, if I neglect my duty! It is very strange; and what a singular looking place this is! I think it would be quite unbearable if it were not for the delightful odour of the pies, and they are indeed deliciousperhaps more delicious to me, who has been famished so long, and have gone through so much wretchedness; there is no one here but myself, and I am hungry nowfrightfully hungry, and whether the pies be done or not, I'll have half a dozen of them at any rate, so here goes." He opened one of the ovens, and the fragrant steam that came out was perfectly delicious, and he sniffed it up with a satisfaction such as he had never felt before, as regards anything that was eatable. "Is it possible," he said "that I shall be able to make such delicious pies? At all events one can't starve here, and if it be a kind of imprisonment, it's a pleasant one. Upon my soul, they are nice, even halfcookeddelicious! I'll have another halfdozen, there are lots of themdelightful! I can't keep the gravy from running out of the corners of my mouth. Upon my soul, Mrs. Lovett, I don't know where you get your meat, but it's all as tender as young chickens, and the fat actually melts away in one's mouth. Ah, these are pies, something like pies!they are positively fit for the gods!" Mrs. Lovett's new man ate twelve threepenny pies, and then he thought of leaving off. It was a little drawback not to have anything to wash them down with but cold water; but he reconciled himself to this. "For," as he said, "after all it would be a pity to take the flavour of such pies out of one's mouthindeed it would be a thousand pities, so I won't think of it, but just put up with what I have got and not complain. I might have gone further and fared worse with a vengeance, and I cannot help looking upon it as a singular piece of good fortune that made me think of coming here in my deep distress to try and get something to do. I have no friends and no money; she whom I loved is faithless, and here I am, master of as many pies as I like, and to all appearance monarch of all I survey; for there really seems to be no one to dispute my supremacy. To be sure my kingdom is rather a gloomy one; but then I can abdicate it when I like, and when I am tired of those delicious pies, if such a thing be possible, which I really very much doubt, I can give up my situation, and think of something else. If I do that, I will leave England for ever; it's no place for me after the many disappointments I have had. No friend left memy girl falsenot a relation but who would turn his back upon me! I will go somewhere where I am unknown and can form new connexions, and perhaps make new friendships of a more permanent and stable character than the old ones, which have all proved so false to me; and, in the meantime, I'll make and eat pies as fast as I can." CHAPTER XII. THE RESOLUTION COME TO BY JOHANNA OAKLEY. The beautiful Johannawhen in obedience to the command of her father she left him, and begged him (the beefeater) to manage matters with the Rev. Mr. Lupindid not proceed directly up stairs to her apartment, but lingered on the staircase to hear what ensued; and if anything in her dejected state of mind could have given her amusement, it would certainly have been the way in which the beefeater exacted a retribution from the reverend personage, who was not likely again to intrude himself into the house of the spectaclemaker. But when he was gone, and she heard that a sort of peace had been patched up with her mothera peace which, from her knowledge of the high contracting parties, she conjectured would not last longshe returned to her room, and locked herself in; so that if any attempt were made to get her down to partake of the supper, it might be supposed she was asleep, for she felt herself totally unequal to the task of making one in any party, however much she might respect the individual members that composed it. And she did respect Ben the beefeater; for she had a lively recollection of much kindness from him during her early years, and she knew that he had never come to the house when she was a child without bringing her some token of his regard in the shape of a plaything, or some little article of doll's finery, which at that time was very precious. She was not wrong in her conjectures that Ben would make an attempt to get her down stairs, for her father came up at the beefeater's request, and tapped at her door. She thought the best plan, as indeed it was, would be to make no answer, so that the old spectaclemaker concluded at once what she wished him to conclude, namely, that she had gone to sleep; and he walked quietly down the stairs again, glad that he had not disturbed her, and told Ben as much. Now, feeling herself quite secure from interruption for the night, Johanna did not attempt to seek repose, but set herself seriously to reflect upon what had occurred. She almost repeated to herself, word for word, what Colonel Jeffery had told her; and, as she revolved the matter over and over again in her brain, a strange thought took possession of her, which she could not banish, and which, when once it found a home within her breast, began to gather probability from every slight circumstance that was in any way connected with it. This thought, strange as it may appear, was, that the Mr. Thornhill, of whom Colonel Jeffery spoke in terms of such high eulogium, was no other than Mark Ingestrie himself. It is astonishing, when once a thought occurs to the mind, that makes a strong impression, how, with immense rapidity, a rush of evidence will appear to come to support it. And thus it was with regard to this supposition of Johanna Oakley. She immediately remembered a host of little things which favoured the idea, and among the rest, she fully recollected that Mark Ingestrie had told her he meant to change his name when he left England; for that he wished her and her only to know anything of him, or what had become of him; and that his intention was to baffle inquiry, in case it should be made, particularly by Mr. Grant, towards whom he felt a far greater amount of indignation, than the circumstances at all warranted him in feeling. Then she recollected all that Colonel Jeffery had said with regard to the gallant and noble conduct of this Mr. Thornhill, and, girl like, she thought that those high and noble qualities could surely belong to no one but her own lover, to such an extent; and that, therefore, Mr. Thornhill and Mark Ingestrie must be one and the same person. Over and over again, she regretted she had not asked Colonel Jeffery for a personal description of Mr. Thornhill, for that would have settled all her doubts at once, and the idea that she had it still in her power to do so, in consequence of the appointment he had made with her for that day week brought her some consolation. "It must have been he," she said; "his anxiety to leave the ship, and get here by the day he mentions, proves it; besides, how improbable it is, that at the burning of the illfated vessel, Ingestrie should place in the hands of another what he intended for me, when that other was quite as likely, and perhaps more so, to meet with death as Mark himself." Thus she reasoned, forcing herself each moment into a stronger belief of the identity of Thornhill with Mark Ingestrie, and so certainly narrowing her anxieties to a consideration of the fate of one person instead of two. "I will meet Colonel Jeffery," she said, "and ask him if this Mr. Thornhill had fair hair, and a soft and pleasing expression about the eyes, that could not fail to be remembered. I will ask him how he spoke, and how he looked; and get him, if he can, to describe to me even the very tones of his voice; and then I shall be sure, without the shadow of a doubt, that it is Mark. But then, oh! then comes the anxious question, of what has been his fate?" When poor Johanna began to consider the multitude of things that might have happened to her lover during his progress from Sweeney Todd's, in Fleetstreet, to her father's house, she became quite lost in a perfect maze of conjecture, and then her thoughts always painfully reverted back to the barber's shop where the dog had been stationed; and she trembled to reflect for a moment upon the frightful danger to which that string of pearls might have subjected him. "Alas! alas!" she cried, "I can well conceive that the man whom I saw attempting to poison the dog would be capable of any enormity. I saw his face but for a moment, and yet it was one never again to be forgotten. It was a face in which might be read cruelty and evil passions; besides, the man who would put an unoffending animal to a cruel death, shows an absence of feeling, and a baseness of mind, which make him capable of any crime he thinks he can commit with impunity. What can I dooh! what can I do to unravel this mystery?" No one could have been more tenderly and gently brought up than Johanna Oakley, but yet, inhabitive of her heart, was a spirit and a determination which few indeed could have given her credit for, by merely looking on the gentle and affectionate countenance which she ordinarily presented. But it is no new phenomenon in the history of the human heart to find that some of the most gentle and loveliest of human creatures are capable of the highest efforts of perversion; and when Johanna Oakley told herself, which she did, she was determined to devote her existence to a discovery of the mystery that enveloped the fate of Mark Ingestrie, she likewise made up her mind that the most likely man for accomplishing that object should not be rejected by her on the score of danger, and she at once set to work considering what those means should be. This seemed an endless task, but still she thought that if, by any means whatever, she could get admittance to the barber's house, she might be able to come to some conclusion as to whether or not it was there where Thornhill, whom she believed to be Ingestrie, had been stayed in his progress. "Aid me Heaven," she cried, "in the adoption of some means of action on the occasion. Is there any one with whom I dare advise? Alas! I fear not, for the only person in whom I have put my whole heart is my father, and his affection for me would prompt him at once to interpose every possible obstacle to my proceeding, for fear danger should come of it. To be sure, there is Arabella Wilmot, my old school fellow and bosom friend, she would advise me to the best of her ability, but I much fear she is too romantic and full of odd, strange actions, that she has taken from books, to be a good adviser; and yet what can I do? I must speak to some one, if it be but in case any accident happening to me, my father may get news of it, and I know of no one else whom I can trust but Arabella." After some little more consideration, Johanna made up her mind that on the following morning she would go to the house of her old school friend, which was in the immediate vicinity, and hold a conversation with her.
"I shall hear something," she said, "at least of a kindly and a consoling character; for what Arabella may want in calm and steady judgment, she fully compensates for in actual feeling, and what is most of all, I know I can trust her word implicitly, and that my secret will remain as safely locked in her breast as if it were in my own." It was something to come to a conclusion to ask advice, and she felt that some portion of her anxiety was lifted from her mind by the mere fact that she had made so firm a mental resolution, that neither danger nor difficulty should deter her from seeking to know the fate of her lover. She retired to rest now with a greater hope, and while she is courting repose, notwithstanding the chance of the discovered images that fancy may present to her in her slumbers, we will take a glance at the parlour below, and see how far Mrs. Oakley is conveying out the pacific intention she had so tacitly expressed, and how the supper is going forward, which, with not the best grace in the world, she is preparing for her husband, who for the first time in his life had begun to assert his rights, and for big Ben, the beefeater, whom she as cordially disliked as it was possible for any woman to detest any man. Mrs. Oakley by no means preserved her taciturn demeanour, for after a little she spoke, saying "There's nothing tasty in the house; suppose I run over the way to Waggarge's, and get some of those Epping sausages with the peculiar flavour." "Ah, do," said Mr. Oakley, "they are beautiful, Ben, I can assure you." "Well, I don't know," said Ben the beefeater, "sausages are all very well in their way, but you need such a plaguey lot of them; for if you only eat them one at a time, how soon will you get through a dozen or two." "A dozen or two," said Mrs. Oakley; "why, there are only five to a pound." "Then," said Ben, making a mental calculation, "then, I think, ma'am, that you ought not to get more than nine pounds of them, and that will be a matter of fortyfive mouthfuls for us." "Get nine pounds of them," said Mr. Oakley, "if they be wanted; I know Ben has an appetite." "Indeed," said Ben, "but I have fell off lately, and don't take to my wittals as I used; you can order, missus, if you please, a gallon of halfandhalf as you go along. One must have a drain of drink of some sort; and mind you don't be going to any expense on my account, and getting anything but the little snack I have mentioned, for ten to one I shall take supper when I get to the Tower; only human nature is weak, you know, missus, and requires something to be a continually a holding of it up." "Certainly," said Mr. Oakley, "certainly, have what you like, Ben; just say the word before Mrs. Oakley goes out; is there anything else?" "No, no," said Ben, "oh dear no, nothing to speak of; but if you should pass a shop where they sells fat bacon, about four or five pounds, cut into rashers, you'll find, missus, will help down the blessed sausages." "Gracious Providence," said Mrs. Oakley, "who is to cook it?" "Who is to cook it, ma'am? why the kitchen fire, I suppose; but mind ye if the man aint got any sausages, there's a shop where they sells biled beef at the corner, and I shall be quite satisfied if you brings in about ten or twelve pounds of that. You can make it up into about half a dozen sandwiches." "Go, my dear, go at once," said Mr. Oakley, "and get Ben his supper. I am quite sure he wants it, and be as quick as you can." "Ah," said Ben, when Mrs. Oakley was gone, "I didn't tell you how I was sarved last week at Mrs. Harveys. You know they are so precious genteel there that they don't speak above their blessed breaths for fear of wearing themselves out; and they sits down in a chair as if it were balanced only on one leg, and a little more one way or t'other would upset them. Then, if they sees a crumb a laying on the floor they rings the bell, and a poor halfstarved devil of a servant comes and says, 'Did you ring, ma'am?' and then they says 'Yes, bring a dustshovel and a broom, there is a crumb a laying there,' and then says I'Damn you all,' says I, 'bring a scavenger's cart, and halfdozen birch brooms, there's a cinder just fell out of the fire.' Then in course they gets shocked, and looks as blue as possible, and arter that, when they see as I aint agoing, one of them says 'Mr. Benjamin Blumergutts, would you like to take a glass of wine?' 'I should think so,' says I. Then he says, says he, 'which would you prefer, red or white?' says he. 'White,' says I, 'while you are screwing up your courage to pull out the red,' so out they pull it; and as soon as I got hold of the bottle, I knocked the neck of it off over the top bar of the fireplace, and then drank it all up. 'Now, damn ye,' says I, 'you thinks all this is mighty genteel and fine, but I don't, and consider you to be the blessedest set of humbugs ever I set my eyes on; and, if ever you catch me here again, I'll be genteel too, and I can't say more than that. Go to the devil, all of ye.' So out I went, only I met with a little accident in the hall, for they had got a sort of lamp hanging there, and somehow or 'nother, my head went bang into it, and I carried it out round my neck; but when I did get out, I took it off, and shied it slap in at the parlour window. You never heard such a smash in all your life. I dare say they all fainted away for about a week, the blessed humbugs." "Well, I should not wonder," said Mr. Oakley, "I never go near them, because I don't like their foolish pomposity and pride, which, upon very slender resources, tries to ape what it don't at all understand; but here is Mrs. Oakley with the sausages, and I hope you will make yourself comfortable, Ben." "Comfortable! I believe ye, I rather shall. I means it, and no mistake." "I have brought three pounds," said Mrs. Oakley, "and told the man to call in a quarter of an hour, in case there is any more wanted." "The devil you have; and the bacon, Mrs. Oakley, the bacon!" "I could not get anythe man had nothing but hams." "Lor', ma'am, I'd put up with a ham cut thick, and never have said a word about it. I am a angel of a temper, and if you did but know it. Hilloa, look, is that the fellow with the halfand half?" "Yes, here it isa pot." "A what?" "A pot, to be sure." "Well, I never; you are getting genteel, Mrs. Oakley. Then give us a hold of it." Ben took the pot, and emptied it at a draught, and then he gave a tap at the bottom of it with his knuckles, to signify that he had accomplished that feat, and then he said, "I tells you what, ma'am, if you takes me for a baby, it's a great mistake, and any one would think you did, to see you offering me a pot merely; it's an insult, ma'am." "Fiddlededee," said Mrs. Oakley; "it's a much greater insult to drink it all up, and give nobody a drop." "Is it? I wants to know how you are to stop it, ma'am, when you gets it to your mouth? that's what I axes youhow are you to stop it, ma'am? You didn't want me to spew it back again, did you, eh, ma'am?" "You vile, low wretch!" "Come, come, my dear," said Mr. Oakley, "you know our cousin. Ben don't live among the most refined society, and so you ought to be able to look over a little ofofhisI may say, I am sure, without offence, roughness now and then;come, come, there is no harm done, I'm sure. Forget and forgive say I. That's my maxim, and has always been, and will always be." "Well," said the beefeater, "it's a good one to get through the world with, and so there's an end of it. I forgives you, Mother Oakley." "You forgive" "Yes, to be sure. Though I am only a beafeater, I suppose as I may forgive people for all thateh, Cousin Oakley?" "Oh, of course, Ben, of course. Come, come, wife, you know as well as I that Ben has many good qualities, and that take him for all in all, as the man in the play says, we shan't in a hurry look upon his like again." "And I'm sure I don't want to look upon his like again," said Mrs. Oakley; "I'd rather by a good deal keep him a week than a fortnight. He's enough to breed a famine in the land, that he is." "Oh, bless you, no," said Ben, "that's amongst your little mistakes, ma'am, I can assure you. By the bye, what a blessed long time that fellow is coming with the rest of the beer and the other sausageswhy, what's the matter with you, cousin Oakleyeh, old chap, you look out of sorts?" "I don't feel just the thing, do you know, Ben." "Notthe thingwhywhy, now you come to mention it, I somehow feel as if all my blessed inside was on a turn and a twist. The devilIdon't feel comfortable at all I don't." "And I'm getting very ill," gasped Mr. Oakley. "And I'm getting iller," said the beefeater, manufacturing a word for the occasion. "Bless my soul! there's something gone wrong in my inside. I know there's murderthere's a gooh, Lord! it's a doubling me up, it is." "I feel as if my last hour had come," said Mr. Oakley"I'm aadying manI amoh, good gracious! there was a twinge!" Mrs. Oakley, with all the coolness in the world, took down her bonnet from behind the parlourdoor where it hung, and, as she put it on said, "I told you both that some judgment would come over you, and now you see it has. How do you like it? Providence is good, of course, to its own, and I have" "Whatwhat?" "Pisoned the halfandhalf." Big Ben, the beefeater, fell off his chair with a deep groan, and poor Mr. Oakley sat glaring at his wife, and shivering with apprehension, quite unable to speak, while she placed a shawl over her shoulders, as she added in the same tone of calmness she had made the terrific announcement concerning the poisoning "Now, you wretches, you see what a woman can do when she makes up her mind for vengeance. As long as you all live, you'll recollect me; but, if you don't, that won't much matter, for you won't live long, I can tell you, and now I'm going to my sister's, Mrs. Tiddiblow." So saying, Mrs. Oakley turned quickly round, and, with an insulting toss of her head, and not at all caring for the pangs and sufferings of her poor victims, she left the place, and proceeded to her sister's house, where she slept as comfortably as if she had not by any means committed two diabolical murders. But has she done so, or shall we, for the honour of human nature, discover that she went to a neighbouring chemist's, and only purchased some dreadfully powerful medicinal compound, which she placed in the halfandhalf, and which began to give those pangs to Big Ben, the beefeater, and to Mr. Oakley, concerning which they were both so eloquent? This must have been the case; for Mrs. Oakley could not have been such a fiend in a human guise as to laugh as she passed the chemist's shop. Oh no! she might not have felt remorse, but that is a very different thing, indeed, from laughing at the matter, unless it were really laughable and not serious, at all. Big Ben and Mr. Oakley must have at length found out how they had been hoaxed, and the most probable thing was that the beforementioned chemist himself told them; for they sent for him in order to know if anything could be done to save their lives. Ben from that day forthwith made a determination that he would not visit Mr. Oakley, and the next time they met he said "I tell you what it is, that old hag, your wife, is one too many for us, that's a fact; she gets the better of me altogetherso, whenever you feels a little inclined for a gossip about old times, just you come down to the Tower." "I will, Ben." "Do; we can always find something to drink, and you can amuse yourself, too, by looking at the animals. Remember, feeding time is two o'clock; so, now and then, I shall expect to see you, and, above all, be sure you let me know if that canting parson, Lupin, comes any more to your house." "I will, Ben." "Ah, do; and I'll give him another lesson if he should, and I tell you how I'll do it. I'll get a free admission to the wild beastesses in the Tower, and when he comes to see 'em, for them 'ere sort of fellows always goes everywhere they can go for nothing, I'll just manage to pop him into a cage along of some of the most cantankerous creatures as we have." "But would not that be dangerous?" "Oh dear no! we has a laughing hyaena as would frighten him out of his wits; but I don't think as he'd bite him much, do you know. He's as playful as a kitten, and very fond of standing on his head." "Well, then, Ben, I have, of course, no objection, although I do think that the lesson you have already given to the reverend gentleman will and ought to be fully sufficient for all purposes, and I don't expect we shall see him again." "But how does Mrs. O. behave to you?" asked Ben. "Well, Ben, I don't think there's much difference; sometimes she's a little civil, and sometimes she ain't; it's just as she takes it into her head." "Ah! that all comes of marrying." "I have often wondered, though, Ben, that you never married." Ben gave a chuckle as he replied "Have you though, really? Well, Cousin Oakley, I don't mind telling you, but the real fact is, once I was very near being served out in that sort of way." "Indeed!" "Yes. I'll tell you how it was; there was a girl called Angelina Day, and a nicelooking enough creature she was as you'd wish to see, and didn't seem as if she'd got any claws at all; leastways she kept them in, like a cat at meal times." "Upon my word, Ben, you have a great knowledge of the world." "I believe you, I have! Haven't I been brought up among the wild beasts in the Tower all my life? That's the place to get a knowledge of the world in, my boy. I ought to know a thing or two, and in course I does." "Well, but how was it, Ben, that you did not marry this Angelina you speak of?" "I'll tell you; she thought she had me as safe as a hare in a trap, and she was as amiable as a lump of cotton. You'd have thought, to look at her, that she did nothing but smile; and, to hear her, that she said nothing but nice, mild, pleasant things, and I really began to think as I had found out the proper sort of animal." "But you were mistaken?" "I believe you, I was. One day I'd been there to see her, I mean, at her father's house, and she'd been as amiable as she could be; I got up to go away, with a determination that the next time I got there I would ask her to say yes, and when I had got a little way out of the garden of the house where they livedit was out of town some distanceI found I had left my little walkingcane behind me, so I goes back to get it, and when I got into the garden I heard a voice." "Whose voice?" "Why Angelina's, to be sure; she was speaking to a poor little dab of a servant they had; and oh, my eye! how she did rap out, to be sure! Such a speech as I never heard in all my life. She went on a matter of ten minutes without stopping, and every other word was some ill name or another; and her voiceoh, gracious! it was like a bundle of wire all of a tangleit was." "And what did you do, then, upon making such a discovery as that in so very odd and unexpected a manner?" "Do! What do you suppose I did?" "I really cannot say, as you are rather an eccentric fellow." "Well then, I'll tell you. I went up to the house, and just popped in my head, and says I, 'Angelina, I find out that all cats have claws after all; good evening, and no more from your humble servant, who don't mind the job of taming any wild animal but a woman;' and then off I walked, and I never heard of her afterwards." "Ah, Ben, it's true enough! You never know them beforehand; but after a little time, as you say, then out come the claws." "They doesthey does." "And I suppose you since, then, made up your mind to be a bachelor for the rest of your life, Ben?" "Of course I did. After such experience as that, I should have deserved all I got, and no mistake, I can tell you; and if ever you catches me paying any attention to a female woman, just put me in mind of Angelina Day, and you'll see how I shall be off at once like a shot." "Ah!" said Mr. Oakley, with a sigh, "everybody, Ben, aint born with your good luck, I can tell you. You are a most fortunate man, Ben, and that's a fact. You must have been born under some lucky planet I think, Ben, or else you never would have had such a warning as you have had about the claws. I found 'em out, Ben, but it was a deal too late; so I had only to put up with my fate, and put the best face I could upon the matter." "Yes, that's what learned folks callwhat's its namefillfillsomething." "Philosophy, I suppose you mean, Ben." "Ah, that's ityou must put up with what you can't help, it means, I take it. It's a fine name for saying you must grin and bear it." "I suppose that is about the truth, Ben." It cannot, however, be exactly said that the little incident connected with Mr. Lupin had no good effect upon Mrs. Oakley, for it certainly shook most alarmingly her confidence in that pious individual. In the first place, it was quite clear that he shrank from the horrors of martyrdom; and, indeed, to escape any bodily inconvenience, was perfectly willing to put up with any amount of degradation or humiliation that he could be subjected to; and that was, to the apprehension of Mrs. Oakley, a great departure from what a saint ought to be. Then again, her faith in the fact that Mr. Lupin was such a chosen morsel as he had represented himself, was shaken from the circumstance that no miracle in the shape of a judgment had taken place to save him from the malevolence of Big Ben, the beefeater; so that, taking one thing in connexion with another, Mrs. Oakley was not near so religious a character after that evening as she had been before it, and that was something gained. Then circumstances soon occurred, of which the reader will very shortly be fully aware, which were calculated to awaken all the feelings of Mrs. Oakley, if she had really any feelings to awaken, and to force her to make common cause with her husband in an affair that touched him to the very soul, and did succeed in awakening some feelings in her heart that had lain dormant for a long time, but which were still far from being completely destroyed. These circumstances were closely connected with the fate of one in whom we hope, that by this time, the reader has taken a deep and kindly interestwe mean Johannathat young and beautiful, and gentle, creature, who seemed to have been created with all the capacity to be so very happy, and yet whose fate had become so clouded by misfortune, and who appears now to be doomed through her best affections to suffer so great an amount of sorrow, and to go through so many sad difficulties. Alas, poor Johanna Oakley! Better had you loved some one of less aspiring feelings, and of less ardent imagination, than he possessed to whom you have given your heart's young affections. It is true that Mark Ingestrie possessed genius, and perhaps it was the glorious light that hovers around that fatal gift which prompted you to love him. But genius is not only a blight and a desolation to its possessor, but it is so to all who are bound to the gifted being by the ties of fond affection. It brings with it that unhappy restlessness of intellect which is ever straining after the unattainable, and which is never content to know the end and ultimatum of earthly hopes and wishes; no, the whole life of such persons is spent in one long struggle for a fancied happiness, which like the ignisfatuus of the swamp glitters but to betray those who trust to its delusive and flickering beams. CHAPTER XIII. JOHANNA'S INTERVIEW WITH ARABELLA WILMOT, AND THE ADVICE. Alas! poor Johanna, thou hast chosen but an indifferent confidante in the person of that young and inexperienced girl to whom it seems good to thee to impart thy griefs. Not for one moment do we mean to say, that the young creature to whom the spectaclemaker's daughter made up her mind to unbosom herself, was not all that any one could wish as regards honour, goodness, and friendship. But she was one of those creatures who yet look upon the world as a fresh green garden, and had not yet lost that romance of existence which the world and its ways soon banish from the breasts of all. She was young, even almost to girlhood, and having been the idol of her family circle, she knew just about as little of the great world as a child. But while we cannot but to some extent regret that Johanna should have chosen such a confidant and admirer, we with feelings of great freshness and pleasure proceed to accompany her to that young girl's house. Now, a visit from Johanna Oakley to the Wilmots was not so rare a thing, that it should excite any unusual surprise, but in this case it did excite unusual pleasure, because they had not been there for some time. And the reason that she had not, may well be found in the peculiar circumstances that had for a considerable period environed her. She had a secret to keep which, although it might not proclaim what it was most legibly upon her countenance, yet proclaimed that it had an existence, and as she had not made Arabella a confidant, she dreaded the other's friendly questions of the young creature. It may seem surprising that Johanna Oakley had kept from one whom she so much esteemed, and with whom she had made such a friendship, the secret of her affections; but that must be accounted for by a difference of ages between them to a sufficient extent in that early period of life to show itself palpably. That difference was not quite two years, but when we likewise state, that Arabella was of that small, delicate style of beauty, which makes her look like a child, when even upon the very verge of womanhood, we shall not be surprised that the girl of seventeen hesitated to confide a secret of the heart to what seemed but a beautiful child. The last year, however, had made a great difference in the appearance of Arabella, for, although she still looked a year or so younger than she really was, a more staid and thoughtful expression had come over her face, and she no longer presented, at times when she laughed, that childlike expression, which had been as remarkable in her as it was delightful. She was as different looking from Johanna as she could be, for whereas Johanna's hair was of a rich and glossy brown, so nearly allied to black that it was commonly called such; the long waving ringlets that shaded the sweet countenance of Arabella Wilmot were like amber silk blended to a pale beauty. Her eyes were nearly blue, and not that pale grey, which courtesy calls of that celestial colour, and their long, fringing lashes hung upon a cheek of the most delicate and exquisite hue that nature could produce. Such was the young, loveable, and amiable creature who had made one of those girlish friendships with Johanna Oakley that, when they do endure beyond the period of almost mere childhood, endure for ever, and become one among the most dear and cherished sensations of the heart. The acquaintance had commenced at school, and might have been of that evanescent character of so many school friendships, which, in after life, are scarcely so much remembered as the most dim visions of a dream; but it happened that they were congenial spirits, which, let them be thrown together under any circumstances whatever, would have come together with a perfect and a most endearing confidence in each other's affections. That they were school companions was the mere accident that brought them together, and not the cause of their friendship. Such, then, was the being to whom Johanna Oakley looked for counsel and assistance; and notwithstanding all that we have said respecting the likelihood of that counsel being of an inactive and girlish character, we cannot withhold our meed of approbation to Johanna, that she had selected one so much in every way worthy of her honest esteem. The hour at which she called was such as to ensure Arabella being within, and the pleasure which showed itself upon the countenance of the young girl, as she welcomed her old playmate, was a feeling of the most delightful and unaffecting character. "Why, Johanna," she said, "you so seldom call upon me now, that I suppose I must esteem it as a very special act of grace and favour to see you." "Arabella," said Johanna, "I do not know what you will say to me when I tell you that my present visit is because I am in a difficulty, and want your advice." "Then you could not have come to a better person, for I have read all the novels in London, and know all the difficulties that anybody can possibly get into, and, what is more important, too, I know all the means of getting out of them, let them be what they may." "And yet, Arabella, scarcely in all your novel reading will you find anything so strange and so eventful as the circumstances, I grieve to say, it is in my power to record to you. Sit down, and listen to me, dear Arabella, and you shall know all." "You surprise and alarm me by that serious countenance, Johanna." "The subject is a serious one. I love." "Oh! is that all? So do I; there's a young Captain Desbrook in the King's Guards. He comes here to buy his gloves; and if you did but hear him sigh as he leans over the counter, you would be astonished." "Ah! but, Arabella, I know you well. Yours is one of those fleeting passions that, like the forked lightning, appear for a moment, and ere you can say behold, is gone again. Mine is deeper in my heart, so deep, that to divorce it from it would be to destroy its home for ever." "But, why so serious, Johanna? You do not mean to tell me that it is possible for you to love any man without his loving you in return?" "You are right there, Arabella. I do not come to speak to you of a hopeless passionfar from it; but you shall hear. Lend me, my dear friend, your serious attention, and you shall hear of such mysterious matters." "Mysterious!then I shall be in my very element. For know that I quite live and exult in mystery, and you could not possibly have come to any one who would more welcomely receive such a commission from you; I am all impatience." Johanna then, with great earnestness, related to her friend the whole of the particulars connected with her deep and sincere attachment to Mark Ingestrie. She told her how, in spite of all circumstances which appeared to have a tendency to cast a shadow and blight upon their young affection, they had loved, and loved truly; how Ingestrie, disliking, both from principle and distaste, the study of the law, had quarrelled with his uncle, Mr. Grant, and then how, as a bold adventurer, he had gone to seek his fortunes in the Indian seas; fortunes which promised to be splendid, but which might end in disappointment and defeat, and that they had ended in such calamities most deeply and truly did she mourn to be compelled to state. And she concluded by saying "And now, Arabella, you know all I have to tell you. You know how truly I have loved, and how, after teaching myself to expect happiness, I have met with nothing but despair; and you may judge for yourself, how sadly the fate, or rather the mystery, which hangs over Mark Ingestrie, must deeply affect me, and how lost my mind must be in all kinds of conjecture concerning him." The hilarity of spirits which had characterised Arabella in the earlier part of their interview, entirely left her as Johanna proceeded in her mournful narration, and by the time she had concluded, tears of the most genuine sympathy stood in her eyes. She took the hands of Johanna in both her own, and said to her "Why, my poor Johanna, I never expected to hear from your lips so sad a tale. This is most mournful, indeed very mournful; and, although I was half inclined before to quarrel with you for this tardy confidencefor you must recollect that it is the first I have heard of this whole affairbut now the misfortunes that oppress you are quite sufficient, Heaven knows, without me adding to them by the shadow of a reproach." "They are indeed, Arabella, and believe me, if the course of my love ran smoothly, instead of being, as it has been, full of misadventures, you should have had nothing to complain of on the score of want of confidence; but I will own I did hesitate to inflict on you my miseries, for miseries they have been, and, alas! miseries they seem destined to remain." "Johanna, you could not have used an argument more delusive than that. It is not one which should have come from your lips to me." "But surely it was a good motive to spare you pain?" "And did you think so lightly of my friendship that it was to be entrusted with nothing but what wore a pleasant aspect? True friendship surely is best shown in the encounter of difficulty and distress. I grieve, Johanna, indeed, that you have so much mistaken me." "Nay, now you do me an injustice it was not that I doubted your friendship for one moment, but that I did indeed shrink from casting the shadow of my sorrows over what should be, and what I hope is, the sunshine of your heart. That was the respect which deterred me from making you a confidant of, what I suppose I must call, this illfated passion." "No, not illfated, Johanna. Let us still believe that the time will come when it will be far otherwise than illfated." "But what do you think of all that I have told you? Can you gather from it any hope?" "Abundance of hope, Johanna. You have no certainty of the death of Ingestrie." "I certainly have not, as far as regards the loss of him in the Indian seas; but, Arabella, there is one supposition which, from the first moment that it found a home in my breast, has been growing stronger and stronger, and that supposition is, that this Mr. Thornhill was no other than Mark Ingestrie himself." "Indeed! Think you so? That would be a strange supposition. Have you any special reasons for such a thought?" "Nonefurther than a something which seemed ever to tell my heart from the first moment that such was the case, and a consideration of the improbability of the story related by Thornhill. Why should Mark Ingestrie have given him the string of pearls and the message to me, trusting to the preservation of this Thornhill, and assuming, for some strange reason, that he himself must fall?" "There is good argument in that, Johanna." "And, moreover, Mark Ingestrie told me he intended altering his name upon the expedition." "It is strange; but now you mention such a supposition, it appears, do you know, Johanna, each moment more probable to me. Oh, that fatal string of pearls!" "Fatal, indeed! for if Mark Ingestrie and Thornhill be one and the same person, the possession of those pearls has been the temptation to destroy him." "There cannot be a doubt upon that point, Johanna, and so you will find in all tales of love and of romance, that jealousy and wealth have been the sources of all the abundant evils which fond and attached hearts have from time to time suffered." "It is so; I believe, it is so, Arabella; but advise me what to do, for truly I am myself incapable of action. Tell me what you think it is possible to do, under those disastrous circumstances, for there is nothing which I will not dare attempt." "Why, my dear Johanna, you must perceive that all the evidence you have regarding this Thornhill, follows him up to that barber's shop in Fleetstreet, and no farther." "It does, indeed." "Can you not imagine, then, that there lies the mystery of his fate; and, from what you have yourself seen of this man, Todd, do you think he is one who would hesitate even at murder?" "Oh, horror! my own thoughts have taken that dreadful turn, but I dreaded to pronounce the word which would embody them. If, indeed, that fearfullooking man fancied that, by any deed of blood, he could become possessed of such a treasure as that which belonged to Mark Ingestrie, unchristian and illiberal as it may sound, the belief clings to me that he would not hesitate to do it." "Do not, however, conclude, Johanna, that such is the case.
It would appear from all you have heard and seen of these circumstances, that there is some fearful mystery; but do not, Johanna, conclude hastily that that mystery is one of death." "Be it so, or not," said Johanna, "I must solve it, or go distracted. Heaven have mercy upon me!for even now I feel a fever in my brain that precludes almost the possibility of rational thought." "Be calm, be calmwe will think the matter over calmly and seriously; and who knows but that, mere girls as we are, we may think of some adventitious mode of arriving at a knowledge of the truth; and now I am going to tell you something, which your narrative has recalled to my mind." "Say on, Arabella, I shall listen to you with deep attention." "A short time since, about six months, I think, an apprentice of my father, in the last week of his servitude, was sent to the westend of the town, to take a considerable sum of money; but he never came back with it, and from that day to this we have heard nothing of him, although, from inquiry that my father made, he ascertained that he received the money, and that he met an acquaintance in the Strand, who parted from him at the corner of Milfordlane, and to whom he said that he intended to call at Sweeney Todd's, the barber, in Fleetstreet, to have his hair dressed, because there was to be a regatta on the Thames, and he was determined to go to it whether my father liked or not." "And he was never heard of?" "Never. Of course, my father made every inquiry upon the subject, and called upon Sweeney Todd for the purpose; but, as he declared that no such person had ever called at his shop, the inquiry there terminated." "'Tis very strange." "And most mysterious; for the friends of the youth were indeed indefatigable in their searches for him; and, by subscribing together for the purpose, they offered a large reward to any one who could or would give them information regarding his fate." "And was it all in vain?" "All; nothing could be learned whatever. Not even the remotest clue was obtained, and there the affair has rested, in the most profound of mysteries." Johanna shuddered, and for some few moments the two young girls were silent. It was Johanna who broke that silence, by exclaiming "Arabella, assist me with what advice you can, so that I may set about what I purpose with the best prospect of success and the least danger; not that I shrink on my own account from risk, but if any misadventure were to occur to me, I might thereby be incapacitated from pursuing that object, to which I will now devote the remainder of my life." "But what can you do, my dear Johanna? It was but a short time since there was a placard in the barber's window to say that he wanted a lad as an assistant in his business, but that has been removed, or we might have procured some one to take the situation for the express purpose of playing the spy upon the barber's proceedings." "But, perchance, still there may be an opportunity of accomplishing something in that way, if you knew of any one that would undertake the adventure." "There will be no difficulty, Johanna, in discovering one willing to do so, although we might be long in finding one of sufficient capacity that we could trust; but I am adventurous, Johanna, as you know, and I think I could have got my cousin Albert to personate the character, only that I think he's rather a giddy youth, and scarcely to be trusted with a mission of so much importance." "Yes, and a mission likewise, Arabella, which, by a single false step, might be made frightfully dangerous." "It might indeed." "Then it will be unfair to place it upon any one but those who feel most deeply for its success." "Johanna, the enthusiasm with which you speak awakens in me a thought which I shrink from expressing to you, and which, I fear, perhaps more originates from a certain feeling of romance, which, I believe, is a besetting sin, than from any other cause." "Name it, Arabella; name it." "It would be possible for you or I to accomplish the object, by going disguised to the barber's, and accepting such a situation, if it were vacant, for a period of about twentyfour hours, in order that during that time an opportunity might be taken of searching in his house for some evidence upon the subject nearest to your heart." "It is a happy thought," said Johanna, "and why should I hesitate at encountering any risk, or toil, or difficulty, for him who has risked so much for me? What is there to hinder me from carrying out such a resolution? At any moment, if great danger should beset me, I can rush into the street, and claim protection from the passersby." "And moreover, Johanna, if you went on such a mission, remember you go with my knowledge, and that consequently I would bring you assistance, if you appeared not in the specified time for your return." "Each moment, Arabella, the plan assumes to my mind a better shape. If Sweeney Todd be innocent of contriving anything against the life and liberty of those who seek his shop, I have nothing to fear; but if, on the contrary, he be guilty, danger to me would be the proof of such guilt, and that is a proof which I am willing to chance encountering for the sake of the great object I have in view; but how am I to provide myself with the necessary means?" "Be at rest upon that score. My cousin Albert and you are as nearly of a size as possible. He will be staying here shortly, and I will secure from his wardrobe a suit of clothes, which I am certain will answer your purpose. But let me implore you to wait until you have had your second interview with Colonel Jeffery." "That is well thought of; I will meet him, and question him closely as to the personal appearance of this Mr. Thornhill; beside, I shall hear if he has any confirmed suspicion on the subject." "That is well, you will soon meet him, for the week is running on; and let me implore you, Johanna, to come to me the morning after you have so met him, and then we will again consult upon this plan of operations, which appears to us feasible and desirable." Some more conversation of a similar character ensued between these young girls; and upon the whole, Johanna Oakley felt much comforted by her visit, and more able to think calmly as well as seriously upon the subject which engrossed her whole thoughts and feelings; and when she returned to her own home, she found that much of the excitement of despair which had formerly had possession of her, had given way to hope; and with that natural feeling of joyousness, and that elasticity of mind which belongs to the young, she began to build in her imagination some airy fabrics of future happiness. Certainly, these suppositions went upon the fact that Mark Ingestrie was a prisoner, and not that his life had been taken by the mysterious barber; for although the possibility of his having been murdered had found a home in her imagination, still to her pure spirit it seemed by far too hideous to be true, and she scarcely could be said really and truly to entertain it as a matter which was likely to be true. CHAPTER XIV. TOBIAS'S THREAT, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. Perhaps one of the most pitiable objects now in our history is poor Tobias, Sweeney Todd's boy, who certainly had his suspicions aroused in the most terrific manner, but who was terrified, by the threats of what the barber was capable of doing against his mother, from making any disclosures. The effect upon his personal appearance of this wear and tear of his intellect was striking and manifest. The hue of youth and health entirely departed from his cheeks, and he looked so sad and careworn, that it was quite a terrible thing to look upon a young lad so, as it were, upon the threshold of existence, and in whom anxious thoughts were making such war upon the physical energies. His cheeks were pale and sunken; his eyes had an unnatural brightness about them, and, to look upon his lips, one would think they had never parted in a smile for many a day, so sadly were they compressed together. He seemed ever to be watching likewise for something fearful, and even as he walked the streets he would frequently turn and look inquiringly around him with a shudder; and in his brief interview with Colonel Jeffery and his friend the captain, we can have a tolerably good comprehension of the state of his mind. Oppressed with fears, and all sorts of dreadful thoughts, panting to give utterance to what he knew and to what he suspected, yet terrified into silence for his mother's sake, we cannot but view him as signally entitled to the sympathy of the reader, and as, in all respects, one sincerely to be pitied for the cruel circumstances in which he was placed. The sun is shining brightly, and even that busy region of trade and commerce, Fleetstreet, is looking gay and beautiful; but not for that poor spiritstricken lad are any of the sights and sounds which used to make up the delight of his existence, reaching his eyes or ears now with their accustomed force. He sits moody and alone, and in the position which he always assumes when Sweeney Todd is from homethat is to say, with his head resting on his hands, and looking the picture of melancholy abstraction. "What shall I do?" he said to himself, "what will become of me? I think if I live here any longer, I shall go out of my senses. Sweeney Todd is a murdererI am quite certain of it, and I wish to say so, but I dare not for my mother's sake. Alas! alas! the end of it will be, that he will kill me, or that I shall go out of my senses, and then I shall die in some madhouse, and no one will care what I say." The boy wept bitterly after he had uttered these melancholy reflections, and he felt his tears something of a relief to him, so that he looked up after a little time, and glanced around him. "What a strange thing," he said, "that people should come into this shop, to my certain knowledge, who never go out of it again, and yet what becomes of them I cannot tell." He looked with a shuddering anxiety towards the parlour, the door of which Sweeney Todd took care to lock always when he left the place, and he thought that he should like much to have a thorough examination of that room. "I have been in it," he said, "and it seems full of cupboards and strange holes and corners, such as I never saw before, and there is an odd stench in it that I cannot make out at all; but it's out of the question thinking of ever being in it above a few minutes at a time, for Sweeney Todd takes good care of that." The boy rose, and opened a small cupboard that was in the shop. It was perfectly empty. "Now, that's strange," he said, "there was a walkingstick with an ivory top to it here just before he went out, and I could swear it belonged to a man who came in to be shaved. More than onceah! and more than twice, too, when I have come in suddenly, I have seen people's hats, and Sweeney Todd would try and make me believe that people go away after being shaved, and leave their hats behind them." He walked up to the shaving chair as it was called, which was a large, oldfashioned piece of furniture, made of oak, and carved; and, as the boy threw himself into it, he said "What an odd thing it is that this chair is screwed so tight to the floor! Here is a complete fixture, and Sweeney Todd says it is so because it's in the best possible light, and if he were not to make it fast in such a way, the customers would shift it about from place to place, so that he could not conveniently shave them; it may be true, but I don't know." "And you have your doubts," said the voice of Sweeney Todd, as that individual, with a noiseless step, walked into the shop"you have your doubts, Tobias? I shall have to cut your throat, that is quite clear." Tobias Alarmed At The Mysterious Appearance Of Todd. Tobias Alarmed At The Mysterious Appearance Of Todd. "No, no, have mercy upon me; I did not mean what I said." "Then it's uncommonly imprudent to say it, Tobias. Do you remember our last conversation? Do you remember that I can hang your mother when I please, because, if you do not, I beg to put you in mind of that pleasant little circumstance?" "I cannot forgetI do not forget." "'Tis well; and mark me, I will not have you assume such an aspect as you wear when I am not here. You don't look cheerful, Tobias; and, notwithstanding your excellent situation, with little to do, and the number of Lovett's pies you eat, you fall away." "I cannot help it," said Tobias, "since you told me what you did concerning my mother. I have been so anxious that I cannot help" "Why should you be anxious? Her preservation depends upon yourself, and upon yourself wholly. You have but to keep silent, and she is safe; but if you utter one word that shall be displeasing to me about my affairs, mark me, Tobias, she comes to the scaffold; and if I cannot conveniently place you in the same madhouse where the last boy I had was placed, I shall certainly be under the troublesome necessity of cutting your throat." "I will be silentI will say nothing, Mr. Todd. I know I shall die soon, and then you will get rid of me altogether, and I don't care how soon that may be, for I am quite weary of my lifeI shall be glad when it is over." "Very good," said the barber; "that's all a matter of taste. And now, Tobias, I desire that you look cheerful and smile, for a gentleman is outside feeling his chin with his hand, and thinking he may as well come in and be shaved. I may want you, Tobias, to go to Billingsgate, and bring me a pennyworth of shrimps." "Yes," thought Tobias, with a groan"yes, while you murder him." CHAPTER XV. THE SECOND INTERVIEW BETWEEN JOHANNA AND THE COLONEL IN THE TEMPLE GARDENS. Now that there was a great object to gain by a second interview with Colonel Jeffery, the anxiety of Johanna Oakley to have it became extremely great, and she counted the very hours until the period should arrive when she could again proceed to the Templegardens with something like a certainty of finding him. The object, of course, was to ask him for a description of Mr. Thornhill, sufficiently accurate to enable her to come to something like a positive conclusion as to whether she ought to call him to her own mind as Mark Ingestrie or not. And Colonel Jeffery was not a bit the less anxious to see her than she was to look upon him; for although in divers lands he had looked upon many a fair face, and heard many a voice that had sounded soft and musical in his ears, he had seen none that, to his mind, was so fair, and had heard no voice that he had considered really so musical and charming to listen to, as Johanna Oakley's. A man of more honourable and strict sense of honour than Colonel Jeffery could not have been found, and, therefore, it was that he allowed himself to admire the beautiful under any circumstances, because he knew that his admiration was of no dangerous quality, but that, on the contrary, it was one of those feelings which might exist in a bosom such as his, quite undebased by a meaner influence. We think it necessary, however, before he has his second meeting with Johanna Oakley, to give such an explanation of his thoughts and feelings as it is in our power. When first he met her, the purity of her mind, and the genuine and beautiful candour of all she said, struck him most forcibly, as well as her great beauty, which could not fail to be extremely manifest. After that he began to reason with himself as to what ought to be his feelings with regard to hernamely, what portion of these ought to be suppressed, and what ought to be encouraged. If Mark Ingestrie were dead, there was not a shadow of interference or dishonour in him, Colonel Jeffery, loving the beautiful girl, who was surely not to be shut out of the pale of all affection because the first person to whom her heart had warmed with a pure and holy passion, was no more. "It may be," he thought, "that she is incapable of feeling a sentiment which can at all approach that which once she has felt; but still she may be happy and serene, and may pass many joyous hours as the wife of another." He did not positively make these reflections as applicable to himself, although they had a tendency that way, and he was fast verging to a state of mind which might induce him to give them a more actual application. He did not tell himself that he loved herno, the word "admiration" took the place of the more powerful term; but then, can we not doubt that, at this time, the germ of a very pure and holy affection was lighted up in the heart of Colonel Jeffery for the beautiful creature who suffered the pangs of so much disappointment, and who loved one so well, who, we almost fear, if he were living, was scarcely the sort of person fully to requite such an affection. But we know so little of Mark Ingestrie, and there appears to be so much doubt as to whether he be alive or dead, that we should not prejudge him upon such very insufficient evidence. Johanna Oakley did think of taking Arabella Wilmot with her to this meeting with Colonel Jeffery, but she abandoned the idea, because it really looked as if she was either afraid of him or afraid of herself, so she resolved to go alone; and when the hour of appointment came, she was then walking upon that broad gravelled path, which has been trodden by some of the best, and some of the most eminent, as well as some of the worst of human beings. It was not likely that with the feelings of Colonel Jeffery towards her, he would keep her waiting. Indeed, he was then a good hour before the time, and his only great dread was, that she might not come. He had some reason for this dread, because it will be readily recollected by the reader, that she had not positively promised to come; so that all he had was a hope that way tending and nothing further. As minute after minute had passed away, she came not, although the time had not yet really arrived; his apprehension that she would not give him the meeting had grown in his mind almost to a certainty, when he saw her timidly advancing along the garden walk. He rose to meet her at once, and for a few moments after he had greeted her with kind civility she could do nothing but look inquiringly in his face, to know if he had any news to tell her of the object of her anxious solicitude. "I have heard nothing, Miss Oakley," he said, "that can give you any satisfaction concerning the fate of Mr. Thornhill, but we have much suspicionI say we, because I have taken a friend into my confidencethat something serious must have happened to him, and that the barber, Sweeney Todd, in Fleetstreet, at whose door the dog so mysteriously took his post, knows something of that circumstance, be it what it may." He led her to a seat as she spoke, and when she had recovered sufficiently the agitation of her feelings to speak, she said in a timid, hesitating voice "Had Mr. Thornhill fair hair, and large, clear, grey eyes?" "Yes, he had such; and, I think, his smile was the most singularly beautiful I ever beheld in a man." "Heaven help me!" said Johanna. "Have you any reason for asking that question concerning Thornhill?" "God grant I had not; but, alas! I have indeed. I feel that in Thornhill, I must recognise Mark Ingestrie himself." "You astonish me." "It must be so, it must be so; you have described him to me, and I cannot doubt it; Mark Ingestrie and Thornhill are one! I knew that he was going to change his name, when he went out upon that wild adventure to the Indian Sea. I was well aware of that fact." "I cannot think, Miss Oakley, that you are correct in that supposition. There are many things which induce me to think otherwise; and the first and foremost of them is, that the ingenuous character of Mr. Thornhill forbids the likelihood of such a thing occurring. You may depend it is notcannot be, as you suppose." "The proofs are too strong for me, and I find I dare not doubt them. It is so, Colonel Jeffery, as time, perchance, may show; it is sad, very sad, to think that it is so, but I dare not doubt it, now that you have described him to me exactly as he lived." "I must own, that in giving an opinion on such a point to you, I may be accused of arrogance and presumption, for I have had no description of Mark Ingestrie, and never saw him; and although you never saw certainly Mr. Thornhill, yet I have described him to you, and therefore you are able to judge from that description something of him." "I am indeed, and I cannotdare not doubt. It is horrible to be positive on this point to me, because I do fear with you that something dreadful has occurred, and that the barber in Fleetstreet could unravel a frightful secret, if he chose, connected with Mark Ingestrie's fate." "I do sincerely hope from my heart that you are wrong; I hope it, because I tell you frankly, dim and obscure as the hope that Mark Ingestrie may have been picked up from the wreck of his vessel, it is yet stronger than the supposition that Thornhill has escaped the murderous hands of Sweeney Todd, the barber." Johanna looked in his face so imploringly, and with such an expression of hopelessness, that it was most sad indeed to see her, and quite involuntarily he exclaimed "If the sacrifice of my life would be to you a relief, and save you from the pangs you suffer, believe me, it should be made." She started as she said "No, no Heaven knows enough has been sacrificed alreadymore than enough, much more than enough. But do not suppose that I am ungrateful for the generous interest you have taken in me. Do not suppose that I think any the less of the generosity and nobility of soul that would offer a sacrifice, because it is one that I would hesitate to accept. No, believe me, Colonel Jeffery, that among the few names that are enrolled in my breastand such to me will ever be honouredremember yours will be found while I live, but that will not be longbut that will not be long." "Nay, do not speak so despairingly." "Have I not cause for despair?" "Cause have you for great grief, but yet scarcely for despair. You are young yet, and let me entertain a hope that even if a feeling of regret may mingle with your future thoughts, time will achieve something in tempering your sorrow; and if not great happiness, you may know yet great serenity." "I dare not hope it, but I know your words are kindly spoken, and most kindly meant." "You may well assure yourself that they are so." "I will ascertain his fate, or perish." "You alarm me by those words, as well as by your manner of uttering them. Let me implore you, Miss Oakley, to attempt nothing rash; remember how weak and inefficient must be the exertions of a young girl like yourself, one who knows so little of the world, and can really understand so little of its wickedness." "Affection conquers all obstacles, and the weakest and most inefficient girl that ever stepped, if she have strong within her that love which, in all its sacred intensity, knows no fear, shall indeed accomplish much. I feel that, in such a cause, I could shake off all girlish terrors and ordinary alarms; and if there be danger, I would ask, what is life to me without all that could adorn it and make it beautiful?" "This, indeed, is the very enthusiasm of affection, when, believe me, it will lead you to some excessto some romantic exercise of feeling, such as will bring great danger in its train, to the unhappiness of those who love you." "Those who love mewho is there to love me now?" "Johanna Oakley, I dare not and will not utter words that come thronging to my lips, but which I fear might be unwelcome to your ears; I will not say that I can answer the question that you have asked, because it would sound ungenerous at such a time as this, when you have met me to talk about the fate of another. Oh! forgive me, that, hurried away by the feeling of a moment, I have uttered these words, for I meant not to utter them." Johanna looked at him in silence, and it might be that there was the slightest possible tinge of reproach in her look, but it was very slight, for one glance at that ingenuous countenance would be sufficient to convince the most sceptical of the truth and singlemindedness of its owner of this there could be no doubt whatever, and if anything in the shape of a reproach was upon the point of coming from her lips, she forbore to utter it. "May I hope," he added, "that I have not lowered myself in your esteem, Miss Oakley, by what I have said?" "I hope," she said gently, "that you will continue to be my friend." He laid an emphasis on the word "friend," and he fully understood what she meant to imply thereby, and after a moment's pause said "Heaven forbid that ever, by word or by action, Johanna, I should do aught to deprive myself of that privilege. Let me be yet your friend, since" He left the sentence unfinished, but if he had added the words"Since I can do no more," he could not have made it more evident to Johanna that those were the words he intended to utter. "And now," he added, "that I hope and trust we understand each other better than we did, and you are willing to call me by the name of friend, let me once more ask of you, by the privilege of such a title, to be careful of yourself, and not to risk much in order that you may, perhaps, have some remote chance of achieving very little." "But can I endure this dreadful suspense?" "It is, alas! too common an infliction on human nature, Johanna. Pardon me for addressing you as Johanna." "Nay, it requires no excuse. I am accustomed so to be addressed by all who feel a kindly interest for me. Call me Johanna if you will, and I shall feel a greater assurance of your friendship and your esteem." "I will then avail myself of that permission, and again and again I will entreat you to leave to me the task of making what attempts may be made to discover the fate of Mr. Thornhill. There must be danger even in inquiring for him, if he has met with any foul play, and therefore I ask you to let that danger be mine." Johanna asked herself if she should or not tell him of the scheme of operations that had been suggested by Arabella Wilmot, but, somehow or another, she shrank most wonderfully from so doing, both on account of the censure which she concluded he would be likely to cast upon it, and the romantic, strange nature of the plan itself, so she said, gently and quickly "I will attempt nothing that shall not have some possibility of success attending it. I will be careful, you may depend, for many considerations. My father, I know, centres all his affections in me, and for his sake I will be careful." "I shall be content then, and now may I hope that this day week I may see you here again, in order that I may tell you if I have made any discovery, and that you may tell me the same; for my interest in Thornhill is that of a sincere friend, to say nothing of the deep interest in your happiness which I feel, and which now has become an element in the transaction of the highest value?" "I will come," said Johanna, "if I can come." "You do not doubt?" "No, no. I will come, and I hope to bring you some news of him in whom you are so much interested. It shall be no fault of mine if I come not." He walked with her from the gardens, and together they passed the shop of Sweeney Todd, but the door was close shut, and they saw nothing of the barber, or of that poor boy, his apprentice, who was so much to be pitied. He parted with Johanna near to her father's house, and he walked slowly away with his mind so fully impressed with the excellence and beauty of the spectaclemaker's daughter, that it was quite clear, as long as he lived, he would not be able to rid himself of the favourable impression she had made upon him. "I love her," he said; "I love her, but she seems in no respect willing to enchain her affections. Alas! alas! how sad it is for me, that the being who above all others I could wish to call my own, instead of a joy to me, I have only encountered that she might impart a pang to my heart. Beautiful and excellent Johanna, I love you, but I can see that your own affections are withered for ever." CHAPTER XVI. THE BARBER MAKES ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO SELL THE STRING OF PEARLS. It would seem as if Sweeney Todd, after his adventure in already trying to dispose of the string of pearls which he possessed, began to feel little doubtful about his chances of success in that matter, for he waited patiently for a considerable period before he again made the attempt, and then he made it after a totally different fashion. Towards the close of night on that same evening when Johanna Oakley had met Colonel Jeffery, for the second time, in the Temple Garden, and while Tobias sat alone in the shop in his usual deep dejection, a stranger entered the place, with a large blue bag in his hand, and looked inquiringly about him. "Hilloa, my lad!" said he, "is this Mr. Todd's?" "Yes," said Tobias; "but he is not at home. What do you want?" "Well, I'll be hanged," said the man, "if this don't beat everything; you don't mean to tell me he is a barber, do you?" "Indeed I do; don't you see?" "Yes, I see to be sure; but I'll be shot if I thought of it beforehand. What do you think he has been doing?" "Doing," said Tobias, with animation; "do you think he will be hung?" "Why, no, I don't say it is a hanging matter, although you seem as if you wished it was; but I'll just tell you now we are artists at the westend of the town." "Artists! Do you mean to say you draw pictures?" "No, no, we make clothes; but we call ourselves artists now, because tailors are out of fashion." "Oh, that's it, is it?" "Yes, that's it; and you would scarcely believe it, but he came to our shop actually, and ordered a suit of clothes, which were to come to no less a sum than thirty pounds, and told us to make them up in such a style that they were to do for any nobleman, and he gave his name and address, as Mr. Todd, at this number in Fleetstreet, but I hadn't the least idea that he was a barber; if I had, I am quite certain the clothes would not have been finished in the style they are, but quite the reverse." "Well," said Tobias, "I can't think what he wants such clothing for, but I suppose it's all right. Was he a tall, uglylooking fellow?" "As ugly as the very devil. I'll just show you the things, as he is not at home. The coat is of the finest velvet, lined with silk, and trimmed with lace. Did you ever, in all your life, see such a coat for a barber?" "Indeed, I never did; but it is some scheme of his, of course. It is a superb coat." "Yes, and all the rest of the dress is of the same style; what on earth he can be going to do with it I can't think, for it's only fit to go to court in." "Oh, well, I know nothing about it," said Tobias, with a sigh, "you can leave it or not as you like, it is all one to me." "Well, you do seem the most melancholy wretch ever I came near; what's the matter with you?" "The matter with me? Oh, nothing. Of course, I am as happy as I can be. Ain't I Sweeney Todd's apprentice, and ain't that enough to make anybody sing all day long?" "It may be for all I know, but certainly you don't seem to be in a singing humour; but, however, we artists cannot waste our time, so just be so good as to take care of the clothes, and be sure you give them to your master; and so I wash my hands of the transaction." "Very good, he shall have them; but do you mean to leave such valuable clothes without getting the money for them?" "Not exactly, for they are paid for." "Oh! that makes all the differencehe shall have them." Scarcely had this tailor left the place, when a boy arrived with a parcel, and, looking around him with undisguised astonishment, said "Isn't there some other Mr. Todd, in Fleetstreet?" "Not that I know of," said Tobias. "What have you got there?" "Silk stockings, gloves, lace, cravats, ruffles, and so on." "The deuce you have; I dare say it's all right." "I shall leave themthey are paid for. This is the name, and this is the number.
" "Now, stupid!" This last exclamation arose from the fact that this boy, in going out, ran up against another who was coming in. "Can't you see where you are going?" said the new arrival. "What's that to you? I have a good mind to punch your head." "Do it, and then come down our court, and see what a licking I'll give you." "Will you? Why don't you? Only let me catch you, that's all." They stood for some moments so closely together that their noses very nearly touched; and then, after mutual assertions of what they would do if they caught each otheralthough, in either case, to stretch out an arm would have been quite sufficient to have accomplished that objectthey separated, and the last comer said to Tobias, in a tone of irritation, probably consequent upon the misunderstanding he had just had with the hosier's boy "You can tell Mr. Todd that the carriage will be ready at halfpast seven precisely." And then he went away, leaving Tobias in a state of great bewilderment as to what Sweeney Todd could possibly be about to do with such an amount of finery as that which was evidently coming home for him. "I can't make it out," he said. "It's some villany, of course, but I can't make out what it isI wish I knew; I might thwart him in it. He is a villain, and neither could nor would project anything good; but what can I do? I am quite helpless in this, and will just let it take its course. I can only wish for a power of action I shall never possess. Alas, alas! I am very sad, and know not what will become of me. I wish that I was in my grave, and there I am sure I shall be soon, unless something happens to turn the tide of all this wretched evil fortune that has come upon me." It was in vain for Tobias to think of vexing himself with conjectures as to what Sweeney Todd was about to do with so much finery, for he had not the remotest foundation to go upon in the matter, and could not for the life of him imagine any possible contingency or chance which should make it necessary for the barber to deck himself in such gaudy apparel. All he could do was to lay down in his own mind a general principle as regarded Sweeney Todd's conduct, and that consisted in the fact, that whatever might be his plans, and whatever might be his objects, they were for no good purpose; but, on the contrary, were most certainly intended for the accomplishment of some great evil which that most villanous person intended to perpetrate. "I will observe all I can," thought Tobias to himself, "and do what I can to put a stop to his mischiefs; but I fear it will be very little he will allow me to observe, and perhaps still less that he will allow me to do; but I can but try, and do my best." Poor Tobias's best, as regarded achieving anything against Sweeney Todd, we may well suppose would be little indeed, for that individual was not the man to give anybody an opportunity of doing much; and, possessed as he was of the most consummate art, as well as the greatest possible amount of unscrupulousness, there can be very little doubt but that any attempt poor Tobias might make would recoil upon himself. In about half an hour the barber returned, and his first question was "Have any things been left for me?" "Yes, sir," said Tobias, "here are two parcels, and a boy has been to say that the carriage will be ready at halfpast seven precisely." "'Tis well," said the barber, "that will do; and Tobias, you will be careful, whilst I am gone, of the shop. I shall be back in half an hour, mind you, and not later; and be sure that I find you here at your post. But you may say, if any one comes here on business, there will be neither shaving nor dressing tonight. You understand me?" "Yes, sir, certainly." Sweeney Todd then took the bundles which contained the costly apparel, and retired into the parlour with them; and, as it was then seven o'clock, Tobias correctly enough supposed that he had gone to dress himself, and he waited with a considerable amount of curiosity to see what sort of an appearance the barber would cut in his fine apparel. Tobias had not to control his impatience long, for in less than twenty minutes, out came Sweeney Todd, attired in the very height of fashion for the period. His waistcoat was something positively gorgeous, and his fingers were loaded with such costly rings, that they quite dazzled the sight of Tobias to look upon; then, moreover, he wore a sword with a jewelled hilt, but it was one which Tobias really thought he had seen before, for he had a recollection that a gentleman had come to have his hair dressed, and had taken it off, and laid just such a sword across his hat during the operation. "Remember," said Sweeney Todd, "remember your instructions; obey them to the letter, and no doubt you will ultimately become happy and independent." With these words, Sweeney Todd left the place, and poor Tobias looked after him with a frown, as he repeated the words "Happy and independent. Alas! what a mockery it is of this man to speak to me in such a wayI only wish that I were dead!" But we will leave Tobias to his own reflections, and follow the more interesting progress of Sweeney Todd, who, for some reason best known to himself, was then playing so grand a part, and casting away so large a sum of money. He made his way to a liverystables in the immediate neighbourhood, and there, sure enough, the horses were being placed to a handsome carriage; and all being very soon in readiness, Sweeney Todd gave some whispered directions to the driver, and the vehicle started off westward. At that time Hyde Park Corner was very nearly out of town, and it looked as if you were getting a glimpse of the country, and actually seeing something of the peasantry of England, when you got another couple of miles off, and that was the direction in which Sweeney Todd went; and as he goes, we may as well introduce to the reader the sort of individual whom he was going to visit in so much state, and for whom he thought it necessary to go to such great expense. At that period the follies and vices of the nobility were somewhere about as great as they are now, and consequently extravagance induced on many occasions tremendous sacrifice of money, and it was found extremely convenient on many occasions for them to apply to a man of the name of John Mundel, an exceedingly wealthy person, a Dutchman by extraction, who was reported to make immense sums of money by lending to the nobility and others what they required on emergencies, at enormous rates of interest. But it must not be supposed that John Mundel was so confiding as to lend his money without security. It was quite the reverse, for he took care to have the jewels, some costly plate, or the titledeeds of an estate, perchance, as security, before he would part with a single shilling of his cash. In point of fact, John Mundel was nothing more than a pawnbroker on a very extensive scale, and, although he had an office in town, he usually received his more aristocratic customers at his private residence, which was about two miles off, on the Uxbridge Road. After this explanation, it can very easily be imagined what was the scheme of Sweeney Todd, and that he considered, if he borrowed from John Mundel a sum equal in amount to half the real value of the pearls, he should be well rid of a property which he certainly could not sufficiently well account for the possession of, to enable him to dispose of it openly to the highest bidder. We give Sweeney Todd great credit for the scheme he proposed. It was eminently calculated to succeed, and one which, in the way he undertook it, was certainly set about in the best possible style. During the ride, he revolved in his mind exactly what he should say to John Mundel, and, from what we know of him, we may be well convinced that Sweeney Todd was not likely to fail from any amount of bashfulness in the transaction; but that, on the contrary, he was just the man to succeed in any scheme which required great assurance to carry it through; for he was most certainly master of great assurance, and possessed of a kind of diplomatic skill, which, had fortune placed him in a more elevated position of life, would no doubt have made a great man of him, and gained him great political reputation. John Mundel's villa, which was called, by the by, Mundel House, was a large, handsome, and modern structure, surrounded by a few acres of pleasuregardens, which, however, the moneylender never looked at, for his whole soul was too much engrossed by his love for cash to enable him to do so; and, if he derived any satisfaction at all from it, that satisfaction must have been entirely owing to the fact, that he had wrung mansion, grounds, and all the costly furnishing of the former, from an improvident debtor, who had been forced to fly the country, and leave his property wholly in the hands of the moneylender and usurer. It was but a short drive with the really handsome horses that Sweeney Todd had succeeded in hiring for the occasion, and he soon found himself opposite the entrance gates of the residence of John Mundel. His great object now was that the usurer should see the equipage which he had brought down; and he accordingly desired the footman who accompanied him at once to ring the bell at the entrancegate, and to say that a gentleman was waiting in his carriage to see Mr. Mundel. This was done; and when the moneylender's servant reported to him that the equipage was a costly one, and that, in his opinion, the visitor must be some nobleman of great rank, John Mundel made no difficulty about the matter, but walked down to the gate at once, where he immediately mentally subscribed to the opinion of his servant, by admitting to himself that the equipage was faultless, and presumed at once that it did belong to some person of great rank. He was proportionally humble, as such men always are, and, advancing to the side of the carriage, he begged to know what commands his lordshipfor so he called him at oncehad for him? The Barber Acts The Duke To Pawn The Pearls. The Barber Acts The Duke To Pawn The Pearls. "I wish to know," said Sweeney Todd, "Mr. Mundel, if you are inclined to lay under an obligation a rather illustrious lady, by helping her out of a little pecuniary difficulty?" John Mundel glanced again at the equipage, and he likewise saw something of the rich dress of his visitor, who had not disputed the title which had been applied to him, of lord; and he made up his mind accordingly that it was just one of the transactions that would suit him, provided the security that would be offered was of a tangible nature. That was the only point upon which John Mundel had the remotest doubt, but, at all events, he urgently pressed his visitor to alight and walk in. CHAPTER XIV. THE GREAT CHANGE IN THE PROSPECTS OF SWEENEY TODD. As Sweeney Todd's object, so far as regarded the moneylender having seen the carriage, was fully answered, he had no objection to enter the house, which he accordingly did at once, being preceded by John Mundel, who became each moment more and more impressed with the fact, as he considered it, that his guest was some person of very great rank and importance in society. He ushered him into a splendidlyfurnished apartment, and after offering him refreshments, which Sweeney Todd politely declined, he waited with no small degree of impatience for his visitor to be more explicit with regard to the object of his visit. "I should," said Sweeney Todd, "have myself accommodated the illustrious lady with the sum of money she requires, but as I could not do so without incumbering some estates, she positively forbade me to think of it." "Certainly," said Mr. Mundel, "she is a very illustrious lady, I presume?" "Very illustrious indeed, but it must be a condition of this transaction, if you at all enter into it, that you are not to inquire precisely who she is, nor are you to inquire precisely who I am." "It's not my usual way of conducting business, but if everything else be satisfactory, I shall not cavil at that." "Very good; by everything else being satisfactory, I presume you mean the security offered?" "Why, yes, that is of great importance, my lord." "I informed the illustrious lady, that, as the affair was to be wrapped up in something of a mystery, the security must be extremely ample." "That's a very proper view to take of the matter, my lord. I wonder," thought John Mundel, "if he is a duke; I'll call him 'your grace' next time, and see if he objects to it." "Therefore," continued Sweeney Todd, "the illustrious lady placed in my hands security to a third greater amount than she required." "Certainly, certainly, a very proper arrangement, your grace; may I ask the nature of the proffered security?" "Jewels." "Highly satisfactory and unexceptionable security; they go into a small space, and do not deteriorate in value." "And if they do," said the barber, "deteriorate in value, it would make no difference to you, for the illustrious person's honour would be committed to your redemption." "I don't doubt that, your grace, in the least; I merely made the remark incidentally, quite incidentally." "Of course, of course; and I trust, before going further, that you are quite in a position to enter into this subject." "Certainly I am, and, I am proud to say, to any amount. Show me the money's worth, your grace, and I will show you the moneythat's my way of doing business; and no one can say that John Mundel ever shrunk from a matter that was brought fairly before him, and that he considered worth his going into." "It was by hearing such a character of you that I was induced to come to you. What do you think of that?" Sweeney Todd took from his pocket, with a careless air, the string of pearls, and cast them down before the eyes of the moneylender, who took them up and ran them rapidly through his fingers for a few seconds before he said "I thought there was but one string like this in the kingdom, and those belonged to the Queen." "Well," said Sweeney Todd. "I humbly beg your grace's pardon. How much money does your grace require on these pearls?" "Twelve thousand pounds is their current value, if a sale of them was enforced; eight thousand pounds are required of you on their security." "Eight thousand is a large sum. As a general thing I lend but half the value upon anything; but in this case, to oblige your grace and the illustrious personage, I do not, of course, hesitate for one moment but shall for one month lend you the required amount." "That will do," said Sweeney Todd, scarcely concealing the exultation he felt at getting so much more from John Mundel than he expected, and which he certainly would not have got if the moneylender had not been most fully and completely impressed with the idea that the pearls belonged to the Queen, and that he had actually at length majesty itself for a customer. He did not suppose for one moment that it was the queen who wanted the money; but his view of the case was, that she had lent the pearls to this nobleman to meet some exigency of his own, and that, of course, they would be redeemed very shortly. Altogether a more pleasant transaction for John Mundel could not have been imagined. It was just the sort of thing he would have looked out for, and had the greatest satisfaction in bringing to a conclusion, and he considered it was opening the door to the highest class of business in his way that he was capable of doing. "In what name, your grace," he said, "shall I draw a cheque upon my banker?" "In the name of Colonel George." "Certainly, certainly; and if your grace will give me an acknowledgment for eight thousand pounds, and please to understand that at the end of a month from this time the transaction will be renewed if necessary, I will give you a cheque for seven thousand five hundred pounds." "Why seven thousand five hundred only, when you mentioned eight thousand pounds?" "The five hundred pounds is my little commission upon the transaction. Your grace will perceive that I appreciate highly the honour of your grace's custom, and consequently charge the lowest possible price. I can assure your grace I could get more for my money by a great deal, but the pleasure of being able to meet your grace's views is so great, that I am willing to make a sacrifice, and therefore it is that I say five hundred, when I really ought to say one thousand pounds, taking into consideration the great scarcity of money at the present juncture; and I can assure your grace that" "Peace, peace," said Sweeney Todd; "and if it be not convenient to redeem the jewels at the end of a month from this time, you will hear from me most assuredly." "I am quite satisfied of that," said John Mundel, and he accordingly drew a cheque for seven thousand five hundred pounds, which he handed to Sweeney Todd, who put it in his pocket, not a little delighted that at last he had got rid of his pearls, even at a price so far beneath their real value. "I need scarcely urge upon you, Mr. Mundel," he said, "the propriety of keeping this affair profoundly secret." "Indeed you need not, your grace, for it is part of my business to be discreet and cautious. I should very soon have nothing to do in my line, your grace may depend, if I were to talk about it. No, this transaction will for ever remain locked up in my own breast, and no living soul but your grace and I need know what has occurred." With this, John Mundel showed Sweeney Todd to his carriage, with abundance of respect, and in two minutes more he was travelling along towards town with what might be considered a small fortune in his pocket. We should have noticed earlier that Sweeney Todd had, upon the occasion of his going to sell the pearls to the lapidary, in the city, made some great alterations in his appearance, so that it was not likely he should be recognised again to a positive certainly. For examplehaving no whiskers whatever of his own, he had put on a large black pair of false ones, as well as moustachios, and he had given some colour to his cheeks likewise which had so completely altered his appearance, that those who were most intimate with him would not have known him except by his voice, and that he took good care to alter in his intercourse with John Mundel, so that it should not become a future means of detection. "I thought that this would succeed," he muttered to himself, as he went towards town, "and I have not been deceived. For three months longer, and only three, I will carry on the business in Fleetstreet, so that any sudden alteration in my fortunes may not give rise to suspicion." He was then silent for some minutes, during which he appeared to be revolving some very knotty question in his brain, and then he said, suddenly "Well, well, as regards Tobias, I think it will be safer, unquestionably, to put him out of the way by taking his life, than to try to dispose of him in a madhouse, and I think there are one or two more persons whom it will be highly necessary to prevent being mischievous, at all events at present. I must thinkI must think." When such a man as Sweeney Todd set about thinking, there could be no possible doubt but that some serious mischief was meditated, and any one who could have watched his face during that ride home from the moneylender's, would have seen by its expression that the thoughts which agitated him were of a dark and desperate character, and such as anybody but himself would have shrunk from aghast. But he was not a man to shrink from anything, and, on the contrary, the more a set of circumstances presented themselves in a gloomy and a terrific aspect, the better they seemed to suit him, and the peculiar constitution of his mind. There can be no doubt but that the love of money was the predominant feeling in Sweeney Todd's intellectual organization, and that, by the amount it would bring him, or the amount it would deprive him of, he measured everything. With such a man, then, no question of morality or ordinary feeling could arise, and there can be no doubt that he would quite willingly have sacrificed the whole human race, if, by so doing, he could have achieved any of the objects of his ambition. And so, on his road homeward, he probably made up his mind to plunge still deeper into criminality, and perchance to indulge in acts that a man not already so deeply versed in iniquity would have shrunk from with the most positive terror. And by a strange style of reasoning, such men as Sweeney Todd reconcile themselves to the most heinous crimes upon the ground of what they call policy. That is to say, that having committed some serious offence, they are compelled to commit a great number more for the purpose of endeavouring to avoid the consequences of the first lot, and hence the continuance of criminality becomes a matter necessary to selfdefence, and an essential ingredient in their consideration of selfpreservation. Probably Sweeney Todd had been for the greater part of his life, aiming at the possession of extensive pecuniary resources, and, no doubt, by the aid of a superior intellect, and a mind full of craft and design, he had managed to make others subservient to his views; and now that those views were answered, and that his underlings and accomplices were no longer required, they became positively dangerous. He was well aware of that coldblooded policy which teaches that it is far safer to destroy than to cast away the tools by which a man carves his way to power and fortune. "They shall die," said Sweeney Todd"dead men tell no tales, nor women nor boys either, and they shall all die; after which there will, I think, be a serious fire in Fleetstreet. Ha! ha! it may spread to what mischief it likes, always provided it stops not short of the entire destruction of my house and premises. Rare sportrare sport will it be to me, for then I will at once commence a new career, in which the barber will be forgotten, and the man of fashion only seen and remembered, for with this sad addition to my means, I am fully capable of vying with the highest and the noblest, let them be whom they may." This seemed a pleasant train of reflections to Sweeney Todd, and as the coach entered Fleetstreet, there sat such a grim smile upon his countenance that he looked like some fiend in human shape, who had just completed the destruction of a human soul. When he reached the livery stables to which he directed them to drive, instead of his own shop, he rewarded all who had gone with him most liberally, so that the coachman and footman, who were both servants out of place, would have had no objection for Sweeney Todd every day to have gone on some such an expedition, so that they should receive as liberal wages for the small part they enacted in it as they did upon that occasion. He then walked from the stables toward his own house, but upon reaching there a little disappointment awaited him, for he found to his surprise that no light was burning; and when he placed his hand upon the shopdoor, it opened, but there was no trace of Tobias, although he, Sweeney Todd, called loudly upon him the moment he set foot within the shop. Then a feeling of apprehension crept across the barber, and he groped anxiously about for some matches, by the aid of which he hoped to procure a light, and then an explanation of the mysterious absence of Tobias. But in order that we may, in its proper form, relate how it was that Tobias had had the daring thus, in open contradiction of his master, to be away from the shop, we must devote to Tobias a chapter, which will plead his extenuation. CHAPTER XV. TOBIAS'S ADVENTURES DURING THE ABSENCE OF SWEENEY TODD. Tobias guessed, and guessed rightly too, that when Sweeney Todd said he would be away half an hour, he only mentioned that short period of time, in order to keep the lad's vigilance on the alert, and to prevent him from taking any advantage of a more protracted absence. The very style and manner in which he had gone out, precluded the likelihood of it being for so short a period of time; and that circumstance set Tobias seriously thinking over a situation which was becoming more intolerable every day. The lad had the sense to feel that he could not go on much longer as he was going on, and that in a short time such a life would destroy him. "It is beyond endurance," he said, "and I know not what to do; and since Sweeney Todd has told me that the boy he had before went out of his senses, and is now in the cell of a madhouse, I feel that such will be my fate, and that I too shall come to that dreadful end, and then no one will believe a word I utter, but consider everything to be mere raving." After a time, as the darkness increased, he lit the lamp which hung in the shop, and which, until it was closed for the night, usually shed a dim ray from the window. Then he sat down to think again, and he said to himself "If I could now but summon courage to ask my mother about this robbery which Sweeney Todd imputes to her, she might assure me it was false, and that she never did such a deed; but then it is dreadful for me to ask her such a question, because it may be true; and then, how shocking it would be for her to be forced to confess to me, her own son, such a circumstance." These were the honourable feelings which prevented Tobias from questioning his mother as regarded Todd's accusation of heran accusation too dreadful to believe implicitly, and yet sufficiently probable for him to have a strong suspicion that it might be true after all. It is to be deeply regretted that Tobias's philosophy did not carry him a little further, and make him see, the moment the charge was made, that he ought unquestionably to investigate it to the very utmost. But still we could hardly expect, from a mere boy, that acute reasoning and power of action, which depend so much upon the knowledge of the world and an extensive practice in the usages of society. It was sufficient if he felt correctlywe could scarcely expect him to reason so. But upon this occasion, above all others, he seemed completely overcome by the circumstances which surrounded him; and from his excited manner, one might have almost imagined that the insanity he himself predicted at the close of his career was really not far off. He wrung his hands, and he wept, every now and then, in sad speech, bitterly bemoaning his situation, until at length, with a sudden resolution, he sprang to his feet, exclaiming "This night shall end it. I can endure it no more. I will fly from this place, and seek my fortune elsewhere. Any amount of distress, danger, or death itself even, is preferable to the dreadful life I lead." He walked some paces towards the door, and then he paused, as he said to himself in a low tone "Todd will surely not be home yet awhile, and why should I then neglect the only opportunity I may ever have of searching this house to satisfy my mind as regards any of the mysteries that it contains?" He paused over this thought, and considered well its danger, for dangerous indeed it was to no small extent, but he was desperate; and with a resolution that scarcely could have been expected from him, he determined upon taking that step, above all others, which Todd was almost sure to punish with death. He closed the shop door, and bolted it upon the inside, so that he could not be suddenly interrupted, and then he looked round him carefully for some weapon, by the aid of which he should be able to break his way into the parlour, which the barber always kept closed and locked in his absence. A weapon that would answer the purpose of breaking any lock, if he, Tobias, chose to proceed so roughly to work, was close at hand in the iron bar, which, when the place was closed at night, secured a shutter to the door. Wrought up as he was to almost frenzy, Tobias seized this bar, and, advancing towards the parlour door, he with one blow smashed the lock to atoms, and the door yielded. The moment it did so, there was a crash of glass, and when Tobias entered the room he saw that upon its threshold lay a wineglass shattered to atoms, and he felt certain that it had been placed in some artful position by Sweeney Todd as a detector, when he should return, of any attempt that had been made upon the door of the parlour. And now Tobias felt that he was so far committed that he might as well go on with his work, and accordingly he lit a candle, which he found upon the parlour table, and then proceeded to make what discoveries he could. Several of the cupboards in the room yielded at once to his hands, and in them he found nothing remarkable; but there was one that he could not open; so, without a moment's hesitation, he had recourse to the bar of iron again, and broke its lock, when the door swung open,and to his astonishment there tumbled out of this cupboard such a volley of hats of all sorts and descriptions, some looped with silver, some threecornered, and some square, that they formed quite a museum of that article of attire, and excited the greatest surprise in the mind of Tobias, at the same time that they tended very greatly to confirm some other thoughts and feelings which he had concerning Sweeney Todd. This was the only cupboard which was fast, although there was another door which looked as if it opened into one, but when Tobias broke that down with the bar of iron, he found it was the door which led to the staircase conducting to the upper part of the housethat upper part which Sweeney Todd, with all his avarice, would never let, and of which the shutters were kept continually closed, so that the opposite neighbours never caught a glimpse into any of the apartments. With cautious and slow steps, which he adopted instantaneously, although he knew that there was no one in the house but himself, Tobias ascended the staircase. "I will go to the very top rooms first," he said to himself, "and so examine them all as I come down, and then if Todd should return suddenly, I shall have a better chance of hearing him, than as if I began below and went upwards." Acting upon this prudent scheme, he went up to the attics, all the doors of which were swinging open, and there was nothing in any of them whatever. He descended to the second floor with the like result, and a feeling of great disappointment began to creep over him at the thought that, after all, the barber's house might not repay the trouble of examination. But when he reached the first floor he soon found abundant reason to alter his opinion. The doors were fast, and he had to burst them open; and, when he got in, he found that those rooms were partially furnished, and that they contained a great quantity of miscellaneous property of all kinds and descriptions. In one corner was an enormous quantity of walkingsticks, some of which were of a very costly and expensive character, with gold and silver chased tops to them, and in another corner was a great number of umbrellasin fact, at least a hundred of them. Then there were boots and shoes lying upon the floor, partially covered up, as if to keep them from dirt; there were thirty or forty swords of different styles and patterns, many of them appearing to be very firm blades, and in one or two cases the scabbards were richly ornamented. At one end of the front and larger of these two rooms, was an oldfashionedlooking bureau of great size, and with as much woodwork in it as seemed required to make at least a couple of such articles of furniture. This was very securely locked, and presented more difficulties in the way of opening it than any of the doors had done, for the lock was of great strength and apparent durability.
Moreover it was not so easily got at, but at length by using the bar as a sort of lever, instead of as a mere machine to strike with, Tobias succeeded in forcing this bureau open, and then his eyes were perfectly dazzled with the amount of jewellery and trinkets of all kinds and descriptions that were exhibited to his gaze. There was a great number of watches, gold chains, silver and gold snuffboxes, and a large assortment of rings, shoebuckles, and brooches. These articles must have been of great value, and Tobias could not help exclaiming aloud "How could Sweeney Todd come by these articles, except by the murder of their owners?" This, indeed, seemed but too probable a supposition, and the more especially so, as in a further part of this bureau a great quantity of apparel was found by Tobias. He stood with a candle in his hand, looking upon these various objects for more than a quarter of an hour, and then as a sudden and a natural thought came across him of how completely a few of them even would satisfy his wants and his mother's for a long time to come, he stretched forth his hand towards the glittering mass, but he drew it back again with a shudder, saying "Nono, these things are the plunder of the dead. Let Sweeney Todd keep them to himself, and look upon them, if he can, with eyes of enjoyment. I will have none of them; they would bring misfortune along with every guinea that they might be turned into." As he spoke, he heard St. Dunstan's clock strike nine, and he started at the sound, for it let him know that already Sweeney Todd had been away an hour beyond the time he said he would be absent, so that there was a probability of his quick return now, and it would scarcely be safe to linger longer in his house. "I must be goneI must be gone. I should like to look upon my mother's face once more before I leave London for ever perhaps. I may tell her of the danger she is in from Todd's knowledge of her secret; nono, I cannot speak to her of that; I must go, and leave her to those chances which I hope and trust will work favourably for her." Flinging down the iron bar which had done him such good service, Tobias stopped not to close any of those receptacles which contained the plunder that Sweeney Todd had taken most probably from murdered persons, but he rushed down stairs into the parlour again, where the boots that had fallen out of the cupboard still lay upon the floor in wild disorder. It was a strange and sudden whim that took him, rather than a matter of reflection, that induced him, instead of his own hat, to take one of those which were lying so indiscriminately at his feet; and he did so. By mere accident it turned out to be an exceedingly handsome hat, of rich workmanship and material, and then Tobias, feeling terrified lest Sweeney Todd should return before he could leave the place, paid no attention to anything, but turned from the shop, merely pulling the door after him, and then darting over the road towards the Temple like a hunted hare; for his great wish was to see his mother, and then he had an undefined notion that his best plan for escaping the clutches of Sweeney Todd would be to go to sea. In common with all boys of his age, who know nothing whatever of the life of a sailor, it presented itself in the most fascinating colours. A sailor ashore and a sailor afloat, are about as two different things as the world can present; but, to the imagination of Tobias Ragg, a sailor was somebody who was always dancing hornpipes, spending money, and telling wonderful stories. No wonder, then, that the profession presented itself under such fascinating colours to all such persons as Tobias; and as it seemed, and seems still, to be a sort of general understanding that the real condition of a sailor should be mystified in every possible way and shape by both novelist and dramatist, it is no wonder that it requires actual experience to enable those parties who are in the habit of being carried away by just what they hear, to come to a correct conclusion. "I will go to sea!" ejaculated Tobias. "Yes, I will go to sea!" As he spoke these words he passed out of the gate of the Temple leading into Whitefriars, in which ancient vicinity his mother dwelt, endeavouring to eke out a living as best she might. She was very much surprised (for she happened to be at home) at the unexpected visit of her son, Tobias, and uttered a faint scream as she let fall a flatiron very nearly upon his toes. "Mother," he said, "I cannot stay with Sweeney Todd any longer, so do not ask me." "Not stay with such a respectable man?" "A respectable man, mother! Alas, alas, how little you know of him! But what am I saying? I dare not speak! Oh, that fatal, fatal candlestick!" "But how are you to live, and what do you mean by a fatal candlestick?" "Forgive meI did not mean to say that! Farewell, mother! I am going to sea." "To see what, my dear?" said Mrs. Ragg, who was much more difficult to talk to, than even Hamlet's gravedigger. "You don't know how much I am obliged to Sweeney Todd." "Yes, I do, and that's what drives me mad to think of. Farewell, mother, perhaps for ever! If I can, of course I will communicate with you, but now I dare not stay." "Oh! what have you done, Tobiaswhat have you done?" "Nothingnothing! but Sweeney Todd is" "Whatwhat?" "No matterno matter! Nothingnothing! And yet at this last moment I am almost tempted to ask you concerning a candlestick." "Don't mention that," said Mrs. Ragg; "I don't want to hear anything said about it." "It is true, then?" "Yes; but did Mr. Todd tell you?" "He didhe did. I have now asked the question I never thought could have passed my lips. Farewell, mother; for ever farewell!" Tobias rushed out of the place, leaving old Mrs. Ragg astonished at his behaviour, and with a strong suspicion that some accession of insanity had come over him. "The Lord have mercy upon us!" she said, "what shall I do? I am astonished at Mr. Todd telling him about the candlestick; it's true enough, though, for all that. I recollect it as well as though it were yesterday; it was a very hard winter, and I was minding a set of chambers, when Todd came to shave the gentleman, and I saw him with my own eyes put a silver candlestick in his pocket. Then I went over to his shop and reasoned with him about it, and he gave it me back again, and I brought it to the chambers, and laid it down exactly on the spot where he took it from." "To be sure," said Mrs. Ragg, after a pause of a few moments, "to be sure, he has been a very good friend to me ever since, but that I suppose is for fear I should tell, and get him hung or transported. But, however, we must take the good with the bad, and when Tobias comes to think of it, he will go back again to his work, I dare say; for, after all, it's a very foolish thing for him to trouble his head whether Mr. Todd stole a silver candlestick or not." CHAPTER XVI. THE STRANGE ODOUR IN OLD ST. DUNSTAN'S CHURCH. About this time, and while the incidents of our most strange and eventful narrative were taking place, the pious frequenters of old St. Dunstan's church began to perceive a strange and most abominable odour throughout that sacred edifice. It was in vain that old women who came to hear the sermons, although they were too deaf to catch a third part of them, brought smelling bottles and other means of stifling their noses; still that dreadful charnelhouse sort of smell would make itself most painfully and most disagreeably apparent. And the Rev. Joseph Stillingport, who was the regular preacher, smelt it in the pulpit; and had been seen to sneeze in the midst of a most pious discourse indeed, and to hold to his pious mouth a handkerchief, in which was some strong and pungent essence, for the purpose of trying to overcome the horrible effluvia. The organblower and the organplayer were both nearly stifled, for the horrible odour seemed to ascend to the upper part of the church; although those who sat in what may be called the pit, by no means escaped it. The churchwardens looked at each other in their pews with contorted countenances, and were almost afraid to breathe; and the only person who did not complain bitterly of the dreadful odour in St. Dunstan's church, was an old woman who had been a pewopener for many years; but then she had lost the faculties of her nose, which, perhaps, accounted satisfactorily for that circumstance. At length, however, the nuisance became so intolerable, that the beadle, whose duty it was in the morning to open the church doors, used to come up to them with the massive key in one hand, and a cloth soaked in vinegar in the other, just as the people used to do in the time of the great plague of London; and when he had opened the doors, he used to run over to the other side of the way. "Ah, Mr. Blunt!" he used to say to the bookseller, who lived opposite"ah! Mr. Blunt, I is obligated to cut over here, leastways till the atymouspheric air is mixed up all along with the stinkifications which come from the church." By this it will be seen that the beadle was rather a learned man, and no doubt went to some mechanics' institution of those days, where he learned something of everything but what was calculated to be of some service to him. As might be supposed, from the fact that this sort of thing had gone on for a few months, it began to excite some attention with a view to a remedy; for, in the great city of London, a nuisance of any sort or description requires to become venerable by age before any one thinks of removing it; and after that, it is quite clear that that becomes a good argument against removing it at all. But at last, the churchwardens began to have a fear that some pestilential disease would be the result if they for any longer period of time put up with the horrible stench, and that they might be among its first victims, so they began to ask each other what could be done to obviate it. Probably, if this frightful stench, being suggestive, as it was, of all sorts of horrors, had been graciously pleased to confine itself to some poor locality, nothing would have been heard of it; but when it became actually offensive to a gentleman in a metropolitan pulpit, and when it began to make itself perceptible to the sleepy faculties of the churchwardens of St. Dunstan's church, Fleetstreet, so as to prevent them even from dozing through the afternoon sermon, it became a very serious matter indeed. But what was it, what could it be, and what was to be done to get rid of it? These were the anxious questions that were asked right and left, as regarded the serious nuisance, without the fates graciously acceding any reply. But yet one thing seemed to be generally agreed, and that was, that it did come, and must come, somehow or other, out of the vaults from beneath the church. But then, as the pious and hypocritical Mr. Butterwick, who lived opposite, said "How could that be, when it was satisfactorily proved by the present books that nobody had been buried in the vaults for some time, and therefore it was a very odd thing that dead people, after leaving off smelling and being disagreeable, should all of a sudden burst out again in that line, and be twice as bad as ever they were at first." And on Wednesdays sometimes, too, when pious people were not satisfied with the Sunday's devotion, but began again in the middle of the week, that stench was positively terrific. Indeed, so bad was it, that some of the congregation were forced to leave, and have been seen to slink into Bellyard, where Lovett's pieshop was situated, and then and there solace themselves with a pork or a veal pie, in order that their mouths and noses should be full of a delightful and agreeable flavour, instead of one most peculiarly and decidedly the reverse. At last there was a confirmation to be held at St. Dunstan's church, and a great concourse of persons assembled, for a sermon was to be preached by the bishop after the confirmation; and a very great fuss indeed was to be made about really nobody knew exactly what. Preparations, as newspapers say, upon an extensive scale, and regardless of expense, were made for the purpose of adding lustre to the ceremony, and surprising the bishop, when he came, with a good idea that the people who attended St. Dunstan's church were somebodies, and really worth confirming. The confirmation was to take place at twelve o'clock, and the bells ushered in the morning with their most pious tones, for it was not every day that the authorities of St. Dunstan succeeded in catching a bishop, and when they did so, they were determined to make the most of him. And the numerous authorities, including churchwardens, and even the very beadle, were in an uncommon fluster, and running about, and impeding each other, as authorities always do upon public occasions. But, to those who only look to the surface of things, and who came to admire what was grand and magnificent in the preparations, the beadle certainly carried away the palm, for that functionary was attired in a completely new cocked hat and coat, and certainly looked very splendid and showy upon the occasion. Moreover, that beadle had been well and judiciously selected, and the parish authorities made no secret of it, when there was an election for beadle, that they threw all their influence into the scale of that candidate who happened to be the biggest, and consequently, who was calculated to wear the official costume with an air that no smaller man could have possibly aspired to on any account. At halfpast eleven o'clock the bishop made his gracious appearance, and was duly ushered into the vestry, where there was a comfortable fire, and on the table in which, likewise, were certain cold chickens and bottles of rare wines; for confirming a number of people, and preaching a sermon besides, was considered no joke, and might, for all they knew, be provocative of a great appetite in the bishop. And with what a bland and courtly air the bishop smiled as he ascended the steps of St. Dunstan's Church. How affable he was to the churchwardens, and he actually smiled upon a poor miserable charity boy, who, his eyes glaring wide open, and his muffin cap in his hand, was taking his first stare at a real live bishop. To be sure, the beadle knocked him down directly the bishop had passed, for having the presumption to look at such a great personage, but then that was to be expected fully and completely, and only proved that the proverb, which permits a cat to look at a king, is not equally applicable to charity boys and bishops. When the bishop got to the vestry, some very complimentary words were uttered to him by the usual officiating clergyman, but, somehow or other, the bland smile had left the lips of the great personage, and, interrupting the vicar in the midst of a fine flowing speech, he said "That's all very well, but what a terrible stink there is here!" The churchwardens gave a groan, for they had flattered themselves that perhaps the bishop would not notice the dreadful smell, or that, if he did, he would think it was accidental, and say nothing about it; but now, when he really did mention it, they found all their hopes scattered to the winds, and that it was necessary to say something. "Is this horrid charnelhouse sort of smell always here?" "I am afraid it is," said one of the churchwardens. "Afraid!" said the bishop, "surely you know; you seem to me to have a nose." "Yes," said the churchwarden, in great confusion, "I have that honour, and I have the pleasure of informing you, my Lord BishopI mean I have the honour of informing you that this smell is always here." The bishop sniffed several times, and then he said "It is very dreadful; and I hope that by the next time I come to St. Dunstan's, you will have the pleasure and the honour, both, of informing me that it has gone away." The churchwarden bowed, and got into an extreme corner, saying to himself "This is the bishop's last visit here, and I don't wonder at it, for, as if out of pure spite, the smell is ten times worse than ever today." And so it was, for it seemed to come up through all the crevices of the flooring of the church, with a power and perseverance that was positively dreadful. The people coughed, and held their handkerchiefs to their noses, remarking to each other "Isn't it dreadful?did you ever know the smell in St. Dunstan's so bad before," and everybody agreed that they never had known it anything like so bad, for that it was positively awfuland so indeed it was. The anxiety of the bishop to get away was quite manifest, and, if he could have decently taken his departure without confirming anybody at all, there is no doubt but that he would have willingly done so, and left all the congregation to die and besomething or another. But this he could not do, but he could cut it short, and he did so. The people found themselves confirmed before they almost knew where they were, and the bishop would not go into the vestry again on any account, but hurried down the steps of the church, and into his carriage, with the greatest precipitation in the world, thus proving that holiness is no proof against a most abominable stench. As may be well supposed, after this, the subject assumed a much more serious aspect, and on the following day a solemn meeting was held of all the church authorities, at which it was determined that men should be employed to make a thorough and searching examination of the vaults of St. Dunstan's, with the view of discovering, if possible, from whence particularly the abominable stench emanated. And then it was decided that the stench was to be put down, and that the bishop was to be apprized it was put down, and that he might visit the church in perfect safety. CHAPTER XVII. SWEENEY TODD'S PROCEEDINGS CONSEQUENT UPON THE DEPARTURE OF TOBIAS. We left the barber in his own shop, much wondering that Tobias had not responded to the call which he had made upon him, but yet scarcely believing it possible that he could have ventured upon the height of iniquity, which we know Tobias had really been guilty of. He paused for a few moments, and held up the light which he had procured, and gazed around him with inquiring eyes, for he could, indeed, scarcely believe it possible that Tobias had sufficiently cast off his dread of him, Sweeney Todd, to be enabled to achieve any act for his liberation. But when he saw that the lock of the parlourdoor was open, positive rage obtained precedence over every other feeling. "The villain!" he cried, "has he dared really to consummate an act I thought he could not have dreamt of for a moment? Is it possible that he can have presumed so far as to have searched the house?" That Tobias, however, had presumed so far, the barber soon discovered, and when he went into his parlour and saw what had actually occurred, and that not only was every cupboard door broken open, but that likewise the door which led to the staircase and the upper part of the house had not escaped, he got perfectly furious, and it was some time before he could sufficiently calm himself to reflect upon the probable and possible amount of danger he might run in consequence of these proceedings. When he did, his active mind at once told him that there was not much to be dreaded immediately, for that most probably Tobias, still having the fear before his eyes of what he might do as regarded his mother, had actually run away; and, "in all likelihood," muttered the barber, "he has taken with him something which would allow me to fix upon him the stigma of robbery, but that I must see to." Having fastened the shopdoor securely, he took the light in his hands, and ascended to the upper part of his housethat is to say, the first floor, where alone anything was to be found. He saw at once the open bureau, with all its glittering display of jewels, and as he gazed upon the heap, he muttered "I have not so accurate a knowledge of what is here as to be able to say if anything be extracted or not, but I know the amount of money, if I do not know the precise number of jewels which this bureau contains." He opened a small drawer which had entirely escaped the scrutiny of Tobias, and proceeded to count a large number of guineas which were there. "These are correct," he said, when he had finished his examination"these are correct, and he has touched none of them." He then opened another drawer, in which were a great many packets of silver done up in paper, and these likewise he carefully counted, and was satisfied they were right. "It is strange," he said, "that he has taken nothing, but yet perhaps it is better that it should be so, inasmuch as it shows a wholesome fear of me. The slightest examination would have shown him these hoards of money; and since he has not made that slight examination, nor discovered any of them, it seems to my mind decisive upon the subject, that he has taken nothing, and perchance I shall discover him easier than I imagine." Tobias Discovers The Barber's Hidden Plunder. Tobias Discovers The Barber's Hidden Plunder. He repaired to the parlour again, and carefully divested himself of everything which had enabled him so successfully to impose upon John Mundel, and replaced them by his ordinary costume, after which he fastened up his house and sallied forth, taking his way direct to Mrs. Ragg's humble home, in the expectation that there he would hear something of Tobias, which would give him a clue where to search for him, for search for him he fully intended; but what were his precise intentions perhaps he could hardly have told himself, until he actually found him. When he reached Mrs. Ragg's house, and made his appearance abruptly before that lady, who seemed somehow or another to be always ironing and always to drop the iron when any one came in, very near their toes, he said "Where did your son Tobias go after he left you tonight?" "Lor! Mr. Todd, is it you? You are as good as a conjuror, sir, for he was here; but bless you, sir, I know no more where he is gone to, than the man in the moon. He said he was going to sea, but I am sure I should not have thought it, that I should not." "To sea!then the probability is that he would go down to the docks, but surely not tonight. Do you not expect him back here to sleep?" "Well, sir, that's a very good thought of yours; and he may come back here to sleep, for all I know to the contrary." "But you do not know it for a fact?" "He didn't say so; but he may come, you know, sir, for all that." "Did he tell you his reason for leaving me?" "Indeed no, sir; he really did not, and he seemed to me to be a little bit out of his senses." "Ah! Mrs. Ragg," said Sweeney Todd, "there you have it. From the first moment that he came into my service, I knew and felt confident that he was out of his senses. There was a strangeness of behaviour about him, which soon convinced me of that fact, and I am only anxious about him, in order that some effort may be made to cure him of such a malady, for it is a serious, and a dreadful one, and one which, unless taken in time, will be yet the death of Tobias." These words were spoken with such solemn seriousness, that they had a wonderful effect upon Mrs. Ragg, who, like most ignorant persons, began immediately to confirm that which she most dreaded. "Oh, it's too true," she said, "it's too true. He did say some extraordinary things tonight, Mr. Todd, and he said he had something to tell, which was too horrid to speak of. Now the idea, you know, Mr. Todd, of anybody having anything at all to tell, and not telling it at once, is quite singular." "It is!and I am sure that his conduct is such you never would be guilty of, Mrs. Ragg;but hark! what's that?" "It's a knock, Mr. Todd." "Hush, stop a momentwhat if it be Tobias?" "Gracious goodness! it can't be him, for he would have come in at once." "No; I slipped the bolt of the door, because I wished to talk to you without observation; so it may be Tobias, you perceive, after all. But let me hide somewhere, so that I may hear what he says, and be able to judge how his mind is affected. I will not hesitate to do something for him, let it cost what it may." "There's the cupboard, Mr. Todd. To be sure there is some dirty saucepans and a fryingpan in it, and of course it aint a fit place to ask you to go into." "Never mind thatnever mind that; only you be careful, for the sake of Tobias's very life, to keep secret that I am here." The knocking at the door increased each moment in vehemence, and scarcely had Sweeney Todd succeeded in getting into the cupboard along with Mrs. Ragg's pots and pans, and thoroughly concealed himself, when she opened the door; and, sure enoughTobias, heated, tired, and looking ghastly palestaggered into the room. "Mother," he said, "I have taken a new thought, and have come back to you." "Well, I thought you would, Tobias; and a very good thing it is that you have." "Listen to me I thought of flying from England for ever, and of never again setting foot upon its shores. I have altered that determination completely, and I feel now that it is my duty to do something else." "To do what, Tobias?" "To tell all I knowto make a clean breast, mother, and, let the consequences be what they may, to let justice take its course." "What do you mean, Tobias?" "Mother, I have come to a conclusion, that what I have to tell is of such vast importance, compared with any consequences that may arise from the petty robbery of the candlestick, which you know of, that I ought not to hesitate a moment in revealing everything." "But, my dear Tobias, remember that that is a dreadful secret, and one that must be kept." "It cannot matterit cannot matter; and, besides, it is more than probable that by revealing what I actually know, and which is of such great magnitude, I may, mother, in a manner of speaking, perchance completely exonerate you from the consequences of that transaction. Besides, it was long ago, and the prosecutor may have mercy; but, be all that how it may, and be the consequences what they may, I must and will tell what I now know." "But what is it Tobias, that you know?" "Something too dreadful for me to utter to you alone. Go into the Temple, mother, to some of the chambers you attend to, and ask them to come to me, and listen to what I have got to say. They will be amply repaid for their trouble, for they will hear that which may, perhaps, save their own lives." "He is quite gone," thought Mrs. Ragg, "and Mr. Todd is correct; poor Tobias is as mad as he can be!" "Alas, alas, Tobias, why don't you try to reason yourself into a better state of mind! You don't know a bit what you are saying, any more than the man in the moon." "I know I am half mad, mother, but yet I know what I am saying well; so do not fancy that it is not to be relied upon, but go and fetch some one at once to listen to what I have to relate." "Perhaps," thought Mrs. Ragg, "if I were to pretend to humour him, it would be as well, and, while I am gone, Mr. Todd can speak to him." This was a bright idea of Mrs. Ragg's, and she forthwith proceeded to carry it into execution, saying "Well, my dear, if it must be, it must beand I will go; but I hope while I have gone, somebody will speak to you, and convince you that you ought to try to quiet yourself." These words Mrs. Ragg uttered aloud, for the special benefit of Sweeney Todd, who, she considered, would have been there to take the hint accordingly. It is needless to say he did hear them, and how far he profited by them, we shall quickly perceive. As for poor Tobias, he had not the remotest idea of the close proximity of his arch enemy; if he had, he would quickly have left that spot, where he might well to conjecture so much danger awaited him; for although Sweeney Todd, under the circumstances, probably felt that he dared not take Tobias's life, still he might exchange something that could place it in his power to do so shortly, with the least personal danger to himself. The door closed after the retreating form of Mrs. Ragg, and as, considering the mission she was gone upon, it was very clear some minutes must elapse before she could return, Sweeney Todd did not feel that there was any very particular hurry in the transaction. "What shall I do?" he said to himself. "Shall I await his mother's coming again, and get her to aid me, or shall I of myself adopt some means which will put an end to trouble on this boy's account?" Sweeney Todd was a man tolerably rapid in thought, and he contrived to make up his mind that the best plan, unquestionably, would be to lay hold of Tobias at once, and so prevent the possibility of any appeal to his mother becoming effective. Tobias, when his mother left the place, as he imagined, for the purpose of procuring some one to listen to what he considered to be Sweeney Todd's delinquencies, rested his face upon his hands, and gave himself up to painful and deep thought. He felt that he had arrived at quite a crisis in his history, and that the next few hours could not surely but be very important to him in their results; and so they were indeed, but not certainly exactly in the way that he all along anticipated, for he thought of nothing but of the arrest and discomfiture of Todd, little expecting how close was his proximity to that formidable personage. "Surely," thought Tobias, "I shall, by disclosing all that I know about Todd, gain some consideration for my mother, and after all, she may not be prosecuted for the robbery of the candlestick, for how very trifling is that affair compared to the much more dreadful things which I more than suspect Sweeney Todd to be guilty of. He is and must be, from all that I have seen and heard, a murderer, although how he disposes of his victims is involved in the most complete mystery, and is to me a matter past all human power of comprehension. I have no idea even upon that subject whatever." This, indeed, was a great mystery; for, even admitting that Sweeney Todd was a murderer, and it must be allowed that as yet we have only circumstantial evidence of that fact, we can form no conclusion from such evidence as to how he perpetrated the deed, or how afterwards he disposed of the body of his victim. This grand and principal difficulty in the way of committing murder with impunity, namely, the disposal of a corpse, certainly did not seem at all to have any effect upon Sweeney Todd; for if he made corpses, he had some means of getting rid of them with the most wonderful expedition as well as secrecy. "He is a murderer," thought Tobias. "I know he is, although I have never seen him do the deed, or seen any appearances in the shop of a deed of blood having been committed. Yet why is it that occasionally, when a better dressed person than usual comes into the shop, that he sends me out on some errand to a distant part of the town?" Tobias did not forget, too, that on more than one occasion he had come back quicker than he had been expected, and that he had caught Sweeney Todd in some little confusion, and seen the hat, the stick, or perhaps the umbrella of the last customer quietly waiting there, although the customer had gone; and even if the glaring improbability of a man leaving his hat behind him in a barber's shop was got over, why did he not come back for it? This was a circumstance which was entitled to all the weight which Tobias, during his mental cogitations, could give to it, and there could be but one possible explanation of a man not coming back for his hat, and that was that he had not the power to do so. "This house will be searched," thought Tobias, "and all those things, which of course must have belonged to so many different people, will be found, and then they will be identified, and he will be required to say how he came by them, which, I think, will be a difficult task indeed for Sweeney Todd to accomplish.
What a relief it will be to me, to be sure, when he is hanged, as I think he is tolerably sure to be!" "What a relief," muttered Sweeney Todd, as he slowly opened the door, unseen by Tobias"what a relief it will be to me when this boy is in his grave, as he will be soon, or else I have forgotten all my moral learning, and turned chickenheartedneither of them very likely circumstances." CHAPTER XVIII. THE MISADVENTURE OF TOBIAS.THE MADHOUSE ON PECKHAMRYE. Sweeney Todd paused for a moment at the cupboard door, before he made up his mind as to whether he should pounce upon poor Tobias at once, or adopt a more creeping, cautious mode of operation. The latter course was by far the most congenial to his mind, and so he adopted it in a moment or so, and stole quietly from his place of concealment, and with so little noise, that Tobias could not have the least suspicion that any one was in the room but himself. Treading, as if each step might involve some serious consequences, he thus at length got completely behind the chair on which Tobias was sitting, and stood with folded arms, and such a hideous smile upon his face, that they together formed no inapt representation of the Mephistopheles of the German drama. "I shall at length," murmured Tobias, "be free from my present dreadful state of mind, by thus accusing Todd. He is a murdererof that I have no doubt it is but a duty of mine to stand forward as his accuser." Sweeney Todd stretched out his two brawny hands, and clutched Tobias by the head, which he turned round till the boy could see him, and then he said "Indeed, Tobias; and did it never strike you that Todd was not so easily to be overcome as you would wish him, eh, Tobias?" The shock of this astonishing and sudden appearance of Sweeney Todd was so great, that for a few moments Tobias was deprived of all power of speech or action, and with his head so strangely twisted as to seem to threaten the destruction of his neck. He glared in the triumphant and malignant countenance of his persecutor, as he would into that of the arch enemy of all mankind, which probably he now began to think the barber really was. If one thing more than another was calculated to delight such a man as Todd, it certainly was to perceive what a dreadful effect his presence had upon Tobias, who remained for about a minute and a half in this state before he ventured upon uttering a shriek, which, however, when it did come, almost frightened Todd himself. It was one of those cries which can only come from a heart in its utmost agonya cry which might have heralded the spirit to another world, and proclaimed, as it very nearly did the destruction of the intellect for ever. The barber staggered back a pace or two as he heard it, for it was too terrific even for him, but it was for a very brief period that it had that stunning effect upon him, and then, with a full consciousness of the danger to which it subjected him, he sprang upon poor Tobias as a tiger might be supposed to do upon a lamb, and clutched him by the throat, exclaiming "Such another cry, and it is the last you ever live to utter, although it cover me with difficulties to escape the charge of killing you. Peace! I say, peace!" This exhortation was quite needless, for Tobias could not have uttered a word, had he been ever so much inclined to do so; the barber held his throat with such an iron clutch, as if it had been in a vise. "Villain," growled Todd, "villain; so this is the way in which you have dared to disregard my injunctions. But no matter, no matter!you shall have plenty of leisure to reflect upon what you have done for yourself. Fool! to think that you could cope with meSweeney Todd! Ha! ha!" He burst into a laugh, so much more hideous, than his ordinary efforts in that way, that, had Tobias heard itwhich he did not, for his head had dropped upon his breast, and he had become insensibleit would have terrified him almost as much as Sweeney Todd's sudden appearance had done. "So," muttered the barber, "he has fainted, has he? Dull child, that is all the better. For once in a way, Tobias, I will carry younot to oblige you, but to oblige myself. By all that's damnable, it was a lively thought that brought me here tonight, or else I might, by the dawn of the morning, have had some very troublesome inquiries made of me." He took Tobias up as easily as if he had been an infant, and strode from the chambers with him, leaving Mrs. Ragg to draw whatever inference she chose from his absence; but feeling convinced that she was too much under his controul, to take any steps of a nature to give him the smallest amount of uneasiness. "The woman," he muttered to himself, "is a doubledistilled ass, and can be made to believe anything, so that I have no fear whatever of her. I dare not kill Tobias, because it is necessary, in case of the matter being at any other period mentioned, that his mother shall be in a position to swear that she saw him after this night alive and well." The barber strode through the Temple, carrying the boy, who seemed not at all in a hurry to recover from the nervous and partial state of suffocation into which he had fallen. As they passed through the gate opening into Fleetstreet, the porter, who knew the barber well by sight, said "Hilloa, Mr. Todd, is that you? Why, who are you carrying?" "Yes, it's I," said Todd, "and I am carrying my apprentice boy, Tobias Ragg, poor fellow." "Poor fellow!why, what's the matter with him?" "I can hardly tell you, but he seems to me and to his mother to have gone out of his senses. Good night to you, good night. I'm looking for a coach." "Good night, Mr. Todd; I don't think you'll get one nearer than the marketwhat a kind thing now of him to carry the boy! It ain't every master would do that; but we must not judge of people by their looks, and even Sweeney Todd, though he has a face that one would not like to meet in a lonely place on a dark night, may be a kindhearted man." Sweeney Todd walked rapidly down Fleetstreet, towards old Fleet Market, which was then in all its glory, if that could be called glory which consisted in all sorts of filth, enough to produce a pestilence within the city of London. When there, he addressed a large bundle of great coats, in the middle of which was supposed to be a hackney coachman of the regular old school, and who was lounging over his vehicle, which was as long and lumbering as a city barge. "Jarvey," he said, "what will you take me to Peckham Rye for?" "Peckham Ryeyou and the boythere ain't any more of you waiting round the corner, are there'cos, you know, that won't be fair?" "No, no, no." "Well, don't be in a passion, master. I only asked, you know, so you need not be put out about it; I will take you for twelve shillings, and that's what I call remarkably cheap, all things considered." "I'll give half the amount," said Sweeney Todd, "and you may consider yourself well paid." "Half, master?that is cutting it low; but, howsomdever, I suppose I must put up with it, and take you. Get in, I must try and make it up by some better fare out of somebody else." The barber paid no heed to these renewed remonstrances of the coachman, but got into the vehicle, carrying Tobias with him, apparently with great care and consideration; but when the coach door closed, and no one was observing him, he flung him down among the straw that was at the bottom of the vehicle, and resting his immense feet upon him, he gave one of his disagreeable laughs, as he said "Well, I think I have you now, Master Tobias; your troubles will soon be over. I am really very much afraid that you will die suddenly, and then there will be an end of you altogether, which will be a very sad thing, though I don't think I shall go into mourning, because I have an opinion that that only keeps alive the bitterness of regret, and that it's a great deal better done without, Master Tobias." The hackney coach swung about from side to side, in the proper approved manner of hackney coaches in the olden time, when they used to be called "bone setters," and to be thought wonderful if they made a progress of three miles and a half an hour. This was the sort of vehicle, then, in which poor Tobias, still perfectly insensible, was rumbled over Blackfriarsbridge, and so on towards Peckham, which Sweeney Todd had announced to be his place of destination. Going at the rate they did, it was nearly two hours before they arrived upon Peckham Rye; and any one acquainted with that locality is well aware that there are two roads, the one to the left, and the other to the right, both of which are pleasantly enough studded with villa residences. Sweeney Todd directed the coachman to take the road to the left, which he accordingly did, and they pursued it for a distance of about a mile and a half. It must not be supposed that this pleasant district of country was then in the state it is now, as regards inhabitants or cultivation. On the contrary, it was rather a wild spot, on which now and then a serious robbery had been committed; and which had witnessed some of the exploits of those highwaymen, whose adventures, in the present day, if one may judge from the public patronage they may receive, are viewed with such a great amount of interest. There was a lonely, large, rambling, oldlooking house by the way side, on the left. A high wall surrounded it, which only allowed the topmost portion of it to be visible, and that presented great symptoms of decay, in the dilapidated character of the chimneypot, and the general appearance of discomfort which pervaded it. There Sweeney Todd directed the coachman to stop, and when the vehicle, after swinging to and fro for several minutes, did indeed at last resolve itself into a state of repose, Sweeney Todd got out himself, and rang a bell, the handle of which hung invitingly at the gate. He had to wait several minutes before an answer was given to this summons, but at length a noise proceeded from within, as if several bars and bolts were being withdrawn; and presently the door was opened, and a huge, roughlooking man made his appearance on the threshold. The Barber Carries Off Tobias To A Private MadHouse. The Barber Carries Off Tobias To A Private MadHouse. "Well! what is it now?" he cried. "I have a patient for Mr. Fogg," said Sweeney Todd. "I want to see him immediately." "Oh! well, the more the merrier it don't matter to me a bit. Have you got him with youand is he tolerably quiet?" "It's a mere boy, and he is not violently mad, but very decidedly so as regards what he says." "Oh! that's it, is it? He can say what he likes here, it can make no difference in the world to us. Bring him inMr. Fogg is in his own room." "I know the way you take charge of the lad, and I will go and speak to Mr. Fogg about him. But stay, give the coachman these six shillings, and discharge him." The doorkeeper of the lunatic asylum, for such it was, went out to obey the injunctions of Sweeney Todd, while that rascally individual himself walked along a wide passage to a door which was at the further extremity of it. CHAPTER XIX. THE MADHOUSE CELL. When the porter of the madhouse went out to the coach, his first impression was, that the boy, who was said to be insane, was deadfor not even the jolting ride to Peckham had been sufficient to arouse him to a consciousness of how he was situated; and there he lay still at the bottom of the coach alike insensible to joy or sorrow. "Is he dead?" said the man to the coachman. "How should I know?" was the reply; "he may be or he may not, but I want to know how long I am to wait here for my fare?" "There is your money, be off with you. I can see now that the boy is all right, for he breathes, although it's after an odd fashion that he does so. I should rather think he has had a knock on the head, or something of that kind." As he spoke, he conveyed Tobias within the building, and the coachman, since he had got his six shillings, feeling that he had no further interest in the matter, drove away at once, and paid no more attention to it whatever. When Sweeney Todd reached the door at the end of the passage, he tapped at it with his knuckles, and a voice cried "Who knockswho knocks? Curses on you all! Who knocks?" Sweeney Todd did not make any verbal reply to this polite request, but opening the door he walked into the apartment, which is one that really deserves some description. It was a large room with a vaulted roof, and in the centre was a superior oaken table, at which sat a man considerably advanced in years, as was proclaimed by his grizzled locks that graced the sides of his head, but whose herculean frame and robust constitution had otherwise successfully resisted the assaults of time. A lamp swung from the ceiling, which had a shade over the top of it, so that it cast a tolerably bright glow upon the table below, which was covered with books and papers, as well as glasses and bottles of different kinds, which showed that the madhousekeeper was, at all events, as far as himself was concerned, not at all indifferent to personal comfort. The walls, however, presented the most curious aspect, for they were hung with a variety of tools and implements, which would have puzzled any one not initiated into the matter even to guess at their uses. These were, however, in point of fact, specimens of the different kinds of machinery which were used for the purpose of coercing the unhappy persons whose evil destiny made them members of that establishment. Those were what is "called the good old times," when all sorts of abuses flourished in perfection, and when the unhappy insane were actually punished as if they were guilty of some great offence. Yes, and worse than that were they punished, for a criminal who might have injustice done to him by any who were in authority over him, could complain, and if he got hold of a person of higher power, his complaints might be listened to, but no one heeded what was said by the poor maniac, whose bitterest accusations of his keepers, let their conduct be what it might, was only listened to and set down as a further proof of his mental disorder. This was indeed a most awful and sad state of things, and, to the disgrace of this country, it is a social evil allowed until very late years to continue in full force. Mr. Fogg, the madhousekeeper fixed his keen eyes from beneath his shaggy brows, upon Sweeney Todd, as the latter entered his apartment, and then he said "Mr. Todd, I think, unless my memory deceives me." "The same," said the barber, making a hideous face, "I believe I am not easily forgotten." "True," said Mr. Fogg, as he reached a book, the edge of which was cut into a lot of little slips, on each of which was a capital letter, in the order of the alphabet"true, you are not easily forgotten, Mr. Todd." He then opened the book at the letter T, and read from it "Mr. Sweeney Todd, Fleetstreet, London, paid one year's keep and burial of Thomas Simkins, aged 15, found dead in his bed, after a residence in the asylum of 10 months and 4 days. I think, Mr. Todd, that was our last little transaction; what can I do now for you, sir?" "I am rather unfortunate," said Todd, "with my boys. I have got another here, who has shown such decided symptoms of insanity, that it becomes absolutely necessary to place him under your care." "Indeed!does he rave?" "Why, yes he does, and it's the most absurd nonsense in the world that he raves about; for, to hear him, one would really think that, instead of being one of the most humane of men, I was, in point of fact, an absolute murderer." "A murderer, Mr. Todd!" "Yes, a murderera murderer to all intents and purposes; could anything be more absurd than such an accusation?I, that have the milk of human kindness flowing in every vein, and whose very appearance ought to be sufficient to convince anybody at once of my kindness of disposition." Sweeney Todd finished his speech by making such a hideous face, that the madhousekeeper could not for the life of him tell what to say to it; and then there came one of those short, disagreeable laughs which Todd would at times utter, which, somehow or other, never appeared exactly to come from his mouth, but always made people look up at the walls and ceiling of the apartment in which they were, in great doubt as to whence the remarkable sound came. "For how long," said the madhousekeeper, "do you think this malady will continue?" "I will pay," said Sweeney Todd, as he leaned over the table, and looked in the face of his questioner, "I will pay for twelve months; but I don't think between you and I, that the case will last anything like so longI think he will die suddenly." "I shouldn't wonder if he did. Some of our patients do die very suddenly, and, somehow or other, we never know exactly how it happens; but it must be some sort of fit, for they are found dead in the morning in their beds, and then we bury them privately and quietly, without troubling anybody about it at all, which is decidedly the best way, because it saves a great annoyance to friends and relations, as well as prevents any extra expense which otherwise might be foolishly gone to." "You are wonderfully correct and considerate," said Todd, "and it's no more than what I expected from you, or what any one might expect from a person of your great experience, knowledge, and acquirements. I must confess I am quite delighted to hear you talk in so elevated a strain." "Why," said Mr. Fogg, with a strange leer upon his face, "we are forced to make ourselves useful, like the rest of the community; and we could not expect people to send their mad friends and relatives here, unless we took good care that their ends and views were answered by so doing. We make no remarks, and we ask no questions. Those are the principles upon which we have conducted business so successfully and so long; those are the principles upon which we shall continue to conduct it, and to merit, we hope, the patronage of the British public." "Unquestionablymost unquestionably." "You may as well introduce me to your patient at once, Mr. Todd, for I suppose, by this time, he has been brought into this house." "Certainly, certainlyI shall have great pleasure in showing him to you." The madhousekeeper rose, and so did Mr. Todd, and the former, pointing to the bottles and glasses on the table, said "When this business is settled, we can have a friendly glass together." To this proposition Sweeney Todd assented with a nod, and then they both proceeded to what was called a receptionroom in the asylum, and where poor Tobias had been conveyed and laid upon a table, when he showed slight symptoms of recovering from the state of insensibility into which he had fallen, and a man was sluicing water on his face by the assistance of a hearth broom occasionally dipped into a pailful of that fluid. "Quite young," said the madhousekeeper, as he looked upon the pale and interesting face of Tobias. "Yes," said Sweeney Todd, "he is youngmore's the pityand, of course, we deeply regret his present situation." "Oh, of course, of course; but see, he opens his eyes, and will speak directly." "Rave, you mean, rave!" said Todd; "don't call it speaking, it is not entitled to the name. Hush! listen to him." "Where am I?" said Tobias, "where am I? Todd is a murdererI denounce him." "You hearyou hear?" said Todd. "Mad indeed," said the keeper. "Oh, save me from himsave me from him!" said Tobias, fixing his eyes upon Mr. Fogg. "Save me from him; it is my life he seeks because I know his secrets. He is a murdererand many a person comes into his shop, who never leaves it again in life, if at all." "You hear him?" said Todd. "Was there ever anybody so mad?" Tobias In The Hands Of The MadHouse Keepers. Tobias In The Hands Of The MadHouse Keepers. "Desperately mad," said the keeper. "Come, come, young fellow, we shall be under the necessity of putting you in a strait waistcoat if you go on in that way. We must do it, for there is no help in such cases if we don't." Todd slunk back into the dark of the apartment, so that he was not seen, and Tobias continued, in an imploring tone "I do not know who you are, sir, or where I am; but let me beg of you to cause the house of Sweeney Todd, the barber, in Fleetstreet, near St. Dunstan's church, to be searched, and you will find that he is a murderer. There are at least a hundred hats, quantities of walking sticks, umbrellas, watches, and rings, all belonging to unfortunate persons who, from time to time, have met with their deaths through him." "How uncommonly mad!" said Mr. Fogg. "No, no," said Tobias, "I am not mad. Why call me mad, when the truth or falsehood of what I say can be ascertained so easily? Search his house, and if those things be not found there, say that I am mad, and have but dreamed of them. I do not know how he kills the people. That is a great mystery to me yet; but that he does kill them, I have no doubtI cannot have a doubt." "Watson!" cried the madhouse keeper. "Hilloa! here, Watson." "I am here, sir," said the man, who had been dashing water upon poor Tobias's face. "You will take this lad, Watson, as he seems extremely feverish and unsettled. You will take him and shave his head, Watson, and put a strait waistcoat upon him, and let him be put in one of the dark, damp cells. We must be careful of him, and too much light encourages delirium and fever." "Oh! no, no!" cried Tobias; "What have I done that I should be subjected to such cruel treatment? what have I done that I should be placed in a cell? If this be a madhouse, I am not mad. Oh! have mercy upon me!have mercy upon me!" "You will give him nothing but bread and water, Watson; and the first symptom of his recovery, which will produce better treatment, will be his exonerating his master from what he has said about him; for he must be mad so long as he continues to accuse such a gentleman as Mr. Todd of such things; nobody but a mad man or a mad boy would think of it." "Then," said Tobias, "I shall continue mad; for if it be madness to know and aver that Sweeney Todd, the barber, of Fleetstreet, is a murderer, mad am I, for I know it, and aver it. It is trueit is true." "Take him away, Watson, and do as I desired you. I begin to find that the boy is a very dangerous character, and more viciously mad than anybody we have had here for a considerable time." The man named Watson seized upon Tobias, who again uttered a shriek something similar to the one which had come from his lips when Sweeney Todd clutched hold of him in his mother's room. But they were used to such things in that madhouse, and cared little for them, so no one heeded the cry in the least; but poor Tobias was carried to the door half maddened in reality by the horrors that surrounded him. Just as he was being conveyed out, Sweeney Todd stepped up to him, and putting his mouth close to his ear, he whispered "Ha! ha! Tobias! how do you feel now? Do you think Sweeney Todd will be hung, or will you die in the cell of a madhouse?" CHAPTER XX. THE NEW COOK TO MRS. LOVETT GETS TIRED OF HIS SITUATION. From what we have already had occasion to record about Mrs. Lovett's new cook, who ate so voraciously in the cellar, our readers will no doubt be induced to believe that he was a gentleman likely enough soon to be tired of his situation. To a starving man, and one who seemed completely abandoned even by hope, Lovett's bakehouse, with an unlimited leave to eat as much as possible, must of course present itself in the most desirable and lively colours and no wonder therefore, that, banishing all scruple, a man so placed, would take the situation, with very little inquiry. But people will tire of good things; and it is a remarkable wellauthenticated fact that human nature is prone to be discontented. And those persons who are well acquainted with the human mind, and who know well how little value people set upon things which they possess, while those which they are pursuing, and which seem to be beyond their reach, assume the liveliest colours imaginable, adopt various means of turning this to account. Napoleon took good care that the meanest of his soldiers should see in perspective the possibility of grasping a marshal's baton. Confectioners at the present day, when they take a new apprentice, tell him to eat as much as he likes of those tempting tarts and sweetmeats, one or two of which before had been a most delicious treat. The soldier goes on fighting away, and never gets the marshal's baton. The confectioner's boy crams himself with Banbury cakes, gets dreadfully sick, and never touches one afterwards. And now, to revert to our friend in Mrs. Lovett's bakehouse. At first everything was delightful, and, by the aid of the machinery, he found that it was no difficult matter to keep up the supply of pies by really a very small amount of manual labour. And that labour also was such a labour of love, for the pies were delicious; there could be no mistake about that. He tasted them half cooked, he tasted them wholly, and he tasted them overdone; hot and cold; pork and veal with seasoning, and without seasoning, until at last he had had them in every possible way and shape; and when the fourth day came after his arrival in the cellar, he might have been sitting in rather a contemplative attitude with a pie before him. It was twelve o'clock he had heard that sound come from the shop. Yes, it was twelve o'clock, and he had eaten nothing yet; but he kept his eye fixed upon the pie that lay untouched before him. "The pies are all very well," he said; "in fact, of course they are capital pies; and now that I see how they are made, and know that there is nothing wrong in them, I, of course, relish them more than ever; but one can't always live upon pies; it's quite impossible one can subsist upon pies from one end of the year to the other, if they were the finest pies the world ever saw, or ever will see. I don't say anything against the piesI know they are made of the finest flour, the best possible butter, and that the meat, which comes from God knows where, is the most delicate looking and tender I ever ate in all my life." He stretched out his hand and broke a small portion of the crust from the pie that was before him, and he tried to eat it. He certainly did succeed; but it was a great effort; and when he had done, he shook his head, saying "No, no!dn it! I cannot eat it, and that's the factone cannot be continually eating pies it is out of the question, quite out the question; and all I have to remark isdn the pies! I really don't think I shall be able to let another one pass my lips." He rose and paced with rapid strides the place in which he was, and then suddenly he heard a noise; and, looking up, he saw a trap door in the roof open, and a sack of flour begin gradually to come down. "Hilloa, hilloa!" he cried, "Mrs. LovettMrs. Lovett!" Down came the flour, and the trap door was closed. "Oh, I can't stand this sort of thing," he exclaimed; "I cannot be made into a mere machine for the manufacture of pies. I cannot and will not endure itit is past all bearing." For the first time almost since his incarceration, for such it really was, he began to think that he would take an accurate survey of the place where this tempting manufacture was carried on. The fact was, his mind had been so intensely occupied during the time he had been there in providing merely for his physical wants, that he had scarcely had time to think or reason upon the probabilities of an uncomfortable termination of his career; but now, when he had really become quite surfeited with the pies, and tired of the darkness and gloom of the place, many unknown fears began to creep across him, and he really trembled, as he asked himself what was to be the end of all. It was with such a feeling as this that he now set about a careful and accurate survey of the place; and taking a little lamp in his hand, he resolved upon peering into every corner of it, with a hope that surely he should find some means by which he should effect an escape from what otherwise threatened to be an intolerable imprisonment. The vault in which the ovens were situated was the largest; and although a number of smaller ones communicated with it, containing the different mechanical contrivances for piemaking, he could not from any one of them discover an outlet. But it was to the vault where the meat was deposited upon stone shelves that he paid the greatest share of attention, for to that vault he felt convinced there must be some hidden and secret means of ingress, and therefore of egress likewise, or else how came the shelves always so well stocked with meat as they were? This vault was larger than any of the other subsidiary ones, and the roof was very high, and, come into it when he would, it always happened that he found meat enough upon the shelves, cut into large lumps, and sometimes into slices, to make a batch of pies with. When it got there, was not so much a mystery to him as how it got there; for, of course, as he must sleep sometimes, he concluded, naturally enough, that it was brought in by some means during the period that he devoted to repose. He stood in the centre of this vault with the lamp in his hand, and he turned slowly round, surveying the walls and the ceilings with the most critical and marked attention, but not the smallest appearance of an outlet was observable. In fact, the walls were so entirely filled up with the stone shelves, that there was no space left for a door; and as for the ceiling, it seemed perfectly entire. Then the floor was of earth; so that the idea of a trap door opening in it was out of the question, because there was no one on his side of it to place the earth again over it, and give it its compact and usual appearance. "This is most mysterious," he said; "and if ever I could have been brought to believe that any one had the assistance of the devil himself in conducting human affairs, I should say that by some means Mrs. Lovett had made it worth the while of that elderly individual to assist her; for, unless the meat gets here by some supernatural agency, I really cannot see how it can get here at all. And yet here it isso fresh, and pure, and whitelooking, although I never could tell the pork from the veal myself, for they seemed to me both alike." He now made a still narrower examination of this vault, but he gained nothing by that. He found that the walls at the back of the shelves were composed of flat pieces of stone, which, no doubt, were necessary for the support of the shelves themselves; but beyond that he made no further discovery, and he was about leaving the place, when he fancied he saw some writing on the inner side of the door. A closer inspection convinced him that there were a number of lines written with lead pencil, and after some difficulty he decyphered them as follows "Whatever unhappy wretch reads these lines may bid adieu to the world and all hope, for he is a doomed man! He will never emerge from these vaults with life, for there is a secret connected with them so awful and so hideous, that to write it makes one's blood curdle, and the flesh to creep upon my bones. That secret is thisand you may be assured, whoever is reading these lines, that I write the truth, and that it is as impossible to make that awful truth worse by any exaggeration, as it would be by a candle at midday to attempt to add any new lustre to the sunbeams." Here, most unfortunately, the writing broke off, and our friend, who, up to this point, had perused the lines with the most intense interest, felt great bitterness of disappointment, from the fact that enough should have been written to stimulate his curiosity to the highest possible point, but not enough to gratify it. "This is, indeed, most provoking," he exclaimed.
"What can this most dreadful secret be, which it is impossible to exaggerate? I cannot, for a moment, divine to what it can allude." In vain he searched over the door for some more writingthere was none to be found, and from the long straggling pencilmark, which followed the last word, it seemed as if he who had been then writing had been interrupted, and possibly met the fate that he had predicted, and was about to explain the reason of. "This is worse than no information. I had better have remained in ignorance than have received so indistinct a warning; but they shall not find me an easy victim, and, besides, what power on earth can force me to make pies unless I like, I should wish to know?" As he stepped out of the place in which the meat was kept into the large vault where the ovens were, he trod upon a piece of paper that was lying upon the ground, and which he was quite certain he had not observed before. It was fresh and white, and clean too, so that it could not have been long there, and he picked it up with some curiosity. That curiosity was, however, soon turned to dismay when he saw what was written upon it, which was to the following effect, and well calculated to produce a considerable amount of alarm in the breast of any one situated as he was, so entirely friendless and so entirely hopeless of any extraneous aid in those dismal vaults, which he began, with a shudder, to suspect would be his tomb "You are getting dissatisfied, and therefore it becomes necessary to explain to you your real position, which is simply thisYou are a prisoner, and were such from the first moment that you set foot where you now are; and you will find, unless you are resolved upon sacrificing your life, that your best plan will be to quietly give into the circumstances in which you find yourself placed. Without going into any argument or details upon the subject, it is sufficient to inform you that so long as you continue to make the pies, you will be safe; but if you refuse, then the first time you are caught asleep your throat will be cut." This document was so much to the purpose, and really had so little of verbosity about it, that it was extremely difficult to doubt its sincerity. It dropped from the halfparalysed hands of that man, who, in the depth of his distress, and urged on by great necessity, had accepted a situation that he would have given worlds to escape from, had he been possessed of them. "Gracious Heaven!" he exclaimed, "and am I then indeed condemned to such a slavery? Is it possible, that even in the heart of London, I am a prisoner, and without the means of resisting the most frightful threats that are uttered against me? Surely, surely this must be all a dream! It is too terrific to be true!" He sat down upon that low stool where his predecessor had sat before, receiving his deathwound from the assassin who had glided in behind him, and dealt him that crashing blow, whose only mercy was that it had at once deprived the victim of existence. He could have wept bitterly, wept as he there sat, for he thought over days long passed away, of opportunities let go by with the heedless laugh of youth; he thought over all the chances and fortunes of his life, and now to find himself the miserable inhabitant of a cellar, condemned to a mean and troublesome employment, without even the liberty of leaving that, to starve if he chose, upon pain of deatha frightful death, which had been threatened him, was indeed torment! No wonder that at times he felt himself unnerved, and that a child might have conquered him, while at other moments such a feeling of despair would come across him, that he called aloud upon his enemies to make their appearance, and give him at least the chance of a struggle for his life. "If I am to die," he cried, "let me die with some weapon in my hand, as a brave man ought, and I will not complain, for there is little indeed in life now which should induce me to cling to it; but I will not be murdered in the dark." He sprang to his feet, and rushing up to the door, which opened from the house into the vaults, he made a violent and desperate effort to shake it. But such a contingency as this had surely been looked forward to and provided against, for the door was of amazing strength, and most effectually resisted all his efforts, so that the result of his endeavours was but to exhaust himself, and he staggered back, panting and despairing, to the seat he had so recently left. Then he heard a voice, and upon looking up he saw that the small square opening in the upper part of the door, through which he had been before addressed, was open, and a face there appeared, but it was not the face of Mrs. Lovett. On the contrary, it was a large and hideous male physiognomy, and the voice that came from it was croaking and harsh, sounding most unmusically upon the ears of the unfortunate man who was thus made a victim to Mrs. Lovett's pie popularity. "Continue at your work," said the voice, "or death will be your portion as soon as sleep overcomes you, and you sink exhausted to that repose which you will never awaken from, except to feel the pangs of death, and to be conscious that you are weltering in your blood. Continue at your work, and you will escape all thisneglect it, and your doom is sealed." The Stranger In Mrs. Lovett's Bakehouse. The Stranger In Mrs. Lovett's Bakehouse. "What have I done that I should be made such a victim of? Let me go, and I will swear never to divulge the fact that I have been in these vaults, so I cannot disclose any of their secrets, even if knew them." "Make pies," said the voice, "eat them, and be happy. How many a man would envy your positionwithdrawn from all the struggles of existence, amply provided with board and lodging, and engaged in a pleasant and delightful occupation; it is astonishing how you can be dissatisfied!" Bang! went the little square orifice at the top of the door, and the voice was heard no more. The jeering mockery of those tones, however, still lingered upon the ear of the unhappy prisoner, and he clasped his head in his hands with a fearful impression upon his brain that he surely must be going mad. "He will drive me to insanity," he cried; "already I feel a sort of slumber stealing over me for want of exercise, and the confined air of these vaults hinder me from taking regular repose; but now, if I close an eye, I shall expect to find the assassin's knife at my throat." He sat for some time longer, and not even the dread he had of sleep could prevent a drowsiness creeping across his faculties, and this weariness would not be shaken off by any ordinary means, until at length he sprang to his feet, and shaking himself roughly, like one determined to be wide awake, he said to himself, mournfully "I must do their bidding or die; hope may be a delusion here, but I cannot altogether abandon it, and not until its faintest image has departed from my breast can I lie down to sleep and sayLet death come in any shape it may, it is welcome." With a desperate and despairing energy he set about replenishing the furnaces of the oven, and, when he had got them all in a good state, he commenced manufacturing a batch of one hundred pies, which, when he had finished and placed upon the tray, and set the machine in motion which conducted them up to the shop, he considered to be a sort of price paid for his continued existence, and flinging himself upon the ground, he fell into a deep slumber. CHAPTER XXI. THE NIGHT AT THE MADHOUSE. When Sweeney Todd had, with such diabolical want of feeling, whispered the few words of mockery which we have recorded in Tobias's ear, when he was carried out of Mr. Fogg's receptionroom to be taken to a cell, the villanous barber drew back and indulged in rather a longer laugh than usual. "Mr. Todd," said Fogg, "I find that you still retain your habit of merriment; but yours ain't the most comfortable laugh in the world, and we seldom hear anything equal to it, even from one of our cells." "No!" said Sweeney Todd, "I don't suppose you do, and for my part I never heard of a cell laughing yet." "Oh! you know what I mean, Mr. Todd, well enough." "That may be," said Todd, "but it would be just as well to say it for all that. I think, however, as I came in you said something about refreshment?" "I certainly did; and, if you will honour me by stepping back to my room, I think I can offer you, Mr. Todd, a glass of as nice wine as the king himself could put on his table, if he were any judge of that commodity, which I am inclined to think he is not." "What do you expect," said Sweeney Todd, "that such an idiot should be a judge of?but I shall have great pleasure in tasting your wine, for I have no hesitation in saying that my work tonight has made me thirsty." At this moment a shriek was heard, and Sweeney Todd shrank away from the door. "Oh! it's nothing, it's nothing," said Mr. Fogg; "if you had resided here as long as I have, you would get accustomed to now and then hearing a slight noise. The worst of it is, when half a dozen of the mad fellows get shrieking against each other in the middle of the night. Then, I grant, it is a little annoying." "What do you do with them?" "We send in one of the keepers with the lash, and soon put a stop to that. We are forced to keep the upper hand of them, or else we should have no rest. Hark! do you not hear that fellow now?he is generally pretty quiet, but he has taken it into his head to be outrageous today; but one of my men will soon put a stop to that. This way, Mr. Todd, if you please, and as we don't often meet, I think when we do we ought to have a social glass." Sweeney Todd made several horrible faces as he followed the madhousekeeper, and he looked as if it would have given him quite as much pleasure, and no doubt it would, to brain that individual, as to drink his wine, although probably he would have preferred doing the latter process first, and executing the former afterwards, and at his leisure. They soon reached the room which was devoted to the use of Mr. Fogg and his friends, and which contained the many little curiosities in the way of madhouse discipline that were in that age considered indispensable in such establishments. Mr. Fogg moved away with his hands a great number of the books and papers which were on the table, so as to leave a vacant space, and then drawing the cork of a bottle, he filled himself a large glass of its contents, and invited Sweeney Todd to do the same, who was by no means slow in following his example. While these two villains are carousing, and caring nothing for the scenes of misery with which they are surrounded, poor Tobias, in conformity with the orders that had been issued with regard to him, was conveyed along a number of winding passages, and down several staircases, towards the cells of the establishment. In vain he struggled to get free from his captoras well might a hare have struggled in the fangs of a wolfnor were his cries at all heeded; although, now and then, the shrieks he uttered were terrible to hear, and enough to fill any one with dismay. "I am not mad," said he, "indeed I am not madlet me go, and I will say nothingnot one word shall ever pass my lips regarding Mr. Toddlet me go, oh, let me go, and I will pray for you as long as I live." Mr. Watson whistled a lively tune. "If I promiseif I swear to tell nothing, Mr. Todd will not wish me kept hereall he wants is my silence, and I will take any oath he likes. Speak to him for me, I implore you, and let me go." Mr. Watson commenced the second part of his lively tune, and by that time he reached a door, which he unlocked, and then, setting down Tobias upon the threshold, he gave him a violent kick, which flung him down two steps on to the stone floor of a miserable cell, from the roof of which continual moisture was dripping, the only accommodation it possessed being a truss of damp straw flung into one corner. "There," said Mr. Watson, "my lad, you can stay there and make yourself comfortable till somebody comes to shave your head, and after that you will find yourself quite a gentleman." "Mercy! mercyhave mercy upon me!" "Mercy!what the devil do you mean by mercy? Well, that's a good joke; but I can tell you, you have come to the wrong shop for that; we don't keep it in stock here, and if we wanted ever so little of it, we should have to go somewhere else for it." Mr. Watson laughed so much at his own joke, that he felt quite amiable, and told Tobias that if he were perfectly quiet, and said "thank you" for everything, he wouldn't put him on the strait waistcoat, although Mr. Fogg had ordered it; "for," added Mr. Watson, "so far as that goes, I don't care a straw what Mr. Fogg says, or what he does; he can't do without me, damn him! because I know too many of his secrets." Tobias made no answer to this promise, but he lay upon his back on the floor of the cell wringing his hands despairingly, and feeling that almost already the very atmosphere of that place seemed pregnant with insanity, and giving himself up for lost entirely. "I shall nevernever," he said, "look upon the bright sky and the green fields again. I shall be murdered here, because I know too much; what can save me now? Oh, what an evil chance it was that brought me back again to my mother, when I ought to have been far, far away by this time, instead of being, as I know I am, condemned to death in this frightful place. Despair seizes upon me! What noise is thata shriek? Yes, yes, there is some other blighted heart beside mine in this dreadful house. Oh, Heaven! what will become of me? I feel already stifled and sick, and faint with the air of this dreadful cell. Help, help, help! have mercy upon me, and I will do anything, promise anything, swear anything." If poor Tobias had uttered his complaints on the most desolate shore that ever a shipwrecked mariner was cast upon, they could not have been more unheeded than they were in that house of terror. He screamed and shrieked for aid. He called upon all the friends he had ever known in early life, and at that moment he seemed to remember the name of every one who had ever uttered a kind word to him; and to those persons who, alas! could not hear him, but were far enough removed away from his cries, he called for aid in that hour of his deep distress. At length, faint, wearied and exhausted, he lay a mere living wreck in that damp, unwholesome cell, and felt almost willing that death should come and relieve him, at least from the pang of constantly expecting it! His cries, however, had had the effect of summoning up all the wild spirits in that building; and, as he now lay in the quiet of absolute exhaustion, he heard from far and near smothered cries and shrieks and groans, such as one might expect would fill the air of the infernal regions with dismal echoes. A cold and clammy perspiration broke out upon him, as these sounds each moment more plainly fell upon his ear, and as he gazed upon the profound darkness of the cell, his excited fancy began to people it with strange unearthly beings, and he could suppose that he saw hideous faces grinning at him, and huge misshapen creatures crawling on the walls, and floating in the damp, pestiferous atmosphere of the wretched cell. In vain he covered his eyes with his hands; those creatures of his imagination were not to be shut out from the mind, and he saw them, if possible, more vividly than before, and presenting themselves in more frightfully tangible shapes. Truly, if such visions should continue to haunt him, poor Tobias was likely enough to follow the fate of many others who had been placed in that establishment perfectly sane, but in a short time exhibited in it as raving lunatics. "A nice clear cool glass of wine," said Sweeney Todd, as he held up his glass between him and the light, "and pleasant drinking; so soft and mild in the mouth, and yet gliding down the throat with a pleasant strength of flavour!" "Yes," said Mr. Fogg, "it might be worse. You see some patients, who are low and melancholy mad, require stimulants, and their friends send them wine. This is some that was so sent." "Then you don't trouble the patients with it?" "What! give a madman wine, while I am here in my senses to drink it? Oh, dear no! that won't do on any account." "I should certainly, Mr. Fogg, not expect such an act of indiscretion from you, knowing you as I do to be quite a man of the world." "Thank you for the compliment. This wine, now, was sent for an old gentleman who had turned so melancholy, that he not only would not take food enough to keep life and soul together, but he really terrified his friends so by threatening suicide that they sent him here for a few months; and, as stimulants were recommended for him, they sent this wine, you see; but I stimulated him without it quite as well, for I drink the wine myself and give him an infernal good kick or two every day, and that stimulates him, for it puts him in such a devil of a passion that I am quite sure he doesn't want any wine." "A good plan," said Sweeney Todd, "but I wonder you don't contrive that your own private room should be free from the annoyance of hearing such sounds as those that have been coming upon my ears for the last five or ten minutes." "It's impossible; you cannot get out of the way if you live in the house at all; and you see, as regards these mad fellows, they are quite like a pack of wolves, and when once one of them begins howling and shouting, the others are sure to chime in, in full chorus, and make no end of disturbance till we stop them, as I have already told you we do, with a strong hand." "While I think of it," said Sweeney Todd, as he drew from his pocket a leathern bag, "while I think of it, I may as well pay you the year's money for the lad I have now brought you; you see I have not forgot the excellent rule you have of being paid in advance. There is the amount." "Ah, Mr. Todd," said the madhousekeeper as he counted the money, and then placed it in his pocket, "it's a pleasure to do business with a thorough business man like yourself. The bottle stands with you, Mr. Todd, and I beg you will not spare it. Do you know, Mr. Todd, this is a line of life which I have often thought would have suited you; I am certain you have a genius for such things." "Not equal to you," said Todd; "but as I am fond, certainly, of what is strange and out of the way, some of the scenes and characters you come across would, I have no doubt, be highly entertaining to me." "Scenes and charactersI believe you! During the course of a business like ours, we come across all sorts of strange things; and if I choose to do it, which of course I don't, I could tell a few tales which would make some people shake in their shoes; but I have no right to tell them, for I have been paid, and what the deuce is it to me?" "Oh, nothing, of course nothing. But just while we are sipping our wine, now, couldn't you tell me something that would not be betraying anybody's confidence?" "I could, I could; I don't mean to say that I could not, and I don't care much if I do to you." CHAPTER XXII. MR. FOGG'S STORY AT THE MADHOUSE TO SWEENEY TODD. After a short pause, during which Mr. Fogg appeared to be referring to the cells of memory, with the view of being refreshed in a matter that had long since been a bygone, but which he desired to place as clearly before his listener as he could, in fact, to make, if possible, the relation real to him, and to omit nothing during its progress that should be told; or possibly, that amiable individual was engaged in considering if there were any salient point that might criminate himself, or give even a friend a handle to make use of against him; but apparently there was nothing of the kind, for, after a loud "hem!" he filled the glasses, saying "Well, now, as you are a friend, I don't mind telling you how we do business herethings that have been done, you know, by others; but I have had my share as well as othersI have known a thing or two, Mr. Todd, and I may say I have done a thing or two, too." "Well, we must live and let live," said Sweeney Todd, "there's no going against that, you know; if all I have done could speak, whybut no matter, I am listening to youhowever, if deeds could speak, one or two clever things would come out rather, I think." "Ay, 'tis well they don't," said Mr. Fogg, with much solemnity, "if they did they would be constantly speaking at times when it would be very inconvenient to hear them, and dangerous besides." "So it would," said Sweeney, "a still tongue makes a wise headbut then the silent system would bring no grist to the mill, and we must speak when we know we are right and among friends." "Of course," said Fogg, "of course, that's the right use of speech, and one may as well be without it, as to have it and not use it; but comedrink, and fill again before I begin, and then to my tale. But we may as well have a sentiment. Sentiment, you know," continued Fogg, "is the very soul of friendship. What do you say to 'The heart that can feel for another?'" "With all my soul," said Sweeney Todd; "it's very touchingvery touching, indeed. 'The heart that can feel for another!'" and as he spoke, he emptied the glass, which he pushed towards Fogg to refill. "Well," said Fogg, as he complied, "we have had the sentiment, we may as well have the exemplification." "Ha! ha! ha!" said Todd, "very good, very good indeed; pray go on, that will do capitally." "I may as well tell you the whole matter, as it occurred; I will then let you know all I know, and in the same manner. None of the parties are now living, or, at least, they are not in this country, which is just the same thing, so far as I am concerned." "Then that is an affair settled and done with," remarked Sweeney Todd, parenthetically. "Yes, quite.Well, it was one nightsuch a one as this, and pretty well about the same hour, perhaps somewhat earlier than this. However, it doesn't signify a straw about the hour, but it was quite night, a dark and wet night too, when a knock came at the streetdoora sharp double knockit was. I was sitting alone, as I might have been now, drinking a glass or two of wine; I was startled, for I was thinking about an affair I had on hand at that very moment, of which there was a little stir. However, I went to the door, and peeped through a grating that I had there, and saw only a man; he had drawn his horse inside the gate, and secured him. He wore a large Whitney ridingcoat, with a nap that would have thrown off a deluge. I fancied, or thought I could tell, that he meant no mischief; so I opened the door at once and saw a tall, gentlemanly man, but wrapped up so, that you could not tell who or what he was; but my eyes are sharp, you know, Mr. Todd. We haven't seen so much of the world without learning to distinguish what kind of person one has to deal with?" "I should think not," said Todd. "'Well,' said I, 'what is your pleasure, sir?' "The stranger paused a moment or two before he made any reply to me. "'Is your name Fogg?' he said. "'Yes, it is,' said I; 'my name is Foggwhat is your pleasure with me, sir?' "'Why,' said he, after another pause, during which he fixed his keen eye very hard upon me'why, I wish to have a little private conversation with you, if you can spare so much time, upon a very important matter which I have in hand.' "'Walk in, sir,' said I, as soon as I heard what it was he wanted, and he followed me in. 'It is a very unpleasant night, and it's coming on to rain harder. I think it is fortunate you have got housed.' "'Yes,' he replied; 'but I am tolerably well protected against the rain, at all events.' "He came into this very parlour, and took a seat before the fire, with his back to the light, so that I couldn't see his face very well. However, I was determined that I would be satisfied in these particulars, and so, when he had taken off his hat, I stirred up the fire, and had a blaze that illuminated the whole room, and which showed me the sharp, thin visage of my visitor, who was a dark man, with keen grey eyes that were very restless' "'Will you have a glass of wine?' said I; 'the night is cold as well as wet.' "'Yes, I will,' he replied; 'I am cold with riding. You have a lonely place about here; your house, I see, stands alone too. You have not many neighbours.' "'No, sir,' said I, 'we hadn't need, for when any of the poor things set to screaming, it would make them feel very uncomfortable indeed.' "'So it would, there is an advantage in that to yourself as well as to them. It would be disagreeable to you to know that you were disturbing your neighbours, and they would feel equally uncomfortable in being disturbed, and yet you must do your duty.' "'Ay! to be sure,' said I; 'I must do my duty, and people won't pay me for letting madmen go, though they may for keeping them; and besides that, I think some on 'em would get their throats cut, if I did.' "'You are rightquite right,' said he; 'I am glad to find you of that mind, for I came to you concerning an affair that requires some delicacy about it, since it is a female patient.' "'Ah!' said I, 'I always pay great attention, very great attention; and I don't recollect a case, however violent it may be, but what I can overcome. I always make 'em acknowledge me, and there's much art in that.' "'To be sure, there must be.' "'And, moreover, they wouldn't so soon crouch and shrink away from me, and do what I tell 'em, if I did not treat them with kindness, that is, as far as is consistent with one's duty, for I mustn't forget that.' "'Exactly,' he replied; 'those are my sentiments exactly.' "'And now, sir, will you inform me in what way I can serve you?' "'Why I have a relative, a female relative, who is unhappily affected with a brain disease; we have tried all we can do, without any effect. Do what we will, it comes to the same thing in the end.' "'Ah!' said I; 'poor thingwhat a dreadful thing it must be to you or any of her friends, who have the charge of her, to see her day by day an incurable maniac. Why, it is just as bad as when a friend or relative is dead, and you are obliged to have the dead body constantly in your house, and before your eyes.' "'Exactly, my friend,' said the stranger; 'exactly, you are a man of discernment, Mr. Fogg. I see, that is truly the state of the case. You may then guess at the state of our feelings, when we have to part with one beloved by us.' "As he spoke, he turned right round, and faced me, looking very hard into my face. "'Well,' said I, 'your's is a hard case; but to have one afflicted about you in the manner the young lady is, is truly distressing; it's like having a perpetual lumbago in your back.' "'Exactly,' said the stranger. 'I tell you what, you are the very man to do this thing for me.' "'I am sure of it,' said I. "'Then we understand each other, eh?' said the stranger. 'I must say I like your appearance, it is not often such people as you and I meet.' "'I hope it will be to our mutual advantage,' said I, 'because such people don't meet every day, and we oughtn't to meet to no purpose; so, in anything delicate and confidential you may command me.' "'I see, you are a clever man,' said he; 'well, well, I must pay you in proportion to your talents. How do you do businessby the job, or by the year?' "'Well,' said I, 'where it's a matter of some nicety, it may be bothbut it entirely depends upon circumstances. I had better know exactly what it is I have to do.' "'Why, you see, it is a young female about eighteen, and she is somewhat troublesometakes to screaming, and all that kind of thing. I want her taken care of, though you must be very careful she neither runs away nor suddenly commits any mischief, as her madness does not appear to me to have any particular form, and would at times completely deceive the best of us, and then suddenly she will break out violently, and snap or fly at anybody with her teeth.' "'Is she so bad as that?' "'Yes, quite. So it is quite impossible to keep her at home; and I expect it will be a devil of a job to get her here. I tell you what you shall have; I'll pay you your yearly charge for board and care, and I'll give you a tenpound note for your trouble, if you'll come and assist me in securing her, and bringing her down. It will take some trouble.' "'Very well,' said I, 'that will do, but you must double the note and make it twenty, if you please; it will cost something to come and do the thing well.' "'I seevery wellwe won't disagree about a tenpound note; but you'll know how to dispose of her if she comes here.' "'Oh, yesvery healthy place.' "'But I don't know that health is a very great blessing to any one under such circumstances; indeed, who could regret an early grave to one so severely afflicted?' "'Nobody ought,' said I; 'if they knew what mad people went through, they would not, I'm sure.' "'That is very true again, but the fact is, they don't, and they only look at one side of the picture; for my own part, I think that it ought to be so ordained, that when people are so afflicted, nature ought to sink under the affliction, and so insensibly to revert to the former state of nonentity.' "'Well,' said I, 'that may be as you please, I don't understand all that; but I tell you what, I hope if she were to die much sooner than you expect, you would not think it too much trouble to afford me some compensation for my loss.' "'Oh dear no! and to show you that I shall entertain no such illiberal feeling, I will give you two hundred pounds, when the certificate of her burial can be produced. You understand me?' "'Certainly.' "'Her death will be of little value to me, without the legal proof,' said the stranger; 'so she must die at her own pleasure, or live while she can.' "'Certainly,' said I. "'But what terrifies me,' continued the stranger, 'most is, her terrorstricken countenance, always staring us in our faces; and it arose from her being terrified; indeed I think if she were thoroughly frightened, she would fall dead. I am sure, if any wickedlydisposed person were to do so, death would no doubt result.' "'Ah!' said I, 'it would be a bad job; now tell me where I am to see you, and how about the particulars.' "'Oh, I will tell you; now, can you be at the corner of Grosvenorstreet, near Parklane?' "'Yes,' I replied, 'I will.' "'With a coach too. I wish you to have a coach, and one that you can depend upon, because there may be a little noise. I will try to avoid it, if possible, but we cannot always do what we desire; but you must have good horses.' "'Now, I tell you what is my plan; that is, if you don't mind the damages, if any happen.' "'What are they?' "'Thissuppose a horse falls, and is hurt, or an upsetwould you stand the racket?' "'I would, of course.' "'Then listen to me; I have had more of these affairs than you have, no doubt. Well, then, I have had experience, which you have not. Now, I'll get a trottinghorse, and a covered cart or chaiseone that will go along well at ten miles an hour, and no mistake about it.' "'But will it hold enough?' "'Yes, four or five or six, and, upon a push, I have known eight to cram in it; but then you know we were not particular how we were placed; but still it will hold as many as a hackney coach, only not so conveniently; but then we have nobody in the affair to drive us, and there can't be too few.' "'Well, that is perhaps best; but have you a man on whom you can depend?because if you have, why, I would not be in the affair at all.' "'You must,' said I; 'in the first place, I can depend upon one man best; him I must leave here to mind the place; so if you can manage the girl, I will drive, and I know the road as well as the way to my own mouthI would rather have as few in it as possible.
' "'Your precaution is very good, and I think I will try and so manage it, that there shall be only you and I acquainted with the transaction; at all events, should it become necessary, it will be time enough to let some other person into the secret at the moment their services are required. That, I think, will be the best arrangement that I can come towhat do you say?' "'That will do very wellwhen we get her here, and when I have seen her a few days, I can tell what to do with her.' "'Exactly; and now, good nightthere is the money I promised, and now again, good night! I shall see you at the appointed time.' "'You will,' said I'one glass more, it will do you good, and keep the rain out.' "He took off a glass of wine, and then pulled his hat over his face, and left the house. It was a dark, wet night, and the wind blew, and we heard the sound of his horse's hoofs for some time; however, I shut the door and went in, thinking over in my own mind what would be the gain of my own exertions. "Well, at the appointed hour, I borrowed a chaise cart, a covered one, with what you call a head to it, and I trotted to town in it. At the appointed time I was at the corner of Grosvenorstreet; it was late, and yet I waited there an hour or more before I saw any one. I walked into a little house to get a glass of spirits to keep up the warmth of the body, and when I came out again, I saw some one standing at my horse's head. I immediately went up. "'Oh, you are here,' he said. "'Yes I am,' said I, 'I have been here the Lord knows how long. Are you ready?' "'Yes, I am; come,' said he, as he got into the cart'come to the place I shall tell youI shall only get her into the cart, and you must do the rest.' "'You'll come back with me; I shall want help on the road, and I have no one with me.' "'Yes, I will come with you, and manage the girl, but you must drive, and take all the casualties of the road, for I shall have enough to do to hold her and keep her from screaming when she does awake.' "'What! is she asleep?' "'I have given her a small dose of laudanum, which will cause her to sleep comfortably for an hour or two, but the cold air and disturbance will most probably awaken her at first.' "'Throw something over her, and keep her warm, and have something ready to thrust into her mouth, in case she takes to screaming, and then you are all right.' "'Good,' he replied 'now wait here. I am going to yon house. When I have entered, and disappeared several minutes, you may quietly drive up, and take your station on the other side of the lamppost.' "As he spoke he got out, and walked to a large house, which he entered softly, and left the door ajar; and after he had gone in, I walked the horse quietly up to the lamppost, and as I placed it, the horse and front of the cart were completely in the dark. I had scarcely got up to the spot, when the door opened, and he looked out to see if anybody was passing. I gave him the word, and out he came, leaving the door, and came with what looked like a bundle of clothes, but which was the young girl and some clothes he had brought with him. "'Give her to me,' said I, 'and jump up and take the reins; go on as quickly as you can.' "I took the girl into my arms, and handed her into the back part of the chaise, while he jumped up, and drove away. I placed the young girl in an easy position upon some hay, and stuffed the clothes under her, so as to prevent the jolting from hurting her. "'Well,' said I, 'you may as well come back here, and sit beside her she is all right. You seem rather in a stew.' "'Well, I have run with her in my arms, and altogether it has flurried me.' "'You had better have some brandy,' said I. "'No, no! don't stop.' "'Pooh, pooh!' I replied, pulling up, 'here is the last house we shall come to, to have a good stiff tumbler of hot brandy and water. Come, have you any changeabout a sovereign will do, because I shall want change on the road? Come, be quick.' "He handed me a sovereign, saying "'Don't you think it's dangerous to stopwe may be watched, or she may wake.' "'Not a bit of it. She snores too loudly to wake just now, and you'll faint without the cordial; so keep a good lookout upon the wench, and you will recover your nerves again.' "As I spoke I jumped out, and got two glasses of brandy and water, hot, strong, and sweet, I had in about two minutes made, out of the house. "'Here,' said I, 'drinkdrink it all upit will make your eyes start out of your head.' "I spoke the truth, for what with my recommendations, and his nervousness and haste, he drank nearly half of it at a gulp. "I shall never forget his countenance. Ha! ha! ha! I can't keep my mirth to myself. Just imagine the girl inside a covered cart, all dark, so dark that you could hardly see the outline of the shadow of a man, and then imagine, if you can, a pair of keen eyes, that shone in the dark like cat's eyes, suddenly give out a flash of light, and then turn round in their sockets, showing the whites awfully, and then listen to the fall of the glass, and see him grasp his throat with one hand, and thrust the other hand into his stomach. There was a queer kind of voice came from his throat, and then something like a curse and a groan escaped him. "'Damn it,' said I, 'what is the matter now?you've upset all the liquoryou are very nervousyou had better have another dose.' "'No moreno more,' he said faintly and huskily, 'no morefor God's sake no more. I am almost chokedmy throat is scalded, and my entrails on fire!' "'I told you it was hot,' said I. "'Yes, hot, boiling hotgo on. I'm mad with painpush on.' "'Will you have any water, or anything to cool your throat?' said I. "'No, nogo on.' "'Yes,' said I, 'but the brandy and water is hot; however, it's going down very fast nowvery fast indeed, here is the last mouthful;' and as I said so, I gulped it down, returned with the one glass, and then paid for the damage. "This did not occupy five minutes, and away we came along the road at a devil of a pace, and we were all right enough; my friend behind me got over his scald, though he had a very sore gullet, and his intestines were in a very uncomfortable state; but he was better. Away we rattled, the ground rattling to the horse's hoofs and the wheels of the vehicle, the young girl still remaining in the same state of insensibility in which she had first been brought out. No doubt she had taken a stronger dose of the opium than she was willing to admit. That was nothing to me, but made it all the better, because she gave the less trouble, and made it safer. We got here easy enough, drove slap up to the door, which was opened in an instant, jumped out, took the girl, and carried her in. When once these doors are shut upon any one, they may rest assured that it is quite a settled thing, and they don't get out very easy, save in a wooden surtout; indeed, I never lost a boarder by any other means; we always keep one connection, and they are usually so well satisfied, that they never take any one away from us. Well, well! I carried her indoors, and left her in a room by herself on a bed. She was a nice girla handsome girl, I suppose people would call her, and had a low, sweet, and plaintive voice. But enough of this. "'She's all right,' said I, when I returned to this room, 'It's all rightI have left her.' "'She isn't dead,' he inquired, with much terror. "'Oh! no, no! she is only asleep, and has not woke up yet from the effects of the laudanum. Will you now give me one year's pay in advance?' "'Yes,' he replied, as he handed the money, and the remainder of the bonds. 'Now, how am I to do about getting back to London tonight?' "'You had better remain here.' "'Oh, no! I should go mad too, if I were to remain here; I must leave here soon.' "'Well, will you go to the village inn?' "'How far is that off?' "'About a mileyou'll reach it easy enough; I'll drive you over for the matter of that, and leave you there. I shall take the cart there.' "'Very well, let it be so; I will go. Well, well, I am glad it is all over, and the sooner it is over for ever, the better. I am truly sorry for her, but it cannot be helped. It will kill her, I have no doubt; but that is all the better she will escape the misery consequent upon her departure, and release us from a weight of care.' "'So it will,' said I 'but come, we must go at once, if going you are.' "'Yes, yes,' he said hurriedly. "'Well then, come along; the horse is not yet unharnessed, and if we do not make haste, we shall be too late to obtain a lodging for the night.' "'That is very good,' he said, somewhat wildly 'I am quite readyquite.' "We left the house, and trotted off to the inn at a good rate, where we arrived in about ten minutes or less, and then I put up the horse, and saw him to the inn, and came back as quick as I could on foot. 'Well, well,' I thought, 'this will do, I have had a good day of itpaid well for business, and haven't wanted for sport on the road.' "Well, I came to the conclusion that if the whole affair was to speedily end, it would be more in my pocket than if she were living, and she would be far happier in heaven than here, Mr. Todd." "Undoubtedly," said Mr. Sweeney Todd, "undoubtedly, that is a very just observation of yours." "Well, then, I set to work to find out how the matter could be managed, and I watched her until she awoke. She looked around her, and seemed much surprised and confused, and did not seem to understand her position, while I remained at hand." "She sighed deeply, and put her hand to her head, and appeared for a time to be quite unable to comprehend what had happened to her, or where she was. I sent some tea to her, as I was not prepared to execute my purpose, and she seemed to recover, and asked some questions, but my man was dumb for the occasion, and would not speak, and the result was, she was very much frightened. I left her so for a week or two, and then, one day, I went into her cell. She had greatly altered in her appearance, and looked very pale. "'Well,' said I, 'how do you find yourself, now?' "She looked up into my face, and shuddered; but she said in a calm voice, looking round her "'Where am I?' "'You are here!' said I, 'and you'll be very comfortable if you only take on kindly, but you will have a strait waistcoat put on you if you do not.' "'Good God!' she exclaimed, clasping her hands, 'have they put me hereinin' "She could not finish the sentence, and I supplied the word which she did not utter, and then she screamed loudly "'Come,' said I, 'this will never do; you must learn to be quiet, or you'll have fearful consequences.' "'Oh mercy, mercy! I will do no wrong! What have I done that I should be brought here?what have I done? They may take all I have if they will let me live in freedom. I care not where or how poor I may be. Oh, Henry! Henry!if you knew where I was, would you not fly to my rescue? Yes, you would, you would!' "'Ah,' said I, 'there is no Henry here, and you must be content to do without one.' "'I could not have believed that my brother would have acted such a base part. I did not think him wicked, although I knew him to be selfish, mean, and stern, yet I did not think he intended such wickedness; but he thinks to rob me of all my property; yes, that is the object he has in sending me here.' "'No doubt,' said I. "'Shall I ever get out?' she inquired, in a pitiful tone; 'do not say my life is to be spent here!' "'Indeed it is,' said I; 'while he lives, you will never leave these walls.' "'He shall not attain his end, for I have deeds about me that he will never be able to obtain; indeed, he may kill me, but he cannot benefit by my death.' "'Well,' said I, 'it serves him right. And how did you manage that matter? how did you contrive to get the deeds away?' "'Never mind that; it is a small deed, and I have secured it. I did not think he would have done this thing; but he may yet relent. Will you aid me? I shall be rich, and can pay you well.' "'But your brother,' said I. "'Oh, he is rich without mine, but he is overavaricious; but say you will help meonly help me to get out, and you shall be no loser by the affair.' "'Very well,' said I. 'Will you give me this deed as a security that you will keep your word?' "'Yes,' she replied, drawing forth the deeda small parchmentfrom her bosom. 'Take it; and now let me out. You shall be handsomely rewarded.' "'Ah!' said I; 'but you must allow me first to settle this matter with my employers. You must really be mad. We do not hear of young ladies carrying deeds and parchments about them when they are in their senses.' "'You do not mean to betray me?' she said, springing up wildly and rushing towards the deed, which I carefully placed in my breast coatpocket. "'Oh dear no! but I shall retain the deed, and speak to your brother about this matter.' "'My God! my God!' she exclaimed, and then she sank back on her bed, and in another moment she was covered with blood. She had burst a bloodvessel. I sent for a surgeon and physician, and they both gave it as their opinion that she could not be saved, and that a few hours would see the last of her. This was the fact. She was dead before another half hour, and then I sent to the authorities for the purpose of burial; and, producing the certificate of the medical men, I had no difficulty, and she was buried all comfortably without any trouble. "'Well,' thought I, 'this is a very comfortable affair; but it will be more profitable than I had any idea of, and I must get my first reward first, and if there should be any difficulty, I have the deed to fall back upon. He came down next day, and appeared with rather a long face. "'Well,' said he, 'how do matters go on here?' "'Very well,' said I, 'how is your throat?' "I thought he cast a malicious look at me, as much as to imply he laid it all to my charge. "'Pretty well,' he replied; 'but I was ill for three days. How is the patient?' "'As well as you could possibly wish,' said I. "'She takes it kindly, eh? Well, I hardly expected itbut no matter. She'll be a long while on hand, I perceive. You haven't tried the frightening system yet, then?' "'Hadn't any need,' I replied, putting the certificate of her burial in his hand, and he jumped as if he had been stung by an adder, and turned pale; but he soon recovered, and smiled complaisantly as he said "'Ah! well, I see you have been diligent, but I should have liked to have seen her, to have asked her about a missing deed; but no matter.' "'Now about the two hundred pounds,' said I. "'Why,' said he, 'I think one will do when you come to consider what you have received, and the short space of time and all you had a year's board in advance.' "'I know I had; but because I have done more than you expected, and in a shorter time, instead of giving me more, you have the conscience to offer me less.' "'No, no, not thethewhat did you call it?we'll have nothing said about that,but here is a hundred pounds, and you are well paid.' "'Well,' said I, taking the money, 'I must have five hundred pounds at any rate, and unless you give it me, I will tell other parties where a certain deed is to be found.' "'What deed?' "'The one you were alluding to. Give me four hundred more, and you shall have the deeds.' "After much conversation and trouble he gave it to me, and I gave him the deed, with which he was well pleased, but looked hard at the money, and seemed to grieve at it very much. "Since that time I have heard that he was challenged by his sister's lover, and they went out to fight a duel, and he felland died. The lover went to the continent, where he has since lived. "Ah," said Sweeney Todd, "you have had decidedly the best of this affair nobody gained anything but you." "Nobody at all that I know of, save distant relations, and I did very well; but then, you know, I can't live upon nothing it costs me something to keep my house and cellar, but I stick to business, and so I shall as long as business sticks to me." CHAPTER XXIV. COLONEL JEFFERY MAKES ANOTHER EFFORT TO COME AT SWEENEY TODD'S SECRET. If we were to say that Colonel Jeffery was satisfied with the state of affairs as regarded the disappearance of his friend Thornhill, or that he made up his mind now contentedly to wait until chance, or the mere progress of time, blew something of a more defined nature in his way, we should be doing that gentleman a very great injustice indeed. On the contrary, he was one of those chivalrous persons who when they do commence anything, take the most ample means to bring it to a conclusion, and are not satisfied that they have made one great effort, which, having failed, is sufficient to satisfy them. Far from this, he was a man who, when he commenced any enterprise, looked forward to but one circumstance that could possibly end it, and that was its full and complete accomplishment in every respect; so that in this affair of Mr. Thornhill, he certainly did not intend by any means to abandon it. But he was not precipitate. His habits of military discipline, and the long life he had led in camps, where anything in the shape of hurry and confusion is much reprobated, made him pause before he decided upon any particular course of action; and this pause was not one contingent upon a belief, or even a surmise in the danger of the course that suggested itself, for such a consideration had no effect whatever upon him; and if some other mode had suddenly suggested itself, which, while it placed his life in the most imminent peril, would have seemed more likely to accomplish his object, it would have been at once most gladly welcomed. And now, therefore, he set about thinking deeply over what could possibly be done further in a matter that as yet appeared to be involved in the most profound of possible mysteries. That the barber's boy, who had been addressed by him, and by his friend, the captain, knew something of an extraordinary character, which fear prevented him from disclosing, he had no doubt, and, as the colonel remarked "If fear keeps that lad silent upon the subject, fear may make him speak; and I do not see why we should not endeavour to make ourselves a match for Sweeney Todd in such a matter." "What do you propose then?" said the captain. "I should say that the best plan would be, to watch the barber's shop, and take possession of the boy, as we may chance to find an opportunity of so doing." "Carry him off?" "Yes, certainly; and as in all likelihood his fear of the barber is but a visionary affair after all, it can easily, when we have him to ourselves, be dispelled; and then, when he finds that we can and will protect him, we shall hear all he has to say." After some further conversation, the plan was resolved upon; and the captain and the colonel, after making a careful "reconnoissance," as they called it, of Fleetstreet, found that by taking up a station at the window of a tavern, which was nearly opposite to the barber's shop, they should be able to take such effectual notice of whoever went in and came out, that they would be sure to see the boy some time during the course of the day. This plan of operations would no doubt have been greatly successful, and Tobias would have fallen into their hands, had he not, alas! for him, poor fellow, already been treated by Sweeney Todd as we have described by being incarcerated in that fearful madhouse on Peckham Rye, which was kept by so unscrupulous a personage as Fogg. And we cannot but consider that it was most unfortunate for the happiness of all those persons in whose fate we take so deep an interestand in whom we hope, as regards the reader, we have likewise awakened a feeling of great sympathyif Tobias had not been so infatuated as to make the search he did of the barber's house, but had waited even for twentyfour hours before doing so; in that case, not only would he have escaped the dreadful doom which had awaited him, but Johanna Oakley would have been saved from much danger which afterwards befel her. But we must not anticipate; and the fearful adventures which it was her doom to pass through, before she met with the reward of her great virtue, and her noble perseverance will speak for themselves, trumpettongued indeed. It was at a very early hour in the morning that the two friends took up their station at the publichouse so nearly opposite to Sweeney Todd's, in Fleet street; and then, having made an arrangement with the landlord of the house, that they were to have undisturbed possession of the room as long as they liked, they both sat at the window, and kept an eye upon Todd's house. It was during the period of time there spent, that Colonel Jeffery first made the captain acquainted with the fact of his great affection for Johanna, and that in her he thought he had at length fixed his wandering fancy, and found, really, the only being with whom he thought he could, in this world taste the sweets of domestic life, and know no regret. "She is all," he said, "in beauty that the warmest imagination can possibly picture, and along with these personal charms, which certainly are most peerless, I have seen enough of her to feel convinced that she has a mind of the purest order that ever belonged to any human being in the world." "With such sentiments and feelings towards her, the wonder would be," said the captain, "if you did not love her, as you now avow you do." "I could not be insensible to her attractions. But, understand me, my dear friend, I do not, on account of my own suddenlyconceived partiality for this young and beautiful creature, intend to commit the injustice of not trying might and main, and with heart and hand, to discover if, as she supposes, it be true that Thornhill and Mark Ingestrie be one and the same person; and when I say that I love her with a depth and a sincerity of affection that makes her happiness of greater importance to me than my ownyou know, I think, enough of me to feel convinced that I am speaking only what I really feel." "I can," said the captain, "and I do give you credit for the greatest possible amount of sincerity, and I feel sufficiently interested myself in the future fate of this fair young creature to wish that she may be convinced her lover is no more, and may so much better herself, as I am quite certain she would, by becoming your wife; for all we can hear of this Ingestrie seems to prove that he is not the most stableminded of individuals the world ever produced, and perhaps not exactly the sort of manhowever, of course, she may think to the contrary, and he may in all sincerity think so likewiseto make such a girl as Johanna Oakley happy." "I thank you for the kind feeling towards me, my friend, which has dictated that speech, but" "Hush!" said the captain, suddenly, "hush! look at the barber!" "The barber? Sweeney Todd?" "Yes, yes, there he is; do you not see him? There he is, and he looks as if he had come off a long journey. What can he have been about, I wonder? He is draggled in mud!" Yes, there was Sweeney Todd, opening his shop from the outside with a key, that after a vast amount of fumbling, he took from his pocket; and, as the captain said, he did indeed look as if he had come off a long journey, for he was draggled with mud, and his appearance altogether was such as to convince any one that he must have been out in most of the heavy rain which had fallen during the early part of the morning upon London and its suburbs. And this was just the fact, for after staying with the madhousekeeper in the hope that the bad weather which had set in would be alleviated, he had been compelled to give up all chance of such a thing, and as no conveyance of any description was to be had, he enjoyed the pleasure, if it could be called such, of walking home up to his knees in the mud of that dirty neighbourhood. It was, however, some satisfaction to him to feel that he had got rid of Tobias, who, from what he had done as regarded the examination of the house, had become extremely troublesome indeed, and perhaps the most serious enemy that Sweeney Todd had ever had. "Ha!" he said, as he came within sight of his shop in Fleetstreet,"ha! Master Tobias is safe enough; he will give me no more trouble, that is quite clear. What a wonderfully convenient thing it is to have such a friend as Fogg, who for a consideration will do so much towards ridding one of an uncomfortable encumbrance. It is possible enough that that boy might have compassed my destruction. I wish I dared now chance, with the means I have for the sale of the string of pearls, joined to my other resources, leaving business, and so not be obliged to run the risk and have the trouble of another boy." Yes, Sweeney Todd would have been glad now to shut up his shop in Fleetstreet at once and for ever, but he dreaded that when John Mundel found that his customer did not come back to him to redeem the pearls, that he (John Mundel) would proceed to sell them, and that then their beauty and great worth would excite much attention, and some one might come forward who knew more about their early history than he did. "I must keep quiet," he thought,"I must keep quiet; for although I think I was pretty well disguised, and it is not at all likely that any oneno, not even the acute John Mundel himselfwould recognise in Sweeney Todd, the poor barber of Fleetstreet, the nobleman who came from the queen to borrow 8,000 upon a string of pearls; yet there is a remote possibility of danger; and should there be a disturbance about the precious stones, it is better that I should remain in obscurity until that disturbance is completely over." This was no doubt admirable policy on the part of Todd, who, although he found himself a rich man, had not, as many people do when they make that most gratifying and interesting discovery, forgotten all the prudence and tact that made him one of that most envied class of personages. He was some few minutes before he could get the key to turn in the lock of his street door, but at length he effected that object and disappeared from before the eyes of the colonel and his friend into his own house, and the door was instantly again closed upon him. "Well," said Colonel Jeffery, "what do you think of that?" "I don't know what to think, further than that your friend Todd has been out of town, as the state of his boots abundantly testifies." "They do, indeed, and he has the appearance of having been a considerable distance, for the mud that is upon his boots is not London mud." "Certainly not; it is quite of a different character altogether. But see, he is coming out again." Sweeney Todd strode out of his house, bareheaded now, and proceeded to take down the shutters of his shop, which, there being but three, he accomplished in a few seconds of time, and walked in again with them in his hand, along with the iron bar which had secured them, and which he had released from the inside. This was all the ceremony that took place at the opening of Sweeney Todd's shop, and the only surprise our friends, who were at the publichouse window, had upon the subject was, that having a boy, he, Todd, should condescend to make himself so useful as to open his own shop. And nothing could be seen of the lad, although the hour, surely, for his attendance must have arrived; and Todd, equally surely, was not the sort of man to be so indulgent to a boy, whom he employed to make himself generally useful, as to allow him to come when all the dirty work of the early morning was over. But yet such to all appearance would seem to be the case, for presently Todd appeared with a broom in his hand, sweeping out his shop with a rapidity and a vengeance which seemed to say, that he did not perform that operation with the very best grace in the world. "Where can the boy be?" said the captain. "Do you know, little reason as I may really appear to have for such a supposition, I cannot help in my own mind connecting Todd's having been out of town somehow with the fact of that boy's nonappearance this morning." "Indeed!the coincidence is curious, for such was my own thought likewise upon the occasion; and the more I do think of it, the more I feel convinced that such must be the case, and that our watch will be a fruitless one completely. Is it likelyfor possible enough it isthat the villain has found out that we have been asking some questions of the boy, and has thought proper to take his life?" "Do not let us go too far," said the captain, "in mere conjecture; recollect that as yet, let us suspect what we may, we know nothing, and that the mere facts of our not being able to trace Thornhill beyond the shop of this man, will not be sufficient to found an action upon." "I know all that, and I feel how very cautious we must be; and yet to my mind the whole of the circumstances have been day by day assuming a most hideous air of probability, and I look upon Todd as a murderer already." "Shall we continue our watch?" "I scarcely see its utility. Perchance we may see some proceedings which may interest us; but I have a powerful impression that we certainly shall not see the boy we want. But, at all events, the barber, you perceive, has a customer already." As they looked across the way, they saw a well dressed looking man, who, from a certain air and manner which he had, could be detected not to be a Londoner. He rather resembled some substantial yeoman, who had come to town to pay or to receive money, and, as he came near to Sweeney Todd's shop he might have been observed to stroke his chin, as debating in his mind the necessity or otherwise of a shave. The debate, if it were taking place in his mind, ended by the ayes having it, for he walked into Todd's shop, being most unquestionably the first customer which he had had that morning. Situated as the colonel and his friend were, they could not see into Todd's shop, even if the door had been opened, but they saw that after the customer had been in for a few moments, it was closed, so that, had they been close to it, all the interior of the shaving establishment would have been concealed. They felt no great degree of interest in this man, who was a commonplace personage enough, who had entered Sweeney Todd's shop; but when an unreasonable time had elapsed, and he did not come out, they did begin to feel a little uneasy. And when another man, went in and was only about five minutes before he emerged, shaved, and yet the first man did not come, they knew not what to make of it, and looked at each other for some few moments in silence. At length the colonel spokeand he did so in a tone of excitement, saying "My friend, have we waited here for nothing now? What can have become of that man whom we saw go into the barber's shop; but who, I suppose, we feel ourselves to be in a condition to take our oaths never came out?" "I could take my oath; and what conclusion can we come to?" "None, but that he met his death there; and that, let his fate be what it may, it is the same which poor Thornhill has suffered. I can endure this no longer. Do you stay here, and let me go alone." "Not for worldsyou would rush into an unknown danger; you cannot know what may be the powers of mischief that man possesses. You shall not go alone, colonel, you shall not indeed; but something must be done." "Agreed; and yet that something surely need not be of the desperate character you meditate." "Desperate emergencies require desperate remedies; and yet I think that in this case everything is to be lost by precipitation, and nothing is to be gained. We have to do with one who, to all appearance, is keen and subtle, and if anything is to be accomplished contrary to his wishes, it is not to be done by that open career, which for its own sake, under ordinary circumstances, both you and I would gladly embrace." "Well, well," said the colonel, "I do not and will not say but you are right.
" "I know I amI am certain I am; and now hear me I think we have gone quite far enough unaided in this transaction, and that it is time we drew some others into the plot." "I do not understand what you mean." "I will soon explain. I mean, that if in the pursuit of this enterprise, which grows each moment to my mind more serious, anything should happen to you and me, it is absolutely frightful to think that there would then be an end of it." "True, true; and as for poor Johanna and her friend Arabella, what could they do?" "Nothing, but expose themselves to great danger. Come, now, colonel, I am glad to see that we understand each other better about this business; you have heard, of course, of Sir Richard Blunt?" "Sir Richard BluntBluntoh, you mean the magistrate?" "I do; and what I propose is that we have a private and confidential interview with him about the matterthat we make him possessed of all the circumstances, and take his advice what to do. The result of placing the affair in such hands will, at all events, be that if, in anything we may attempt, we may by force or fraud be overpowered, we shall not fall wholly unavenged." "Reason backs your proposition." "I knew it would, when you came to reflect. Oh, Colonel Jeffery, you are too much a creature of impulse." "Well," said the colonel, half jestingly, "I must say that I do not think the accusation comes well from you, for I have certainly seen you do some rather impulsive things, I think." "We won't dispute about that; but since you think with me upon the matter, you will have no objection to accompany me at once to Sir Richard Blunt's?" "None in the least; on the contrary, if anything is to be done at all, for Heaven's sake let it be done quickly. I am quite convinced that some fearful tragedy is in progress, and that, if we are not most prompt in our measures, we shall be too late to counteract its dire influence upon the fortunes of those in whom we have become deeply interested." "Agreed, agreed! Come this way, and let us now for a brief space, at all events, leave Mr. Todd and his shop to take care of each other, while we take an effectual means of circumventing him. Why do you linger?" "I do linger. Some mysterious influence seems to chain me to the spot." "Some mysterious fiddlestick! Why, you are getting superstitious, colonel." "No, no! Well, I suppose I must come with you. Lead the way, lead the way; and believe me that it requires all my reason to induce me to give up a hope of making some important discovery by going to Sweeney Todd's shop." "Yes, you might make an important discovery; and only suppose now that the discovery you did make was that he murdered some of his customers. If he does so, you may depend that such a man takes good care to do the deed effectually, and you might make the discovery just a little too late. You understand that?" "I do, I do. Come along, for I positively declare, that if we see anybody else go into the barber's, I shall not be able to resist rushing forward at once, and giving an alarm." It was certainly a good thing that the colonel's friend was not quite so enthusiastic as he was, or from what we happen actually to know of Sweeney Todd, and from what we suspect, the greatest amount of danger might have befallen Jeffery, and instead of being in a position to help others in unravelling the mysteries connected with Sweeney Todd's establishment, he might himself have been past all help, and most absolutely one of the mysteries. But such was not to be. CHAPTER XXV. TOBIAS MAKES AN ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM THE MADHOUSE. We cannot find it in our hearts to force upon the mind of the reader the terrible condition of poor Tobias. No one, certainly, of all the dramatis person of our tale, is suffering so much as he; and, consequently, we feel it to be a sort of duty to come to a consideration of his thoughts and feelings as he lay in that dismal cell, in the madhouse at Peckham Rye. Certainly Tobias Ragg was as sane as any ordinary Christian need wish to be, when the scoundrel, Sweeney Todd, put him into the coach to take him to Mr. Fogg's establishment; but if by any ingenious process the human intellect can be toppled from its throne, certainly that process must consist in putting a sane person into a lunatic asylum. To the imagination of a boy, too, and that boy one of vivid imagination, as was poor Tobias, a madhouse must be invested with a world of terrors. That enlarged experience which enables persons of more advanced age to shake off much of the unreal, which seemed so strangely to take up its abode in the mind of the young Tobias, had not reached him; and no wonder, therefore, that to him his present situation was one of acute and horrible misery and suffering. He lay for a long time in the gloomy dungeonlike cell into which he had been thrust, in a kind of stupor, which might or might not be the actual precursor of insanity, although, certainly, the chances were all in favour of being so. For many hours he neither moved hand nor foot, and as it was a part of the policy of Mr. Fogg to leave well alone, as he said, he never interfered, by any intrusive offers of refreshment, with the quiet or the repose of his patients. Tobias, therefore, if he had chosen to remain as still as an Indian fakir, might have died in one position, without any remonstrances from any one. It would be quite an impossibility to describe the strange visionary thoughts and scenes that passed through the mind of Tobias during this period. It seemed as if his intellect was engulphed in the charmed waters of some whirlpool, and that all the different scenes and actions which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been clear and distinct, were mingled together in inextricable confusion. In the midst of all this, at length, he began to be conscious of one particular impression or feeling, and that was, that some one was singing in a low, soft voice, very near to him. This feeling, strange as it was in such a place, momentarily increased in volume, until at length it began in its intensity to absorb almost every other; and he gradually awakened from the sort of stupor that had come over him. Yes some one was singing. It was a female voice, he was sure of that, and as his mind became more occupied with that one subject of thought, and his perceptive faculties became properly exercised, his intellect altogether assumed a healthier tone. He could not distinguish the words that were sung, but the voice itself was very sweet and musical; and as Tobias listened, he felt as if the fever of his blood was abating, and that healthier thoughts were taking the place of those disordered fancies that had held sway within the chambers of his brain. "What sweet sounds!" he said. "Oh! I do hope that singing will go on. I feel happier to hear it; I do so hope it will continue. What sweet music! Oh, mother, mother, if you could but see me now!" He pressed his hands over his eyes, but he could not stop the gush of tears that came from them, and which would trickle through his fingers. Tobias did not wish to weep; but those tears, after all the horrors of the night, did him a world of good, and he felt wonderfully better after they had been shed. Moreover, the voice kept singing without intermission. "Who can it be," thought Tobias, "that don't tire with so much of it." Still the singer continued; but now and then Tobias felt certain that a very wild note or two was mingled with the ordinary melody; and that bred a suspicion in his mind, which gave him a shudder to think of, namely, that the singer was mad. "It must be so," said he. "No one in their senses could or would continue for so long a period of time such strange snatches of song. Alas! alas! it is some one who is really mad, and confined for life in this dreadful place; for life do I say, am not I too confined for life here? Oh! help! help! help!" Tobias called out in so loud a tone, that the singer of the sweet strains that had for a time lulled him to composure, heard him, and the strains which had before been redolent of the softest and sweetest melody, suddenly changed to the most terrific shrieks that can be imagined. In vain did Tobias place his hands over his ears, to shut out the horrible sounds. They would not be shut out, but ran, as it were, into every crevice of his brain, nearly driving him distracted by their vehemence. But hoarser tones soon came upon his ears, and he heard the loud, rough voice of a man say "What, do you want the whip so early this morning? The whipdo you understand that?" These words were followed by the lashing of what must have been a heavy carter's whip, and then the shrieks died away in deep groans, every one of which went to the heart of poor Tobias. "I can never live amid all these horrors," he said. "Oh, why don't you kill me at once? it would be much better, and much more merciful. I can never live long here. Help! help! help!" When he shouted this word "help," it was certainly not with the most distant idea of getting any help, but it was a word that came at once uppermost to his tongue; and so he called it out with all his might, that he should attract the attention of some one; for the solitude, and the almost total darkness of the place he was in, was beginning to fill him with new dismay. There was a faint light in the cell, which made him know the difference between day and night; but where that faint light came from he could not tell, for he could see no grating or opening whatever; but yet that was in consequence of his eyes not being fully accustomed to the obscurity of the place; otherwise he would have seen that close up to the roof there was a narrow aperture, certainly not larger than any one could have passed a hand through, although of some four or five feet in length; and from a passage beyond that, there came the dim borrowed light which made darkness visible in Tobias's cell. With a kind of desperation, heedless of what might be the result, Tobias continued to call aloud for help; and after about a quarter of an hour, he heard the sound of a heavy footstep. Some one was coming; yes, surely some one was coming, and he was not to be left to starve to death. Oh, how intently he now listened to every sound, indicative of the near approach of whoever it was who was coming to his prisonhouse. Now he heard the lock move, and a heavy bar of iron was let down with a clanging sound. "Help! help!" he cried again, "help! help!" for he feared that whoever it was they might even yet go away again after making so much progress to get at him. The cell door was flung open, and the first intimation that poor Tobias got of the fact of his cries having been heard, consisted in a lash with a whip, which, if it had struck him as fully as it was intended to do, would have done him serious injury. "So, do you want it already?" said the same voice he had before heard. "Oh nomercy! mercy!" said Tobias. "Oh, that's it now, is it? I tell you what it is, if we have any disturbance here, this is the persuader to silence that we always use what do you think of that for an argument, eh?" As he spoke, the man gave the whip a loud smack in the air, and confirmed the truth of the argument, by inducing poor Tobias to absolute silence; indeed the boy trembled so that he could not speak. "Well, now, my man," added the fellow, "I think we understand each other. What do you want?" "Oh, let me go," said Tobias, "let me go. I will tell nothing. Say to Mr. Todd that I will do what he pleases, and tell nothing, only let me go out of this dreadful place. Have mercy upon meI am not at all madindeed I am not." The man closed the door, as he whistled a lively tune. CHAPTER XXVI. THE MADHOUSE YARD, AND TOBIAS'S NEW FRIEND. This sudden retreat of the man was unexpected by Tobias, who at least thought it was the practice to feed people, even if they were confined to such a place; but the unceremonious departure of the keeper, without so much as mentioning anything about breakfast, began to make Tobias think that the plan by which he was to be got rid of was starvation; and yet that was impossible, for how easy it was to kill him if they felt so disposed. "Oh, no, no," he repeated to himself, "surely they will not starve me to death." As he uttered these words, he heard the plaintive singing commence again; and he could not help thinking that it sounded like some requiem for the dead, and that it was a sort of signal that his hours were numbered. Despair again began to take possession of him, and despite the savage threats of the keeper, he would again have loudly called for help, had he not become conscious that there were footsteps close at hand. By dint of listening most intently he heard a number of doors opened and shut, and sometimes when one was opened there was a shriek, and the lashing of the whips, which very soon succeeded in drowning all other noises. It occurred to Tobias, and correctly too, for such was the fact, that the inmates of that most horrible abode were living, like so many wild beasts, in cages fed. Then he thought how strange it was that even for any amount of money human beings could be got to do the work of such an establishment. And by the time Tobias had made this reflection to himself, his own door was once more opened upon its rusty hinges. There was the flash of a light, and then a man came in with a watercan in his hand, to which there was a long spout, and this he placed to the mouth of Tobias, who fearing that if he did not drink then he might be a long time without, swallowed some not oversavoury ditch water, as it seemed to him, which was thus brought to him. A coarse, brownlooking, hard loaf was then thrown at his feet, and the party was about to leave his cell, but he could not forbear speaking, and in a voice of the most supplicating earnestness he said "Oh, do not keep me here. Let me go, and I will say nothing of Todd. I will go to sea at once if you will let me out of this place, indeed I will; but I shall really go mad here!" "Good that, Watson, ain't it?" said Mr. Fogg, who happened to be one of the party. "Very good, sir. Lord bless you, the cunning of 'em is beyond anything in the world, sir; you'd be surprised at what they say to me sometimes." "But I'm not madindeed I'm not mad!" cried Tobias. "Oh," said Fogg, "it's a bad case I'm afraid; the strongest proof of insanity in my opinion, Watson, is the constant reiteration of the statement that he is not mad on the part of a lunatic. Don't you think it is so, Mr. Watson?" "Oh, of course, sir, of course." "Ah! I thought you would be of that opinion; but I suppose as this is a mere lad, we may do without chaining him up; and, besides, you know that today is inspection day, when we get an old fool of a superannuated physician to make us a visit." "Yes, sir," said Watson, with a grin, "and a report that all is well conducted." "Exactly. Who shall we have this time, do you think? I always give a ten guinea fee." "Why, sir, there's old Dr. Popplejoy, he's 84 years old, they say, and sand blind; he'll take it as a great compliment, he will, and no doubt we can humbug him easily." "I dare say we may; I'll see to it; and we will have him at twelve o'clock, Watson. You will take care to have everything ready, of course, you know; make all the usual preparations." Tobias was astonished that before him they chose thus to speak so freely, but despairing as he was, he little knew how completely he was in the power of Mr. Fogg, and how utterly he was shut out from all human sympathy. Tobias said nothing; but he could not help thinking that, however old and stupid the physician whom they mentioned might be, surely there was a hope that he would be able to discover Tobias's perfect sanity. But the wily Mr. Fogg knew perfectly well what he was about, and when he retired to his own room, he wrote the following note to Dr. Popplejoy, who was a retired physician, who had purchased a country house in the neighbourhood. The note will speak for itself, being as fine a specimen of hypocrisy as we can ever expect to lay before our readers "The Asylum, Peckham. "Sir,Probably you may recognise my name as that of the keeper of a lunatic asylum in this neighbourhood. Consistent with a due regard for the safety of that most unhappy class of the community submitted to my care, I am most anxious, with the blessing of Divine Providence, to ameliorate as far as possible, by kindness, that most shocking of all calamitiesinsanity. Once a year it is my custom to call in some experienced, able, and enlightened physician to see my patients (I enclose a fee)a physician who has nothing to do with the establishment, and therefore cannot be biassed. If you, sir, would do me the favour at about twelve o'clock today, to make a short visit of inspection, I shall esteem it a great honour, as well as a great favour. "Believe me to be, sir, with the most profound respect, your most obedient and humble servant, "O. D. Fogg." "To Dr. Popplejoy, c." This note, as might be expected, brought the old purblind, superannuated Dr. Popplejoy to the asylum, and Mr. Fogg received him in due form, and with great gravity, saying, almost with tears in his eyes "My dear sir, the whole aim of my existence now, is to endeavour to soften the rigours of the necessary confinement of the insane, and I wish this inspection of my establishment to be made by you in order that I may thus for a time stand clear with the worldwith my own conscience I am, of course, always clear; and if your report be satisfactory about the treatment of the unhappy persons I have here, not the slightest breath of slander can touch me." "Oh yes, yes," said the old garrulous physician; "IIvery goodeugh, eughI have a slight cough." "A very slight one, sir. Will you, first of all, take a look at one of the sleeping chambers of the insane?" The doctor agreed, and Mr. Fogg led him into a very comfortable sleepingroom, which the old gentleman declared was very satisfactory indeed, and when they returned to the apartment into which they had already been, Mr. Fogg said "Well then, sir, all we have to do is to bring in the patients, one by one, to you as fast as we can, so as not to occupy more of your valuable time than necessary; and any questions you ask will, no doubt, be answered, and I, being by, can give you the heads of any case that may excite your especial notice." "Exactly, exactly. IIquite correct. Eugheugh!" The old man was placed in a chair of state, reposing on some very comfortable cushions; and take him altogether, he was so pleased with the ten guineas and the flattery of Mr. Foggfor nobody had given him a fee for the last fifteen yearsthat he was quite ready to be the foolish tool of the madhousekeeper in almost any way that he chose to dictate to him. We need not pursue the examination of the various unfortunates who were brought before old Dr. Popplejoy; it will suffice for us if we carry the reader through the examination of Tobias, who is our principal care, without, at the same time, detracting from the genial sympathy we must feel for all who, at that time, were subject to the tender mercies of Mr. Fogg. At about halfpast twelve the door of Tobias's cell was opened by Mr. Watson, who, walking in, laid hold of the boy by the collar, and said "Hark you, my lad! you are going before a physician, and the less you say the better. I speak to you for your own sake; you can do yourself no good, but you can do yourself a great deal of harm. You know we keep a cartwhip here. Come along." Tobias said not a word in answer to this piece of altogether gratuitous advice, but he made up his mind that, if the physician was not absolutely deaf, he should hear him. Before, however, the unhappy boy was taken into the room where old Dr. Popplejoy was waiting, he was washed and brushed down generally, so that he presented a much more respectable appearance than he would have done had he been ushered in in his soiled state, as he was taken from the dirty madhouse cell. "Surely, surely," thought Tobias, "the extent of cool impudence can go no further than this; but I will speak to the physician, if my life should be sacrificed for so doing. Yes, of that I am determined." In another minute he was in the room, face to face with Mr. Fogg and Dr. Popplejoy. "Whatwhat?eugh! eugh!" coughed the old doctor; "a boy, Mr. Fogg, a mere boy. Dear me! IIeugh! eugh! eugh! My cough is a little troublesome I think, todayeugh! eugh!" "Yes, sir," said Fogg, with a deep sigh, and making a pretence to dash a tear from his eye; "here you have a mere boy. I am always affected when I look upon him, doctor. We were boys ourselves once, you know, and to think that the divine spark of intelligence has gone out in one so young, is enough to make any feeling heart throb with agony. This lad though, sir, is only a monomaniac. He has a fancy that some one named Sweeney Todd is a murderer, and that he can discover his bad practices. On all other subjects he is sane enough; but upon that, and upon his presumed freedom from mental derangement, he is furious." "It is false, sir, it is false!" said Tobias, stepping up. "Oh, sir, if you are not one of the creatures of this horrible place, I beg that you will hear me, and let justice be done." "Oh, yesIIeugh! Of courseIeugh!" "Sir, I am not mad, but I am placed here because I have become dangerous to the safety of criminal persons." "Oh, indeed! Ahohyes." "I am a poor lad, sir, but I hate wickedness; and because I found out that Sweeney Todd was a murderer, I am placed here." "You hear him, sir," said Fogg; "just as I said." "Oh, yes, yes. Who is Sweeney Todd, Mr. Fogg?" "Oh, sir, there is no such person in the world." "Ah, I thought as muchI thought as mucha sad case, a very sad case, indeed. Be calm, my little lad, and Mr. Fogg will do all that can be done for you, I'm sure." "Oh! how can you be so foolish, sir," cried Tobias, "as to be deceived by that man, who is making a mere instrument of you to cover his own villany? What I say to you is true, and I am not mad!" "I think, Dr. Popplejoy," said Fogg, with a smile, "it would take rather a cleverer fellow than I am to make a fool of you; but you perceive, sir, that in a little while the boy would get quite furious, that he would. Shall I take him away?" "Yes, yespoor fellow!" "Hear meoh, hear me," shrieked Tobias. "Sir, on your deathbed you may repent this day's workI am not madSweeney Todd is a murdererhe is a barber in FleetstreetI am not mad!" "It's melancholy, sir, is it not?" said Fogg, as he again made an effort to wipe away a tear from his eyes. "It's very melancholy." "Oh! very, very." "Watson, take away poor Tobias Ragg, but take him very gently, and stay with him a little, in his nice comfortable room, and try to soothe him; speak to him of his mother, Watson, and get him round if you can. Alas, poor child! my heart quite bleeds to see him. I am not fit exactly for this life, doctor, I ought to be made of sterner stuff, indeed I ought." "Well," said Mr. Watson, as he saluted poor Tobias with a kick outside the door, "what a deal of good you have done!" The boy's patience was exhausted; he had borne all that he could bear, and this last insult maddened him. He turned with the quickness of thought, and sprang at Mr. Watson's throat. So sudden was the attack, and so completely unprepared for it was that gentleman, that down he fell in the passage, with such a blow of his head against the stone floor that he was nearly insensible; and, before anybody could get to his assistance, Tobias had so pommelled and clawed his face, that there was scarcely a feature discernible, and one of his eyes seemed to be in fearful jeopardy. The noise of this assault soon brought Mr. Fogg to the spot, as well as old Dr. Popplejoy, and the former tore Tobias from his victim, whom he seemed intent upon murdering. CHAPTER XXVII. THE CONSULTATION OF COLONEL JEFFERY WITH THE MAGISTRATE. The advice which his friend had given to Colonel Jeffery was certainly the very best that could have been tendered to him; and, under the whole of these circumstances, it would have been something little short of absolute folly to have ventured into the shop of Sweeney Todd without previously taking every possible precaution to ensure the safety of so doing. Sir Richard was within when they reached his house, and, with the acuteness of a man of business, he at once entered into the affair. As the colonel, who was the spokesman, proceeded, it was evident that the magistrate became deeply interested. Colonel Jeffery concluded by saying "You will thus, at all events, perceive that there is great mystery somewhere." "And guilt, I should say," replied the magistrate. "You are of that opinion, Sir Richard?" "I am, most decidedly." "Then what would you propose to do? Believe me, I do not ask out of any idle curiosity, but from a firm faith, that what you set about will be accomplished in a satisfactory manner." "Why, in the first place, I shall certainly go and get shaved at Todd's shop." "You will venture that?" "Oh, yes; but do not fancy that I am so headstrong and foolish as to run any unnecessary risks in the matterI shall do no such thing you may be assured that I will do all in my power to provide for my own safety; and if I did not think I could do that most effectually, I should not be at all in love with the adventure; but, on the contrary, carefully avoid it to the best of my ability. We have before heard something of Mr. Todd." "Indeed!and of a criminal character?" "Yes; a lady once in the street took a fancy to a pair of shoebuckles of imitation diamonds that Todd had on, when he was going to some city entertainment; she screamed out, and declared that they had belonged to her husband, who had gone out one morning, from his house in Fetterlane, to get himself shaved. The case came before me, but the buckles were of too common a kind to enable the lady to persevere in her statement; and Todd, who preserved the most imperturbable coolness throughout the affair, was, of course, discharged." "But the matter left a suspicion upon your mind?" "It did; and more than once I have resolved in my own mind what means could be adopted of coming at the truth other affairs, however, of more immediate urgency have occupied me, but the circumstances you detail revive all my former feelings upon the subject; and I shall now feel that the matter has come before me in a shape to merit immediate attention." This was gratifying to Colonel Jeffery, because it not only took a great weight off his shoulders, but it led him to think, from the wellknown tact of the magistrate, that something certainly would be accomplished, and that very shortly too, towards unravelling the secret that had as yet only appeared to be more complicated and intricate the more it was inquired into. He made the warmest acknowledgments to the magistrate for the courtesy of his reception, and then took his leave. As soon as the magistrate was alone, he rang a small handbell that was upon the table, and the summons was answered by a man, to whom he said "Is Crotchet here?" "Yes, your worship." "Then, tell him I want him at once, will you?" The messenger retired, but he presently returned, bringing with him about as rough a specimen of humanity as the world could have produced. He was tall and stout, and his face looked as if, by repeated injuries, it had been knocked out of all shape, for the features were most strangely jumbled together indeed, and an obliquity of vision, which rendered it always a matter of doubt who and what he was looking at, by no means added to his personal charms. "Sit down, Crotchet," said the magistrate, "and listen to me without a word of interruption." If Mr. Crotchet had no other good quality on earth, he still had that of listening attentively, and he never opened his mouth while the magistrate related to him what had just formed the subject matter of Mr. Jeffery's communication; indeed, Crotchet seemed to be looking out of the window all the while; but then Sir Richard knew the little peculiarities of his visual organs. When he concluded his statement, Sir Richard said "Well, Crotchet, what do you think of all that? What does Sweeney Todd do with his customers?" Mr. Crotchet gave a singular and peculiar kind of grin, as he said, still looking apparently out of the window, although his eyes were really fixed upon the magistrate "He smugs 'em." "What?" "Uses 'em up, yer worship; it's as clear to me as mud in a wineglass, that it is. Lor' bless you! I've been thinking he did that 'ere sort of thing a deuce of a while, but I didn't like to interfere too soon, you see." "What do you advise, Crotchet? I know I can trust to your sagacity in such a case." "Why, your worship, I'll think it over a bit in the course of the day, and let your worship know what I think. It's a awkward job rather, for a wariety of reasons, but howsomdever there's always a something to be done, and if we don't do it, I'll be hung if I know who can, that's all!" "True, true, you are right there; and, perhaps, before you see me again, you will walk down Fleetstreet, and see if you can make any observations that will be of advantage in the matter. It is an affair which requires great caution indeed." "Trust me, yer worship I'll do it, and no mistake. Lor' bless you, it's easy for anybody now to go lounging about Fleetstreet, without being taken much notice of; for the fact is, the whole place is agog about the horrid smell as has been for never so long in the old church of St. Dunstan." "Smellsmellin St. Dunstan's church! I never heard of that before, Crotchet." "Oh, Lor' yes, it's enough to pison the devil himself, Sir Richard; and t'other day when the blessed bishop went to 'firm a lot of people, he as good as told 'em they might all be damned first, afore he 'firm nobody in such a place." The magistrate was in a deep thought for a few minutes, and then he said suddenly "Well, well, Crotchet, you turn the matter over in your mind and see what you can make of it; I will think it over likewise. Do you hear?mind you are with me at six this evening punctually; I do not intend to let the matter rest, and you may depend, that from this moment I will give it my greatest attention." "Wery good, yer worship; wery good indeed; I'll be here, and something seems to strike me uncommon forcible that we shall unearth this fox very soon, yer worship." "I sincerely hope so." Mr. Crotchet took his leave, and when he was alone the magistrate rose and paced his apartment for some time with rapid strides, as if he was much agitated by the reflections that were passing through his mind. At length he flung himself into a chair with something like a groan, as he said "A horrible idea forces itself upon my considerationmost horrible! most horrible! most horrible! Well, well, we shall seewe shall see. It may not be so and yet what a hideous probability stares me in the face! I will go down at once to St. Dunstan's and see what they are really about. Yes, yes, I shall not get much sleep I think now, until some of these mysteries are developed. A most horrible idea, truly!" The magistrate left some directions at home concerning some business calls which he fully expected in the course of the next two hours, and then he put on a plain, sadcoloured cloak and a hat destitute of all ornament, and left his house with a rapid step. He took the most direct route towards St. Dunstan's church, and finding the door of the sacred edifice yielded to the touch, he at once entered it; but he had not advanced many steps before he was met and accosted by the beadle, who said, in a tone of great dignity and authority "This ain't Sunday, sir; there ain't no service here today." "I don't suppose there is," replied the magistrate; "but I see you have workmen here.
What is it you are about?" "Well, of all the impudence that ever I came near, this is the worstestto ask a beadle what he is about; I beg to say, sir, this is quite private, and there's the door." "Yes, I see it, and you may go out at it just as soon as you think proper." "Oh, conwulsions! oh, conwulsions! This to a beadle." "What is all this about?" said a gentlemanlylooking man, stepping forward from a part of the church where several masons were employed in raising some of the huge flagstones with which it was paved. "What disturbance is this?" "I believe, Mr. Antrobus, you know me," said the magistrate. "Oh, Sir Richard, certainly. How do you do?" "Gracious," said the beadle, "I've put my blessed foot in it. Lor' bless us, sir, how should I know as you was Sir Richard? I begs as you won't think nothing o' what I said. If I had a knowed you, in course I shouldn't have said it, you may depend, Sir RichardI humbly begs your pardon." "It's of no consequenceI ought to have announced myself; and you are perfectly justified in keeping strangers out of the church, my friend." The magistrate walked up the aisle with Mr. Antrobus, who was one of the churchwardens; and as he did so, he said, in a low, confidential tone of voice "I have heard some strange reports about a terrible stench in the church. What does it mean? I suppose you know all about it, and what it arises from?" "Indeed I do not. If you have heard that there is a horrible smell in the church after it has been shut up for some time, and upon the least change in the weather, from dry or wet, or cold or warm, you know as much as we know upon the subject. It is a most serious nuisance, and, in fact, my presence here today is to try and make some discovery of the cause of the stench; and you see we are going to work our way into some of the old vaults that have not been opened for some time, with a hope of finding out the cause of this disagreeable odour." "Have you any objection to my being a spectator?" "None in the least." "I thank you. Let us now join the workmen, and I can only now tell you that I feel the strongest possible curiosity to ascertain what can be the meaning of all this, and shall watch the proceedings with the greatest amount of interest." "Come along then; I can only say, for my part, that, as an individual, I am glad you are here, and as a magistrate, likewise, it gives me great satisfaction to have you." CHAPTER XXVIII. TOBIAS'S ESCAPE FROM MR. FOGG'S ESTABLISHMENT. The rage into which Mr. Fogg was thrown by the attack which the desperate Tobias had made upon his representative, Mr. Watson, was so great, that, had it not been for the presence of stupid old Dr. Popplejoy in the house, no doubt he would have taken some most exemplary vengeance upon him. As it was, however, Tobias was thrown into his cell with a promise of vengeance as soon as the coast was clear. These were a kind of promises which Mr. Fogg was pretty sure to keep, and when the first impulse of his passion had passed away, poor Tobias, as well indeed he might, gave himself up to despair. "Now all is over," he said; "I shall be half murdered! Oh, why do they not kill me at once? There would be some mercy in that. Come and murder me at once, you wretches! You villains, murder me at once!" In his new excitement, he rushed to the door of the cell, and banged at it with his fists, when to his surprise it opened, and he found himself nearly falling into the stone corridor from which the various cell doors opened. It was evident that Mr. Watson thought he had locked him in, for the bolt of the lock was shot back, but had missed its holda circumstance probably arising from the state of rage and confusion Mr. Watson was in, as a consequence of Tobias's daring attack upon him. It almost seemed to the boy as if he had already made some advance towards his freedom, when he found himself in the narrow passage beyond his cell door, but his heart for some minutes beat so tumultuously with the throng of blissful associations connected with freedom, that it was quite impossible for him to proceed. A slight noise, however, in another part of the building roused him again, and he felt that it was only now by a great coolness and selfpossession, as well as great courage, that he could at all hope to turn to account the fortunate incident which had enabled him, at all events, to make that first step towards liberty. "Oh, if I could but get out of this dreadful place," he thought; "if I could but once again breathe the pure fresh air of heaven, and see the deep blue sky, I think I should ask for no other blessings." Never do the charms of nature present themselves to the imagination in more lovely guise than when some one with an imagination full of such beauties, and a mind to appreciate the glories of the world, is shut up from real, actual contemplation. To Tobias now the thought of green fields, sunshine and flowers, was at once rapture and agony. "I must," he said, "I mustI will be free." A thorough determination to do anything, we are well convinced, always goes a long way towards its accomplishment; and certainly Tobias now would cheerfully have faced death in any shape, rather than he would again have been condemned to the solitary horrors of the cell, from which he had by such a chance got free. He conjectured the stupid old Dr. Popplejoy had not left the house, by the unusual quiet that reigned in it, and he began to wonder if, while that quiet subsisted, there was the remotest chance of his getting into the garden, and then scaling the wall, and so reaching the open common. While this thought was establishing itself in his mind, and he was thinking that he would pursue the passage in which he was until he saw where it led to, he heard the sound of footsteps, and he shrank back. For a few seconds they appeared as if they were approaching where he was; and he began to dread that the cell would be searched, and his absence discovered, in which case there would be no chance for him but death. Suddenly, however, the approaching footsteps paused, and then he heard a door banged shut. It was still, even now, some minutes before Tobias could bring himself to traverse the passage again, and when he did, it was with a slow and stealthy step. He had not, however, gone above thirty paces, before he heard the indistinct murmur of voices, and being guided by the sound, he paused at a door on his right hand, which he thought must be the one he had heard closed but a few minutes previously. It was from the interior of the room which that was the door of, that the sound of voices came, and as it was a matter of the very first importance to Tobias to ascertain in what part of the house his enemies were, he placed his ear against the panel, and listened attentively. He recognised both the voices they were those of Watson and Fogg. It was a very doubtful and ticklish situation that poor Tobias was now in, but it was wonderful how, by dint of strong resolution, he had stilled the beating of his heart and the general nervousness of his disposition. There was but a frail door between him and his enemies, and yet he stood profoundly still and listened. Mr. Fogg was speaking. "You quite understand me, Watson, I think," he said, "as concerns that little viper, Tobias Ragg; he is too cunning, and much too dangerous to live long. He almost staggered old superannuated Popplejoy." "Oh, confound him!" replied Watson, "and he's quite staggered me." "Why, certainly your face is rather scratched." "Yes, the little devil! but it's all in the way of business, that, Mr. Fogg, and you never heard me grumble at such little matters yet; and I'll be bound never will, that's more." "I give you credit for that, Watson; but between you and I, I think the disease of that boy is of a nature that will carry him off very suddenly." "I think so too," said Watson, with a chuckle. "It strikes me forcibly that he will be found dead in his bed some morning, and I should not in the least wonder if that were tomorrow morning what's your opinion, Watson?" "Oh, damn it, what's the use of all this roundabout nonsense between us? the boy is to die, and there's an end of it, and die he shall during the nightI owe him a personal grudge, of course, now." "Of course you dohe has disfigured you." "Has he? Well, I can return the compliment; and I say, Mr. Fogg, my opinion is, that it's very dangerous having these medical inspections you have such a fancy for." "My dear fellow, it is dangerous, that I know as well as you can tell me, but it is from that danger we gather safety. If anything in the shape of a disturbance should arise about any patient, you don't know of what vast importance a report from such a man as old Dr. Popplejoy might be." "Well, well, have it your own way. I shall not go near Master Tobias for the whole day, and shall see what starvation and solitude does towards taming him down a bit." "As you please; but it is time you went your regular rounds." "Yes, of course." Tobias heard Watson rise. The crisis was a serious one. His eye fell upon a bolt that was outside the door, and, with the quickness of thought, he shot it into its socket, and then made his way down the passage towards his cell, the door of which he shut close. His next movement was to run to the end of the passage and descend some stairs. A door opposed him, but a push opened it, and he found himself in a small, dimlylighted room, in one corner of which, upon a heap of straw, lay a woman, apparently sleeping. The noise which Tobias made in entering the cell, for such it was, roused her up, and she said "Oh! no, no; not the lash! not the lash! I am quiet. God, how quiet I am, although the heart within is breaking. Have mercy upon me!" "Have mercy upon me," said Tobias, "and hide me if you can." "Hide you! hide you! God of Heaven, who are you?" "A poor victim, who has escaped from one of the cells, and I" "Hush!" said the woman; and she made Tobias shrink down in the corner of the cell, cleverly covering him up with the straw, and then lying down herself in such a position that he was completely screened. The precaution was not taken a moment too soon, for, by the time it was completed, Watson had burst open the door of the room which Tobias had bolted, and stood in the narrow passage. "How the devil," he said, "came that door shut, I wonder?" "Oh! save me," whispered Tobias. "Hush! hush! He will only look in," was the answer. "You are safe. I have been only waiting for some one who could assist me, in order to attempt an escape. You must remain here until night, and then I will show you how it may be done. Hush!he comes." Watson did come, and looked into the cell, muttering an oath, as he said "Oh, you have enough bread and water till tomorrow morning, I should say; so you need not expect to see me again till then." "Oh! we are saved! we shall escape," said the poor creature, after Watson had been gone some minutes. "Do you think so?" "Yes, yes! Oh, boy, I do not know what brought you here, but if you have suffered onetenth part of the cruelty and oppression that I have suffered, you are indeed to be pitied." "If we are to stay here," said Tobias, "till night, before making any attempt to escape, it will, perhaps, ease your mind, and beguile the time, if you were to tell me how you came here." "God knows! it mightit might." Tobias was very urgent upon the poor creature to tell her story, to beguile the tedium of the time of waiting, and after some amount of persuasion she consented to do so. "You shall now hear," she said to Tobias, "if you will listen, such a catalogue of wrongs, unredressed and still enduring, that would indeed drive any human being mad; but I have been able to preserve so much of my mental faculties as will enable me to recollect and understand the many acts of cruelty and injustice that I have endured here for many a long and weary day. My persecutions began when I was very youngso young that I could not comprehend their cause, and used to wonder why I should be treated with greater rigour or with greater cruelty than people used to treat those who were really disobedient and wayward children. I was scarcely seven years old when a maiden aunt died; she was the old person whom I remember as having been uniformly kind to me; though I can only remember her indistinctly, yet I know she was kind to me; I know also I used to visit her, and she used to look upon me as her favourite, for I used to sit at her feet upon a stool, watching her as she sat amusing herself by embroidering, silent and motionless sometimes, and then I asked her some questions which she answered. This is the chief feature of my recollection of my aunt she soon after died, but while she lived, I had no unkindness from anybody; it was only after that that I felt the cruelty and coolness of my family. It appeared that I was a favourite with my aunt above all others, either in our family or any other; she loved me, and promised that when she died, she would leave me provided for, and that I should not be dependent upon any one. Well, I was, from the day after the funeral, an altered being. I was neglected, and no one paid any attention to me whatsoever; I was thrust about, and nobody appeared to care even if I had the necessaries of life. Such a change I could not understand. I could not believe the evidence of my own senses; I thought it must be something that I did not understand; perhaps my poor aunt's death had caused this distress and alteration in people's demeanour to me. However, I was a child, and though I was quick enough at noting all this, yet I was too young to feel acutely the conduct of my friends. My father and mother were careless of me, and let me run where I would; they cared not when I was hurt, they cared not when I was in danger. Come what would, I was left to take my chance. I recollect one day when I had fallen from the top to the bottom of some stairs and hurt myself very much; but no one comforted me; I was thrust out of the drawingroom, because I cried. I then went to the top of the stairs, where I sat weeping bitterly for some time. At length, an old servant came out of one of the attics, and said "'Oh! Miss Mary, what has happened to you, that you sit crying so bitterly on the stair head? Come in here!' "I arose and went into the attic with her, when she set me on a chair, and busied herself with my bruises, and said to me "'Now, tell me what are you crying about, and why did they turn you out of the drawingroomtell me now?' "'Ay,' said I, 'they turned me out because I cried when I was hurt. I fell all the way down stairs, but they don't mind.' "'No, they do not, and yet in many families they would have taken more care of you than they do here!' "'And why do you think they would have done so?' I inquired. "'Don't you know what good fortune has lately fallen into your lap? I thought you knew all about it.' "'I don't know anything, save they are very unkind to me lately.' "'They have been very unkind to you, child, and I am sure I don't know why, nor can I tell you why they have not told you of your fortune.' "'My fortune,' said I; 'what fortune?' "'Why, don't you know that when your poor aunt died you were her favourite?' "'I know my aunt loved me,' I said; 'she loved me, and was kind to me; but since she has been dead, nobody cares for me.' "'Well, my child, she has left a will behind her which says that all her fortune shall be yours; when you are old enough you shall have all her fine things; you shall have all her money and her house.' "'Indeed!' said I; 'who told you so?' "'Oh, I have heard it from those who were present at the reading of the will, that you are, when you are old enough, to have all. Think what a great lady you will be then! You will have servants of your own.' "'I don't think I shall live till then.' "'Oh yes, you willor at least I hope so.' "'And if I should not, what will become of all those fine things that you have told me of? Who'll have them?' "'Why, if you do not live till you are of age, your fortune will go to your father and mother, who take all.' "'Then they would sooner I should die than live?' "'What makes you think so?' she inquired. "'Why,' said I, 'they don't care anything for me now, and they will have my fortune if I were deadso they don't want me.' "'Ah, my child!' said the old woman, 'I have thought of that more than once; and now you can see it. I believe that it will be so. There has many a word been spoken truly enough by a child before now, and I am sure you are rightbut do you be a good child, and be careful of yourself, and you will always find that Providence will keep you out of any trouble.' "'I hope so,' I said. "'And be sure you don't say who told you about this.' "'Why not,' I inquired; 'why may I not tell who told me about it?' "'Because,' she replied, 'if it were known that I told you anything about it, as you have not been told by them, they might discharge me, and I should be turned out.' "'I will not do that,' I replied; 'they shall not learn who told me, though I should like to hear them say the same thing.' "'You may hear them do so one of these days,' she replied, 'if you are not impatient it will come out one of these daystwo may know of it.' "'More than my father and mother?' "'Yes, moreseveral.' "No more was said then about the matter; but I treasured it up in my mind. I resolved that I would act differently, and not have anything to do with themthat is, I would not be more in their sight than I could helpI would not be in their sight at all, save at meal timesand when there was any company there I always appeared. I cannot tell why; but I think it was because I sometimes attracted the attention of others, and I hoped to be able to hear something respecting my fortune; and in the end I succeeded in doing so, and then I was satisfiednot that it made any alteration in my conduct, but I felt I was entitled to a fortune. How such an impression became imprinted upon a girl of eight years of age, I know not but it took hold of me, and I had some kind of notion that I was entitled to more consideration than I was treated to. "'Mother,' said I one day to her. "'Well, Mary, what do you want to tease me about now?' "'Didn't Mrs. Carter the other day say that my aunt left me a fortune?' "'What is the child dreaming about?' said my mother. 'Do you know what you are talking about, child?you can't comprehend.' "'I don't know, mother, but you said it was so to Mrs. Carter.' "'Well, then, what if I did, child?' "'Why, you must have told the truth or a falsehood.' "'Well, Miss Impudence!I told the truth, what then?' "'Why, then I am to have a fortune when I grow up, that's all I mean, mother, and then people will take care of me. I shall not be forgotten, but everything will be done for me, and I shall be thought of first.' "My mother looked at me very hard for a moment or two, and then, as if she was actuated by remorse, she made an attempt to speak, but checked herself, and then anger came to her aid, and she said "'Upon my word, miss! what thoughts have you taken into your fancy now? I suppose we shall be compelled to be so many servants to you! I am sure you ought to be ashamed of yourselfyou ought, indeed!' "'I didn't know I had done wrong,' I said. "'Hold your tongue, will you, or I shall be obliged to flog you!' said my mother, giving me a sound box on the ears that threw me down. 'Now, hold your tongue and go up stairs, and give me no more insolence.' "I arose and went up stairs, sobbing as if my heart would break. I cannot recollect how many bitter hours I spent there, crying by myselfhow many tears I shed upon this matter, and how I compared myself to other children, and how much my situation was worse than theirs by a great deal. They, I thought, had their companionsthey had their hours of play. But what companions had I? and what had I in the way of relaxation? What had I to do save to pine over the past, the present, and the future? My infantile thoughts and hours were alike occupied by the sad reflections that belonged to a more mature age than mine; and yet I was so. Days, weeks, and months passed onthere was no change, and I grew apace; but I was always regarded by my family with dislike, and always neglected. I could not account for it in any other way than they wished me dead. It may appear very dreadfulvery dreadful indeedbut what else was I to think? The old servant's words came upon my mind full of their meaningif I died before I was oneandtwenty, they would have all my aunt's money. "'They wish me to die,' I thought, 'they wish me to die; and I shall dieI am sure I shall die! But they will kill methey have tried it by neglecting me, and making me sad. What can I dowhat can I do?' "These thoughts were the current matter of my mind, and how often do they recur to my recollection now I am in this dull, dreadful place! I can never forget the past. I am here because I have rights elsewhere, which others can enjoy, and do enjoy. However, that is an old evil. I have thus suffered long. But to return. After a year had gone bytwo, I think, must have passed over my headbefore I met with anything that was at all calculated to injure me. I must have been near ten years old, when, one evening, I had no sooner got into bed, than I found I had been put into dampI may say wet sheets. They were so damp that I could not doubt but this was done on purpose. I am sure no negligence ever came to anything so positive and so abominable in all my life. I got out of bed and took them off, and then wrapped myself up in the blankets and slept till morning, without awaking any one. When morning came, I inquired who put the sheets there? "'What do you mean, minx?' said my mother. "'Only that somebody was bad and wicked enough to put positively wet sheets in the bed; it could not have been done through carelessnessit must have been done through sheer wilfulness. I'm quite convinced of that.' "'You will get yourself well thrashed if you talk like that,' said my mother. 'The sheets are not damp; there are none in the house that are damp.' "'These are wet.' "This reply brought her hand down heavily upon my shoulder, and I was forced upon my knees. I could not help myself, so violent was the blow. "'There,' added my mother, 'take that, and that, and answer me if you dare.' "As she said this she struck me to the ground, and my head came in violent contact with the table, and I was rendered insensible. How long I continued so I cannot tell. What I first saw when I awoke was the dreariness of one of the attics into which I had been thrust, and thrown upon a small bed without any furniture. I looked around and saw nothing that indicated comfort, and upon looking at my clothes there were traces of blood. This, I had no doubt, came from myself. I was hurt, and upon putting my hand to my head, found that I was much hurt, as my head was bound up. At that moment the door was opened, and the old servant came in. "'Well, Miss Mary,' she said, 'and so you have come round again? I really began to be afraid you were killed. What a fall you must have had!' "'Fall,' said I; 'who said it was a fall?' "'They told me so.' "'I was struck down.' "'Struck, Miss Mary! Who could strike you? And what did you do to deserve such a severe chastisement? Who did it?' "'I spoke to my mother about the wet sheets.' "'Ah! what a mercy you were not killed! If you had slept in them, your life would not have been worth a farthing. You would have caught cold, and you would have died of inflammation, I am sure of it. If anybody wants to commit murder without being found out, they have only to put them into damp sheets.' "'So I thought, and I took them out.' "'You did quite rightquite right.' "'What have you heard about them?' said I. "'Oh! I only went into the room in which you sleep, and I at once found how damp they were, and how dangerous it was; and I was going to tell your mamma, when I met her, and she told me to hold my tongue, but to go down and take you away, as you had fallen down in a fit, and she could not bear to see you lying there.' "'And she didn't do anything for me?' "'Oh, no, not as I know of, because you were lying on the floor bleeding. I picked you up, and brought you here.' "'And has she not inquired after me since?' "'Not once.' "'And don't know whether I am yet sensible or not?' "'She does not yet know that.' "'Well,' I replied, 'I think they don't care much for me, I think not at all, but the time may come when they will act differently.' "'No, miss, they think, or affect to think, that you have injured them; but that cannot be, because you could not be cunning enough to dispose your aunt to leave you all, and so deprive them of what they think they are entitled to.' "'I never could have believed half so much.' "'Such, however, is the case.' "'What can I do?' "'Nothing, my dear, but lie still till you get better, and don't say any more; but sleep, if you can sleep, will do you more good than anything else now for an hour or so, so lie down and sleep.' "The old woman left the room, and I endeavoured to compose myself to sleep; but could not do so for some time, my mind being too actively engaged in considering what I had better do, and I determined upon a course of conduct by which I thought to escape much of my present persecution. It was some days, however, before I could put it in practice, and one day I found my father and mother together, and I said to her "'Mother, why do you not send me to school?' "'Yousend you to school! did you mean you, miss?' "'Yes, I meant myself, because other people go to school to learn something, but I have not been sent at all.' "'Are you not contented?' "'I am not,' I answered, 'because other people learn something; but at the same time, I should be more out of your way, since I am more trouble to you, as you complain of me; it would not cost more than living at home.' "'What is the matter with the child?' asked my father. "'I cannot tell,' said my mother. "'The better way will be to take care of her, and confine her to some part of the house, if she does not behave better.' "'The little minx will be very troublesome.' "'Do you think so?' "'Yes, decidedly.' "'Then we must adopt some more active measures, or we shall have to do what we do not wish. I am amused at her asking to be sent to school! Was ever there heard of such wickedness? Well, I could not have believed such ingratitude could have existed in human nature.' "'Go out of the room, you hussy,' said my mother; 'go out of the room, and don't let me hear a word from you more.' "'I left the room terrified at the storm I had raised up against me. I knew not that I had done wrong, and went up crying to my attic alone, and found the old servant, who asked what was the matter. I told her all I had said, and what had been the result, and how I had been abused. "'Why, you should let things take their own course, my dear.' "'Yes, but I can learn nothing.' "'Never mind; you will have plenty of money when you grow older, and that will cure many defects; people who have money never want for friends.' "'But I have them not, and yet I have money.' "'Most certainlymost certainly, but you have it not in your power, and you are not old enough to make use of it, if you had it.' "'Who has it?' I inquired. "'Your father and mother.' "No more was said at that time, and the old woman left me to myself, and I recollect I long and deeply pondered over this matter, and yet could see no way out of it, and resolved that I would take things as easily as I could; but I feared that I was not likely to have a very quiet life; indeed, active cruelty was exercised against me. They would lock me up in a room a whole day at a time, so that I was debarred the use of my limbs. I was even kept without food, and on every occasion I was knocked about, from one to the other, without remorseevery one took a delight in tormenting me, and in showing me how much they dared do. Of course servants and all would not treat me with neglect and harshness if they did not see it was agreeable to my parents. This was shocking cruelty; but yet I found that this was not all. Many were the little contrivances made and invented to cause me to fall down stairsto slipto trip, or do anything that might have ended in some fatal accident, which would have left them at liberty to enjoy my legacy, and no blame would be attached to them for the accident, and I should most likely get blamed for what was done, and from which I had been the suffererindeed, I should have been deemed to have suffered justly. On one occasion, after I had been in bed some time, I found it was very damp, and upon examination I found the bed itself had been made quite wet, with the sheets put over it to hide it. This I did not discover until it was too late, for I caught a violent cold, and it took me some weeks to get over it, and yet I escaped eventually, though after some months' illness. I recovered, and it evidently made them angry because I did live. They must have believed me to be very obstinate; they thought me obdurate in the extremethey called me all the names they could imagine, and treated me with every indignity they could heap upon me. Well, time ran on, and in my twelfth year I obtained the notice of one or two of our friends, who made some inquiries about me. I always remarked that my parents disliked any one to speak to, or take any notice of me. They did not permit me to say muchthey did not like my speaking; and on one occasion, when I made some remark respecting school, she replied "'Her health is so bad that I have not yet sent her, but shall do so by and by, when she grows stronger.' "There was a look bent upon me that told me at once what I must expect, if I persisted in my halfformed resolve of contradicting all that had been said. When the visitor went I was well aware of what kind of a life I should have had, if I did not absolutely receive some serious injury. I was terrified, and held my tongue. Soon after that I was seized with violent pains and vomiting. I was very ill, and the servant being at home only, a doctor was sent for, who at once said I had been poisoned, and ordered me to be taken care of. I know how it was done I had some cake given meit was left out for me; and that was the only thing I had eaten, and it astonished me, for I had not had such a thing given me for years, and that is why I believe the poison was put in the cake, and I think others thought so too. However, I got over that after a time, though I was a long while before I did so; but at the same time I was very weak, and the surgeon said that had I been a little longer without assistance, or had I not thrown it up, I must have sunk beneath the effects of a violent poison. He advised my parents to take some measures to ascertain who it was that had administered the poison to me; but though they promised compliance, they never troubled themselves about itbut I was for a long time very cautious of what I took, and was in great fear of the food that was given to me. However, nothing more of that character took place, and at length I quite recovered, and began to think in my own mind that I ought to take some active steps in the matter, and that I ought to seek an asylum elsewhere. I was now nearly fifteen years of age, and could well see how inveterate was the dislike with which I was regarded by my family I thought that they ought to use me better, for I could remember no cause for it. I had given no deadly offence, nor was there any motive why I should be treated thus with neglect and disdain. It was, then, a matter of serious consideration with me, as to whether I should not go and throw myself upon the protection of some friend, and beg their interference in my behalf; but then there was no one whom I felt that would do so much for meno one from whom I expected so great an act of friendship.
It was hardly to be expected from any one that they should interfere between me and my parents; they would have had their first say, and I should have contradicted all they said, and should have appeared in a very bad light indeed. I could not say they had neglected my educationI could not say that, because there I had been careful myself, and I had assiduously striven when alone to remedy this defect, and had actually succeeded; so that, if I were examined, I should have denied my own assertions by contrary facts, which would injure me. Then again, if I were neglected I could not prove any injury, because I had all the means of existence; and all I could say would either be attributed to some evil source, or it was entirely falsebut at the same time I felt that I had great cause of complaint, and none of gratitude. I could hold no communion with any oneall alike deserted me, and I knew none who could say aught for me if I requested their goodwill. I had serious thoughts of possessing myself of some money, and then leaving home, and staying away until I had arrived at age; but this I deferred doing, seeing that there were no means, and I could not do more than I then didthat is, to live on without any mischief happening, and wait for a few years more. I contracted an acquaintance with a young man who came to visit my fatherhe came several times, and paid me more civility and attention than any one else ever did, and I felt that he was the only friend I possessed. It is no wonder I looked upon him as being my best and my only friend. I thought him the best and the handsomest man I ever beheld. This put other thoughts into my head. I did not dress as others did, much less had I the opportunity of becoming possessed of many of those little trinkets that most young women of my age had. But this made no alteration in the good opinion of the young gentleman, who took no notice of that, but made me several pretty presents. These were treasures to me, and I must say I gloated over them, and often, when alone, I have spent hours in admiring them; trifling as they were, they made me happier. I knew now one person who cared for me, and a delightful feeling it was too. I shall never know it againit is quite impossible. Here, among the dark walls and unwholesome cells, we have no cheering ray of life or hopeall is dreary and cold; a long and horrible punishment takes place, to which there is no end save with life, and in which there is no one mitigating circumstanceall is bad and dark. God help me!" "However, my dream of happiness was soon disturbed. By some means my parents had got an idea of this, and the young man was dismissed the house, and forbidden to come to it again. This he determined to do, and more than once we met, and then in secret I told him all my woes. When he had heard all I said, he expressed the deepest commiseration, and declared I had been most unjustly and harshly treated, and thought that there was not a harder or harsher treatment than that which I had received. He then advised me to leave home. "'Leave home,' I said; 'where shall I fly? I have no friend.' "'Come to me, I will protect you; I will stand between you and all the world; they shall not stir hand or foot to your injury.' "'But I cannot, dare not to do that; if they found me out, they would force me back with all the ignominy and shame that could be felt from having done a bad act; not any pity would they show me.' "'Nor need you; you would be my wifeI mean to make you my wife.' "'You?' "'Yes! I dreamed not of anything else. You shall be my wife; we will hide ourselves, and remain unknown to all until the time shall have arrived when you are of agewhen you can claim all your property, and run no risk of being poisoned or killed by any other means.' "'This is a matter,' said I, 'that ought to be considered well before adopting anything so violent and so sudden.' "'It does; and it is not one that I think will injure by being reflected upon by those who are the principal actors; for my own part my mind is made up, and I am ready to perform my share of the engagement.' "I resolved to consider the matter well in my own mind, and felt every inclination to do what he proposed, because it took me away from home, and because it would give me one of my own. My parents had become utterly estranged from me they did not act as parents, they did not act as friends, they had steeled my heart against them; they never could have borne any love to me, I am sure of it, who could have committed such great crimes against me. As the hour drew near, that in which I was likely to become an object of still greater hatred and dislike to them, I thought I was often the subject of their private thoughts, and often when I entered the room my mother and father, and the rest, would suddenly leave off speaking, and look at me, as if to ascertain if I had overheard them say anything. On one occasion I remember very well I heard them conversing in a low tone. The door happened to have opened of itself, the hasp not having been allowed to enter the mortise. I heard my name mentioned I paused and listened. "'We must soon get rid of her,' said my mother. "'Undoubtedly,' he replied; 'if we do not, we shall have her about our ears she'll get married, or some infernal thing, and then we shall have to refund.' "'We could prevent that.' "'Not if her husband were to insist upon it, we could not; but the only plan I can now form is, what I told you of already.' "'Putting her into a madhouse?' "'Yes there, you see, she will be secured, and cannot get away. Besides, those who go there die in a natural way before many years.' "'But she can speak.' "'So she may; but who attends to the ravings of a mad woman? No, no; depend upon it, that is the best plan send her to a lunatic asyluma private madhouse. I can obtain all that is requisite in a day or two.' "'Then we will consider that settled?' "'Certainly.' "'In a few days, then?' "'Before next Sunday; because we can enjoy ourselves on that day without any restraint, or without any uncomfortable feelings of uncertainty about us.' "I waited to hear no more I had heard enough to tell me what I had to expect. I went back to my own room, and having put on my bonnet and shawl I went out to see the individual to whom I have alluded, and saw him. I then informed him of all that had taken place, and heard him exclaim against them in terms of rising indignation. "'Come to me,' he said; 'come to me at once.' "'Not at once.' "'Don't stop a day.' "'Hush!' said I, 'there's no danger; I will come the day after tomorrow; and then I will bid adieu to all these unhappy moments, to all these persecutions; and in three years' time I shall be able to demand my fortune, which will be yours.' "We were to meet the next day but one, early in the morning; there was not, in fact, to be more than thirty hours elapse before I was to leave homeif home I could call ithowever, there was no time to be lost. I made up a small bundle and had all in readiness before I went to bed, and placed in security, intending to rise early, and let myself out and leave the house. That, however, was never to happen. While I slept, at a late hour of the night, I was awakened by two men standing by my bedside, who desired me to get up and follow them. I refused, and they pulled me rudely out of bed. I called out for aid, and exclaimed against the barbarity of their proceedings. "'It is useless to listen to her,' said my father, 'you know what a mad woman will say!' "'Ay, we do,' replied the men, 'they are the cunningest devils we ever heard. We have seen enough of them to know that.' "To make the matter plain, I was seized, gagged, and thrust into a coach, and brought here, where I have remained ever since." CHAPTER XXIX. TOBIAS'S RAPID JOURNEY TO LONDON. There was something extremely touching in the tone, and apparently in the manner in which the poor persecuted one detailed the story of her wrongs, and she had a tribute of a willing tear from Tobias. "After the generous confidence you have had in me," he said, "I ought to tell you something of myself." "Do so," she replied, "we are companions in misfortune." "We are indeed." Tobias then related to her at large all about Sweeney Todd's villanies, and how at length he, Tobias, had been placed where he was for the purpose of silencing his testimony of the evil and desperate practices of the barber. After that, he related to her what he had overheard about the intention to murder him that very night, and he concluded by saying "If you have any plan of escape from this horrible place, let me implore you to tell it to me, and let us put it into practice tonight, and if we fail, death is at any time preferable to continued existence here." "It isit islisten to me." "I will indeed," said Tobias "you will say you never had such attention as I will now pay to you." "You must know, then, that this cell is paved with flagstones, as you see, and that the wall here at the back forms likewise part of the wall of an old woodhouse in the garden, which is never visited." "Yes, I understand." "Well, as I have been here so long, I managed to get up one of the flagstones that forms the flooring here, and to work under the wall with my handsa slow labour, and one of pain, until I made a regular kind of excavation, one end of which is here, and the other in the woodhouse." "Glorious!" said Tobias. "I seeI seego on." "I should have made my escape if I could, but the height of the garden wall has always been the obstacle. I thought of tearing this miserable quilt into strips, and making a sort of rope of it; but then how was I to get it on the wall? you, perhaps will, with your activity and youth, be able to accomplish that." "Oh, yes, yes! you're right enough there; it is not a wall shall stop me." They waited until, from a church clock in the vicinity, they heard ten strike, and they began operations. Tobias assisted his new friend to raise the stone in the cell, and there, immediately beneath, appeared the excavation leading to the woodhouse, just sufficiently wide for one person to creep through. It did not take long to do that, and Tobias took with him a piece of work, upon which he had been occupied for the last two hours, namely the quilt torn up into long pieces, twisted and tied together, so that it formed a very tolerable rope, which Tobias thought would sustain the weight of his companion. The woodhouse was a miserablelooking hole enough, and Tobias at once thought that the door of it was fastened, but by a little pressure it came open; it had only stuck through the dampness of the woodwork at that low point of the garden. And now they were certainly both of them at liberty, with the exception of surmounting the wall, which rose frowningly before him in all its terrors. There was a fine cool fresh air in the garden, which was indeed most grateful to the senses of Tobias, and he seemed doubly nerved for anything that might be required of him after inhaling that delicious, cool fresh breeze. There grew close to the wall one of those beautiful mountainash trees, which bend over into such graceful foliage, and which are so useful in the formation of pretty summerhouses. Tobias saw that if he ascended to the top of this tree there would not be much trouble in getting from there to the wall. "We shall do it," he said, "we shall succeed." "Thank God, I hear you say so," replied his companion. Tobias tied one end of the long rope they had made of the quilt to his waist, so that he might carry it up with him, and yet leave him free use of his hands and feet, and then he commenced ascending the tree. In three minutes he was on the wall. The moon shone sweetly. There was not a tree or house in the vicinity that was not made beautiful now, in some portions of it, by the sweet, soft light that poured down upon them, Tobias could not resist pausing a moment to look around him on the glorious scene; but the voice of her for whom he was bound to do all that was possible, aroused him. "Oh, Tobias!" she said, "quick, quicklower the rope; oh, quick!" "In a momentin a moment," he cried. The top of the wall was here and there armed with iron spikes, and some of these formed an excellent grappling place for the torn quilt. In the course of another minute Tobias had his end of it secure. "Now," he said, "can you climb up by it, do you think? Don't hurry about it. Remember, there is no alarm, and for all we know we have hours to ourselves yet." "Yes, yesoh, yesthank God!" he heard her say. Tobias was not where he could, by any exertion of strength, render her now the least assistance, and he watched the tightening of the frail support by which she was gradually climbing to the top of the wall with the most intense and painful interest that can be imagined. "I comeI come," she said, "I am saved." "Come slowlyfor God's sake, do not hurry." "No, no." At this moment Tobias heard the frail rope giving way; there was a tearing soundit broke, and she fell. Lights, too, at that unlucky moment, flashed from the house, and it was now evident an alarm had been given. What could he do? if two could not be saved he might himself be saved. He turned, and flung his feet over the wall; he hung by his hands as low as he could, and then he dropped the remainder of the distance. He was hurt, but in a moment he sprang to his feet, for he felt that safety could only lie in instant and rapid flight. The terror of pursuit was so strong upon him that he forgot his bruises. "Thank Heaven," exclaimed Tobias, "I am at last free from that horrible place. Oh, if I can but reach London now, I shall be safe; and as for Sweeney Todd, let him beware, for a day of retribution for him cannot be far off." So saying, Tobias turned his steps towards the city, and at a hard trot, soon left Peckham Rye far behind him as he pursued his route. CHAPTER XXX. MRS. LOVETT'S COOK MAKES A DESPERATE ATTEMPT. There are folks who can and who will bow like reeds to the decrees of evil fortune, and with a patient, asslike placidity, go on bearing the ruffles of a thankless world without complaining, but Mrs. Lovett's new cook was not one of those. The more destiny seemed to say to him"Be quiet!" the more he writhed, and wriggled, and fumed, and could not be quiet. The more fate whispered in his ears"You can do nothing," the more intent he was upon doing something, let it be what it might. And he had a little something, in the shape of a respite too, now, for had he not baked a batch of pies, and sent them up to the devouring fangs of the lawyers' clerks in all their gelatinous, beauty and gushing sweetness, to be devoured. To be sure he had, and therefore having, for a space, obeyed the behests of his taskmistress, he could sit with his head resting upon his hands and think. Thought! What a luxury! Where is the Indian satrapwhere the arch Inquisitorwhere the grasping, dishonest, scheming employer who can stop a man from thinking?and as Shakspeare, says of sleep, "From that sleep, what dreams may come?" so might he have said of thought, From that thought what acts may come? Now we are afraid that, in the first place, the cook, in spite of himself, uttered some expression concerning Mrs. Lovett of neither an evangelical or a polite character, and with these we need not trouble the reader. They acted as a sort of safetyvalve to his feelings, and after consigning that fascinating female to a certain warm place, where we may fancy everybody's pie might be cooked on the very shortest notice, he got a little more calm. "What shall I do?what shall I do?" Such was the rather vague question he asked of himself. Alas! how often are those four simple words linked together, finding but a vain echo in the overcharged heart. What shall I do? Ay, what!small power had he to do anything, except the quietest thing of allthat one thing which Heaven in its mercy has left for every wretch to do if it so pleases himto die! But, somehow or another, a man upon the uphill side of life is apt to think he may do something rather than that, and our cook, although he was about as desperate a cook as the world ever saw, did not like yet to say die. Now, in that curious combination of passions, impulses, and prejudices in the mind of this man it would be a hard case if some scheme of action did not present itself, even in circumstances of the greatest possible seeming depression, and so, after a time, the cook did think of something to do. "Many of these pies," he said to himself, "are not eaten in the shop, ergo they are eaten out of the shop, and possibly at the respective houses of the purchaserswhat more feasible mode of disclosing my position, and 'the secrets of my prisonhouse,' can there be than the enclosing a note in one of Mrs. Lovett's pies?" After reviewing all the pros and cons of this scheme, there only appeared a few little difficulties in the way, but, although they were rather serious, they were not insurmountable. In the first place, it was possible enough that the unfortunate pie in which the note might be enclosed might be eaten in the shop, in which event the note might go down the throat of some hungry lawyer's clerk, and it might be handed to Mrs. Lovett, with a "God bless me, ma'am, what's this in the pie?" and then Mrs. Lovett might, by a not very remote possibility, say to herself"This cook is a scheming, longheaded sort of a cook, and notwithstanding he does his duty by the pies, he shall be sent upon an errand to another and a better world," and in that case the delectable scheme of the note could only end in the total destruction of the unfortunate who conceived it. Objection the second was, that, although nothing is so easy as to say"Oh, write a note all about it," nothing is so difficult as to write a note about anything without paper, ink, and a pen. The cook rubbed his forehead, and cried "Dn it!" This seemed to have the desired effect, for he at once recollected that he was supplied with a thin piece of paper for the purpose of laying over the pies if the oven should by chance be over heated, and so subject them to an overbrowning process. "Surely," he thought, "I shall be able to make a substitute for a pen, and as for ink, a little coal and water, orah, I have it, black from my lights, of course. Haha! How difficulties vanish when a man has thoroughly made up his mind to overcome them. Haha! I write a noteI post it in a piesome lawyer sends his clerk for a pie, and he gets that pie. He opens it and sees the notehe reads ithe flies to a policeoffice, and gets a private interview with a magistratea couple of Bowstreet runners walk down to Bell Yard, and seize Mrs. LovettI hear a row in the shop, and cry'Here I amI am heremake hastehere I amhere I am!' Hahahahahaha!" "Are you mad?" The cook started to his feet "Who spokewho spoke?" "I," said Mrs. Lovett, looking through the ingenious little wicket at the top of the door. "What do you mean by that laughing? If you have gone mad, as one cook once did, death will be a relief to you. Only convince me of that fact, and in two hours you sleep the long sleep." "I beg your pardon, ma'am, I am not at all mad." "Then why did you laugh in such a way that it reached even my ears above?" "Why, ma'am, are you not a widow?" "Well?" "Well then, you could not have possibly looked at me as you ought to have done, or you would have seen that I am anything but a bad looking fellow, and as I am decidedly single, what do you say to taking me for better or for worse? The pie business is a thriving one, and, of course, if I had an interest in it, I should say nothing of affairs down below here." "Fool!" "Thank you, madam, for the compliment, but I assure you, the idea of such an arrangement made me laugh, and at all events, provided I do my duty, you don't mind my laughing a little at it?" Mrs. Lovett disdained any further conversation with the cook, and closed the little wicket. When she was gone he took himself seriously to task for being so foolish as to utter his thoughts aloud, but yet he did not think he had gone so far as to speak loud enough about the plan of putting the letter in a pie for her to hear that. "Oh, nono, I am safe enough. It was the laughing that made her come. I am safe as yet!" Having satisfied himself fully upon this point, he at once set to work to manufacture his note. The paper, as he had said, was ready at hand. To be sure, it was of a thin and flimsy texture, and decidedly brown, but a man in his situation could be hardly supposed to stand upon punctilios. After some trouble he succeeded in making an apology for a pen by the aid of a piece of stick, and he manufactured some very tolerable ink, at least, as good as the soot and water commonly sold in London for the best "japan," and then he set about writing his note. As we have an opportunity of looking over his shoulder, we give the note verbatim. "Sir(or Madam)I am a prisoner beneath the shop of Mrs. Lovett, the pie female, in Bell Yard. I am threatened with death if I attempt to escape from my now enforced employment. Moreover, I am convinced that there is some dreadful secret connected with the pies, which I can hardly trust my imagination to dwell upon, much less here set it down. Pray instantly, upon receipt of this, go to the nearest policeoffice and procure me immediate aid, or I shall soon be numbered with the dead. In the sacred names of justice and humanity, I charge you to do this." The cook did not, for fear of accidents, put his name to this epistle. It was sufficient, he thought, that he designated his condition, and pointed out where he was. This note he folded into a close flat shape, and pressed it with his hands, so that it would take up a very small portion of room in a pie, and yet, from its size and nature, if the pie fell into the hands of some gourmand who commenced eating it violently, he could not fail to feel that there was a something in his mouth more indigestible than the delicate mutton or veal and the flaky crust of which Mrs. Lovett's delicacies were composed. Having proceeded thus far, he concluded that the only real risk he ran was, that the pie might be eaten in the shop, and the enclosure, without examination, handed over to Mrs. Lovett merely as a piece of paper which had insinuated itself where it had no right to be. But as no design whatever can be carried out without some risk or another, he was not disposed to give up his, because some contingency of that character was attached to it. The prospect of deliverance from the horrible condition to which he was reduced, now spread over his mind a pleasing calm, and he set about the manufacture of a batch of pies, so as to have it ready for the oven when the bell should ring.Into one of them he carefully introduced his note. Oh, what an eye he kept upon that individual pie. How often he carefully lifted the upper crust, to have a peep at the little missive which was about to go upon an errand of life or death.How he tried to picture to his mind's eye the sort of person into whose hands it might fall, and then how he thought he would listen for any sounds during the next few hours, which should be indicative of the arrest of Mrs. Lovett, and the presence of the police in the place. He thought, then, that if his laugh had been sufficiently loud when merely uttered to himself, to reach the ears of Mrs. Lovett, surely his shout to the police would be heard above all other sounds, and at once bring them to his aid. Tingle! tingle! tingle! went a bell. It was the signal for him to get a batch of pies ready for the oven. "Good," he said, "it is done." He waited until the signal was given to him to put them in to be cooked, and then, after casting one more look at the pie that contained his note, in went the batch to the hot air of the oven, which came out upon his face like the breath of some giant in a highly febrile state. "'Tis done," he said. "'Tis done, and I am saved!" He sat down and covered his face with his hands, while delicious dreamy thoughts of freedom came across his brain. Green fields, trees, meadows and uplands, and the sweet blue sky, all appeared before him in bright and beautiful array. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I shall see them all once again.Once again I shall look, perchance, upon the bounding deep blue sea. Once again I shall feel the sun of a happier clime than this fanning my cheek. Oh, liberty, liberty, what a precious boon art thou!" Tingle! tingle! tingle! He started from his dream of joy. The pies are wanted; Mrs. Lovett knew well enough how long they took in doing, and that by this time they should be ready to be placed upon the ascending trap. Down it came. Open went the oven door, and in another minute the note was in the shop. The cook placed his hand upon his heart to still its tumultuous beating as he listened intently. He could hear the sound of feet aboveonly dimly though, through that double roof. Once he thought he heard high words, but all died away again, and nothing came of it.All was profoundly still. The batch of pies surely were sold now, and in a paper bag he told himself his pie, par excellence, had gone perhaps to the chambers of some attorney, who would be rejoiced to have a finger in it; or to some briefless barrister, who would be rejoiced to get his name in the papers, even if it were only connected with a story of a pie. Yes, the dream of freedom still clung to the imagination of the cook, and he waited, with every nerve thrilling with expectation, the result of his plan. One, two, three hours had passed away, and nothing came of the pie or the letter. All was as quiet and as calm as though the malignant fates had determined that there he was to spend his days for ever, and gradually as in a frigid situation the narrow column of mercury in a thermometer will sink, sank his spiritsdowndowndown! "Nono," he said. "No hope. Timidity or incredulity has consigned my letter to the flames, perhaps, or some widemouthed, stupid idiot has actually swallowed it. Oh that it had choked him by the way. Oh that it had actually stuck in his throat.It is over, I have lost hope again. This horrible place will be my charnelhousemy family vault! Curses!Nono. What is the use of swearing? My despair is past thatfar past that" "Cook!" said a voice. He sprang up, and looked to the wicket. There was Mrs. Lovett gazing in at him. "Cook!" "Wellwell.Fiend in female shape, what would you with me? Did you not expect to find me dead?" "Certainly not. Here is a letter for you." "Aaletter?" "Yes. Perhaps it is an answer to the one you sent in the pie, you know." The unfortunate grasped his head, and gave a yell of despair. The letterfor indeed Mrs. Lovett had onewas dropped upon the ground floor from the opening through which she conversed with her prisoner, and then, without another word, she withdrew from the little orifice, and left him to his meditation. "Lost!lost!lost!" he cried. "All is lost. God, is this enchantment? Or am I mad, and the inmate of some cell in an abode of lunacy, and all this about pies and letters merely the delusion of my overwrought fancy? Is there really a piea Mrs. Lovetta Bell Yarda letteraaadamn it, is there such a wretch as I myself, in this vast bustling world, or is all a wild and fathomless delusion?" He cast himself upon the ground, as though from that moment he gave up all hope and desire to save himself. It seemed as though he could have said "Let death come in any shape he may, he will find me an unresisting victim. I have fought with fate, and am, like thousands who have preceded me in such a contestbeaten!" A kind of stupor came over him, and there he lay for more than two hours; but youth will overcome much, and the mind, like some depressed spring, will, in the spring of life, soon recover its rebound; so it was with the unhappy cook. After a time he rose and looked about him. "No," he said, "it is no dream. It is no dream!" He then saw the letter lying upon the ground, which Mrs. Lovett had with such irony cast unto him. "Surely," he said, "she might have been content to tell me she had discovered my plans, without adding this practical sneer to it." He lifted the letter from the floor, and found it was addressed "To Mrs. Lovett's Cook, Bell Yard, Temple Bar;" and what made it all the more provoking was, that it seemed to have come regularly through the post, for there were the official seal and blue stamp upon it. Curiosity tempted him to open it, and he read as follows "SirHaving, in a most delicious pie, received the extraordinary communication which you inserted in it, I take the earliest opportunity of replying to you. The character of a highly respectable and pious woman is not, sir, to be whispered away in a pie by a cook. When the whole bench of bishops were proved, in black and white, to be the greatest thieves and speculators in the known world, it was their character that saved them, for, as people justly enough reasoned, bishops should be pious and justtherefore, a bishop cannot be a thief and a liar! Now, sir, apply this little mandate to Mrs. Lovett, and assure yourself; but no one will believe anything you can allege against a female with so fascinating a smile, and who attends to her religious duties so regularly. Reflect, young man, on the evil that you have tried to do, and for the future learn to be satisfied with the excellent situation you have. The pie was very good." I am, you bad young man, A Parishioner of St. Dunstan's, Sweeney Todd." "Now was there ever such a piece of cool rascality as this?" cried the cook, "Sweeney ToddToddTodd. Who the devil is he? This is some scheme of Mrs. Lovett's to drive me mad." He dashed the letter upon the floor. "Not another pie will I make! Nonono. Welcome deathwelcome that dissolution which may be my lot, rather than the continued endurance of this terrible imprisonment. Am I, at my time of life, to be made the slave of such a demon in human shape as this woman? Am I to grow old and grey here, a mere pie machine? Nono, death a thousand times rather!" Tears! yes, bitter scalding tears came to his relief, and he wept abundantly, but those tears were blessed, for as they flowed, the worst bitterness of his heart flowed with them, and he suddenly looked up, saying "I am only twentyfour." There was magic in the sound of those words. They seemed in themselves to contain a volume of philosophy. Only twentyfour. Should he, at that green and unripe age, get rid of hope? Should he, at twentyfour only, lie down and say"Let me die!" just because things had gone a little adverse, and he was the enforced cook of Mrs. Lovett? "Nono," he said. "No, I will endure much, and I will hope much. Hitherto, it is true, I have been unsuccessful in what I have attempted for my release, but the diabolical cunning, even of this woman, may fail her at some moment, and I may have my time of revenge. Nono, I need not ask for revenge, justice will docommon justice. I will keep myself alive. Hope shall be my guiding star. They shall not subdue the proud spirit they have succeeded in caging, quite so easily, I will not give up, I live and have youthful blood in my veins, I will not despair. Despair? NoHence, fiend!I am as yet only twentyfour. Haha! Only twentyfour." CHAPTER XXXI. SHOWS HOW TOBIAS GOT TO LONDON. We will now take a peep at Tobias. Ononon, like the wind, went the poor belated boy from the vicinity of that frightful prisonhouse at Peckham. Terror was behind himterror with dishevelled locks was upon his right hand, and terror shrieking in his ear was upon his left. Onon, he flew like a whirlwind. Alas, poor Tobias, will your young intellects yet stand these trials? We shall see! Through the deep mud of the Surrey roadspast pedestrianspast horsemen, and past coaches flew poor Tobias, onon. He had but one thought, and that was to place miles and miles of space between him and Mr. Fogg's establishment.
The perspiration poured down his facehis knees shook under himhis heart beat as though in some wild pulsation it would burst, but he passed on until he saw afar off the old Bridge of London. The route to Blackfriars he had by some chance avoided. Many, who for the last two miles of Tobias's progress, had seen him, had tried to stop him. They had called after him, but he had heeded them not. Some fast runners had pursued him for a short distance, and then given up the chase in despair. He reached the bridge. "Stop that boy!" cried a man, "he looks mad!" "Nono," shrieked Tobias, "I am not mad! I am not mad!" A man held out his arms to stop him, but Tobias dashed past him like a flash of lightning, and was off again. "Stop him!" cried twenty voices. "Stop thief!" shouted some who could not conceive that anybody was to be stopped on any other account. "No, no," gasped Tobias, as he flew onwards"not mad, not mad!" The Flight Of Tobias From Peckham MadHouse. The Flight Of Tobias From Peckham MadHouse. His feet failed him. He reeled a few more paces like a drunken man, and then fell heavily upon some stone steps, where he lay bathed in perspiration. Blood too gushed from his mouth. A gentleman's horse was standing at the door, and the man came out to mount him at that moment, and he saw the rapidly collecting crowd. With the reins of his steed in his hand, he pushed his way through the mob, saying "What is it? what is it?" "A mad boy, sir," said some. "Only look at him. Did you ever see the like. He looks as if he had run a hundred miles." "Good God!" cried the gentleman. "It is he! It is he!" "Who, sir? who, sir?" "A poor lad that I know, I will take charge of him. My name is Jeffery, I am Colonel Jeffery. A couple of guineas to any strong man who will carry him to the nearest surgeon's. Alas! poor boy, what a state is this to meet him in." It was quite astonishing the numbers of strong men that there were all of a sudden in the crowd, who were each anxious and willing to earn the colonel's two guineas. There was danger of a fight arising upon the subject, when one man, after knocking down two others and threatening the remainder, stepped up, and lifting Tobias as though he had been an infant, exclaimed "Ale does it! ale does it! Come on, my little 'un." All gave way before the gigantic proportions of no other than our old friend Big Ben the Beef Eater, who, as chance would have it, was upon the spot, and who, without a thought of the colonel's two guineas, only heard that a poor sick boy had to be carried to the nearest medical man. Tobias could not be in better hands than Ben's, for the latter carried him much more carefully than ever nursemaid carried a child out of sight of its mother. "Follow me," said Colonel Jeffery, as he saw in the distance a partycoloured lamp, which hung over a door appertaining to a chemist. "Follow, and I will reward you." "Doesn't want it," said Ben. "It's ale as does it." "What?" "Ale does it. Here you is. Come on." Colonel Jeffery was rather surprised at the droll customer he had picked up in the street, but provided he carried Tobias in safety, which bythebye he (the colonel) would not have scrupled to do himself, had he not been encumbered by his horse, it was all one to him, and that he saw Ben was effectually doing. Tobias had shown some slight symptoms of vitality before being lifted from the step of the door close to which he had fallen, but by the time they all reached the chemist's shop, he was in a complete state of insensibility. Of course the usual crowd that collects on such occasions followed them, and during the walk the colonel had time to think, and the result of those thoughts was, that it would be a most desirable thing to keep the knowledge to himself that Tobias was Tobias. He had, in order to awe the mob from any interference with him, announced who he was, but had not announced Tobias. At least if he had uttered his name, he felt certain that it was in an interjectional sort of way, and not calculated to awaken any suspicion. "I will keep it to myself," he thought, "that Tobias is in my possession, otherwise if such a fact should travel round to Sweeney Todd, there's no saying to what extent it might put that scoundrel upon his guard." By the time the colonel had arrived at this conclusion the whole party had reached the chemist's, and Big Ben walked in with Tobias, and placed him at once upon the top of a plateglass counter, which had upon it a large collection of trumpery scent bottles and wonderful specifics for everything, through which Tobias went with a crash. "There he is!" said Ben"ale does it." "Fire! murder! my glass case!" cried the chemist, "Oh, you monster!" "Ale does it. What do you mean, eh?" Big Ben backed a pace or two and went head and shoulders through a glass case of similar varieties that was against the wall. "Gracious bless the beasteses," said Ben, "is your house made of glass? What do you mean by it, eh? A fellow can't turn round here without going through something. You ought to be persecuted according to law, that you ought." Now this learned chemist had in the glass case against which Big Ben had tumbled a skeleton, which, from the stunning and terrible look it had in his shop, brought him many customers, and it was against this remnant of humanity that Big Ben's head met, after going through the glass as a preparatory step. By some means or another Ben caught his head under the skeleton's ribs, and the consequence was that out he hooked him from the glass case, and the first intimation Ben had of anything unusual, consisted of seeing a pair of bony legs dangling down on each side of him. So unexpected a phenomenon gave Ben what he called a "blessed turn," and out he bounced from the shop, carrying the skeleton for all the world like what is called pickaback, for the wires that supplied the place of cartilages held it erect, and so awful a sight surely was never seen in the streets of London as Big Ben with a skeleton upon his back. People fled beforesome turned in at shop doors; and an old lady with a large umbrella and a pair of gigantic pattens went clean through a silversmith's window. But we must leave Ben and the skeleton to get on as well as they can en route to the Tower, while we turn our attention to Tobias. "Are you a surgeon?" cried Colonel Jeffery. "Aa surgeon? No, I'm only a druggist; but is that any reason why a second Goliath should come into my shop and destroy everything?" Colonel Jeffery did not wait for anything more, but snatching Tobias from the remnants of the plate glass, he ran to the door with him, and handing him to the first person he saw there, he cried "When I am mounted give me the boy." "Yes, sir." He sprang upon his horse; Tobias was handed to him like a bale of goods, and laying him comfortably as he could upon the saddle before him, off set the colonel at a good round trot through Finsbury to his own house. Colonel Jeffery had no sort of intention that the chemist should be a sufferer, but in his hurry to be off with Tobias, and speedily get medical advice for him, he forgot to say so, and accordingly there stood the man of physic then fairly bewildered by the events of the last few moments, during which his stock in trade had been materially damaged and a valuable amount of glass broken, to say nothing of the singular and most unexpected abduction of his friend the skeleton. "Here's a pretty day's work!" he said. "Here's a pretty day's work! More mischief done than enough, and the worst of it is, my wife will hear of it, and then there will be a deal of peace in the house. Oh, dearoh, dearwas there ever such an unfortI knew it" A good rap upon his head from a pair of bellows wielded by a little meagrefaced woman, that he was big enough to have swallowed, confined his words. While all this was going on, Colonel Jeffery had ridden fast, and passing through Finsbury and up the Cityroad, had reached his house in the fashionablebut now quite the reverse, as the man says in the playdistrict of Pentonville. "This is a prize," thought the colonel, "worth the taking. It will go hard with me but I will extract from this boy all that he knows of Sweeney Todd, and we shall see how far that knowledge will go towards the confirmation of my suspicions regarding him." He carried Tobias himself to a comfortable bedroom, and immediately sent for a medical practitioner of good repute in the neighbourhood, who happening fortunately to be at home, obeyed the summons immediately. He sent likewise for his friend the captain, whom he knew would be overjoyed to hear of what he would call the capture of Tobias Ragg. The medical man made his appearance first, as being much closer at hand, and the colonel led him to the apartment of the invalid boy, saying to him as he went "I know nothing of what is the matter with this ladI have been very anxious to see him on account of certain information that he possesses, and only found him this morning upon a door step in the street, in the state you see him." "Is he very ill?" "I am afraid he is." The medical man followed the colonel to the room in which poor Tobias lay, and after gazing upon him for a few moments, and opening with his fingers the closed eyelids of Tobias, he shook his head. "I wish I knew," he said, "what has produced this state. Can you not inform me, sir?" "Indeed I cannot, but I suspect that the boy's imagination has been cruelly acted upon by a man, whom you will excuse me from naming just at present, but whom I sincerely hope to bring to justice shortly." "The boy's brain, no doubt, is in a bad condition. I do not take upon myself to say that, as an organ, it is diseased, but fractionally it is damaged. However, we must do the best we can to recover him from this condition of collapse in which he is." "Can you form any opinion as to his probable recovery?" "Indeed I cannot, but he is young, and youth is a great thing. The best that can be done shall be done." "I thank you. Spare nothing for the lad, and pay him every attention, as though he were a son or a brother of my own; I long to hear him speak, and to convince him that he is really among friends, who are not only willing to protect him, but have likewise the power to do so." The medical man bowed, as he said "May I ask his name, sir?" He had his tablets in his hand ready to book the name of Tobias, but the colonel was so very much afraid that Sweeney Todd might by some means learn that Tobias was in his house, and so take an alarm, that he would not trust even the medical man, who, no doubt, had no other motive in asking the name than merely to place it in his list of calls. "Smith," said the colonel. The medical man gave a short dry sort of cough, as he wrote "Master Smith" upon his tablets, and then promising to return in half an hour, he took his leave. At the expiration of half an hour Tobias was put under a course of treatment. His head was shaved, and a blister clapped upon the back of his neck. The room was darkened, and strict quiet was enjoined. "As soon as he betrays any signs of consciousness, pray send for me, sir," said the surgeon. "Certainly." In the course of the day the captain made his appearance, and Colonel Jeffery detailed to him all that had taken place, only lamenting that, after so happily getting possession of Tobias, he should be in so sorry a condition. The captain expressed a wish to see him, and they both went to the chamber, where a woman had been hired to sit with Tobias, in order to give the first intimation of his stirring. Of course, as it was her duty, and what she was specially hired for, to keep wide awake, she was fast asleep, and snoring loud enough to awaken any one much worse than poor Tobias. But that was to to be expected. "Oh," said the captain, "this is a professional nurse." "A professional devil!" said the colonel. "How did you know that?" "By her dropping off so comfortably to sleep, and her utter neglect of her charge. I never knew one that did not do so, and, in good truth, I am inclined to think it is the very best thing they can do, for if they are not asleep they are obnoxiously awake." The colonel took a pin from his cravat, and rather roughly inserted its point into the fat arm of the nurse. She started up, exclaiming "Drat the fleas, can't a mortal sleep in peace for them?" "Madam," said the colonel, "how much is owing to you for sleeping here a few hours?" "Lord bless me, sir, is this you? The poor soul has never so much as stirred. How my heart bleeds continually for him, to be sure. Ah, dear me, we are all born like sparks, and keep continually flying upward, as the psalm says." "How much do I owe you?" "Here today, and gone tomorrow. Bless his innocent face." The colonel rung the bell, and a strapping footman made his appearance. "You will see this woman to the door, John," he said, "and pay her for being here about three hours." "Why, you mangy skinflint," cried the woman. "What do you" She was cut short in her vituperative eloquence by John, who handed her down stairs with such dispatch that a pint bottle of gin rolled out of her pocket and was smashed, filling the house with an odour that was quite unmistakeable. "What do you propose to do?" said the captain. "Why, as we have dined, if you have no objection we will sit here and keep this poor benighted one company for awhile. He is better with no one than such as she whom I have dislodged; but before night he shall have a more tender and less professional nurse. You know more of the world, after all, than I do, captain." CHAPTER XXII. TOBIAS HAS A MIND DISEASED. With a bottle of claret upon the table between them, Colonel Jeffery and his old friend sat over the fire in the bedroom devoted to the use of poor Tobias Ragg. Alas! poor boy, kindness and wealth that now surrounded him came late in the day. Before he first crossed the threshold of Sweeney Todd's odious abode, what human heart could have more acutely felt genuine kindness than Tobias's, but his destiny had been an evil one. Guilt has its victims, and Tobias was in all senses one of the victims of Sweeney Todd. "I am sufficiently, perhaps superstitious, you will call it," said Colonel Jeffery in a low tone of voice, "to think that my meeting with this boy was not altogether accidental." "Indeed?" "No. Many things have happened to me during lifealthough I admit that they may be all accounted for as natural coincidences, curious only at the best but still suggestive of something very different, and make me at times a convert to the belief in an interfering special Providence, and this is one of them." "It is a dangerous doctrine, my friend." "Think you so?" "Yes. It is much better and much safer both for the judgment and imagination to account naturally for all those things which admit of a natural explanation, than to fall back upon a special Providence, and fancy that it is continually interfering with the great and immutable laws that govern the world. I do notmark medeny such a thing, but I would not be hasty in asserting it. No man's experience can have been without numerous instances such as you mention." "Certainly not." "Then I should say to you, as St. Paul said to the Athenians'In all things I find you superstitious.' What's that?" A faint moan had come upon both their ears, and after listening for a few moments another made itself heard, and they fancied, by the direction of the sound, that Tobias's lips must have uttered it. Placing his finger against his mouth to indicate silence, the colonel stepped up to the bedside, and hiding behind the curtains, he said, in the softest and kindest voice he could assume "Tobias! Tobias! fear nothing now you are with friends, Tobias; and, above all, you are perfectly free from the power of Sweeney Todd." "I am not mad! I am not mad!" shouted Tobias with a shrill vehemence that made both the colonel and his friend start. "Nay, who says you are mad, Tobias? We know you are not mad, my lad. Don't alarm yourself about that, we know you are not mad." "Mercy! mercy! I will say nothingnothing. How fiendlike he looks. Oh, Mr. Todd, spare me, and I will go far, far away, and die somewhere else, but do not kill me now, I am yet suchsuch a boy only, and my poor father is deaddeaddead!" "Ring the bell," said Jeffery to his friend, "and tell John to go for Mr. Chisolm, the surgeon. Comecome, Tobias, you still fancy you are under the power of Todd, but it is not soyou are quite safe here." "Hush! hush! motheroh, where are you, motherdid you leave me here, mother? Say you took, in a moment of thoughtlessness, the silver candlestick! Is Todd to be a devil, because you were thoughtless once? Hide me from himhide mehide! hide! I am not mad. Hark! I hear himonetwothreefourfivesix steps, and all Todd's. Each one leaves blood in its track. Look at him now! His face changes'tis a fox'sa serpent'shideoushideousGodGod! I am madmadmad!" The boy dashed his head from side to side, and would have flung himself from the bed had not Colonel Jeffery advanced and held him. "Poor fellow," he said, "this is very shocking. Tobias! Tobias!" "Hush! I hearpoor thing, did they say you was mad too?Hide me in the straw! Theretherewhat a strange thing it is for all the air to be so full of blood. Do we breathe blood, and only fancy it air? Hush! not a wordhe comes with a serpent's faceoh, tell me why does God let such beings ever riot upon the beautiful earthonetwothreefourfivesixHisshiss! Offoff! I am not madnot mad. Ha! ha! ha!" An appalling shriek concluded this paroxysm, and for a few moments Tobias was still. The medical man at this time entered the room. "Oh," he said, "we have roused him up again, have we." Medical men are rather fond of the plural identifying style of talking. "Yes," said Colonel Jeffery, "but he had better have slept the sleep of death than have awakened to be what he is, poor fellow." "A littleeh?" The doctor tapped his forehead. "Not a little." "Far away over the sea!" said Tobias, "oh, yesin any ship, only do not kill me, Mr. Toddlet me go and I will say nothing, I will work and send my poor mother hardearned gold, and your name shall never pass our lips. Oh, nonono, do not say that I am mad. Do you see these tears? I haveI have not cried so since my poor father called me to him and held me in a last embrace of his wasted arms, saying, 'Tobias, my darling, I am goinggoing far from you. God's blessing be upon you, poor child.' I thought my heart would break then, but it did not, I saw him put from the face of the living into the grave, and I did not quite break my heart then, but it is brokenbroken now! Mad! mad! oh, no, not madnono, but the lastbut the last. I tell you, sir, that I amamam not mad. Why do you look at me, I am not madonetwothreefourfivesix. GodGodGod! I am madmad. Ha! ha! ha! There they come, all the serpents, and Todd is their king. How the shadows fly aboutthey shrinkI cannot shrink. Help! God! God! God!" "This is horrible," said Colonel Jeffery. "It is appalling, from the lips of one so young," said the captain. The medical man rubbed his hands together as he said "Why, ahem! it certainly is strangely indicative of a considerable amount of mental derangement, but we shall be able, I dare say, to subdue that. I think, if he could be persuaded to swallow a little draught I have here, it would be beneficial, and allay this irritation, which is partly nervous." "There cannot be much difficulty," said the colonel, "in making him swallow anything, I should think." "Let us try." They held Tobias up while the doctor poured the contents of a small phial into his mouth. Nature preferred performing the office of deglutition to choking, and it was taken. The effect of the opiate was rapid, and after some inarticulate moans and vain attempts to spring from the bed, a deep sleep came over poor Tobias. "Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Chisolm, "I beg to inform you that this is a bad case." "I feared as much." "A very bad case. Some very serious shock indeed has been given to the lad's brain, and if he at all recovers from it, he will be a long time doing so. I do not think those violent paroxysms will continue, but they may leave a kind of fatuity behind them which may be exceedingly difficult to grapple with." "In that case, he will not be able to give me the information I desire, and all I can do is to take care that he is kindly treated somewhere, poor lad. Poor fellow, his has been a hard lot. He evidently has a mind of uncommon sensibility, as is manifest from his ravings." "Yes, and that makes the case worse. However, we must hope for the best, and I will call again in the morning." "Will he awake soon?" "Not for six or eight hours at least, and when he does, it is very unlikely that those paroxysms will again ensue. He will be quiet enough." "Then it will be scarcely necessary, during that time, to watch him, poor fellow?" "Not at all. Of course, when he awakens it will be very desirable that some one should be here to speak to him; for, finding himself in a strange place, he will otherwise naturally be terrified." All this was promised by the colonel, and the medical man left the house, evidently with very slender hopes in his own mind of the recovery of Tobias. The colonel and his friend retired to another room, and then, after a consultation, they agreed that it was highly proper they should inform Sir Richard Blunt of what had taken place, for although poor Tobias was in no present condition to give any information, yet his capture, if it might be called by such a term, was so important an event that it would be unpardonable to keep it from the magistrate. They accordingly went together to his house, and luckily finding him at home, they at once communicated to him their errand. He listened to them with the most profound attention, and when they had concluded, he said "Gentlemen, it will be everything, if this lad recovers sufficiently to be a witness against his rascal of a master, for that is just what we want. However, from the account you give me of him, I am very much afraid the poor fellow's mind is too severely affected." "That, too, is our fear." "Well, we must do the best we can, and I should advise that when he awakens some one should be by him with whose voice, as a friendly sound, he will be familiar." "Who can we get?" "His poor mother." "Ah, yes, I will set about that at once." "Leave it to me," said Sir Richard Blunt, "leave that to meI know where to find Mrs. Ragg, and what's best to say to her in the case. Let me see, in about four hours from now probably Tobias may be upon the point of recovery." "Most probably." "Then, sir, expect me at your house in that time with Mrs. Ragg. I will take care that the old lady's mind is put completely at ease, so that she will aid us in any respect to bring about the recovery of her son, who no doubt has suffered severely from some plan of Todd's to put him out of the way. That seems to me to be the most likely solution to the mystery of his present condition." "Todd, I am convinced," said Colonel Jeffery, "would stop at no villany." "Certainly not. My own belief is, that he is so steeped to the lips in crime, that he sees no other mode of covering his misdeeds already done than by the commission of new ones. But his career is nearly at an end, gentlemen." The colonel and the captain took the rising of the magistrate from his chair as a polite hint that he had something else to do than to gossip with them any longer, and they took their leave, after expressing again to him how much they appreciated his exertions. "If the mystery of the fate of my unhappy friend," said the colonel, "is ever cleared up, it will be by your exertion, Sir Richard, and he and I, and society at large, will owe to you a heavy debt of gratitude for unmasking so horrible a villain as Sweeney Todd, for that he is such no one can doubt." CHAPTER XXXIII. JOHANNA WALKS ABROAD IN DISGUISE. But, amid all the trials, and perplexities, and anxieties that beset the dramatis person of our story, who suffered like Johanna? What heart bled as hers bled? What heart heaved with sad emotion as hers heaved? Alas! poor Johanna, let the fate of Mark Ingestrie be what it might, he could not feel the pangs that tore thy gentle heart. Truly might she have said "Man's love is of his life a thing apart 'Tis woman's whole existence," for she felt that her joyher life itself, was bartered for the remembrance of how she had been loved by him whose fate was involved in one of the most painful and most inscrutable of mysteries. Where could she seek for consolation, where for hope? The horizon of her young life seemed ever darkening, and the more she gazed upon it with the fond hope of singing "The first faint star of coming joy," the more confounded her gentle spirit became by the blackness of despair. It is sad indeed that the young, the good, and the gentle, should be the grand sufferers in this world, but so it is. The exquisite capacity to feel acutely is certain to find ample food for agony. If human nature could wrap itself up in the chill mantle of selfishness, and be perfectly insensible to all human feeling, it might escape, but such cannot be done by those who, like the fine and nobleminded Johanna Oakley, sympathise with all that is beautiful and great in creation. Already the pangs of hope deferred were feeding upon the damask of her cheeks. The lily had usurped the rose, and although still exquisitely beautiful, it was the pale beauty of a statue that she began to show to those who loved her. In the street people would turn to gaze after her with admiration blended with pity. They already looked upon her as half an angel, for already it seemed as though she had shaken off much of her earthly lurements, and was hastening to "Rejoin the stars." The Schoolfellows, Johanna And Arabella. The Schoolfellows, Johanna And Arabella. Let us look at her as she lies weeping upon the breast of her friend Arabella Wilmot. The tears of the two young girls are mingling together, but the one is playing the part of comforter, while the other mourns over much. "Now, Johanna," sobbed Arabella, "you talk of doing something to save Mark Ingestrie, if he be living, or to bring to justice the man whom you suspect to be his murderer. Let me ask you what you can hope to do, if you give way to such an amount of distress as this?" "Nothingnothing." "And are you really to do nothing? Have you not agreed, Johanna, to make an attempt, in the character of a boy, to find out the secret of Ingestrie's disappearance, and have not I provided for you all that you require to support the character? Courage, courage, courage.Oh, I could tell you such stories of fine ladies dressing as pages, and following gallant knights to the field of battle, that you would feel as though you could go through anything." "But the age of chivalry is gone." "Yes, and whybecause folks will not be chivalric. To those who will, the age of chivalry comes back again in all its glory." "Listen to me, Arabella if I really thought that Mark was no more, and lost to me for ever, I could lie down and die, leaving to Heaven the punishment of those who have taken his life, but in the midst of all my griefin the moments of my deepest depression, the thought clings to me, that he lives yet. I do not know how it is, but the thought of Mark Ingestrie dead, is but a vague one, compared to the thought of Mark Ingestrie suffering." "Indeed?" "Yes, and at times it seems as if a voice whispered to me, that he was yet to be saved, if there existed a heart fair enough and loving enough in its strength to undertake the task. It is for that reason, and not from any romantic love of adventure, or hope of visiting with punishment a bad man, that my imagination clings to the idea of going in boy's apparel to Fleetstreet, to watch, and perchance to enter that house to which he last went, and from which, according to all evidence, he never emerged." "And you are really bold enough?" "I hope soI think, if I am not, God will help me." A sob that followed these words, sufficiently testified how much in need of God's help poor Johanna was, but after a few minutes she succeeded in recovering herself from her emotion, and she said more cheerfully "Come, Arabella, we talked of a rehearsal of my part; but I shall be more at ease when I go to act it in reality, and with danger. I shall be able to comport myself well, with only you for a companion, and such chance passengers as the streets of the city may afford for my audience." "I am glad," said Arabella, "that you keep in this mind. Now come and dress yourself, and we will go out together. You will be taken for my brother, you know." In the course of a quarter of an hour, Johanna presented the appearance of as goodlooking a lad of about fourteen as the world ever saw, and if she could but have imparted a little more confidence and boyish bustle to her gait and manner, she would have passed muster under the most vigilant scrutiny. But as it was, nothing could be more unlikely than that any one should penetrate her disguise, for what is not suspected, is seldom seen very readily. "You will do capitally," said Arabella, "I must take your arm, you know. We will not go far." "Only to Fleet Street." "Fleet Street. You surely will not go so far as that?" "Yes, Arabella. Now that I have attired myself in these garments for a special purpose, let me do a something towards the carrying it out. By walking that distance I shall accustom myself to the road; and, moreover, a dreadful kind of fascination drags me to that man's shop." Arabella, if the truth must be told, shook a little as they, after watching an opportunity, emerged into the street, for although the spirit of romantic adventure had induced her to give the advice to Johanna that she had, her own natural feminine sensibilities shrunk from the carrying of it out. Ashamed, however, of being the first to condemn her own suggestion, she took the arm of Johanna, and those two young creatures were in the tide of human life that ebbs and flows in the great city. The modest walk and gentle demeanour of the seeming young boy won Johanna many a passing glance as she and Arabella proceeded down Ludgate Hill towards Fleet Street, but it was quite clear that no one suspected the disguise which, to do Arabella justice, in its general arrangement was very perfect, and as Johanna wore a cap, which concealed much of the upper part of her face, and into which was gathered all her hair, she might have really deceived those who were the most intimate with her, so that it was no wonder she passed unobserved with mere strangers. In this way, then, they reached Fleet Street without obstruction, and Johanna's heart beat rapidly as they approached the shop of Sweeney Todd. "It will be imprudent to stop for even a moment at his door or window," said Arabella, "for, remember, you have no opportunity of varying your disguise." "I will not stop. We will pass rapidly on, butbut it is something to look upon the doorstep over which the shadow of Mark has last passed." In another moment they were on a level with the shop. Johanna cast a glance at the window, and then shrunk back with affright as she saw, occupying one of the upper panes of glass, the hideous face of Todd. He was not looking at her though, for with an awful squint that revealed all the whites of his eyeswe were going to say, but the dirty yellows would have been much nearer the truthhe seemed to be observing something up the street. "Come oncome on," whispered Johanna. Arabella had not happened to observe this apparition of Todd in the window, and she looked round to see what occasioned Johanna's sudden terror, when a young Temple clerk, who chanced to be a few paces behind them, immediately, with the modesty peculiar to his class, imagined the glance of the blooming girl to be a tribute to his attractions.
He kissed the end of a faded glove, and put on what he considered a firstclass fascinating aspect. Johanna's Alarm At The Sight Of Sweeney Todd. Johanna's Alarm At The Sight Of Sweeney Todd. "Come oncome on," said Arabella now in her turn. Johanna, of course, thought that Arabella too had caught sight of the hideous and revolting countenance of Sweeney Todd, and so they both hastened on together. "Don't look back," said Arabella. "Is he following?" "Oh, yesyes." Johanna thought she meant Todd, while Arabella really meant the Temple gent, but, notwithstanding the mutual mistake, they hurried on, and the clerk taking that as quite sufficient encouragement, pursued them, putting his cravat to rights as he did so, in order that when he came up to them, he should present the most fascinating aspect possible. "Nono." said Johanna, as she glanced behind. "You must have been mistaken, Arabella. He is not pursuing us." "Oh, I am so glad." Arabella looked back, and the Temple gent kissed his dilapidated glove. "Oh, Johanna," she said, "how could you tell me he was not following, when there he is." "What, Todd?" "No. That impertinent ugly puppy with the soiled cravat." "And you meant him?" "To be sure." "Oh, what a relief, I was flying on, fancying that Todd was in pursuit of us, and yet my judgment ought at once to have told me that that could not be the case, knowing nothing of us. How our fears overcome all reason. Do you know that strangelooking young man?" "Know him? Not I." "Well, my darling," said the gent, reaching to within a couple of paces of Arabella, "how do you do today?ahem! Are you going far? Ain't you afraid that somebody will run away with such a pretty gal as you'pon soul, you are a charmer." "Cross," whispered Arabella, and the two young girls at once crossed Fleet Street. It was not then so difficult an operation to get from one side of that thoroughfare to the other as it is now. The gent was by no means disconcerted at this evident wish to get out of his way, but he crossed likewise, and commenced a series of persecution, which such animals call gallantry, and which, to any respectable young female, are specially revolting. "Now, my dear," he said, "St. Dunstan's is just going to strike the hour, and you will see the clubs hit the bells if you look, and I shall expect a kiss when it's all over." "You are impertinent," said Johanna. "Come, that's a good jokewhy, you little whipper snapper, I suppose you came out to take care of your sister. Here's a penny to go and buy yourself a cold pie at Mrs. Lovett's. I'll see to your sister while you are gone. Oh, you need not look so wild about it. Did you never hear of a gent talking to a pretty gal in the street?" "Often," said Johanna, "but I never heard of a gentleman doing so." "Upon my word, you are as sharp as a needle, so I'll just pull your ears to teach you better manners, you young rascalcomecome, it's no use your kicking." "Helphelp!" cried Arabella. They were now just opposite the principal entrance to the Temple, and as Arabella cried "help," who should emerge from under the gateway but Ben the Beef Eater. The fact is, that he was on his way to the Tower just previous to the meeting with Colonel Jeffery and Tobias. Arabella, who had twice or thrice seen him at the Oakley's, knew him at once. "Oh, sir," she cried, "I am Johanna's friend, Miss Wilmot, and thisthis gent won't leave me and my cousin here alone." The gent made an effort to escape, but Ben caught him by the hinder part of his apparel, and held him tight. "Is this him?" "Yesyes." "Oh dear nooh dear no, my good sir. It's that fellow there, with the white hat. There he goes, up Chancery Lane. My dear sir, you are quite mistaken; I wanted to protect the young lady, and as for the lad, bless his heart. Ioh dear, it wasn't me." Still holding the gent by the first grasp he had taken of him, Ben suddenly crossed the road to where a parish pump stood, at the corner of Bell Yard, and holding him under the spout with one hand, he worked the handle with the other, despite the shrieks and groans of his victim, who in a few moments was rendered so limp and wet, that when Ben let him go, he fell into the sink below the pump, and there lay, until some small boys began pelting him. During the confusion and laughter of the bystanders, Arabella and Johanna rapidly retreated towards the City again, for they thought Ben might insist upon escorting them, and that, in such a case, it was possible enough the disguise of Johanna, good as it was, might not suffice to save her from the knowledge of one so well acquainted with her. "Let us cross, Arabella," she said. "Let us cross, if it be but for one moment, to hear what the subject of the conversation between Todd and that man is." "If you wish it, Johanna." "I do, I do." They crossed, and once again passed the shop of Todd, when they heard the man say "Well, if he has gone he has gone, but I think it is the strangest thing I ever heard of." "So do I," said Todd. Without lingering, and so perhaps exciting Todd's attention and suspicion, they could hear no more, but Johanna had heard enough to give the spur to imagination, and when they had again crossed Fleetstreet, and were making their way rapidly up Ludgatehill, she whispered to Arabella "Another! another!" "Another what, Johanna? You terrify me by that tone. Oh, be calm. Be calm, I pray you. Some one will observe your agitation." "Another victim," continued Johanna. "Another victimanother victim. Did you not hear what the man said? Was it not suggestive of another murder? Oh, Heaven preserve my reason, for each day, each hour, brings to me such accumulating proof of horrors, that I fear I shall go mad." "Hush! hush! JohannaJohanna!" "My poor, poor Mark" "Remember that you are in the street, Johanna, and for my sake, I pray you to be calm. Those tears and that flushed cheek will betray you. Oh, why did I ever advise you to come upon such an enterprise as this? It is my fault, all my fault." The terror and the selfaccusation of Arabella Wilmot did more to bring Johanna to a reasonable state than anything else, and she made an effort to overcome her feelings, saying "Forgive meforgive me, my dear friendI, only, am to blame. But at the moment I was overcome by the thought that, in the heart of London, such a system of coldblooded murder" She was unable to proceed, and Arabella, holding her arm tightly within her own, said "Do not attempt to say another word until we get home. There, in my chamber, you can give free vent to your feelings, but let the danger, as well as the impropriety of doing so in the open street, be present to your mind. Say no more now, I implore you; say no more." This was prudent advice, and Johanna had sufficient command of herself to take it, for she uttered not one other word until they were both almost breathless with the haste they had made to Arabella's chamber. Then, being no longer under the restraint of locality or circumstances, the tears of Johanna burst forth, and she wept abundantly. Arabella's romantic reading did sometimes, as it would appear, stand her in good stead, and upon this occasion she did not attempt to stem the torrent of grief that was making its way from the eyes of her fair young friend. She told herself that with those tears a load of oppressive grief would be washed from Johanna's spirit, and the result fully justified her prognostications. The tears subsided into sobs, and the sobs to sighs. "Ah, my dear friend," she said, "how much have you to put up with from me. What a world of trouble I am to you." "No," said Arabella, "that you are not, Johanna; I am only troubled when I see you overcome with too excessive grief, and then, I confess, my heart is heavy." "It shall not be so again. Forgive me this once, dear Arabella." Johanna flung herself into her friend's arms, and while they kissed each other, and Arabella was about commencing a hopeful kind of speech, a servant girl, with open mouth and eyes, looked into the room, transfixed with amazement. "Well, Miss Bella," she cried at last, "you is fond of boys!" Arabella started, and so did Johanna. "Is that you, Susan?" "Yes, Miss Bella, it is me. Well I never! The idea! I shall never get the better of this here! Only to think of you, Miss Bella, having a boy at your time of life." "What do you mean, Susan? How dare you use such language to me? Get you gone!" "Oh, yes, I'm agoing in course; but if I had anybody in the house, it shouldn't be a little impudent looking boy with no whiskers." "She must know all," whispered Johanna. "No, no," said Arabella, "I will not, feeling my innocence, be forced into making a confidant of a servant. Let her go." "But she will speak." "Let her speak." Susan left the room, and went direct to the kitchen, holding up her hands all the way, and giving free expression to her feelings as she did so "Well, the idea now, of a little stumpy looking boy, when there's sich a lot of nice young men with whiskers to be had just for the wagging of one's little finger. Only to think of it. Sitting in her lap too, and them a kissing one another likelikecoach horses. Well I never. Now there's Lines's, the cheesemonger's, young man as I has in of a night, he is somebody, and such loves of whiskers I never seed in my born days afore; but I is surprised at Miss Bella, that I isa shrimp of a boy in her lap! Oh dear, oh dear!" CHAPTER XXXIV. MR. FOGG FINDS THAT ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS. We feel that we ought not entirely to take leave of that unfortunate, who failed in escaping with Tobias Ragg, from Mr. Fogg's establishment at Peckham, without a passing notice. It will be recollected that Tobias had enough to do to get away himself, and that he was in such a state of mind that it was quite a matter of new mechanical movement of his limbs that enabled him to fly from the madhouse. Horror of the place, and dread of the people who called it theirs, had lighted up the glare of a partial insanity in his brain, and he flew to London, we admit, without casting another thought upon the wretched creature who had fallen in the attempt to free herself from those fiends in human shape who made a frightful speculation in the misery of their fellow creatures. The alarm was already spread in the madhouse, and Mr. Fogg himself arrived at the spot where the poor creature lay stunned and wounded by her fall. "Watson! Watson!" he cried. "Here," said that official, as he presented himself. "Take this carcase up, Watson. I'm afraid Todd's boy is gone." "Ha! ha!" "Why do you laugh?" "Why where's the odds if he has. I tell you what it is, Fogg, I haven't been here so long without knowing what's what. If that boy ever recovers his senses enough to tell a rational tale, I'll eat him. However, I'll soon go and hunt him up. We'll have him again." "Well, Watson, you give me hopes, for you have upon two different occasions brought back runaways. Bring the woman in andand, Watson? "Aye, aye." "I think I would put her in No. 10." "Ho! ho!No. 10. Then she's booked. Well, well, come on Fogg, come on, it's all one. I suppose the story will be 'An attempt to escape owing to too much indulgence;' and some hints consequent on that, and then brought back to her own warm comfortable bed, where she went asleep so comfortably that we all thought she was as happy as an Emperor, and then" "She never woke again," put in Fogg. "But in this case you are wrong, Watson. It is true that twice or thrice I have thought, for the look of the thing, it would be desirable to have an inquest upon somebody, but in this case I will not. The well is not full!" "Full?" "No, I say the well is not full, Watson; and it tells no tales." "It would hold a hundred bodies one upon another yet," said Watson, "and tell no tales. Ha! ha!" "Good!" "It is good. She is to go there, is she? well, so be it." Watson carried the miserable female in his arms to the house. "Bythebye, it is a second thought," he said, "about No. 10." "Yes, yes, there's no occasion. Watson, could you not at onceeh? It is a good hour. Could you not go right through the house, my good Watson, and at onceeh?" "At once what?" "Oh, you know. Ha! ha! You are not the dull fellow at comprehending a meaning you would fain make out; but you, Watsonyou understand me well enough, you know you do. We understand each other, and always shall." "I hope so, but if you want anything done I'll trouble you to speak out. What do you mean by 'couldn't you go through the house at onceeh?'" "Pho! pho! Put her down the well at once. Humanity calls upon us to do it. Why should she awaken to a sense of her disappointment, Watson? Put her down at once, and she will never awaken at all to a sense of anything." "Very well. Come on, business is business." "Youyou don't want me?" "Don't I," said Watson, bending his shaggy brows upon him, and looking extra hideous on account of a large black patch over one eye, which he bore as a relict of his encounter with Tobias. "Don't I? Hark you, Fogg; if you won't come and help me to do it, you shall have it to do by yourself, without me at all." "Whywhy, Watson, Watson. This language" "Is nothing new, Fogg." "Well, well, come on.Come onif it must be so, it must.II will hold a lantern for you, of course; and you know, Watson, I make things easy to you, in the shape of salary, and all that sort of thing." Watson made no reply to all this, but went through the house to the back part of the grounds, carrying with him his insensible burthen, and Fogg followed him, trembling in every limb. The fact was, that he, Fogg, had not for some time had a refresher in the shape of some brandy. The old deserted well to which they were bound was at a distance of about fifty yards from the back of the house; towards it the athletic Watson hastened with speed, closely followed by Fogg, who was truly one of those who did not mind holding a candle to the devil. The walls of that building were high, and it was not likely that any intruder from the outside could see what was going on, so Watson took no precaution.The well was reached, and Fogg cried to him "Nownowquick about it, lest she recovers." Another moment and she would have been gone in her insensibility, but as if Fogg's words were prophetic, she did recover, and clinging convulsively to Watson, she shrieked "Mercy! mercy! Oh, have mercy upon me! Help! help!" "Ah, she recovers!" cried Fogg, "I was afraid of that. Throw her in. Throw her in, Watson." "Confound her!" "Why don't you throw her in?" The Murder At The Well By Fogg And Watson. The Murder At The Well By Fogg And Watson. "She clings to me like a vice. I cannotGive me a knife, Fogg. You will find one in my coat pocketa knifea knife!" "Mercy! mercy! Have mercy upon me! Nonono,Help! Oh God! God!" "The knife! The knife, I say!" "Here, here," cried Fogg, as he hastily took it from Watson's pocket and opened it. "Here! Finish her, and quickly too, Watson!" The scene that followed is too horrible for description. The hands of the wretched victim were hacked from their hold by Watson, and in the course of another minute, with one last appalling shriek, down she went like a flash of lightning to the bottom of the well. "Gone!" said Watson. Another shriek and Fogg, even, stopped his ears, so appalling was that cry, coming as it did so strangely from the bottom of the well. "Throw something upon her," said Fogg. "Here's a brick" "Bah!" cried Watson, "bah! there's no occasion to throw anything on her. She'll soon get sick of such squealing." Another shriek, mingled with a strange frothy cry, as though some one had managed to utter it under water, arose. The perspiration stood in large drops upon the face of Fogg.He seized the brick he had spoken of, and cast it into the well. All was still as the grave before it reached the bottom, and then he wiped his face and looked at Watson. "This is the worst job," he said, "that ever we have had" "Not a whit.Brandygive me a tumbler of brandy, Fogg. Some of our own particular, for I have something to say to you now, that a better opportunity than this for saying is not likely to occur." "Come into my room then," said Fogg, "and we can talk quietly.Do you thinkthatthat" "What?" "That she is quite dead?" "What do I care.Let her crawl out of that, if she can." With a jerk of his thumb, Watson intimated that the well was the "that" he referred to, and then he followed Fogg into the house, whistling as he went the same lively air with which he had frequently solaced his feelings in the hearing of poor Tobias Ragg. Never had Fogg been in such a state of agitation, except once, and that was long ago, upon the occasion of his first crime. Then he had trembled as he now trembled, but the "Dull custom of iniquity" had effectually blunted soon the keen edge of his conscience, and he had for years carried on a career of infamy without any other feeling than exultation at his success.Why then did he suffer now? Had the well in the garden ever before received a victim? Was he getting alive to the excellence of youth and beauty?Oh nono. Fogg was getting old. He could not stand what he once stood in the way of conscience. When he reached his roomthat room in which he had held the conference with Todd, he sank into a chair with a deep groan. "What's the matter now?" cried Watson, who got insolent in proportion as Fogg's physical powers appeared to be upon the wane. "Nothing, nothing." "Nothing?Well, I never knew anybody look so white with nothing the matter. Come, I want a drop of brandy; where is it?" "In that cupboard; I want some myself likewise. Get it out, Watson. You will find glasses there." Watson was not slow in obeying this order. The brandy was duly produced, and, after Fogg had drank as much as would have produced intoxication in any one not so used to the ardent spirit as himself, he spoke more calmly, for it only acted upon him as a gentle sedative. "You wished to say something to me, Watson." "Yes." "What is it?" "I am tired, completely tired, Fogg." "Tired? Then why don't you retire to rest at once, Watson? There is, I am sure, nothing to keep you up now; I am going myself in a minute." "You don't understand me, or you won't, which is much the same thing. I did not mean that I was tired of the day, but I am tired of doing all the work, Fogg, while youwhile you" "Wellwhile I" "Pocket all the profit. Do you understand that? Now hark you. We will go partners, Fogg, not only in the present and the future, but in the past. I will have half of your hoarded up gains, or" "Or what?" Mr. Watson made a peculiar movement, supposed to indicate the last kick of a culprit executed at the Old Bailey. "You mean you will hang yourself," said Fogg. "My dear Watson, pray do so as soon as you think proper. Don't let me hinder you." "Hark you, Fogg. You may be a fox, but I am a badger. I mean that I will hang you, and this is the way to do it. My wife" "Your what?" "My wife," cried Watson, "has, in writing, the full particulars of all your crimes. She don't live far off, but still far enough to make it a puzzle for you to find her. If she don't see me once in every fortyeight hours, she is to conclude something has happened to me, and then she is to go at once to Bow Street with the statement, and lay it before a magistrate. You understand. Now I have contrived, with what I got from you by fair means as well as by foul, and by robbing the patients besides, to save some money, and if you and I don't agree, Mrs. Watson and I will start for New Zealand, or some such place, butbut, Fogg" "Well?" "We will denounce you before we go." "And what is to be the end of all this? The law has a long as well as a strong arm, Watson." "I know it. You would say it might be long enough to strike me." Fogg nodded. "Leave me to take care of that. But as you want to know the result of all this, it is just this. I want to have my share, and I will have it. Give me a couple of thousand down, and half for the future." Fogg was silent for a moment or two, and then he said "Too much, Watson, too much. I have not so much." "Bah! At your banker's now you have exactly 11,267." Fogg writhed. "You have been prying. Well, you shall have the two thousand." "On account." Fogg writhed again. "I say you shall have so much, Watson, and you shall keep the books, and have your clear half of all future proceeds. Is there anything else you have set your mind upon, because if you have, while we are talking about business, you may as well state it, you know." "No, there's nothing elseI am satisfied. All I have to add is, that you had better put your head into the fire than attempt to play any tricks with me. You understand?" "Perfectly." Watson was not altogether satisfied. He would have been better pleased if Fogg had made more resistance. The easy compliance of such a man with anything that touched his pocket looked suspicious, and filled the mind of Watson with a thousand vague conjectures. Alreadyaye, even before he left Fogg's room, Watson began to feel the uneasiness of his new position, and to pay dearly for the money he was to have. Even money may be given an exorbitant price for. When he was by himself, as he traversed the passage leading to his own sleeping room, Watson could not forbear looking cautiously around him at times, as though gaunt murder stalked behind him, and he fastened his bedroom door with more than his usual caution. The wish to sleep came not to him, and sitting down upon his bedside he rested his chin upon his hand and said to himself in a low anxious shrinking kind of whisper "What does Fogg mean to do?" Nor was the recent interview without its after effects upon the madhouse keeper himself. When the door closed upon Watson he shook his clenched hand in the direction he had taken, and muttered curses, "Not loud, but deep." "The time will come," he said, "Master Watson, and that quickly too, when I will let you see that I am still the master spirit. You shall be satisfied for the present, but your deathwarrant is preparing. You will not live long to triumph over me by threats of what your low cunning can accomplish." He rose and drank more raw brandy, after which, still muttering maledictions upon Watson, he returned to his bedroom, where, if he did not sleep, and if during the still hours of the night his brain was not too much vexed, he hoped to be able to concoct some scheme which should present him with a prospect of exemplary vengeance upon Watson. CHAPTER XXXV. MRS. LOVETT'S NEW LOVER. Mrs. Lovett was a woman of luxurious habits. Perhaps the constant savoury hot pie atmosphere in which she dwelt contributed a something to the development of her tastes, but certainly that lady, in dress, jewellery, and men, had her fancies. Did the reader think that she saw anything attractive in the satyrlike visage of Todd, with its eccentricities of vision? Did the reader think that the lawyers' clerks frequenting her shop suited her taste, varying, as all the world knows that class of bipeds does, between the fat and flabby, and the white and candle looking, if we may be allowed the expression? Ah, no,Mrs. Lovett's dreams of man had a loftier range, but we must not anticipate. Facts will speak trumpettongued for themselves. It is the hour when lawyers' clerks From many a gloomy chamber stalk; It is the hour when lovers' vows Are heard in every Temple walk. Mrs. Lovett was behind her counter all alone, but the loneliness continued but for a very brief period, for from Careystreet, with a nervousness of gait highly suggestive of a fear of bailiffsbailiffs were there in all their glorycomes aa what shall we say? Truly there are some varieties of the genus homo that defy minute classification, but perhaps this individual who hastened down Bell Yard was the nearest in approximation to what used to be called "a swaggering companion," that can be found. He was a gent upon townthat is to say, according to his own phraseology, he lived upon his wits; and if the reader will substitute dishonesty for wits, he will have a much clearer notion of what the swaggering companion of modern days lived upon. He was tall, burly, forty years of age, and his bloated countenance and sleepy eyes betrayed the effects of a long course of intemperance. He wore mock jewellery of an outrageous size; his attire was flashy and gaudyhis linen ... the less we say about that the betterenormous black whiskers (false) shaded his cheeks, and mangeylooking moustache (real) covered his upper lipadd to all this, such a stock of ignorance and impudence as may be supposed to thoroughly saturate one individual, and the reader has the swaggering companion before him. At a rapid pace he neared Mrs. Lovett's, muttering to himself as he went "I wonder if I can gammon her out of a couple of guineas." Yes, reader, this compound of vulgarity, ignorance, impudence and debauchery was Mrs. Lovett's gentle fancyher tasteherher, what shall we say?her personification of all that a man should be. Do not start; Mrs. Lovett has many imitators, for, without libelling the fairer, better, and more gentle of that sex, who can be such angels as well as suchahem!there are thousands who would be quite smitten with the "swaggering companion." When he reached the shopwindow, he placed his nose against it for a moment to reconnoitre who was in the shop, and seeing the fair one alone, he at once crossed the threshold. "Ah, charmer, how do the fates get on with you?" "Sir" A smile upon the face of Mrs. Lovett was a practical contradiction to the rebuff which her reception of him by words of mouth seemed to carry. "Oh, you bewitchingaa" The remainder of the sentence was lost in the devouring a pie, which the "swaggering companion" took from the shop counter. "Really, sir," said Mrs. Lovett"I wish you would not come here, I am all alone, and" "Alone? You beautiful female.Oh you nice creature.Allow me." The "swaggering companion" lifted up that portion of the counter which enabled Mrs. Lovett to pass from one side of it to the other, and as coolly as possible walked into the parlour. Mrs. Lovett followed him, protesting at what she called his impudence. But for all that, a bottle of spirits and some biscuits were procured. The "swaggering companion," however, pushed the biscuits aside, saying "Pies for me. Pies for me." Mrs. Lovett looked at him scrutinisingly as she said "And do you really like the pies, or do you only eat them out of compliment to me?" "Really like them? I tell you what it is; out of compliment to you, of course, I could eat anything, but the pies are delicacies.Where do you get your veal?" "Well, if you will have pies you shall, Major Bounce."That was the name which the "swaggering companion" appended to his disgusting corporealty. "Certainly, my dear, certainly. As I was saying, I could freely, to compliment you, eat old Tomkins, the tailor, of Fleet Street." "Really. How do you think he would taste?" "Tough!" "Ha! Ha!" It was an odd laugh that of Mrs. Lovett's. Had she borrowed it from Todd? "My dear Mrs. L.," said the major, "what made you laugh in that sort of way? Ah, if I could only persuade you to go from L to B" "Sir?" "Now, my charmer, seriously speakingHere am I, Major Bounce, a gentleman with immense expectations, ready and willing to wed the most charming woman under the sun, if she will only say 'yes.'" "Have you any objection to America?" "America? None in the least.With you for a companion, America would be a Paradise. A regular garden of, what do you call it, my dear? Only say the word, my darling." The major's arm was gently insinuated round the lady's waist, and after a few moments she spoke. "Major Bounce, II have made money." "The devil!so have I, but the police one dayahem!ahem!what a cough I have." "What on earth do you mean?" "Oh, nothingnothingonly a joke. You said you had made money, and that put me in mind of what I read in the 'Chronicle' today of some coiners, that's all. Haha!" "When I spoke of making money, I meant in the way of trade, but having made it, I should not like to spend it in London, and be pointed out as the wellknown piewoman." "Piewoman! Oh, the wretchesonly let" "Peace. Hold your tongue, and hear me out. If I marry and retire, it will be far from herevery far indeed." "Ah, any land, with you." The major absolutely saluted the lady. "Be quiet. Pray, in what service are you a major?" "The South American, my love. A much higher service than the British." "Indeed." "Lord bless you, yes. If I was now to go to my estates in South America, there would be a jubilee of ten days at the very least, and the people as well as the government would not know how to make enough of me, I can assure you. In fact, I have as much right to take the rank of general as of major, but the natural modesty of a military man, and of myself in particular, steps in and says 'A major be it.'" "Then you have property?" "Propertyproperty? I believe you, I have. Lots!" The major dealt his forehead a slap as he spoke, which might be taken as an indication that that was where his property was situated, and that it consisted of his ignorance and impudencevery good trading capitals in this world for, strange to say, the parties solely possessing such qualifications get on much better than education, probity, and genius can push forward their unhappy victims. Mrs. Lovett was silent for some minutes, during which the major saluted her again. Then, suddenly rising, she said "I will give you an answer tomorrow. Go away now. We shall be soon interrupted. If I do consent to be yours, there will be something to do before we leave England." "By Jove, only mention it to me, and it is as good as done. Bythebye, there is something to do before I leave here, and that is, my charmer, to pay you for the pies." "Oh, nono." "Yes, yesmy honour. Touch my honour, even in regard of a pie, and touch my life.I put two guineas in one end of my purse, to pay my glover in the Strand, and at the other end are some small coinswhere the deucecanIhaveputit." The major made an affectation of feeling in all his pockets for his lost purse, and then, with a seriocomic look, he said "By Jove, some rascal has picked my pocket." "Never mind me," said Mrs. Lovett, "I don't want payment for the pies." "Well, butthethe glover. Poor devil, and I promised him his money this morning. For a soldier and a man of honour to break his word is death. What shall I do?Mrs. L., could you lend me a couple of guineas until I have the happiness of seeing you again?" "Certainly, major, certainly I can." The gallant son of Mars pocketed the coins, and after saluting Mrs. Lovett some half score of timesand she, the beast, liked ithe left the shop and went chuckling into the Strand, where in a few minutes he was in a pothouse, from whence he emerged not until he had liquidated one of the guineas. Was Mrs. Lovett taken in by the major? Did she believe his title, or his wealth, and his common honesty? Did she believe in the story of the purse and of the two guineas that were to be paid to the poor glover because he wanted them? Nonocertainly not. But for all that, she admired the major.He was her beau ideal of a fine man! That was sufficient. Moreover, being what he wasa rogue, cheat, and common swindlershe could exercise, so she thought, a species of control over him which no decent man would put up with, and so in her own mind she had determined to marry the major and fly; but as she said"There was a little something to be done first." Did that relate to the disposal of Todd? We shall see. If she calculated upon the major putting Sweeney Todd out of the way, she sadly miscalculated; but the wisest heads will blunder. Compared to Todd, the major was indeed a poor creature; but Mrs. Lovett, in the stern courage of her own intellect, could not conceive the possibility of the great, puffy, bloated, fierce Major Bounce being as arrant a coward as ever was kicked.
He was so, though, for all that. After he had left her, Mrs. Lovett sat for a long time in a profound reverie, and as it happened that no one came into the shop; the current of her evil thoughts was uninterrupted. "I have sufficient," she said; "and before it gets too late, I will leave this mode of life. Why did Itempted by the fiend Toddundertake it, but that I might make wealth by it, and so assume a position that my heart panted for. I will not delay until it is too late, or I may lose the enjoyment that I have sacrificed so much to find the means of getting. I live in this world but for the gratification of the senses, and finding that I could not gratify them without abundant means, I fell upon this plan. Iahthat is he" Suddenly the swaggering companion, the redoubtable Major Bounce, rushed past the shopwindow, without so much as looking in for a single moment, and made his way towards Carey Street. Mrs. Lovett started up and made her way into the front shop. Major Bounce was out of sight, but from Fleet Street came a poor, draggled, miserable looking woman, making vain efforts at a speed which her weakness prevented her from keeping up.She called aloud "Stop! stop!only a moment, Flukes! Only a moment, John. Stop!stop!" Her strength failed her, and she fell exhausted upon Mrs. Lovett's doorstep. "Heartless!heartless ever!" she cried. "May the judgment of the Almighty reach himmay he sufferyesmay he suffer only what I have suffered." "Who and what are you?" said Mrs. Lovett. "Poor, and therefore everything that is abject and despicable in London." "What a truth," said Mrs. Lovett. "What a truth that is. Who would not do even as I do to avoid poverty in a widowed life!It is too horrible. Amid savages it is nothing, but here it is indeed criminality of the deepest dye. Whom did you call after, woman?" "My husband." "Husband. Describe him." "A sottishlooking man, with moustache. Once seen, he is not easily mistakenruffian and villain are stamped by nature upon his face." Mrs. Lovett winced a little. "Come in," she said, "I will relieve you for the present. Come in." The woman by a great effort succeeded in rising and crossing the threshold. Mrs. Lovett gave her a seat, and having presented her with a glass of cordial and a pie, she waited until the poor creature should be sufficiently recovered to speak composedly, and then she said to her with perfect calmness, as though she was by no manner of means personally interested in the matter "Now tell meIs the man with moustache and the braided coat, who passed hastily up Bell Yard a few moments only before you, really your husband?" "Yes, madam, that is Flukes" "Who?" "Flukes, madam." "And pray who and what is Flukes?" "He was a tailor, and he might have been as respectable a man, and earned as honest and good a living as any one in the trade, but a love of idleness and dissipation undid him." "Flukesa tailor?" "Yes, madam; and now that I am utterly destitute, and in want of the common necessaries of life, if I chance to meet him in the streets and ask him for the merest trifle to relieve my necessities, he flies from me in the manner he has done today." "Indeed!" "Yes, madam. If we were in a lonely place he would strike me, so that I should, from the injury he would do me, be unable to follow him, but that in the public streets he darenot do, for he fears some man would interfere and put a stop to his cruelty." "There, my good woman," said Mrs. Lovett, "there are five shillings for you. Go now, for I expect to be busy very shortly." With a profusion of thanks, that while they lasted were quite stunning, poor Mrs. Flukes left the pieshop and hobbled homewards. When she was gone the colour went and came several times upon the face of Mrs. Lovett, and then she repeated to herself"Flukesa tailor!" "Pies ready?" said a voice at the door. "Not quite." "How long, mum; we want half a dozen of the muttons today." "In about ten minutes." "Thank you, I'll look in again." "Flukesa tailor? Indeed!Flukesa tailor? Well I ought to have expected something like this. What a glorious thing it is really to care for no one but oneself after all. I shall lose my faith ininfine men." CHAPTER XXXVI. TOBIAS'S MOTHER AWAKENS OLD RECOLLECTIONS. Poor Tobias still remains upon his bed of sickness. The number of hours at the expiration of which the medical man had expected him to recover were nearly gone. In Colonel Jeffery's parlour three persons, besides himself, were assembled. These three were his friend the captain, Sir Richard Blunt, and Mrs. Ragg. The lady was sitting with a not over clean handkerchief at her eyes, and keeping up a perpetual motion with her knee, as though she were nursing some fractious baby, and Mrs. Ragg had been used of late to go out as a monthly nurse occasionally, which, perhaps, accounted for this little peculiarity. "Now, madam," said the colonel, "you quite understand, I hope, that you are not to mention to any living soul the fact of your son Tobias being with me." "Oh, dear me, no, sir. Who should I mention it to?" "That we can't tell," interrupted the captain, "you are simply desired not to tell it." "I'm sure I don't see anybody once in a week, sir." "Good God! woman," cried the colonel, "does that mean that when you do see any one you will tell it?" "Lord love you, sir, it's few people as comes to see you when you are down in the world. I'm sure it's seldom enough a soul taps at my door with a 'Mrs. Ragg, how are you?'" "Now was there ever such an incorrigible woman as this?" "If you were to talk to her for a month," said Sir Robert Blunt, "you would not get a direct answer from her. Allow me to try something elseMrs. Ragg." "Yes, sirhumbly at your service, sir." "If you tell any one that Tobias is here, or indeed anywhere within your knowledge, I will apprehend you about a certain candlestick." "Goodness gracious, deliver us." "Do you understand that, Mrs. Ragg? You keep silence about Tobias, and I keep silence about the candlestick. You speak about Tobias, and I speak about the candlestick." Mrs. Ragg shook her head and let fall a torrent of tears, which the magistrate took as sufficient evidence that she did understand him and would act accordingly, so he added "Shall we all proceed up stairs? for a great deal will depend upon the boy's first impression when he awakensand in this case we should not lose a chance." In pursuance of this sound advice they all proceeded to poor Tobias's bedroom, and there he lay in that profound repose which the powerful opiate administered to him had had the effect of producing. It did not seem as though he had moved head or foot since they had left him. His face was very pale, and when Mrs. Ragg saw him she burst into tears, exclaiming "He is deadhe is dead!" "No such thing, madam," said Colonel Jeffery. "He only sleeps." "But, oh deary me, what makes him look so old and so strange now? He was bad enough when I saw him last, poor fellow, but not like this." "He has received illusage from someone, and that is precisely what we want to find out. If you can get from him the particulars of what he has suffered, we will take care those who have made him suffer shall not escape." "Bless you, gentlemen, what's the use of that if my poor boy is killed?" There was a good home truth in these words from Mrs. Ragg, although, upon the score of general social policy, they might well be answered. An argument with Mrs. Ragg, however, upon such a subject was not very apropos. The colonel made her sit down by Tobias's bedside, and he was then upon the point of remarking to his friend, the captain, that it would be as well, since so many hours had passed, to send for the medical man, when that personage made his appearance. "Has he awakened?" he asked. "Nonot yet." "Oh, I see you have a nurse." "It is his mother. We hope that she, by talking to him familiarly, may produce a good effect, and possibly rid him of that bewilderment of intellect under which he now labours. What think you, sir?" "That it is a good thought. Let us darken the room as much as possible, as twilight will be most grateful to him upon awakening, which he must do shortly." The curtains of the window were so arranged that the room was in a state of semidarkness, and then they all waited with no small anxiety for Tobias to recover from the deep and deathlike sleep that had come over him. After about five minutes he moved uneasily and uttered a low moan. "Speak to him, Mrs. aawhat's your name?" "Ragg, sir." "Aye, Ragg, just speak to him; of course he is well acquainted with your voice, and it may have the effect of greatly rousing him from his lethargic condition." Poor Mrs. Ragg considered that she had some very extraordinary post to perform, and accordingly she collected to her aid all her learning, which, interrupted by her tears, and now and then by a sob, which she had to gulp down like a large globule of castor oil, had certainly rather a droll effect. "My dear Tobiasmy dearlie a bed, sluggard, you knowwell, I neverPut the kettle on, Polly, and let's all have tea. Tobias, my dearbless us and save us, are you going to stay in bed all day?" Another groan from Tobias. "Well, my dear, perhaps you won't mind getting up and just running towards the corner for a bunch of water cresses? Dear heart alive, there goes the muffinman like a lamplighter!" It was by such domestic themes that Mrs. Ragg sought to recall the wandering senses of poor Tobias to a cognizance of the present. But alas! his thoughts were still in the dim and misty land of visions. Suddenly he spoke Tobias's Delirium. Tobias's Delirium. "Hushhush! There they come!elephants!elephants!ononon. Now for the soldiers, and all madmadmad! Hide me in the strawdeep in a world of straw. Hush! He comes. Sing, oh sing again!and hehe will not suspect." The surgeon made a sign to Mrs. Ragg to speak again. "Why, Tobias, my dear, what are you talking about? Do you mean the Elephant and Castle?" "Call to his remembrance," said the surgeon, "some old scenes." "Yes, sir, but when one's heart and all that sort of thing is in one's mouth it's very difficult to recollect things oneself. Tobias!" "Yesyes. Haha!" It was a low, plaintive, strange laugh that, that came from the poor boy whose mind had been so overthrown, and it jarred upon the feelings of all who heard it. "Tobias, do you recollect the little cottage down the lane at Holloway, where we lived, and the cock roaches, and the strange cat, you know, Tobias, that would not go away? Don't you recollect, Tobias, how the coals there were all slates, and how your poor father, as is dead and gone" "Yes, I see him now." Mrs. Ragg gave a faint scream. "Father!father!" said Tobias, as he held out his arms, and the big tears rolled down his cheeks. "Fatherfather, Todd has not got me now. Don't cry so, father. Stand out of the way of the elephants." "My dear! my dear!" cried Mrs. Ragg, "do you want to break my heart?" Tobias rose to a sitting position in the bed, and looked his mother in the face "Are you, too, mad?" he said. "Are you, too, mad? Did you tell of Todd?" "Yes, the only way," said Colonel Jeffery, "for people not to be mad, is to tell of Todd." "Yesyes." "And so you, Tobias, will tell us all you know. That is what we want you to do, and then you will be quite happy and comfortable for the remainder of your days, and live with your mother again far from any apprehension from Todd. Do you understand me?" Tobias opened his mouth several times in an eager, gasping sort of manner, as though he would have said something rapidly, but he could not. He placed his hands upon his brain, and rocked to and fro for a few moments, and then he broke out into the same low, peculiar laugh that had before so strangely affected Colonel Jeffery and the others who were there present in that room. The surgeon shook his head as he said, mournfully "It is of no use!" "Do you really think so?" said the colonel. "For the present, I am convinced that it is of no use to attempt to recall his wandering senses. Time will do wonders, and he has the one grand element of youth in his favour. That, as well as time, will do wonders. The case is a bad one, and the shock the brain of this lad has received must be a most fearful one." "Do not," said Sir Richard Blunt, "give up so readily, Mrs. Ragg; I would have you try him again. Speak to him again of his fatherthat seemed to be the topic that most moved him." Mrs. Ragg could hardly do so for her tears, but she managed to stammer out "Tobias, do you recollect when your father bought you the rabbit, and out of vexation, the creature eat its way out of a willowwork cage in the night? Do you remember your poor father's funeral, Tobias, and how we went, you and I, my poor boy, to take the last look at the only one whowhowho" Mrs. Ragg could get no further. "Hahaha!" laughed Tobias, "who told of Todd?" "Who is this Todd," said the surgeon, "that he continually speaks of, and shudders at the very name of?" Colonel Jeffery glanced at Sir Richard Blunt, and the latter, who wished the affair by no means to transpire, merely said "We are quite as much in the dark as you, sir. It is just what we should like to know, who this Todd is, whose very name seems to hold the imagination of this poor boy in a grasp of iron. I begin to think that nothing more can be done now." "Nothing, gentlemen, you may depend," said the surgeon. "How old is the lad?" "Sixteen as never was," replied Mrs. Ragg, "and a hard time I had of it, sir, as you may suppose." The surgeon did not exactly see how he was called upon to suppose anything of the sort; however he made no further remark to Mrs. Ragg, but continued in conversation for some time with Colonel Jeffery, who informed him that Tobias should remain for a time where he was, so that there should be every possible chance given for his recovery. "I wish you to continue attending upon him, sir," he added, "for I would spare nothing that medical advice can suggest to restore him. He has, I am convinced, been a great sufferer." "That is sufficiently clear, sir. You may rely upon my utmost attention." "Mrs. Ragg," said the colonel, "can you cook?" "Cook, sir? Lord bless you, sir. I can cook as well as here and there a one, though I say it that oughtn't, and if poor Tobias was but all right, I should not go to be after making myself miserable now about bygones. What's to be cured must be enduredit's a long lane as hasn't a turning. As poor Mr. Ragg often used to say when he was alive'Grizzling ain't fattening.'" "I should think it was not. It so happens, Mrs. Ragg, that there is a vacancy in my house for a cook, and if you like to come and take the place, you can look after Tobias as well, you know, for I intend him to remain here for the present. Only remember, you tell this to no one." "Me, sir! Lord bless you, sir, who do I see?" The colonel was by no means anxious to convince himself a second time of the impossibility of bringing Mrs. Ragg to a precise answer, so he changed the subject, and it was finally arranged that without a word to any one upon the subject, that very night Mrs. Ragg was to take up her abode with Tobias. After this had been all arranged, the three gentlemen proceeded to the dining room, and held a consultation. "Of the guilt of Todd," said the magistrate, "I entertain no doubt, but I own that I am extremely anxious to bring the crime legally home to him." "Exactly," said the colonel, "and I can only say that every plan you can suggest will be cheerfully acquiesced in by me and my friend here." The captain signified his assent. "Be assured, gentlemen," added Sir Richard Blunt, "that something shall be done of a decisive character before many days are past. I have seen the higher powers upon the subject, and have full authority, and you may rest satisfied that I shall not mind running a little personal risk to unravel the mysteries that surround the career of Sweeney Todd. I think one thing may be done conveniently." "What is that, sir?" "Why, It seems to be pretty well understood that no one resides in Todd's house but himself, and as now he has no boyunless he has provided himself with one alreadyhe must go out sometimes and leave the place to itself, and upon one of those occasions an opportunity might be found of thoroughly searching the upper part, at all events, of his house." "Could that be done with safety?" "I think so. At all events, I feel inclined to try it. If I do so, and make any discovery, you may depend upon my letting you know without an hour's delay, and I sincerely hope that all that will take place may have the effect of setting your mind at rest regarding your friend, Mr. Ingestrie." "But not of restoring him to us?" The magistrate shook his head. "I think, sir," he said, "that you ought to consider that he has, if any one has, fallen a victim to Sweeney Todd." "Alas! I fear so." "All the evidence points that way, and we can only take measures in the best way possible to bring his murderer to justicethat that murderer is Sweeney Todd, I cannot for one moment of time bring myself to doubt." Sir Richard Blunt shortly afterwards left Colonel Jeffery's house and proceeded to the execution of a plan of proceeding, with the particulars of which he had not thought proper to entrust to the colonel, and his friend the captain. Long habits of caution had led the magistratewho was not one of the fancy magistrates of the present day, but a real police officeractive, cool, and determinedto trust no one but himself with his secrets, and so he kept to himself what he meant to do that night. When he was gone, Colonel Jeffery had a long talk with his friend, and the subject gradually turned to Johanna, whom the colonel yet hoped, he said, to be able one day to call his own. "No one," he remarked, "would be more truly rejoiced than I to restore Mark Ingestrie to her whom he loves, and whose affection for him is of so enduring and remarkable a character, but if, as Sir Richard Blunt supposes, he is really no more, I think Johanna, by being mine, would stand a better chance of recovering her serenity, if not of enjoying all the happiness in this world that she deserves." "Hope for the best," said the captain, "and recollect what the surgeon said as regarded Tobias, that time works wonders." CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SEARCH AT TODD'S. The house in Fleet Street, next door to Todd's, was kept by a shoemaker, named Whittle, and in this shoemaker's window was a bill, only put up on the very day of poor Tobias's escape from Peckham, announcing"An Attic to Let." This was rather an alluring announcement to Sir Richard Blunt. At about half an hour after sunset on the same evening that had witnessed the utter discomfiture of the attempt to restore poor Tobias Ragg to his senses, two men stood in the deep recess of a doorway immediately opposite to the house of Sweeney Todd. These two men were none other than Sir Richard and his esteemed but rather eccentric officer, Mr. Crotchet. After some few moments' silence, Sir Richard spoke, saying "Well, Crotchetwhat do you think of the affair now?" "Nothink." "Nothing? You do not mean that, Crotchet?" "Says what I meansmeans what I says, and then leaves it alone." "But you have some opinion, Crotchet?" "Had, masterhad" "Well, Crotchet; I think we can now cross over the way, and endeavour to get possession of the shoemaker's attic, from which we can get into Todd's house." "And find nothink criminatory." "You think not; but do you know, Crotchet, I am of opinion that the greatest and cleverest rogues not unfrequently leave themselves open to detection, in some little particular, which they have most strangely and unaccountably neglected. I am not without a hope that we shall find the man, Sweeney Todd, to be one of that class, and if so, we shall not fail to do some good by our visit to the house.You remain here and watch for his going out, and when he is gone, come over the way and ask for Mr. Smith. Have you seen Fletcher?" "No, but he will be here presently, and will wait till that 'ere fellow goes away, if so be as he goes out, and then when you and me hears two notes on the keybugle, it will be time all for us to go for to come to mizzle." "Very good," said Sir Richard Blunt, and he crossed over to the shoemaker's shop, leaving Crotchet on the watch in the deep doorway. The fact is, they had been waiting there for some time, in the hope that Todd would go out, but he had not stirred, so that the magistrate thought it would be as well to let Crotchet remain while he secured the shoemaker's attic, with a view to ulterior proceedings. The magistrate was dressed as a respectable, staid clerk, and he walked into the shoemaker's shop with a gravity of gait that was quite imposing. "You have an attic to let," he said. "Is it furnished?" "Oh yes, sir, and comfortably too. My missus looks after all that, I can tell you." "Very well, I want just such a place; for, do you know, since I have left a widower, I like to live in some lively situation, and as all my friends are at Cambridge, and not a soul that I know in London, I don't half fancy going into an outoftheway place to live; though, I dare say, for all that, London is safe enough." "Why, I don't know that," said the shoemaker. "However, you'll be safe enough here, sir, never doubt. The rent is four shillings a week." "Very good. I think, if you will show it to me, we shall suit each other. The great object with me is to find myself in the house of a respectable man, and one look at you, sir, is quite sufficient to show me that you are one." This was all highly flattering to the shoemaker, and he was so well pleased to get such a respectable, civilspoken, middle aged gentleman into his house, that he was prepared, upon half a word to that effect, to come down a whole sixpence a week in the rent, if needs were. Of course, the wouldbelodger was well enough pleased with the attic, and turning to the shoemaker, he handed him four shillings, saying "As my friends are all so far off, I ought to give you a week's rent in advance, instead of a reference, and there it is." After this, who could ask any further questions? The magistrate, just, of his own accord, added that his name was Smith, and that he would stay a short time in his room if the shoemaker could oblige him with a light, which was done accordingly, and when the shoemaker's wife came homethat lady having been out to gossip with no less a personage than Mrs. Lovetthe was quite elated to tell her what a lodger they had, and as he handed her the four shillings, saying "My dear, that will buy you the ribbon at Mrs. Keating's, the mercer, that you had set your mind upon," how could she be other than quite amiable? "Well, John," she said, "for once in a way, I must say that you have shown great judgment, and if I had been at home myself, I could not have managed better." This, we are quite sure, our lady readers will agree with us was as much as any married female ought to say. Sir Richard Blunt ascended to the attic, of which he was now, by virtue of a weekly tenancy, lord and master, with a light, and closing the door, he cast his eyes around the apartment. Its appointments were decidedly not luxurious. In one corner a stumpbedstead awakened anything but lively associations, while the miserable little grate, the front of which was decidedly composed of some portions of an old iron hoop from a barrel, did not look redolent of comforts. The rest of the apartments were what the auctioneers call en suite, the said auctioneers having but a dreamy notion of what en suite means. But the appointments or disappointments of his attic were of little consequence to Sir Richard Blunt. It was the window that offered attractions to him. Softly opening it, he looked out, and found that there was a leaden gutter, with only the average amount of filth in it, the drain being, of course, stopped up by a dishclout and a cracked flowerpot, which is perfectly according to custom in London. He saw enough at a glance, however, to convince him that there would be no difficulty whatever in getting to the attic of Todd's house, and that fact once ascertained, he waited with exemplary and placid patience the return of Crotchet. Now, Sweeney Todd was, during much of that day, in what is denominated a brown study. He could not make up his mind in what way he was to make up for the loss of the senses of Tobias. It was with him an equal choice of disagreeables. To have a boy, or not to have a boy, which to do became an anxious question. "A boy is a spy," muttered Todd to himself"a spy upon all my actionsa perpetual policeofficer in a small way, constantly at my elbowan alarum continually crying to me 'Todd! Todd! beware!' Curses on them all, and yet what a slave am I to this place without a lad; and, after all, when they do become too troublesome and inquisitive, I can but dispose of them as I have disposed of him." Todd patrolled his shop for some time, thus communing with himself; but as yet he could not make up his mind which to do.A boy or not a boy?that was the question. He remained in this unsatisfactory state of mind until sunset had passed away and the dim twilight was wrapping all things in obscurity. Then, without deciding upon either course, he suddenly, in a very hurried manner, shut up his shop, and closing the outer door carefully, he walked rapidly towards Bell Yard. He was going to Mrs. Lovett's, whither we shall follow him at a more convenient opportunity, but just now we have Sir Richard Blunt's enterprise to treat of. Todd had no sooner got fairly out of sight, than Mr. Crotchet emerged from the doorway in which he was concealed, and went a few paces down Fleet Street, towards the Temple.He soon met a man genteelly dressed, who seemed to be sauntering along in an idle fashion. "All's right, Fletcher," said Crotchet. "Oh, is it?" "Yes. Have you got that ere little article with you?" "The bugle? Oh, yes." "Mind you blows it then, if you sees Todd come home, and no gammon." "Trust to me old fellow." Without another word, Mr. Crotchet crossed over the road, and opened the shopdoor of the shoemaker. Now the face of Mr. Crotchet was not the most engaging in the world, and when he looked in upon the shoemaker, that industrious workman felt a momentary pang of alarm, and particularly when Mr. Crotchet, imparting a horrible obliquity to his vision, said "How is yer, old un?" "Sir?" said the shoemaker. "You couldn't show a fellow the way up to Smith's hattic, I supposes?" "SmithSmith?Oh, dear me, that's the new lodger. I'll call him down if you wait here." "No occasion. I'll toddle up, my tulip. He's a relation o' mine, don't you see the likeness atween us?We was considered the handsomest pair 'o men as was in London at one time, and it sticks to us now, I can tell you." "If you wish, sir, to go up, instead of having Mr. Smith called down, of course, sir, you can, as you are an old friend. Allow me to light you, sir." "Not the least occasion. Only tell me where it isn't, and I'll find out where it is, old chap." "It's the front attic." "All's right. Don't be sich a hass as to be flaring away arter me, with that ere double dip, I can find my way in worserer places than this here. All's righteasy does it." To the surprise of the shoemaker, his mysterious visitor opened the little door at the back of the shop, which led to the staircase, and in a moment disappeared up them. "Upon my life, this Mr. Smith," thought the shoemaker, "seems to have some very strange connexions. He told me he knew nobody in London, and then here comes one of the ugliest fellows, I think, I ever saw in all my life, and claims acquaintance with him. What ought I to do?Ought I to tell Mrs. W. of it?" At this moment Mrs. W. made her appearance from the mercer's, with the ribbon that had tickled her feminine fancyall smiles and sweetness. The heart of the shoemaker died within him, for well he knew what visitation he was likely to come in for, if anything connected with the lodger turned out wrong. "Ahem! ahem! Well, my dear, have you got the ribbon?" "Oh yes, to be sure, and a love it is" "Ah!ah!" "What's the matter?" "Nothing, my dove. I was only thinking that it wasn't the ribbon that makes folks look lovely, but the person who wears it. You would look beautiful in any ribbon." "Why, my dear, that may be very true, but still one ought to look as well as one can, you know, for the credit of one's maker." "Oh, yes, yes, but I was only thinking" "Thinking of what? Bless me, Mr. Wheeler, how mystifying you are tonight, to be sure. What do you mean by this conduct? Was ever a woman so pestered and tormented with a fool of a man, who looks like an owl in an ivy bush for all the world, or a crow peeping into a marrowbone." "My duck, how can you say so?" "Duck indeed? Keep your ducks to yourself. Hoity toity. Duck, indeed. You low goodfornothing" "My dear, my dear. I was only thinking, and not in the least wishing to offend." "But you do offend me, you nasty insinuating, sneering wretch.What were you thinking about? Tell me this moment." "Why, that a pretty silvergrey satin mantle would set off your figure so well, that" "Oh, John!" "That, though quarterday is near at hand, I think you ought to have one." "Really, Jackey." "Yes, my dear." "What a man you are. Ah, Jackey, after all, though we have, like all people, our little tiffs and wiffs and sniffsafter all, I say it, perhaps, that should not say it, you are a dear, good, obliging" "Don't mention it." "Yes, but" "No, don't. Bythebye, do you know, Susey, that I begin to have my suspicionsmind, I may be wrong, but I begin to have my suspicions, do you know, that our attic lodger is, after all, no better than he should be." "Gracious!" "Hush! hush! There has been a man here; so uglysososquintified, if I may say so, that between you and me and the post, my dear, it's enough to frighten any one to look at him, it is indeed.But as for the silvergrey satin, don't stint the quality for a sixpence or so." "The wretch!" "And take care to have plenty of rich trimming to it." "The monster!" "And have something pretty to match it, so that when you go to St. Dunstan's next Sunday, all the folks will ask what fine lady from court has come into the city out of curiosity to see the old church." "Oh, Jackey." "That's what I call," muttered Mr. Wheeler, "pouring oil upon the troubled waters." He then spoke aloud, saying"Now, my dear, it is your judgment and advice I want. What shall we do in this case? for you seefirst of all, the new lodger denies knowing a soul, and then, in half an hour, an old acquaintance calls upon him here." The silvergrey satinthe flattering allusion to the probable opinion of the people in St. Dunstan's Church on the next Sundaythe obscure allusion to a something else to match it, and the appeal to her judgment, all had the effect desired upon Mrs. Wheeler, who, dropping entirely the hectoring tone, fell into her husband's views, and began calmly and dispassionately, without abuse or crimination, to discuss the merits, or rather the probable demerits, of the new lodger. "I tell you, my dear, my opinion," said the lady. "As for stopping in the house and not knowing who and what he is, I won't." "Certainly not, my love." "Then, Mr. W., the only thing to do, is for you and I to go up stairs, and say that as I was out you did not know a Mr. Jones had spoken about the lodging, but that, if he could give a reference in London, we would still have him for a lodger." "Very well. That will be only civil, and if he says he can't, but must send to Cambridge" "Why then, my dear, you must say that he may stay till he writes, and I'll be guided by his looks. If I give you a nudge, so, with my elbow, you may consider that it's pretty right." "Very well, my dove." CHAPTER XXXVIII. SIR RICHARD PRIES INTO TODD'S SECRETS.
Crotchet soon reached the attic floor of the shoemaker's house, and although in profound darkness, he managed, as he thought, to touch the right door. Tap! tap! went Crotchet's knuckles, and as he did so he followed a habit very general, when the knock is only a matter of ceremony, and opened the door at the same moment. He popped his head into a room where there was a light, and said "Here yer is." A scream was the reply to him, and then Crotchet saw, by the state of affairs there, that he had made a little mistake in the topography of the attic landing. The attic in which he found himself, for he had crossed the threshold, was in the occupation of an elderly gauntlooking female, who was comforting her toes by keeping them immersed in a pan of water by the side of a little miserable fire, which was feebly pretending to look cheerful in the little grate. "Lor, mum!" said Crotchet. "Who'd a thought o' seeing of you?" "Oh, you monster. You base man, what do you want here?" "Nothink!" "Be off with you, or else I'll call the perlice." "Oh, I'm a going, mum. How do you bring it in, mum, in a general way?" "Help! Murder!" "Lord bless us, what a racket. Don't you go for to fancy, mum, that I comed up these here attic stairs for to see you. Quite the rewerse, mum." "Then, pray who did you come to see, you big ugly monster you? The other attic is empty. Oh, you base infidel. I believe I knows what men are by this time." "No doubt on it, mum. Howsomedever this here's the wrong door, I take it. No harm done, mum. I wish you and your toes, mum, a remarkably good evening." "Crotchet," said a voice. "Here yer is." Sir Richard Blunt had been attentively listening for Crotchet, and when he heard the screams of the old lady in the next attic, he opened the door of his apartment, and looked out. He soon discovered what was amiss, and called out accordingly. "Bless us, who's that?" "The Emperor o' Russia, mum," said Crotchet. "He's took that 'ere attic next to you, cos he's heard so much o' the London chumbley pots, and he wants to have a good look at them at his leisure." With these words Mr. Crotchet left the old lady's attic, and closed the door carefully, leaving her, no doubt, in a considerable state of bewilderment. In another moment he was with the magistrate. "Crotchet," said Sir Richard, "I thought I told you to do this thing as quietly as you possibly could." "Down as a hammer, sir." "I think it is anything but down." "Right as a trivet, sir, with a hextra leg. Lots o' fear, but no danger. Now for it, Sir Richard. What lay is we to go on?" It certainly never occurred to Sir Richard Blunt to hold any argument with Mr. Crotchet. He had long since found out that he must, if he would avail himself of his servicesand for courage and fidelity he was unequalledput up with his eccentricities; so upon this occasion he said no more about Crotchet's mistake, but, after a few moments' pause, pointing to the attic door, he said "Secure it." "All's right." Crotchet took a curious little iron instrument from his pocket, and secured it into the wall by the side of the door. It did not take him more than a moment to do so, and then, fully satisfied of the efficacy of his work, he said "Let 'em get over that if they can." While he was so occupied. Sir Richard Blunt himself had opened the window, and fastened it open securely. "Now, Crotchet," he said, "look to your pistols." "All's right, sir." The magistrate carefully examined the priming of his own arms, and seeing that all was right, he at once emerged from the attic through the window on to the parapet of the house. He might have crept along the gutter just within the parapet, but the gutter aforesaid was not exactly in the most salubrious condition. Indeed, from its filthy state, one might have fancied it to be peculiarly under the direction of the city commissioners of sewers. Crotchet followed Sir Richard closely, and in a moment or two they had traversed a sufficient portion of the parapet to find themselves at the attic window of Todd's house. It would have been next thing to a miracle if they had been seen in their progress, for the roof was very dark coloured, and the night had fairly enough set in, so that if any one had by chance looked up from the street below, they would scarcely have discovered that there was anybody creeping along the parapet. Now there was a slight creaking noise for about half a minute, and then the window of Sweeney Todd's attic swung open. "Come on," said Sir Richard, and he softly alighted in the apartment. Crotchet followed him, and then the magistrate carefully closed the window again, and left it in such a way, that a touch from within would open it. Then they were in profound darkness, and as it was no part of the policy of Sir Richard Blunt to run any unnecessary risks, he did not move one inch from the place upon which he stood until he had lighted a small hand lantern, which had a powerful reflector and a tin shade, which in a moment could be passed over the glass, so as to hide the light upon an emergency. "Now, Crotchet," he said, "we shall see where we are." "Reether," said Crotchet. By holding the light some height up, they were able to command a good view of the attic. It was a miserable looking room the walls were in a state of premature decay, and in several places lumps of mortar had fallen from the ceiling, making a litter of broken plaster upon the floor. It was entirely destitute of furniture, with the exception of an old stump bedstead, upon which there lay what looked like a quantity of old clothes. "Safe enough," said Sir Richard. "Stop!" said Crotchet. "What's the matter?" "There's something odd on the floor here. Don't you see as the dust has got into a crevice as is bigger nor all the other crevices, and goes right along this ways and then along that ways? Don't you move, sir. I'll be down upon it in a minute." Mr. Crotchet laid himself down flat upon the floor, and then crept on until he came to that part of the flooring which had excited his suspicions. As soon as he pressed upon it with both his hands it gave way under them plainly, by the elevation of the other end of the three boards of which this trap was composed, proclaiming that it was a moveable portion of the floor, revolving or turning upon one of the joists as a centre. "Oh dear, how clever!" said Crotchet. "If Mr. Todd goes on a cutting away his joists in this here way he'll bring his blessed old house down with a run some day. How nice and handy, now, if any one was to step upon herethey'd go down into the room below, and perhaps break their blessed legs as they went." The Secret Trap Discovered In Todd's House. The Secret Trap Discovered In Todd's House. "Escape the first for us!" said Sir Richard. "Oh, lor, yes. Now this here Todd thinks, by putting this here mantrap here, as he has perwided again any accidents; but we ain't them 'ere sort o' birds as is catched by chaff, not we. Why he must have spilted his blessed ceiling down below to make this here sort of a jigamaree concern." "It's not a bad contrivance though, Crotchet. Its own weight, you see, restores it to its place again, and so there's no trouble with it." "Oh dear, no. It's a what I calls a selfacting catch'emwhocan sort o' machine. Yes, Sir Richard, I never did think that 'ere Todd was wery green. He don't know quite so much as we know; but yet he's a rum 'un." "No doubt of it. Do you think, Crotchet, there is anything else in this attic to beware of?" "Not likely; when he'd finished this here nice little piece of handywork, I dare say he said to himself'This will catch 'em,' and so down stairs he toddled, and grinned like a monkey as has swallowed a whole nut by haccident, and gived himself a pain in the side in consekence. 'That'll catch 'em,' says he." Mr. Crotchet seemed so much amused at the picture he drew to himself of the supposed exultation of Todd, that for some moments he did nothing but laugh. The reader must not suppose, however, that in the circumstances of peril in which they were, he indulged in a regular "Ha! ha!"quite the contrary. He had a mode of laughing under such circumstances that was entirely his own, and which, while it made no noise, shook his huge frame as though some commotion had taken sudden possession of it, and the most ridiculous part of the process was the alarming suddenness with which he would become preternaturally serious again. But Sir Richard Blunt knew his peculiarities, and paid no attention to them, unless they very much interfered with business. "We must not waste time. Come on, Crotchet." Sir Richard walked to the door of the attic and tried it. It was as fast as though it had been part of the wall itself. "Soso," he said. "Master Todd has taken some precautions against being surprised from the top of his house. He has nailed up this door as surely as any door was ever nailed up." "Has he really, though?" "Yes. Quick, Crotchet. You have your tools about you, I suppose." "Never fear," said Crotchet. "I'm the indiwedal as never forgets nothink, and if I don't have the middle panel out o' this door a'most as soon as look at it, it's only cos it takes more time." With this philosophical and indisputable remark, Mr. Crotchet stooped down before the door, and taking various exquisitely made tools from his pocket, he began to work at the door. He knocked nearly noiselessly, and it looked like something little short of magic to see how the panel was forced out of the door without any of the hammering and flustering which a carpenter would have made of it. "All's right," he said. "If we can't creep through here, we are bigger than I think we is." "That will do. Hush!" They both listened attentively, for Sir Richard thought he heard a faint noise from the lower part of the house. As, however, five minutes of attentive listening passed away, and no repetition of it occurred, they thought it was only some one of those accidental sounds which will at times be heard in all houses whether occupied or not. Crotchet took the lead by creeping clearly enough through the opening that he had made in the door of the attic, and Sir Richard followed him. They were both, now, at the head of the staircase, and Sir Richard held up the lantern so as to have a good look around him. The walls looked damp and neglected. There were two other doors opening from that landing, but neither of them was fastened, so that they entered the rooms easily. They took care, though, not to go beyond the threshold for fear of accidents, although it was very unlikely that Todd would take the trouble to construct a trapdoor in any other attic than the one which was so easily accessible from the parapet. "Old clothesold clothes!" said Crotchet. "There seems to be nothing else in these rooms." "So it would appear," said Sir Richard. He lifted up some of the topmost of a heap of garments upon the floor, and a cloud of moths flew upwards in confusion. "There's the toggery," said Mr. Crotchet, "of the smugged 'uns!" "You really think so." "Knows it." "Well, Crotchet, I don't think from what I know myself that we shall disagree about Todd's guilt. The grand thing is to discover how, and in what way he is guilty." "Just so. I'm quite sure we have seed all as there is to see up here, so suppose we toddle down stairs now, sir. There's, perhaps, quite a lot o' wonders and natur', and art, down below." "Stop a bit. Hold the lamp." Crotchet did so, while Sir Richard took from his pocket a pair of thick linseywoolsey stockings, and carefully drew them on over his boots, for the purpose of deadening the sound of his footsteps; and then he held the light, while Mr. Crotchet, who was similarly provided with linseywoolseys, went through the same process. After this, they moved like spectres, so perfectly noiseless were their footsteps upon the stairs. Sir Richard went first, while Crotchet now carried the light, holding it sufficiently high that the magistrate could see the stairs before him very well, as he proceeded. It was quite evident, from the state of those stairs, as regarded undisturbed dust, that they had not been ascended for a considerable time; and indeed, Todd, considering the top of his house as perfectly safe after the precautions he had taken, did not trouble himself to visit it. Our adventurers reached the landing upon the second floor in perfect safety; and after giving a few minutes more to the precautionary measure of listening, they opened the first door that presented itself to the observation, and entered the room. They both paused in astonishment, for such a miscellaneous collection of matters as was in this room, could only have been expected to be met with in the shop of a general dealer. Several chairs and tables were loaded with wearing apparel of all kinds and conditions. The corners of the room were literally crowded with mobs of swords, walking sticks, and umbrellas; while a countless heap of hats lay upon the floor in disorder. You could not have stepped into that room for miscellaneous personal appointments of one sort or another; and Mr. Crotchet and Sir Richard Blunt trod upon the hats as they walked across the floor, from sheer inability to get out of the way. "Well," said Crotchet, "if so be as shaving should go out of fashion, Todd could set up a clothier's shop, and not want for stock to begin with." "I can imagine," muttered the magistrate to himself, "what a trouble and anxiety all these things must be to Todd, and woollen goods are so difficult to burn. Crotchet, select some of the swords, and look if there are maker's names upon the blades." While Crotchet was preparing this order. Sir Richard was making a hasty but sufficiently precise examination of the room. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE MYSTERIOUS CUPBOARD. "Here they are," said Crotchet. "Some of these are worth something." "Get a cane or two, likewise." "All's right, sir. I tell you what it is, sir. If there's such things as ghosts in the world, I wonder how this Todd can sleep o' nights, for he must have a plaguy lot of 'em about his bed of a night." "Perhaps he satisfied himself upon that head, Crotchet, before he began his evil practices, for all we know; but let us make our way into another room, for I think we have seen all there is to see in this one." "Not a doubt of it. It's only a kind of storeroom, this, and from the size of it, I should say it ain't the largest on this floor." Sir Richard walked out of the room on to the landing place. All was perfectly still in the barber's house, and as he had heard nothing of the bugle sound in Fleetstreet, he felt quite satisfied that Todd had not returned. It was a great thing, in all his daring exploits in discovering criminals, and successfully ferreting out their haunts, that he (Sir Richard) could thoroughly depend upon his subordinates. He knew they were not only faithful but brave. He knew that, let what might happen, they would never leave him in the lurch. Hence, in the present instance, he felt quite at his ease in the house of Todd, so long as he did not hear the sound of the bugle. Of course, personal danger he did not consider, for he knew he was, if even he had been alone, more than a match for Todd; but what he wanted was, not to overcome Sweeney Todd, but to find out exactly what were his practices. He could, upon the information he already had, have walked into Todd's shop at any time, and have apprehended him, but that would not have answered. What he wanted to do was to "Pluck out the heart of his mystery," and, in order to do that, it was not only necessary that Todd should be at large, but that he should have no hint that such a person as he, Sir Richard Blunt, had his eyes wide open to his actions and manoeuvres. Hence was it that, in this examination of the house, he wished to keep himself so secret, and free from any observation. There were three rooms upon the second floor of Todd's house, and the very next one they met with, was the one immediately beneath the trap in the floor of the attic. A glance at the ceiling enabled them easily to perceive it. This room was larger than the other considerably, and in it were many boxes and chests, as well as in the centre an immense oldfashioned countinghouse desk, with six immense flaps to it, three upon each side, while a brass railing went along the middle. "Ah!" said Sir Richard, "here will be something worth the examining, I hope." "Let's take the cupboards first," said Crotchet. "There are two here, and as they are the first we have seen, let's look at 'em, Sir Richard. I never likes to be in a strange room long, without a peep in the cupboard." "Very well, Crotchet. Look in that one to the left, while I look in this one to the right." Sir Richard opened a cupboard door to the right of the fireplace in this room, while Crotchet opened one to the left. "More clothes," said Sir Richard. "What's in yours, Crotchet?" "Nothing at all. Yet stay. There's a something high up here. I don't know what it is, but I'll try and reach it if I can." Crotchet went completely into the cupboard, but he had no sooner done so, than Sir Richard Blunt heard a strange crushing sound, and then all was still. "Hilloa! What's that, Crotchet?" He hastily stepped to the cupboard. The door had swung close. It was evidently hung upon its hinges in a manner to do so. With his disengaged hand, the magistrate at once pulled it open. Crotchet was gone. The astonishment of Sir Richard Blunt for a moment was excessive. There was the flooring of the cupboard perfectly safe, but no Crotchet. Nothing to his eyes had looked so like a magical disappearance as this, and with the trap in his hand, he stood while any one might have counted twenty, completely motionless and transfixed by astonishment. Starting then from this lethargic condition, he drew a pistol from his pocket, and rushed to the door of the room. At this instant, he heard the bugle sound clearly and distinctly in the street. Before the echo of the sound had died away, the magistrate was upon the landingplace outside the door of the second floor. He listened intently, and heard some one below coughing. It was not the cough of Crotchet. What was he to do? If he did not make a signal to the officers in the street that all was safe, the house would soon be stormed, and, for all he knew, that might ensure the destruction of Crotchet, instead of saving him. For a moment, the resolution to go down the staircase at all hazards and face Toddfor he had no doubt but that he had come homepossessed him, but a moment's reflection turned the scale of thought in another direction. If the officers, not finding him make a signal that he was safe, did attack the house, they would not do so for some minutes. It was their duty not to be precipitate. He leant on the balustrade, and listened with an intentness that was perfectly painful. He heard the cough again from quite the lower part of the house, and then he became aware that some one was slowly creeping up the stairs. He had placed the slide over the bull's eye of his little lamp, so that all was darkness, but he heard the breathing of the person who was coming up towards him. He shrunk back close to the wall, determined to seize, and with an iron hand, any one who should reach the landing. Suddenly, from quite the lower part of the building, he heard the cough again. The thought, then, that it must be Crotchet who was coming up, impressed itself upon him, but he would not speak. In a few moments some one reached the landing, and stretching out his right arm, Sir Richard caught whoever it was, and said in a whisper "Any resistance will cost you your life." "Crotchet it is," said the new comer. "Ah, how glad I am it is you!" "Reether. Hush. The old 'un is below. Ain't I shook a bit. It's a precious good thing as my bones is in the blessed habit o' holding on, one of 'em to the rest and all the rest to one, or else I should have tumbled to bits." "Hush! hush!" "Oh, he's a good way off. That 'ere cupboard has got a descending floor with ropes and pullies, so down I went and was rolled out into a room below and up went the bit of flooring again. I was very nearly startled a little." "Nearly?" "Reether, but here I is. I got out and crept up stairs as soon as I could, cos, says I, the governor will wonder what the deuce has become of me." "I did, indeed." "Just as I thought. Sir Richard, just listen to me! I've got a fancy for Todd." "A fancy for Todd?" "Yes, and I want to stay here a few hoursyes, go and let them as is outside know all's right, and leave me here, I think somehow I shall like to be in this crib alone with Todd for an hour or two. You have got other business to see to, you know, so just leave me here; and mind yer, if I don't get here by six in the morning, just consider as he's got the better of me." "No, Crotchet, I cannot." "Can't what?" "Consent to leave you here alone." "Bother! what's the row, and where's the danger, I should like to know? Who's Todd? Who am I? Gammon!" Sir Richard shook his head, although Crotchet could not very well see him shake it, and after a pause he added "I don't suppose exactly that there is much danger, Crotchet, but, at all events, I don't like it said that I brought you into this place and then left you here." "Bother!" "You go and leave me." "A likely joke that. No, I tell yer what it is, Sir Richard. You knows me and I knows you, so what does it matter what other folks say? Business is business I hope, and don't you believe that I'm going to be such a flat as to throw away my life upon such a fellow as Todd. I think I can do some good by staying here; if I can't I'll come away, but I don't think, in either case, that Todd will see me. If he does I shall, perhaps, be forced to nab him, and that, after all, is the worst that can come of it." "Well, Crotchet, you shall have your own way." "Good." "I will return to the attic as soon as I conveniently can, and, let what will happen to you, remember that you are not deserted." "I knows it." "Good bye. Take care of yourself, old friend." "I means it." "I should be indeed afflicted if anything were to happen to you." "Gammon." Sir Richard left him his own pistols, in addition to the pair which he, Crotchet, always had about him, so that he was certainly wellarmed, let what would happen to him in that house of Sweeney Todd's, which had now become something more than a mere object of suspicion to the police. Well, they knew Todd's guiltit was the mode in which he was guilty only that still remained a mystery. The moment Sir Richard Blunt reached the attic again, he held his arm out at full length from the window, and waved to and fro the little lantern as a signal to the officers in the street that he was safe. This done, he would not return to the room he had hired of the bootmaker, but he resolved to wait about ten minutes longer in case anything should happen in the house below that might sound alarming. After that period of time, he resolved upon leaving for an hour or two, but he, of course, would not do so without apprising his officers of Crotchet's situation. During the time that had been passed by Crotchet and Sir Richard Blunt in Sweeney Todd's house, the shoemaker and his wife had had an adventure which created in their minds abundance of surprise. It will be recollected that the shoemaker's wife had decided upon what was to be done regarding the new lodgernamely, that under the pretence that a Mr. Jones was a more satisfactory lodger, he was to be asked to be so good as to quit the attic he had so strangely taken. The arrival of Mr. Crotchet with so different a story from that told by Sir Richard Blunt certainly had the effect of engendering many suspicions in the minds of Sir Richard's new landlord and landlady. "Well, my dear," said the shoemaker, "if you are willing to come up stairs, I will say what you wish to this man, particularly as his pretended friend don't seem to be coming down stairs again." "Very well, my dear; I'll take the kitchen poker and follow you, and while I am behind you, if I think he is a pleasant man, you know, and we had better let him stay, I will give you a slight poke." "Ahem! Thank youyes." Armed with the poker, the lady of the mansion followed her husband up the staircase, and perhaps we may fairly say that curiosity was as strong a feeling with her as any other in the business. To tell the truth, the shoemaker did not half like the job; but what will a man, who is under proper control at home, not do to keep up the shallow treaty of peace which his compliance produces between him and his better half? Is there anything which a henpecked husband dares say he will not do, when the autocrat of his domestic hearth bids him do it? Upup the long dark staircase they went! Our ancestors, as one of their pieces of wisdom, had a knack of making steep dark staircases; and, to tell the truth, there are many modern architects equally ingenious. At length the attic landing was reached. The shoemaker knew the localities of his house better than to make such a mistake as Crotchet had done; so the old lady, with her feet in the pan of water, was saved such another interruption as had already taken place into her peaceful domains. "Now, my dear, knock boldly," said the lady of the mansion. "Knock like a man." "Yes, my love." The shoemaker tapped at the door with about the energy of a fly. The soft appeal produced no effect whatever, and the lady growing impatient, then poised the poker, and dealt the door a blow which induced her husband to start aside, lest the lodger should open it quickly, and rush out in great wrath. All was profoundly still, however; and then they tried the lock, and found it fast. "He's gone to bed," said the shoemaker. "He can't," said the lady, "for there are no sheets on the bed. Besides, they have not both gone to bed. I tell you what it is. There's some mystery in this that I should like to find out. Now, all the keys of all the attics are alike. Just wait here, and I'll borrow Mrs. Macconikie's." The shoemaker waited in no small amount of trepidation, while this process of keyborrowing from the old lady who enjoyed a pan of water, took place upon the part of his wife. CHAPTER XL. CROTCHET ASTONISHES MR. TODD. The key was soon procured, but it will be recollected that Crotchet had fastened the door rather too securely for it to be opened by any such ordinary implement as a key, and so disappointment was the portion of the shoemaker's wife. "Don't you think, my love," said the shoemaker, "that it will be just as well to leave this affair until the morning, before taking any further notice of it?" "And pray, then, am I to sleep all night, if I don't know the rights of it, I should like to know? Perhaps, if you can tell me that, you are a little wiser than I think you. Marry, come up!" "Oh, well, I only" "You only! Then only don't. That's the only favour I ask of you, sir, is to only don't." What extraordinary favour this was, the lady did not condescend to explain any more particulars, but it was quite enough for the husband to understand that a storm was brewing, and to become humble and submissive accordingly. "Well, my dear, I'm sure I only wish you to do just what you like; that's all, my dear, I'm sure." "Very good." After this, she made the most vigorous efforts to get into the attic, and if any one had been therewhich at that juncture there was notthey might truly have asked "Who's that knocking at the door?" Finding that all her efforts were ineffectual, she took to peeping through the keyhole, but nothing was to be seen; and then, for the first time, the idea struck her that there was something supernatural about the business, and in a few moments this notion gained sufficient strength to engender some lively apprehensions. "I tell you what," she said to her husband, "if you don't fetch a constable at once, and have the door opened, and see all about, I'm afraidindeed I'm quite sureI shall be very ill." "Oh, dearoh, dear." "It's of no use your standing here and saying 'Oh, dear,' like a great stupid as you arealways was and always will be. Go for a constable, at once." "A constable?" "Yes, There's Mr. Otton, the beadle of St. Dunstan's, lives opposite, as you well know, and he's a constable. Run over the way and fetch him, this minute." She began hastily to descend the stairs, and the shoemaker followed her, remonstrating, for the idea of fetching a constable, and making him and his house the talk of the whole neighbourhood, was by no means a proposition that met with his approval. The lady was positive, however, and Mr. Otton, the beadle of St. Dunstan's, was brought from over the way, and the case stated to him at length. "Conwulsions!" exclaimed Otton, "what can I do?" "Burst open the door," said the lady. "Burst a door open, mum! What is you a thinking on? Why, that's contrary to Habus Corpus, mum, and all that sort of thing. Conwulsions, mum! you mustn't do it. But I tell you what, now, will be the thing." Here Mr. Otton put his finger to the side of his nose, and looked so cunning that you would hardly have believed it possible. "What?what?" "Why, suppose, mum, we ask Mr. Todd, next door, to give us leave to go up into his attic, and get out at the window and look in at yours, mum?" "That'll do. Run in" "Me!" cried the shoemaker. "Oh, MMr. Todd is a strange mana very strange mannot at all a neighbourly sort of man, and I don't like to go to him.I won't go, that's flatunless, my love, you particularly wish it." "Conwulsions!" cried the beadle. "Ain't I agoing with you? Ain't I a constabulary force, I should like to know? Conwulsions! What is yer afeard on? Come on. Lor, what's the meaning o' that, I wonders, now; I should just like to take that ere fellow up. Whoever heard of a horn being blowed at such a rate, in the middle o' Fleetstreet, afore, unless it was somethin' as consarned the parish? Conwulsions! it's contrary to Habus Corpus, it is. Is me a constabulary force, or is me not?" This was the bugle sound which warned Sir Richard Blunt and his friend Crotchet that Sweeney Todd had returned to his shop; and, in fact, while this very conversation was going on at the shoemaker's, Todd had lit the lamp in his shop, and actually opened it for business again, as the evening was by no means very far advanced. Mr. Otton went to the door, and looked about for the audacious bugle player, but he was not to be seen; so he returned to the back parlour of the shoemaker, uttering his favourite expletive of "Conwulsions" very frequently. "Now, if you is ready," he said, "I is; so let's come at once, and speak to Mr. Todd. He may be a strange man, but for all that, he knows, I dessay, what's proper respect to a beetle." With this strange transformation of his own title upon his lips, Mr. Otton stalked on rather majestically, as he thought, to the street, and thence to Todd's shop door, with the shoemaker following him. The gait of the latter expressed reluctance, and there was a dubious expression upon his face, which was quite amusing to behold. "Really, Mr. Otton," he said, "don't you think, after all, it would be better to leave this affair alone till the morning? We can easily tell my wife, you know, that Mr. Todd won't let us into his attic. That must satisfy her, for what can she say to it?" "Sir," said the beadle, "when you call in the constabullary force, you must do just what they say, or lasteways you acts contrary to Habus Corpuses. Come on. Conwulsions! is we to be brought over the street, and then is we to do nothing to go down to prosperity?" The beadle uttered these words with such an air of pomposity and importance that the shoemaker, who had a vague idea that Habus Corpus was some fearful engine of the law at the command of all its administrators, no longer offered any opposition, but, as meekly as any lamb, followed Mr. Otton into Sweeney Todd's shop.
The door yielded to a touch, and Mr. Otton presented his full rubicund countenance to the gaze of Sweeney Todd, who was at the further end of the shop, as though he had just come from the parlour at the back of it, or was just going there. He did not at first see the shoemaker, who was rather obscured by the portly person of the beadle, and Todd's first idea was, the most natural one in the world, namely, that the beadle came upon an emergency to be shaved. Giving him an hideous leer, Todd said "A fine night for a clean shave." "Werry. In course, Mr. T., you is the best judge o' that 'ere, but I does for myself." As he spoke, Mr. Otton rubbed his chin, to intimate that it was to his shaving himself that he alluded just then. "Hair cut?" said Todd, giving a snap to the blades of a large pair of scissors, that made Mr. Otton jump again, and nearly induced the shoemaker to run out of the shop into the street. "No," said the beadle; and taking off his hat, he felt his hair, as though to satisfy himself that it was all there, just as usual. "No." Todd looked as though he would have shaved him with extreme pleasure, and advancing a few steps, he added "Then what is it that you bring your wieldy carcase here for, you gross lump of stupidity? Ha! ha! ha!" "What? Conwulsions!" "Pho!Pho! Can't you take a joke, Mr. Otton? I know you well enough. It's my funny way to call people, whom I admire very much, all the hard names I can think of." "Is it?" "Oh, dear, yes. I thought you and all my neighbours knew that well enough. I'm one of the drollest dogs alive. That I am. Won't you sit down?" "Well, Mr. Todd, a joke may be a joke." The beadle looked very sententious at this discovery. "But you have the oddest way of poking your fun at any one that ever I heard of; but, I comes to you now as a respectable parishioner, to" "Oh," said Todd, putting his hands, very deliberately into his pockets, "how much?" "It ain't anything to pay. It's a mere trifle. I just want to go up to your front attic, and" "What?" "Your front attic, and get out of the window to look into the front attic next door. We won't trouble you if you will oblige us with a candle. That's all." Todd advanced two steps further towards the beadle and looked peeringly in his face. All the suspicious qualities of his nature rose up in alarm. Every feeling of terror regarding the instability of his position, and the danger by which he was surrounded, rushed upon him. At once he conjectured that danger was approaching him, and that in this covert manner the beadle was intent upon getting into the house, for the purpose of searching it to his detriment. As the footpad sees in each bush an officer, so, in the most trivial circumstances, even the acute intellect of Sweeney Todd saw dangers, and rumours of dangers, which no one but himself could have had the remotest idea of. He glared upon the beadle with positive ferocity, and so much affected was Otton by that lynxlike observation of Sweeney Todd's, that he stepped aside and disclosed that he was not alone. If anything could have confirmed Todd in his suspicions that there was a deadset at him, it was finding that the beadle was not alone. And yet the shoemaker was well known to him. But what will lull such suspicion as Sweeney Todd had in his mind? Once engendered, it was like the jealousy that "Makes the meat it feeds on!" He advanced, step by step, glaring upon the beadle and upon the shoemaker. Reaching up his hand, he suddenly turned the lamp that hung from the ceiling clear round, so that, in lieu of its principal light falling upon him, it fell upon the faces of those who had paid him so unceremonious a visit. "Lawks!" said the beadle. "Excuse us, Mr. Todd," said the shoemaker, "I assure you we only meant" "What?" thundered Todd. Then suddenly softening his voice, he added"You are very welcome here indeed. Pray what do you want?" "Why, sir," said Otton, "you must know that this gentleman has a lodger." "A what?" "A lodger, sir, and so you see that's just the case. You understand that this lodgerlor, Mr. Todd, this is your neighbour the shoemaker, you know. The front attic, you know, and all that sort of thing. After this explanation, I hope you'll lend us a candle at once, Mr. Todd, and let us up to the attic." Todd shaded his eyes with his hands, and looked yet more earnestly at the beadle. "Why, Mr. Otton," he said, "indeed you do want a shave." "A shave?" "Yes, Mr. Otton, I have a good razor here that will go over your chin like a piece of butter. Only take a seat, sir, and if you, neighbour, will go home comfortably to your own fireside, I will send for you when Mr. Otton is shaved." "But really," said the beadle, rubbing his chin, "I was shaved this morning, and as I do for myself always, you see, why I don't think I require. Conwulsions! Mr. Todd, why do you look at a man so? Remember the Habus Corpus. That's what we call the paladermius of the British Constitution, you know." By this time the beadle had satisfied himself that he did not at all require shaving, and turning to the shoemaker, he said "Why don't you be shaved?" "Well, I don't care if I do, and perhaps, in the meantime you, Mr. Otton, will go up to the attic, and take a peep into the next one, and see if my lodger is up or in bed, or what the deuce has become of him. It's a very odd thing, Mr. Todd, that a man should take one's attic, and then disappear without coming down stairs." "Disappear without coming down stairs?" said Todd. "Yes, and my wife says" Todd made an impatient gesture. "Gentlemen, I will look in my attic myself. The fact is, that the flooring is rather out of order, and unless you know exactly where to step you will be apt to fall through a hole into the second floor." "The deuce you are!" said Otton. "Yes; so I would not advise either of you to make the attempt. Just remain there, and I'll go at once." The proposition suited both parties, and Mr. Todd immediately passed through a door at the back of his shop, which he immediately closed behind him again. Instead of going up stairs, however, he slid aside a small opening in the panel of this door, and placed his ear to it. "If people say anything impudent, it is the moment they are free from the company that has held them in check," was one of Sweeney Todd's maxims. His first notion that the beadle and the shoemaker had come covertly to search his house, had given way a little, and he wanted to convince himself of the innocency or the reverse of their intentions, before he put himself to any further trouble. "I don't like it," said the shoemaker. "Like what? Conwulsions! what don't you like?" "Intruding upon Mr. Todd. What does he care about my lodgers? It ain't as if he let any of his own house, and had a fellow feeling with us." "Werry good," said the beadle, "but you send for me, and you ask me what's best, and I tell yer that Habus Corpus, and one thing and another, what I advised was the only thing, that was to get into Mr. Todd's attic, and then get on the parapet and into yours. But if so be as there's holes in Mr. Todd's attic, that will alter the affair, you know." "Foolfool!" muttered Todd. "After all, they only come upon their own twaddling affairs, and I was idiot enough to suspect such muddy pated rascals." In an instant he was in the shop again. "Nobody there, gentlemen; I have looked into the attic, and there's nobody there." "Well, I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Todd," said the shoemaker, "for taking so much trouble. I'll go, and rather astonish my wife, I think." "Conwulsions!" said the beadle. "It's an odd thing, but you know, Mr. Todd, Habus Corpus must have his way." CHAPTER XLI. TODD'S VISION. When they had left, Todd remained for some minutes in an attitude of thought. "Is this an accident?" he said, "or is it but the elaboration of some deep design to entrap me. What am I to think?" Todd was an imaginative man quite. He was just the individual to think, and think over the affair until he made something of it, very different from what it really was, and yet there was some hope that the matter was no more than what it appeared to be, by the character of the parties who had come upon the mission. If anything serious had come to the ears of the authorities, he thought, that surely two such people as the beadle of St. Dunstan's, and his neighbour the shoemaker, would not be employed to unravel such a mystery. He sat down in an arm chair and rested his head upon his hand, and while he was in that attitude the door of his shop opened, and a man in the dress of a carter made his appearance. "Be this Mister Todd's?" "Well," said Todd, "what then?" "Why, then, this be for him like. It's a letter, but larning waren't much i' the fashion in my young days, so I can't read what's on it." Todd stretched out his hand. An instant examination showed him it bore the Peckham postmark. "Ah!" he muttered, "from Fogg. Thank you, my man, that will do. That will do. What do you wait for?" "Please to remember the carter, your honour!" Todd looked daggers at him, and slowly handed out twopence, which the man took with a very ill grace. "What," said Todd, "would you charge me more for carrying a letter than King George the Third does, you extortionate rascal?" The carter gave a nod. "Get out with you, or by" Todd snatched up a razor, and the carter was off like a shot, for he really believed, from the awful looks of Todd, that his life was not worth a minute's purchase. Todd opened the letter with great gravity.It contained the following words "Dear Sir," "The lad, T. R., I grieve to say, is no more. Let us hope he is gone where the weary are at rest, and where there is neither sin nor sorrow. "I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully, "Jacob B. Fogg." "Humph!" said Todd. He held the letter in the flame of the lamp until it fell a piece of airy tinder at his feet. "Humph!" he repeated, and that humph was all that he condescended to say of poor Tobias Ragg, whom the madhousekeeper had thought proper to say was dead; hoping that Todd might never be undeceived, for the barber was a good customer. If, however, Tobias should turn up to the confusion of Fogg and of Todd, what could the latter do for the deceit that had been practised upon him?literally nothing. "No sooner," said Todd, "does one cloud disappear from my route than another takes its place. What can that story mean about the attic next door? It sounds to my ears strange and portentous. What am I to think of it?" He rose and paced his shop with rapid strides. At length he paused as though he had come to a determination. "The want of a boy is troublesome to me," he said. "I must get one, but for the present this must suffice." He wrote upon a small slip of paper the words"Gone to the Templewill return shortly." He then, by the aid of a wafer, affixed this announcement to the upper part of the halfglass door leading into his shop. Locking this door securely on the inside, and starting a couple of bolts into their sockets, he lit a candle and left his shop. With a stealthy, catlike movement, Todd passed through the room immediately behind his business apartment, and opening another door he made his way towards the staircase. Then he paused a moment. He thought some sound from above had come upon his ears, but he was not quite sure. To suspect, however, was with such a man as Todd to be prepared for the worst, and accordingly he went back to the room behind his shop again, and from a tabledrawer he took a knife, such as is used by butchers in their trade, and firmly clutching it in his right hand, while he carried the candle in his left, he once more approached the staircase. "I do not think," he said, "that for nine years now any mortal footsteps, but my own, have trod upon these stairs or upon the flooring of the rooms above. Woe be to those who may now attempt to do so. Woe, I say, be to them, for their death is at hand." These words were spoken in a deep hollow voice, that sounded like tones from a sepulchre, as they came from the lips of that man of many crimes. To give Todd his due, he did not seem to shrink from the unknown and dimly appreciated danger that might be up stairs in his house. He was courageous, but it was not the highsouled courage that nerves a man to noble deeds. No, Sweeney Todd's courage was that of hatehatred to the whole human race, which he considered, with a strange inconsistency, had conspired against him; whereas he had been the one to place an impassable barrier between himself and the amenities of society. He ascended the stairs with great deliberation. When he reached the landing upon the first floor, he cast his eyes suspiciously about him, shading the light as he did so with his handthat same hand that held the knife, the shadow of which fell upon the wall in frightful proportions. "All is still," he said. "Is fancy, after all, only playing me such tricks as she might have played me twenty years ago? I thought I was too old for such freaks of the imagination." Todd did not suspect that there was a second period in his life, when the mental infirmities of his green youth might come back to him, with many superadded horrors accumulated, with a consciousness of guilt. He slowly approached a door and pushed it open, saying as he did so "Nonono. Above all things, I must not be superstitious. If I were so, into what a world of horrors might I not plunge. Nono, I will not people the darkness with horrible phantasies, I will not think that it is possible that men with "Twenty murders on their heads," can revisit this world to drive those who have done them to death with shrieking madnessthis world do I say? There is no other. Bah! Priests may talk, and the weakbrained fools who gape at what they do not understand, may believe them, but when man dieswhen the electric condition that has imputed to his humanity what is called life, flies, he is indeed "Dust to dust!" Ha! ha! I have lived as I will die, fearing nothing and believing nothing." As he uttered those wordswords which found no real echo in his heart, for at the bottom of it lay a trembling belief in, and a dread of the great God that rules all things, and who is manifest in the meanest seeming thing that crawls upon the earthhe entered one of the rooms upon that floor, and glanced uneasily around him. All was still. There were trunksclothes upon chairs, and a vast amount of miscellaneous property in this room, but nothing in the shape of a human being. Todd's spirits rose, and he held the long knife more carelessly than he had done. "Pho! pho!" he said. "I do, indeed, at times make myself the slave of a disturbed fancy. Pho! pho! I will no more listen to vague sounds, meaning nothing; but wrapping myself up in my consciousness of having nothing to fear, I will pursue my course, hideous though it may be." He turned and took his way towards the landing place of the staircase again. He was now carrying both the light and the knife rather carelessly, and everybody knows that when a candle is held before a person's face, that but little indeed can be seen in the hazy vapour that surrounds it. So it was with Todd. He had got about two paces from the door, when a strange consciousness of something being in his way came over him. He immediately raised his handthat hand that still carried the knife, to shade the light, and then, horror! horror! He saw standing upon the landing a figure attired in faded apparel, whose face was dabbled in blood, and the stony eyes which were fixed upon the face of Todd, with so awful an expression, that had the barber's heart been made of much more flinty materials than it was, he could not have resisted the terrors of that awful moment. With a shriek that echoed through the house, Todd fell upon the landing. The light rolled from stair to stair until it was finally extinguished, and all was darkness. Sweeney Todd Astonished By Crotchet, The BowStreet Officer. Sweeney Todd Astonished By Crotchet, The BowStreet Officer. "Good," said Crotchet, for it was he who had enacted the ghost. "Good! I'm blessed if I didn't think that ere would nail him. These sort o' chaps are always on the lookout for something or another to be frightened at, and you have only to show yourself to put 'em almost out of their seven senses. It was a capital idea that of me to cut my finger a little, and get some blood to smear over my face. It's astonishing what a long way a little drop will go, to be sure. I dare say it makes me look precious rum." Mr. Crotchet was quite right regarding the appearance which the blood, smeared over his face, gave to him. It made him look perfectly hideous, and any one whose conscience was not "With injustice corrupted!" might well have been excused for a cold chill, and, perchance, even a swoon, like Sweeney Todd's, at his appearance. "I rather think," added Crotchet, "that's a settler; so I'll just take the liberty, old fellow, of lighting your candle again, and then mizzling, for I don't somehow think much good is to be done in this crib just now." By the aid of his phosphorus match Crotchet soon succeeded in reillumining the candle, which he found on a mat in the passage; but notwithstanding his opinion that he had seen about as much as there was to see in Todd's house, he, when he had the candle alight, thought he might just as well peep into the parlour immediately behind the shop, before going upstairs again. The door offered no opposition, for Todd had certainly not expected any one down stairs, and Mr. Crotchet found himself in the parlour about as soon as he had formed the wish to be there. This parlour was perfectly crammed with furniture, and all of the bureau kind, that is to say, large shapeless looking pieces of mahogany, with no end of drawers. Crotchet made an attempt at several before he found one that yielded to his efforts to open it, and that only did so because the hasp into which the lock was shot had given way, and no longer held it close. This drawer was full of watches. "Humph!" said Crotchet, "Todd ought to know the time of day certainly, and no mistake. Ah, these ere machines, if they had tongues now, I rather think, could tell a tale or two. Howsomedever, I'll pocket some of 'em." Mr. Crotchet put about a dozen watches in his pocket forthwith, and then he began to think that, as he did not wish to take Mr. Todd just then into custody, it would be just as well if he left the house. Besides, the barber had only fell into a swoon through fright, so that his recovery was a matter that could be calculated upon with something like certainty in a short time. "It would be a world of pities if he was to find out as the ghost was only me," said Crotchet, "so I'll be off before he comes to himself." Extinguishing the light, Crotchet wound his way up the staircase again, but when he got to the landing he stopped, and said "Bless us! I've not got them canes and swords as Sir Richard wanted me to bring away with me. Well, the watches will answer better than them, for all he wants is to compare 'em with the descriptions of some folks as has been missed by their blessed relations in London, so that's all right. Hilloa!" This latter ejaculation arose from Crotchet having trodden upon Todd. "The deuce!" he added, "I thought I had got clear of him." He paused, and heard Todd utter a deep groan. Mr. Crotchet took this as a signal that he had better be off; and accordingly he ascended the next staircase quickly, and in a very few minutes reached the attic of Todd's house. When there, he quickly made his appearance in the shoemaker's attic, and found that Sir Richard Blunt had left the door of it just upon the latch for him. He was upon the point of passing out of the room, and going down stairs, when he heard a confused sound approaching the attic, and he paused instantly. The sound came nearer and nearer, until Crotchet found that some half dozen people were upon the landing, and all talking together in anxious whispers. "What the deuce is up now?" he thought. He approached the door and listened. "I tell you what it is, Mr. Otton," said a female voice. "It's now getting on for ten o'clock, and I positively can't sleep in my bed unless I know something more about this horrid attic." "Well, but, mum" "Don't speak to me. Here's an attic, and two men go into it. Then all at once there's no men in it; and then all at once, one man comes down and walks out as cool as a cucumber, and says nothing at all; and then we know well enough as there was two men, and only one" "But, mum" "Don't speak to me, and only one has come down." "And here's the t'other!" cried Crotchet, suddenly bouncing out of the attic. The confusion that ensued baffles all description. A grand rush was made into the apartments of the lady who was fond of putting her feet into hot water; and in the midst of the confusion, Crotchet quickly enough went down stairs, and made his escape from the shoemaker's house. CHAPTER XLII. THE GREAT SACRIFICE. While all these things were going on at Sweeney Todd's, in Fleetstreet, Mrs. Lovett was not quite idle as regarded her own affairs and feelings. That lady'swhat shall we saycertainly not affections, for she had nonepassions is a better wordwere inconceivably shocked by the discovery she had made of the perfidy of her flaunting and moustachied lover. It will be perceived, by this little affair of Mrs. Lovett's, how strongminded women have their little weaknesses. The hour of the appointment, which she (Mrs. Lovett) had made with her militarylooking beau, came round; and there she sat, looking rather disconsolate. "Am I never to succeed," she muttered to herself, "in finding one with whom I can make my escape from this sea of horrors that surrounds me? Am I, notwithstanding I have so fully accomplished all I wished to accomplish, byby"she shuddered and paused."Well, well, the time will comeI must go alone. Let Todd go alone, and let me go alone. Why should he wish to trammel my actions? He cannot surely think, for a moment, that with him I will consent to pass the remainder of my life!" The scornful curl of the lip, and the indignant toss of the head, which accompanied these words, would have been quite sufficient to convince Todd, had he seen them, of the hopelessness of any such notion. "No," she added, after a pause, "I shall be alone in the world, or, if I make ties, they shall be made in another country. There it is possible I may beoh, no, nonot happy; but I may be powerful, and have cringing slaves about me, who, finding that I am rich, will tell me that I am beautiful, and I shall be able to drink deeply of the intoxicating cup of pleasure, in some land where prudery, or what is called propriety, has not set up its banner as it has in this land of outward virtue. As for ToddII will try to be assured that he is a corpse before I breathe freely; and if I fail in that, I will hope that we shall be thousands of leagues asunder." A shadow passed the window. Mrs. Lovett started to her feet. "Ah! who comes? 'Tis henoGod! 'tis Todd." For a moment she pressed her hands upon her face, as though she would squeeze out the traces of passion from the muscles, and then her old set smile came back again. Todd entered the shop. For a few moments they looked at each other in silence, and then Todd said "Alone?" "Quite," she replied. He gave one of his peculiar laughs, and then glided into the parlour behind the shop. Mrs. Lovett followed him. "News?" he said. "None." "Hem! The time is coming." "The time to leave off this" "Yes. The time to quit business, Mrs. Lovett. All goes wellswimmingly. Ha! ha!" She shuddered as she said "Do not laugh." "Let those laugh who win," replied Todd. "How old are you, Sarah?" "Old?" "Yes, or to shape the question perhaps more to a woman's liking, how young are you? Have you yet many years before you in which to enjoy the fruits of our labours? Have you the iron frame which will enable you to say'I shall revel for years in the soft enjoyments of luxury stolen from a world I hate?' Tell me." Mrs. Lovett fell into a musing attitude, and Todd thought she was reflecting upon her age; but at length she said "I sometimes think I would give half of what is mine if I could forget how I became possessed of the whole." "Indeed!" "Yes, Todd. Has no such feeling ever crossed you?" "Never! I am implacable. Fate made me a barber, but nature made me something else. In the formation of man there is a something that gives weakness to his resolves, and makes him pause upon the verge of enterprise with a shrinking horror. That is what the world calls conscience. It has no hold of me. I have but one feeling towards the human race, and that is hatred. I saw that while they pretended to bow down to God, they had in reality set up another idol in their heart of hearts. Gold! gold! Tell mehow many men there are in this great city who do not worship gold far more sincerely and heartily than they worship Heaven?" "Fewfew." "Few? None, I say, none. No. The future is a dreaman ignis fatuusa vapour. The present we can graspha!" "What is our wealth, Todd?" "Hundreds of thousands." He shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered from the parlour into the shop. "Who is that keeps dodging past the window each moment, and peeping in at every convenient open space in the glass that he can find?" Mrs. Lovett looked, and then, after an effort, she said "Todd, I was going to speak to you of that man." "Ah!" "Listen; I suspect him. For some days past he has haunted the shop, and makes endeavours to become acquainted with me. I did not think it sound policy wholly to shun him, but gave him such encouragement as might supply me with opportunities of judging if he were a spy or not." "Humph!" "I think him dangerous." Todd's eyes glistened like burning coals. "Should he come into your shop to be shaved, Todd" "Ha! ha!" The horrible laugh rang through the place, and Mrs. Lovett's lover, with the moustache, sprung to the other side of Bell Yard, for the unearthly sound even reached his ears as he was peeping through the window to catch a glimpse of the charming widow. "You understand me, Todd?" "PerfectlyperfectlyI shall know him again. Ah, my dear Mrs. Lovett, how dangerous it is to be safe in this world. Even our virtue cannot escape detraction; but we will live in hopes of better times. You and I will show the world, yet, what wealth is." "Yesyes." Todd crept close to her, and was about to place his arm round her waist, but she started from him, exclaiming "Nono, Todda thousand times no. Have we not before quarrelled upon this point. Do not approach me, or our compact, infernal as it is, is at an end. I have sold my soul to you, but I have not bartered myself." The expression of Todd's countenance at this juncture was that of an incarnate fiend. He glared at Mrs. Lovett as though with the horrible fascination of his ugliness he would overcome her, and then slowly rising, he said "Her soulha! She has sold her soul to meha! I will call tomorrow." He left the shop, and as he passed the gent who, by force of his moustache, hoped to win the affections of Mrs. Lovett, he gave him such a look that he terrified him and the gent found himself in the shop before he was aware. "Bless me, what a horrid looking fellow! I swear by my courage and honour I never saw such a face. Ah, my charmer! Who was that left your charming presence just now?" "Some one who came for a pie." "'Pon honour, he's enough to poison all the pies! Oh, you beauty, yoououou" The gallant's mouth was so full of a veal pie that he had stuffed into it that for some few moments he could not produce an intelligible sound. When he had recovered, he walked into the parlour and sat down, saying "Now, Mrs. Lovett, here am I, 'pon honour, your humble servant, and stop my breath if I'd say as much to the commanderinchief. When's the happy day to be?" "Do you really love me?" "Do I love you? Do I love fighting? Do I love honourglory? Do I love eating and drinking? Do I love myself?" "Ah, Major Bounce, you military men are so gallant." "'Pon honour we are. General Cavendish used to say to me'Bounce,' says he, 'if you don't make your fortune by war, which you ought to do, Bounce, 'pon honour, you will make it by love.' 'General,' says Inow I was always ready for a smart answer, Mrs. Lovettso 'General,' says I, 'the same to you!'" "Very smart." "Yes, wasn't it. 'Pon honour it was, and 'pon soul you looks more and more charming every day that I see you." "Oh you flatterer!" "Nono. Bar flatteringbar flattering. His Majesty has often said, 'Talk of flattery. Oh dear, Bounce is the man for me. He is right downstraight upoff handed. And no sort of mistake, ononon.'" Another pie converted the oratory of the major into something between a grunt and a sigh. "But major, I'm afraid that you will regret marrying me. If I convert all I have into money"the major pricked up his ears"I could not make of it more than fifty thousand pounds." The major's eyes opened to the size of pint saucers, as he said "Fiftyfiftfif.Say it again!" "Fifty thousand pounds." The major rose and embraced Mrs. Lovett. Tears actually came into his eyes, and gulping down the pie, he cried "You have fifty thousand charms. Only let me be your slave, your dog, dammeyour dog, Mrs. Lovett, and I shall consider myself the luckiest dog in the world, but not for the moneynot for the money. No, as the Marquis of Cleveland once said, 'If you want a thoroughly disinterested man, go to Bounce.'" "Well, major, since we understand each other so well, there are two little things that I must name as my conditions." "Name 'emname 'em. Do you want me to bring you the king's eyetooth, or her majesty's wig and snuffboxonly say the word." "One is, that I will leave England. I have a private reason for so doing." "Damme, so have I. That is ahem! If you have a reason, that is a reason to me, you know." "Exactly. In some other capital of Europe we may spend our money and enjoy all the delights of existence. Do you speak French?" "Ahhem! Oh, of course. I never tried particularly, but as Lord North said to the Duke of Bridgewater, 'Bounce is the man if you want anything done of an out oftheway character.'" "Very well, then. My next condition is, that you shave off your moustache." "What?" "Shave off your moustache; I have the greatest possible aversion to moustache, therefore I make that a positive condition without which I shall say no more to you." "My charmer, do you think I hesitate? If you were to say to me, 'Bounce, off with your head,' in a moment it would roll at your feet." "Go, then, to Mr. Todd's, the barber, in Fleetstreet, and have them taken off at once, and then come back to me, for I declare I won't speak another word to you while you have them on." "But, dear creature" Mrs. Lovett shook her head. "'Pon honour!" She shook her head again. "I'll go at once then, 'pon soul, and have 'em taken off. I'll be back in a jiffy, Mrs. Lovett. Oh, you duck, I adore you. Confound the cash! It's you I knuckle under to. Man doats on Venus, and I love Lovett. Bye, bye; I'll get it done and soon be back. Fifty thousandfiftyfif.Oh, lor' why Flukes, your fortune is made at last." These last words did not reach the ear of Mrs. Lovett. That lady threw herself into a chair, where the gallant major had left her. "Another!" she said. "Another! Why did he try to deceive me? The fool, to pitch upon me, of all persons, to make his victim. I must have found him out, and poisoned him, if I had married him. It is better that Todd should take vengeance for me, and then the time shall come when he shall fall. Yes, so soon as I can, by cajollery or scheming, get sufficient of the plunder into my own hands, Todd's hours are numbered." After this, Mrs. Lovett fell into a train of musing, and her face assumed an expression so different from that with which she was wont to welcome her customers in the shop, that not one of them would have known her.
But we must look at Todd. It was upon his return home from several calls, the last of which had been this recent visit to Mrs. Lovett, that he had heard the noise in his house, which had terminated in his going up stairs, and being so terrified by Crotchet. It will be recollected that he fell insensible upon the staircase, and that Crotchet took that opportunity of making good his retreat. How long he lay there, he, Todd, had no means of knowing, for all was profound darkness upon the staircase, but his first sensation consisted of a tingling in his feet and hands, similar to the sensation which is properly called "your limbs going to sleep." Then a knocking noise came upon his sense of hearing. "What's that? Where am I?" he cried. "Nono. Don't hang me. Where's Mrs. Lovett? Hang her. She is guilty!" Knock!knock!knock! "Hush! hush! What is it? Who wants me? Good Godnono. There is no good God for me!" Knock! knock! knock! came again with increased violence at the door of the shop below. CHAPTER XLIII. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. Todd scrambled to his feet. He held his head in his hand. "What does it all mean? What does it all mean?" Knock! knock! knock! Todd's senses were slowly returning to him. He began to recollect events at first confusedly, and then the proper order of their occurrencehow he had come home, and then heard a noise, and gone up stairs and seenwhat? There he paused in his catalogue of events. What had he seen?" Knock! knock! knock! "Curses!" he muttered. "Who can that be hammering with such devilish perseverance at my door? By all that's horrible they shall pay dearly for thus disturbing me. Who can it be? Not any one to arrest me? Nono! They would not knock so long. An enforced entrance long before this would have brought them to me. What did I see? What did I see? What did I see? Dare I give it a name?" He slowly descended the stairs, and reaching the shop, he peeped through a place in the door which he had made for such a purpose. There stood the hero of the moustachios knocking away with all his might to get the behests of Mrs. Lovett obeyed. Todd suddenly flung open the door, and in fell Major Bounce, alias Flukes. "The devil! What do you want?" "'Pon honour. Damn it. Is this the way to treat a military man?" Todd turned to the side of the shop, and hastily put on a wigby an adroit movement of his fingers, he pulled his cravat sufficiently out from his neck to be able to bury his chin in it, and when he turned to the mock major, the latter had no suspicion that he looked upon the same person who had so alarmed him by a look, in Bell Yard. "Shaved or dressed sir?" said Todd. "Confound you. Why did you open the door so quick?" "Thought you knocked, sir." "I did, but stop my breath, if you haven't given me an ugly fall. But no matter. None but the brave deserve the fair. You perceive I am a military man?" "Oh, yes, sir, anybody may see that by your martial air." "Ahem! You are right. Well then, Mr. Barber, I want my moustache shaved off. It's a fancy of a lady. One of the most charming of her sex. One with a fifty thousand pound charm. 'Pon my valour, she has. Ah! I am a lucky dog. Thirtyeighthandsome as Apollo, and beloved by the fairest of the fair." "Life is a jolly thing, Life is a jolly thing, While I drink deep and go frolicking, Fair maids, wives, and widows, Fair maids, wives, and widows Doat on the youth that goes frolicking." "Ha! ha! ha! Life's a bumper. Upon my valour, Mr. Barber, I feel like a young colt, that I do." "Really, sir. You don't say so?" "Oh, yes, yes! Ha! ha! All's right. All's right. Now, Mr. What'syourname. Off with the moustache. It's only in the cause of the fair that I would condescend to part with them, that's a fact, but when a lady's in the caseupon my valour, you are an ugly fellow." "You don't say so," replied Todd, as he made a most hideous contortion. "Most people think me so fascinating that they stay with me." "Ha! ha! A good joke." Major Bouncewe may as well still call the poor wretch Major Bounceplaced his hat upon a chair, and his sword upon the top of it. "Pray, sir, be seated," said Todd. "Ah! Damme, is this seat a fixture?" "Yes, sir, it's in the proper light, you see, sir." "Oh, very wellIpluff, pluffpuff, puff! Confound you, what have you filled my mouth with soapsuds for?" "Quite an accident, sir. Quite an accident, for which I humbly beg your pardon, I assure you, sir. If you keep your mouth shut, and your eyes open, you will get on amazingly. Have you seen the paper today, sir?" "No!" "Sorry for that, sir. A very odd case, sira little on one sidea most remarkable case, I may say. A gentleman, sir, went into a barber's shop, and" "Eh!puff! sleush! puff! Am I to be poisoned by your soapsuds? Upon my valour, I shall have to make an example of you to all barbers." "You opened your mouth at the wrong time, sir." "The wrong devil. Don't keep me here all night." "Certainly not, sir. But as I was saying about this curious case in the paper. A military gentleman went into a barber's shop to be shaved." "Well. The devilpluff, pluff! Good God! Am I to endure all this?" "Certainly not, sir. I'll show you the paper itself. You must know, sir, that the paragraph is headed 'Mysterious disappearance of a gentleman.'" "Damn it, what do I care about it? Get on with the shaving." "Certainly, sir." Todd gave a horrible scrape to Major Bounce's face with a blunt razor. "Quite easy, sir?" "Easy? Good gracious, do you want to skin me?" "Oh, dear no, sir. What an idea. To skin a military gentleman. Certainly not, sir. I see you require one of my best keen razorsone of the Magnum Bonums. Ha! ha!" "Eh? What was that?" "Only me giving a slight smile, sir." "The deuce it was. Don't do it again, then, that's all; and get your keen razor at once, and make an end of the business." "I willmake an end of the business. Sit still, sir. I'll be back in a moment." Todd went into the parlour. "50,000!" muttered Major Bounce. "I am a happy fellow. At last, after so many ups and downs, I light upon my feet. A charming widow!and she wishes to leave England. How lucky. I wish the very same thing. 50,000!50,000 charms!" "Good God! what's that?" said a man, who was passing Todd's window, in Fleetstreet. "What a horrid shriek. Did you hear it, mum?" "Oh dear, yes," said a woman. "I'm all of a tremble." "It came from the barber's shop, here. Let's go in, and ask if anything is the matter?" The man and woman crossed Todd's threshold, and opened the shop door. A glance showed them that a man's face was at a small opening of the parlour door. The shaving chair was empty. "What's the matter?" said the man. "With whom?" said Todd. "Well, I don't know, but I thought somebody cried out." Todd crept along the floor until he came close to the man, and then he said "My friend, have you anything to do?" "Yes, thank God." "Then, go and do it; and the next time you hear me cry out with the stomachache, ask yourself if it is your business to come in and ask me any questions about it. As for you, ma'am, unless you want to be shaved, I don't know, for the life of me, what you do here." "Well, we only thought" Todd gave a hideous howl, which so terrified both the intruders, that they left the shop in a moment. His countenance then assumed that awful satanic expression which it sometimes bore, and he stood for the space of about five minutes in deep thought. Starting then suddenly, he took up the sword and hat of Major Bounce, and was in the act of putting both into a cupboard, when a smothered cry met his ears. Todd unsheathed the sword, and after fastening his shop door, he went into the parlour. He was absent about ten minutes, and when he returned he had not the sword, but he hastily washed his hands. "Done!" he said. Scratch! scratch! scratch! came something at his door, and Todd bent forward in an attitude of listening. Scratch!scratch!scratch!His face turned ghastly pale, and his knees knocked together as he whispered to himself "What is that?what is that?" Todd was getting superstitious. Since his adventure with Mr. Crotchet, his nerves had been out of order, notwithstanding the exertions he had made to control himself, and to convince his judgment that it was all a matter of imagination. Yet now, somehow or another, although there was no visible connection between the two things, he could not help mentally connecting this scratching at the door with the vision on the staircase. It is strange how the fancy will play such tricks, but it is no less strange than true that she does so, yoking together matters most dissimilar, and leading the judgment into strange disorder. Scratch!scratch!scratch! "Whatwhat is it?" gasped Todd. But time works wonders, and after the first shock to his nerves, the barber began to think that some one must be playing him a trick, and, for all he knew, it might be the very man whom he had snubbed so for interfering with him, or it might be some boythe boys would at times tease Sweeney Todd. This supposition gathered strength each moment. "It is a tricka trick," he said. "I will be revenged!" He took a thick stick from a corner, and stealthily approached the door. The odd scratching noise continued, and he again paused for a few moments to listen to it. "A boya boy," he growled. "It is one of the infernal boys." Opening the door a little way with great quickness, Todd aimed a blow through the opening. There was a short angry bark, and his old enemy, the dog that had belonged to the mariner, thrust in his head, and glared at Todd. "Help!help! Murder!" cried Todd. "The dog again!" He made a vain effort to shut the door; but Hector was too strong for him, and, as he had got his head in, he seemed to be determined to force in his whole body, which he fully succeeded in doing. Todd dropped the stick, and rushed into the backparlour for safety, from whence, through a small square of glass near the top of the door, he glared at the proceedings of his fourfooted foe. The dog went direct to the cupboard from which he had taken his master's hat, and, opening the door, he dragged out an assemblage of miscellaneous property, as though he hoped to find among it some other vestige of the dear master he had lost. When, however, after tossing the things about, he found that they were all strange to him, he gave a melancholy howl. Hector then appeared to be considering what he should do next, and, after a few moments' consideration, he made a general survey of the shop, and finally ended by leaping into the shavingchair, where he sat and commenced such a series of melancholy howls, that Todd was nearly driven out of his mind at the conviction that the whole street must be soon in a state of alarm. Oh! how glad he would have been to have shot Hector; but then, although he had pistols in the parlour, he might miss him, and send the bullet into Fleetstreet through his own window, and, perchance, hit somebody, and that would be a trouble. The report, too, would bring a crowd round his shop, and the old story of him and the accusing dogfor had not that dog accused him?would be brought up again. But yet something must be done. "Am I to be a prisoner here," said Todd, "while that infernal dog sits in the shaving chair, howling?" Now and then, for the space of about halfaminute, the dog would be quiet, but then the prolonged howl that he would give plainly showed that he had only been gathering breath to give it. Todd got desperate. "I must and will shoot him," he said. Going to a sideboard he opened a drawer, and took from it a large doublebarrelled pistol. He looked carefully at the priming, and satisfying himself that all was right, he crept again to the parlour door. "I must and will shoot him at any risk," he said. "This infernal dog will be else the bane and torment of my life. I thought I had been successful in poisoning the brute as he suddenly disappeared from my door, but he has been preserved by some sort of miracle on purpose to torment me." Howl went the dog again. Sweeney Todd took a capital aim with the pistol. To be sure his nerves were not quite in such good order as they sometimes were, but then the distance was so short that how could he miss such an object as a Newfoundland dog? "I have himI have him," he muttered. "Ha! ha! I have him!" He pulled the trigger of the pistolsnap went the lock, and the powder in the pan flashed up in Todd's face, but that was all. Before he could utter even an oath the shop door was opened, and a man's voice cried "Hasn't nobody seen nothing of never a great dog nowheres? Oh, there you is, my tulip. Come to your father, you rogue you. So you guved me the slip at last did you, you willain!" CHAPTER XLIV. TODD AND THE SILVERSMITH. Sweeney Todd ReVisited By The Dog Of One Of His Victims. Sweeney Todd ReVisited By The Dog Of One Of His Victims. Hector whined a kind of recognition of this man, but he did not move from the chair in Todd's shop upon which he had seated himself. "Come, old fellow," said the man, "you don't want to be shaved, do you?" Hector gave a short bark, but he wagged his tail as much as to intimate"Mind, I am not at all angry with you." And indeed it was quite evident, from the manner of the dog to this man, that there was a good understanding between them. "Come now, Pison," said the man, "don't be making a fool of yourself here any more. You ain't on friendly terms here, my tulip." "Hilloa!" cried Todd. The man gave a start, and Hector uttered an angry growl. "Hilloa! Who are you?" "Why, I'm the ostler at the 'Bullfinch!' oppesite." "Is that your dog?" "Why in a manner o' speaking, for want of a better master, he's got me." The ostler, by dint of shading his eyes with his hands, and looking very intently, at last saw Todd, and then he added "Oh, it's you, master, is it?" "Take away that animal directly," cried Todd. "Take him away. I hate dogs. Curses on both you and him; how came he here?" "Ah, Pison, Pison, why did you come here, you good for nothink feller you? You ought to have knowed better. Didn't I always say to youleastways, since I've had youdidn't I say to you'Don't you go over the way, for that ere barber is your natural enemy, Pison,' and yet here yer is." As he spoke, the ostler embraced Hector, who was not at all backward in returning the caress, although in the midst of it he turned his head in the direction of the backparlour, and gave a furious bark at Todd. "There is some mystery at the bottom of all this," muttered Todd; and then raising his voice, he added"How did you come by the dog?" "Why, I'll tell you, master. For a matter of two days, you know, he stuck at your door with a hat as belonged" "Well, well!" "Yes, his master, folks said, was murdered." "Ha! ha!" "Eh? Oh, Lord, what was that?" "Only me; I laughed at the idea of anybody being murdered in Fleet Street, that was all." "Oh, ah! It don't seem very likely. Well, as I was a saying, arter you had finished off his master" "I?" "Oh, I begs your pardon! Only, you see, the dog would have it that you had, and so folks say so as natural as possible; but, howsomdever, I comed by and seed this here dog in the agonies o' conwulsions all along o' pison. Now where I come from, the old manthat's my father as washad lots o' dogs, and consekewently I knowed somethink about them ere creturs; so I takes up this one and carries him on my back over the way to the stables, and there I cures him and makes a pet of him, and I called him Pison, cos, you see, as he had been pisoned. Lor, sir, you should only have seed him, when he was a getting a little better, how he used to look at me and try to say'Bill, don't I love you neither!' It's affectionthat it is, blow me!" Todd gave an angry snarl of derision. "I tell you what it is, my man," he said; "if you will hang that dog, I will give you a guinea." "Hang Pison? No, old 'un, I'd much rather hang you for half that ere money. Come along, my daffydowndilly. Don't you stay here any more. Why, I do believe it was you as pisoned him, you old bloak." The ostler seized Hector, or Pison, as he had fresh christened him, round the neck, and fairly dragged him away out of the shop. To be sure, if Hector had resisted, the ostler, with all the power of resistance he possessed, it would indeed have been no easy matter to remove him; but it was wonderful to see how nicely the grateful creature graduated his struggles, so that they fell short of doing the smallest hurt to his preserver, and yet showed how much he wished to remain as a terror and a reproach to Sweeney Todd. When they were both fairly gone, Todd emerged from his parlour again, and the horrible oaths and imprecations he uttered will not bear transcription. With eager haste he again bundled into the cupboard all the things that the dog had dragged out of it, and then stamping his foot, he said "Am I, after defeating the vigilance of heaven only knows who, and for so long preserving myself from almost suspicion, to live in dread of a dog? Am I to be tormented with the thought that that fiend of an animal is opposite to me, and ready at any moment to fly over here and chase me out of my own shop. Confound it! I cannot and will not put up with such a state of things. Oh, if I could but get one fair blow at him. Only one fair blow!" As he spoke he took up a hammer that was in a corner of the shop, and made a swinging movement with it through the air. Some one at that moment opened the shop door, and narrowly escaped a blow upon the head, that would have finished their mortal career. "Hilloa! Are you mad?" "Mad!" said Todd. "Yes do you knock folks' brains out when they come to be shaved?" "Mine's a sedentary employment," said Todd, "and when I am alone, I like exercise to open my chest. That's all. Ain't it rather late to be shaved? I was just about to shut up." "Why it is rather late, Mr. Todd; but the fact is, I am going to York by the early coach from the Bullfinch Inn, opposite, and I want a shave before I get upon my journey, as I shan't have an opportunity you see, again, for some time." "Very well, sir." "Come in, Charley." Todd started. "What's that?" he said. He felt afraid that it was the dog again, under some new name. Truly, conscience was beginning to make a coward of Sweeney Todd, although he denied to himself the possession of such an article. Charley came in the shape of a little boy, of about eight years of age. "Now you sit down, and don't do any mischief," said the father, "while I get Mr. Todd to shave me. I am a late customer indeed. You see the coach goes in two hours, and as I have got to call the last thing upon Alderman Stantons, I thought I would be shaved first, and my little lad here would come with me." "Oh, certainly, sir," said Todd; "I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Brown, the silversmith." "Yesyes. The alderman gave me some jewels, worth about three thousand pounds, to reset, and though they are not done, I really don't like to have them at home while I take such a journey, so I want to lodge them with him again until I come back." Todd lathered away at Mr. Brown's chin, as he said with an air of innocence "Can you carry so many jewels about with you, sir?" "So many? Aye, ten times as many. Why they are all in a little narrow case, that would not hold a pair of razors." "Indeed!" Todd began the shaving. "And so this is your little boy? A sharp lad, no doubt." "Tolerable." "The whiskers as they are, sir?" "Oh, yesyes." "I suppose you never trust him out alone in the streets?" "Oh, yes; often." "Is it possible. Well, now, I should hardly have thought it. What a sweet child he looks, and such a nice complexion, too. It's quite a pleasure to see him. I was considered myself a very fine child a good while ago." Todd took care to lift the razor judiciously, so as to give Mr. Brown opportunities of replying; and the silversmith said "Oh, yes; he's a nice little fellow. He's got his mother's complexion." "And he shan't lose it," said Todd, "if there's any virtue in pearlometrical savonia." "In what?" "Oh, that's the name I give to a soap that preserves the complexion in all its purity. I have only a small parcel of it, so I don't sell it, but I give it away now and then, to my lady customers. Excuse me for one moment." "Oh, certainly." Todd opened a glass case, and took out two pieces of soap, of a yellowish tint. "There, Charley," he said as he handed them to the little fellow. "There's a piece for you, and a piece for mamma." "Really you are very kind, Mr. Todd," said Brown. "Oh, don't mention it. Run home at once, Charley, with them, and by the time you get back your father will befinished. Run along." "I won't," said Charley. "Ah, comecome," said his father. "I won't go, and I don't like soap." "And why don't you like soap, my little man?" said Todd, as he recommenced operations upon the silversmith's face. "Because I don't like to be washed at all, it scrubs so, and I don't like you, either, you are so dreadfully uglythat I don't." Todd smiled blandly. "Now, Charley," said his father, "I am very angry with you. You are a very bad boy indeed. Why don't you do as Mr. Todd tells you?" "Because I won't." "Bless him," said Todd, "bless his heart. But don't you think, Mr. B."here Todd's voice sank to a whisper"don't you think that it's rather injudicious to encourage this obstinacyif one may call it suchthus early in life? It may, you know, grow upon the dear little fellow." "You are right, Mr. Todd; and I know that he is spoiled; but I have a more than ordinary affection for him, since, under most critical circumstances, once I saved his life. From that time, I confess that I have been weak enough to allow him too much of his own way. Thank you, Mr. Todd. A very clean comfortable shave indeed." Mr. Brown rose from his chair and approached the little boy. "Charley, my dear," he said; "you will save papa's life some day, won't you?" "Yes," said Charley. The father kissed him; as he added "How affected I feel tonight. I suppose it's the thought of the long journey I am going." "No doubt," said Todd. "Good night, Mr. Todd. Come along, Charley." "Won't you give me a kiss, you darling, before you go?" said Todd. "No, ugly, I won't." "Oh, CharleyCharley, your behaviour to Mr. Todd is really anything but right. You are a very bad boy tonight. Come along." Away they went, and Todd stood stropping the latelyused razor upon his hand, as he glared upon them, and muttered "Jewels worth three thousand pounds! And so you saved the child's life, did you? By all that's devilish he has returned the obligation." He went to the door and looked after the retreating figures of the silversmith and his child. He saw with what tender care the father lifted the little one over the roadway, and again he muttered "Three thousand pounds gone!gone, when it was almost within my grasp. All this is new. I used not to be the sport of such accidents and adverse circumstances. Time was, when by the seeming irresistible force of my will, I could bend circumstances to my purposes, but now I am the sport of dogs and children. What is the meaning of it all? Is my ancient cunning deserting me? Is my brain no longer active and full of daring?" He crept back into his shop again. The hour was now getting late, and after sitting for some time in silent musing he rose, and without a word, commenced closing his establishment for the night. "I must have another boy," he said, as he put up the last shutter and secured it in its place. "I must have another boy. This state of things will not do. I must certainly have another boy. Tobias Ragg would have suited me very well, if he had not been sosowhat shall I call it, confoundedly imaginative. But he is deaddead! that is a comfort. He is dead, and I must have another boy." Bang! went Sweeney Todd's shop door. The beautiful moon climbed over the housetops in old Fleet Street. The clock of St. Dunstan's struck the hour of eleven. The streets began to be thin of pedestrians, and the din of carriages had almost entirely ceased. London then, although it was so not long ago, presented a very different aspect at the hour of eleven to what it does now. The old hackneycoaches had not been ousted from the streets by the cabs and the omnibuses, and the bustle of the city was indeed but a faint echo then, of what it is now. Time changes all things. CHAPTER XLV. JOHANNA'S NEW SITUATION. "Johanna, attend to me," said Mrs. Oakley, upon the morning after these events. "Well, mother?" "Your father is an idiot." "Mother, mother! I dissent from the opinion, and if it were true, it comes with the worst possible grace from you, but I am sick at heart. I pray you to spare me reproaches or angry words, mother." "Haity taity, one must not speak next, I suppose. Some people fancy that other people know nothing, but there is such a thing as overhearing what some people say to other people." Johanna had not the most remote notion of what her mother meant, but Mrs. Oakley's tongue was like many pieces of machinery, that when once set in motion are not without considerable trouble brought to a standstill again, so on she went. "Of course. I now know quite well why the godly man who would have made you a chosen vessel was refused. It was all owing to that scamp, Mark Ingestrie." "Mother!" "Marry come up! you need not look at me in such a way. We don't all of us see with the same eyes. A scamp he is, and a scamp he will be." "Mother, he whom you so name is with his God. Mention him no more. The wild ocean rolls over his bodyhis soul is in heaven. Speak not irreverently of one whose sole crime was that he loved me. Oh, mother, mother, you" Johanna could say no more, she burst into tears. "Well," said Mrs. Oakley, "if he is dead, pray what hinders you from listening to the chosen vessel, I should like to know?" "Do not. Oh do not, mother, say any more to meI cannot, dare not trust myself to speak to you upon such a subject." "What is this?" said Mr. Oakley, stepping into the room. "Johanna in tears! What has happened?" Mr. Oakley Defends Johanna From The Violence Of Her Mother. Mr. Oakley Defends Johanna From The Violence Of Her Mother. "Fatherdear father!" "And Mr. O.," cried Mrs. Oakley, "what business is it of yours, I should like to know? Be so good, sir, as to attend to your spectacles, and such like rubbish, and not to interfere with my daughter." "Dear me!ain't she my daughter likewise?" "Oh yes, Mr. O.! Go on with your base, vile, wretched, contemptible, unmanly insinuations. Do go on, prayI like it. Oh, you odious wretch! You spectaclemaking monster!" "Do not," cried Johanna, who saw the heightened colour of her father's cheek. "Oh, do not let me be the unhappy cause of any quarrelling. Father! father!" "Hush, my dear, don't you say another word. Cousin Ben is coming to take a little bit of lunch with us today." "I know it," cried Mrs. Oakley, clapping her hands together with a vengeance that made Oakley jump again. "I know it. Oh, you wretch. You couldn't have put on such airs if your bully had not been coming; I thought the last time he came here was enough for him. Aye, and for you too, Mr. O." "It was nearly too much," said the spectaclemaker, shaking his head. "Tow row, row, row, row!" cried Big Ben, popping his head into the parlour, "what do you all bring it in now? Wilful murder with the chill off or what? Ah, mother Oakley, what's the price of vinegar now, wholesalepluck does it. Here you is. Ha, ha! Aint we a united family. Couldn't stay away from you, Mother Oakley, no more nor I could from that ere laughing hyena we has in the Tower." "Eugh!wretch!" "Sit down, Ben," said Mr. Oakley. "I am glad to see you, and I am quite sure Johanna is." "Oh, yes, yes." "That's it," said Ben. "It's on Johanna's account I came. Now, little one, just tell me" Johanna had just time to place her finger upon her lips, unobserved by any one, and shake her head at Ben. "Ahhem! How are you, eh?" he said, turning the conversation. "Come, Mother O., stir your old stumps and be alive, will you? I have come to lunch with your lord and master, so bustlebustle." Mrs. Oakley rose, and placing her hands upon her hips, she looked at Ben, as she said "You great, horrid, manmountain of a wretch. I only wonder you ain't afraid, after the proper punishment you had on the occasion of your last visit, to show your horrid face here again?" "You deludes to the physicking, I suppose, mum. Lor bless you, it did us no end of good; but, howsomedever, we provide agin wice in animals when we knows on it aforehand, do you see. Oh, there you is." A boy howled out from the shop"Did a gentleman order two gallons of halfandhalf here, please?" "All's right," said Ben. "Now, Mother O., the only thing I'll trouble you for, is a knife and fork. As for the rest of the combustibles, here they is." Ben took from one capacious pocket a huge parcel, containing about six pounds of boiled beef, and from the other he took as much ham. "Hold hard!" he cried to the boy who brought the beer. "Take this halfcrown, my lad, and get three quartern loaves." "But, Ben," said old Mr. Oakley, "I really had no intention, when I asked you to come to lunch this morning, of making you provide it yourself. We have, or we ought to have, plenty of everything in the house." "Old birds," said Ben, "isn't to be caught twice. A fellow, arter he has burnt his fingers, is afeard o' playing with the fire. No, Mrs. O., you gave us a benefit last time, and I ain't agoing to try my luck again. All's rightpitch into the grub. How is the chosen vessel, Mother O.? All right, eh?" Mrs. Oakley waited until Ben had made an immense sandwich of ham and beef; and then in an instant, before he was aware of what she was about, she caught it up, and slapped it in his face with a vengeance that was quite staggering. "Easy does it," said Ben. "Take that, you great, fat elephant." "Go itgo it." Mrs. Oakley bounced out of the room. Johanna looked her sorrow; and Mr. Oakley rose from his chair, but Ben made him sit down again, saying "Easy does iteasy does it. Never mind her, cousin Oakley. She must have her way sometimes. Let her kick and be off. There's no harm donenot a bit. Lord bless you. I'm used to all sorts of cantankerous animals." Mr. Oakley shook his head. "Forget it, father," said Johanna. "I only wish, my dear, I could forget many things; and yet there are so many others, that I want to remember, mixed up with them, that I don't know how I should manage to separate them one from the other." "You couldn't do it," said Ben. "Here's luck in a bag, and shake it out as you want it." This sentiment was uttered while Ben's head was deep in the recesses of the twogallon can of beer, so that it had a peculiar solemn and sonorous effect with it. After drinking about a quart, Ben withdrew the can, and drew a long breath. "Has he brought yours?" he said. "What?who?" "Why the other two gallons for you and Johanna." "Good gracious, Ben, you don't mean that?" "Don't I, though. Oh, here he is. All's right. Now, my lad, get the little pint jug, with the silver top to it, and if we don't mull a drop, I'm a sinner. Now, you'll see if Mrs. O. don't come round quite handsome." Ben, by the aid of some sugar, succeeded in making a very palatable drink, and just as the steam began to salute the nostrils of old Oakley and himself, the door of the parlour was opened, and who should heedlessly step into the room but the pious Mr. Lupin himself. Mr. Lupin was so transfixed by finding Ben there, that for a moment or two he could not gather strength to retreat; and during that brief period, Ben had shifted his chair, until he got quite behind the reverend gentleman, who, when he did step back, in consequence fell into Ben's lap. "What do yer mean?" cried Ben, in a voice of thunder. "Oh, murdermurder! Have mercy upon me! I only looked in as I was passing, to ask how all the family was." "Yes," said Mr.
Oakley, "and because you, no doubt, heard I was going to Tottenham, to Judge Merivale's, to fit him with a pair of spectacles." "Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Let me go, sir." "I don't want you," said Ben; "but as you are here, let's make an end of all differences, and have a pint together." "A pint?" "Yes, to be sure. By the look of your nose, I should say it knows pretty well what a pint is." "Oh, dearman is sinful alway. I bear no malice, and if the truly rightminded and pious Mrs. Oakley was only here, we might drink down all differences, Mr. aa" "Ben." "Mr. Ben. Thank you, sir." "Oh, Mr. Lupin," cried Mrs. Oakley, at this moment bursting into the parlour. "Is it possible that you can give your mind in this way to the Philistines? Is not this backsliding?" "Let us hope for the best, sister," said Mr. Lupin, with an evangelical twang. "Let us hope for the best. If people will drink, they had much better drink with the saints, who may take some favourable opportunity of converting them, than with sinners." "Sit down, mum," said Ben, "and let's bury all animosities in the can. Easy does it. Don't you go, Johanna." "Yes, but, Ben, I" "Now don't." Ben saw by the direction of Johanna's eyes, that the Rev. gentleman was resting one of his red rawlooking hands upon her arm, and, situated as she was, she could not get out of his way but by rising. "Sit still," said Ben. "Easy does it." Lifting up the can, then, he pretended to drink out of it, and then brought it with such a thundering crack upon Mr. Lupin's head, that it quite staggered him. "Paws off," said Ben. "Just attend to that ere gentle hint, old friend." Mr. Lupin sat down with a groan. "Now, mum," said Ben, who all the while had held fast the stone mug of mulled porter. "Now, mum, here's some hot, that don't suit me so well as the cold, perhaps you and Mr. Lupin will take that, while I cuts a few more sandwiches." He placed the jug before Mr. Lupin, who thereupon left off rubbing his head, and said "I'm sure it would be highly unchristian of me to bear any malice, so, with the Lord's leave, I will even partake of some of this worldly liquor, called mulled porter." Now while Mr. Lupin drank the savoury stream from the jug, it assailed the senses of Mrs. Oakley, and when the porter was placed before her, she raised it to her lips, saying "If folks are civil to me, I'm civil to them, only I don't like my godly friends to be illtreated. I'm sure nobody knows what I have gone through for my family, and nobody thinks what a mother and wife I have been. What would have become of Oakley if it hadn't been for me, is a question I often ask myself in the middle of the night?" "She's a wonderful woman," sighed Lupin. "Oh, uncommon," said Ben. "Let me go," whispered Johanna to Ben. "No, no! Wait for the fun." "What fun?" "Oh, you'll see. You don't know what a trouble it has cost me, to be sure. Only wait a bit, there's a duck, do." Johanna did not like to say she would not, so she shrunk back in her chair in no small curiosity, to know what was about to happen. Mrs. Oakley lifted the jug to her lips and drunk deep. The aroma of the liquor must have been peculiarly grateful to the palate of Mrs. Oakley, for she certainly kept the jug at her mouth for a length of time, that, to judge by the look of impatience upon the countenance of Mr. Lupin, was something outrageous. "Sister!" he said. "Mind your breath." Down came the jug, and Mrs. Oakley, when she could draw breath, gasped "Very good indeed. A dash of allspice would make it delicious." "Oh, sister," cried Lupin as he grasped the jug, that was gently pushed towards him by Ben after Mrs. Oakley had set it down. "Oh, sister, don't give your mind to carnal things, I beg of you. Why, she's drank it all." Mr. Lupin peered into the jug. He shut the right eye and looked in with the left, and then he shut the left eye and looked in with the right, and then he moved the jug about until the silver lid came down with a clap, that nearly snapped his nose off. "What's the matter?" said Ben. "IIdon't exactly" Mr. Lupin raised the lid again and again, and peered into the jug in something of the fashion which popular belief supposes a crow to look into a marrow bone. At length he turned the jug upside down, and struck the bottom of it with his pious knuckles. A huge toad fell sprawling upon the table. Mrs. Oakley gave a shriek, and rushed into the yard. Mr. Lupin gave a groan, and flew into the street, and the party in the parlour could hear them in a state of horrible sickness. "Easy does it," said Ben, "it's only a piece of wood shaped like a toad and painted, that's all. Now I'm easy. I owed 'em one." CHAPTER XLVI. TOBIAS'S HEART IS TOUCHED. Tobias is no worse all this time. But is he better? Has the godlike spirit of reason come back to the mindbenighted boy? Has that pure and gentle spirit recovered from its fearful thraldom, and once again opened its eyes to the world and the knowledge of the past? We shall see. Accompany us, reader, once again to the house of Colonel Jeffery. You will not regret looking upon the pale face of poor Tobias again. The room is darkened, for the sun is shining brightly, and an almond tree in the front garden is not sufficiently umbrageous in its uncongenial soil to keep the bright rays from resting too strongly upon the face of the boy. There he lies! His eyes are closed, and the long lashesfor Tobias, poor fellow, was a pretty boyhung upon his cheek, held down by the moisture of a tear. The face is pale, oh, so pale and thin, and the one arm and hand that lies outside the coverlet of the bed, show the blue veins through the thin transparent skin. And all this is the work of Sweeney Todd. Well, well! heaven is patient! In the room is everything that can conduce to the comfort of the slumbering boy. Colonel Jeffery has kept his word. And now that we have taken a look at Tobias, tread gently on tiptoe, reader, and come with us down stairs to the back drawingroom, where Colonel Jeffery, his friend Captain Rathbone, the surgeon, and Mrs. Ragg are assembled. Mrs. Ragg is "crying her eyes out," as the saying is. "Sit down, Mrs. Ragg," said the colonel, "sit down and compose yourself. Come, now, there is no good done by this immoderate grief." "But I can't help it." "You can control it. Sit down." "But I oughtn't to sit down. I'm the cook, you know, sir." "Well, well; never mind that, if you are my cook. If I ask you to be seated, you may waive all ceremony. We want to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Ragg." Upon this Tobias's mother did sit down, but it was upon the extreme edge of a chair, so that the slightest touch to it in the world would have knocked it from under her, and down she would have gone on to the floor. "I'm sure, gentlemen, I'll answer anything I know, and more too, with all the pleasure in life, for, as I often said to poor Mr. Ragg, who is dead and gone, and buried accordingly in St. Martin's, as he naturally might, and a long illness he had, and what with one thing and" "Yes! yes! we know all that. Just attend to us for one moment, if you please, and do not speak until you thoroughly understand the nature of the question we are about to put to you." "Certainly not, sir. Why should I speak, for as I often and often said, when" "Hush, hush!" Mrs. Ragg was silent at last, and then the surgeon spoke to her calmly and deliberately, for he much wished her clearly to understand what he was saying to her. "Mrs. Ragg, we still think that the faculties of your son Tobias are not permanently injured, and that they are only suffering from a frightful shock." "Yes, sir, they is frightfully shook." "Hush! We think that if anything that greatly interested him could be brought to bear upon the small amount of perception that remains to him he would recover. Do you now know of anything that might exercise a strong influence over him?" "Lord bless youno, sir." "How old is he?" "Fifteen, sir, and you would hardly believe what a time of it I had with Tobias. All the neighbours said'Well, if Mrs. Ragg gets over this, she's a woman of ten thousand;' and Mrs. Whistlesides, as lived next door, and had twins herself, owned she never" "Good God, will you be quiet, madam?" "Quiet, sir? I'm sure I haven't said two words since I've been in the blessed room. I appeal to the kernel." "Well! well! it appears then, Mrs. Ragg, you can think of nothing that is at all likely to aid us in this plan of awakening, by some strong impression, the dormant faculties of Tobias?" "No, gentlemen, no! I only wish I could, poor boy; and there's somebody else wasting away for grief about him; poor little thing, when she heard that Tobias was mad, I'm sure I thought she'd have broke her heart, for if Tobias ever loved anybody in all the world, it was little Minna Gray. Ah! it's affecting to think how such children love each other, ain't it, sir? Lord bless you, the sound of her footstep was enough for him, and his eyes would get like two stars, as he'd clap his hands together, and cry'Ah! that's dear Minna.' That was before he went to Mr. Todd's, poor fellow." "Indeed!" "Yes, sir, oh, you haven't an idea." "I think I have. Who is this Minna Gray, who so enthralled his boyish fancy?" "Why, she's widow Gray's only child, and they live in Milford Lane, close to the Temple, you see, and even Tobias used to go with me to drink tea with Mrs. Gray, as we was both bequeathed women in a world of trouble." "You were what?" "Bequeathed." "Bereaved you mean, I suppose, Mrs. Ragg; but how could you tell me that you knew of no means of moving Tobias's feelings. This Minna Gray, if he really loves her, is the very thing." "Lor, sir. What do you mean?" "Why, I mean that if you can get this Minna Gray here, the possibility is that it will be the recovery of Tobias. At all events, it is the only chance of that kind that presents itself. If that fails, we must only trust to time. How old is this girl?" "About fourteen, sir, and though I say it" "Well, well. Do you now, as a woman of the world, Mrs. Ragg, think that she has an affection for poor Tobias?" "Do I think? Lor bless you, sir, she doats on the ground he walks on, that she doespoor young thing. Hasn't she grizzled a bit. It puts me in mind of" "Yes, yes. Of course it does. Now, Mrs. Ragg, you understand it is an object with our friend the colonel here, that no one but yourself should know that Tobias is here. Could you get this young girl to come to tea, for instance, with you, without telling her what else she is wanted for?" "Dear me, yes, sir; for, as I used to say to Mr. Ragg, who is dead and gone, and buried in St. Martin's" "Exactly. Now go and get her by all means, and when she comes here we will speak to her, but above all things be careful what you say." "I think Mrs. Ragg is already aware," said Colonel Jeffery, "that her son's safety, as well as her own, depends upon her discretion in keeping his whereabouts a profound secret. We will instruct this young girl when she comes here." Colonel Jeffery, when he heard that the medical man was of opinion that the experiment of awakening the feelings of Tobias, by bringing Minna Gray, was worth trying, at once acquiesced, and urged upon Mrs. Ragg to go and see Minna. After many more speeches, about as much to the purpose as those which we have already formed, Mrs. Ragg got herself dressed and went upon her errand. She was instructed to say that she had found herself unequal to being a laundress in the Temple, and so had thought it was better to return to her own original occupation of cook in a gentleman's family, and that, as she had the liberty to do so, she wished Minna Gray to come and take tea with her. Thus forewarned of the part she was to play, Mrs. Ragg started upon her mission, in which we need not follow her, for the result of it is all that we particularly care about, and that consisted in her bringing Minna in great triumph to the colonel's house. Colonel Jeffery, and Captain Rathbone, who was staying to dine with him, saw the young girl as she came up the garden path. She was one of those small, delicately beautiful young creatures, who seem specially made to love and be loved. Her light auburn hair hung in dancing curls down her fair cheeks, and her beautifully shaped lips and pearly teeth were of themselves features that imparted much loveliness to her countenance. She had, too, about her face all the charm of childish beauty, which bespoke her so young as to have lost little of that springtide grace, which, alas! is so fleeting. Add to all this a manner so timid, so gentle, and so retiring, that she seemed to be an inhabitant of some quieter world than this, and you have Minna Gray, who had crept into the boyish heart of poor Tobias, before your eyes. "What a gentle quiet looking little creature," said the captain. "She is indeed; and what a contrast!" "Between her and Mrs. Ragg, you mean? It does indeed look like an elephant escorting a fawn. But Mrs. Ragg has her good qualities." "She has, and they are numerous. She is honest and candid as the day, and almost the only fault that can be laid to her charge is her garrulity." "How do you mean to proceed?" "Why, Rathbone, I mean to condescend to do what, under any other circumstances, would be most unjustifiablethat is, listen to the conversation of Mrs. Ragg with Minna Gray; I do so with the concurrence of the old lady, who is to lead her to speak of Tobias, and it is solely for the purpose of judging if she really loves the boy, and making a proper report to the surgeon, that I do so." "You are right enough, Jeffery; the end in this case, at all events, sanctifies the means, however defective such a system of philosophy may be as a general thing. May I likewise be an auditor?" "I was going to ask you to so far oblige me, for I shall then have the advantage of your opinion; so you will do me a favour." There was a small pantry called a butler's pantry close to the kitchen, into which Mrs. Ragg had taken Minna Gray. A door opened from this pantry into the kitchen, and another on to the landing at the foot of the kitchen stairs. Now Mrs. Ragg was to take care that the door opening to the kitchen should be just ajar, and the colonel and his friend could get into the pantry by the other mode of entrance. Colonel Jeffery was a gentleman in the fullest sense of the term, and he kept no useless bloated menials about him, so the butler's pantry had no butler to interfere with him, the colonel, in his own house. In the course of a few minutes Jeffery and Rathbone were in the pantry, from whence they could both see and hear what passed in the kitchen. To be sure there was a certain air of restraint about Mrs. Ragg at the thought that her master was listening to what passed, and that lady had a propensity to use hard words, of the meaning of which she was in the most delightful state of ignorance; but as it was to Minna Gray's conversation that the colonel wanted to listen, these little peculiarities of Mrs. Ragg upon the occasion did not much matter. Of course, Minna thought she had no other auditors than her old friend. Mrs. Ragg was quite busy over the tea. "Well, my dear," she said to Minna, "this is a world we live in." Mrs. Ragg, no doubt, intended this as a discursive sort of remark that might open any conversation very well, and lead to anything, and she was not disappointed, for it seemed to give to the young girl courage to utter that which was struggling to her lips. "Mrs.Mrs. Ragg," she began, hesitatingly. "Yes. My dear, let me fill your cup." "Thank you; but I was going to say" "A little more sugar?" "No, no. But I cannot place a morsel in my lips, Mrs. Ragg, or think or speak to you of anything else, until you have told me if you have heard any news of poorpoor" "Tobias?" "Yesyesyes!" Minna Gray placed her two little hands upon her face and burst into tears. Mrs. Ragg made a snuffling sort of noise that, no doubt, was highly sympathetic, and after a pause of a few moments' duration, Minna gathered courage to speak again. "You know, Mrs. Ragg, the last you told me of him was thatthat Mr. Todd had said he was mad, you know, and then you went to fetch somebody, and when you came back he was gone; and Mr. Todd told you the next day that poor Tobias ran off at great speed and disappeared. Has anything been heard of him since?" "Ah, my dear, alas! alas!" "Why do you cry alas?Have you any more sad news to tell me?" "He was my only sonand all the world and his wife, as the saying is, can't tell how much I loved him." Minna Gray clasped her hands, and, while the tears coursed down her young fair cheeks, she said "And I, too, loved him!" "I always thought you did, my dear, and I'm sure, if you had been an angel out of Heaven, my poor boy could not have thought more of you than he did. There was nothing that you said or did that was not excellent. He loved the ground you walked on; and a little old worsted mitten, that you left at our place once, he used to wear round his neck, and kiss it when he thought no one was nigh, and say'This was my Minna's!'" The young girl let her head rest upon her hands, and sobbed convulsively. "Lostlost!" she said, "and poor, kind, good Tobias is lost!" "No, my dear, it's a long lane that hasn't a turning. Pluck up your courage, and your courage will pluck up you. Keep sixpence in one pocket, and hope in another. When things are at the worst they mend. You can't get further down in a well than the bottom." Minna sobbed on. "And so, my dear," added Mrs. Ragg, "I do know something more of Tobias." The young girl looked up. "He lives!he lives!" "Lor a mussy, don't lay hold of a body so. Of course he lives, and, what's more, the doctor says that you ought to see himhe's up stairs." "Here?here?" "Yes, to be sure. That's why I brought you to tea." Minna Gray took a fit of trembling, and then, making great efforts to compose herself, she said "Tell me alltell me all!" "Well, my dear, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and so here I am, cook in as good a place as mortal woman would wish to have. I can't tell you all the rights of the story, because I don't know it. But certainly Tobias is up stairs in bed like a gentleman, only they say as his brains isis something or another that makes him not understand anything or anybody, and so you see the doctor says if you speak to him, who knows but what he may come to himself?" With an intuitive tact that belongs to some minds, and which Minna Gray, despite the many disadvantages of her social position, possessed in an eminent degree, she understood at once the whole affair. Tobias was suffering from some aberration of intellect, which the voice and the presence of one whom he loved fondly might dissipate. Would she shrink from the trial?would her delicacy take the alarm and overcome her great desire to recover Tobias? Oh, no; she loved him with a love that far outstripped all smaller feelings, and, if ever there was a time when that love took complete possession of her heart, it was at this affecting moment, when she was told that her voice might have the magic power of calling back to him the wandering reason that harshness and illusage had for a time toppled from its throne. "Take me to him!" she cried"take me to him! If all that is wanted to recover him be the voice of affection, he will soon be as he was once to us." "Well, my dear, take your tea, and I'll go and speak to the kernel." It was now time for Colonel Jeffery and his friend, the captain, to retire from the pantry, where we need not say that they had been pleased and affected listeners to what had passed between Mrs. Ragg and the fair and intelligent Minna Gray, who, in beauty and intelligence, far exceeded their utmost expectations. CHAPTER XLVII. TOBIAS RECOVERS HIS INTELLECT. In the course of a quarter of an hour the surgeon was sent for, and then Mrs. Ragg tapped at the drawingroom door, to give the colonel an account of the success of her mission; but he at once said to her "We know all, Mrs. Ragg. We merely wish to see Tobias first, so that the medical gentleman may see exactly his condition, and then if you will bring Minna Gray here I will speak to her, and, I hope, put her quite at her ease as regards what she has to do." "Certainly, sir, certainly. Hold fast, and good comes at last." The surgeon and the two gentlemen went to Tobias's chamber, and there they found him in the same lethargic condition that, with only occasional interruptions, he had continued in since he had been in the colonel's house. These interruptions consisted in moaning appeals for mercy, and at times the name of Todd would pass his lips, in accents which showed what a name of terror it was to him. The surgeon placed his hand upon Tobias's head. "Tobias!" he said, "Tobias!" A deep sigh was his answer. "Tobias! Tobias!" "Oh, God! God!" cried Tobias, feebly. "Spare meI will tell nothing. Oh, spare me, Mr. Todd.Repent now. There, therethe blood! What a crowd of dead men. Deaddeaddeadall dead!" "No better?" said the colonel. "Not a bit. On the contrary, the longer he remains in this condition, the less chance there will be of his recovery. I shall lose hope, if this last experiment produces no good results. Let us go and speak to the young girl." They all descended to the drawingroom, and Minna Gray was summoned. Colonel Jeffery took her kindly by the hand and led her to a seat, and then he said to her "Now, Miss Gray, remember that all here are friends to you and to Tobias, and that we all feel deeply for him and for you. You are very young, both of you, but that is no reason on earth why you should not love each other." Minna looked up at him through her tears, as she said "Is he veryvery ill?" "He is indeed. We suspectindeed, I may say we know, that his mind has received so severe a shock that, for a time, it is deranged; but we hope that, as that derangement, you understand, has not arisen from any disease, pleasant and agreeable impressions may restore him. What we want you to do is to speak to him as you, no doubt, have been in the habit of doing in happier times." "Yes, yes, sir." "I think you know exactly what we mean?" "I do, sirindeed I do." "Oh, bless you, sir, she understands," said Mrs. Ragg. "A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, you know, gentlemen. Handsome is as handsome doesas I used to say to the late Mr. Ragg, who is naturally dead and gone, and accordingly buried in St. Martin's" "You can tell us that another time, madam," said the surgeon. "At present, you see we are rather busy. Now, Miss Gray, if you will have the goodness to come with me, we will see what can be done for our young friend above stairs." Poor Minna Gray! How her colour went and came like the sunlight of an April day, as she accompanied the three gentlemen and Mrs. Ragg up stairs to Tobias's chamber. How she trembled when they reached the landing; and what a faintness came over her when the door was opened, and she saw that dimlylighted room. "Courage," whispered Colonel Jeffery to her. "This is a holy errand you are upon." "Yes, yes." "Cut your coat according to your cloth," said Mrs. Ragg, who, provided she thought of a proverb, was not very particular with regard to its applicability to the circumstances under which she uttered it. "Keep your feet to the length of your sheet." "Pray, madam," said the surgeon, who seemed to have quite a horror of Mrs. Ragg. "Pray, madam, oblige me by being silent." "A still tongue makes a wise head." "Good God, colonel! will you speak to her?" "Hush, Mrs. Ragg!" said Colonel Jeffery. "Hush! You will perhaps be the means of spoiling this important effort for the recovery of your son if you are not perfectly quiet." Thus admonished, Mrs. Ragg shrank into the background a little, and the colonel went to the window and let in a little more light. The surgeon conducted Minna Gray to the bedside, and she looked upon the boy who had won her childish heart through a world of tears. "It isit isTobias!" "Is he much altered?" "Oh, yes; muchmuch. Hehe used to look so happy. Hishis face was like a piece of sunshine!" She sank upon a chair that was by the bedside, and sobbed. "This will never do," said the surgeon. "Waitoh, wait a little," she whispered. "Only wait a little.I shall be better soon." The surgeon nodded; and then stepping back to the colonel and the captain, he said "This burst of grief must have its way, or it will mar all. We must have patience." They all hid themselves behind the folds of the bed furniture, and Mrs. Ragg sat down in an obscure corner of the room, working her knee up and down, as though she were nursing an imaginary baby. Gradually the sobs of Minna Gray subsided, until all was still. She then gently took one of the thin wasted hands of poor Tobias in her own, and looked at it. Oh, how changed it was. She then bent over him, and looked in his face. What permeative lines of care were there, battling with rounded muscles of early youth! Then she summoned all her courage to speak. She placed her lips close to his ear, and in the soft sweet accents that had long before sank deep into his heart, she said "Tobias!my Tobias!" The boy started. "Dear Tobias, it is I. Minna!" He opened his eyes, which had been closed and seemingly cemented by tears. "Tobias! Tobias, dear!" A smilea heavenly smile. It was the first that had played upon his lips since he set foot in the shop of Sweeney Todd, now broke like a sunbeam over his face. "I am madmad!" he said, gently, "or that is the voice of my Minna." "It is your Minna. It isit is, Tobias; look at me." He rose up in the bedhe cast one glance at the wellknown and dearly remembered face, and then, with a gasping sob of joy, he clasped her in his arms. "It's done," said the surgeon. "Thank God!" said Colonel Jeffery. Mrs. Ragg drew her breath so hard through her nose that she made a noise like some wild animal in the agonies of suffocation. "You really know me, Tobias?" "Know you, dear? Oh, why should I not know you, Minna? God bless you!" "May He bless you, Tobias." They wept together; Minna forgot that there was anybody in the world but herself and Tobias, and parting the long straggling masses of his hair from before his face, she kissed him. "For my sake, Tobias, now you will take care of yourself, and recover quickly." "Deardear Minna." He seemed never tired of holding her hands and kissing them. Suddenly the surgeon stepped forward with a small vial in his hand. "Now, Tobias," he said, "you are much better, but you must take this." The look of surprise and consternation with which Tobias regarded him was beyond description. Then he glanced at the bedstead and the rich hangings, and he said "Oh, Minna, what is all this? Where am I? Is it a dream?" "Give it to him," said the surgeon, handing the vial to Minna. She placed the neck of it to his lips. "Drink, Tobias." Had it been deadly poison she had offered him, Tobias would have taken it. The vial was drained. He looked in her face again with a smile. "If this is indeed a dream, my Minna, may I never awakendeardearoneII" Tobias Restored To His Senses By Minna's Assistance. Tobias Restored To His Senses By Minna's Assistance. He fell back upon the pillow. The smile still lingered upon his face, but the narcotic which the surgeon had had administered to him had produced its effect, and the enfeebled Tobias fell into deep sleep. Minna Gray looked rather alarmed at this sudden falling off of Tobias from waking to sleeping, but the surgeon quieted her fears. "All is right," he said. "He will awaken in some hours wonderfully refreshed, and I have the pleasure of now predicting his perfect cure." "You do not know," said Colonel Jeffery, "what pleasure that assurance gives me." "And me," said the captain. Minna looked all that she thought, but she could not speak, and Mrs. Ragg, still kept up the mysterious noise she produced by hard breathing with her mouth close shut. "Now, madam," said the surgeon to her, "our young friend must be left alone for some hours. It is now six o'clock, and I do not expect he will awaken until twelve. When he does so, I am very much mistaken if you do not all of you find him perfectly restored and composed, although very weak." "I will take care to be at hand," said the colonel. "Miss Gray, perhaps you will call and see how he is tomorrow, and all I can say is, that you will be quite welcome to my house whenever you think proper, but let me impress upon you one thing." "What is it, sir?" "The absolute necessity of your keeping Tobias's place of abode and anything concerning him a most profound secret." "I will do so." "If you do not, you will not only endanger the cause of justice, but in all probability his life, for he has an enemy with great resources, and of the most unscrupulous disposition in the use of them I say this much to you, because the least indiscretion might be fatal." "I will guard the secret, sir, as I would guard his life." "That will donow come down stairs, and let us have a glass of wine to drink to the speedy restoration to perfect health of Tobias. Come, Rathbone, what do you think? Shall we be one too many yet for Todd?" "I begin to think we shall." "I feel certain of it. So soon as we see that Tobias is sufficiently well to make any statement, it will be necessary to send for Sir Richard Blunt." "Certainly." "And then I hope and trust that we shall get at something that will elucidate the mystery that is still attached to the fate of poor Thornhill." "Ah, I fear he is gone!" "Dead?" "Yes. That fatal string of pearls has heralded him to death, I fear; but, perhaps we shall hear a something concerning that yet from Tobias." They all sat down in the drawingroom, and with tearful pleasure Minna Gray drank a glass of wine to the health of Tobias, after which Mrs. Ragg saw her home again to Milford Lane, and no doubt all the road from this colonel's house to there did not want for a prolific subject of conversation. How happy Minna felt when she put up to Heaven her simple prayer that night, previous to seeking repose. CHAPTER XLVIII. JOHANNA MAKES A NEW CONFIDANT. We left the spectaclemaker and his family rather in a state of confusion. Big Ben the Beefeater had had his revenge upon both Mrs. Oakley and the Saint, and it was a revenge that really did them no harm, so that in that respect it had turned out well. The Rev. Josiah Lupin did not return to the house, but Mrs. Oakley, in a terrible state of prostration from the effects of the sickness that had come over her, staggered again into the parlour. She looked at Mr. Oakley, as she said "If you were half a man you would take the life of that villain for treating me in the way he has; I have no doubt but he meant to take the life of the pious Mr. Lupin, and so add him to the list of martyrs." "My dear," said the spectaclemaker, "if Mr. Lupin intrudes himself into my house, and any friend of mine turns him out, I am very much obliged to him." "Perhaps you would be equally obliged to this monster, whom you call your friend, if he would turn me out?" Mr. Oakley shook his head as he said "My dear, there are some burthens which can be got rid of, and some that must be borne." "Comecome, Mother Oakley," said Ben. "Don't bear malice. You played me a trick the last time I came here, and now I have played you one. That's all. It wasn't in human nature not to do it, so don't bear malice." Mrs. Oakley, if she had been in a condition to do so, no doubt would have carried on the war with Big Ben, but she decidedly was not, and after a shudder or two, which looked as though she thought the toad was beginning again to oppress her, she rose to leave the room. "Mother," said Johanna, "it was not a real toad." "But you are!" said Mrs. Oakley, sharply. "You have no more feeling for your mother than as if she were a brickbat." Feeling now that at all events she had had the last word at somebody, Mrs.
Oakley made a precipitate retreat, and sought the consolations and solitude of her own chamber. Mr. Oakley was about to make some speech, which he prefaced with a sigh, when some one coming into the shop called his attention, and he left Johanna and Big Ben the Beefeater together in the parlour. The moment they were alone, Ben began shaking his head and making some very mysterious signs, which completely mystified Johanna. Indeed she began to be afraid that Ben's intellects were not quite right, although an ordinary observer might have very well supposed there was something the matter with his nether garments, for he pointed to them repeatedly, and shook his head at Johanna. "What is the matter, cousin?" she said. "Oh, dear!oh, dear!ohohoh!" "Are you ill?" "No, but I only wonder as you ain't. Didn't I see you in Fleetstreet with these here on?oh!oh!not these here exactly, but another pair. These would be a trifle too large for you. Oh, dearame! my heart bled all for to see such a young and delicate little puss as you a taking to wear the thingamies so soon." Johanna now began to understand what Ben meant, namely, that he had seen her in Fleetstreet disguised in male attire, with her young friend Arabella Wilmot. "Oh, Ben," she said, "you must not think ill of me on that account." "Butbut," said Ben, rather hesitatingly, as if he were only putting a doubtful proposition, "wasn't it rather unusual?" "Yes, Ben, but there were reasons why I put on such garments. Surely it was better to do so thanthanto" "Than to go without any?" said Ben. "Nono, I did not say thatI mean it was better for me to forget a little of that maiden delicacy whichwhichthan to let him" She burst into tears. "Holloa!" cried Ben, as he immediately folded her in an immense embrace, that went very near to smothering her. "Don't you cry, and you may wear what you like, and I'll come and help you to put 'em on. Come, come, there's a nice little dear, don't you cry. Lord bless you! you know how fond I am of you, and always was since you was a little tottering thing, and couldn't say my name right. Don't you cry. You shall wear 'em as often as you like, and I'll go behind you in the street, and if anybody only so much as says half a word to you, I'll be down upon 'em. Fetch 'em now and put 'em on, my dear." Johanna must have laughed if her life had depended upon her gravity, for all that Ben said upon the subject was uttered in the sheer simplicity of a kind heart, and well she knew that in his rough way he doated on her, and thought there was not such another being in the whole world as she. And yet he looked upon her as a child, and the imperceptible flight of time had made no difference in Ben's ideas concerning Johanna. She was still to him the sweet little child he had so often dandled upon his knee, and brought fruit and sweetmeats to, when such things were great treasures. After a few moments he let her go, and Johanna was able to draw breath again. "Ben," she said, "I will tell you all." "All what?" "How I came to put onthethe" "Oh, these herevery good. Cut on, and let's know all the particulars. I suppose you felt cold, my dear, eh?" "Nono." "No? Well then, tell it quick, for I was always a mortal bad hand at guessing. Your father is fitting an old gentleman with a pair of spectacles, and he seems hard to please, so we shall have lots of time. Go on." "Your good opinion is of such moment to me," said Johanna, "for I have very few to love me; now that you have seen me in such a disguise, I should feel unhappy if I did not tell why I wore it." Ben lent the most attentive ear to what she said, and then Johanna briefly and distinctly told him all the story of Mark Ingestrie, and how he had, as she thought, mysteriously disappeared at the barber's shop in Fleetstreet. It will be seen that she still clung to the idea that the Thornhill of the arrived ship was no other than her lover. Ben heard her all out with the most fixed attention. His mouth and eyes gradually opened wider and wider as she proceeded, partly from wonder at the whole affair, and partly from intense admiration at the way in which she told it, which he thought was better than any book he had ever read. When she had concluded, Ben again folded her in his arms, and she had to struggle terribly to get away. "My dear child," he said, "you are a prodigy. Why, there's not an animal as ever I knew comes near you; and so the poor fellow had his throat cut in the barber's for his string of pearls?" "I fear he was murdered." "Not a doubt of it." "You really think so, Ben?" The tone of agony with which this question was put to him, and the look of utter desolation which accompanied it, alarmed Ben, and he hastily said "Come, come, I didn't mean that. No doubt something has happened; but it will be all right some day or another, you may depend. Oh, dear!oh, dear! The idea of your going to watch the barber with some boy's clothes on!" "Tell me what I can do, for my heart and brain are nearly distracted by my sufferings?" Ben looked all round the room, and then up at the ceiling, as though he had a hope and expectation of finding some startling suggestion written legibly before his eyes somewhere. At length he spoke, saying "I tell you what, Johanna, my dear, whatever you do, don't you put on them things again. You leave it all to me." "But what will you do?what can you do, Ben?" "Well, I don't know exactly; but I'll let you know when it's done." "But do not run into any danger for my sake." "Danger? danger? I should like to see the barber that would interfere with me. No, my dear, no; I'm too well used to all sorts of animals for that. I'll see what I can do, and let you know all about it tomorrow, and in the meantime, you stick to the petticoats, and don't be putting on those thingamies again. You leave it to mewill you now?" "Until tomorrow?" "Yes, I'll be here tomorrow about this time, my dear, and I hope I shall have some news for you. Well, I declare, it's just like a book, it is. You are quite a prodigy." Ben would have treated Johanna to another of the suffocating embraces, but she contrived to elude him; and, as by this time the old gentleman in the shop was suited with a pair of spectacles, Mr. Oakley returned to the parlour. Johanna placed her finger upon her lips as an indication to Ben that he was to say nothing to her father of what had passed between them, for, although Mr. Oakley knew generally the story of his daughter's attachment to Mark Ingestrie, as the reader is aware, he knew nothing of the expedition to Fleetstreet in disguise. Ben, feeling that he had now an important secret to keep, shut his mouth hard, for fear it should escape, and looked so mysterious, that any one more sharpsighted than the old spectaclemaker must have guessed that something very unusual was the matter. Mr. Oakley, however, had no suspicions; but as this state of things was very irksome to Ben, he soon rose to take his leave. "I shall look in again tomorrow," he said, "Cousin Oakley." "We shall be glad to see you," said Mr. Oakley. "Yes," added Johanna, who felt it incumbent upon her to say something, "we shall be very glad to see you indeed." "Ah," said her father, "you and Ben were always great friends." "And we always shall be," said Ben. Then he thought that he would add something wonderfully clever, so as completely to ward off all suspicions of Oakley's, if he had any, and he added"She ain't like some young creatures that think nothing of putting on what they shouldn't. Oh dear, nonot she. Bye, bye. I'll come tomorrow." Ben was quite pleased when he got out of the house, for among the things that he (Ben) found it difficult to do, was to keep a secret. "Well," he said, when he was fairly in the open air, "if I ain't rather nonplussed at all this. What shall I do?" This was a question much easier asked than answered, as Ben found; but, however, he felt an irresistible desire to go and have a look at the shop of Sweeney Todd. "I can easily," he said, "go to Fleetstreet, and then, if I find myself late, I can take a boat at Blackfriars for the Towerstairs, and after all get in to dinner comfortably enough." With this conclusion, Ben set off at a good pace down Snowhill, and was soon at the beginning of Fleetstreet. He walked on until he came to Sweeney Todd's shop, and there he paused. Now we have previously remarked that there was one great peculiarity in the shopwindow of Todd, and that was that the articles in it were so well arranged that some one always was in the way of obtaining any view from the outside into the establishment. Todd was therefore secure against the dangers arising from peeping and prying. Big Ben placed himself close to the window, and made an attempt, by flattening his nose against the panes of glass, to peep in; but it was all in vain. He could not obtain the smallest glimpse into the inside. "Confound it," he cried, "what a cunning sort of animal this is to be surehe won't let one peep through the bars of his cage, that he won't." Now Sweeney Todd became aware, by the additional darkness of his shop, that some one must be quite close to the window, and therefore, availing himself of a peephole that he had expressly for the purpose of reconnoitering the passing world without, he took a long look at Big Ben. It was some moments before Ben caught sight of a great eye in the window of Sweeney Todd glancing at him. This eye appeared as if it were set in the centre of a placard, which announced in glowing language the virtues of some condiment for the hair or the skin, and it had a most ferocious aspect. Big Ben looked fascinated and transfixed to the spot, and then he muttered to himself "Well, if that's his eye, it's a rum 'un. Howsomdever, it's no use staying outside I'll pop in and get shaved, and then I shall be able to look about me. Who's afraid?" As Ben turned round, he saw a plainlyattired man close to his elbow; but he took no notice of him, although from his close proximity to him it was quite impossible that the plainlooking man could have failed to overhear what Ben said. In another moment Big Ben was in Todd's shop. "Shaved or dressed, sir?" said Todd. "Shaved," said Ben, as he cast his eyes round the shop. "Looking for anything, sir?" said Todd. "Oh, nonothing at all. Only a friend of mine, you see, said this was such a nice shop, you understand, to be shaved in." "Was your friend finished off here, sir?" "Well, I rather think he was." "Pray sit down. Fine weather, sir, for the season. Now, pussy, my dear, get out of the way of the hot water." Todd was addressing an imaginary cat. "Are you fond of animals, sir? Lord bless me, I'm fond of all the world. God made us all, sir, from a creeping beetle to a beefeater." "Very likely," said Big Ben, as he seated himself in the barber's chair. "And so," added Todd, as he mixed up a lather, and made the most horrible faces, "we ought to love each other in this world of care. How is your friend, sir, who was so kind as to recommend my shop?" "I should like to know." "What, is he in eternity? Dear me!" "Well, I rather think he is." "Was it the gentleman who was hung last Monday, sir?" "Confound you, no. But there's somebody else who I think will be hung some Monday. I tell you what it is, Mr. Barber, my friend never got further than this infernal shop, so I'm come to enquire about him." "What sort of man, sir?" said Todd, with the most imperturbable coolness. "What kind of man?" "Yes, sir. If you favour me with his description, perhaps I may be able to tell you something about him. By the bye, if you will excuse me for one moment, I'll bring you something that a gentleman left here one day." "What is it?" "I will satisfy you directly, sir, and I'm quite certain your mind will be at rest about your friend, sir, whoever he was. Remarkable weather, sir, for the time of year." Todd had got only half way from the shop to the parlour, when the shopdoor opened, and the plainlooking man walked inthe very same plain man who had stood so close to Big Ben at Todd's window. "Shaved," he said. Todd paused. "If, sir, you will call again in a few minutes, or if you have any call to make and can conveniently look in as you come back" "No, I'll take a seat." Todd And The Beefeater Have Some Words. Todd And The Beefeater Have Some Words. The plainlooking man sat down close to the door, and looked as calm and as unconcerned as any one possibly could. The look with which Todd regarded him for a moment, and only one moment, was truly horrible. He then quietly went into his back parlour. In a moment he entered with a common kid glove, and said to Ben "Did this belong to your friend?a gentleman left it here one day." Ben shook his head. "I really don't know," he said. "Come, Mr. Barber, finish the shaving, for that gentleman is waiting." Ben was duly shaved; while the plainlooking man sat quietly in the chair by the door, and when the operation was finished, Ben looked in Todd's face, and said, solemnly "A string of pearls." "Sir," said Todd, without changing countenance in the least. "A string of pearls.Murder!" "A what, sir?" Ben look staggered. He well knew that if he had cut any one's throat for a string of pearls, that such words said to him would have driven him frantic, but when he saw no change in Todd's face, he begun to think that, after all, the accusation must be unfounded, and muttering to himself "It must be nothing but the child's fancy after all," he hastily threw down twopence and left the shop. "Now, sir," said Todd, to the plainlooking man. "Thank you." The plainlooking man rose, and as he did so he seemed just to glance through the door into the street as it was opened by Ben. Immediately his face was full of smiles, as he cried "Ah, Jenkins, is that you? Ha, ha! I missed you this morning.Excuse me, Mr. Barber, I'll look in again. My old friend Jenkins has just gone by." With this, out he flew from Todd's shop like a shot, and was gone towards Temple Bar, before the barber could move or lay down the shaving cloth which he had in his hands all ready to tuck under his chin. Todd stood for a few moments in an attitude of irresolution. Then he spoke "What does all this mean?" he said. "Is there danger? Curses on them both, I would have; but no matter, I must be wrongvery wrong. That string of pearls may yet destroy me.Destroy! nonono. They must have yet more wit before they get the better of me, and yet how I calculated upon the destruction of that man. I must thinkI must think." Todd sat down in his own strong chair, and gave himself up to what is popularly denominated a brown study. CHAPTER XLIX. THE VAULTS OF ST. DUNSTAN'S. A ponderous stone was raised in the flooring of St. Dunstan's church. The beadle, the churchwarden, and the workmen shrunk backbackback, until they could get no further. "Ain't it a norrid smell," said the beadle. Then the plainlooking man who had been at Sweeney Todd's advanced. He was no other than Sir Richard Blunt, and whispering to the churchwarden, he said "If what I expect be found here, we cannot have too few witnesses to it. Let the workmen be dismissed." "As you please, Sir Richard. Faugh! what an awfulfuff!stench there is. I have no doubt they won't be sorry to get away. Here, my men, here's halfacrown for you. Go and get something to drink and come back in an hour." "Thank yer honour!" cried one of the men. "An' sure, by St. Patrick's bones, we want something to drink, for the stench in the church sticks in my blessed throat like a marrow bone, so it does." "Get out," said the beadle; "I hates low people, and hirish. They thinks no more of beetles than nothink in the world." The workmen retired, laughing; and when the church was clear of them, the churchwarden said to Sir Richard Blunt "Did you ever, Sir Richard, smell such a horrid charnelhouse sort of stench as comes up from that opening in the floor of the old church?" Sir Richard shook his head, and was about to say something, when the sound of a footstep upon the pavement of the church made him look round, and he saw a fat, pursylooking individual approaching. "Oh, it's Mr. Vickley, the overseer," said the beadle. "I hopes as yer is well, Mr. Vickley. Here's a horrid smell." "God bless me!" cried the overseer, as with his fat finger and thumb he held his snub nose. "What's this? It's worse and worse." "Yes, sir," said the beadle; "talking of the smell, we have let the cat out of the bag, I think." "Good gracious! put her in again, then. It can't be a cat." "Begging your pardon, Mr. Vickley, I only spoke anatomically. If you comes here, sir, you'll find that all the smell comes out of this here opening." "What! An opening close to my pew! My family pew, where I every Sunday enjoy my reposeI mean my hopes of everlasting glory? Upon my life, I think it's a piece ofof dd impudence to open the floor of the church, close to my pew. If there was to be anything of the sort done, couldn't it have been done somewhere among the free sittings, I should like to know?" "Mr. Vickley," said Sir Richard, "pray be satisfied that I have sufficient authority for what I do here; and if I had thought it necessary to take up the flooring of your pew while you had been in it, I should have done it." "And pray, sir," said Mr. Vickley, swelling himself out to as large a size as possible, and glancing at his watch chain, to see that all the seals hung upon the convexity of his paunch as usual"who are you?" "Oh, dearoh, dear," said the beadle. "Conwulsions!conwulsions! What a thing it is to see authorities agoing it at each other. Gentlemengentlemen. Conwulsions!ain't there lots of poor people in the world? Don't you be agoing it at each other." "I am a magistrate," said Sir Richard. "And I am an overseer. Ah!" "You may be an overseer or an underseer, if you like. I am going to search the vaults of St. Dunstan's." The churchwarden now took the overseer aside, and after a while succeeded in calming down his irascibility. "Oh, wellwell," said Mr. Vickley. "Authorities is authorities; and if so be as the horrid smell in the church can be got rid of, I'm as willing as possible. It has often prevented me sleepingI mean listening to the sermon. Your servant, sirI shall, of course, be very happy to assist you." The beadle wiped his face with his large yellow handkerchief as he said "Now this here is delightful and affecting, to see authorities agreeing together. Lord, why should authorities snap each other's noses off, when there's lots o' poor people as can be said anything to and done anything to, and they may snap themselves?" "Well, well," added Mr. Vickley. "I am quite satisfied. Of course, if there's anything disagreeable to be done in a church, and it can be done among the free seats, it's all the better; and indeed, if the smell in St. Dunstan's could have been kept away from the respectable part of the congregation, I don't know that it would have mattered much." "Conwulsions!" cried the beadle. "It wouldn't have mattered at all, gentlemen. But only think o' the bishop smelling it. Upon my life, gentlemen, I did think, when I saw the Right Rev. Father in God's nose a looking up and down, like a cat when she smells a bunch o' lights, and knowed as it was all owing to the smell in the church, I did think as I could have gone down through the floor, cocked hat and all, that I did. Conwulsionsthat was a moment." "It was," said the churchwarden. "Mercymercy," said Mr. Vickley. The beadle was so affected at the remembrance of what had happened at the confirmation, that he was forced to blow his nose with an energy that produced a trumpetlike sound in the empty church, and echoed again from nave to gallery. Sir Richard Blunt had let all the discourse go on without paying the least attention to it. He was quietly waiting for the foul vapours that arose from the vaults beneath the church to dissipate a little before he ventured upon exploring them. Now, however, he advanced and spoke. "Gentlemen, I hope I shall be able to rid St. Dunstan's of the stench which for a long time has given it so unenviable a reputation." "If you can do that," said the churchwarden, "you will delight the whole parish. It has been a puzzle to us all where the stench could come from." "Where is the puzzle now?" said Sir Richard Blunt, as he pointed to the opening in the floor of the church, from whence issued like a steamy vapour such horrible exhalations. "Why, certainly it must come from the vaults." "But," said the overseer, "the parish books show that there has not been any one buried in any of the vaults directly beneath the church for thirty years." "Then," said the beadle, "it's a very wrong thing of respectable parishionersfor, of course, them as has waults is respectableto keep quiet for thirty years and then begin stinking like blazes. It's uncommon wrongconwulsions!" Sir Richard Blunt took a paper from his pocket and unfolded it. "From this plan," he said, "that I have procured of the vaults of St. Dunstan's, it appears that the stone we have raised, and which was numbered thirty, discloses a stone staircase communicating with two passages, from which all the vaults can be reached. I propose searching them; and now, gentlemen, and you, Mr. Beadle, listen to me." They all three looked at him with surprise as he took another letter from his pocket. "Here," he said, "are a few words from the Secretary of State. Pray read them, Mr. Vickley." The overseer read as follows "The Secretary of State presents his compliments to Sir Richard Blunt, and begs to say that as regards the affair at St. Dunstan's, Sir Richard is to consider himself armed with any extraordinary powers he may consider necessary." "Now, gentlemen," added Sir Richard Blunt, "if you will descend with me into the vaults, all I require of you is the most profound secrecy with regard to what you may see there. Do you fully understand?" "Yes," stammered Mr. Vickley, "but I rather think II would as soon not go." "Then, sir, be silent regarding the going of others. Will you go, sir?" to the churchwarden. "Why yes, II think I ought." "I shall be obliged to go. I may feel the want of a witness. We will take you with us, Mr. Beadle, of course." "Meme? Conwulsions!" "Yesyes. You go, you know, ex officio." "Ex, the deuce, I don't want to go. Oh conwulsions! conwulsions!" "We cannot dispense with your services," said the churchwarden. "If you refuse to go, it will be my duty to lay your conduct before the vestry." "Ohohoh!" "Get a torch," said Sir Richard Blunt, "and I will lower it down the opening in the floor. If the air is not so bad as to extinguish the light, it will not be too bad for us to breathe for a short space of time." Most reluctantly, and with terrible misgivings of what might be the result of the frightful adventure into which he was about to be dragged, the beadle fetched a link from the vestry. It was lighted, and Sir Richard Blunt tying a string to it, let it down into the passage beneath the church. The light was not extinguished, but it burnt feebly and with but a wan and sickly lustre. "It will do," said Sir Richard. "We can live in that place, although a protracted stay might be fatal. Follow me; I will go first, and I hope we shall not have our trouble only for our pains." CHAPTER L. THE DESCENT TO THE VAULTS. Sir Richard commenced the descent. "Come on," he said. "Come on." He got down about half a dozen steps, but finding that no one followed him he paused, and called out "Remember that time is precious. Come on!" "Why don't you go?" said the churchwarden to the beadle. "What! Me go afore a blessed churchwarden? Conwulsionsno! I thinks and I hopes as I knows my place better." "Well, but upon this occasion, if I don't mind it" "Nono, I could not. Conwulsionsno!" "Ah!" said Sir Richard Blunt. "I see how it is; I shall have to do all this business alone, and a pretty report I shall have to make to the Secretary of State about the proceedings of the authorities of St. Dunstan's." The churchwarden groaned. "I'm a coming, Sir RichardI'm a coming. Oh dear, I tell you what it is, Mr. Beadle, if you don't follow me, and close too, I'll have you dismissed as sure as eggs is eggs." "Conwulsions! conwulsions! I'm a coming." The churchwarden descended the stairs, and the beadle followed him. Downdown they went, guided by the dim light of the torch carried by Sir Richard, who had not waited for them after the last words he had spoken. "Can you fetch your blessed breath, sir?" said the beadle. "Hardly," said the churchwarden, gasping. "It is a dreadful place." "Oh, yesyes." "StopStop. Sir RichardSir Richard!" There was no reply. The light from the torch grew more and more indistinct as Sir Richard Blunt increased his distance from them, and at length they were in profound darkness. "I can't stand this," cried the churchwarden; and he faced about to ascend to the church again. In his effort to do so quickly, he stretched out his hand, and seized the beadle by the ancle, and as that personage was not quite so firm upon his legs as might be desired, the effort of this sudden assault was to upset him, and he rolled over upon the churchwarden, with a force that brought them both sprawling to the bottom of the little staircase together. Luckily they had not far to fall, for they had not been more than six or eight steps from the foot of the little flight. Terror and consternation for a few moments deprived each of them of the power of speech. The beadle, however, was the first to recover, and he in a stentorian voice called "Murder! Murder!" Then the churchwarden joined in the cries, and they buffeted each other in vain efforts to rise, each impeding the other to a degree that rendered it a matter of impossibility for either of them to get to their feet. Mr. Vickley, who was waiting in the church above, with no small degree of anxiety, the report from below, heard these sounds of contention and calls for help with mingled horror. He at once made a rush to the door of the church, and, no doubt, would have endangered the success of all Sir Richard Blunt's plans, if he had not been caught in the arms of a tall stout man upon the very threshold of the church door. "Help! murder! Who are you?" "Crotchet they calls me, and Crotchet's my name. London my birth place, is yourn the same? What's the row?" "Call a constable. There's blue murder going on in the vaults below." "The devil there is. Just you get in there, will you, and don't you stir for your life, old fellow." So saying, Mr. Crotchet, who knew the importance of secrecy in the whole transaction, and who had been purposely awaiting for Sir Richard Blunt, thrust Vickley into a pew, and slammed the door of it shut. Down fell the overseer to the floor, paralysed with terror; and then Mr. Crotchet at once proceeded to the opening in the floor of the church, and descended without a moment's hesitation. "Hilloa!" he cried, as he alighted at the bottom of the stairs upon the churchwarden's back. "Hilloa, Sir Richard, where are you?" "Here," said a voice, and with the torch nearly extinguished, Sir Richard Blunt made his appearance from the passage. "Who is there?" "Crotchet, it is." "Indeed. Why, what brought you here?" "What a row." "Whywhy, what's all this? You are standing upon somebody. Why bless my heart it's" Out went the torch. "Fire!help!murder!" shouted the beadle, "I'm being suffocated. Oh, conwulsions! Here's a death for a beadle. Murder! robbery. Fireohohoh." The churchwarden groaned awfully. "Ascend, and get a light," said Sir Richard. "Quick, Crotchet, quick! God only knows what is the matter with all these people." Both Crotchet and Sir Richard Blunt scrambled over the bodies of the churchwarden and the beadle, and soon reached the church. The churchwarden made a desperate effort, and, shaking himself free of the beadle, he ascended likewise, and rolled into a pew, upon the floor of which he sat, looking a little deranged. "If you don't come up," said Sir Richard Blunt, directing his voice down the staircase, "we will replace the stone, and you may bid adieu to the world." "Conwulsions!" roared the beadle. "Oh, don'tconwulsions!" Up he tumbled, with the most marvellous celerity, and rolled into the church, never stopping until he was brought up by the steps in front of the communiontable, and there he lay, panting and glaring around him, having left his cocked hat in the regions below. Sir Richard Blunt looked ghastly pale, which Crotchet observing, induced him to take a small flask from his pocket, filled with choice brandy, which he handed to his chief. "Thank you," said Sir Richard. The magistrate took a draught, and then he handed it to the churchwarden, as he said "I'll fill it again." "All's right." The churchwarden took a pull at the brandy, and then the beadle was allowed to finish it. They were both wonderfully recovered. "Oh, Sir Richard," said the churchwarden, "what have you seen?" "Nothing particular." "Indeed!" "No. You can have the stone replaced as soon as you like, over the opening to the vaults." "And you have seen nothing?" said the beadle. "Nothing to speak of. If you have any doubts or any curiosity, you can easily satisfy yourself. There's the opening. Pray descend. You see I have escaped, so it cannot be very dangerous to do so. I will not myself go again, but I will wait for either of you, if you please. Now, gentlemen, go, and you will be able to make your own discoveries." "Me?" cried the beadle. "Me? Oh, conwulsions! I thinks I sees me." "Not I," said the churchwarden. "Cover it upcover it up. I don't want to go down. I would not do so for a thousand pounds." A covert smile was upon the lips of Sir Richard Blunt as he heard this, and he added "Very well; I have no objection, of course, to its being at once covered up; and I think the least that is said about it, will be the better." "No doubt of that," said the churchwarden. "Conwulsions! yes," said the beadle. "If I was only quite sure as all my ribs was whole, I shouldn't mind; but somebody stood atop of me for a good quarter of an hour, I'm sure." Some of the workmen now began to arrive, and Sir Richard Blunt pointed to them, as he said to the churchwarden "Then the stone can be replaced without any difficulty, now; and, sir, let me again caution you to say nothing about what has passed here today." "Not a wordnot a word. If you fancy somebody stood upon your ribs, Mr. Beadle, I am quite sure somebody did upon mine." The workmen were now directed to replace the stone in its former position; and when that was completely done, and some mortar pressed into the crevices, Sir Richard Blunt gave a signal to Crotchet to follow him, and they both left the church together. "Now, Crotchet, understand me." "I'll try," said Crotchet. "No one, for the future, is to be shaved in Sweeney Todd's shop alone." "Alone?" "Yes. You will associate with King, Morgan, and Godfrey; I will stand all necessary expenses, and one or the other of you will always follow whoever goes into the shop, and there wait until he comes out again. Make what excuses you like. Manage it how you will; but only remember, Todd is never again to have a customer all to himself." "Humph!" "Why do you say humph?" "Oh, nothing partickler; only hadn't we better grab him at once?" "No; he has an accomplice or accomplices, and their discovery is most important. I don't like to do things by halves, Crotchet; and so long as I know that no mischief will result from a little delay, and it will not, if you obey my instructions, I think it better to wait." "Very good." "Go at once, then, and get your brother officers, and remember that nothing is to withdraw your and their attention from this piece of business." "All's right. You know, Sir Richard, you have only to say what's to be done, and it's as good as done.
Todd may shave now as many people as he likes, but I don't think he'll polish 'em off in his old way quite so easy." "That's right. Good day." "When shall we see you, Sir Richard?" "About sunset." By the time this little conversation was over, Sir Richard Blunt and Crotchet had got through Temple Bar, and then they parted, Crotchet taking his way back to Fleet Street, and Sir Richard Blunt walking hastily to Downing Street. When he got there he entered the official residence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and being well known to the clerk, he was at once conducted into a little room carefully hung round with crimson cloth, so as to deaden the sound of any voices that might be raised in it. In the course of a few minutes a small door was opened, and a shabby looking man entered, with a hesitating expression upon his face. "Ah, Sir Richard Blunt," he said, "is that you?" "Yes, your lordship, and if you are disengaged for a few minutes, I have something to communicate." "Ah, some new plot. Confound those Jacobin rascals!" "No, my lord, the affair is quite domestic and social. It has no shade of politics about it." The look of interest which the face of the secretary had assumed was gone in a moment, but still he could not very well refuse now to hear what Sir Richard Blunt had to say, and the conference lasted a quarter of an hour. At its termination, as Sir Richard was leaving the room, the secretary said "Oh, yes, of course, take full discretionary powers, and the Homeoffice will pay all expenses. I never heard of such a thing in all my life." "Nor I, my lord." "It's really horrible." "It is even so far as we know already, and yet I think there is much to learn. I shall, of course, communicate to your lordship anything that transpires." "Certainlycertainly. Good day." Sir Richard Blunt left the Secretary of State, and proceeded to his own residence, and while he is there, making some alteration in his dress, we may as well take a glance at Crotchet, and see what that energetic but somewhat eccentric individual is about. After parting with Sir Richard Blunt at Temple Bar, he walked up Fleet Street, upon Sweeney Todd's side of the way, until he overtook a man with a pair of spectacles on, and a stoop in his gait, as though age had crept upon him. "King," said Crotchet. "All right," said the spectacled old gentleman in a firm voice. "What's the news?" "A long job, I think. Where's Morgan?" "On the other side of the way." "Well, just listen to me as we walk along, and if you see him, beckon him over to us." As they walked along Crotchet told King what were the orders of Sir Richard Blunt, and they were soon joined by Morgan. The other officer, Godfrey, who had been mentioned by the magistrate, was sent for. "Now," said Crotchet, "here we are, four of us, and so you see we can take it two and two for four hours at a stretch as long as this confounded barber's shop keeps open." "But," said Morgan, "he will suspect something." "Well, we can't help that. It's quite clear he smugs the people, and all we have got to do is to prevent him smugging any more of 'em you see." "Well, well, we must do the best we can." "Exactly; so now keep a bright look out, and hang it all, we have been in enough rum adventures to be able to get the better of a rascally barber, I should think. Look outlook out; there's somebody going in now." CHAPTER LI. JOHANNA RUSHES TO HER DESTINY. Johanna had enough confidants now. Her fatherColonel JefferyBig Benand Arabella Wilmot, all knew "The sad story of her love." It will be a hard case if, among so many councillors, she hits upon the worsta most truly hazardous course of proceeding; but then it is a fault of the young to mistake daring for ability, and to fancy that that course of proceeding which involves the most personal risk is necessarily the most likely to be successful. Colonel Jeffery was, of all Johanna Oakley's advisers, the one who was most likely to advise her well, but unfortunately he had told her that he loved her, and from that time, with an instinctive delicacy of feeling which no one could have to greater perfection than Johanna, she had shunned him. And yet the reader, who knows the colonel well, knows that, quite irrespective of the attachment that had sprung up in his bosom for the beautiful and heartstricken girl, he would have played the part of a sincere friend to her and stood manfully between her and all danger. But it was not to be. From the moment that he had breathed to her the secret of his attachment, a barrier was, in her imagination, raised between them. Her father evidently was not one who could or who would advise anything at all energetic; and as for Big Ben, the conversation she had had with him upon the subject had quite been sufficient to convince her that to take him out of the ordinary routine of his thoughts and habits was thoroughly to bewilder him, and that he was as little calculated to plot and to plan in any emergency as a child. She would indeed have trembled at the result of the confidential communication to Big Ben, if she had been aware of the frightfully imprudent manner in which he had thrown himself into communication and collision with Todd, the consequences of which glaring act of indiscretion he was only saved from by Sir Richard Blunt entering the shop, and remaining there until he (Ben) was shaved. Under all these circumstances, then, Johanna found herself thrown back upon her old friend Arabella Wilmot. Now, Arabella was the worst adviser of all, for the romantic notions she had received from her novel reading, imparted so strong a tone to her character, that she might be said in imagination to live in a world of the mind. It was, as the reader will recollect, to Arabella Wilmot that Johanna owed the idea of going to Todd in boy's apparela measure fraught with frightful danger, and yet, to the fancy of the young girl, fascinating upon that very account, because it had the appearance as though she were doing something really serious for Mark Ingestrie. To Arabella, then, Johanna went, after Ben had left her, and finding her young friend within, she told her all that had occurred since they last met. "What shall I do?" she said. "I tell my tale of woe, and people look kind upon me, but no one helps me." "Oh, Johanna, can you say that of me?" "No, no. Not of you, Arabella, for you see I have come to you again; but of all others, I can and may say it." "Comfort yourself, my dear Johanna. Comfort yourself, my dear friend. Come, nowyou will make me weep too, if I see those tears." "What shall I do?what shall I do?" "There, now, I am putting on my things; and as you are dressed, we will go out for a walk, and as we go along we can talk of the affair, and you will find your spirits improve by exercise. Come, my dear Johanna. Don't you give way so." "I cannot help it. Let us go." "We will walk round St. Paul's Churchyard." "Nono. To Fleet Streetto Fleet Street!" "Why would you wish to add to your sorrows, by again looking upon that shop?" "I do not know, I cannot tell you; but a horrible species of fascination draws me there, and if I come from home, I seem as though I were drawn from all other places towards that one by an irresistible attraction. It seems as though the blood of Mark Ingestrie called aloud to me to revenge his murder, by bringing the perpetrators of it to justice. Oh, my friendmy Arabella, I think I shall go mad." Johanna sunk upon her knees by a chair, and hid her fair face in her hands, as she trembled with excess of emotion. Arabella Wilmot began to be really alarmed at the consequences of her friend's excited and overwrought feelings. "Oh, JohannaJohanna!" she cried, "cheer up. You shall go when you please, so that you will not give way to this sorrow. You do not know how much you terrify me. Riserise, I implore you. We will go to Fleet Street, since such is your wish." After a time, Johanna recovered from the burst of emotion that had taken such certain possession of her, and she was able to speak more calmly and composedly to her friend than she had yet done during that visit. The tears she had shed, and the show of feeling that had crept over her, had been a great relief in reality. "Can you pardon me for thus tormenting you with my grief?" said Johanna. "Do not talk so. Rather wonder how I should pardon you if you tell your griefs elsewhere. To whom should you bring them but to the bosom of one who, however she may err in judgment regarding you, cannot err in feeling." Johanna could only press her friend's hand in her own, and look the gratitude which she had not the language to give utterance to. It being then settled that they were to go to Fleet Street, it next became a matter of rather grave debate between them whether they were to go as they were, or Johanna was to again equip herself in the disguise of a boy. "This is merely a visit of observation, Johanna; I will go as I am." "Very well, dear." They accordingly set out, and as the distance from the house of Arabella Wilmot's father was but short to the shop of Sweeney Todd, they soon caught sight of the projecting pole that was his sign. "Now be satisfied," said Arabella, "by passing twice; once up Fleet Street, and once down it." "I will," said Johanna. Todd's shop was closed as usual. There was never an open door to that establishment, so that it was, after all, but a barren satisfaction for poor Johanna to pass the place where her imagination, strengthened by many circumstantial pieces of evidence, told her Mark Ingestrie had met with his death; still, as she had said to Arabella before starting, a horrible sort of fascination drew her to the spot, and she could not resist the fearful attraction that the outside of Todd's shop had for her. They passed rather rapidly, for Arabella Wilmot did not wish Johanna to pause, for fear she should be unable to combat her feelings, and make some sort of exhibition of them in the open street. "Are you content, Johanna?" she said. "Must we pass again?" "Oh, yesyes. Again and again; I can almost fancy that by continued looking at that place I could see what has been the fate of Mark." "But this is imagination and folly." "It may be so, but when the realities of life have become so hideously full of horrors, one may be excused for seeking some consolation from the fairy cave. Arabella, let us turn again." They had got as far as Temple Bar, when they again turned, and this time Johanna would not pass the shop so abruptly as she had done before, and any one, to see the marked interest with which she paused at the window, would have imagined that she must have some lover there whom she could see, notwithstanding the interior of the shop was so completely impervious to all ordinary gazers. "There is nothing to see," said Arabella. "No. But yetha!looklook!" Johanna pointed to one particular spot of the window, and there was the eye of Sweeney Todd glaring upon them. "We are observed," whispered Arabella; "it will be much better to leave the window at once. Come awayoh, come away, Johanna." "Not yetnot yet. Oh, if I could look well at that man's face, I think I ought to be able to judge if he were likely to be the murderer of Mark Ingestrie." Todd came to his door. "Good God, he is here!" said Arabella. "Come away. Come!" "Never. No! Perhaps this is providential. I will, I must look at this man, happen what may." Todd glared at the two young girls like some ogre intent upon their destruction, and as Johanna looked at him, a painter who loved contrast, might have indeed found a study, from the wonderful difference between those two human countenances. They neither spoke for some few moments, and it was reserved for Todd to break the silence. "What do you want here?" he cried, in a hoarse rough voice. "Be off with you. What do you mean by knocking at the window of an honest tradesman? I don't want to have anything to say to such as you." "Hehe did it!" gasped Johanna. "Did what?" said Todd, advancing in a menacing attitude, while his face assumed a most diabolical expression of concealed hatred. "Did what?" "Stop him! Stop him!" cried a voice from the other side of the street. "Stop Pison, he's given me the slip, and I'm blessed if he won't pitch into that ere barber. Stop him. Pison! Pison! Come here, boy. Come here! Oh, lor, he's nabbed him. I knew'd he would, as sure as a horse's hind leg ain't a gammon o' bacon. My eyes, won't there be a rowhe's nabbed the barber, like ninepence." Before the ostler at the Bullfinch, for it was from his lips this speech came, could get one half of it uttered, the dogwho is known to the readers by the name of Hector, as well as his new name of Pisondashed over the road, apparently infuriated at the sight of Todd, and rushing upon him, seized him with his teeth. Todd gave a howl of rage and pain, and fell to the ground. The whole street was in an uproar in a moment, but the ostler rushing over the way, seized the dog by the throat, and made him release Todd, who crawled upon all fours into his own shop. In another moment he rushed out with a razor in his hand. Hector's Attack On Sweeney Todd. Hector's Attack On Sweeney Todd. "Where's the dog?" he cried. "Where's the fiend in the shape of a dog?" "Hold hard!" said the ostler, who held Hector between his knees. "Hold hard. I have got him, old chap." "Get out of the way. I'll have his life." "No you won't." "Humph!" cried a butcher's boy who was passing. "Why that's the same dog as said the barber had done for his master, and collected never such a lot of halfpence in his hat to pay the expenses of burying of him." "You villain!" cried Todd. "Go to blazes!" said the boy. "Who killed the dog's master? Ah, ah! Who did it? Ah, ah!" The people began to laugh. "I insist upon killing that dog!" cried Todd. "Do you?" said the ostler; "now, this here dog is a partickler friend of mine, so you see I can't have it done. What do you say to that now, old stickinthemud? If you walk into him, you must walk through me first. Only just put down that razor, and I'll give you such a wolloping, big as you are, that you'll recollect for some time." "Down with the razor! Down with the razor!" cried the mob, who was now every moment increasing. Johanna stood like one transfixed for a few moments in the middle of all this tumult, and then she said with a shudder "What ought I to do?" "Come away at once, I implore you," said Arabella Wilmot. "Come away, I implore you, Johanna, for my sake as well as for your own. You have already done all that can be done. Oh, Johanna, are you distracted?" "Nono. I will comeI will come." They hastily left the spot and hurried away in the direction of Ludgate Hill, but the confusion at the shop door of the barber did not terminate for some time. The people took the part of the dog and his new master, and it was in vain that Sweeney Todd exhibited his rent garments to show where he had been attacked by the animal. Shouts of laughter and various satirical allusions to his beauty were the only response. Suddenly, without a word, Todd then gave up the contest and retired into his shop, upon which the ostler conveyed Pison over the way and shut him up in one of the stables of the Bullfinch. Todd, it is true, retired to his shop with an appearance of equanimity, but it was like most appearances in this worldrather deceitful. The moment the door was closed between him and observation he ground his teeth together and positively howled with rage. "The time will comethe time will come," he said, "when I shall have the joy of seeing Fleet Street in a blaze, and of hearing the shrieks of those who are frying in the flames. Oh, that I could with one torch ignite London, and sweep it and all its inhabitants from the face of the earth. Oh, that all those who are now without my shop had but one throat. Ha! ha! how I would cut it." He caught up a razor as he spoke, and threw himself into a ferocious attitude at the moment that the door opened, and a gentleman neatly dressed looked in, saying "Do you dress artificial hair?" CHAPTER LII. TODD'S ANNOUNCEMENT. "Yes," said Todd, as he commenced stropping the razor upon his hand as though nothing at all was the matter. "I do anything in an honest and religious sort of way for a living in these bad times." "Oh, very well. A gentleman is ill in bed and wants his peruke properly dressed, as he has an important visit to make. Can you come to his house?" "Yes, of course. But can't the peruke be brought here, sir?" "Yes. But he wants a shave as well, and although he can go in a sedan chair to pay his visit, he is too ill to come to your shop." Todd looked a little suspicious, but only a little, and then he said "It's an awkward thing that I have no boy at present, but I must get oneI must get one, and in the meantime, when I am called out I have no resource but to shut up my shop." At this moment a stout man came in, saying "Shavedoh, you are busy. I can wait, Mr. ToddI can wait," and down he sat. Todd looked at the newcomer with a strange sort of scowl, as he said "My friend, have not I seen you here before, or somewhere else?" "Very likely," said the man. "Humph, I am busy and cannot shave you just now, as I have to go out with this gentleman." "Very well, I can wait here and amuse myself until you come back." Todd fairly staggered for a moment, and then he said "Wait herein my shopand amuse yourself until I come back? No, sir, I don't suffer any one. But it don't matter. Ha! ha! Come in, I am ready to attend you. But stop, are you in a very great hurry for two minutes, sir?" "Oh, dear no, not for two minutes." "Then it will only just take me that time to polish off this gentleman; and if, you will give the address I am to come to, I will be with you almost as soon, sir, as you can get home, I assure you." "Oh, dear no," cried the stranger, who had come in to be shaved, suddenly starting up, "I really could not think of such a thing. I will call again." "It's only in Norfolk Street," said the applicant for the dressing of the artificial hair, "and two minutes can't make any difference to my friend, at all." "Do you think," said the other, "that I would really interrupt business in this way? No, may I perish if I would do anything so unhandsomenot I. I will look in again, Mr. Todd, you may depend, when you are not going out. I shall be passing again, I know, in the course of the day. Pray attend to this gentleman's orders, I beg of you." So saying, the shaving customer bounced out of the shop without another word; and as he crossed the threshold, he gave a wink to Crotchet, who was close at hand, and when that gentleman followed him, he said "Crotchet, Todd very nearly got me into a line. He was going out with the person we saw go to the shop, but I got away, or else, as he said, he would have polished me off." "Not a doubt of it, in this here world, Foster," said Crotchet. "Ah, he's a rum 'un, he is. We haven't come across sich a one as he for one while, and it will be a jolly lot o' Sundays afore we meets with sich another." "It will, indeed. Is Fletcher keeping an eye on the shop?" "Oh, yes, right as a trivet. He's there, and so is Godfrey." While this brief conversation was going on between the officers who had been left to watch Sweeney Todd's shop, that individual himself accompanied the customer, whom he had been conversing with, to Norfolk Street, Strand. The welldressed personage stopped at a goodlooking house, and said "Mr. Mundell only lodges here for the present. His state of mind, in consequence of a heavy loss he has sustained, would not permit him to stay in his own house at Kensington." "Mr. Mundell?" said Todd. "Yes. That is the gentleman you are to shave and dress." "May I presume to ask, sir, what he is?" "Oh, he is aakind of merchant, you understand, and makes what use of his money he thinks proper." "The same!" gasped Todd. The door of the house was opened, and there was no retreat, although, at the moment, Todd felt as though he would much rather not shave and dress the man of whom he had procured the 8,000 upon the string of pearls; but to show any hesitation now might beget enquiry and enquiry might be awkward, so summoning all his natural audacity to his aid, Todd followed his guide into the house. He was a little puzzled to know who this person could be, until a woman made her appearance from one of the rooms upon the ground floor, and cried "There now, go out, do. We don't want you any more; you have got your pocket money, so be off with you, and don't let me see your face again till night." "No, my dear," said the welldressed personage. "Certainly not. This is the barber." "Good God, Blisset, do you think I am blind, that I can't see the barber. Will you go? The captain is waiting for me to pour out his coffee, and attend to his other concerns, which nobody knows better than you, and yet you will be perpetually in the way." "No, my dear. II only" "Hoity toity, are we going to have a disturbance, Mr. B? Recollect, sir, that I dress you well and give you money, and expect you to make yourself agreeable while I attend to the gentlemen lodgers, so be off with you; I'm sure, of all the troublesome husbands for a woman to have, you are about the worst, for you have neither the spirit to act like a man, nor the sense to keep out of the way." "Ha!" said Todd. Both the lodginghouse keeper and his wife started at the odd sound. "What was that?" said the woman. "Only me, madam," said Todd, "I laughed slightly at that bluebottle walking on the ceiling, that's all." "What a laugh," said Blisset, as he left the house; and then the lady of the mansion turning to Todd, said "You are to attend to Mr. Mundell, poor man. You will find him in the front room on the second floor, poor man." "Is he ill, madam?" "Oh, I don't know, I rather think he's grizzling about some of his money, that's all, but it don't matter one way or the other. They say he is as rich as a Jew, and I'll take good care he pays enough here." "Mrs. BMrs. B," cried a voice from the parlour. "Yes, captain, I'm coming.I'm coming, captain." The lady bounced into the breakfastparlour and closed the door, leaving Todd to find his way up stairs as he best could. After a hideous chuckle at the thought of Mr. Blisset's singular position in society, he commenced ascending the stairs. He accomplished the first flight without meeting with any one, but upon the second he encountered a servant girl with a pail, and Todd gave her such a hideous glance, accompanied by such a frightful contortion of his visage, that down went the pail, and the girl flew up stairs again, and locked herself in one of the attics. Without waiting to ascertain what effect the descent of the pail might have upon the nerves of the captain and the landlady, Todd pursued his course to the room whither he had been directed, and tapped at the door. "Come in," said a meek, tremulous voice. "Come in." Todd opened the door, and stood in the presence of the man over whose long tried skill and habitual cunning he had obtained such a triumph in the affair of the pearls at Mundell Villa. John Mundell now, though, was far from looking like the John Mundell of the villa. He sat by the fire, wrapped up in a flannel dressinggown, with a beard of portentous length. His cheeks had fallen in. His brow was corrugated by premature wrinkles, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down as though a look of mental distress had become quite a thing of habit with him now. "Who are you?" he growled out, as Todd came into the room, and with a show of carefulness closed the door after him. "Who are you, eh?" "Come to shave you, sir, and dress your hair." "Ah!" cried Mundell, as he gave a start. "Where have I heard that voice before? Why does it put me in mind of my loss? My 8000! My moneymy money. Am I to lose another 8000? That will make 16,000. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh dear! Who are you? Speak, friend. Who are you?" "Only a barber, sir," said Todd, "come to shave you, and dress your hair. Ain't you well, sir? Shall I call again?" "Nonono! My losses distracts me. Only the barber? Ah, yes to be sureonly the barber. I must go to court, and ask for the duke of something. Good God, yes! I will see all the dukes, until I find out my duke. He who had my 8000, and has left me so poor and so wretched. Oh, dear! Oh, dear, my moneymy hardearned money. Oh, gracious, if I were to lose another 8000, I should go madmadmad!" "Shall I begin, sir?" said Todd. "Begin? Begin what? Oh, yes, my hair; and I must be shaved too, or they won't let me in at all. I will have the pearls or my money. I will see all the dukes, and pounce upon my duke. Oh, yes, I will have the pearls or the money." "Pearls, sir?" said Todd, as he began to arrange the shaving apparatus he had brought with him. "Did you say pearls?" "Bah! what do you know about pearls, who, I dare say, never saw one. Bah! Youa poor beggarly barber. But I will have them back, or my money. I will raise London, but I will find them. I will see the queen herself, and know what duke she gave the pearls to, and then I will find him and have my money." "Now, sir. A little this way." "Oh, dearoh, dear! What do you charge?" "Anything you please, sir. When I come to a gentleman, I always leave it to his generosity to pay me what he pleases." "Ah! more expense. More expense. That means that I am to pay for the service done me, and something else besides for the sake of a compliment upon my liberality. But I ain't liberal. I won't be generous. Where's my money, my pearls; and now to go to all sorts of expense to go to court, and see dukes. Oh, the devil. Eh? Eh?" "Sir?" "Stop. What an odd thing. Why, you are veryvery" "Very what, sir?" said Todd, making a hideous face. "Like the duke, or my fancy leads me astray. Wait a bit. Don't move." Mundell placed his hands over his eyes for a moment, and then suddenly withdrawing them he looked at Todd again. "Yes, you are like the duke. How came you to be like a duke, the villain. Oh, if I could but see my pearls." "What duke, sir?" "I would give 500no, I mean 100, that is 50, to know what duke," screamed Mundell with vehemence. Then suddenly lapsing into quietness, he added"Shave me. Shave me, I will go to court, and St. James's shall ring again with the story of my pearls. Lost! lost! lost! Did he abscond from his wife with them, or was he murdered? I wonder? I wonder?8000 gone all at once. I might have borne such a loss by degrees, but dn it" "Really, sir, if you will go on talking about pearls and dukes, the shaving brush will go into your mouth, and there's no such thing as avoiding it." "Confound you. Go on. Shave me and have done with it. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" John Mundell now contented himself by uttering drawn sighs, with now and then the accompaniment of a hideous groan, while Todd lathered his face with great affected care. The sighs and the groans both, however, ceased soon, and Todd became aware that the eyes of John Mundell were fixed upon him with a steady stare. No doubt, the usurer was recalling bit by bit to his memory the features of the sham duke, and comparing them with Todd's. To be sure, upon the occasion of his visit to Mundell Villa, Todd had taken every precaution to disguise his features; but then it must be admitted that the features of the barber were rather peculiar, and that John Mundell was professionally a more than ordinary keen observer, and thus it was that, as Todd lathered away, he became more and more impressed by the fact that there was a startling resemblance between Todd and the nobleman who had borrowed 8000 upon the string of pearls. "What's your name?" he said. "Todd." "Humph! a welltodo man?" "Poor as Job." "How very like you are to a great man. Do you ever go to court? I thinkI am sure I have seen you somewhere." "Very likely," said Todd, "for I often go there." "What, to court?" "Nay, sir, not to court, but somewhere. Will you have the whiskers left just as they are, or taken off entirely, sir?" Tap! tap! came at the chamber door, and a boy peeped in, saying "Please, sir, the tailor has brought the things." CHAPTER LIII. THE MURDER OF THE USURER. "Come in! Come in! More expense. More losses. As if an honest man, who only does what he can with his own, could not come to the court with a hope of meeting with a civil reception, unless he were decked out like a buffoon. Come in. Well, who are you?" "Augustus Snipes, sir, at your service. Brought home the clothes, sir. The full dress suit you were so good as to order to be ready today, sir." "Oh, you are a tailor?" "Oh, dear no, sir. We are not tailors now a days. We are artists." "Curse you, whatever you are. I don't care. Some artist I'm afraid has done me out of 8000. Oh, dear. Put down the things. What do they come to?" "Eighteen pounds ten shillings and threepence, sir." John Mundell gave a deep groan, and the tailor brushed past Todd to place the clothes upon a side table. As he returned he caught sight of Todd's face, and in an instant his face lighting up, he cried "Ah! how do? How do?" "Eh!" said Todd. "How did the Pompadour coloured coat and the velvet smalls do, eh?Fit well? Lord, what a rum start for a barber to have a suit of clothes fit for a duke." "Duke!" cried Mundell. Todd lifted one of his huge feet and gave the "artist" a kick that sent him sprawling to the door of the room. "That," he said, "will teach you to make game of a poor man with a large family, you scoundrel. What, you won't go, won't you? The" The artist shot out at the door like lightning, and flew down the stairs as though the devil himself was at his heels. Todd carefully closed the door again, and fastened it by a little bolt that was upon it. A strange expression was upon the countenance of John Mundell. His face looked perfectly convulsed, and he slowly rose from his chair. Todd placed one of his huge hands upon his breast and pushed him back again. "What's the matter?" said Todd. "Heheknows you." "Well." "The Pompadour coloured coat! Ah, I recollect the Pompadour coloured coat, too. I thought I knew your face. There was a something, too, about your voice that haunted me like the remembrance of a dream. Youyouare" "What?" "Helphelp! Tell me if I be mad, or if you are a duke in the disguise of a barber, or a barber in the likeness of a duke. Ah, that Pompadour coloured coat, it stickssticks in my throat." "I wish it did," growled Todd. "What do you mean, Mr. Mundell?Pray express yourself. What do you mean by those incoherent expressions?" "Are you human?" "Dear me, I hope so. Really, sir, you look quite wild." "Stopstoplet me thinkthe facethe voicethe Pompadour coatthe costume fit for a duke. It must be so.Man or devil, I will grapple with you, for you have got my pearls and my money. My 8000my gold that I have lived, that I have toiled forthat I have schemed, and cheated to keep upthat I have shut my eyes to all sights forand my heart to all tender emotions. You have my money, and I will denounce you!" "Stop," said Todd. The usurer paused in what he was saying, but he still glared at Todd fiercely, and his eyes protruded from their orbits, while the muscles of his mouth worked as though he were still trying to utter audible sounds, but by some power was denied the capacity to utter them. "You say you have lost pearls?" "Yesyes.Orient pearls." Todd dived his hand into the breast of his apparel and produced the string of pearls. He held them before the ravished and dazzled eyes of John Mundell, as he said "Were they like these?" With a cry of joy Mundell grasped at the pearls. Tears of gratified avarice gushed from his eyes. "My ownmy own pearlsmy beautiful pearls!Oh, blessed chancemy pearls back again. Ha! ha! ha!" "Ha!" echoed Todd, as he stepped behind the chair on which John Mundell was sitting.
With his left hand he took one vigorous grasp of the remaining hair upon the head of the usurer, and forced his back against the chair. In another instant there was a sickening gushing sound. Todd, with the razor he held in his right hand, had nearly cut John Mundell's head off. Then he held him still by the hair. Gaspgaspgaspbubblegaspbubble.Ah! ah! ah!Gogglegoggle. A slight convulsive movement of the lashes, and the eyes set, and became opaquely dim. The warm blood still bubbled, but John Mundell was dead. Todd picked up the pearls and carefully replaced them in his bosom again. "How many strange events," he said, "hang upon these baubles. Ah, it's only one morea dirty job ratherbut business is business!" He stood in the room as silent as a statue, and listened intently. Not the slightest sound indicative of the proximity of any one came upon his ears. He felt quite convinced that the deed of blood had been done in perfect secrecy. But then there he was.Who but he could be accused? There he stood, the selfconvicted murderer. Had he not done the deed with the weapon of his handicraft that he had brought to the house? How was Todd to escape the seeming inevitable coldblooded murder? We shall see. Huddled up in the chair, was the dead body. Mundell had not fallen out of the capacious easy seat in which he sat when he breathed his last. The blood rolled to the floor, where it lay in a steaming mass. Todd was carefulvery careful not to tread in it, and he looked down his garments to see if there were any telltale spots of gore; but standing behind the chair to do the deed, as he had done, he had been saved from anything of the sort. There he stood, externally spotless, like many a seeming and smirking sinner in this worldbut oh, how black and stained within! "Humph!" said Todd; "John Mundell was half distracted by a heavy loss. He was ill, and his mind was evidently affected. He could not even shave himself. Oh, it is quite evident that John Mundell, unable to bear his miseries, real or ideal, any longer, in a fit of partial insanity, cut his throat. Yes, that will do." Todd still kept the razor in his grasp. What is he going to do?Murder again the murdered?Is he afraid that a man, "With twenty murders on his head!" will jostle him from his perilous pinnacle of guilty safety?No. He takes one of the clammy dead hands in his ownhe clasps the half rigid fingers over the handle of the razor, and then he holds them until, in the course of a minute or so, they have assumed the grasp he wishes, and the razor, with which he, Todd, did the deed of blood, is held listlessly, but most significantly, in the hand of the dead. The Murder Of The Usurer. The Murder Of The Usurer. "That will do," said Todd. The door is reached and unfastened, and the barber slips out of the room. He closes the door again upon the fetid hot aroma of the blood that is there, fresh from the veins of a human being like himselfnononot like himself.No one can be like Sweeney Todd. He is a being of his own speciesdistinct, alone, an incarnation of evil! Todd was in no particular hurry to descend the stairs. He gained the passage with tolerable deliberation, and then he heard voices in the parlour. "What a man you are!" said Mrs. Blisset. "Ah, my dear, I am indeed. Who would not be a man for your sake? As for Mr. Blisset, I don't think him worth attention." "Nor I," said the lady, snapping her fingers, "I don't value him that. The poor meanspirited wretchhe's not to be compared to you, captain." "I should think not, my love. Have you got any change in your pocket?" "Yes. IIthink I have about seven shillings or so." "That will do. Much obliged to you, madamI mean, my dear Mrs. B. Ah, if you would but smother Blisset, so that I might have the joy of making you Mrs. Captain Coggan, what a happy man I should be." Todd tapped at the door. "What was that?" cried the captain in evident alarm; "Is it Blisset?" "No, captainoh, no; I should like to see him interrupt me, indeed. A pretty thing that I cannot do what I like in the house I keep. Come in." Todd just opened the door far enough to introduce his hideous head; and having done so, stared at the pair with such a selection of frightful physiognomical changes, that they both sat transfixed with horror. At length Todd broke the silence by saying "He's frightfully nervous." "What?what?who?" gasped the captain. "What?" repeated Mrs. Blisset. "What's his name, upstairs, that I was sent for to shave just now." "What, Mr. Mundell. Ah, poor man, he has been in a very nervous state ever since he has been here. He continually talks of a heavy loss he has had." "Yes," said Todd, "I suppose he means you to pay me." "Me?" "Yes, ma'am. He says he is too nervous and excited for me to shave him just now, but he has borrowed a razor from me and says he will shave himself in the course of an hour or so, and send it back to me." "Oh, very well. Your money will be sent with the razor, no doubt; for although Mr. Mundell is so continually talking of his losses, they tell me he is as rich as a Jew." "Thank you, ma'am. Good morning; good morning, sir." The captain cast a supercilious glance upon Todd, but did not deign to make the remotest reply to the mock civility with which he was bidden good morning. No one stands so much upon his dignity, as he whose title to any at all is exceedingly doubtful. The female heart, however, is mollified by devotion, and Mrs. Blisset returned the adieu of Todd. When he got into the passage, he uttered one of his extraordinary laughs, and then opening the street door, he let himself out. Todd by no means hurried back to Fleet Street, but as he walked along he now and then shrugged his shoulders and shook his huge hands, which, to those acquainted with his peculiarities, would have been sufficient indications of the fact that he was enjoying himself greatly. At length he spoke "Sosowhat a Providence we have, after all, watching over us. The moment I am in any real danger as regards the string of pearls, up starts some circumstance that enables me to ward it off. Well, well, some day I almost think I shall turn religious and build a church, and endow it. Ha!" Todd was so tickled at the idea of his building a church and endowing it, that he stopped at the corner of Milford Lane, to enjoy an unusual amount of laughter; as he did so he saw no other than Mrs. Ragg, slowly coming towards him. "Ah," he said, "Tobias's mother. The mother of the Tobias that was!I will avoid her." He darted on, and was through Temple Bar before Mrs. Ragg could make up her mind which way to run, for run she fully intended to do, when she saw Todd standing at the corner of Milford Lane. But she had no occasion for hurrying from him, as he walked in the direction of his shop as speedily as possible. Although he was perfectly satisfied with the clever manner he had ridded himself of the usurer, who probably might have been a source of annoyance to him, and who might eventually have been the means of bringing him to justice, he thought that he might be losing opportunities of making more victims for the accumulation of his illgotten wealth. CHAPTER LIV. SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S PROGRESS. We will now return, and see with what zeal Sir Richard Blunt and his active cooperators are at work, and how that persevering gentleman has taken the cause of humanity in hand, with a determined will to bring the atrocious criminals to a just tribunal. Sir Richard and his men continued to pass and repass Todd's window, and one or other had an eye upon the door, so that it was almost impossible for any one to go in without the officers seeing them; and as some one of the officers followed each customer into the shop, under some pretence, and did not return till the strangers had been shaved, it was impossible that he could continue his murderous trade. The barouet, however, could not continue to remain long in the vicinity of Todd's shop without exciting the suspicions of that crafty demon in human form. Todd seemed very ill at ease, and his eye was more frequently at the hole which commanded a view of everything within range of his window, and in spite of the various guises the officers assumed, he seemed to take a more close survey of their features than he had done when they had first visited his shop. It was rarely that his customers came in pairs, otherwise it would have continually prevented his schemes; but now none came alone, each one had his companion or attendant. One morning, almost as soon as the barber had opened his shutters, a seafaring man entered his shop in haste, and throwing himself on a chair, requested to be shaved immediately. He appeared to have but lately returned from India, or some other hot climate, for his features were well bronzed, and from his general aspect and conversation, he appeared to be a man of superior station in life. However, in this manner, the barber reasoned and came to the conclusion that he should have a good morning's work if none of his tormentors came to avert his intentions. "A fine morning, sir," said Todd. "Very," said the stranger; "but make haste and accomplish your task; I have a payment to make to a merchant in the city this morning by nine o'clock, and it is now more than halfpast eight." "I will polish you off in no time," said the barber, with a grin; "then you can proceed and transact your business in good time. Sit a little nearer this way, sir, the chair will only stand firmly in one position, and it is exceedingly uncomfortable for gentlemen to remain, even for a few moments, on an unsteady chair." Todd adjusted the chair, by dint of what appeared to the stranger to be a deal of unnecessary trouble, and he said "You seem remarkably anxious to put the chair in what you call a comfortable position, but we sailors are rather rough, therefore you need not make so much fuss about my comfort for so short a time, but proceed with the business." Todd seemed rather disconcerted at the stranger's remarks, and could not understand whether his words were uttered by chance, or imported more than Todd liked. "It is a maxim of mine, sir," said Todd, "to make everybody that comes to my shop as comfortable as possible during the short time they remain with me. One halfinch further this way, sir, and you will be in a better position." As he spoke he drew the chair to the spot he wished it, which circumstance seemed to please him, for he looked around him, and indulged in one of those hideous grins he executed just when he was on the point of committing some diabolical act. The gurgling noise he made in his throat caused the seaman to give a sudden start, which Todd perceiving, said "Did you hear the noise my poor old cat made, sir? she often does so when strangers come in, sir." "It did not sound much like a cat; but if I had an animal that made such a demoniacal noise, I should soon send her to rest. Every one to their taste, though; I suppose you term the noise, that almost startled me, agreeable." "Yes, sir," said the barber; "I like to hear her, because I think she is enjoying herself; and you know men and beasts require a something to stimulate the system." By this time the lather was over the seaman's face. He could not speak, except at the imminent risk of swallowing a considerable quantity of the soap that Todd had covered his face with. The barber seemed dexterously to ply a razor on the seaman's face, which caused him to make wry faces, indicating that the operation was painful; the grimaces grew more fantastic to the beholder, but evidently less able to be withstood by the person operated upon. "Good God, barber," he at length ejaculated, "why the devil don't you keep better materials?I cannot stand this. The razor you are attempting to shave me with has not been ground, I should think, for a twelvemonth. Get another and finish me off, as you term it, in no time." "Exactly, sirI will get one more suited to your beard, and will return in one minute, when you will be polished off to my satisfaction." He entered the little parlour at the back of the shop, but previously he took the precaution of putting his eye to the hole that gave a sight into the street; turning round, apparently satisfied with his scrutiny, he went in search of the superior razor he spoke of. A low grating sound, like that of a ragged cord commencing the moving of pullies, was to be heard, when Sir Richard Blunt threw the door open, and took a seat in the shop near where the stranger was sitting. He was so disguised that Todd could not recognise him as the same person that had been in his shop so many times before. The barber's face was purple with rage and disappointment; but he restrained it by an immense effort, and spoke to Sir Richard in a tolerably calm tone "Hair cut, sir, or shaved, sir? I shall not be long before I have finished this gentleman offperhaps you would like to call in again in a few minutes?" "Thank you; I am not in a particular hurry, and being rather tired I will rest myself in your shop, if you have no objection." "My shop is but just open, and our ventilation being bad, it is much more pleasant to inhale the street air for a few minutes, than the vitiated air of houses in this neighbourhood." "I am not much afraid of my health for a few minutes, therefore would rather take rest." Todd turned his face away and ground his teeth, when he found that all his arguments were unavailing in moving the will of his new customer; therefore he soon finished shaving the first customer. "At your service, sir," said Todd to Sir Richard, who seemed absorbed in reading a newspaper he took from his pocket. He looked up, and saw that the stranger was nearly ready to leave, therefore he continued reading till the stranger was in the act of passing out of the shop, when he said "What time do the royal family pass through Templebar to the City this morning?" "Halfpast nine," said Todd. "Then I have not time to be shaved nowI will call in again. Good morning." Saying which he also left the shop. In a few minutes after leaving the shop of Todd, Sir Richard and the men employed by him were in consultation; and he urged strongly that the men should remain nearer to the shop than they had hitherto done, for if Sir Richard had been two minutes later, most likely he who had escaped the angry billows, would have been launched into eternity by the villanous barber. For the remainder of the day Todd was more closely besieged than ever, and when night came on, Sir Richard Blunt, with two of his men, set watch upon the house of Mrs. Lovett. Sir Richard had provided himself with skeleton keys, candles, and other housebreaking implements, for the purpose of entering Mrs. Lovett's house after that lady had retired, as he had the full sanction of the law to use every means he could think of in bringing the culprits to justice. About eleven o'clock Mrs. Lovett was seen in her bedroom, with a candle in her hand, and making every preparation for retiring; in a few minutes the light was put out, and everything seemed still as death. Nothing was to be heard in the adjoining streets but the monotonous tread of the watchmen, with an occasional drawling forth of the hour of the night. This was the time Sir Richard had waited forit was the time for him to act. He approached the street door and applied his implements with success, for the door yielded to the baronet's tools, and he soon was in the shop of the piemaker. As complete a silence reigned within as was maintained without. He waited for some time yet, though, before he moved. Finding, at length, that all was profoundly still, and feeling quite convinced that Mrs. Lovett had really retired for the night, the magistrate set about procuring a light. By the aid of some chemical matches that he had with him, this was soon accomplished, and a faint blue light shone upon the various articles in the pieshop of Mrs. Lovett. He then took a small piece of wax taper from his pocket, and lit it. This gave him sufficient light to enable him to distinguish with accuracy any object in the place. Once again he listened, in order to be quite sure that Mrs. Lovett was not stirring, and then, finding himself perfectly satisfied upon that head, he fearlessly commenced an examination of the shop. There was nothing to excite any very particular attention, except the apparatus for lowering the platform upon which the pies were sent up from the ovens below, and in a few moments the whole attention of Sir Richard Blunt was concentrated upon that contrivance. He did not meddle with it further, than looking at it sufficiently to fully comprehend it, for he had other views just then. After, then, making himself quite master of the details of that piece of machinery, he turned his whole attention to the parlour. By the aid of a skeletonkey which he took from his pocket, he opened the door with ease, and at once entered that room, where lay the remains of the supper which Mrs. Lovett had so liberally provided for Sweeney Todd. This parlour was rather a large ramblingroom, with a number of snug, handy looking cupboards in various corners. It was towards those cupboards that Sir Richard Blunt directed his attention. They were all locked, but with the means he had with him, ordinary locks presented no impediment to the prosecution of his research. CHAPTER LV. MRS. LOVETT'S WALK. Suddenly he heard, or fancied he heard a noise above in the house, like the sudden shutting of a door. "Oh," thought Sir Richard, "all is safe. She is shutting herself in for the night, I suppose. Well, Mrs. Lovett, we will see what we can find in your cupboards." The little bit of wax light, which Sir Richard had lighted, gave but a weak kind of twilight while he moved about with it in his hand, but when he stuck it on a corner of the mantelshelf it burnt much clearer, and was sufficient to enable him just to see what he was about. So thoroughly impressed was he with the idea that Mrs. Lovett had retired to rest, that he paid no sort of attention to the house, and may be said, in a manner of speaking, to have negligently shut his ears to all sounds that did not violently attack them. He opened a cupboard, in which were some books, and on the topshelf, lying in a confused kind of heap, were some watches, and several sets of very rich buckles for shoes. There were, likewise, several snuffboxes in the lot. Were these little trifles presented to Mrs. Lovett, by Todd, as proofs of the thriving business he was carrying on? Sir Richard put two of the watches in his pocket. "These may be identified," he said. "And now, if I can but find the door by which she descends to the oven below, I" At this moment he was startled by a sudden accession of light in the room. His first idea, and a natural enough one too, was, that the little wax light was playing some vagaries incidental to all lights, and he turned rapidly from the cupboard to look at it. What was his astonishment to see the door that led to the upper part of the house open, and Mrs. Lovett, partially undressed, standing upon the threshold with a chambercandlestick in her hand in which was a rushlight, the dim and dubious rays from which had produced the extra illumination that had first startled Sir Richard Blunt. No wonder that, with amazement upon his countenance, he now glanced upon this vision, for such it looked like at the moment; and yet he saw that Mrs. Lovett it was to all intents and purposes, and that he was discovered in his exploring expedition in her parlour appeared to be one of those facts it would have required no small share of moral hardihood to dispute. Seeing, however, should not always be believing, despite the venerable saying which asserts as much. Mrs. Lovett In A State Of Somnambulism. Mrs. Lovett In A State Of Somnambulism. "I must apprehend her, now," thought Sir Richard Blunt; "I have no resource but to apprehend her at once." With this object he was about to dart forward, when something strange about the appearance of Mrs. Lovett arrested his attention, and stayed his progress. He paused and remained leaning partly upon the back of a chair, while she slowly advanced into the room, and then as she came nearer to him he became convinced of what he had begun to suspect, namelythat she was walking in her sleep. There is something awful in this wandering of the mortal frame when its senses seem to be locked up in death. It looks like a resurrection from the graveas though a corpse was again revisiting "The glimpses of the pale moon;" and even Sir Richard Blunt, with all his constitutional and acquired indifference to what would be expected to startle any one else could not help shrinking back a little, and feeling an unusual sort of terror. This transient nervousness of his, though, soon passed away, and then he set himself to watch the actions of Mrs. Lovett with all the keenness of intense interest and vividly awakened curiosity. She did not disappoint him. Moving forward into the room with a slow and stately action, so that the little flame of the rushlight was by no means disturbed, she reached the middle of the parlour and then she paused. She assumed such a natural attitude of listening, that Sir Richard Blunt voluntarily shrunk down behind the chair, for it seemed to him at the moment that she must have heard him. Then, in a low and slightly indistinct tone, she spoke "Hush! hush! So still. The poison! Where is the poison?Will he take it? Ah, that is the question, and yet how clear it is. But he is fiendlike in his suspicions. When will he come?" She moved on towards the cupboard, in which the decanter of poisoned wine had been placed, and opening it, she felt in vain upon the shelf for it. It was still upon the table, and if anything more than another could have been a convincing proof of the mere mechanical actions of the somnambulist, this fact, that she passed the wine where it was, and only recollected where it had been, would have been amply sufficient. After finding that her search was ineffectual, she turned from the cupboard, and stood for a few moments in silence. Then a horror shook her frame, and she said "They must all die. Bandage your eyes, and you will shut out the death shrieks. Yes, that will be something, to get rid of those frightful echoes. Bandage after bandage will, and shall do it." Sir Richard stood silently watching; but such was the horror of the tones in which she spoke, that even his heart felt cold, as though the blood flowed but sluggishly through its accustomed channels. "Who," he thought to himself, "for the world's wealth, would have this woman's memory of the past?" She still held the light, and it appeared to him as though she were about to go into the shop, but she paused before she reached the halfglass door of communication between it and the parlour, and shook like one in an ague. "Another!another!" she said. "How strange it is that I always know. The air seems full of floating particles of blood, and they all fall upon me! Off, off. Oh, horror! horror! I chokeI choke. Off, I say. How the hot blood steams up in a sickly vapour. Therethere, now! Why does Todd let them shriek in such a fashion?" She now shook so, that Sir Richard Blunt made sure she would either drop the light she carried, or, at all events, shake it out, but neither of these contingencies took place; and, after a few moments, she got more calm. The violent agitation of her nerves gradually subsided. She spoke horrors, but it was in a different tone; and abandoning, apparently, the intention of going into the shop, she approached a portion of the parlour which had not yet been subjected to the scrutiny of Sir Richard Blunt, although it would not ultimately have escaped him. The appearance of this part of the room was simply that there was there a cupboard, but the back of this seeming cupboard formed, in reality, the door that led down the flight of stairs to the other strong iron door that effectually shut in the captive cook to his duties among the ovens. This was just the place that Sir Richard Blunt wanted to find out; and here we may as well state, that Sir Richard had an erroneous, but very natural idea, under the circumstances, that the cook or cooks were accomplices of Mrs. Lovett in her nefarious transactions. Had he been at all aware of the real state of affairs below, our friend, who had become so thoroughly disgusted with the pies, would not have been left for so long in so precarious a situation. Mrs. Lovett paused, after opening the lock of the cupboard, and in a strange, sepulchral sort of voice, she said "Has he done it?" "Done what?" Sir Richard would fain have asked; but, although he had heard that people, when walking in their sleep, will answer questions put to them under such circumstances, he was doubtful of the fact, and by no means wished to break the trance of Mrs. Lovett. "Has he done it?" she again repeated. "Is he no more? How many does it make? Onetwothreefourfivesixseven. Yes, seven, it must be the seventh, and I have heard all. Hush! hush! ToddToddTodd, I say. Are you dead? Nono. He would not drink the wine. The devil, his master, whispered to him that it had in it the potent drug that would send his spirits howling to its Maker, and he would not drink. God! he would not drink! Nonono!" She pronounced these words in such a tone of agony, that her awakening from the strange sleep she was in, seemed to be a natural event from such a strong emotion, but it did not take place. No doubt Mrs. Lovett had been long habituated to these nocturnal rambles. She now began slowly and carefully the descent of the stairs leading to the oven; but she had not got many paces, when a current of air from below, and which, no doubt, came through the small grating in the iron door, extinguished her light. This circumstance, however, appeared to be perfectly unnoticed by her, and she proceeded in the profound darkness with the same ease as though she had had a light. Sir Richard would have followed her as he was, but in the dark he did not feel sufficient confidence in her as a guide to do so; and with as noiseless a tread as possible, he went back, and fetched from the chimneypiece shelf his own little wax light, which was still burning, and carefully guarding its flame from a similar catastrophe to what had happened to Mrs. Lovett's light, he descended the staircase, slowly and cautiously, after her. She went with great deliberation, and it was not until being rather surprised at the total absence of sound from her tread, that upon looking down to her feet, he found that they were bare. After this, he could have no doubt but that, almost immediately upon her lying down in bed, this somnambulistic trance had come over her, and she had risen to creep below, and go through the singular scene we are describing. Step by step they both descended, until Mrs. Lovett came to the iron door. She did not attempt to open it. If she had, Heaven only knows what might have resulted from the desperate risk the captive cook might have made to escape. But even in the madness of Mrs. Lovettfor a sort of madness the scene she was enacting might be calledthere was a kind of method, and she had no idea of opening the iron door that shut the cook from the upper world. Pausing, then, at the door leading to the ovens, she, with as much facility as though she had had broad daylight to do it in, unfastened the small square wicket in the top part of the window. A dull reddish glare of light came through it from the furnaces, which night nor day were extinguished. "Hist! hist!" said Mrs. Lovett. "Who speaks?" said a dull hollow voice, which sounded as if coming from the tomb. "Who speaks to me?" Mrs. Lovett shut the small wicket in a moment. "He has not done it, yet," she said. "He has not done it yet. Nonono. But blood will flowyes. It must be so. Onetwothreefourfivesixseven. The seventh, and not the last. Horrible! horrible!most horrible! If, now, I could forget" She began rapidly to ascend the stairs, so that Sir Richard Blunt had to take two at a step, and once three, in order to be up before her, and even then she reached the parlour so close upon him, that it was a wonder she did not touch him; but he succeeded in evading her by a hair's breadth, and then she stood profoundly still for a few moments with her hands clasped. This quiescent state, however, did not last long, for suddenly, with eagerness, she leaned forward, and spoke again. "No suspicion!" she said; "all is well!Dear me, heap up thousands more. Oh, Todd, have we not enough?There, clean up that blood!Here is a cloth!Stop it updon't you see where it is running to, like a live thing?He is not dead yet.How clumsy.Another blow with the hammer!Therethereon the forehead!What a crash!Did the bone go that time?Why the eyes have started out!Horror! horror!Oh, God, nononoI cannot come here again.Oh, God!Oh, God!" She sunk down upon the floor in a huddled up mass, and Sir Richard Blunt, who could not forbear shuddering at the last words that had come from her lips now he thought that her trance was over, rapidly approaching her, said "Wretched woman, your career is over." She suddenly rose, and with the same stately movement as before, she made her way from the parlour by the door leading to the staircase. During all the strange scenes she had gone through, she had not abandoned the light, and although the air in the narrow passage of the staircase had extinguished it, she still continued to carry it with the same care as though it lit her on her way. Seeing that she still walked in that strange and hideous sleep, the magistrate let her pass him, nor did he make any attempt to follow her. "Be it so," he said. "Let her awaken once again in the fancied security of her guilt. The doom of the murderess is hanging over her, and she shall not escape. But there is time yet." He watched her until, by the turn of the stairs, she disappeared from his sight, and then he sat down to think. And there, for a brief space, we leave Sir Richard, while we take a peep at Tobias. CHAPTER LVI. TOBIAS UNBOSOMS HIMSELF. Mrs. Ragg, when she met Sweeney Todd, after he had so comfortably put out of this world of care, John Mundell, the usurer, was really upon a mission to Minna Gray, to tell her that Tobias was, to use her own expressive phraseology"Never so much better." Together with this news, Mrs. Ragg, at the colonel's suggestion, sought the company of Minna to tea upon that afternoon; and the consent of all parties whom it might concern being duly obtained to that arrangement, we will suppose Minna upon her way to Colonel Jeffery's. Timidly, and with a bashful boldness, if we may use the expression, did the fair young girl ring the area bell at the colonel's. But he and his friend, Captain Rathbone, were both in the parlour, and saw her advance, so that she was at once welcomed into that portion of the house. The colonel, like most gentlemen, had the happy knack of making those with whom he spoke at their ease, so that Minna in a very short time recovered her first agitationfor if she had gone a thousand times to that house, agitated she would have been at firstand was able to discourse with all that gentle fervour and candid simplicity which belongs to such minds as hers. "A most favourable change," said the colonel, "has taken place in Tobiasa change which I attribute to the strong influence which your visit had upon him; such an opinion is not a mere fancy of mine, for the medical gentleman who is in attendance upon him fully concurs in that view of the case." Minna had no need to say that she was pleased, for she looked all the delight that such a communication was calculated to give her. "Under these circumstances, then," continued the colonel, "that which was only a faint hope of his recovery, has become a certainty." Minna's eyes filled with tears.
"Yes," added Captain Rathbone, "and we expect that to you he will make such revelations as shall bring proper punishment upon all those who have in any way been the cause of this calamity." "Oh, forgive them all, now," said Minna. "Since he recovers, we can forgive them all, you know, now." "That cannot be, for the persecution that Tobias has endured is but part of a system which he will be the means of exposing. Will you come up stairs at once now, Miss Gray, and see him?" "Oh, yesyes." How her heart beat as she ascended the staircase, and how quickly she inspired and respired when she actually got to the door of Tobias's room. But then she heard the kind, although not very musical voice of Mrs. Ragg from within, say "But, my dear, you will give her time to come?" "A long time, mother," said Tobias. Ah, how well Minna knew that voice. It was the voice of Tobias as of old. The same voice, in tone perhaps only a little weakened, and rendered more soft by sickness than it had been, but to her it was like the soft memory of some well remembered tone that she had heard, and wept with joy to hear in happier days. "I am here, Tobias! I am here." "MinnaMinna!" She entered the room radiant and beautiful as some fairy come to breathe joy by the magic of some spell, Tobias stretched out his arms towards her. She paused a moment, and then with a soft and gentle movement, embraced him. It was but for an instant she held him in her arms, and then she stepped back a pace or two and looked at him. "Quite well," said Tobias, understanding the look. "Quite?" "Oh, yes, Minna, and as happyasasfifty kings." "Are kings happy?" "Well, I don't know that they are, Minna, but at all events if they are, they can't possibly be happier than I am." "Bless the boy," said Mrs. Ragg, "how he does talk, to be sure." "Why, Tobias," said Colonel Jeffery, "you are wonderfully improved within this last hour." "Yes, sir, and still more wonderfully since the best physician in the world has come to see me." The direction of his eyes towards Minna Gray let them know, if they had not guessed it before, who Tobias considered the best physician in the world to him. Minna shook her head, and said "But, Tobias, it is to this gentleman that you owe your life." "Yes," replied Tobias, "and if ever I forget to be grateful to him for all that he has done for me, I shall consider myself the worst person in the world. Aye, as bad, quite asas Sweeney Todd." Tobias shuddered perceptibly as he pronounced Todd's name, and it was quite evident that even in safety, as he could not but feel himself, and profoundly protected from the deadly malice of his late master, he could not divest himself of the absolute horror which even a mere remembrance of him engendered. "Well, Tobias," said the colonel, as he drew a chair close to him, "since you have named Todd, pray tell us all about him." "All?" "Yes, all, Tobias." "I will tell all I know. Come closer to me, Minna; I feel, when you are near me, as though God had sent one of his angels to keep Todd from me. Oh, yes, I will tell all I know. How can he harm me now?" "How indeed, Tobias?" said Minna. Tobias still trembled. What a shock that bold, bad, unscrupulous man had given to the nerves of that boy. His bodily health might be restored, and his mind once more be brought back to sanity, but if Tobias Ragg were to live to the age of a patriarch, the name of Todd would be to him a something yet to shrink from, and the tone of his nervous system could never be what it once was. Minna looked up in his face, and the colonel, too, gazed fully upon him, so that Tobias found he was absolutely called upon to say something. "Yes," he began, "I remember that people came to the shop, andand that they never went out of it again." "Can you particularise any instance?" "Yes, the gentleman with the dog." Colonel Jeffery showed by his countenance how much he was interested. "Go on," he said. "What about the gentleman with the dog?" "I don't know how it was," added Tobias, "but that circumstance seemed to tell more upon my fancy than any other. I suppose it was the conduct of the dog." "What sort of a dog was it?" "A large handsome dog, and Todd would not let it remain in the shop, so his master made him wait outside." "Did he name the dog?" Tobias passed his hand across his brow several times, and then his countenance suddenly brightening up, he said "Hector! Yes, Hector!" Colonel Jeffery nodded. "What then happened, Tobias?" said Minna. "Why, I think Todd sent me out upon some message, and when I came back the gentleman was gone, but not the dog." "Now, Tobias, can you tell us what sort of a man the man with the dog was?" "Yes, freshcoloured, and goodlooking rather, with hair that curled. I should know him again." "Ah, Tobias," said the colonel, "I am afraid we shall none of us ever see him again in this world." "Never!" said Tobias. "Todd killed him. How he did it, or what he did with the body, I know not; but he did kill him, and many more, I am certain as that I am now here. Many people came into the shop that never left it again." "No doubt; and now, Tobias, how came you in the street by London Bridge so utterly overcome and destitute?" "The madhouse." "Madhouse?" "Yes, I shall recollect it all. Where are you, mother?" "Bless us and save us!here, to be sure," said Mrs. Ragg. "Did I not come to you at your room and find you ironing, and did I not tell you that I had something to say about Todd, and ask you to fetch somebody?" "To be sure." "Well, when you left, Todd came, and after once looking in his face, I almost forgot what happened, except that there was a madhouse and a man named Watson." "Watson?" said Colonel Jeffery, as he made a note of the name. "Yes," added Tobias, "and Fogg." "Good! Fogg, I have it. Now, Tobias, where did you encounter this Fogg and Watson?" "That I cannot tell. I recollect trees, and a large house, and rooms, and a kind of garden, and some dark and dismal cells, and then my mind seems, when I think of all those things, like some large room full of horrors, and anything comes before me just like some dreadful dream. I recollect falling, I think, from some wall, and then running at my utmost speed until I fell, and then the next thing that I remember was hearing the voice of Minna in this house." "One thing," said Captain Rathbone, "is pretty certain, and that is, that this madhouse, if it were one in reality, must be in the immediate vicinity of London, or else the strength of Tobias would not have enabled him to run so far as to London from it." "Mrs. Ragg, I believe Todd told you that he had placed Tobias in a madhouse, did he not?" said the colonel. "Yes, sir, he did, the wagabone!" "Well, I am inclined to think that it was a madhouseone of those private dens of iniquity which are, and have been for many years, a disgrace to the jurisprudence of this country." "If so, then," said the captain, "there will be no great difficulty in finding it with the clue that Tobias has given us respecting the names." "I will not be satisfied until I have rooted out that den," said the colonel, "but at present all our exertions must be directed to ascertain the fate of poor Ingestrie. Every circumstance appears really to combine in favour of the opinion of Johanna Oakley, to the effect that this Thornhill and Mark Ingestrie were the same." "It does look marvellously probable," said the captain. "Do you recollect any more, Tobias?" said Minna. "Not clearly, Minna, and I am afraid that what I have recollected is not very clear, but it was the dog that made an impression upon my memory. Many things are, however, now each moment crowding to my mind, and I think that I shall soon be able to recollect much more." "Not a doubt, Tobias. Do not attempt to strain your memory too far now. Things will come back to you gently, and by degrees." "I have no doubt of that, sir, butbut" "But what, Tobias?" "Oh, sir, you are quite sure" "Sure of what?" "That when I least expect it, round the curtains of my bed, or from behind some chair, or from some cupboard about twilight, I shall not see the hideous face of Sweeney Todd, and feel his eyes glancing upon me?" Poor Tobias covered his eyes with both his hands, as he gave almost frenzied utterance to these words, and both Colonel Jeffery and his friend, the captain, looked on with aspects of deep commiseration. The former, after the pause of a few moments, to allow the renewed excitement of Tobias fully to subside, spoke to him in a kind but firm voice. "Tobias, listen to me. Do you hear me?" "Yes, siroh, yes." "Then I have to tell you that it is impossible Sweeney Todd can now come upon you in the way you mention, or in any other way." "Impossible, sir?" "Yes, quite. He is now watched by the officers of justice, day and night. His house door is never lost sight of for a moment while he is within it, and when he is abroad, he is closely followed and carefully watched by men, any one of whom is more than a match for him; so be at peace upon that head, for Sweeney Todd is more securely kept now than any wild beast in his den." CHAPTER LVII. SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S ADVENTURES CONTINUED. All left Sir Richard Blunt, not in a critical situation, but in what may be called an embarrassing one, inasmuch as he could not very well make up his mind what to do next. He had heard much towards her enunciation from the lips of Mrs. Lovett, and he had possessed himself of some property, which he hoped would be authenticated as having belonged to some of Todd's victims. He had likewise found out the mode of secret communication with the ovens below, but whether or not to make any further use of that information just then was a question. While he was debating these matters in his mind, he saw that his little wax light was expiring. He accordingly produced another from his pocket, and lit it, and during the process of so doing, he made up his mind to risk a descent into the regions below, so far as the iron door. He at first took his light in his hand to take it with him, but a few moments' reflection decided him to go in the dark, and placing it upon a corner of the shelf, as he had done before, he opened the cupboard, at the back of which was the secret door, and soon found himself upon the little staircase. Of course, the object of Sir Richard Blunt was to make what discovery he could, without betraying the fact of his own presence; and, accordantly with such a design, hastened lightly as foot could fall, so that he was some few minutes in reaching the iron door, which he felt with his left hand, which he kept during his progress outstretched before him. The next object was to get the little wicket open without noise, for he recollected that Mrs. Lovett had made a sharp sound by the sudden withdrawal of a bolt that secured it on the side next to the staircase. By carefully feeling over the door, he at last lit upon this bolt, and then, by taking his time over it, he succeeded in drawing it back without creating the least sound. When this was done, the wicket yielded easily, for it had no other fastening than that bolt, and when it opened, which it did towards the stairs, the same dull reddish glare came through the small aperture that he had noticed when Mrs. Lovett was there, but he found what he had not noticed upon that occasion, namely, that when the wicket was removed there were iron bars farther securing the opening, so that it was quite clear it was intended to be a thing of strength. When, however, the magistrate found that there was nothing between him and the region of the ovens but this grating, he placed his ear close to it, in order to listen if any one was stirring. After a few moments, he heard a deep groan. Somewhat startled at this soundfor it was certainly unexpectedhe tried to pierce with his eyes the obscurity of the place, but the darkness, although not absolute, was of that puzzling character that the more he looked the more all sorts of odd images seemed to be conjured up before his eyes. He began, too, to think that the groan must have been only some accidental sound that he had mistaken, but he was quickly relieved from such an opinion by hearing it again, much more distinctly and unequivocally than it had before sounded upon his ears. There was no possibility of mistaking this groan now; but while the certainty that a groan it was came upon his ears, he became only the more puzzled to account for it; and this state of feeling in him certainly arose from the difficulty he naturally had in conceiving the possibility of any one being upon the premises, and engaged in the service of Mrs. Lovett, unless they were accomplices of that lady. The idea of the captive cook was not at all likely to cross the imagination of any one, and in her revelations upon that head, during her somnambulistic tour, Mrs. Lovett had not been sufficiently explicit to enable Sir Richard Blunt to come to a different conclusion. "I will listen for it again," he thought. After a few moments more he was rewarded for his patience by not only hearing another groan, but a voice, in accents of the most woebegone character, said "I cannot sleep. It is of no avail. Alas! who dare sleep here! God help me, for I am past all human aid." "Who on earth can this be?" said the magistrate to himself. "It would be better for them to kill me at once," continued the voice. "Anything would be preferable to this continued horror; but I suppose they have not suited themselves yet with some one to take my place, so I am not to be sent to see my old friends. Oh, bitterbitter fate. I would that I were dead!" The Captive Piemaker Contemplates Suicide. The Captive Piemaker Contemplates Suicide. There was a heartiness in the pronunciation of the last word, that quite convinced Sir Richard Blunt of their sincerity; but yet he thought he ought to listen to a little more before he ran the risk of falling into any trap that might be laid for him by Mrs. Lovett or her satellites, if she had any. He had not to wait long, for whoever it was that was speaking had got into a good train of groaning, and did not seem inclined to leave off for some time. "Is she a woman, or the devil in petticoats?" said the voice. "Humph!" thought Sir Richard Blunt, "that would be rather a hard question to answer upon oath." "How much longer am I to bear this load of misery?" continued the voice. "No sleepno food, but just what will sustain nature in her continued sufferings. Oh, it is most horrible. Have I been preserved from death under many adventurous and fearful circumstances, at last to die here like a rat in a hole?" "What on earth can be the matter with this man?" thought Sir Richard. There was a pause in the lamentations of the man now for a few seconds, during which he only groaned once or twice, just as if by way of letting any one know, who might be listening, that he was not pacified. At length, with a sudden burst of passion, he cried "I can bear it no longer. Death of my own seeking, and by my own choice as to method, is far preferable to this state of existence. Farewell, allfarewell to you, fair and gentle girl, whom I loved and whose falseness first gave me a pang such as the assassin's dagger could not have inflicted. Farewell, dear companions of my youth, whom I had hoped to see again!" "Stop!" said Sir Richard Blunt. The captive cook was still. "Stop!" cried Sir Richard Blunt again. "Good God! who is that?" said the voice from the region of the oven. "Your good genius, if I save you from doing anything rash; who and what are you? Tell me all." "To be betrayed. Ah, you are some spy of Mrs. Lovett's of course, and you only wish to draw me into conversation for my destruction." "What were you going to do just now?" "Take my own life." "Well, if you find I am an enemy instead of a friend, as I profess to be, you can but carry out your intention." "That's true." The captive cook pronounced these two words in such a solemn tone, that the magistrate was more than ever convinced of his sincerity, and that he was far more a victim of Mrs. Lovett and her associate, the barber, than an accomplice. "Speak freely," said Sir Richard. "Who and what are you?" "I am the most unhappy wretch that ever breathed. I am cribbed and cabined and confined, I live upon raw flour and water. I curse the hour that I was born, and wish I had been a blind kitten and drowned, rather than what I am." "But what do you do here?" "Make numberless pies." "Well?" "It's all very fine for you to say well, whoever you are, but it is anything but well with me. Where are you?" "Upon the staircase, near an iron door." "Ah, you are at the aperture through which that abominable Mrs. Lovett issues to me her commands and her threats. If you have any compassion in your nature, and the smallest desire to hear a story that will curdle your blood, you will find out the means of opening that door, and then I will climb up to it and make one effort for freedom." "My good friend, I am very much afraid it would materially derange my plans to do so." "Derange your what?" "My plans." "And are any plans to be placed in competition with my life and liberty? Oh, human naturehuman nature, what a difference there is in you when you are upon the right side of the door from what you are when you are upon the wrong." "My friend," said Sir Richard Blunt, "that is a very philosophical remark, and I compliment you upon it. But now answer me truly one question, and for your own sake, and for the sake of justice, I beg you to answer me truly." "What is it?" "Are you in present fear of death?" "No. Not while I continue to make the pies." "Very good!" "Very good? Now by all that's abominable, I only wish you had but to make them here for one week, and at the same time know as much as I knowI rather suspect that you would never say very good again." "One week?" "Yes, only a week." "Pray how long have you been here?" "I have lost count of the long weary days and the anxious nights. Oh, sir, be you whom you may, do not sport with me, for I am veryvery wretched!" "If I could but be sure that you are a victim of the woman who lives above," said Sir Richard. "Sure that I am a victim? Oh, God, you suspect me of being her accomplice. Well, well, it is but natural, finding me hereI ought to expect as much. What can I saywhat can I do to convince you of the contrary?" "Reveal all." "Do you not know then thatthat" "That what? I may suspect much, but I know nothing." "Thenthen" The man's voice sunk to a husky whisper, and when he had spoken a few words there was a deathlike silence between him and Sir Richard Blunt. The latter at length said "And you affirm this?" "I am willing to swear to it. Release me from here and take me to any court of justice you please, and I will affirm it. If you have any suspicion of my good faith, manacle mebind me up in iron until I tell all." "I am convinced." "Oh, joy, I shall look upon the blessed sun again. I shall see the green fieldsI shall hear the lark sing, and drink in the odour of sweet flowers. II am not quite desolate." Sir Richard Blunt could hear him sobbing like a child. The magistrate did not interrupt this burst of feeling. He was, on the contrary, quite glad to be a witness of it, for it convinced him of the sincerity of the man. He could not think it possible he should find attending upon Mrs. Lovett's ovens so consummate an actor as it would have taken to play that part. After a few moments, however, he spoke, saying "Now, my friend, are you one who will listen to reason in preference to merely acting upon the feelings and suggestions of the moment?" "I hope so." "Well, then, I think I could set you free tonight, but to do so would materially interfere with the course of that justice which is about speedily to overtake Mrs. Lovett. By remaining here you will keep things as they are for the present, and that, I assure you, is a great object. You say that while you continue making pies, your life is not in positive peril; I ask of you, for the sake of justice, to put up with your present position a short time longer." "Liberty is sweet." "It is, but you would not like such a woman as Mrs. Lovett to take the alarm and escape the consequences of her crimes." "Oh! nono. I will remain. For how long will it be?" "I cannot say exactly, but the time may be counted by hours, and not one shall be lost. Have but a little patience, and I will come to you again. When next you hear my voice at the grating, it will be to give the signal of liberty." "How can I thank you?" "Never mind that. Good night, and take care of yourself. All will be well." "Good night. Good night." CHAPTER LVII. BIG BEN MAKES A DISCOVERY. At seven o'clock on the morning following these strange events, there were early prayers at St. Dunstan's, and the bells called together the devout at halfpast six. Todd was there! Is the reader surprised? Has he never yet in his mundane experience met with a case of sanctimonious villany? Does he think that going to prayer is incompatible with such a life as Todd's? Phopho! Live and learn. Todd met the beadle upon the steps of the church. "Ah, Mr. T.," said that functionary. "It does one good to see you, that it doesa deal of good. I say that, of all the tradesmen in Fleet Street, you is the piousest." "We owe a duty to our creator," said Todd, "which all the pomps and vanities of this world ought to make us neglect." "Have you heard o' the suicide in Norfolk Street?" Todd shook his head. "Why, the beadle of St. Clement's was asking of me only last night, what sort of man you was." "I?" "Yes, to be sure. It's a gentleman as you went to shave, and as you lent a razor to, as has cut his blessed throat in Norfolk Street." "God bless me," said Todd, "you don't mean that? Dear! dear! We are indeed here today and gone tomorrow. How true it is that flesh is grass;and so the gentleman cut his throat with my razor, did he?" "Above a bit." "Well, well, it is to be hoped that the Lord will be merciful to the little frailties of his creatures." "Conwulsions! Do you call that a little frailty?" Todd had passed on into the body of the church, and any minute observer might have noticed, that when he got there, there was a manifest and peculiar twitching of his nose, strongly resembling the evolutions of a certain exchancellor. Then, in a low tone to himself, Todd muttered "They make a great fuss about the smell in St. Dunstan's, but I don't think it is so very bad after all." Perhaps one of Todd's notions in going to early morning prayers was to satisfy himself upon the point of the stench in the church. The morning service was very short, so that Todd got back to his shop in ample time to open it for the business of the day. He gave a glance at the window, to be quite sure that the placard announcing the want of a pious lad was there, and then with all the calmness in the world he set about sharpening his razors. Not many minutes elapsed ere a man came in, leading by the hand a boy of about thirteen years of age. "Mr. Todd," he said, "you want a lad." "Yes." "You don't know me, but I am Cork, the greengrocer in the market." "Oh," said Todd. "You see this is Fred, by the first Mrs. C., and the second Mrs. C. thinks he'd better go out to something now; if you will take him 'prentice we will provide him, and he can run into our place for his meals and tell us all the gossip of the shop, which will amuse Mrs. C., as she's in a delicate condition, and I have no doubt you will find him just the lad for you." "Dear! dear!" said Todd. "What's the matter, Mr. T.?" "I'm so aggravated.Is he pious?" "Decidedly." "Does he know his catechism and his belief?" "Oh, yes. Only ask him, Mr. Todd. Only ask him." "Come here, my dear boy. Who was Shindrad, the great uncle of Joshua, and why did Nebuchadnezar call him Zichophobattezer the cousin of Neozobulcoxacride?" "Eh?" said the boy. "Lor!" "What learning!" said the greengrocer. "Ah, Mr. Todd, you are one too many for Fred, but he knows his catechiz." "Well," said Todd, "if the boy that I have promised to think about don't suit me, I'll give you a call, Mr. Cork. But, you see, I am such a slave to my word, that if I promise to think about anything, I go on thinking until it would astonish you how I get through it." "Well, I'm sure we are very much obliged to you, Mr. Todd. Come along, Fred." "Indeed!" said Todd, when he was once more alone. "That would suit me certainly. A lying, gossiping boy, to be running home three or four times a day with all the news of the shop. Goodvery good indeed." Todd stropped away at the razors with great vehemence, until he suddenly became aware that some one must be blocking up nearly the whole of the window, for a sudden darkness, like an eclipse, had stolen over the shop. We have before had occasion to remark that Todd had a kind of peephole amid the multifarious articles which blocked up his windows, so that he was enabled to look out upon the passing world when he pleased. Upon this occasion he availed himself of this mode of ascertaining who it was that had stopped the light from making its way into the shop. It was no other than our old acquaintance, Big Ben from the Tower, who was on his way to Mr. Oakley's. The heart of Ben had been sensibly touched by the distress of Johanna, and he was going to give her a word or two of comfort and encouragement, which would wholly consist of advising her to "never mind." But still Ben's intention was good, however weak might be the means by which he carried it out. As for passing Todd's window without looking in, he could no more help having a good stare, than he could help doing justice to a flagon of old ale, if it were placed before him; and upon this occasion the little placard, announcing the want of a pious youth, fixed the whole of Ben's wonder and attraction. "A pious lad!" said Ben. "Oh, the villain. Never mind. Easy does iteasy does it." "Curses on that fellow!" muttered Todd. "What is he staring at?" "A pious lad!" ejaculated Ben. "Piousohoh. Pious!" "Shaved this morning, sir?" said Todd, appearing at his door with a razor in his hand. "Shaved or dressed? Polish you off surprisingly, in no time, sir." "Eh?" "Walk in, sirwalk in. A nice comfortable shave makes a man feel quite another thing. Pray walk in, sir. I think I have had the pleasure of seeing you before." Ben cast an indignant look at Sweeney Todd; and then, as upon the spur of the momentfor Ben was rather a shrewd thinkerhe could not find anything strong enough to say, he wisely held his peace, and walked on. Todd looked after him with a savage scowl. "Not much plunder," he muttered, "but suitable enough in another point of view. Wellwell, we shall seewe shall see." Ben continued his course towards the city, ever and anon repeating as he went"A pious lad!a pious lad. Oh, the rascal." When he reached within a few doors of the spectaclemaker's, he saw a boy with a letter in his hand looking about him, and probably seeing that Ben had a goodhumoured countenance, he said to him "If you please, sir, can you tell me which is Mr. Oakley's?" "Yes, to be sure. Is that letter for him?" "No, sir, it's for Miss Oakley." Ben laid his finger upon the side of his nose, and tried to think. "Miss Oakley," he said. "A letter for Miss Oakley;" and then, as nothing very alarming consequent upon that proposition presented itself to him, he said, "Easy does it." "Do you know the house, sir?" asked the boy. "Yes, to be sure. Come along, boy." "Yes, sir." "Who's the letter from?" "A gentleman, sir, as is waiting at the Unicorn, in Addle Street." "A gentleman as is waiting at the Addle in Unicorn Street," said Ben; and then, not being able still to hit upon anything very outrageous in all that, he contented himself once more with an "Easy does it." The boy accompanied him to the door of Mr. Oakley's, and then Ben said to him "I'll give the letter to Miss Oakley if you like, and if you don't like, you can wait till I send her to you. Easy does it." "Thank you, sir," said the boy, "I'd rather give it to the young lady myself." "Very good," said Ben. "Rise betimes, and hear early chimes." With this effort of proverbial lore, Ben marched into the shop, where old Oakley was, with a magnifying glass fitted to his eyes, performing some extraordinary operation upon a microscope. Ben merely said "How is you?" and then passed on to the backroom, having received from the old optician a slight nod by way of a return of the friendly salutation. Ben always esteemed it a stroke of good fortune when he found Johanna alone, which, in the present instance, he did. She rose to receive him, and placed one of her small hands in his, where for a moment or two it was completely hidden. "All right?" said Ben. "Yes, as usual. No news." "I saw a boy at the door with a letter from a unicorn." "From a what?" "No, an addleno. Let me see. A unicorn, waiting with a gentleman in addle something. Easy does it. That ain't it, neither. Where is she?" Guessing that it was some one with a communication from some friend to her, Johanna had glided to the door, and got the letter from the boy. She came with it to the parlour at once, and opened it. It was from Colonel Jeffery, and ran as follows "Dear Miss Oakley,If you will oblige me with another meeting in the Temple Gardens this evening, at or about six, I have something to tell you, although I am afraid nothing cheering.Believe me to be your sincere friend, "John Jeffery." She read it aloud to Ben, and then said "It is from the gentleman who, I told you, Ben, had interested himself so much in the fate of poor Mark." "Oh, ah," said Ben. "Easy does it. Tell him, if he'd like to see the beasts at the Tower any time, only to ask for me." "Yes, Ben." "Well, my dear, I came by the barber's, and what do you think?" Johanna shook her head. "Guess again." "Spare me, Ben. If you have any news for me, pray tell me. Do not keep me in suspense." Ben considered a little whether what he had to say was news or not; and then taking rather an enlarged view of the word, he added "Yes, I have. Todd wants a pious boy." "A what?" "A pious boy. He's got a bill in his window to say that he wants a pious boy. What do you think of that, now? Did you ever hear of such a villain? Easy does it. And he came out, too, and wanted to 'polish me off.'" "Oh, Ben." "Oh, Johanna. Take things easy." "I mean that you should be very careful indeed not to go into that man's shop. Promise me that you will never do so." "All's right. Never be afeard, or you'd never tame the beastesses. If I was only to go into that fellow's shop and fix a eye on him soyou'd see!" Ben fixed one of his eyes upon Johanna in such a manner, that she was glad to escape from its glare, which was quite gratifying to him (Ben), inasmuch as it was a kind of tacit acknowledgment of the extraordinary powers of his vision. "Easy does it," he said. "All's right. Do you mean to meet this colonel?" "Yes, Ben." "All's right. Only take care of yourself down Fleet Street, that's all." "I will, indeed." "What do you say to taking me with you?" "Where, Ben?" "Why, where you go to meet the colonel, my dear." "Personally, I should not entertain the smallest objection; but there is no danger in the transaction. I know that Colonel Jeffery is a man of honour, and that in meeting him upon such an occasion I am perfectly safe." "Good again," said Ben. "Easy does it. Hilloa! what's that in the shop?" "Only my mother come home." "Only? The deuce! Excuse me, my dear, I must be off. Somehow or another your mother and I don't agree, you see, and ever since I had that dreadful stomach ache one night here, it gives me a twinge to see her, so I'll be off. But remembereasy does it." CHAPTER LVIII. THE GRAND CONSULTATION IN THE TEMPLE. With this sage aphorism, Ben effected a hasty retreat from the optician's house by the private door, so that he should not run the risk of encountering Mrs.
Oakley, who had made her appearance by the shop way. When Johanna was alone, she once again read the little missive from the colonel; and then, burying her face in her hands, she tried still to think that it was possible he might have some good news to tell her. And yet, if such had been the case, would he not have written it? Would he, feeling for her as she knew he did, have kept her in a state of suspense upon such a subject? Ah, no. He would rather have, in spite of all obstacles, made his way into the shop, and called to her"Johanna, Mark Ingestrie lives," if he had really been in a position to say so much. As these thoughts chased each other through the mind of the young girl, she shed abundance of tears; and so absorbed was she in her grief, that she was not aware that any one was present, until she felt a light touch upon her shoulder, and upon starting round suddenly, she saw her friend Arabella Wilmot standing close to her. "Johanna?" "Yesyes, Arabella. I am here." "Yes, dear Johanna. But you are weeping." "I amI am. To you these tears shall be no secret, Arabella. Alas! alas! You, who know my heart, know how much I have to weep for. You can bear with me. You are the only one in all the world whom I would willingly let see these bitterbitter tears." At those words, Johanna wept afresh, and the heart of her young friend was melted; but recovering sooner than Johanna, Arabella was able to speak somewhat composedly to her, saying "Have you heard anything, Johanna, new?" "Nono. Except that Mr. Jeffery wishes to see me again to tell me something, and as he has not said in his letter what it is, I can guess it is no good news." "Nay; is not that assuming too much?" "Nono. I know he would, if he had had any joyous intelligence for me, have written it. He would feel of what a suspense even a few hours would be upon such a subject. No, Arabella, I feel that what he has to say is some terrible confirmation of my worst fears." Arabella found it no easy task to combat this course of reasoning upon the part of Johanna. She felt its force, and yet she felt at the same time that it was somewhat incumbent upon her to resist it, and to make at least the endeavour to ward off the deep depression that had seized upon Johanna. "Now listen to me," she said. "Perhaps what Colonel Jeffery has to say to you is, after all, a something hopeful; but, at the same time, being only hopeful, and nothing positive, he may have felt how difficult it was to write it, without exciting undue effects in your mind, and so prefers saying it, when he can accompany it by all the little collateral circumstances which alone can give it its proper value." There was something like a gleam of sunshine in this idea. "Do you understand me, dear Johanna?" "Yesyes." Johanna spoke more firmly than before. The last argument of her friend had had all its weight with her, and had chased away many of the gloomy thoughts that had but a few moments before possessed her. What a strange compound is the human mind, and how singularly does it take its texture, cameleonlike, from surrounding circumstances? But a few moments since, and, to Johanna the brief epistle of the colonel was suggestive of nothing but despair. How different now was its aspect? Arabella Wilmot had, by a few simple words, placed it in a new light, so that it started to the imagination of Johanna symbols of life. "Ah! you are hoping now," said Arabella. "I amI am. Perhaps it is as you say, Arabella. I will think it is." Miss Wilmot was now almost afraid that she had gone too far, and conjured up too much hope; but she could not bear the idea of dashing down again the fairy fabric of expectation she had moved in the bosom of Johanna, and merely added "Well, Johanna, since you find that the letter will, at all events, bear two interpretations, I am sure that, until you may be convinced it owns to the worst, you will be as composed as possible." "I will. And now, Arabella, will you, and can you accompany me this evening to the Temple Gardens, to meet Colonel Jeffery?" "Yes, Johanna. I both can and will, if such is your wish." "It is, Arabella, much my wish, for I feel that if what our friend, the colonel, has to say, should not be of a hopeful character, I should never be able to repeat it to you, so as to have your opinion of it." "Then we will go together. But we will not pass that dreadful man's shop." "Todd's?" "Yes." "Why not, Arabella? I feel, the moment that I leave this house, as though some irresistible fascination dragged me there, and I think I could no more pass down Fleet Street without directing my eyes to that building, which perchance has proved fatal to poor Mark, than I could fly." "Butbut, I shrink from that man recognising us again." "We will pass upon the other side of the way, Arabella; but do not say nay to me, for pass I must." There was such a frantic sort of earnestness in the manner in which Johanna urged this point, that Arabella no longer made any sort of opposition to it, and the two young girls soon arranged a time of meeting, when they would proceed together to the Temple Gardens, to give Colonel Jeffery the meeting he so much desired. As nothing of a very particular character occurred that day, we will at once follow Arabella and Johanna upon the mission, premising that the hours have slipped away which intervened between the time of Johanna receiving the note from Colonel Jeffery, and the time when, if she kept the appointment with him, it would be necessary for her to start from home to do so. Both the young girls made as great alterations in their attire as they could upon this occasion, so that they should not be strikingly recognisable again by Todd; and then Arabella reminding Johanna that the bargain between them was to pass upon the other side of the way, they both set off from the old spectaclemaker's. As they neared Fleet Street, the agitation of Johanna became more and more apparent, and Arabella was compelled to counsel her to calmness, lest the passersby should notice how much she felt, from some cause to them unknown. "My dear Johanna," she said. "Your arm trembles in mine. Oh! pray be calm." "I willI will. Are we near?" "Yes. Let us cross." They reached the other side of the way from that on which Todd's shop was situated, to the great relief of Arabella, who as yet knew not of the placard that Todd had exhibited in his window, announcing the want of a pious youth. The sight of the shop, however, seemed to bring that circumstance to the mind of Johanna, and she told her young friend of it at once. "Oh! Johanna," said Arabella, "does it not seem as though" She paused, and Johanna looked enquiringly at her, saying "What would you say, Arabella? What would you say?" "Nothing now, Johanna. Nothing now. A thought struck me, and when we return from this meeting with your friend, the colonel, I will communicate it to you. Oh! do not look opposite. Do not." All such injunctions were thrown away upon Johanna. Look opposite she did, and as she herself had truly said, it would have been quite impossible for her to avoid the doing so, even if the greatest personal risk had been risked in the action. But Todd's shop, to look at from the other side of the way, presented no terrors. It simply presented the idea of a little barber's shop, of no very great pretensions, but of sufficient respectability, as barber's shops were in those days, not to make any decent person shrink from going into it. No doubt, in the crowd of Fleet Streetfor Fleet Street was then crowded, although not to the extent it is nowJohanna and her friend passed quite unnoticed by Todd, even if he had been looking out. At all events, they reached Temple Bar without any obstruction or adventure. Finding, then, that they had passed the main entrance to the Temple, they went down the nearest adjacent street, and pursuing a circuitous route through some curiouslooking courts, they reached their destination yet a little before the appointed hour. Colonel Jeffery, however, was not likely to keep Johanna Oakley waiting. "There," said Arabella. "Is that the colonel?" Johanna looked up just as the colonel approached, and lifted his hat. "Yes, yes." In another moment he was with them. There was a look upon the countenance of Colonel Jeffery of deep concern, and that look, at one glance that was bestowed upon it by Johanna Oakley, was quite sufficient to banish all hidden hopes that she might yet have cherished regarding the character of the news that he had to impart to her. Arabella Wilmot, too, was of the same opinion regarding the physiognomical expression of the colonel, who bowed to her profoundly. Johanna And Arabella Meet And Consult Colonel Jeffery, In Temple Gardens. Johanna And Arabella Meet And Consult Colonel Jeffery, In Temple Gardens. "I have brought my dearest friend with me," said Johanna, "from whom I have no secrets." "Nor I," said the colonel, "now that I hear she stands in such an enviable relation to you, Miss Oakley." Arabella slightly bowed; and Johanna fixing her eyes, in which tears were glistening, upon him, said "You have come to tell me that I may abandon all hope?" "Nono; Heaven forbid!" A bright flush came over the face of the young girl, and clasping her hands, she said "Oh, sir, do not play with feelings that perhaps you scarcely guess at. Do not tamper with a heart so near breaking as mine. It is cruelcruel!" "Do I deserve such a charge," said the colonel, "even by implication?" "Nono," said Arabella. "Recollect yourself, Johanna. You are unjust to one who has shown himself to be your friend, and a friend to him whom you hope to see again." Johanna held out her little childlike hand to the colonel, and looking appealingly in his face, she said "Can you forgive me? It was not I who spoke, but it was the agony of my heart that fashioned itself at the moment into words my better judgment and my better feelings will not own. Can you forgive me?" "Can I, Miss Oakley! Oh, do not ask me. God grant that I could make you happy." "I thank you, sir, deeply and truly thank you; andandnownow" "Now, you would say, tell me my news." "Yes. Oh, yes." "Then let us walk upon this broad path, by the river, while, in the first instance, I tell you that it was only from a deep sense of duty, and a feeling that I ought not, upon any consideration, to keep anything from you, that I came here today to give you some more information, and yet fresh information." "You are veryvery good to me, sir." "Nono, do not say that, Miss Oakley. I am a friend. I am only very selfish; but, in brief, the lad who was in the barber's service at the time we think Mark Ingestrie called at the shop with the string of pearls in his possession, has told us all he knows upon the subject, freely." "Yesyes; andand" "He knows very little." "But that little?" "Just amounts to thisThat such a person did come to the shop, and that he is quite clear that he never left it." "Quite clear that he never left it!" repeated Johanna"that he never left it. Quite clear thatthat" She burst into tears, and clung to Arabella Wilmot for support. The colonel looked inexpressibly distressed, but he did not speak. He felt that any commonplace topics of consolation would have been an insult; and he had seen enough of human feelings to know that such bursts of passionate grief cannot be stemmed, but must have their course, and that such tears will flow like irresistible torrents into the ocean of eternity. Arabella was greatly distressed. She had not expected that Johanna would have given way in such a manner, and she looked at Colonel Jeffery as though she would have said"Is it possible that you can say nothing to calm this grief?" He shook his head, but made no reply in words. In a few moments, however, Johanna was wonderfully recovered. She was able to speak more composedly than she had done since the commencement of the interview. "Tell me all, now," she said. "I can bear to hear it all." "You know all, Miss Oakley. The poor boy, in whose fate I have felt sufficiently interested to take him into my care, says that such a man as Thornhill did come to his master's shop. That he (the boy) was sent out upon some trivial errand, merely to get him out of the way, and that, pending his return, the visitor disappeared. He deposes to the fact of the dog watching the door." "The dog?" "Yes. Thornhill, it seems, had a faithful dog with him." "Ah, Arabella, we must have seen that dog." "Has not the creature, then, fallen a victim to Todd's malevolence?" "We think not, sir," said Arabella. "Go ongo on," said Johanna; "what more?" "The boy states that he is certain he saw the hat of the visitor with the dog in Todd's house, after Todd had declared he had left, and proceeded to the city." "The hatthe dog. Alas! alas!" "Nay, Miss Oakley, do not forget one thing, and that is, that neither you nor any one else have as yet identified this Mr. Thornhill as Mr. Ingestrie." "No, not positively; but my heart tells me" "Ah, Miss Oakley, the heart is the slave of the feelings and of the imagination. You must not always trust to its testimony or emotions upon cold fact." "There is yet hope, then, Johanna," said Arabella. "A bright hope for you to cling to, for, as this gentleman says, there is nothing positive to prove that Mr. Thornhill was Mark Ingestrie. I would not, were I you, abandon that hope on any account, while I lived, and could still clutch it. Would it not be a great thing, sir, if any papers or documents which this Thornhill might have had about him, could be recovered?" "It would indeed." Arabella at first seemed upon the point of saying something contingent upon this remark of the colonel's, or rather this acquiescence of his in her remark, but she thought better of it, and was silent, upon which Johanna spoke, saying "And that is really all, sir?" "It is, Miss Oakley." "But will nothing be done? Will no steps be taken to bring this man, Todd to justice?" "Yes, everything will be done; and indeed, anything that can be done consistently with sound policy is actually now. Sir Richard Blunt, one of the most acute, active, and personally daring of the magistrates of London, has the affair in hand, and you may be quite assured that he will pursue it with zeal." "And what is he doing?" "Collecting such evidence against Todd, that at a moment the law will be enabled to come upon him with a certainty that by no ingenious quibble can he escape." Johanna shuddered. "I thank you, sir, from my heart," she said, "for all the kindness andandI need not again trespass upon your time or your patience." "Ah, Miss Oakley, will you deny me your friendship?" "Oh, nono." "Then why deny me the privilege of a friend to see you sometimes. If I cannot say to you anything positively of a consoling character regarding him whom you so much regret, I can at least share your sorrows, and sympathise with your feelings." Johanna was silent, but after a few moments she began to feel that she was acting both with harshness and injustice towards one who had been all that the kindest and most generous friend could be to her. She held out her hand to the colonel, saying "Yes, sir, I shall be always happy to see you." The colonel pressed her hand in his, and then turning to Arabella Wilmot, they parted at the garden. CHAPTER LIX. THE PROPOSAL OF ARABELLA. "Johanna," said Arabella Wilmot, as they passed out of the Temple by the old gate at Whitefriars, "Johanna, if there had been no Mark Ingestrie in the world, could you not have loved some one else truly?" "No, nooh, no." "Not such a one as Colonel Jeffery?" "No, Arabella, I respect and admire Colonel Jeffery. He comes fully up to all my notions of what a gentleman should be, but I cannot love him." Arabella sighed. The two young girls passed Todd's shop upon the other side of the way, and Johanna shuddered as she did so, and repeated in a low voice "He went there, but he never left." "Nay, but you should remember that was Thornhill." "Yes, Thornhill, alias Ingestrie." "You will cling to that idea." "I cannot help it, Arabella. Oh, that I could solve the dreadful doubt. You speak to me of finding consolation and hope from the possibility that this Thornhill might not have been Ingestrie; but I feel, Arabella, that the agony of that constant doubt, and the pangs of never ending thought and speculation upon that subject will drive me mad. I cannot endure themI must be resolved one way or the other. It is suspense that will kill me. I might in the course of time reconcile myself to the fact that poor Mark had gone before me to that world where we shall assuredly meet again; but the doubt as to his fate isis indeed madness!" There was a manner about Johanna, as she pronounced these words, that was quite alarming to Arabella. Perhaps it was this alarm which went a long way towards inducing her, Arabella, to say what she now said to Johanna "Have you forgotten your idea of going disguised to Todd's, Johanna? And have you forgotten what Mr. Ben, your friend from the Tower, told you?" "What? Oh, what, Arabellawhat did he tell me that I should remember?" "Why that Todd had placed a placard in his window, stating that he wanted a boy in his shop. Oh, Johanna, it would be so romantic; and to be sure, I have read of such things. Do you think you would have courage sufficient to dress yourself again in my cousin's clothes, and go to Todd's shop?" "Yes, yesI understand youand apply for the vacant situation." "Yes, Johanna; it might, you know, afford you an opportunity of searching the place, and then, if you found nothing which could assure you of the presence at one time there of Mark Ingestrie, you would come away with a heart more at ease." "I shouldI should. He could but kill me?" "Who? who?" "Sweeney Todd." "Oh, nono, Johanna, your stay would not exceed a few short hours." "Oh, what long hours they would be." "Well, Johanna, I almost dread the counsel I am giving to you. It is fraught probably with a thousand mischiefs and dangers, that neither you nor I have sufficient experience to see; and now that I have said what I have, I beg of you to think no further of it, and from my heart I wish it all unsaid." "No, Arabella, why should you wish it unsaid? It is true that the course you suggest to me is out of the ordinary way, and most romantic, but, then, are not all the circumstances connected with this sad affair far out of the ordinary course?" "Yes, yesand yet" "Arabella, I will do it." "Oh, Johanna, Johannaif any harm should come to you" "Then absolve yourself, Arabella, from all reproach upon the subject. Remember always that I go upon my own responsibility, and against your wishes, feelings, and advice. All that I now ask of you is that you will once more lend me that disguise, and assist me in further making myself look like that I would represent myself, and I shall then, perhaps, ask no more of your friendship in this world." Arabella was horrified. The plan she had proposed had, from her course of romantic reading, such charms for her imagination, that she could not have forborne mentioning it, but, now that in earnest Johanna talked of carrying it out, she became terrified at what might be the consequences. In the open streets she was afraid of making a scene by any further opposition to Johanna, whose feelings, she saw, were in a great state of excitement; but she hoped that she would be able yet to dissuade her from her purpose when she got her home. "Say no more now of it, Johanna, and come home with me, when we will talk it over more at large." "I am resolved," said Johanna. "The very resolution to do something bold and definite has given me already a world of ease. I am different quite in feeling to what I was. I am sure that God is, even now, giving me strength and calmness to do this much for him who would have risked anything for me." To reason with any one impressed with such notions would have been folly indeed, and Arabella forbore doing so at that juncture. She could not but be amazed, however, at the firmness of manner of Johanna now, in comparison with the frantic burst of grief which she had so recently been indulging in. Her step was firm, her lips were compressed, and her countenance, although more than usually pale, was expressive in every feature of highlywrought determination. "She will do it or die," thought Arabella, "and if anything happens to her, I shall wish myself dead likewise." In this state of feelingnot a very amiable onethe two young girls reached the abode of Arabella Wilmot. The strongly marked feeling of composure and determination by no means left Johanna, but, if anything, seemed to be rather upon the increase, while occasionally she would mutter to herself "Yesyes; I will know allI will know the worst." When they were alone in the little chamber of Arabellathat little chamber which had witnessed so many of the mutual confidences of those two young girlsArabella at once began to say something that might provoke a discussion about the propriety of the hazardous expedition to Todd's, but Johanna stopped her by saying as she laid her hands gently upon her arm "Arabella, will you do me two favours?" "A hundred; but" "Nay, hear me out, dear friend, before you say another word. The first of those favours is, that you will not, by word or look, try to dissuade me from my purpose of going in disguise to Todd's. The second is, that you will keep my secret when I do go." "Oh! Johanna! Johanna!" "Promise me." "Yes. I doI do." "I am satisfied. And now, my own dear Arabella, let me tell you that I do not think that there is any such danger as you suppose in the expedition. In the first place, I do not think Todd will easily discover me to be aught else than what I pretend to be, and if I should see that I am in any danger, Fleet Street, with all its living population, is close at hand, and such a cry for aid as I, being, as I am, forearmed by being forewarned, could raise, would soon bring me many defenders." Arabella sobbed. "And then, after all, I only want to stay until, by one absence of Todd's from the house, I shall be able to make a search for some memorial of the visit of Mark Ingestrie there. If I find it not, I return to you at once better satisfied, and with better hopes than I went forth. If I do find it, I will call upon the tardy law for justice." "JohannaJohanna, you are not the same creature that you were!" "I know it. I am changed. I feel that I am." Arabella looked at the sweet childish beauty of the face before her, and her eyes filled with tears again at the thought that something near akin to despair had implanted upon it that look of unnatural calmness and determination it wore. "You doubt me?" said Johanna. "Oh! nono. I feel now that you will do it, and feeling that, I likewise feel that I ought not to drive you to seek assistance from another, in your enterprise. But something must be arranged between us." "In what respect?" "Such as, if I should not hear of you within a certain time, II" "You would feel bound to find me some help. Be it so, Arabella. If I do not come to you or send to you, before the midnight of tomorrow, do what you will, and I shall not think that you have committed any breach of faith." "I am content, Johanna, to abide by those conditions; and now I will say nothing to you to bend you from your purpose, but I will pray to Heaven that you may become successful, not in finding any record of Mark Ingestrie, but in procuring peace to your mind by the utter absence of such record." "I will go now." "Nono, Johanna. Bethink you what pain your unexplained absence would give to your father. Something must be said or done to make him feel at ease during the, perhaps, many hours that you will be absent." "It is well thought of, Arabella. Oh! how selfish we become when overwhelmed by our own strange emotions! I had forgotten that I had a father." It was now agreed between the two young girls that Johanna should go home, and that Arabella Wilmot should call for her, and ask Mr. Oakley's permission for her (Johanna) to come to her upon a visit for two days. It was no very unusual thing for Johanna to pass a night with her friend, so that it was thought such a course now would have the effect of quieting all anxiety on account of the absence of the young girl from her parental home. CHAPTER LX. TODD FINDS A BOY. "Temporary insanity, and a dividend of one shilling upon the razor!" Such was the enlightened verdict of twelve sapient shopkeepers in the Strand upon John Mundellpeace to his manes! He is gone where there are no discountsno usury lawsno unredeemed pledges, and no strings of pearls! Good day to you, John Mundell! "Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Sweeney Todd. "That affair is settled in an uncommonly satisfactory manner. What an odd thing it is, though, that nobody now comes into my shop, but somebody else, upon some shuffling excuse or another, comes in within two minutes afterwards. Now, if I were superstitious, whichII am not" Here Todd looked first over his right shoulder and then over his left, with two perceptible shudders. "If, as I say, I were superstitious whichHilloa! who's this?" "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Todd," said a woman in widow's weeds, as she entered the shop, "but they do say thatthat" "What?" screamed Todd, "what?" "That you are charitable to the poor." "Oh, that's all. II. That's all. Very good. I am charitable to the poor. Veryvery charitable to the poor. What may your business be, madam?" "You don't know me, Mr. Todd, I dare say, but my name is Slick." "SlickSlick? No, madam, I have not the pleasure of knowing you; and may I again ask why I am honoured with the visit?" "Why, sir, I have got up a little humble petition. You see, sir, my husband, Solomon Slick, is a watchmaker, and one day, about a month ago, he went out to go to the city with two chronometers, to take to Brown, Smuggins, Bugsby, and Podd, who employ him, and he was never afterwards heard of, leaving me with six children, and one at the breast. Now, Mr. Brown is a kind sort of man, and spoke to Podd about doing something, but Bugsby and Smuggins, they will have it that my husband ran away with the watches, and that we are only watching the best time to go to him; but my aunt, Mrs. Longfinch, in Bedfordshire, will do something for us if we go there; so I am trying to get up a pound or two to take me and the little ones." Todd made a chuckling noise, like a hen in a farmyard, and looked the picture of compassionate commiseration. "Deardear, what a shocking thing." "It is indeed, sir." "And have you no idea of what has become of him, madam?" "Not in the least, sirnot in the least. But I said to myself'I dare say Mr. Todd will be so good as to assist us in our necessities.'" "Certainly, madamcertainly. Do you know what is the most nourishing thing you can give to your children?" "Alas! sir, the poor things, since their poor father went, have had little choice of one thing or another. It was he who supported them. But what is it, sir?" "Mrs. Lovett's pies." "Ah, sir, they had one apiece, poor things, the very day after poor Solomon Slick disappeared. A compassionate neighbour brought them, and all the while they ate them, they thought of their father that was gone." "Very natural, that," said Todd. "Now, Mrs. Slick, I am but a poor man, but I will give you my advice, and something more substantial. The advice is, that if anybody is moved to compassion, and bestows upon you a few pence for your children, you go and lay it out in pies at Mrs. Lovett's; and as for the more substantial something, take that, and read it at your leisure." Todd, as he spoke, took from a drawer a religious tract, entitled "The Spiritual Quartern Loaf for the Hungry Sinner," and handed it to Mrs. Slick. The poor woman received it with a look of disappointment, and said, with a slight shudder "And is this all you can do, Mr. Todd?" "All!" cried Todd. "All? Good gracious, what more do you want? Recollect, my good woman, that there is another world where the poor will have their reward, provided that in this they are not too annoying to the rich and the comfortable. Go away. Deardear, and this is gratitude. I must go and pray for the hardness of heart and the Egyptian darkness of the common and the lower orders in general, and you in particular, Mrs. Slick." The woman was terrified at the extraordinary faces that Todd made during the delivery of this harangue, and hastily left the shop, having dropped the "Spiritual Quartern Loaf for Hungry Sinners" in the doorway. "Ha! ha!" said Todd when she was gone. "They thought of their father, did they, while they ate Lovett's pies. Ha! ha!" At this moment a man made his appearance in the shop, and looked with a sly twinkle at Sweeney Todd. The latter started, for in that man he imagined no other than an under attendant at the establishment of Mr. Fogg, at Peckham. That this man came with some message from Fogg, he did not for a moment doubt, but what could it possibly be, since he (Todd) fully believed that Tobias Ragg was no more. "Do you know me?" said the man. As a general proposition, Todd did not like to say yes to anything, so he looked dubious, and remarked that he thought it might rain soon, but if he (the man) wanted a clean shave, he (Todd) would soon do for him. "But, really, Mr. Todd, don't you know me?" "I know nobody," said Todd. The man chuckled with a hideous grimace, that seemed habitual to him, for he at times indulged in it, when, to all appearance, no subject whatever of hilarity was on the topic, and then he said "I come from Fogg." "Fogg's, not Fogg?" The man did not at first seem to understand this nice distinction that Todd drew between coming from Fogg's establishment and coming from Fogg himself; but after knitting his brows, and considering a little, he said "OhahI see. No, I don't come from Fogg, confound him, he don't use me well, so I thought I'd come to tell you" The shop door opened, and a stout burlylooking man made his appearance. Todd turned upon him, with a face livid with passion, as he said "Well, sir, what now?" "Eh?" said the stout burly man. "Ain't this a barber's shop?" "To be sure it is; and, once for all, do you want to be shaved, or do you not?" "Why, what else could I come in for?" "I don't know; but you have been here more than oncemore than twicemore than thrice, and yet you have never been shaved yet." "Well, that is a good one." "A good what?" "Mistake, for I have only just come to London today; but I'll wait while you shave this gentleman. I am in no hurry." "No, sir," said Todd; "this gentleman is a private friend of mine, and don't come to be shaved at all." The stout burlylooking man seemed rather confused for a moment, and then he turned to the stranger, and said "Are you really a private friend of Mr. Todd's?" "Very," said the other. "Then I scorn to interrupt any one in their confidential discourse, just because my beard happens to be a day old. No; I trust that time, and old English politeness, will ever prevent me from doing such a thing; so, Mr. Todd, I will look in upon some other occasion, if you please." "Nono," said Todd, "sit down business is business. Pray sit down. You don't know how disappointed I shall feel if I don't polish you off, now that you are here, sir." "Could not think of it," said the other, in whom the reader has, no doubt, recognised one of Sir Richard Blunt's officers. "Could not for a moment think of it. Good day." Before Todd could utter another remonstrance, he was out of the shop, and when he got about twelve paces off, he met Crotchet, who said "Well, what do yer bring it in now?" "I must cut it. Todd is beginning to recollect me, and to think there is something odd going on." Mr. Crotchet gave a slight whistle, and then said "Wery good; but did you leave a hindevidel in the shaving crib, to be done for?" "Yes; but he said he was a private friend of Todd's.
" "Good agin, that will do. He's safe enough, I dare say, and if he isn't, why he ought to be more petikler in adressing of his acquaintances. Do you know where the governor is?" "No. I have not seen him; but will you tell him, Crotchet, why I think it's better for me to be scarce for a day or two?" "To be sure, old fellow. You can go on some other day." "Surelysurely." CHAPTER LXI. TODD RECEIVES SOME STARTLING INTELLIGENCE. It took Todd, master as he was, or used to be, in the art of dissimulation, some few minutes to recover his composure, after the officer had left the shop, and during that time, the gentleman from Fogg's looked at him with the quiet sniggering kind of laugh so peculiar to him. Todd was evidently, day by day, losing that amount of nerve which had at one time formed his principal characteristic. It was getting, in fact, clear to himself that he was not near so well fitted for the business he was carrying on as he had been. Turning to the man from Fogg's, he said, while he put on as bland a smile as he could "Well, my friend, I suppose you have sought me with some motive? Pray speak out, and tell me what it is." The man laughed. "I have had a row with Fogg," he said, "and we parted in anger. I told him I would split upon the den, but he is a deep one, and he only coughed. Fogg, though, somehow don't laugh as he used. However, as well as he could laugh, he did, and, says he, 'Peter, my lad,' says he, 'if you do split upon the old den, I'll get you transported, as safe as you think yourself.'" "Well?" "Well. IIdidn't like that." "Then you are probably," said Todd in a bland manner"you are probably aware that you may be obnoxious to the law." "A few!" said the fellow. "And what followed?" "'Why, Peter,' added Fogg, 'you may leave me if you like, and once a month there will be a couple of guineas here for you. There's the door, so away, I insist;' and it has struck me, that if Fogg gives me a couple of shiners a month to hold my tongue, other gentlemen might do as much, and through one and another, I might pick up a crust and something to moisten it with." The man laughed again. Todd nodded his head, as much as to say"You could not have explained yourself clearer," and then he said "Peter, in your way you have a certain sort of genius. I might just remark, however, that after paying Fogg handsomely for what he has done, it is rather hard that Fogg's castoff officials should come upon Fogg's best customers, and threaten them out of any more." "I know it's hard," said the man. "Then why do you do it?" "Because, to my thinking, it would be a deuced sight harder for me to want anything; and besides, I might get into trouble, and be in the hands of the police, when who knows but that in some soft moment some one might get hold of me, and get it all out of me. Wouldn't that be harder still for all?" "It would." "Ah! Mr. Todd, I always thought you were a man of judgment, that I did." "You do me infinite honour." "Not at all. I say what I think, you may take your oath of that. But when I saw you come about that last boy, I said to myself'Mr. Todd is carrying on some nice game, but what it is I don't know. Howsomdever he is a man with something more than would go into a small teaspoon hereabouts.'" Mr. Peter tapped his forehead with his finger as he spoke, to intimate that he alluded to the intellectual capacity of Todd. "You are very obliging," said Todd. "Not at all. Not at all. How much will you stand, now?" "I suppose, if I say the same as Mr. Fogg, you will be satisfied, Mr. Peter. Times are very bad, you know." Peter laughed again. "No, no! Mr. Todd, times are not very bad, but I do think what you say is very fair, and that if you stand the same as Fogg, I ought not to say one word against it." "How charming it is," said Todd, casting his eyes up to the ceiling, as though communing with himself or some higher intelligence supposed to be in that direction. "How charming it is to feel that you are at any time transacting business with one who is so very obliging and so very reasonable." Somehow Peter winced a little before the look of Todd. The barber had come into his proposal a little too readily. It almost looked as though he saw his way too clearly out of it again. If he had declaimed loudly, and made a great fuss about the matter, Mr. Peter would have been better pleased, but as it was he felt, he scarcely knew why, wonderfully fidgetty. "That boy," he said, "to change the conversation. That boy, used to say some odd things of you, Mr. Todd." "Insanity," said Todd, "is a great calamity." "Oh, very." "And so clouds the faculties, that the poor boy no doubt said things of me, his best friend, that, if he had been restored to reason, he would have heard spoken of with a smile of incredulity." "Ha! ha! By the byeHa! ha!" "Well, sir?" said Todd, who did not in the smallest degree join in the odd laugh of Peter. "Well, sir?" "I was merely going to say. Have you, by any chance, heard anything more of him?" Todd walked close to Peter, and placed his two brawny hands upon his shoulders, as he slowly repeated "Have I by any chance heard anything more of him? What do you mean? Speak out, or by all that's powerful, this is the last moment of your existence. Speak out, I say." "Murder!" "Fool! Be more explicit, and you are safe. Be open and candid with me, and not a hair of your head shall suffer injury. What do you mean by asking me if I have heard anything more of him?" "Don't throttle me." "Speak." "II can't while you hold me so tight. IIcanhardlybreathe." Todd took his hands off him, and crossing his arms over his breast, he said in tones of most unnatural calmness "Now speak." "Well, Mr. ToddIIonly." "You only what?" "Asked you naturally enough, if you had heard anything of the boy Tobias Ragg, you know, since he ran away from Fogg's. That's all." "Since he what?" "Ran away from Fogg's one night." "Then hehe is not dead? The villain Fogg sent word to me that he was dead." "Did he though? Well I never. That was so like Fogg. Only to think now. Lord bless you, Mr. Todd, he made his escape and ran away, and we never heard anything more of him from that time to this. The idea now of Fogg telling you he was dead. Well, I did wonder at your taking the thing so easy, and never coming down to enquire about it." "Not dead? Not dead?" "Not as I know on." "Curses!" "Ah! that will do you good, Mr. Todd. Whenever I am put out, I set to swearing like a good one, and that's the way I come round again. Don't mind me. You swear as long as you like. It was a shame for Fogg not to tell you he had bolted, but I suppose he thought he'd take his chance." "The villain!" "Worser! worser! nor a willain!" said Peter. "Who knows now what mischief may be done, all through that boy. Why, he may be now being gammoned by the police and a parson to tell all he knows. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Todd sunk upon a chairnot the shaving oneand resting his hand upon his head, he uttered a sepulchral groan. Peter shook himself. "You don't seem well, Mr. Todd. I didn't think you was the sort of man to be down on your blessed luck in this sort of way. Cheer up. What's the use of grieving? as the old song says." Todd groaned again. "And if so be as the kid," continued Peter, "did run away, my opinion is as he'd seen enough and felt enough, while he was at Fogg's, to make him as mad as a March hare." There was hope in that suggestion, and Todd looked up. "You really think, then, Mr. Peter, thatthat his intellects" "His what?" "His mind, I mean, has not withstood the shock of what he went through while he was in Fogg's establishment?" "How could it? Once or twice things very nigh infected me, and how should he stand up agin 'em? But arter all, Mr. Fogg, what was it all about? That's what used to bother me. Was there anything in what he said, or wasn't there?" "My good fellow," said Todd, "I have only one question to ask you" "Fire away." "And that is, if you would prefer to have a sum of money down, and not trouble me any more?" "Down!" "Yes, down." "On the nail? Well, its temptatious, I own. Let me see. Thus Fogg's riglar annuity, as a fellow may call it, and a good round sum down from you, Mr. T. I think you said a good round sum down on the nail, didn't you?" "Yesyes. Any sum in reason." "Done, then. I'll do it. Honour bright and shining. Mr. T., when I says a thing, it's said, and no mistake, and if I takes something down, you won't hear no more of me; whatever you may think, Mr. T., I ain't one of them fellows as will spend their tin, and then come asking for morenot I. Oh, dear no! Only give me what's reasonable down, and the thing's settled." "Very good," said Todd, in a voice which was calm and composed. "Just step this way, into the back parlour, and I'll satisfy you. As for troubling me any more, I am, I assure you, as perfectly easy upon that point as it is at all possible to be." CHAPTER LXII. TODD CLEARS OFF CIRCUMSTANCES. The arrangement come to between Todd and his visitor seemed to give equal satisfaction to both, and Mr. Peter, if he had what the phrenologists call an organ of caution at all developed, must have had acquisitiveness so large as completely to overpower its action at the present time. The idea of getting from Todd's fears a sum of money at once, and from Fogg's fears a regular small annuity, was to him a most felicitous combination of circumstances, and his reflections upon the pleasant consequences resulting therefrom had such full possession of him, that his scruples vanished, and as he followed Todd into the back parlour from the shop, he muttered to himself "I'll try and get enough out of him to open a publichouse." Todd heard the wish, and turning quickly with what he intended should be an engaging smile, he said "And why not, Peterand why not? Nothing would give me more sincere gratification than seeing you in a publichouse, for although a man may be a publican, he need not be a sinner, you know." "Eh?" "I say he need not be a sinner; and there would be nothing in the world, Peter, to prevent you from having prayers night and morning, and I am sure I should be most happy to come now and then, if it were only to say 'Amen!'" "Humph!" said Peter. "You are too good, you are. Much too good, really." "Not at all, Peter. Let us be as good as we may, we cannot be too good. Human nature is a strange compound, you know, mixed up of several things opposite to each other, like a lather in a shaving dish." With this sentiment Todd held open the door of the sanctum behind his shop, and by a cautious wave of his hand invited Mr. Peter to enter. That gentleman did so. "Now," said Todd, in quite a confidential tone, "what is your peculiar affection in the" Here Mr. Todd went through the pantomimic action of draining a glass. Peter laughed, and then shaking his head waggishly, he said "What a rum 'un you are! Fogg had his funny ways, but I do think you beat him, that you do. Well, if I must say I have a partiality, it's to brandy. Do you know, I think, between you and me and the post, that a drop of good brandy is rather one of them things that makes human nature what it is." "What a just remark," said Todd. Peter looked as sage as possible. He was getting upon wonderfully good terms with his own sagacitya certain sign that he was losing his ordinary discretion. Todd opened a small cupboard in the wallwhat a number of small cupboards in the wall Todd hadand produced a longnecked bottle and a couple of glasses. He held the bottle up to the dim light, saying "That's the thing, rather." "It looks like it," said Peter. "And it is," said Todd, "what it looks. This bottle and the liquor within it have basked in the sun of a fairer clime than ours, Peter, and the laughing glades of the sweet south have capped it in beauty." Peter looked puzzled. "What a learned man you are, Mr. T.," he said. "You seem to know something of everything, and I dare say the brandy is to the full as good as it looks." This was decidedly a quiet sort of hint to decant some of it without further loss of time, and Todd at once complied. He filled Peter's glass to the brim, and his own more moderately; and as the golden liquor came out with a pleasant bubble from the bottle, Peter's eyes glistened, and he sniffed up the aroma of that pure champaign brandy with the utmost complaisance. "Beautiful! beautiful!" he exclaimed. "Pretty well," said Todd. "Pretty well? It's glorious!" Mr. Peter raised the glass to his lips, and giving a nod to Todd over the rim of it, he said "I looks towards you." Todd nodded, and then, in another moment Peter put down his empty glass. "Out and out!" he gasped. "Out and out! Ah, that is the stuff." Todd tossed off the glass, with the toast of "A long life, and a merry one!" which was duly acknowledged by Peter, who replied "The same to you, Mr. T., and lots of 'em." "It's like milk," said Todd, as he filled Peter's glass again. "It's for all the world like milk, and never can do any one any harm." "Nono. Enough. Therestop." Todd did stop, when the glass was within a hair's breadth of running over, but not before; and then again he helped himself, and when he set the bottle upon the table, he said "A biscuit?" "Not for me. No." "Nay. You will find it pleasant with the brandy. I have one or two here. Rather hard, perhaps, but good." "Well, I will, then. I was afraid you would have to go out for them, that was all, Mr. T., and I wouldn't give you any trouble for the world. I only hope we shall often meet in this quiet comfortable way, Mr. T. I always did respect you, for, as I often said to Fogg, of all the customers that come here, Mr. Todd for me. He takes things in an easy way, and if he is a thundering rogue, he is at all events a clever one." "How kind!" "No offence, I hope, Mr. Todd?" "Offence, my dear fellow? Oh, dear me! How could you think of such a thing? Offence, indeed! You cannot possibly offend me!" "I'm rejoiced to hear you say so, Mr. T., I am really; and this isthis isthevery bestahbrandy that ever Iwhere are you going, Mr. T.?" "Only to get the biscuits. They are in the cupboard behind you; but don't stir, I beg. You are not at all in the way." "Are you sure?" "Quite." Todd stepped easily between Peter's chair and the wall, and opening another of the mysterious small cupboards, he laid his hand upon a hammer, with a long handle, that was upon the shelf. "If this," said Peter, "was the last word I had to say in the world, I would swear to the goodness of the brandy." As he uttered the words he turned his head sharply, and faced Todd. The hammer was upraised, and would, if he had not so turned, have descended with fatal effect upon the top of his head. As it was, Peter had only time to utter one shriek, when down it came upon the lower part of his face. The crush was hideous. The lower jaw fell crushed and mangled, and, with a frightful oath, Todd again raised the hammer but the victim closed with him, and face to face they grappled. The hammer was useless, and Todd cast it from him as he felt that he required all his strength to grapple with the man who, at that moment, fastened on him with the strength of madness. Over chairover the table, to the destruction of all that was on it, they went, coiled up in each other's embracedashing here and there with a vehemence that threatened destruction to them both, and yet not a word spoken. The frightful injury that Peter had received effectually prevented him from articulating, and Todd had nothing to say. Down! down they both come; but Todd is uppermost. Yes; he has got his victim upon the floor, and his knee is upon his chest! He drags him a few inches further towards the fireplaceinches were sufficient, and then grappling him by the throat, he lifts his head and dashes it against the sharp edge of an iron fender! Crash!crash!crash! The man is dead! Crash again! That last crash was only an injury to a corpse! Once more Todd raised the now lax and smashed skull, but he let it go again. It fell with a heavy blow upon the floor! "That will do," said Todd. Sweeney Todd Butchers The Turnkey. Sweeney Todd Butchers The Turnkey. He slowly rose, and left his cravat in the hands of the dead man. He shook himself, and again that awful oath, which cannot be transcribed, came from his lips. Rap! rap! rap! Todd listened. What's that? Somebody in the shop? Yes, it must beor some one wanting to come in, rather, for he had taken the precaution to make the outer door fast. Rap! rap! rap! "I must go," said Todd. "Stop.Let me see." He snatched a glass from the wall, and looked at himself. There was blood upon his face. With his hand, he hastily wiped it off, and then, walking as composedly as he could into the shop, he opened the door. A man stood upon the threshold with quite a smile upon his face, as he said "Busy, I suppose?" "Yes, sir," said Todd. "I was just finishing off a gentleman. Shaved or dressed, sir?" "Shaved, if you please. But don't let me hurry you, by any means. I can wait a little." "Thank you, sir, if you will oblige me for a moment or two. You will find some amusements, sir, from the Evening Courant, I dare say." As he spoke, he handed the then popular newspaper to his customer, and left him. Todd took good care to close the door leading into the parlour, and then proceeding up to the body of the murdered Peter, he, with his foot, turned it over and over, until it was under the table, where it was most completely hidden by a cover that hung down to within an inch of the floor. Before Todd had got this operation well completed, he heard his shop door open. That door creaked most villanously; by so doing, while he was otherwise engaged, he could always hear if it was opened or attempted to be opened. Todd was in the shop in a moment, and saw a respectablelooking personage, dressed in rather clerical costume, who said "You keep powder?" "Certainly, sir." "Then I wish my hair powdered; but do not let me interrupt this gentleman. I can wait." "Perhaps, sir, if you could make it convenient to look in again," said Todd, "you will probably be more amused by looking at the shops, than by waiting here while this gentleman is shaved." "Thank you, you are very kind; but I am rather tired, and glad of the opportunity of having a rest." "Certainly, sir. As you please. The Courant, sir, at your service." "Thank youthank you." The clerical looking old gentleman sat down to read the Courant, while Todd commenced the operation of shaving his first customer. When that operation was half completed, he said "They report, sir, that St. Dunstan's is giving way." "Giving way," said the clerical looking gentleman. "How do you mean about giving way?" "Why, sir," said Todd, with an air quite of reverential respect, "they say that the old church has a leaning towards Temple Bar, and that, if you stand at the opposite side of the way, you may just see it. I can't, but they do say so." "Bless me," said the clerical looking gentleman. "That is a very sad thing indeed, and nobody can be more sorry than I am to hear such a tale of the old church." "Well sir, it may not be true." "I hope not, indeed. Nothing would give me greater pain than to be assured it was true. The stench in the body of the church that so much has been said about in the parish is nothing to what you say, for who ought to put his nose into competition with his eternal welfare?" "Who, indeed, sir! What is your opinion of that alarming stench in old St. Dunstan's?" "I am quite at a loss to make it out." "And so am I, sirso am I. But begging your pardon, sir, if I am not making too free, I thought as you were probably a clergyman, sir, you might have heard something more about it than we common folks." "Nono. Not a word. But what you say of the church having a leaning to Temple Bar is grievous." "Well, sir, if you were to go and look, you might find out that it was no such thing, and by the time you return I shall have completely finished off this gentleman." "Nono. I make no sort of doubt in the world but that you would by that time have finished off the gentleman, but as for my going to look at the old church with any idea that it had a leaning to anything but itself, I can only say that my feelings as a man and a member of the glorious establishment will not permit me." "But, my dear sir, you might satisfy yourself that such was really not the case." "Nono. Imagination would make me think that the church had a leaning in all sorts of directions, until at last fancy might cheat me into a belief that it actually tottered." The clericallooking gentleman pronounced these words with so much feeling, that the person who was being shaved nearly got cut by twisting his head round in order to see him. "True, sir," said Todd. "Very truevery true indeed, and very just; imagination does indeed play strange freaks with us at times, I well know." The horrible face that Todd made as he spoke ought to have opened the eyes of any one to the fact that he was saying anything but what he thought, but no one saw it. When he pleased, Todd generally took care to keep his faces to himself. "I don't wonder, Rev. sir," he said, "that your feelings prompt you to say what you do. I'm afraid I have taken off a little too much whisker, sir." "Oh, never mind. It will grow again," said the person who was being shaved. Todd suddenly struck his own head with the flat of his hand, as a man will do to whose mind some sudden thought has made itself apparent, and in a voice of doubt and some alarm, he pronounced the one word "Powder!" "What's the matter? You are a long time shaving me." "Powder!" said Todd again. "Gunpowder," said the threequarter shaved man, while the clericallooking personage entirely hid his face, with the Courant. "No," said Todd. "Hair powder. I told this gentleman, whose feelings regarding the church do him so much honour, that I had hair powder in the house, and it has just come over me like a wet blanket that I have not a particle." The clericallooking gentleman quickly laid down the Courant, and said wildly "Are you sure you have none?" "Quite sure, sir." "Then I won't occupy your shop and read your Courant for nothing, and as I am here I will have a shave." "That's very kind of you, sir," said Todd. "Very kind." "Not at all," said the gentleman, taking up the paper again with all the coolness in the world. "Not at all. Don't mention it, I always like to carry out the moral maxim ofDo unto others as you would that others should do unto you." "How charming!" exclaimed Todd, lifting up his hands, in one of which was the razor. "How charming it is in this indifferent and selfish age to meet with any one who is so charitable as to do more than merely speak of such a sentiment as a curiosity in morals." "You are above your condition as regards education," said the clericallooking gentleman. "Why, to tell the truth, sir" "Psha!" said he who was being or rather not being shaved"psha! And all this while the very soap is drying upon my face." "A thousand pardons," said Todd. "Many apologies," said the clerical gentleman, hastily resuming the perusal of the Courant. "Sir," added Todd, as he finished the shaving and whipped off the cloth from the patient. "Sir, I should have finished you five minutes ago, so that I am sure no one would have heard the slightest complaint from you, but for the truly engaging conversation of this gentleman here, whom I shall have great pleasure now in polishing off." "Oh, don't name it," said the shaved customer, laying down a penny. "Don't name it, I said I was in no hurry, so I can hardly blame you for taking your time." He went through the usual operation of a partial sloush of cold water from a pewter basin, and then dried himself upon a jack towel, and left the shop. "Now, sir," said Todd. The clericallooking gentleman waved his hand as though he would have said "For goodness sake don't interrupt me until I have finished this paragraph." Todd fixed his eyes upon him, and began slowly stropping the razor he had been recently using. "Now, sir, if you please." "One momentonemoment, I shall get through the deaths in an instant." Todd continued stropping the razor, when suddenly the Courant dropped from the hands of the clericallooking gentleman, and he uttered a groan that made Todd start. "HopkinsHopkinsGabriel Hopkins!" "Sir." "Hopkins! my friendmy councillormy fellow studentmy companionmy Mentormymy Hopkins." The clericallooking gentleman shut up his face in his hands, and rocked to and fro in an agony of grief. "Good God, sir," cried Todd, advancing. "What is the meaning of this?" "In that paper you will find the death of Hopkins inserted, sir. Yes, in the obituary of that paper. Gabriel Hopkinsthe truethe gentlethe affectionatethe christianHopkins!" "How sorry I am, sir," said Todd. "But, pray sit in this chair, sir, a shave will compose your feelings." "A shave! You barbarian. Do you think I could think of being shaved within two minutes of hearing of the death of the oldest and best friend I ever had in the world. Nono. Oh, HopkinsHopkins!" The Rev. gentleman in a paroxysm of grief rushed from the house, and Todd himself sunk upon the shaving chair. "It is, it must be so," cried Todd, as his face became livid with rage and apprehension. "There is more in these coincidences than mere chance will suffice to account for. Why is it that, if I have a customer here, some one else will be sure to come in, and then after waiting until he is gone himself, leave upon some frivolous excuse? Do I stand upon a mine? Am I suspected?am I watched? oror more terrible, ten times more terrible question still, amam I at length, with all my care, discovered?" CHAPTER LXIII. JOHANNA STARTS FOR TODD'S. We will leave Todd to the indulgence of some of the most uncomfortable reflections that ever passed through his mind, while we once again seek the sweet companionship of the fair Johanna, and her dear romantic friend, Arabella Wilmot. The project which these two young and inexperienced girls were bent upon, was one that might well appal the stoutest heart that ever beat in human bosom. It was one which, with a more enlarged experience of the world, they would not for one moment have entertained, but by long thought and much grief upon the subject of her hopeless love, Johanna had much observed that clearness of perception that otherwise would have saved her from what to all appearance is a piece of extravagance. As for Arabella, she had originally conceived the idea from her love for the romantic, and it was only when it came near to the execution of it that she started at the possible and indeed highly probable danger of the loss to one whom she loved so sincerely as she loved Johanna. But all that has passed away. The remonstrances have been made, and made in vain; Arabella is silenced, and nothing remains but to detail to the reader the steps by which the courageous girl sought to carry out a plan so fraught with a thousand dangers. Both Arabella and Johanna sought the abode of the latter's father, for the first step in the affair was to say something there which was to account seemingly satisfactorily for any lengthened stay of Johanna from home. This was by no manner of means a task of any difficulty, for in addition to the old spectacle maker being innocence itself as regarded the secreting anything in the shape of a plot, Arabella Wilmot was the very last person in all the world he would have thought capable of joining in one. As for Mrs. Oakley, she was by far too intent, as she said herself frequently, upon things which are eternal, to trouble herself much about terrestrial affairs, always except they came to her in the shape of something enticing to the appetites. What a state of things, that a mother should forget the trust that is placed in her when she is given a child, and fancy she is really propitiating the Almighty by neglecting a stewardship which He has imposed upon her! But so it is. There are, we fear, in different ways, a great many Mrs. Oakleys in the world. "Ah, my dear Miss Wilmot," said the old spectaclemaker to Arabella, when he saw her. "How glad I am to see you. How fresh you look." Arabella's face was flushed with excitement, and some shame that the errand she came upon was to deceive. She had not heard yet of the spurious philosophy that the end sanctifies the means. "I have come tototo" "Yes, my dear. To stay awhile, and let us look at your pretty face. Come, my dear Johanna, your mother is out. What can you get for your friend, Miss Wilmot? Here, my dear, take this halfcrown and get some sweetmeats, and I will open for you a bottle of the old Malaga wine." Johanna's Farewell Of Her Father Prior To Her Encounter With Todd. Johanna's Farewell Of Her Father Prior To Her Encounter With Todd. Johanna's eyes filled with tears, and she was compelled to turn aside to conceal those telltale traces of emotion from her father. Arabella saw that if anything was to be said or done in furtherance of the affair upon which Johanna had now set her heart, she must do it or say it. Summoning all her courage, she said "My dear sir" "Sir?sir? Bless me, my child, when did you begin to call your old kind friend sir?" "My dear Mr. Oakley" "Ah, that's nearer the old way. Well, my dear Arabella, what would you say to me?" "Will you trust Johanna with me tonight, and perhaps tomorrow night?" "I don't think Johanna can come to much harm with you, my dear," said Mr. Oakley. "You are older than she a little, and at your age a little goes a long way, so take her, Arabella, and bring her back to me when you like." With what a shrill of agony did Arabella hear Johanna thus committed to her care. She was compelled to grasp the back of the old spectaclemaker's chair for support. "Yes, yes, sir," she said. "Oh, yes, Mr. Oakley." "Well, my dears, go, and God bless you both." To both Arabella and Johanna's perception there was something ominous about this blessing, at such a time, and yet it had really about it nothing at all unusual, for Mr. Oakley was very much in the habit of saying to them "God bless you," when they left him; but feeling, as they did, the hazard that she (Johanna) might encounter before again she heard that voice say "God bless you," if, indeed, she ever again heard it, no wonder the words sank deep into their hearts, and called up the most painful emotions. Johanna certainly could not speak. Arabella tried to laugh, to hide an emotion that would not be hidden, and only succeeded in producing an hysterical sound, that surprised Mr. Oakley. "What's the matter, my dear?" he said. "Oh, nothingnothing, dear Mr. Oakley, nothing." "Well, I'm glad to hear it. Perhaps I only fancy it; but you both seemseem" "What do we seem, father?" said Johanna, looking very pale, and speaking with a great effort. "Not quite as usual, my darling." "Thatthat," gasped Johanna, "can only bebe fancy." "Of course not," said Oakley. "Fancy, I think I said it was, or if I did not, I meant to say so, my love." "Come," said Arabella. "Yesyes. Fatherfather. Good day." She kissed his cheek; and then, before the old man could say another word, she rushed to the door. "Farewell!" said Arabella. "Good day, Mr. Oakley. II thank you, sir. Good day, sir." "Dear, dear," said the old man, "what is the matter with the girls? How odd they both seem today. What can be the cause of it? I never before saw them so strange in their manner. Ah! I have it. My wife has met them, I dare say, and has said some unkind things to them about hats or ribbons, or some harmless little piece of girlish pride. Wellwell. All that will pass away. I'm glad I hit upon it, for" At this moment old Oakley was astounded by the sudden entrance of Johanna, who, clasping him in her arms, cried in a voice, half choked with tears "Good bye, fathergood bye.
God help me!" Without, then, waiting for a word from the spectaclemaker, she again rushed from the shop, and joining Arabella a few doors off, they both hurried to the house of the latter. Old Oakley tottered back until he came to a seat, upon which he sank, with an air of abstraction and confusion, that threatened to last him for some time; and in that, for the present, we must leave him, while we look narrowly at the conduct of the two young creatures, who have, in the pride of their virtue and their nobleness of purpose, presumed to set up their innocence against the deep craft of such a man as Sweeney Todd. Well might Johanna say "God help me!" "It is done!" said Johanna, as she clutched her friend by the arm. "It is done now. The worst is over." "Oh, JohannaJohanna" "Well, Arabella, why do you pause? What would you say?" "I scarcely know, and yet I feel that it ought to be something that I have promised you. I would not say." "Let your lips be sealed, then, dear friend; and be assured that now nothing but the visible interposition of God shall turn me from my purpose. I am calm and resolved." These words, few as they were, were too significant, and spoken with too evident sincerity to permit a doubt of their deep intensity and truth, and from that moment Arabella Wilmot looked upon the scheme of Johanna going in disguise to Todd's as quite settled so far as regarded the attempt. It was the result now only that had to be looked to. "I will say no more, Johanna, except as regards detail. In that I may offer you advice." "Oh, yesyes, Arabella. Thankfully received advice, as well you know. What is it you would say?" "That you ought to wait until the morning." "And so perhaps lose precious hours. Oh, nono. Do not ask me now to submit to any delays, Arabella." "But if there be reason, Johanna?" "Well, the reason, thenthe reason?" "I think that, if possible, it would be well to avoid the necessity of remaining a night at Todd's; and so if you go in the morning, you see, Johanna, you may have an opportunity before nightfall of making all the discoveries you wish, or of satisfying yourself that they are not to be made at all." "It might be so, and yetyet I almost think night will be the best time of all." "But by waiting until tomorrow morning, Johanna, you will have both day and night." "Yes, yes. I wish I knew what would be the best, Arabella. My feelings are wound up to this enterprise, and I am altogether in such a frightful state of excitement concerning it, thatthat I know not how I should be able to support myself under the delay of the remainder of today and the whole of the ensuing night." "In the night you will have repose, and tomorrow morning, with much more calmness and effect, you will be able to start upon your errand. Believe me, Johanna, I don't counsel this delay with any hope, or wish, or expectation, that it will turn you from your purpose, but simply because I think it will the better ensure its successful termination." "Successful! What will you call successful, Arabella?" "Your coming back to me uninjured, Johanna." "Ah, that speaks your love for me, while II love him for whose sake I am about to undergo so much, sufficiently to feel that were I sure he was no more, my own death at the hands of Sweeney Todd would be success." "JohannaJohanna, don't speak in such a strain. Have you no thought for me? have you no thought for your poor father, to whom, as you well know, you are the dearest tie that he has in the world? Oh, Johanna, do not be so selfish." "Selfish?" "Yes, it is selfish, when you know what others must suffer because they love you, to speak as though it were a thing to be desired that you should die by violence." "Arabella, can you forgive me? can you make sufficient allowances for this poor distracted heart, to forgive its ravings?" "I canI do, Johanna, and in the words of your father, I am ever ready to say 'God bless you!' You will not go till tomorrow?" After the pause of a few moments, Johanna said faintly "I will notI will not." "Oh that is much. Then at least for another night we shall enjoy our old sweet companionship." They by this time had reached the home of Arabella, and as it was an understood thing that Johanna was not expected home, the two young girls retired to converse in unrestrained freedom upon all their hopes and fears. CHAPTER LXIV. TODD COMMENCES PACKING UP. "Yes," said Todd, as he suddenly with a spring rose from the shavingchair, upon which we left him enjoying reflections of no very pleasant character. "Yes, the game is up." He stood for a few moments now in silence, confronting a small piece of looking glass that hung upon the wall exactly opposite to him, and it would appear that he was struck very much by the appearance of his own face, for he suddenly said "How old and worn I look." No one could have looked upon the countenance of Todd for one moment without fully concurring in this opinion. In truth, he did look old and worn. But a comparatively short time has elapsed since we first presented him to the readers of this most veracious narrative. Then he was a man whose hideous ugliness was combined with such a look of cool triumphant villany, that one did not know which most to ponder upon. Now his face had lost its colour; a yellowish whiteness was the predominating tint, and his cheeks had fallen. There was a wild and an earnest restlessness about his eyes that made him look very much like some famished wolf, with a touch of hydrophobia to set him off; and certainly, take him for all in all, one would not be over anxious "To see his like again!" "Old and worn," he repeated, "and the game is up; I am decided. Off and away! is my gameoff and away!I have enough to be a prince anywhere where money is worshipped, and that of course must be the case in all civilised and religious communities. I must keep in some such. In the more savage wilds of nature man is prized for what he is, but, thank God, in highly cultivated and educated states he is only prized for what he has been. Ha! ha! If mankind had worshipped virtue, I would have been virtuous, for I love power." A thought seemed suddenly to strike Todd; and he went into the parlour muttering to himself "My friend Peter must be effectually disposed of." He raised the cover which was upon the table, and with a grunt of satisfaction, added "Gone!that will do." There was no trace of the body that he had kicked under the table. By some strange mysterious agency it had entirely disappeared, and then Todd went somehow to the back of the house and got a wet mop, by the aid of which he got rid of some stains of blood upon the floor and the fender. "All's right," he said, "I have done some service to Fogg, and I will, when I am far enough off for any sting not to recoil upon myself, take good care that the law pays him a visit. The villain as well as the fool, to deceive me regarding the boy Tobias. What can have become of him?" This was a question that gave Todd some uneasiness, but at length he came to the conclusion that the dreadful treatment he, Tobias, had received at the asylum had really driven him mad, and that in all human probability he had fallen or cast himself into the river, or gone into some field to die. "Were it otherwise," he said, "I should and must have heard something of him before now." Todd then fairly began packing up. From beneath several tables in the room he dragged out large trunks, and opening then some of the drawers and cupboards that abounded in his parlour, he began placing their valuable contents in the boxes. "My course is simple enough," he said"very simple; I must and will, by violencefor she is by far too wily and artful to allow me to do so by any other meansget rid of Mrs. Lovett. Then I must and will possess myself of all that she calls her share of the proceeds of business. Then, at nightthe dead hour of the nightafter having previously sent all my boxes full of such valuables as from their likelihood to be identified I dare not attempt to dispose of in England, to Hamburgh, I will set the whole house in a flame." The idea of burning down his house, and if possible involving a great portion of Fleet Street in the conflagration, always seemed to be delightful enough to Todd to raise his spirits a little. "Yes," he added, with a demoniac grin. "There is no knowing what amount of mischief I may do to society at large upon that one night, besides destroying amid the roar of the flames a mass of accumulated evidence against myself that would brand my memory with horrors, and, for aught I know, cause a European search after me." As he spoke, watchesringsshoe bucklesbroochessilver heads of walking canessnuff boxes, and various articles of bijouterie were placed row upon row in the box he was packing. "Yes," he added, "I knowI feel that there is danger; I know now that I have spies upon methat I am watched; but it is from that very circumstance that I ground my belief that as yet I am safe. They fancy there is something to find out, and they are trying to find it out. If they really knew anything, of course it would beTodd, you are wanted." Having placed in one of the boxes as many articles of gold and silver as made up a considerable weight, Todd lifted it at one end, and feeling satisfied that if he were to place any more metal in the box it would be too heavy for carriage, he opened a cupboard which was full of hats, and filled up the box with them. By this means he filled up the box, so that the really valuable articles within it would not shake about, and then he securely locked it. "One," he said. "Some halfdozen of such will be sufficient to carry all that I shall think worth the taking. As for my money, that will be safest about me. Ah, I will outwit them yet, I will be off and awayonly just in time. Suspicion will take a long time to ripen into certainty, and before it does, the flaming embers of this house will be making the night sky as fair and magnificent as the most golden sunset of summer." Another box was now opened, and in that, as it was of considerable length, he began to pack swords of a valuable character. He went to the rooms above stairs, which, as the reader is already aware, contained much valuable property, and brought down troops of things, which with complacent looks he carefully placed in the chest. Ever and anon, as he went through this process, he kept muttering to himself his hopes and fears. "What is to hinder me, in some principality of Germany, from purchasing a title which shall smother all remembrance of what I now am, and as the Baron Something, I shall commence a new life, for I am not old; nono, I am not oldfar from old, although late anxieties have made me look so. I am not so nervous and fearful of slight things as I was, although my imagination has played me some tricks of late." Some slight noise, that sounded as if in the house, although it was in all probability in the next one, came upon his ears, and with a howl of terror he shrunk down by the side of the box he had been packing. Todd Alarmed At Strange Sounds Whilst Packing His Plunder. Todd Alarmed At Strange Sounds Whilst Packing His Plunder. "Help! mercy! What is that?" The noise was not repeated, but for the space of about ten minutes or so, Todd was perfectly incapable of moving except a violent attack of trembling, which kept every limb in motion, and terribly distorted his countenance, if it might be called so. "Whatwhat was it?" he at length gasped. "I thought I heard something, nay, I am sure I heard somethinga slight noise, but yet slight noises are to me awfully suggestive of something that may follow. Am I really getting superstitious now?" He slowly rose and looked fearfully round him. All was still. True, he had heard a voice, but that was all. No consequences had resulted from it, and the fit of trembling that had seized him was passing away. He went to the cupboard where he kept that strong stimulant that had so much excited the admiration of Peter. He did not go through the ceremony of procuring a glass, but placing the neck of the bottle to his throat, he took a draught of the contents which would have been amply sufficient to confound the faculties of any ordinary person. Upon Todd, however, it had only a sort of sedative effect, and he gradually recovered his former diabolical coolness. "It was nothing," he said. "It was nothing. My fears and my imaginations are beginning now to play the fool with me. If there were none others, such would be sufficient warnings to me to be off and away." He continued the packing of the box which had been temporarily suspended, but ever and anon he would pause, and lifting up one of his huge hands, placed it at his ear to listen more acutely, and when nothing in the shape of alarm reached him he would say with a tone of greater calmness and contentment "All is stillall is still. I shall be off and away soonoff and away!" The dusky twilight had crept on while Todd was thus engaged, and he was thinking of going out, when he heard the creaking noise of his shop door opening. As he was but in the parlour, he made his way to the shop at once, and saw a young man, who spoke with an affected lisp, as he said "Mr. Todd, can you give my locks a little twirl? I'm going to a party tonight, and want to look fascinating." "Allow me," said Todd, as he rapidly passed him and bolted the door. "I am annoyed by a drunken man, so, while I am dressing your hair, I wish to shut him out, or else I might scorch you with the tongs." "Oh, certainly. If there's anything, do you know, Mr. Todd, that I really dislike more than another, it's a drunken man." "There's only one thing in society," said Todd, "can come near it.Sit here, sir." "What's that?" "Why, a drunken woman, sir." "Werry goodWerry good." Some one made an effort to enter the shop, but the bolt which Todd had shot into its place effectually resisted anything short of violence sufficient to break the door completely down. "Mr. ToddMr. Todd," cried a voice. "In a moment, sir," said Todd. "In a moment." He darted into the parlour. There was a loud bang in the shop as though something had fallen, and then a halfstifled shriek. Todd reappeared. The shaving chair in which the young man had been sitting was empty. Todd took up his hat, and threw it into the parlour. He then unbolted the door, and admitted a man who glanced around him, and then, without a word, backed out again, looking rather pale. Todd did not hear him mutter to himself, as he reached the street "Sir Richard will be frantic at this. I must post off to him at once, and let him know that it was none of our faults. What an awkward affair to be sure." CHAPTER LXV. A MOONLIGHT VISIT TO ST. DUNSTAN'S VAULTS. For the remainder of that day Todd was scarcely visible, so we will leave him to his occupation, which was that of packing up valuables, while we take a peep at a very solemn hour indeed at old St. Dunstan's Church. The two figures on the outside of the ancient edifice had struck with their clubs the sonorous metal, and the hour of two had been proclaimed to such of the inhabitants of the vicinity who had the misfortune to be awake to hear it. The watchman at the gate of the Temple woke up and said "past six," while another watchman, who was snugly ensconced in a box at the corner of Chancery Lane, answered that it was "four o'clock and a rainy morning." Now it was neither four o'clock nor a rainy morningfor the sky, although by no means entirely destitute of clouds, was of that speckled clearness which allows the little stars to pass out at all sorts of odd crevices, like young beauties through the jalousies of some Spanish Castle. The moon, too, had, considering all things, a pretty good time of it, for the clouds were not dense enough to hide her face, and when behind them, she only looked like some young bride, with the faint covering of bashful blonde before her radiant countenance. And at times, too, she would peep out at some break in that veil with such a blaze of silvery beauty as was dazzling to behold, and quite stopped the few passengers who were in the streets at that lone hour. "Look," said one of four gentlemen, who were walking towards Temple Bar from the Strand. "Look! Is not that lovely?" "Yes," said another. "A million fires are out in London now, and one can see the blue sky as it was seen when" "Wild in the woods the painted savage ran." "But, after all," said another, "I prefer good broad cloth to red ochre. What say you, Sir Richard?" "I am of your lordship's opinion," said Sir Richard Blunt, who was one of the party of four "I certainly think we have gained something by not being Ancient Britons any longer than was absolutely necessary. This is, in truth, a most splendid night." "It isit is," they all said. By this time, strolling along in an independent sort of fashion, they had reached Temple Bar, and then Sir Richard, bowing to the one who had not yet made any sort of remark, said "Mr. Villimay, you have not forgotten the keys?" "Oh no, Sir Richard; oh no." "Then, gentlemen, we are very near our place of destination. It will be advisable that we look about us, and use the utmost precaution, to be sure that we are not watched by any one." "Yesyes," said the other. "You will be the best judge of that Sir Richard; with your tact, you will be able to come to a conclusion upon that subject much better than we can." Sir Richard Blunt made a slight kind of bow in acknowledgment of the compliment to his tact, and then, while what we may call the main body waited under the arch of Temple Bar, he advanced alone into Fleet Street. After advancing for a short distance, he took from his pocket a small silver whistle, and produced upon it a peculiar thrilling note. In a moment a tall man, with a great coat on him, merged from behind a column that lent its support to a doorway. "Here you is," said the man. "Is all right, Crotchet?" said Sir Richard. "Yes; everything is quiet enough. Not a blessed mouse hasn't wagged his tail or smoothened his whiskers for the last half hour or so." "Very good, Crotchet. I'm afraid, though, I cannot dismiss you just yet, as the business is very important." "What's the odds," said Crotchet, "as long as you are happy?" Sir Richard Blunt smiled, as he added "Well, Crotchet, you deserve, and you shall have an ample reward for the services you are doing and have done, in this affair. I and some gentlemen will go into the church, and I wish you to remain at the porch, and if you find occasion to give any warning, I think your whistle will be quite shrill enough to reach my ears." "Not a doubt on it, Sir Richard. If what they calls the last trumpet is only half as loud as my last whistle, it will wake up the coves, and no mistake." "Very good, Crotchet. Only don't make any profane allusions in the hearing of the gentlemen with me, for one of them is the Under Secretary of State, and the other two are men of account. We have to meet some one else in the church." "Then he hasn't come." "That's awkward. The Lord Mayor was to meet us. Ah! who is this?" A private carriage stopped on the other side of the way, and some one alighted, and a voice cried "Go home now, Samuel, and put up the horses. I shall not want you any more tonight. Go home." "Shan't we call anywhere for you, my lord?" said Samuel, the coachman. "Nono, I say. Go away at once." "That's the Lord Mayor," said Sir Richard. "He is pretty true to his time." As he spoke, Sir Richard crossed the road, and addressed the chief magistrate of the city, saying "A fine night, my lord." "Oh, Sir Richard, is that you? Well, I am very glad to meet with you so soon. If I were to tell you the difficulty I have had to get here, you would not believe me. Indeed you could not." "Really, my lord." "Yes. You must know, Sir Richard, between you and I, andand"Here the Lord Mayor, who did not like to say post, looked about him, and his eyes falling upon Temple Bar, added"Bar, I say; between you and me and the Bar, the Lady Mayoress, although a most excellent womanindeed I may say an admirable womanhas at times her little faults of temper. You understand?" "Who is without?" said Sir Richard. "Ah, who indeedwho indeed, Sir Richard. That is a very sensible remark of yours. Who is without? as you justly enough say." "The Lord Mayor!" said Sir Richard, who had been gradually leading his lordship to Temple Bar, and now announced his arrival to the three gentlemen who were there in waiting. The three gentlemen professed themselves to be quite delighted to see the Lord Mayor, and the Lord Mayor professed to be quite in raptures to see the three gentlemen, so that a pleasanter party than they all made, could not have been imagined. "Now," said Sir Richard Blunt, "I think, with all deference, gentlemen, that the sooner we proceed to business the better." "Yes, yes," said Mr. Villimay, who was the senior churchwarden. "Oh, yescertainly." "And yet," said the Lord Mayor, "we must be very cautious." "Oh, veryvery cautious," cried Villimay. "But a bold front is the best," remarked Sir Richard. "Yes. As you say, sir, there's nothing like a bold front," cried Villimay. Sir Richard, with a quiet smile, said to the under secretary "A very obliging person, you perceive, Mr. Villimay is." "Oh, very," laughed the secretary. Preceded now by the churchwarden, they all made their way towards the church, but the watchman at the corner of Chancery Lane must have had something upon his mind, he was so very wakeful, for after they had all passed but Crotchet, he looked out of his box, and said"Thieves!" "What's that to you?" said Crotchet, facing him with a look of defiance, "eh? Can't you be quiet when you is told?" "Murder!" said the watchman, as he began to fumble for his rattle. "Hark ye, old pump," said Crotchet. "I've settled eight watchmen atween this here and Charing Cross, and you'll make nine, if you opens your mouth again." The appalled watchman shrank back into his box. "Eight, did you say?" "Yes." Crotchet took the lantern off its hook in front of the box, and smashed it upon the head of the guardian of the night, whereupon the aforesaid guardian shrank completely down to the bottom of the box, with the fragments of the lantern hanging about him, and said not another word. "I rather think," said Mr. Crotchet to himself, "as I've settled that old fellow comfortable." With this conviction upon his mindthe amiability or the nonamiability of which we shall not stop to discussMr. Crotchet ran hastily after the rest of the party, and stationed himself by the church porch, according to orders. By this time, Mr. Villimay, the churchwarden, had produced a little gothiclooking key, and proceeding to a small side door, he, after some rattling, partly consequent upon the lock being in a state of desuetude, and partly from personal nervousness, he did succeed in turning the rusty wards, and then, with an ominous groan, the door yielded. Sir Richard Blunt had quite satisfied himself that there were no eavesdroppers at hand, so he was anxious to get the party housedperhaps in this instance churched would be a more appropriate expression. "Gentlemen," he said, "the night is stealing past, and we have much to do." "That is true, Sir Richard," said the secretary. "Come on, Donkin, and let us get through it." The Lord Mayor shook a little as he passed through the little door, last, having, although king of the city, given the pas to every one of his companions, upon that most mysterious mission to old St. Dunstan's church at such an hour. Perhaps he had a faint hope that they might leave him entirely behind, and shut the door precipitately, so that he could not get in. If he had any such hope, however, it was doomed, like too many human hopes, to bitter disappointment, for Sir Richard Blunt held the door open for him, saying blandly "Now, my lord. We could not get on without you." "Oh, thank youthank you. You are very good." The Lord Mayor crossed the threshold, and then Mr. Villimay, who had occupied a remote and mysterious position at the back of the door, closed it, and locked it on the inside. "Ifif you were to lose the key, Mr. Villimay?" said the Lord Mayor. "Why, then," interposed Sir Richard Blunt, "I'm afraid we should have to stay there until Sunday, unless some couple kindly got married in the meantime." The Lord Mayor gave a very odd kind of cough, as he said "What would the Lady Mayoress say?" The air without had been cold, but what was that compared with the coldness within? At least, the street breeze had been dry, but in the church there was such a fearful dampness pervading the narrow passage in which the party found itself, that every one felt as though his very marrow was cold. "This passage," said Mr. Villimay, "hasn't been opened for many a long day." "Indeed!" said the secretary. "No, my lord, it has not and it's only a wonder that, after a good hunt in the vestry cupboard, I at all found the key of it." "Fortunate that you did," said Sir Richard Blunt, who was all this time making exertions to procure a light, which were as often defeated by the dampness of the air. At length he was successful in igniting a piece of wax candle, and he said "Gentlemen, this will show us our way through the church to the vestry, where we can get lanthorns." "Yes," said the Lord Mayor, who was getting so nervous that he thought himself called upon to make some reply to anything and anybody. "Yes, lanthorns in the vestry." "Well," said the secretary, "my Lord Mayor, your mayoralty will be distinguished by this dreadful affair for all time to come." "Many thanks to your lordship, it will." The secretary smiled as he whispered to his friend Donkin "The city magistrate don't seem happy, Donkin." "Far from it." At the end of the little narrow, damp, gloomy, cobwebby passage in which they were, was another little door, the upper half of which was of highly ornamented iron fret work, the side of which next to the church interior being gilt. This door likewise yielded to a key which Mr. Villimay produced, and then they found themselves at once in the western aisle of the church. "The stench don't seem so bad," said Sir Richard. "No, sir," said Villimay. "We have got all the windows open far up above there, and there's quite a current of air, too, right up the belfry." CHAPTER LXVI. THE COOK'S VISITORS. Sir Richard shaded with his hand the little light that he carried as he walked solemnly across the nave towards the chancel, where the vestry room was situated. He was followed closely by the whole party, and the audible breathing of the Lord Mayor sufficiently proclaimed the uneasy state of his lordship's nerves. "How strange it is," said the secretary, "that men will pile up stones and timber until they make something to enter, which then terrifies their weak natures, and they become the slaves of the very materials that they have made to enclose and roof in a certain space upon which otherwise they would stand unmoved." "It is so," said Donkin. "Why the fact is, I suppose," said Sir Richard Blunt, "that it is what is called original sin that sticks to us, and so 'Conscience doth make cowards of us all!' whether we are personally or not obnoxious to the pangs of the still small voice." "Upon my word, Sir Richard," said the secretary, "you are quite a freethinkerindeed you are." Suddenly the whole party paused, for something resembling a moan was heard from among the pews in the centre of the church, and every one was anxious to listen for a repetition of the sound. "Did you hear it?" whispered the secretary. "In faith, I did," said Mr. Donkin. "And I," said Sir Richard Blunt. "And we," said the Lord Mayor, in defiance of grammar. "IIfeel rather unwell, gentlemen, do you know." "Hush! let us listen," said the secretary. They all stood profoundly still for a few minutes, and then, just as they were one and all beginning to think that after all it must be a mere thing of fancy, the same mournful moan came once more upon their ears. "There can be no mistake," said Sir Richard. "We all hear that; is it not so, gentlemen?" "Yesyes!" said everybody. "I'm getting worser," said the Lord Mayor. "This mystery must be cleared up," said the secretary. "Is it a trick upon us, do you think, Sir Richard?" "No, my lord, certainly not." "Then we cannot go on until this is cleared up. You are armed, of course, Sir Richard?" "Yes, my lord." Sir Richard Blunt took from his pocket a doublebarrelled pistol. There was now a sort of pause, as though each of those present expected the others to say or to do something which should have the effect of discovering what the singular noise portended. Of course, Sir Richard Blunt felt that in such an emergency he would be the man naturally looked to. "It is absolutely necessary," he said, "that we should find out what this means before proceeding farther." "Yes, yes," said the Lord Mayor, "no doubt of it; and in the meantime I'll run to the Mansion House and get some assistance, gentlemen." "Oh, no, my lordoh, no," said the secretary to the chief magistrate of the city. "We cannot think of sparing you." "Butbut" "Certainly not," said Sir Richard Blunt, who was keenly alive to the tone of irony in which the secretary spoke. "Certainly not; and as I fancy the sound which has excited our curiosity comes from about the centre of the pews, you and I, my lord, will go and find out who it is. Come, if you please, at once." "II" stammered the Lord Mayor, "I reallyhumph! If I felt quite well, do you know, Sir Richard, I should not hesitate a moment." "Pho! pho!" said Sir Richard, taking his arm, and leading him unwillingly forward. "Remember that the eyes of those are upon you whose opinions are to you of importance." With a groan the unfortunate Lord Mayor, who from the first had shrunk from the enterprise altogether, being fearful that it might possibly involve dangerous consequences, allowed himself to be dragged by Sir Richard Blunt in the direction of the pews. "If you have a pistol," said the magistrate, "you had better keep it in your hand ready for service." "Lord bless you," said the Lord Mayor, in a nervous whisper, "I never fired off a pistol in all my life." "Is that possible?" "I don't know about being possible, but it's true." "Well, you do surprise me." "Soso you see, Sir Richard," added his temporary lordship, suddenly popping into the churchwarden's pew, which they had just reached"so I'll stay here and keep an eye upon you." Sir Richard Blunt was not at all sorry to get rid of such a companion as the Lord Mayor, so with a cough, he left him in the pew, and went forward alone, determined to find out what it was that made the extraordinary noise. As he went forward, towards the spot from whence it had come, he heard it once again, and in such close proximity to him, that albeit, unaccustomed to allow anything to affect his nerves, he started back a pace. Shading, then, the little bit of wax candle that he had in his hand, he looked steadily in the direction of the low moaning sound. In an instant he found a solution of the mystery. A couple of pigeons stood upon the hand rail of one of the pews, and it was the peculiar sound made by these birds, that, by the aid of echo in the silent empty church, had seemed to be of a very different character from its ordinary one. "And from such simple causes," said Sir Richard, "arise all the wellauthenticated stories of superstition which fancy and cowardice give credence to." He looked up, and saw that in the wish to ventilate the church, the windows had been liberally opened, which had afforded the means of ingress to the pigeons, who, no doubt, would have slumbered soundly enough until morning, if not disturbed by the arrival of the party at the church.
As Sir Richard Blunt retraced his steps, he passed the pew where the Lord Mayor was; and willing to punish that functionary for his cowardice, he said, in a wellaffected voice of alarm "Gracious Heaven! what will become of us?" With a groan, the Lord Mayor flopped down to the floor of the pew, and there he lay, crouching under one of the seats in such an agony of terror, that Sir Richard felt certain he and the others would be able to transact all the business they came about, before he would venture to move from that place of concealment. The magistrate speedily informed the rest of the party what was the cause of the alarm, and likewise hinted the position of the Lord Mayor, upon which the secretary said "Let him be. Of course, as a matter of courtesy, I was obliged to write to him upon the subject; but we are as well, and perhaps better without him." "I am of the same opinion," said Sir Richard. They now went at once to the vestry, and two good lanterns were then procured, and lit. The magistrate at once led the way to the stone that had been raised by the workmen, in the floor of the church, and which had never been effectually fastened down again. In a corner, where no one was likely to look, Sir Richard placed his hand for a crowbar which he knew to be there, and, having found it, he quickly raised the stone on one side. The other gentlemen lent their assistance, and it was turned fairly over, having exposed the steps that led down to the vaults of old St. Dunstan's church. "Let us descend at once," said the secretary, who, to tell the truth, in the whole affair, showed no lack of personal courage. "Allow me to precede you, gentlemen," said Sir Richard Blunt; "and you, Mr. Villimay, will, perhaps, bring up the rear." "Yes, oh, yes," said the churchwarden, with some degree of nervousness, but he was quite a hero compared to the Lord Mayor. Sir Richard handed one of the lanterns, then, to Mr. Villimay, and took the other himself. Without another moment's delay, then, he began the descent. They could all, as they went, feel conscious that there was certainly a most unearthly smell in the vaultsa smell which, considering the number of years that had elapsed since any interments had taken place in them, was perfectly unaccountable. As they proceeded, this stench became more and more sickening, and the secretary said, as he held a handkerchief to his mouth and nose "The Bishop of London spoke to me of this, but I really thought he was exaggerating." "It would be difficult to do that," said Sir Richard. "It is as bad almost as it can very well be, and the measures taken for the purpose of ventilation, have not as yet had a very great effect upon it." "I should say not." With tolerable speed the magistrate led the party on through a vast number of vaults, and through several narrow and rather tortuous passages, after which he came to an iron door. It was locked, but placing the lantern for a few moments upon the floor, he soon succeeded in opening it with a skeleton key. The moment he had done so, the secretary exclaimed "Hey day! This is something different." "In what respect, my lord?" "Why, if my senses don't deceive me, the horrible charnelhouse smell, which we have been enduring for some time past, has given way to one much more grateful." "What is it like, my lord?" "Well, I should say some delicious cooking was going on." "You are right. There is cooking going on. We are not very far from Mrs. Lovett's pie manufactory." "Indeed!" "Yes; and the smell, or rather I ought to say the odour of which the air is full, comes from the bakehouse." The secretary gave a perceptible shudder, and Mr. Villimay uttered a groan. The gentleman who was with the secretary was about to say something, but the magistrate, in a low voice, interrupted him, saying "Pardon me, but now we are in close proximity to the place of our destination, I would recommend the profoundest caution and silence." "Certainlycertainly. We will only be silent spectators." "It is better, I think," added Sir Richard Blunt, "to allow me to carry on the whole of the conversation that is to ensue; and at the same time, any of you gentlemen can suggest to me a question to ask, and I will at once put it to the man we come to speak to." "That will do, Sir Richard, that will do." The magistrate now hurried on as though those savoury steams that scented the air from the bakehouse of Mrs. Lovett's pies were to him more disagreeable than the horrible smell in the vaults that made everybody shake again. In a few minutes he arrived at a room, for it could not be called a vault. It had a floor of rough stone flags, which seemed as though they had originally belonged to some of the vaults, and had been pulled up and carried to this place to make a rude flooring. There was nothing very remarkable about the walls of this place, save at one part, and there there was evidently a door, across which was placed a heavy iron bar. "It is through there," said Sir Richard. "Butbut you do not intend to open it?" "Certainly not. There is a small crevice through which there will be no difficulty in maintaining a conversation with the imprisoned cook, if I can only make him hear me from this spot." CHAPTER LXVII. THE REVELATIONS IN THE VAULTS. The object of Sir Richard Blunt was, of course, to make the cook hear him, but no one else. With this aim he took a crownpiece from his pocket and tapped with the edge of it upon the stonework which at that place protruded from the wall to the extent of nearly a foot. The stone shelves upon the other side were let into the wall in that fashion. The monotonous ringing sound of the coin against the stone was likely enough to reverberate through the wall, and that the cook was rather a light sleeper, or did not sleep at all, was soon sufficiently manifest, for a voice, which the magistrate recognised as his, cried from the other side "Who is there? If a friend, speak quickly, for God knows I have need of such. If an enemy, your utmost malice cannot make my situation worse than it is." Sir Richard placed his mouth close to a crevice, and said "A friend, and the same who has spoken to you before." "Ah! I know that voice. Do you bring me freedom?" "Soon. But I have much to ask of you." "Let me look at the daylight, and then ask what you will, I shall not tire of answering." "Nay, the principal thing I have to ask of you is yet a little more patience." "Patience! patience! It seems that I have been years in this place, and yet you ask me to have more patience. Oh, blessed liberty, am I not to hail you yet?" "Can you forget that you have another objectnamely, to bring to the just punishment of the law those who have placed you and others in this awful position?" "Yesyes. But" "But you would forego all that to be free, a few short hours before you would be free with the accomplishment of all that justice and society required?" "Nono. God help me! I will have patience. What is it that you demand of me now? Speak." "Your name?" "Alas!alas!" "Surely you cannot hesitate to tell one, who has run some risks to befriend you, who you are?" "If, by my telling that, I saw that those risks were made less, I would not hesitate; but, as it is, London, and all that it contains now, is so hateful to me, that I shall leave it the instant I can. Falsehood, where I most expected truth, has sunk deeply, like a barbed arrow, into my heart." "Well, I certainly had hoped you would have placed in me that amount of confidence." "No. I dare not." "Dare not?" "Yes, that is the word. The knowledge of my name spread abroadthat is to say, my real name, would inflict much misery for all, I can just now say to the contrary, upon one whom I yet wish all the happiness that God can give his creatures in this world. Let it be thought that I and the world have parted company." "You are a strange man." "I am. But the story I have to tell of the doings in this den of infamy, will come as well from a Mr. Smith as from any one else." "I wish you now, in a few words, to relate to me what you know, fully and freely." "Anticipating that a statement would be wanted, I have, with no small amount of trouble, manufactured for myself pens and ink, and have written all that I have to say. How can I give you the document?" "There is a chink here in the wall, through which I am addressing you. Can you pass it through?" "I will try. I see the chink now for the first time since my long and painful residence here. Your light upon the other side has made it quite apparent to me. I think, by folding my paper close, I can pass it through to you." "Try it." In about half a minute Sir Richard Blunt got hold of a piece of folded paper, which was pushed partly through the chink. He pulled it quite through, and handed it to the secretary, who, with a nod, at once put it in his pocket. "And now for how long," said the cook, "am I to pine for freedom from this dreadful place? Recollect that each hour here has upon its passing wings a load of anxieties and miseries, such as I only can appreciate." "I have brought a letter for you," said Sir Richard, "which will contain all the intelligence you wish, and give you such instructions as shall not only ensure your safety, but enable you to aid materially in bringing your persecutors to justice. Place your hand to the crevice and take it." "I have it." "Well, read it at your leisure. Have you any means of knowing the time of day in your prison?" "Oh yes. There is a clock in the bakehouse, by which I am forced to regulate the different batches of pies." "That will do. Have you had any more threats from Mrs. Lovett?" "None. As long as I perform my loathsome duty here, I see no one and hear of no one." "Be of good cheer, your desolate condition will not last long. It is not easy under present circumstances to enter at large into matters which might induce you to declare who you really are, but when you and I meet in the bright sunshine from which you have been debarred for so long, you will think very differently from what you do now upon many things." "Well, sir, perhaps I shall." "Good night to you. Take what rest and refreshment you can, my good friend, and believe that there are better days in store for you." "I will strive to think so.Good night." There was such a mournful cadence in the voice of the imprisoned young man, as he said "Good night," that the secretary remarked in a low voice to Sir Richard "Would it not be a mercy now to let him free, and take him away with us?" "I don't like his concealing his name, my lord." "Well, it is not the thing exactly." "His imprisonment now will be of very short duration indeed, and his liberation is certain, unless by some glaring act of imprudence he mars his own fortune. But now, gentlemen, I have a sight to show you in these vaults that you have come to see, and yet, that I think it would have been wise if you had left unseen." "Indeed!" "Yes. You will soon agree with me in opinion." Sir Richard, bearing the lantern in his hand, led the way for a considerable distance back again, until they were fairly under the church, and then he said "A large vault belonging to a family named Weston, which is extinct I fancy, for we can find no one to claim it, has been opened near this spot." "By whom?" "That you will have no difficulty in guessing. It is that vault that I wish to show you. There are others in the same condition, but one will be enough to satiate your appetites for such sights. This way, gentlemen, if you please." As the light from the two lanterns fell upon the faces of Sir Richard Blunt's companions, curiosity and excitement could be seen paramount upon their features. They followed him as their guide without a word, but they could not but see that he trod slowly, and that now and then a shudder crossed his frame. "Even you are affected," said the secretary, when the silence had lasted some minutes. "I were something more or less than human," replied Sir Richard Blunt "if I could go unmoved into the presence of that sight, that I feel it to be my duty to show to you." "It must be horrible indeed." "It is more horrible than all the horrors your imagination can suggest. Let us go quicker." Apparently with a desperate feeling of resolution, such as might actuate a man who had some great danger to encounter, and who after shrinking from it for a time, should cry "Well, the sooner it is over the better," did the magistrate now quicken his steps, nor paused he until he arrived at the door of the vault of which he had spoken. "Now, Mr. Villimay," he said. "Be so good as to hold up your lantern as high as you can, at the same time not to get it above the doorway, and I will do the same by mine. All that we want is a brief but clear view." "Yes, yes. Quite brief," said the secretary. Sir Richard Blunt laid his hand upon the door of the vault, which was unfastened, and flung it open. "Behold!" he said, "one of the vaults of old St. Dunstan's." For the space of about a minute and a half no one uttered a word, so it behoves us to state what that vault contained, to strike such horror into the hearts of bold educated men. Piled one upon each other on the floor, and reaching half way up to the ceiling lay, a decomposing mass of human remains. Heaped up one upon another, heedlessly tossed into the disgusting heap any way, lay the gaunt skeletons with pieces of flesh here and there only adhering to the bones. A steama foetid steam rose up from the dead, and upon the floor was a pool of corruption, creeping along as the declivities warranted. Eyes, teeth, hands half denuded of fleshglistening vermin, shiny and sleek with the luxurious feeding they there got, slipped glibly in and out of the heapedup horror. Todd's Victims In The Vaults Of Old St. Dunstan's Church. Todd's Victims In The Vaults Of Old St. Dunstan's Church. "No moreno more!" cried the secretary. "I sicken," said his friend, "I am faint." Sir Richard Blunt let go the door, and it slammed shut with a hollow sound. "Thank God!" he said. "Forfor what?" gasped Mr. Villimay. "That you and I, my friend, need not look upon this sight again. We are all sufficient evidence upon our oaths that it is here to see." "Yesyes." "Come away," said the secretary. "You told me something of what was to see, Sir Richard Blunt, but my imagination did not picture it to be what it is." "I told you that likewise, my lord." "You didyou did." With hurried steps they now followed the magistrate; and it was with a feeling of exquisite relief that they all found themselves, after a few minutes, fairly in the body of the church, and some distance from that frightful spectacle they had each thought it to be their duty to look upon. "Let us go to the vestry," said the secretary, "and take something. I am sick at heart and stomach both." "And I am everything, and hungry too," cried a voice, and the Lord Mayor popped his head up from the churchwardens' pew. No one could help laughing at this, although, to tell the truth, those men, after what they had seen, were in no laughing mood, as the reader may well imagine. "Is that our friend, the King of the City?" said the secretary. "It is," said Sir Richard. "Well, I must say that he has set a good example of bravery in his dominions." "He has indeed." "Gentlemengentlemen," added the Lord Mayor, as he rolled out of the churchwardens' pew, "don't think of going into the vestry without me, for it was I who gave a hint to have refreshments put there, and I have been dying for some of them for this last halfhour, I assure you." CHAPTER LXVIII. RETURNS TO JOHANNA. We return to Johanna Oakley. "What is the meaning of all this?" said Sweeney Todd, as he sat in his shop about the hour of twelve on the morning following that upon which Johanna Oakley and her friend Arabella had concerted so romantic a plan of operations regarding him. "What is the meaning of all this? Am I going mad?" Now Todd's question was no doubt a result of some peculiar sensations that had come over him; but, propounded as it was to silence and to vacancy, it of course got no answer. A cold perspiration had suddenly broke out upon his brow, and, for the space of about ten minutes, he was subject to one of those strange foreshadowings of coming ills to him, which of late had begun to make his waking hours anything but joyous, and his dreams hideous. "What can it mean?" he said. "What can it mean?" He wiped his face with a miserable looking handkerchief, and then, with a deep sigh, he said "It is that fiend in the shape of a woman!" No doubt he meant his dear friend, Mrs. Lovett. Alas! what a thorn she was in the side of Sweeney Todd. How poor a thing, by way of recompense for the dark and terrible suspicions he had of her, was his heaped up wealth? Toddyes, Sweeney Todd, who had waded kneedeepkneedeep do we say?lipdeep in blood for gold, had begun to find that there was something more precious still which he had bartered for itpeace! That peace of mindthat sweet serenity of soul, which, like the love of God, is beautiful, and yet passeth understanding. Yes, Todd was beginning to find out that he had bartered the jewel for the setting! What a common mistake. Does not all the world do it? They do; but the difference between Todd and common people merely was that he played the game with high stakes. "Yes," added Todd, after a pause, "curses on her, it is that fiend in the shape of a woman, who 'Cows my better part of man,' and she or I must fall. That is settled; yesshe or I. There was a time when I used to say she and I could not live in the same country; but now I feel that we cannot both live in the same world. She must goshe must lapse into the sleep of death." Todd rose, and stalked to and fro in his shop. He felt as if something was going to happen that undefinable fidgetty feeling which will attack all persons at times, came over him, and yet it was not a feeling of deep apprehension that was at his heart. "Oh," he muttered, "it is the recollection of that dreadful womanthat fiend, who, with a seeming prescience, knows when there is poison in her glass, and baffles me. It is the dim and shadowy thought of what I must do with her that shatters me. If poison will not do the deed, steel or a bullet must. Ah!" Some one was trying the handle of the shop door, and so timidly was it tried, that Todd stood still to listen, without saying "Come in," or otherwise encouraging the visitor. "Who is it?" he gasped. Still the handle of the doorlock only shook. To be sure, it was a difficult door to open to all who did not know it well. Todd had taken care of that, for if there was anything more than another which such a man as he might be fairly enough presumed to dislike, it would be to be glided in upon by the sudden opening of an easygoing door. "Come in," he now cried. The person without was evidently anxious to obey the invitation, and a more strenuous effort was made to unfasten the door. It yielded at length. A young and pretty looking lad, apparently of about thirteen or fourteen years of age, stood upon the threshold. He and Sweeney Todd looked at each other in silence for a few moments. If a painter or a sculptor could have caught them as they stood, and transferred them to canvas or to marble, he might have called them an idea of Guilt and Innocence. There was Todd, with evil passions and wickedness written upon every feature of his face. There was the boy, with the rosy gentleness and innocence of Heaven upon his brow. God made both these creatures! It was Todd who broke the silence. A gathering flush was upon the face of the boy, and he could not speak. "What do you want?" said Todd. He rattled his chair as he spoke, as though he would have said, "It is not to be shaved." The boy was too much engaged with his own thoughts to pay much attention to Todd's pantomime. He evidently, though, wished to say something, which he could not command breath to give utterance to. Like the "Amen" of Macbeth, something he would fain have uttered, seemed to stick in his throat. "What is it?" again demanded Todd, eagerly. This roused the boy. The boy, do we say. Ah, our readers have already recognised in that boy the beautiful and enthusiastic Johanna Oakley. "There is a bill in your window" Johanna Applies To Todd To Become His Errand Boy. Johanna Applies To Todd To Become His Errand Boy. "A what?" Todd had forgotten the announcement regarding the youth he wanted, with a taste for piety. "A bill. You want a boy, sir." "Oh," said Todd, as the object of the visit at once thus became clear and apparent to him. "Oh, that's it." "Yes, sir." Todd held up his hand to his eyes, as though he were shading them from sunlight, as he gazed upon Johanna, and then, in an abrupt tone of voice, he said "You won't do." "Thank you, sir." She moved towards the door. Her hand touched the handle. It was not fast. The door opened. Another moment, and she would have been gone. "Stop!" cried Todd. She returned at once. "You don't look like a lad in want of a situation. Your clothes are goodyour whole appearance is that of a young gentleman. What do you mean by coming here to ask to be an errand boy in a barber's shop? I don't understand it. You had different expectations." "Yes, sir. But Mrs. Green" "Mrs. who?" "Green, sir, my motherinlaw, don't use me well, and I would rather go to sea, or seek my living in any way, than go back again to her; and if I were to come into your service, all I would ask would be, that you did not let her know where I was." "Humph! Your motherinlaw, you say?" "Yes, sir. I have been far happier since I ran away from her, than I have been for a long time past." "Ah, you ran away? Where lives she?" "At Oxford. I came to London in the waggon, and at every step the lazy horses took, I felt a degree of pleasure that I was placing a greater distance between me and oppression." "Your own name?" "Charley Green. It was all very well as long as my father lived; but when he was no more, my motherinlaw began her illusage of me. I bore it as long as I could, and then I ran away. If you can take me, sir, I hope you will." "Go along with you. You won't suit me at all. I wonder at your impudence in coming." "No harm done, sir. I will try my fortune elsewhere." Todd began sharpening a razor, as the boy went to the door again. "Shall I take him?" he said to himself. "I do want some one for the short time I shall be here. Humph! An orphanstrange in London. No one to care for him. The very thing for me. No prying friendsnowhere to run, the moment he is sent of an errand, with open mouth, proclaiming this and that has happened in the shop. I will have him." He darted to the door. "Hoi!hoi!" Johanna turned round, and came back in a minute. Todd had caught at the bait at last. She got close to the door. "Upon consideration," said Todd, "I will speak to you again. But just run and see what the time is by St. Dunstan's Church." "St.St. who?" said Johanna, looking around her with a bewildered, confused sort of air. "St. who?" "St. Dunstan's, in Fleet Street." "Fleet Street? If you will direct me, sir, I dare say I shall find itoh, yes. I am good at finding places." "He is strange in London," muttered Todd. "I am satisfied of that. He is strange. Come income in, and shut the door after you." With a heart beating with violence, that was positively fearful, Johanna followed Todd into the shop, carefully closing the door behind her, as she had been ordered to do. "Now," said Todd, "nothing in the world but my consideration for your orphan and desolate condition, could possibly induce me to think of taking you in; but the fact is, being an orphan myself(here Todd made a hideous grimace)I say, being an orphan myself, with little to distress me amid the oceans and quicksands of this wicked world, some very strong sense of religion(another hideous grimace)I naturally feel for you." "Thank you, sir." "Are you decidedly pious?" "I hope so, sir." "Humph! Well, we will say more upon that allimportant subject another time, and if I consent to be your master, aaa" "Charley Green, sir." "Ay, Charley Green. If I consent to take you for a week upon trial, you must wholly attribute it to my feelings." "Certainly, sir." "Have you any idea yourself as to terms?" "None in the least, sir." "Very good. Then you will not be disappointed. I shall give you sixpence a week, and your board wages of threepence a day, besides perquisites. The threepence I advise you to spend in three penny pies, at Mrs. Lovett's, in Bell Yard. They are the most nutritious and appetizing things you can buy; and in the Temple you will find an excellent pump, so that the half hour you will be allowed for dinner will be admirably consumed in your walk to the pie shop, and from thence to the pump, and then home here again." "Yes, sir." "You will sleep under the counter, here, of a night, and the perquisites I mention will consist of the use of the pewter washhand basin, the soap, and the end of a towel." "Yes, sir." "You will hear and see much in this place. Perhaps now and then you will be surprised at something; butbut, master Charley, if you go and gossip about me or my affairs, or what you see, or what you hear, or what you think you would like to see or hear, I'll cut your throat!" "Charley" started. "Oh! sir," he said, "you may rely upon me. I will be quite discreet. I am a fortunate lad to get so soon into the employment of such an exemplary master." "Ha!" Todd, for a space of two minutes made the most hideous and extraordinary grimaces. "Fortunate lad," he said. "Exemplary master! How true. Ha!"Poor Johanna shuddered at that dreadful charnelhouse sort of laugh. "My God," she thought, "was that the last sound that rung in the ears of my poor Mark, ere he bade adieu to this world for ever?" Then she could not but utter a sort of groan. "What's that?" said Todd. "What, sir?" "II thought some one groaned, oror sighed. Was it you? No.Well, it was nothing. See if that water on the fire is hot. Do you hear me? Wellwell don't be alarmed. Is it hot?" "I think." "Think! Put your hand in it." "Quite hot, sir." "Well, then, master CharleyAh! A customer! Come in, sir; come in, if you please, sir. A remarkably fine day, sir. Cloudy, though. Pray be seated, sir. Ahem! Now, Charley, bustlebustle. Shaved, sir, I presume? Dn the door!" Todd was making exertions to shut the door after the entrance of a stoutbuilt man, in an ample white coat and a broad brimmed farmer looking hat; but he could not get it close, and then the stoutbuilt man cried out "Why don't you come in, Bobleave off your tricks. Why you is old enough to know better." "It's only me," said another stoutbuilt man, in another white coat, as he came in with a broad grin upon his face. "It's only me, Mr. Barberha! ha! ha!" Todd looked quite bland, as he said "Well, it was a good joke. I could not for the moment think what it was kept the door from shutting, and I always close it, because there's a mad dog in the neighbourhood, you see, gentlemen." Crack went something to the floor. "It's this mug, sir," said Charley. "I dropped it." "Wellwell, my dear, don't mind that. Accidents, you know, will happen; bless you." Todd, as he said this, caught up a small piece of Charley's hair in his finger and thumb, and gave it a terrific pinch. Poor Johanna with difficulty controlled her tears. "Now, sir, be seated if you please. From the country, I suppose, sir?" "Yes. A clean shave, if you please. We comed up from Barkshire, both on us, with beasts." "You and your brother, sir?" "My cousin, t'other'un is; ain't you Bill?" "Yes, to be sure." "Now, Charley, the soap dish. Look alivelook alive, my little man, will you?" "Yes, sir." "You must excuse him being rather slow, gentlemen, but he's not used to the business yet, poor boyno father, no mother, no friend in all the world but me, sir." "Really!" "Yes, poor lad, but thank God I have a heartLeave the whiskers as they are, sir?Yes, and I can feel for the distresses of a fellow creature. Many's theYour brotherI beg pardon, cousin, will be shaved likewise, sir?pound I have given away in the name of the Lord. Charley, will you look alive with that soap dish. A pretty boy, sir; is he not?" "Very. His complexion is likelike a pearl." Johanna dropped the soap dish, and clasped her hands over her eyes. That word "pearl" had for the moment got the better of her. CHAPTER LXIX. TAKES A PEEP AT ARABELLA. We regret to leave Johanna in such a predicament, but the progress and due understanding of our tale compel us briefly to revert to some proceedings of Arabella Wilmot, a short detail of which can nowhere come in so well as at this juncture. Up to the moment of parting with Johanna, when the latter went upon her perilous interprise, Arabella had kept up pretty well, but from that moment her spirits began to fail. All the romantic feelings which had at first prompted the advice that concentrated Johanna's expedition to Todd's, evaporated before the hard truthful fact that she, Arabella, had led her young friend into a situation of the greatest peril. Each moment added to the mental agony of the young girl; and at length her sufferings became too acute for further dallying with, and wringing her hands, all she could ask herself was "What shall I do to save her?What shall I do to save her?" Arabella felt that it would kill her to endure the suspense of one hour instead of fourandtwenty; but to whom was she to turn in this sad condition of her feelings? If she went to old Mr. Oakley, what could she expect but the greatest reproaches for leading one so dear to him into such a path of danger; and those reproaches would not be the less stinging on account, probably, of their being only implied, and not spoken. If she appealed to her own friends, it would only be a kind of secondhand mode of appealing to Mr. Oakley, for they, of courses, would go to him. "Oh, wretched girl that I am," she cried, as she wrung her hands. "What shall I do?What ought I to do?" It was very improbable that, in the midst of such a state of feeling as this, Arabella Wilmot should think of the wisest and best thing to do; and yet strange to say, she did. By mere accident the name of Sir Richard Blunt came to her mind. She had heard Colonel Jeffery speak of him; and from common report, too, she knew he was a man who, of all others, was likely, from inclination as well as power and duty, to aid her. The idea of going to him gained strength and consistency each moment in her mind, as good ideas will. "Yesyes!" she exclaimed, as with frantic eagerness she arrayed herself for the event, for she had gone home after seeing Johanna on her way; "yesyes! I will go to himI will tell him all. He shall know what a silly, foolish, wicked girl I have been, and how by my madmad council, I have perhaps destroyed Johanna. But he will save heroh, yes, he will save her from the consequences of the visit to Todd, and save me from madness." Now, a more decidedly prudent resolve than this could not possibly have been aimed at by Arabella, had she been as cool and collected; as, on the contrary, she was nervous and excited, and it had all the effect upon her mind; for it was astonishing how the mere feeling that she was about to take a good course calmed her down. She had the prudence to interpose no delays by speaking to any one of her intention; but hastily getting into the street, she ran on for some time without reflecting that she had but a very vague idea of where Sir Richard Blunt was to be found. It is astonishing how, under the passions of extraordinary circumstances, people will boldly do things which ordinarily they would shrink from. It was so with Arabella Wilmot. She walked into a shop, and at once asked if they could tell her the exact address of Sir Richard Blunt, the magistrate. "Yes, it is at No. 6, Essex Street, Strand." Off she went again. Fleet Street was passed.
True, she lingered a little opposite to Todd's shop, and the idea came across her of rushing in, and saying, "Johanna, come away." But she controlled that feeling, from a conviction that she was doing better by going to the magistrate, who, if it were necessary to take that course, could take it much more effectually than she could. Essex Street was gained, and Arabella's trembling hand sounded an alarm upon the knocker. "Is Sir Richard within?" "No. But if you particularly want him, he is at his private office in Craven Street." To Craven Street then she sped. The number she had been told was 10, and upon the door of that house being opened, she asked a man who was big enough to block up all the passage, and who did so, for the magistrate. "Yes, but you can't see him. He's busy." "I must." "But you can't, my dear." "I will." The man whistled. "Will is a short word, my dear, for you to use. How do you mean to do it, eh?" A door opened, and with his hat on, ready to go out, Sir Richard Blunt himself appeared. Another minute and Arabella would have missed him, and then God knows where, for the next twelve hours, he would be. "What is this, Davis?" he said. "Here's a little 'un, says she will see you, Sir Richard." "Ah, thank God!" cried Arabella, rushing forward and catching a tight hold of the magistrate by the arm. "Yes, I will see you, sir; I have a matter of life and death to speak to you of." "Walk in," said Sir Richard. "Don't hurry yourself in the least, Miss. Pray be composed; I am quite at your disposal." Arabella followed him into a small room. She still kept close to him, and in her eagerness she placed her hand upon her breast, as she said "Sirsir. Youand you only. Todd, Toddoh, God! he will kill her, and I am more her murderer than he. JohannaJohanna, my poor Johanna!" Sir Richard slightly changed colour at the sound of those names; and then he said, calmly and slowly "I don't think, unless you can assume a greater command of your feelings, that you will ever be able to tell me what you came about." "Oh, yesyes." "Be seated, I pray you." "Yesyes. In a moment. Oh, how calm and unimpassioned you are, sir." "It would not do for us both to lose our judgment." Arabella began to feel a little piqued, and that feeling restored her powers to her, probably quicker than any other could have possibly done. She spoke rapidly, but distinctly. "Sir, Miss Johanna Oakley has gone to Sweeney Todd's to find out what has become of Mr. Mark Ingestrie, and I advised her to do so; but now the knowledge that I did so advise her has driven me nearly mad. It will drive me quite mad!" Sir Richard rose from the arm chair into which he had thrown himself, and said "'Miss Oakley?' said you? Whywhywhat folly. But she has gone home again." "No, she is disguised as a boy, and has taken the situation that Todd put a placard in his window about, and she will be found out of course, and murdered." "No doubt of it." "Oh, God! Oh, God! Is there no lightning to strike me dead?" "I hope not," said Sir Richard Blunt; "I don't want a thunder storm in my parlour." "But, sir" "But, Miss Wilmot. Is she there now?" "She isshe is." "When did she go?" "About two hours since. Oh, siryou must do somethingyou shall do something to save her, or I will run into the streets, and call upon any passenger I meet, that has the form of a man, to aid me; I will raise the town, sir, but I will save her." "That course would be about as wise as the original advice to Miss Oakley to go upon the expedition at all. Now answer me calmly what I shall ask of you." "I willI will." "What is the prime cause of action that Miss Oakley projects as the result of this disguised entrance into Todd's shop, provided he be deceived by it?" "To search the place upon the first opportunity for some relic of Mark Ingestrie, and so put an end to the torturing suspense regarding his fate." Sir Richard Blunt shook his head. "Do you think that Sweeney Todd would leave such relics within such easy acquisition and inspection? Is he the sort of man, think you, to expose himself to such danger? Oh, Miss Wilmot, this is indeed a hairbrained scheme." "It isit is, and I have come to you for aid, and" "Hush! Is the secret of this expedition entirely confined to you and to Miss Oakley?" "It isit is." "Will her friends not miss her?" "Nono. All has been arranged with what now I cannot help calling a horrible ingenuity. She is like one led to slaughter, and she will pass away from the world, leaving the secret of her disappearance to you and to me only. Sir, I am young, and there are those in this great city who love me, but if Johanna be not saved, I will no longer live to be the most wretched of beings. If there can be found a poison that will let me leave the world, to cast myself at the feet of God, and of Johanna in another, I will take it." Sir Richard looked at his watch. "An hour and a half, you say?" "More than that. Let me think. It was twelveyes, it was twelve. More you see, sir, than that. Tell me, sir. Tell me at once what can be done. Speakoh speak to me. What will you do?" "I don't know, Miss Wilmot." With a deep sigh Arabella fainted. It was seldom indeed that, even amid his adventurous life, the magistrate found a circumstance that affected him so strongly as that which Arabella Wilmot had related to him. For a short time, even he, with all his powers of rapid thought, and with all the means and appliances which natural skill and practice had given him to meet any emergency, could not think of any mode of escape from the peculiarly awkward position into which this frightfully imprudent step of Johanna had plunged him. "My good girl," he said. "Oh, she has fainted." He rung a handbell, and, when a man appeared in answer to the summons, he said "Is Mrs. Long within?" "Yes, Sir Richard." "Then bring her here, and tell her to pay every attention to this young lady, who is a friend of mine; and when she recovers, say to her that I shall return in an hour." "Certainly, Sir Richard." In a few moments a matronlylooking woman, who acted in that house as a sort of general manager, made her appearance, and had Arabella removed to a chamber. Before that, the magistrate had hastily put on his hat, and at a quick pace was walking towards Fleet Street. What he intended to do in the emergencyfor emergency he evidently thought it waswe shall see quickly. Certain it is that, even by that time, he had made up his mind to some plan of proceeding, and our readers have sufficient knowledge of him to feel that it is likely to be the very best that could be adopted under the circumstances. Certainly Johanna had, by the bold step she had taken, brought affairs to something like a crisis, much earlier than he, Sir Richard Blunt, expected. What the result will be remains to be seen. CHAPTER LXX. RETURNS TO JOHANNA. We left Johanna in rather an awkward situation. The two graziers were in Todd's shop, and sheat the pronunciation of the word "pearl," which had too forcibly at the moment reminded her of the String of Pearls, which no doubt had been fatal to Mark Ingestriehad dropped the soapdish, and covered her face with her hands. "What is this?" cried Todd. "What, sir?" "What is that, I say? What do you mean by that, you stupid hound? If I only" He advanced in a threatening attitude with a razor in his hand; but Johanna quickly saw what a fault she had committed, and felt that, if she were to hope to do any good by her visit to Todd's shop, she must leave all such manifestations of feelings outside the threshold. "I have broken it," she said. "To be sure you have; but" "And then, you see, sir, I was overcome at the moment by the thought that as this was my first day here, how stupid you would think me." "Stupid, indeed." "Poor little chap," said one of the graziers. "Let him off this once, Mr. Barberhe seems a delicate little lad." Todd smiled. Yes, Todd admirably got up a smile, or a something that looked like a smile. It was a contortion of feature which did duty for a piece of amiability upon his face; and, in a voice that he no doubt fully intended should be dulcet and delightful, he spoke "I'm quite a fool to my feelings and to my good nature," he said. "Lord bless you, gentlemen, I could not hurt a flynot I. I used at school to be called Affectionate Todd." "In joke?" said one of the graziers. "No, gentlemen, no; in earnest." "You don't say so! Well, my boy, you see no harm will come to you, as your master forgives you about the soapdish, and we are in no sort of hurry." "Well," said Todd, as he bustled about for another article in which to mix the lather. "Well, do you know, sir, I'm so glad to hear that you are in no hurry." "Indeed?" "Yes, sir; because, if you are strangers in London both of you, it will give you an opportunity of seeing some of the curiosities, which will do for you to talk of when you get home, you know." "Why, that would take too much time." "Not at all, sir. Now, for exampleCharley, my dear, whip up that latherthere's the church of St. Dunstan's, which, although I say itNow, Charley, look sharpis one of the greatest of London curiosities. The figures at the clock I allude to more particularly. I think you said the whiskers were to be left just as they are, sir?" "Yes." "Well then, gentlemen, if you have never seen the figures in the front of old St. Dunstan's strike the chimes, it's one of those things that it's quite a pity to leave London without watching narrowly. They may talk of the Tower, sir, or of the wild beasts at Exeter Change; but give me for a sight where there is real ingenuity, the figures striking the chimes at old St. Dunstan's." "Indeed?" "Yes. Let me see. Ah, it's just a half hour nearly now, and your friend can go, although you are being shaved, and then by the time you are comfortably finished off, the next quarter will be getting on. Charley?" "Yes, sir." "Put on your cap, and go with that gentleman to St. Dunstan's. You must cross over the way, and then you will soon see the old church and the two figures, as large as life, and five times as natural." Johanna took up the cap she had worn in her disguise, and stood by the door. "Why don't you go, Bill?" said the grazier who was being shaved. "Why, the fact is," said the other, "I would not give a pin's head to see it without you. Do you know, Mr. Barber, he makes such comical remarks at anything, that it's worth one half the fun to hear him? Oh, no, I can't go without him." "Very good," said Todd, "then I'll finish him off, and you shall both go together in a few moments, though I am afraid you will miss this time of the chimes striking." There was now a silence of a few moments' duration in the shop; but nothing in the shape of rage or disappointment was visible in the manner of Todd, although both of those passions were struggling at his heart. "Now, sir," he said at length, and with a whisk he took the cloth from under the grazier's chair. "That will do; I thank you, sir. Towel and plenty of water in that corner, sir." "Thank you." "No, I shall do," said the other grazier, in reply to a mute imitation from Todd to sit down in the shaving chair, "I shall do pretty well, I thank you, till tomorrow." "Very good, sir. Hope I shall have the pleasure of your patronage another time, as well as your recommendation, gentlemen." "You may depend," said the grazier, who had been shaved, "that we shall do all we can for you, and shall not lose sight of you." Todd bowed like a Frenchman, and the graziers left the shop. No sooner was the door closed upon them, than his countenance altered, as if by magic, and the most wofully diabolical expression came over it, as with eyes flashing with rage, he cried "Curses on you both! But I will have one of you, yet. May the bitterest curse ofbut, no matter, I" "What, sir?" said Johanna. "What do you say, sir?" "Hell's fury! what is that to you? Do dare you, you devil's cub, to ask me what I said? By all that's furious, I'll tear out your teeth with redhot pincers, and scoop your eyes from their gory sockets with an old oyster knife. Dn you, I'llI'll flay you!" Johanna shrank back aghast. The pure spirit of the young girl, that had been used to little else but words of love and kindness, started at the furious and brutal abuse that was launched at it by Todd. "Did I not tell you," he continued, "that I would have no pryingno peepingno remarking about this or the other? I'll crush the life out of you, as I would that from a mad dog!" A strange howling cry at the door at this moment came upon the ears of Todd. His countenance changed, and his lips moved as though he was still saying something, but he had not power to give it audibly. At length, somewhat mastering his emotion, he said "Whatwhat's that?" "A dog, sir." "A dog! Confound all dogs." Another howl, and a violent scratching at the door, was farther and most conclusive evidence of the canine character of the visitor. "Charley," said Todd, in quite a soft tone"Charley." "Yes, sir." "Take the poor dog something to eatoror to drink, rather I should say. You will find a saucer in yon cupboard, with some milk in it. Ifif he only, bless him, takes one lick at it, I shall be satisfied. You know, Charley, God made all things, and we should be good to his creatures." "Yes, sir," said Johanna, with a shudder. She went to the cupboard, and found the saucer, in which there seemed to be a drop of fresh milk. She walked to the door, while Todd, as though he did not feel by any means sure of the pacific intentions of the dog, at once rushed into his back parlour, and locked himself in. Todd had a peephole from the back parlour into the shop, but he could not see further than the shop door. Moreover, Johanna's back was towards him, so he could only guess at what was going on if the dog did not actually come across the threshold. That the milk which Todd was so solicitous should be given to the dog was poisoned, occurred to Johanna in a moment; and just before opening the door, she threw it into a corner, upon some loose shavings, and odds and ends of waste paper, that were there. Johanna then opened the door. In an instant Hector, the large dog of the unfortunate Thornhill, whose identity with Mark Ingestrie appeared to be so established in the mind of Johanna, sprang upon her with an angry growl. It was only for one brief moment, however, that Hector made any such mistake as fancying Johanna to be Sweeney Todd; and then he, with an affectionate whine, licked the hands of the young girl. "Pison! Pison!" cried a loud voice, and in another moment, the ostler, from the coachoffice opposite, rushed to the door, and caught the dog around the neck. "Ah, there ye is agin. Why, what a goose of a feller you is, to be sure, Pison. Don't you know, now, as well as I do, that that barber will do you a mischief yet, you great blockhead you? Come home, will yer? Come home, now. Come along wi' yer!" "Yesyes," said Johanna. "Take him awaytake him away." "Won't I, that's all. I suppose you are a young shaver? Only let me catch you ainterfering with Pison, that's all, and won't I let you know what's what, young feller." The ostler having uttered this most uncalledfor threat to poor Johanna, took Pison in triumph over the way. Johanna closed the door. "Is he gone?" said Todd. "Yes, sir." "And the milk? Is that gone, likewise?" "Every drop of it." "Ha! ha! ha! Wellwell. Only to think, now. Ha! ha! I hope that milk won't disagree with the noble animal. How fond I am of him! How often he has been over here, in his little pretty playful way, to try and bite pieces out of my legs. Bless him. If now that milk should give him a stomach ache, what a pity it would be. Did I hear a man's voice?" "Yes, sir; some man came and called the dog away." "How good of him, and what a pity it would have been if he had called the noble animal away before the milk was all consumed. Dear me, some people would grudge a creature a drop of milk. AhemCharley?" "Yes, sir." "I am going out." Johanna's heart beat rapidly. "If any one should come, you can say it is of no use their waiting, for I am gone to shave and dress a whole family, at some distance off, and may not be back for some hours; but, Charley, for your own private information, let me tell you that I may look in at any moment, and that, although I shall be busy, I shall be able to come in for a minute or so, when I am least expected." Todd gave an awful leer at Johanna as he spoke. "Yes, sir," she said. Todd carefully locked the parlour door. "Charley. How do you like your place?" "Very well, sir; and I think in a little time I shall like it better." "Good lad! Good lad! Well, well. Perhaps I ought not to say too much so soon, but if you merit my esteem, Charley, I shall do as much for you as I did for the last lad I had. After some term of service with me, I provided him with an independant home. A large house, and a garden. Ha!" "How very kind." "Yes. Very." "And is he happy?" "Quite, in a manner of speaking, notwithstanding human nature is prone to be discontented, and there are persons, who would sigh, if in Paradise, for some change, even if it were to a region supposed to be its opposite zone. Charley, however, I think will be of a different mind; and when your time comeswhich it certainly willHa!to reap the fruits of your service with me, I am sure that no one will hear you complain." "I will not be ungrateful sir." "Well, well, we shall see; and now while I am gone let there be no peeping or prying about. No attempts to open doors or force locks. No scrambling to look upon shelves or raking in odd corners. If you doIHa! ha! I will cut your throat, Charley, with the bluntest razor I have. Ha!" Todd had got on his gloves by this time, and then he left the shop. Johanna was alone! Yes, there she was, at last, alone in that dreadful place, which now for days upon days had been food for her young imagination. There she was in that place, which her waking thoughts and her dreams had alike peopled with horrors. There she was between those walls, which had perchance echoed to the last despairing death cry of him whom she had loved better than life itself. There she was in the very atmosphere of murders. His blood might form part of the stains that were upon the dingy walls and the begrimed floor. Oh, it was horrible! "God help me now! God help me now!" said Johanna, as she covered her face with her hands and wept convulsively. She heard a faint sound. It was the chiming of St. Dunstan's clock, and she started. It put her in mind that time, her great ally, now was fleeting. "Away tears!" she cried as she dashed the heavy moisture from her long eyelashes. "Away tears! I have been strong in purpose. I have already waded through a sea of horrors, and I must be firm now. The time has come. The time that I looked forward to when I thus attired myself, and thought it possible to deceive this dreadful man. Courage! Courage! I have now much to do." First she crept to the door and looked out into the street. A vague suspicion that Todd, after all, might only be watching near at hand, somewhere, took possession of her. She looked long and anxiously to the right and to the left, but she saw nothing of him. Then she fastened the door upon the inside. "If he should return very suddenly," she said, "I shall have notice of it by his efforts to open the door. That will give me a moment for preparation possibly." Then with such an anxious look as no language could do justice to in its delineation, Johanna looked round the shop. Where was she to begin her investigation? There were drawers, cupboards, chests, shelves. What was she to look at first? or was she in dread of some contrivances of Todd's to find out that she had looked at all, yet at this the last moment, forego the risk and rush into the street and so home? "No, no! I am in God's hands," she said, "and I will not flinch." And yet, although she felt that she was quite alone in that place, how cautiously she trod. How gently she touched one thing and then another, and with what a shudder she laid her hand for a moment to steady herself, upon the arm of the shaving chair. By so leaning upon it she found that it was a fixture; and upon a further examination of it, she found that it was nailed or screwed to the floor firmly. It was an old fashioned massive chair, with a wide deep reclining seat. A strange feeling of horror came over her as she regarded it. CHAPTER LXXI. THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER. What was there in the chair that Johanna should for some few moments, now that she had begun to look at it, not be able to take her eyes off it? She tried to shake it, but it was as fast as a rock, and for all she knew it was quite usual to have a shaving chair fixed to the floor. In all likelihood it was in the best position for light which the dingy shop afforded. She left the chair at last, and then a large cupboard in one corner of the room attracted her attention. It was locked. In vain did she try to force it open. It would not yield. She tried, too, the parlour door without effect. That was quite fast; but as she turned the handle of the lock, she fancied she heard, or she really did hear something move in the room. A faint feeling came over her for a moment, and she was glad to hold by the wall, close at hand, to support herself. "It must have been fancy," she said faintly. "I am learning nothing, and the time is flying fast." A kind of counter ran parallel to the window, and beneath it was a space covered in by doors. Todd surely had forgotten that, for one of the doors was open. Johanna looked in and beheld quite a collection of sticks and umbrellas. Some clothing too lay upon the lowest shelf. With trembling hands, Johanna pulled at the sleeve of some article and found it to be a jacket, such as a sailor of the better sort might wear, for it was exquisitively fine, and had no end of silver buttons upon it. Her sight was dimmed by tears, as she said to herself "Oh, God! was this his?" She held the jacket up to the light, and she found the breast portion of it stained, and all the buttons there tarnished. What was it but blood? The blood of the hapless wearer of that article of dress, that produced such an effect; but yet how was she to prove to herself that it had been Mark Ingestrie? Then it was that the thought struck her of how ill conceived had been that undertaking, which might, in the midst of all its frightful dangers, only end in furnishing her with more food for the most horrible surmises, without banishing one sad image of her imagination, or confirming one dreadful dream of the fate of her lover. "'Tis all in vain!" she gasped. "All in vain! I shall know nothing, and only feel more desolate. It would be a mercy if that were to kill me! Ah! no. Not yetnot yet!" Some one was trying the handle of the shop door. With frightful energy Johanna hid the jacket, but not in its proper place, for she only thrust it beneath the cushion of a chair close at hand, and then shutting the door of the receptacle beneath the counter, she rose to her feet, and with a face pale as monumental marble, and her hands clasped rigidly, she said "Whowho is there?" "Hilloa! Open the door!" said a voice. Some one again tried the handle, and then kicked vigorously at the lower panel. "Patience," said Johanna, "patience." She opened the door. "Is Mr. Todd at hand?" said a lad. "Nono." "You are his boy, are you not?" "I am." "Then take this." The lad handed a sealed letter to Johanna, and in a moment left the door. She held the letter in her hand scarcely looking at it. Of course she thought it was for Todd, but after a few moments her eyes fell upon the superscription, and there, to her surprise, she read as follows "To Miss Oakley, who is requested to read the enclosed quickly, and secretly, and then to destroy it." Johanna Receives A Mysterious Letter In Todd's Shop. Johanna Receives A Mysterious Letter In Todd's Shop. To tear open the letter was the work of a moment. The sheet of paper tumbled in Johanna's hands as she read as follows "From Sir Richard Blunt to Miss Oakley. "Miss Oakley, the expedition upon which you are at present says much more for your courage and chivalrous spirit than it can ever say for your discretion or the discretion of her who permitted you so far to commit your life to such chances. You should, considering your youth and sex, have left it to others to carry out such schemes; and it is well that those others are aware of your position, and so, in a great measure, enabled to shield you from, perhaps, the worst consequences of your great indiscretion, for it cannot be called anything else. "Your young friend, Miss Wilmot, herself awakened, when, thank God, it was not too late, to the utter romantic character of the office, and communicated all to me. I blame both you and her very much indeed, and cannot speak in too strong language of the reprehensible character of your expedition; and now, my dear girl, do not be under any kind of apprehension, for you are well looked after, and Sweeney Todd shall not hurt a hair of your head. "If you should find yourself in any danger, seize the first small heavy article at hand and throw it, with all the strength you can, through the shop window. Assistance will immediately come to you. "And now, as you are where you are, I pray you to have confidence in me, and to remain until some one shall come to you and say 'St. Dunstan,' upon which you will know that he is a friend, and you will follow his directions. "God bless you. "Richard Blunt." Every word of this letter fell like sunshine upon the heart of Johanna, and she could not help mentally ejaculating "I am savedI am saved! Yesyes? I am not deserted. Strong, bold, good men will look to me. Oh! what kindness breathes in every sentence of this letter! Yesyes; I am not forsakennot forsaken!" Tears came into the eyes of the young girl, and she wept abundantly. Her overcharged heart was relieving itself. After a few moments she began to be more composed, and had just crumpled up the letter and cast it into the fire for fear of accidents, when a shadow darkened the doorway, she saw Todd looking in above the curtain that was over the upper half of the door, and partially concealed some panes of glass that were let into it. As soon as Todd saw Johanna's eyes upon him, he entered the shop. "What's that?" he said, pointing to the burning letter. "Paper, sir." "What paper?" "A bill that a boy left. Something about Churchwardens, sir, and the parish of St. Brides, Fleet Street, and how things mean to" "Bah! any one else been?" "No, sir." Todd stood in the middle of the shop, and cast his eyes slowly round him, to see that all was as he had left. Then in a low growling tone, he added "No peeping and prying, eh? No rummaging in odd corners, and looking at things that don't concern you, eh?" "Certainly not, sir." Johanna crept close to the counter upon which lay a tolerably large piece of stone used for grinding razors upon. She thought that would do very well to throw through the window, and she kept an eye upon it with that intent, if such an act should by a trick of Todd's appear to be necessary. Todd took the key of the parlourdoor from his pocket, and placed it in the lock. Before he opened the door, though, he turned the handle, and as he did so Johanna thought that he inclined his head and listened attentively. She threw down a chair, which made a lumbering noise. "Confound you," roared Todd. He passed into the parlour; but in a moment, with a glance of fury, he looked out, saying "You tried this door?" "I, sir?" said Johanna, creeping closer still to the sharpening stone. "Yes, villain, you. At least, I think soI am pretty sure; but mark me, if I were quite sure, you should suffer for it." He closed the door again; and then when he was alone, he placed his two hands upon his head for a few moments, and said "What does it mean? A boy brought him a letter; I saw him come and go. At least it looked like a letter. Could it be the bill he spoke of, and then the sudden upset of that chair, which prevented me from hearing if the piece of catgut I had fastened to the handle of the door had been moved, before I touched it or not. I will kill him. That is safe. It is the only plan; I will kill all who is now in my way. Allall. Yes, I will, if needs be, wade up to my neck in blood to the accomplishment of my wishes." Todd went to a cupboard and got out a large knife, such as is used by slaughtermen in the shambles, and hid it under the table cover, but in such a place that he could lay hold of it and draw it out in a moment. "Charley," he cried, "Charley." "Yes, sir." "Step in here a moment; I want you, my boy." "Shall I or shall I not," thought Johanna. "Is this danger, or only the appearance of it? Heaven direct me now! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" "Charley? Are you coming, my boy?" "Yes, sir, II am coming. God protect me!" "The barber at home?" cried a voice at the door; and in another moment a man with a ruddy, jollylooking countenance, made his appearance in the shop. "Barber at home, eh? my little lad?" "Yesyes." Johanna heard a bitter execration come from the lips of Todd; and then with quite a serene smile upon his face, as though he were in the most unruffled mood possible, he made his appearance. "Could you make me a wig?" said the man, taking off his hat, and showing that his hair was closely cropped. "Certainly, sir. If you will sit down and allow me to measure your head, I shall have great pleasureCharley!" "Yes, Sir." "You can go to Lovett's, in Bellyard, and get your dinner now. There's twopence for you, my lad, and if you have not yet tasted Mrs. Lovett's pies, you will say when you do, that they are the most delicious things in the whole world of cookery." "Shaved, if you please," said another man, walking into the shop, and pouncing down upon a chair as though it were his own property. "Ah dear me, I'm tired rather. Don't hurry yourself, Mr. Todd, I can wait while you are doing what you have to do for that gentleman." "Charley," said Todd, with quite a sweet expression of face. "You need not go just yet; I want the hot water. See to it." "Yes, sir." Todd then, in the most careful and businesslike manner, proceeded to take the measure of the gentleman's head for a "real head of hair," and when he had finished, he said "Now, sir, if you will leave it all to me, I will match your hair to a shade." "Match it?" "Yes, sir." "But that's just what I don't want. I have had my hair all cut off, and am going to wear a wig, for the sole reason that I have got tired of the old colour." "Well then, sir, what colour do you propose now?" "A few shades lighter than my own. But pray shave this gentleman, and I will tell you how I wish it to look at my leisure." The man took a seat and crossed one leg over the other with the most home sort of look in the world; and the one who had come in to be shaved plumped into the shaving chair, and gave his chin a rub as though he would say "I don't care how soon you begin." Todd smiled. "Charley, the lather." "Yes, sir. Here it is." "Here, my little man," said the gentleman in want of a wig. "If you can tie a bow, just make one in front of my cravat.A small one." The gentleman slipped a small piece of paper into Johanna's jacket pocket. CHAPTER LXXII. ANOTHER VICTIM. Johanna started. "St. Dunstan's," said the stranger. "What?" said Todd. "St. Dunstan's last Sunday, I don't think was so highlyscented with the flavour of the grave as usual." "Oh," said Todd. Johanna trembled, for certainly Todd looked suspicious, and yet what could he have seen? Literally nothing, for he was so situated that the slight action of the stranger, in putting the slip of paper into her jacketpocket, must have escaped him with all his watchfulness. She gathered courage.
Todd glanced at her, saying "What is the matter, Charley? you don't look well at all, my lad." "I am not very well, sir." "How sorry I am; I think, do you know, Charley,"Todd was lathering the man's face as he spoke"that one of Mrs. Lovett's hot pies would be the thing for you." "Very likely, sir." "Then, I think I can manage now to spare you." As he said this, Todd bent an eagle glance upon the gentleman who had ordered the wig, and it seemed as if he doled out his words to Johanna with a kind of reference to the movements of that personage. The gentleman had found a hatbrush, and was carefully rubbing up his hat. "I do hope," he said, "that the wig will be as natural as possible." "Depend upon it, sir," said Todd. "I'll warrant if you look in here, and try it on some day when there's no one here but you and I to set you against it, you will never complain of it." "No doubt. Good morning." Todd made his best bow, accompanied by the flourish of his razor, that made the man who was being shaved shrink again, as the reflected light from its highlypolished blade flashed again in his eyes. "Now, Charley, I think you may go for your pie," added Todd, "and don't hurry, for if anything is wrong with your stomach, that will only make it worse, you know." "You are a good master to the lad," said the man who was lathered ready for shaving. "I hope so, sir," said Todd. "With the help of Providence we all ought to do our best in this world, and yet what a deal of wickedness and suffering there is in it too." "Ah, there is." "I am sure, sir, it makes my heart bleed sometimes to think of the amount of suffering that only twentyfour hours of this sad workaday world sees. But I was always of a tender and sympathetic turn from my cradleyes from my cradle." Todd made here one of his specially horrible grimaces, which the man happened to see in a glass opposite to him, the reflective focus of which Todd had not calculated upon; and then as the sympathetic barber stropped his razor, the man looked at him as though he would have speculated upon how could such an article looked in a cradle. "Now, sir, a little to this side. Are you going, Charley?" "Yes, sir." "That will do, sir. I'll polish you off very shortly, indeed, sir. Are you going, Charley?" Johanna darted from the shop, and the moment she got clear of it, she by natural impulse drew the little slip of paper from her pocket, and read upon it "Miss O. do not if you can help it leave any one alone in Todd's shop, as circumstances may prevent us from always following his customers in; but if you should be forced to leave while any one is there, knock at No. 133 Fleet Street. This is from your friend R. B." "133?" said Johanna, as she glanced around her, "133? Ah, it is close at hand. Herehere." The number was only a short distance from Todd's, and Johanna was making her way to it, when some one stopped her. "From Todd's," said a voice. "Yesyes. A man is there." "Alone?" "Yes, and" Before she could say another word the stranger darted from her, and made his way into Todd's shop. Johanna paused, and shrinking into a doorway, stood trembling like an aspen leaf. "Oh, Heaven!" she ejaculated, "into what a sea of troubles have I plunged. Murder and I will become familiar, and I shall learn to breathe an atmosphere of blood. Oh, horror! horror! horror!" The crowd in that dense thoroughfare passed on, and no one took heed of the seeming boy, as he wept and sobbed in that doorway. Some had no time to waste upon the sorrows of other people;some buttoned up their pockets as though they feared that the tears that stood upon that pale face were but the preludes to some pecuniary demand;others again passed on rapidly, for they were so comfortable and cosy that they really could not have their feelings lacerated by any tale of misery, not they. And so Johanna wept alone. Ding dong! ding dong! What is that? Oh, St. Dunstan's chimes. How long has she been from the shop? Shall she return to it, or fly at once and seek for refuge from all the sorrows and from all the horrors that surround her, in the arms of her father? "Direct me, oh God!" she cried. Some one suddenly clasps her arm. "Johanna! Johanna!" It was Arabella Wilmot. Johanna Disguised As A Boy, Is Found Weeping By Arabella, Near St. Dunstan's. Johanna Disguised As A Boy, Is Found Weeping By Arabella, Near St. Dunstan's. "Johannadear, dear Johanna, you are safequite safe. Come home nowoh, comeoh, comecome." "You here, Arabella?" "Yes, I am madmad!at least, I was going mad, Johanna; in my agony to know what had become of you, and notwithstanding I have told Sir Richard Blunt, I had no faith in the love and the courage of any one but myself. I was coming to Todd's." "To Todd's?" "Yes, dear, to Todd's. I could no longer exist unless I saw with my own eyes that you were safe." "What a fatal step that might have been." "It might. Perhaps it would; but God, in his goodness, has again, my dear Johanna, averted it by enabling me to meet you here. Come home nowcome at once." "Yes, II think" "Comecome;you have done already much. Let, for the future, your feelings be, that for Mark Ingestrie you have adventured what not one girl in a million would adventure." At this mention of the name of Mark Ingestrie, a sharp cry of mental agony burst from the lips of Johanna. "Oh, I thank you, Arabella." "Thank me?" "Yes, you have recalled me to myself. You have, by the mention of that name, recalled me to my duty, from which I was shrinking and falling away. You have told me in the most eloquent language that could be used that as yet I have done nothing for him who is, dead or alive, my heart's best treasure." "Oh, Johanna, you will kill me." "No, Arabellano. Good bye. Go home, lovego home, andand pray for mepray for me!" "Johanna, for mercy's sake! what are you about to do? Speak to me. Do not look upon me in that way. What are you about to to do, Johanna?" "Go to the shop." "To Todds?" "Yes. It is my placeI am in search of Mark Ingestrie. If he be living, it is I who must clear that man who is suspected of his murder. If he be no more, it is I, who weak and fragile as I am, must drag him to justice." "Nonono." "I say yes. Do not stay me if you love me." Arabella clasped the arm of Johanna, but with a strength that only the immense amount of mental excitement she was suffering from could have given her. Johanna freed herself from the hold of her friend, and dashing from the doorway, was in another moment lost to the sight of Arabella in the barber's shop. "What now?" cried Todd, fiercely, as Johanna bounded into the shop so hurriedly. "Nothing, sironly the dog." "Bolt the doorbolt the door." "Yes, sir." Todd wiped his brow. "That infernal dog," he muttered, "will be the death of me yet; and so, Charley, the malignant beast flew at you, did he? the savage will attack you, will he?" "Yes, sir, so it seems." "We will kill it. I should like to cut its throat. It would be a pleasure, Charley. How strange that strong poisons have no effect upon that dog. Curses on it!" "Indeed, sir." "None whatever. It is very odd." Todd remained in a musing attitude for some time, and then suddenly starting, he said "Charley, if that man come again after his wig, get him into talk, will you, and learn all you can about him. I have to go a little way into the city just now, and shall speedily return. I hoped you liked the pie?" "Pie, sir?" "Yes, Lovett's pie." "Oh, yesdelicious." "Ha! ha! he! he! ho!" Drawing on a pair of huge worsted gloves, Todd walked out of the shop without saying another word. The moment he was gone, Johanna passed both her hands upon her breast, as if to stay the wild beating of her heart, as she whispered to herself "Alonealone once more." It was well that she had only whispered that much, for in the next moment Todd gently put his head into the shop. She started. "Oh, siroh, sir, you frightened me." "Beware!" was all he said. "Beware!" The frightful head, more terrifying to Johanna than would have been the fabled Medusa's, was withdrawn again, and this time Johanna resolved to be certain that he was gone before she gave the smallest outbreak to her feelings, or permitted herself to glance around her in any way that could be construed into prying curiosity. She made a feint of clearing up the place a little, and, with a broom that had about six hairs only left in it, she swept the hobs of the little miserable grate in which a fire was kept for the shavingwater. This occupied some little time; but still not feeling sure that Todd was really gone, she then went to the door, and looked right and left. He was not to be seen; and so, when she went back, she bolted the shopdoor upon the inside again, and really felt that she was alone once more in that dreadful place. That poor Johanna was now in a great state of mental excitement is not a matter of surprise, for the events that had recently taken place were decidedly of a character to produce such a mental condition. The interview with Arabella had, no doubt, materially aided in such an effect. With trembling eagerness she now began again to look about her, and her great aim was by some means to get into the parlour, for if anywhere, she thought that surely there she should find some traces of that lost one who occupied, since the suspicions of the foul usage he had met with, a larger place in her affections than before. Feeling how surrounded she was by friends, probably Johanna was a little more reckless as regarded the means she adopted of carrying out her intention. The parlourdoor was quite fast; but surely in the shop she thought she might find some weapon, by the aid of which it could be burst open; and even if Todd should suddenly return, it was but a rush, and she would reach the street; and if he intercepted her in that, as God knew he might, she could take the means of summoning assistance pointed out to her by Sir Richard Blunt, and cast something through the window into the street. Full of these thoughts and feelings, then, and only alive to the mad wish she had of discovering some traces of her lover, Johanna hunted the shop over for some weapon with which to attack the parlourdoor. She opened a cupboard. A hat fell from within at her feet! One glance at that hat was sufficient; it was of a peculiar colourshe remembered it. It was the hat of the man whom she had left being shaved when she was sent ostensibly to purchase a pie at Mrs. Lovett's, in Bellyard. Johanna's hurry was over. A sickening feeling came over her as she asked herself what was the probable fate of the owner of the hat. "Another victim!another victim!" she gasped. She tottered back overpowered by the thought that there had been a time when, opening that cupboard door, the carelessly castin hat of Mark Ingestrie would have fallen to her feet, even as did that of the stranger, who, no doubt, now was numbered with the dead. She sank almost in a state of fainting into the shavingchair. "Oh, yes, yes," she said. "This is horribly, frightfully condusive. My poor Mark. You have gone before me to that home where alone we may hope to meet again. Alas! alas! that I should live to feel such a truth." She burst into tears, and sobbed so bitterly, that any one who had seen her would have truly thought her heart was breaking in that wild paroxysm of grief. What a mercy it was that Todd did not come in at such a moment as that, was it not? The sobs subsided into sighs. The tears no longer flowed in abundance; and after about five minutes Johanna arose, tottering and pale. She drenched her eyes and face with cold water, until the traces of the storm of emotion were no longer visible upon her face; and then she knelt by the shaving chair, and clasping her hands, she said "Great God, I ask for justice upon the murderer!" She rose, and felt calmer than before; and then, sitting down by the little miserable fire, she buried her face in her hands, and tried to thinkto think how she should bring to justice the man who had been the blight of her young existencethe canker in the rosebud of her youth. You would have been shocked if you could just for a moment have looked into Sweeney Todd's shop, and seen that girl in such an attitude, without a sigh and without a tear, while all her dearest hopes lay about her heart in the very chaos of a frightful wreck. CHAPTER LXXIII. STARTLING EVENTS. Business at Mrs. Lovett's was brisk. During the whole of that daythat most eventful day upon which the fair Johanna Oakley had gone upon her desperate errand to Sweeney Todd'sthe shop in Bell Yard had been besieged by customers. Truly it was a pity to give up such an excellent business. The tills groaned with money, and Mrs. Lovett's smiles and pies never appeared so perfect as upon that day. At about halfpast twelve o'clock, when the Lord Chancellor suddenly got up from his chair, in the great hall of Lincoln's Inn, and put on his furrylooking hat, and when the curtain which shuts in his lordship from invidious blasts was withdrawn with a screaming jerk, and a gentleman was stopped in the middle of an argument, what a rush of lawyer's clerks there was to the pieshop in Bell Yard. Then was it that the anxious solicitor's fag, who must know something, and have some brains, smiled at the prospect of the luxurious repast he was about to have, and jingled the twopence he had kept in a side pocket for only one pie, and grudged it not out of his hardearned pittance. Then was it that the bloated barrister's clerk, who had grown shining and obese upon fares, and who is not required to know anything but the complete art of insolence to his brothers, nor to have any more brains than will suffice him to make up his book in the long vacation, smacks his lips at the thought of Lovett's pies, and sends the expectant boy of the chamberthe snob of a snobfor three twopennies. Lean and hungrylooking young men start into Bell Yard from the Strand, producing crumbled pieces of paper, bag their twopenny, and retire to eat it in some corner of the old Temple. All is bustleall is animation, and the side counterthat one, you know, which ran parallel to the windowwas lined by clerks, who sat eating and driving their heels against the boarding, and joking, and laughing "Ha! ha!" how they did laugh! And then what stories they told of their "Governors;" and how such an one was going out of practice; and how such another one was a screw, and so on, to the great delight of the mere boys, who hoped one day to wear their hair long and grey, and to dress in an outrageous caricature of the mode! As the machine that let down at the back of the counter, to bring up the pies, went down for the one o'clock batch, it was noticed that Mrs. Lovett looked a little anxious. The fact was, that the cook had been so prompt upon that day in his movements, that she began to think there must be, as folks say, "Something in it," and she was beginning to terrify herself with the idea that he had some scheme of redemption for himself in view, that might most unseasonably develope itself before the customers. "Ah, Mrs. Lovett," said one young gent, while the gravy ran down the sides of his mouth from the pie he was consuming. "You don't seem at all yourself today. Indeed you don't." "Who do I seem, then?" "Ha! ha! Upon my life that's good!" roared another. A small amount of wit did for Lovett's pie shop. It was like the House of Commons in that particular, and "loud laughter" was sure to welcome the smallest joke. Mrs. Lovett's eyes were bent upon the abyss, down which the trap had descended but a moment before. "Ain't they acoming, mum?" said one. "Oh, don't I sniff 'em," said another, working his nose like an exchancellor. "Don't I sniff 'em." "Delicious!" cried another. A feeling of relief was visible upon the face of Mrs. Lovett as the trap slowly ascended, bringing with it the one o'clock batch, in all their steaming glory. The whole shop was in a moment filled with the fresh appetitegiving aroma of those bubbling hot pies; and as the French newspapers say, when a member of the extreme right, or half way to the left, or two degrees from the centre, swerves, there was "a sensation." Five minutesonly five minutesand the whole batch was cleared off, not one was left! "Another batch of one hundred, gentlemen, at two," said Mrs. Lovett, with a bland look. "At two, mum?" cried a customer. "Why, what's to become of the halfpast one batch?" "We are rather short ofof meat," said Mrs. Lovett, with one of her strange metallic smiles. "The devil you are! Ain't there butchers enough?" "Oh, dear, yes; but we could not get such meat as we put in our pies, at the butcher's." "You kill your own, mum, then, I suppose?" "We do," replied Mrs. Lovett, with another smile, more metallic than the former. "And where is your farm, mum?" "Really, sir, you want to know too much. I appeal to those gentlemen if any of them know where my farm is." "Nono. Dn it, no, nor don't care," said all the lawyer's clerks. "Don't know anything about it." "And don't care," said another. "Sufficient for the day is the pie thereof." "Very goodHa! ha!Very good." The crowd gradually dispersed. Mrs. Lovett put a placard in the window, announcing "A hot batch at two o'clock." She then closed the shop door, and retired to the parlour. She cast herself upon a sofa, and hiding the light from her eyes with one of her arms, she gave herself up to thought. Yes, that bold bad woman was beginning to have her moments of thought, during which it appeared to be as though a thousand mocking fiends were thronging around her. No holy thoughts or impulses crossed her mind. Solitude, that best of company to the good and just, was to her peopled with countless horrors; and yet there must have been a time when that woman was pure, and her soul spotlessa time when it was free from "The black engraved spots" which now deformed it. And yet who, to look upon her now, could fancy that she was ever other than what she seemed? Who could bring themselves to think that she had not been placed at once by the archfiend as she was upon the beautiful world, to make in the small circle around her a pestilence, a blight, and a desolation? There are persons in the world that it would be the greatest violence to our feelings ever to attempt to picture to our imaginations as children; and as such, surely were Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. Was she ever some gentle little girl, fondly clinging to a mother's arms? Was he ever a smiling infant, with pretty dimples? Was there at his or her birth much joy? Did a mother's tears ever fall upon his or her cheek, in sweet gratitude to God for such a glorious gift? Nono. We cannotwe will not believe that such persons as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett ever came into this world otherwise than readymade man and woman! Any other belief, concerning such fiends in human shape is too repugnant. But we are forgetting that Mrs. Lovett is upon the sofa all this while, and that her metallic smile has quite vanished, giving way to such a look of utter abandonment of spirit, that you would have shuddered to have cast but one glance upon her. She could bear the quietude of the attitude she had assumed but for a very short time, and then she sprang to her feet. "Yes," she said, "it must, and it shall come to an end!" She stood for some few moments trembling, as though the dim echo of that word end, as she had jerked it forth, had awakened in her mind a world of horrifying thoughts. Again she sank upon the couch, and speaking in a low, plaintive voice, she said "Yes. I have need of the waters of oblivion, one draught of which shuts out for ever all memory of the past. Oh, that I had but a cup of such nectar at my lips!" Not a doubt of it, Mrs. Lovett. It is the memory of the wicked that constitutes that retribution, which is assuredly to be found in this world as day follows night. "II must have this," she muttered. "Let Todd be dead or alive, I must have it. I am going madI feel certain. That I am going mad, and the only way to save myself, is to flee. I must collect as much money as I can and then flee far away. If I cannot quite obliterate the past from my memory, I can at least leave it as it is, and add nothing to it. Yes, that man may live. He seems to bear a charmed life. But I must flee." She rested her head upon her hands, and in a softer voice, said "Let me thinklet me think of the means, now that I have yet a little time. What do I dread most? The man below? Yes. He is at work for his deliverance. I feel that he is, and if he succeed before I flee from here, all is lostall is lost! I must speak to him." Filled with this idea, and with an unknown dread of what the discontented cook might do, Mrs. Lovett stepped into the shop first, and made the door fast by slipping a bolt at the back of it. It was not very often that immediately after the disposal of a batch of pies any customers came in, and if they should attempt to do so for the purpose of purchasing any stale pies, she was by far too intent upon what she was come about, and considered it by far too important to heed what they might think or say upon finding the door fast. She then opened the seeming cupboard in the parlour, which conducted to the strong iron door, with the small grating at the top of it. She reached that point of observation with great rapidity, and peered into the cavernous dungeonlike bakehouse. At first she could see nothing by the uncertain light that was there, but as her eyes got accustomed to the absence of daylight, she could just see the figure of the cook sitting upon a stool, and apparently watching one of the fires. "It is a longlong time." "What is a long time?" cried Mrs. Lovett. The captive cook sprang to his feet in a moment, and in a voice of alarm, he said "Who spoke? Who is that?" "I," replied Mrs. Lovett. "Do you not know me?" "Ah," said the cook, directing his eyes to the grating above the door, "I know you too well. What do you want with me? Have I failed in doing your bidding here? Have I disappointed you of a single batch of those execrable pies?" "Certainly not, but I have come to seeifif you are quite comfortable." "Comfortable! What an insult!" "Nay, you wrong me." "That is impossible. This is the commencement only of some new misery. Speak on, madam. Speak on. I am helpless here, and condemned to suffer." Notwithstanding these words of the cook there was a certain tone of hilarity about him, that Mrs. Lovett might well be surprised at, and she asked herself what does he hope. The fact is that much as he wished still to enact the character of a man full of despair, the cook could not get out of his head and heart the promises of Sir Richard Bluntpromises which still rung in his ears, like a peal of joy bells. "Come, come," said Mrs. Lovett, "you are getting reconciled to your fate. Confess as much." "I reconciled? Never." "But you are not so unhappy?" "Worseworse. This apathetic condition that I am now in, and which to you may look like the composure of resignation, will end, in all likelihood, in raging madness." "Indeed?" "Yes, madam, I feel already the fire in my brain." "Be calm." "Calmcalm! Ha!ha! Calm. It is all very well for you upon that side of the iron door to talk of calmness, madam, but upon this side the words sound strange." "It will not sound so strange when I tell you that I have absolute compassion upon you, and that the cause of my present visit was to talk to you of some means by which the worst portion of your fate here might be in some measure ameliorated, and your existence rendered tolerable." CHAPTER LXXIV. BIG BEN CREATES A SENSATION. The cook was so surprised at these words from Mrs. Lovett that for some moments he made no answer to them. "Pray, speak again," he said at length, when he could find words in which to express himself. "I repeat," she said, "that I am desirous, as far as lies in my power, to ameliorate your condition, of which you so much complain." "Indeed!" "Ah, you are too suspicious." "Humph! I think, madam, when you come to consider all things, you will hardly think it possible for me to be too suspicious." "You are wrong again. I dare say now, in your mind, you attribute most of your evils to me." "Well, madam, candidly speaking, should I be far wrong by so doing?" "You would be quite wrong. Alas! alas! I" "You what, madam? Pray, speak up." "I am the victim of another. You cannot suppose that, of my own free will, I should shut up in these gloomy places a person of your age, and by no means illlooking." "I have him there," thought Mrs. Lovett; "what human heart is proof against the seductions of flattery? Oh, I have him there." The cook was silent for some few moments, and then he said, quite calmly, as though the tribute to his personal appearance had not had the smallest effect "Pray go on, madam, I am quite anxious to hear all that you may have to say to me." This composed manner of meeting her compliments rather discomposed Mrs. Lovett; but after all, she thought"He is only acting an indifference he is far from feeling." With this impression she resolved to persevere, and she added, in a kind and conciliating tone of voice "I grant that circumstances are such that you may well be excused for any amount of doubt that you may feel regarding the honesty of my words and intentions towards you." "I quite agree with you there, madam," said the cook. "Then all I have to do is, by deeds, to convince you that I am sincere in my feelings towards you. As I have before said, I am in the power of another, and therefore is it that, contrary to my nature, I may seem to do cruel things at which my heart revolts." "I cannot conceive anything so distressing," said the cook, "except being the unfortunate victim as I am of such a train of circumstances." "That is what I am coming to." "Are you? I wish you were." There was a tone of irony about the enforced cook which Mrs. Lovett did not at all like; but she had an object to gain, and that was to fully persuade him that the shortest way to his freedom would be to remain profoundly quiet for a day or two, and then she would be able to make her own arrangements and be off without troubling either him or Todd with any news of her departure or her whereabouts. "You still doubt me," she said. "But listen, and I think you will soon be of opinion that although I have wronged you as yet, I can do something to repair that wrong." "I am all attention, madam." "Then, in the first place, you are quite tired of eating pies, and must have some other kind of food." "You never said a truer thing in all your life, madam." "That other food, then, I will provide for you. You shall, within an hour from now, have anything to eat or to drink that you may please to name. Speak, what is it to be?" "Well," he said, "that is kind indeed. But I can do without food further than I have here, for I have hit upon a mode of making cakes that please me. Nevertheless, if you can bring me a bottle of brandy, in order that I may slightly qualify the water that I drink, I shall be obliged to you." "You shall have it; and now I hope you will be convinced of the sincerity of my desire to be of service to you." "But my liberty, madam, my liberty. That is the grand thing after all that I must ever pant for." "True, and that is what you shall have at my hands. In the course of two, or it may be three days, I shall have perfected some arrangements which will enable me to throw open your prison for you, and then" "Then what?" "May I hope that you will not think so harshly of me as you have done?" "Certainly not." "Then I shall be repaid for all I do. You must believe me to be the victim of the most cruel circumstances, of which some day you may be informed. At present, to do so, would only be to involve both you and myself in one common destruction." "Then don't mention it." "I will not. But beware of one thing." "What is that?" "Simply this, that any attempts upon your own part to escape from here previous to the time when I shall have completed my arrangements to set you free, will not only derange all that I am planning for you, but end in your utter destruction; for he who has forced me into my present cruel situation will not for one moment hesitate at the murder of us both; so if you wish to be free in a few days you will try nothing, but if on the contrary you wish to destroy both yourself and me, you will make some attempts to rescue yourself from here." Mrs. Lovett waited rather anxiously for his answer to this speech. "I dare say you are right," he said at length. "You may be assured I am." "Then I consent." Mrs. Lovett drew a long breath of relief, as she muttered to herself "It will doI have him in the toils; and come what may, I am free from the torturing thought that he may achieve something that may have the effect of delivering me up to the hands of justice. When I am gone, he may remain where he is, and rot for all I care.""You have done wisely," she said aloud, "and if anything could more powerfully than another incite me to the greatest exertions to liberate you, it would be the handsome manner in which you have placed confidence in me." "Oh, don't mention it." Again there was that tone of sarcasm about the cook's voice, which created a doubt in the mind of Mrs. Lovett if, after all, he was not merely playing with her, and in his heart utterly disregarding all that she said to him. It is quite questionable if this doubt was not in its bitterness worse than the former anxieties that had preyed upon the mind of the lady; but she found she could do nothing to put an end to it, so she merely said "Well, I feel much happier now; so I will go at once and get you the brandy that you ask for." "I hope he will drink it freelyit will aid him in drowning reflection." "Thank you," said the cook, "I shall expect it with impatience." "Confound her, she can't very well put anything queer in the brandy. I will take care to taste a very small portion of it first; for Sir Richard Blunt has cautioned me particularly to be careful of poison." "I am going," said Mrs. Lovett. "Goodbye, madam; I only hope you will be able to carry your benevolent intentions into effectand," added the cook to himself, "that I may some fine morning have the pleasure of seeing you hanged." "Farewell," said Mrs. Lovett; and she, too, had her aside as she ascended the stairs, for she muttered"If I were only a little better assured than I am that you meditated something dangerous, I would steal upon you while you slept, and with a knife soon put an end to all trouble regarding you." Mrs. Lovett Alarmed At The Strange Faces At Her Window In The PieShop. Mrs. Lovett Alarmed At The Strange Faces At Her Window In The PieShop. Now, it happened that when Mrs. Lovett reached her shop, she saw three people outside the window. The actions of these people attracted her observation. One was a big stout man, of such a size as was rarely seen in the streets of London. The other was a young girl, nicely attired, but with a look of great grief and agitation upon her countenance. The third person of the group was a gentlemanlylooking man, attired in a great coat which was buttoned up to his chin. The big stout man was making a kind of movement towards the door of the pieshop, and the gentleman with the greatcoat was holding up his hand and shaking his head, as though forbidding him. The big stout man then looked angry; and then Mrs. Lovett saw the young girl cling to him, and heard her say "Oh, nono; I said I wanted nothing.Come away." Then the gentleman with the greatcoat pulled his collar down a little; upon which the young girl sprang towards him, and, clasping his arm, cried in tones of intense interest "Ah, sir, is it indeed you? Tell me is she savedoh, is she saved?" "She will be," was the reply of the gentleman in the greatcoat. "Come away.
" The big stout man appeared to be getting rather furious at the idea of the gentleman with the greatcoat dictating what he and the young girl should do; but she by a few words pacified him; and then, as if they were the best friends in the world, they all walked away towards the Strand, conversing very seriously and rapidly. "What does this mean?" said Mrs. Lovett. Terror overspread her countenance. Oh, conscience! conscience! how truly dost thou make "Cowards of us all!" What could compensate Mrs. Lovett for the abject terrors that came over her now? What could recompense her for the pang that shot across her heart, at the thought that something was amiss in the finedrawn web of subtlety that she and Sweeney Todd had drawn? Alas! was the money in the Bank of England, upon which she expected to enjoy herself in a foreign land, now any setoff against that shuddering agony of soul with which she said to herself "Is all discovered?" Her strength forsook her. She quite forgot all about the cook, and the brandy she had promised himshe forgot even how necessary it was, in case any one should come, for her to keep up the appearance of composure; and tottering into the backparlour, she sunk upon her knees on the floor, and shook as though the spirit of twenty agues possessed her. So it will be seen that Todd was not quite alone in his sufferings from those compunctious visitations, which we have seen at times come over him in his shop. But we will leave Mrs. Lovett to her reflections, hoping that even she may be made a little wiser and a little better by those soft "Whisperings of awakened sense;" and that she may find some one among the invisible hosts of spirits of another world who may whisper to her "Repent! repent!it is not yet too late." Let us look at those three persons whose mysterious conduct at the shop windows had, like a match applied to gunpowder, at once awakened a fever in the breast of Mrs. Lovett, which she was scarcely aware slumbered there. These folks made their way, then, into Fleet Street; and as the reader has probably guessed already who they are, we may as well make a merit of saying that the big one was our old friend Ben, the beefeaterthe gentlemanlylooking man was Sir Richard Blunt, and the young lady was no other than Arabella Wilmot. Poor Arabella! Of all the personages concerned in our dramatis person, we have no hesitation in saying that your sufferings are the greatest. From the moment that Johanna had started upon that desperate expedition to Sweeney Todd's, peace left the bosom of her young friend. We have already traced the progress of Arabella to Sir Richard Blunt's office, and we have seen what was the result of that decidedly judicious movement; but notwithstanding she was assured over and over again subsequently by Sir Richard that Johanna was now well protected, she could not bring herself to think so, or to leave the street. It was by her lingering about in this way that she became in the company of our friend Ben. The fact was, that the kind of statement or confession that Johanna had made to Ben on that occasion of his visit to her father's house, when she found herself alone with him in the parlour, had made such an impression upon the poor fellow, that he described it himself in the most forcible possible language, by saying "It interferes with my meals." Now, everything that had such an effect as that, must to Ben be a matter for the most serious consideration indeed. He accordingly, finding that "The peace of the Tower was fled," so far as he was concerned, had come into the City upon a sort of voyage of discovery, to see how matters were going on. As he was proceeding along Fleet Street, he chanced to cast his eyes into the entrance of a court, nearly opposite Sweeney Todd's, and there he saw a female form crouching. There was something about this female form which Ben thought was familiar to him, and upon a close look, he felt certain it was Johanna's friend, Arabella Wilmot. Full of surprise at finding her there, Ben paused, and stared at her so long, that she at last looked at him, and recognising him, immediately flew to his side, and grasping his arm, cried "Oh, pity me, Mr. Ben. Pity me!" "Hold!" said Ben, who was not, as the reader is aware, the fastest thinker in the world. "Hold. Easy does it." Ben tried to look very wise then. "Oh, you will hate me, Ben." "Eh?" "I say you will hate me, Ben, when you know all." Ben shook his head. "Shan't do any such thing," he said. "Lord bless your pretty eyes, I hate you? I couldn't." "Butbut" "Come, come," added Ben, "just take your little bit of an arm under mine. Easy does it, you know. Always think of that, if anything goes amiss. Easy does it; and then you will find things come right in the long run. You may take my word for it." CHAPTER LXXV. COLONEL JEFFERY OPENS HIS EYES. Arabella was weeping, so that for some little time she could say nothing more to Ben; and he did not, in the profundity of his imagination, very well know what to say to her, except now and then muttering the maxim of "Easy does it," which Ben thought singularly applicable to all human affairs. But this was a state of things which could not last; and Arabella Wilmot, nerving herself sufficiently to speak in a few minutes, said to Ben in a low selfdeprecatory tone "Oh, sir, IIhave done something very wrong." "Eh?" said Ben, opening his eyes to their utmost. "Yes," added Arabella, "very wrong, indeed." "Humph!" "You would not probably have expected it of me, Mr. Ben, would you now?" "Well, ahem!" said Ben. "Easy does it." "I am a wickedwicked girl." "Oh, dearoh, dear!" said Ben. "You cannot guess, Mr. Ben, what I have done; but I feel I ought to tell you, and it will be quite a relief to me to do so." Ben shook his head. "I tell you what it is, my dear," he said. "Your best plan is to go and tell your mother, my dear. That's the proper person to tell. She is sure to find it out somehow or another; and you had better tell her at once, and thenEasy does it." "My mother? Tell my mother? Oh, nonono!" "Well, if you have got any respectable old aunt now, who is a good, kind old soul, and would not make too much fuss, you had better tell her; but goodness gracious, my dear, what puts it into your head to tell me?" "Because I think you are kindhearted." "Well, butwell, but" "And, then, of course, as you are mixed up, you know, Mr. Ben, in the whole transaction, it is only proper that you should know what has happened at last." Ben turned fairly round, and looked down into the face of Arabella Wilmot with such a coarse expression of alarm upon his face, that at any other than so serious a time she must have laughed. "Me?" he cried. "Me?" "Yes, Mr. Ben." "Me mixed up in thetheOh dear!" "Ah, Mr. Ben, you know you are by far too kind not to be; and so I feel as though it would be quite a relief to me to tell you everything." "Everything?" "Yes, allall." "Not all the particulars, surely. Comecome. I ain't an old woman, you know, my dear." "An old woman, Ben?" "No, my dear, I say I ain't an elderly female, so I don't think I ought to listen to all the particulars, do you know. Comecome, you go home now, and say no more about it to me. Easy does it, you know; and keep your own counsel. I won't say a word; but don't you, because you are in such a state of mind as you hardly know what you are about, go on blubbering to me about all the particulars, when perhaps tomorrow you'll give one of your pretty little ears that you had not said a word to me about it." "Alas!Alas!" "Pho! Pho! Easy does it." "Who am I to cling to but you?" "Cling to me? Perhaps you'll say it's me?" "What's you, Mr. Ben? Explain yourself. How strange you talk. What do you mean, Mr. Ben?" "Well, that's cool," said Ben. "What's cool?" "I tell you what it is, Miss Arabella W., I'm disappointed in you; ain't you ashamed to look me in the face?" "Ashamed?" "Yes, positively ashamed?" "No, Mr. Ben. I may regret the indiscretion that is past; but I cannot see in it anything to be ashamed of." "You don't?" "Indeed, Mr. Ben, I do not." "Then, Miss A. W., you are about the coolest little piece of goods I have met with for some time. Comecome, easy does it; but haven't you been telling me all this time about something you have been about, thatthatwas rather improper, in a manner of speaking?" It might have been the tone in which Ben pronounced the word improper, or it might have been the sagacious shake of the head which Ben accompanied his words with, or it might have been that Arabella was drawing a conclusion from the whole transaction; but certain it is, that she began to have a glimmering perception that Mr. Ben was making a great mistake. "Oh, heaven!" she said. "What are you saying Mr. Ben? I am speaking of the advice I was foolish enough to give Johanna." "Advice?" "Yes, that is all. Into what mischief could you have tortured my meaning? I am much mistaken in you, sir." "What? Then, it isn'tahem! That is to say, you haven'tdear me, I shall put my foot in it directly. What a fool I am." "You are, indeed," said the now indignant Arabella, and a slight flush upon her cheeks showed how deeply wronged she was by the unworthy construction Ben had put upon her innocent words. "Goodbye, Miss A. W.," added Ben. "Goodbye; I see I am out of your books; but if you fancy I meant any harm, you don't know me. God bless you. Take care of yourself my dear, and go home. I won't stay to plague you any longer. Goodbye." "Stop! Stop!" Ben paused. "I am sure, Mr. Ben, you did not mean to say a single word that could be offensive to a friendless girl in the street." "Then, then?Easy does it." "Let us be friends again then, Mr. Ben, and I will tell you all, and you will then blame me for being so romantic as to give Johanna advice which has induced her to take a step which, although my reason tells me she is now well protected in, my imagination still peoples with horror." Ben's eyes opened to an alarming width. "You recollect meeting us in this street, Ben?" "Oh, yes." "When Johanna was disguised?" "Yes, Miss A. When she had on them, ahem! You may depend upon it, my dear, there's no good comes of young girls putting on pairs of thingamys. Don't you ever do it." "But, Mr. Ben, hear me." "Wellwell. I was only saying. You stick to the petticoats, my dear. They become you, and you become them, and don't you be trusting your nice little legs into whatdoyoucall'ems." "Mr. Ben?" "I've done. Easy does it. Now go on and tell us what happened, my dear. Don't mind me. Go on." "Then Johanna, in boy's cloathes, is now" "Now? Oh, the little vixen. Didn't I tell her not." "Is now filling the situation of errand boy at Sweeney Todd's, opposite. Can I be otherwise than wretched, most wretched!" "Arrant boy?" "No, not arrant boy. Errand boy." "At Todd'soppositeinboysclothes? Ohohjust you wait here, and I'll soon put that to rights. I'llI'll. Only you wait in this doorway, Miss A. W., just a moment or two, and I'll teach her to go and do such things. I'llI'll" "Nono Ben. You will ruin all, you will, indeed. I implore you to stay with me. Let me tell you all that has happened, and how Johanna is protected. In the first place, Ben, you must know that Sir Richard Blunt the Magistrate has her under his special protection now, and he says that he has made such arrangements that it is quite impossible she can come to any harm." "But" "Nay, listen me out. He says that nothing can now expose her to any danger, but some injudicious interference. I ought not, you see, to have told you, Mr. Ben; but since I have, I only ask of you, for Johanna's sake, for her life's sake, to do nothing." Ben looked aghast. "Andand how long is the little lamb to be left there?" he asked. "Only a few hours I think now, Benonly a few hours. Where are we now, Mr. Ben?" "Why, this, my dear, is Bellyard we have strolled into; and that is the famous pieshop of which they talk so much. They say the woman has made an immense fortune by selling them." As Ben made a kind of movement towards Mrs. Lovett's window, it was then that Sir Richard Blunt, who had followed him and Arabella Wilmot from Fleetstreet, and who had, in fact, overheard some portion of their conversation, stepped up in the manner that Mrs. Lovett had remarked from within the shop. We have before stated that the three personages, consisting of the magistrate, big Ben the beefeater, and Arabella Wilmot, walked to Fleetstreet together from Bellyard. Sir Richard Blunt shook his head at Arabella Wilmot, as he said "Miss Wilmot, I cannot help saying that it would have been better in every respect, and possibly much more conducive to the safety of Miss Oakley, if you had gone home quietly, and not lingered about Fleetstreet." "I could not go, sir." "But yet a consideration for Miss Oakley's safety should have induced you to put that violence upon your own feelings." "I felt that when once you, sir, had pledged yourself for her safety, that safe she was; and that my weeping perchance in a doorway in Fleetstreet could not be so important as to compromise her." "I am fairly enough answered," said Sir Richard Blunt, with a slight smile. "But what say you to coming with me to the Temple?" "The Temple?" Arabella cast a lingering look towards Todd's shop, which Sir Richard at once translated, and replied to it by saying "Fear nothing for your young friend. She knows she is protected; but even she does not know the extent to which she is so protected. I tell you, Miss Wilmot, that I pledge my own life for her safetyand that, although to all seeming she is in the power of Todd, such is not the case." "Indeed?" "I have a force of no less than twentyfive men in Fleetstreet nowone half of whom have their eyes upon Todd's shop. By Heaven! I would not have a hair of that young and noble girl's head injured for the worth of this great kingdom!" "Bravo!" cried Ben, as he seized Sir Richard by the hand, and gave it a squeeze that nearly brought the tears into the eyes of the magistrate; "bravo! that's what I like to hear. All's right. Bless you, sir, easy does it. You are the man for my money!" "Will you both come with me, then?" "To be sure," said Ben; "to be sure; and as we go along, I'll tell you what a sad mistake I made about Miss Arabella here. You must know that I met her crying in Fleetstreet, and she" Arabella shook her head, and frowned. "Andandandshenothing." "Well," said Sir Richard, "I must confess I have heard anecdotes with a little more point to them." "You don't say so!" said Ben. "I think I will go home," said Arabella, gently. "If you will," replied the magistrate, "of course, I cannot say anything to stay you; but I think it will be a great disappointment to Colonel Jeffery not to meet with you today." "Colonel Jeffery!" exclaimed Arabella, while her face became of the colour of a rosebud; "Colonel Jeffery?" There was just the ghost of a smile upon the face of Sir Richard Blunt, as he calmly replied "Yes; I am on my way to meet that gentleman in the garden of the Temple; and I am sure he would be glad to see you." "Glad to see me?" "Yes, as so true a friend of Johanna's, he will be more than glad; he will be delighted." "Delighted?" "Do you doubt the Colonel's friendly feeling towards you?" "Oh nono. Inocertainly not." "Then let me beg of you to come." "No. Not now; I will go home. It will look particular for me to go to the garden to meet him." "It will look much more particular to refuse, I think, Miss Wilmot. You are with me, and with your old friend, and Johanna's relative, Mr. aa" "They calls me Ben." "Mr. Ben; and so you cannot refuse," he said, "to go to meet Colonel Jeffery, you know. Come, come, I pray you come. Indeed, I know the Colonel wishes to speak to you; and as it would be obviously out of order for him to call upon you, I think you ought, seeing that you're not alone, to give him, as a gentleman of wealth and honour, this opportunity of doing so." "You say, he wishes to speak to me?" "He does, indeed. What do you say, Mr. Ben? Don't you think Miss Wilmot might as well come with us?" "Easy does it," said Ben, "and that's my opinion all the world over." "Then allow me to look upon it that we have prevailed with you, Miss Wilmot. Pray do me the favour to take my arm." Arabella trembled, but she did take the arm of Sir Richard Blunt, and made no further opposition to proceeding to that Temple Gardens, where already such affecting interviews had taken place between the Colonel and poor Johanna. The gardens appeared to be empty when they reached it, but from behind some shrubs Colonel Jeffery in a moment made his appearance, for Sir Richard, in consequence of his meeting with Ben and Arabella, was considerably behind his time. CHAPTER LXXVI. ARABELLA AND THE COLONEL. If any one had been looking at the face of Arabella Wilmot at this particular juncture, and if the party so looking had chanced to be learned in reading the various emotions of the heart from the expression of the features, they might have chanced upon some curious revelations. It was only one glance that Arabella gave to the Colonel, but that was sufficient. A word slightly spoken, and in due season, may say more than a volume of preaching; and so one transient glance, fleeting as a sunbeam in an English April, may, with most eloquent meaning, preach a sermon that would puzzle many a divine. But we have become so familiar with the reader, and put ourselves upon such a cordial shakehands sort of feeling, in particular with you, Miss, who are now reading this passage, that we will whisper a secret in your ear, and the more readily, too, as to whisper we must come particularly close to that soft downy cheek, and almost be able to look askance into those eyes in which the light of Heaven seems dancing,Arabella Wilmot is in love! Yes, Arabella Wilmot is in love with Colonel Jeffery; and small blame to her, as they say in Ireland, for is he not a gentleman in the true acceptation of the term? Not a manufactured gentleman, but one of nature's gentlemen. You will have promised, my dear what'syourname, that Arabella, to herself even, has hardly confessed her feelings; but still they are creeping upon her most insidiously as such feelings somehow or other will and do creep. To be sure, if any one were to stop her in the street or any where else to say, "Arabella, you are in love with Colonel Jeffery," she would say"No, no, no!" many times over. But yet it is true. "You read it in her glistening eyes, And thus alone should love be read She says it in her gentle sighs, And thus alone should love be said." After this, who will be hardy enough, my dear, to dispute the fact with you and I? And now we will watch her, ay, that we will, and see how she will behave herself under such trying circumstances. Colonel Jeffery advanced, and as in duty and gallantry called upon, he, after slightly bowing to the gentlemen, spoke to Arabella. "This is an unexpected pleasure, Miss Wilmot," he said. "I hope I see you well. Here is a seat close at hand. May I have the pleasure of conducting you to it?" "Johanna isisis" stammered Arabella. "Well, I hope," interposed the colonel. "Oh, nonothat is, yes." The colonel looked puzzled. He was not a conjurer, and so might look puzzled, if he looked like any ordinary man, who hears any one say no, and yes in the same breath, without any injury to his reputation. "Mr. Ben," said Sir Richard Blunt, "I have something for your private ear, if you will just step on with me." "My private ear?" said Ben with a confused look, as if he would have liked to add, "which is that?" "Yes. This way if you please." Ben walked on with the magistrate, and Colonel Jeffery was alone with Arabella Wilmot. Yes, alone with the one person who insensibly had crept into her affections. Alas! Is the pure love of that young creature scattered to the winds? Is she one of those who drag about them in this world the heavy chain of unrequited affection? We shall see. Arabella had permitted the colonel to hand her to one of the gardenseats near at hand. How could she prevent him? If he had chosen instead to hand her into the river it would have been just the same, and she would have gone. He led her by that wreath of flowers which in old Arcadia was first linked by Cupid, and which, in all time since, has wound itself around the hearts of all the boygod's victims. "Miss Wilmot," said the colonel, and now his voice faltered a little, "I have much wished to see you." "Very fine, indeed," said Arabella. "You said something about the weather, did you not?" "Not exactly," he said; "I had much wished to see you." "Me?" "Yes, and to begin at the beginning, you know IIloved Johanna Oakley. Yes, I loved her." "Yesyes." "I loved her for her beauty, and for the gentle and the chivalrous devotion of her character, you understand. I loved her for the very tears she shed for another, and for the very constancy with which she clung to the memory of his affection for her. I saw in her such childlike purity of mind, such generosity of disposition, such enchanting humanity of soul, that I could not but love her." "Yes, yes," gasped Arabella. "Yes." "Will you pardon me for saying all this to you?" "Oh yes. Go ongo on, unless you have said all?" "I have not." "Then, then you have only to add that you love her still?" "Yes, but" Arabella's heart beat painfully. "Ah," she said, "has true love any reservations? You love her, and yet you have something else to say." "I have. I love her still. But it is not as I loved her. She has convinced me of her constancy to her first affection, thatthat" "Yes, yes." "That being so convinced, I now love her, but with that love a brother might feel for a dear sister, and I almost think it was a kind of preparation to try to awaken in the smouldering fires of her lost love a new passion. She has made me feel that the love of woman once truly awakened is an undying passion and can know no changeno extinction." "True. Oh, how true!" "I have learnt from her that when once the heart of a young and gentle girlone in whom there are no evil passions, no worldwise failings nor earthly varietiesis touched by the holy flame of affection, it may consume her being, but it never can be extinguished." Arabella burst into tears. "Love," added the colonel, "may be trodden down, but like truth it can never be trodden out!" "Never! never!" sobbed Arabella. "Let me go now! Oh, sir, let me go home now?" "One moment!" She trembled, but she sat still. "Only a moment, Arabella, while I tell you that man's love is different from this. That man can reason upon his affections, and that when the first beauty and excellence upon which he may cast his eyes is denied to his arms, he can look for equal beautyequal excellenceequal charms of mind and person in another, and" Arabella tried to go, but somehow she felt spellbound and could not rise from that garden seat. "And," added the colonel, "with as pure a passion, man can make an idol of her who can be his, as he approached her who could not.Miss Wilmot, I love you!" "Oh, no, noJohanna." Colonel Jeffery Declares His Love For Arabella. Colonel Jeffery Declares His Love For Arabella. "I do not shrink from the pronunciation of that name; I have said that I loved Johanna. If she had been fancyfree and would have looked upon me with eyes of favour, I would have made her my wife; but such was not to be, and for the same qualities that I loved her I love you. I am afraid I have not explained my feelings well." "Oh, yes. That is, I don't know." "And now, Miss Wilmot, will you allow me to hope that what I have said to you may not be all in vain? That" "No, no." "No?" "Allow me to go, now. My mind is too full of the fate of Johanna even to permit me to reject in the language taught" "Reject?" "Yes," she said, "reject. I wish you all the happiness this world can afford to you, Colonel Jeffery." "Then you will be mine?" "No, no, no. Farewell." She rose, and this time the colonel did not attempt to detain her. He stepped back a pace or two, and bowed, and then rose and walked a pace or two away. Then she turned, and holding out her hand, she cried "We maymay be friends." The colonel took the little hand in silence, but the expression of his face was one of deep chagrin. "Goodbye," said Arabella. How courageous she had become all of a sudden, as it were. "And is this all?" said Jeffery. "Yes, all. When I see Johanna I will remember you to her." The colonel bowed again, as he replied "I shall be much beholden to you, Miss Wilmot, for that kindness." "Andand I hope you will findfindthat is, meet with some one, whowho don't chance to know that your love is a kind of secondhandthat is, I don't mean that, but aaYes, that is all." Arabella was saying too much. The colonel replied gently "I am truly obliged for the highly explanatory speech just uttered by Arabella Wilmot, whom I have the honour to wish a very goodday." Arabella trembled. "No, no. Not thus, Colonel Jeffery. We are friends, indeed." "Remarkable good acquaintances," said the colonel, as he walked away towards Sir Richard Blunt and Ben. Arabella walked hastily on, having but one idea at the moment, and that was to leave the garden, but she could not find the gate, and Ben ran after her as well as he could, calling "Miss A. W.Miss A. W., where are you agoing? Don't you go yet. I'll take care of you and see you all right, you know, or perhaps you'd like to take a wherry here at the Temple stairs, and go to the Tower, and see the animals fed?" "Yes, nothat is, anything," replied Arabella. "I will go home now, I am so veryvery wretched!" "What, wretched? Here, Colonel thingumy, she says she" "If you dare!" said Arabella, as she placed her hand upon the arm of Ben. "If you dare!" "Lor!" said Ben, as he looked down from his altitude upon the frail and beautiful young creature. "Lor! easy does it!" The voice of Ben, however, had brought both the colonel and Sir Richard Blunt to the spot. During that brief time that had elapsed since the colonel had last spoken to Arabella, Sir Richard had told him of the perilous position of Johanna, and the look of anxiety upon his face was most marked. Arabella heard him say "Make use of me in any way you please, Sir Richard. Regard my safety or even my life as nothing compared to her preservation." Arabella knew what he meant. "Ben," she said, "will you come with me, and see me a part of my way home?" "Yes, my dear, to be sure. Then you won't come and see the criturs fed today, I supposes?" "No, no." "Very well. Easy does it. Come along, my dearcome along. Lord love you! I'll take care of you. I should only like to see anybody look at you while you are with me, my duck. Bless your little bits of twinkling eyes!" "Thank youthank you." "Lor! it's enough to make a fellow go mad in love, to see such criturs as you, my dear; but whenever I thinks of such things, I says to myself'I'll just pop in and see Mother Oakley,' and that soon puts it all out of my head, I can tell you." "Indeed?" "Yes. You should go in at feeding time some day, and see her acoming it strong with fried ingins." "Fried what?" "Inginsingins; round things. Ingionsah! that's it." "Onions?" "Very likevery like. But come on, my dearcome on. Easy does it! Always remember that whenever you gets into any fix. Easy does it!" Did Arabella think the colonel would run after her and say something? Yes she did; but he came not. Did she think he would be loath to part with her upon such terms as they had seemed to part? Yes, yes. Surely he could not let her go without some kinder, softer, word that he had last spoken to her? But he did. He only watched her with his eyes; and when Sir Richard Blunt, who, it would appear, knew something of the colonel's feelings, said to him "All right, I suppose, Colonel Jeffery?" He only shook his head. "What, anything amiss?" "She has rejected me!" "Oh, is that all?" "All? And enough too." "Phoo! She was sure to do that. Don't you know the old adage, that "Woman's nay still stands for nought." "Why, man, No comes as naturally to the tip of a young girl's tongue when she means Yes, as Don't when she expects to be kissed. I tell you, she loves you. She adores the very ground you walk on." "And yet she taunted me with my passion for Johanna, and called me a secondhand lover." "Did she, though? Ha! ha! ha! ha! Upon my life that was goodwas it not?" CHAPTER LXXVII. MRS. LOVETT VISITS THE BANK. Mrs. Lovett, Mrs. Lovett, we are neglecting you! Excuse us, fascinating piece of wickedness. We are now in Bellyard again. It will be recollected what a mental ferment the appearance of Ben, and Arabella, and Sir Richard Blunt, at the window of her shop had put her in. Not that she knew any of those partiesnor that she connected any of them in any way with her feelings, except so far as their attitudes might at that moment lead her to suppose. The attitudes certainly were such as to create suspicion. All this, joined to the previous state of mind of Mrs. Lovett, did not tend to produce that heavenly calm, which philosophers tell us is such a remarkably nice thing. On the contrary, the mind of Mrs. Lovett rather resembled a raging torrent, boiling and bubbling to some destruction which was afar off, and which could only be reached through the perils and dangers of some stormy passage. She was sighing for peace. She had begun to sicken for the results of her life of iniquitynot those results which an indignant and outraged public would have visited her with, but those results which she and all persons, who deliberately and systematically commence a career of guilt, picture to themselves. Criminality is never engaged in for its own sake. There is always some ultimate object in view, which makes the retrospect less horrible, and the prospect dim and dubious, though it may be yet a thing of pleasurable anticipation. Of course, we are only reasoning upon those minds that reflect. There are many who lead a life of criminality, who do so as the manifestation of an intellect that can picture nothing else. But the reader knows that Mrs. Lovett was not of such an order. She was to some extent an educated, and to a considerable extent a clever woman. Hence, then, she had always pictured to herself wealth and retirement, respect and power, as the ends for which she was striving with such unscrupulous means. But of late, with a shuddering horror, she had begun to dread that all she had hoped for was getting only more distant. She had contracted a strong notion of the bad faith of Todd, and if such were really the case, all was indeed lost. If he allowed his cupidity just to induce him to commit the crime that would be one too many, destruction must fall upon them both. If likewise he instantly made an effort to take to himself all the profits of the unholy traffic that they were mutually engaged in, all would be lost to both; for was she a likely woman to crouch down in silence under such a blow? No! the scaffold prepared by her instrumentality for Todd, would be scarcely less a triumph to her that she herself would share it with him. He ought to have known better than he did. How clear and longsighted we find people upon subjects that from this distance may be supposed to present difficulties, and yet how shallow they are upon what is close to them. One would have thought that such a man as Todd could easily have said to himself, with regard to Mrs. Lovett, "I dare not tamper with the objects of that woman," and he would have said it with truth; but on the contrary, he only looked upon her as a convenient tool, which was to be thrown aside when it had served all the purposes for which he intended it. There could not have been a more fatal mistake upon the part of Todd as concerned his safety. But to return to Mrs. Lovett. The brandy she had promised to the prisoner was quite forgotten.
She sat revolving in her mind, how she could put an end to the state of horrible doubt and perplexity in which she was. There were some little difficulties in the way of Mrs. Lovett emerging from her present condition. It has been before hinted at, that Todd and the fair lady of the pieshop had between them accumulated a large sum of money, and that the money was duly deposited in the hands of a stockbroker, who was by no means to part with it to either of them, except upon an order signed by both. So far all looked fair enough; and as they were likewise bound together by such a bond of mutual guilt, it did not look likely that either would make an endeavour to get the better of the other. Suppose there was 40,000 in the hands of the stockbroker, it did not seem, we say, under all the circumstances likely that Toddbeing fairly entitled as between them, to 20,000would peril the safety of both their necks, by getting up a quarrel about the division equitably of the spoil. The same reasoning will apply to Mrs. Lovett. But these unlikely things are the very things that do come to pass to upset the finest plans. Todd never from the firstwhenever that wasmeant that Mrs. Lovett should share with him; no, he thought that he, as the superior genius, the greater villain, would manage to cheat her, and that she would, for her own safety's sake, be obliged to put up with what he chose to give her. That would have been only such a pittance, as to keep her constantly in a state of dependance upon him. Now, to do Mrs. Lovett justice upon the old equitable principle of giving the devil his due, she never had any intention, until she saw symptoms of bad faith in Todd, of attempting to act otherwise than fairly by him. She loathed him; and all she meant to do, was when the division of the spoil should take place, to ascertain where he was going, and then to get as far off him as possible. Of late, however, finding that Todd was getting lucky, and feeling quite convinced that he aimed at her life, other views had dawned upon her, as we are already well aware. She did not so much care for all the money as she would have liked in her retirement, wherever it was, to have felt sure that Todd was not "An inhabitant of the earth;" and hence she had taken the pains, all of which had been frustrated, to put him into another world. But a feeling, superstitiously consequent upon her failure, had started up in her mind that he bore a charmed life; and hence she bethought herself of flying from England; but the moneyhow was she to get the money to do so? How was she, without his cognisance, to get her share of the funds which had been placed in the hands of a stockbroker? Now, since she had begun to feel uncomfortable regarding the faith of Todd, Mrs. Lovett had kept what cash she saved at home; therefore some weeks had elapsed since she had paid a monetary visit to the city. If she had gone as usual, she might have got some news. To a woman of lively and discursive imagination like Mrs. Lovett, a plan of operation was not long in suggesting itself. Why, she asked herself, should she hesitate to put Todd's name to the document necessary to get her half of the money from the stockbroker? What a natural consequence from this question it was to ask herself another, which wasIf I am forging Todd's signature at all, might I not do it for the whole amount as for half, and so take the only revenge upon him which he would feel, or which I dare offer myself the gratification of exacting from him? When such a question as this is asked, it is practically answered in the affirmative. Mrs. Lovett felt quite decided upon it. She was a woman of courage. No fainthearted scruple interposed between the thought and the execution of a project with her. The recent scene that had taken place in front of her window decided her. Now or never! she told herself. Now or never is the time to escape. I have nothing to encumber myself with. Let Todd keep his jewels and trinkets. All I want is the money which is in the hands of Mr. Anthony Brown, the stockbroker, and that I will have forthwith. Mrs. Lovett did not know the exact amount; but as it was a joint account, such an amount of ignorance need not appear at all surprising to the stockbroker; so she drew up an order for the money, and signed it with both Todd's name and her own, leaving a blank for the amount. She then carefully locked up all doors but that of the outer shop, and having procured the services of a young girl from a greengrocer's shop in the vicinity, to mind the place for an hour, as she said, she considered she was all right. The girl had attended to the shop before for Mrs. Lovett at times when no batches of pies were expected from the regions below, so she did not feel at all surprised at the call upon her services. "I shall be an hour," said Mrs. Lovett. "You can take a pie or two for yourself if you feel at all hungry; and if Mr. Todd should come in, say I'm gone to call upon a dressmaker in Bondstreet." "Yes, mum!" Mrs. Lovett left the shop. At the corner of Bellyard she turned and cast a glance at it. She hoped it was a farewell oneShe shuddered and passed on; and then she muttered to herself "If I amwhich assuredly I shall besuccessful in the city, I will take posthorses there at once for some seaport, and from thence reach the Continent, before Todd can dream of pursuit, or find out what I have done, or where bestowed myself." She was not so impudent as to pass Todd's shop, but she went down one of the streets upon the opposite side of Fleetstreet, and came up another, which was considerably past the house which was so full of horrors. A lumbering old hackney coach met her gaze. It was disengaged, and Mrs. Lovett got into it. "To Lothbury," she said; and after swaying to and fro for a few moments, the machine was set in action, and duly steering up Ludgate Hill. The impatience of Mrs. Lovett was so great, that she would gladly have done anything to induce the horses to go at a faster rate than the safe two miles and a half an hour to which they were accustomed, but she dreaded that if she exhibited any signs of extreme impatience she might excite suspicion. To the guilty, any observation of a more than ordinary character is a thing to dread. They would fain glide through life gently, and not at all do they sigh to be "The observed of all observers." But the longest journey even in the slowest hackney coach must come to an end. As Ben the beefeater would have said"Easy does it;" and as Mrs. Lovett's journey was anything but a long one, the gloomy precincts of Lothbury soon loomed upon her gaze. After the customary oscillations, and wheezing and creaking of all its joints and springs, the coach stopped. "Wait," said Mrs. Lovett with commendable brevity; and alighting, she entered a dark doorway upon the side of which was painted, in letters that had contracted so much the colour of the woodwork that they were nearly illegible, "Mr. Anthony Brown." This was the stockbroker, who held charge of the illgotten gains of that pair of unworthies, Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd. A small door, covered with what had been green baize, but which was now of some perfectly original brown, opened into the outer office of the man of business, and there a spruce clerk held dominion. At the sound of the rustling silks of Mrs. Lovett, he raised his head from poring over the cumbrous ledger; and then seeing, to use his own vernacular, it was "a monstrous fine woman," he condescended to alight from his high stool, and he demanded the lady's pleasure. "Mr. Brown." "Yes, madam. Certainly. Mr. B. is in his private room. What name shall I have the pleasure of saying?" "Lovett." "Lovett? Yes, madam. Certainlyahem! Pray be seated, madam, if you please." Mrs. Lovett made a gesture of dissent, and the clerk went upon his errand. He was scarcely absent a moment, and then holding open a door, he said, with quite a chivalric air "This way, if you please, madam.A monstrous fine woman," he added to himself. The door closed after Mrs. Lovett, and she was in the private room of Mr. Anthony Brown. "Ah, Mrs. Lovett. Pray be seated, madam. I am truly glad to see you well. Well, to be sure, you do look younger, and younger, and younger, every time I have the pleasure of a visit from you." "Thank you, Mr. Brown, for the compliment. My visits have not been so numerous as usual of late." "Why, no ma'am, they have not; but I hope we are going to resume business again in the old way?" "Not exactly." "Well, my dear madam, whatever it is that has procured me the honour and the pleasure of this visit, I am sure I am very glad of it, and shall not quarrel with it. He! he! Nice weather, Mrs. Lovett." "Very." "Ah, madamah, it was a world of pities to disturb the investments. It was indeed. But ladies will be ladies." "Sir?" "II merely said ladies will be ladies you know. And indeedhe! he!I fully expected the interesting ceremony had come off before now, I did indeed; and I should have wagered a new hat." "Mr. Brown, what are you talking about?" "About?" "Yes, what do you mean?" "Why, aathat istheaaaboutconcerningthemy dear madam, if I have inadvertently trodden upon your sensibilities, II really" "You really what?" Mr. Brown looked perplexed. Mrs. Lovett looked a little furious. "Sir," she said. "Before I explain the cause of my visit to you, I insist upon knowing to what all your mysterious hints and remarks allude. Speak freely and plainly, sir." "Well then, madam, when Mr. Todd was last here, he said that you had at last consented to reward years of devotion to you by becoming his, and that the ceremony which was to make him a happy man by uniting him to so much excellence and beauty, was to come off almost immediately, and that that was the reason you had both agreed to withdraw all the money I had in such snug and comfortable safe investments for you both. He! he! he!" CHAPTER LXXVIII. MUTUAL DEFIANCE. Be so good, reader, as to picture to yourself the look of Mrs. Lovett. We feel that one brief moment of imagination will do more to enable you to feel and to see with "Your mind's eye" her aspect, than as if we were to try a paragraph upon the subject. How that he! he! he! of Mr. Brown's rung in her ears. It was at any time almost enough to provoke a saint, and we need not say that this time of all others was not one at which Mrs. Lovett's feelings were attuned to gentleness and patience. Besides, she certainly was no saint. A rather heavy inkstand stood upon the table between Mrs. Lovett and the stockbroker. The next moment it narrowly escaped his head, leaving in its progress over his frontispiece a long streak of ink down his visage. "Wretch!" said Mrs. Lovett. "It is not true." "Murder!" cried Mr. Brown. Mrs. Lovett covered her face with both her hands for a moment, as though, to enable her to think clearly, it were necessary to shut out the external world; and then starting up, she advanced to the door of the room. "Murder!" said the stockbroker again. "Silence!" "A constable." "If you dare to say one word of this interview, I will return, and tear you limb from limb." Mrs. Lovett opened the door of the private room with such a vengeance that the nose of the clerk, who had been listening upon the other side, was seriously damaged thereby. He started back with a howl of pain. "Fool!" said Mrs. Lovett, as she passed him, and that was all she condescended to say to him;not by any means an agreeable reminiscence of his last words with a lady to a gentleman who prided himself upon his looksrather! Mrs. Lovett reached the street, and walked for some distance as though street it was not. She was only roused to a sense of the world in which she was, by hearing the sound of a voice calling "Mummum! Here yer ismummum! woo!" She turned and saw the coach in which she had come to the stockbroker. "Going back, mum?" said the man. "Yes, yes." She stepped into the vehicle, looking more like an animated statue than aught human. The man stood touching what was once the brim of a hat, as he said "Where to, mum?" Mrs. Lovett looked at him with an air of such abstraction that it was quite clear she did not see him, but she heard the question, that came to her like an echo in the air. "Where to, mum?" "To Fleetstreet!" Wheezecreakwheezecreakswaysway, and the coach moved on again. Mrs. Lovett sunk down among the straw with which the lower part of the vehicle was plentifully strewed; and then, with her head resting upon the seat, her throbbing temples clasped in her hands, she tried to think. Yesshe called upon all that calmnessthat decisionthat talent or tact, call it which you will that had saved her for so long, not to desert her now in this hour of her dire extremity. She called upon everything for aid but upon Heaven! and then, to ease her mind, she cursed a little. Somebody says "Swearing when the passions are at war, And light the chambers of the brain with angers flash. Has an effect quite morala kind of safety valve, Sparing what might be a tremendous crash!" and so Mrs. Lovett got cooler, but not a whit the less determined, as the crazy vehicle conveyed her to Fleetstreet. She fully intended now to measure conclusions with Todd. The distance was so short that even a hackneycoach performed it with tolerable promptitude. Mrs. Lovett did not wish to alight exactly at the door of Todd's shop; so she was rather glad upon finding the coach stop at the corner of Fleetstreet by the old Market, and the driver demanded what number? "This will do." She was in the street in another minute. It took a minute to get out of a hackneycoach. It was like watching the moment to spring from a boat to the shore in a heavy surf. And yet, oh much vilified old hackneycoach! how much superior wert thou to thy bastard son, the present odious rattling, bumping, angular, bonedislocating, horrid cab! The driver received about double his fare, and a cabman of the present day would have gathered a mob by his vociferations, and blackguarded you into a shop, if you had treated him in such a way. Nothing less than three times what he's entitled to ever lights up the smallest spark of civility in the soul of a modern cabdriver, but the old hackneycoachman was always content with double; so upon this occasion Mrs. Lovett got a "thank ye, mum;" and a long straw that had taken an affection for the skirt of her dress was arrested by jarvey and restored to the coach again. Mrs. Lovett walked to all appearance composedly up Fleetstreet. Alas! in this world who can trust to appearances? She had time, before reaching the shop of Sweeney Todd, to arrange slightly what she should say to that worthy. Of course, he could know nothing of her visit to the Cityof her interview with Mr. Brown, and she need not blurt that out too soon. She would argue with him a little, and then she would be down upon him with the knowledge of his knavery and treachery. She reached the shop. No wonder she paused there a moment or two to draw breath. You would have done the same; and after all, Mrs. Lovett was mortal. But she did not hesitate for long. The threshold was crossedthe handle of the door was in her handit was turned, and she stood in Todd's shop. Todd was looking at something in a bottle, which he was holding up to the light; and Mrs. Lovett saw, too, that a pretty genteellooking lad was poking about the fire, as if to rouse it. "Ah, Mrs. Lovett!" said Todd, "how do you do? Some more of that fine grease for the hair, I suppose, madam?" Todd winked towards the lad (our dear friend Johanna), as though he would have said"Don't appear to know me too well before this boy. Be careful, if you please." "I have something to say to you, Mr. Todd." "Oh, certainly, madam. Pray walk inthis way, if you please, madamto my humble bachelorparlour, madam. It is not fit exactly to ask a lady into; but we poor miserable single men, you know, madam, can only do the best we can. Ha! ha! This way." "No." "Eh? Not come in?" "No. I have something to say to you, Mr. Todd; but I will say it here." And now Mrs. Lovett gave a sidelong glance at the seeming boy, as much as to say "You can easily send him away if you don't want him to listen to our discourse." Todd saw the glance; and the diabolical look that he sent to Mrs. Lovett in return would indeed have appalled any one of less nerve than she was possessed of. But she had come to that place wound up firmly to a resolution, and she would not shrink. Todd had no resource. "Charley," he said, "you can go and take a little turnhere is a penny to spend; get yourself something in the market. But be sure you are back within half an hour, for we shall have some customers, no doubt." "Yes, sir." Johanna did not exactly know whether to think that Mrs. Lovett came in anger or friendship; but, at all events, she felt that it would be hazardous to remain after so marked a dismissal from Todd, although she would gladly have heard what the subject of the conversation between those two was to be. Neither Mrs. Lovett nor Todd now spoke until Johanna had fairly gone and closed the door after her. Then Todd, as he folded his arms, and looked Mrs. Lovett fully in the face, said "Well?" "The time has come." "What time?" "For the end of our partnershipthe dissolution of our agreement. I will go on no further. You can do as you please; but I am content." "Humph!" said Todd. "After much thought, I have come to this conclusion, Todd. Of course, let me be where I may, the secret of our road to fortune remains hidden here (she struck her breast as she spoke). All I want is my half of the proceeds, and then we part, I hope, for ever." "Humph!" said Todd. "Andand the sooner we can forget, if that be possible, the past, the better it will be for us bothonly tell me where you purpose going, and I will take care to avoid you." "Humph!" Passion was boiling in the heart of Mrs. Lovett; and that was just what Todd wanted; for well he knew that something had gone amiss, and that as long as Mrs. Lovett could keep herself calm and reasonable, he should stand but a poor chance of finding out what it was, unless she chose, as part of her arrangement, to tell it; but if he could but rouse her passion, he should know all. Therefore was it that he kept on replying to what she said with that cold insulting sort of "humph!" "Man, do you hear me?" "Humph!" "You villain!" "Humph!" Mrs. Lovett took from a sidetable an iron, which, in the mystery of hairdressing, was used for some purpose, and in a cool, calm voice, she said "If you do not answer me as you ought, I will throw this through your window, into the street; and the first person who comes in, in consequence, I will ask to seize Todd, the murderer! and offer myself as evidence of his numerous atrocitiescontrite evidencemyself repenting of my share in them, and relying upon the mercy of the crown, which, in recompense for my denouncing you may graciously pardon me." "And so it has come to this?" said Todd. "You see and hear that it has." It was rather a curious coincidence, that Mrs. Lovett had threatened Todd that she would awaken public attention to his shop by the same means that Sir Richard Blunt had recommended to Johanna to use in case of any emergencynamely, throwing something through the window into the street. If Mrs. Lovett had been goaded by Todd to throw the iron through a pane of his glass, the officers of Sir Richard would quickly have made their appearance to hear her denunciation of the barber. Unhappy woman! If she had but known what the future had in store for her, that act which she threatened Todd with, and which to her imagination seemed such a piece of pure desperation, would have been the most prudent thing she could have done. But it was not to be! There was a few moments silence now between them. It was broken by Todd. "Are you mad?" he said. "No." "Then, what, in the name of all that is devilish, has got possession of you?" "I have told you my determination. Give me twenty thousand poundsyou may profit by the odd sumgive me that amount, and I will go in peace. You know I am entitled to more; but there is no occasion for us to reckon closely. Give me the sum I seek, and you will see me no more. "You take me by surprise. Just step into the parlour, and" "Nono." "Why not? Do you suspect" "I suspect nothing; but I am sure of much. Now, for me to set foot within your parlour would be tantamount to the commission of suicide, and I am not yet come to thatyou understand me?" Todd understood her. His hand strayed to a razor that lay partially open close to him. Mrs. Lovett raised the iron. Mrs. Lovett And Todd Quarrel. Mrs. Lovett And Todd Quarrel. "Beware!" she said. Todd shrunk back. "Pho! pho! this is child's play," he said. "You and I, Mrs. Lovett, ought to be above all thisfar above it. You want your half of the proceeds of our joint business, and I must confess, at the moment, that the demand rather staggered and distressed me; but the more I think of it, the more reasonable it appears." "Very well. Give it to me, then." "Why, really now, my dear Mrs. Lovett, you quite forget that all our joint savings are in the hands of Mr. Brown." Todd glared at her as though he would read her very soul. She felt that he more than suspected she knew all, and she adopted at once the bold policy of avowing it. "I do not forget anything that it is essential should be remembered," she said; "and among other things, I know that, by forging my name, you have withdrawn the whole of the money from the hands of Brown. It is not worth our while to dispute concerning your motives for such an act. Let it suffice that I know it, and that I am here to demand my due." "Ha! ha!" "You laugh?" "I do, indeed. Why, really nowha! ha!this is good; and so it is this withdrawal of the money from Brown that has made all this riot in your brain? Why, I withdrew it from him simply because I had certain secret information that his affairs were not in the best order; and from a fear, grounded upon that information, that he might be tempted to put his hand into our purse, if he found nothing in his own." "Well, well; it matters not what were your reasons. Give me my half. It will be then out of your custody, and you will have no anxiety concerning it, while I can have no suspicions." "In a moment" "You will?" "If I had it here; but I have reinvested the whole, you see, and cannot get it at a moment's notice. I have moved it from the hands of Brown to those of Black." CHAPTER LXXIX. MRS. LOVETT FINDS THAT IN THIS WORLD THERE IS RETRIBUTION. "Black?" said Mrs. Lovett. "Yes, Black." "Do you think me so" green, she was going to say, but the accidental conjunction of the coloursbrown, black, and greensuddenly struck her as ludicrous, and she altered it to foolish. "Do you think me so foolish as for one moment to credit you?" "Hark you, Mrs. Lovett," pursued Todd, suddenly assuming quite a different tone. "You have come here full of passion, because you thought I was deceiving you." "You are." "Allow me to proceed. It is, I believe, one of the penalties of all associations forforwhy do I hesitate about a word?guilty purposes that there should be mutual distrust. I tell you again, that if I had not moved the money from Brown, we should have lost it all." "But why not come to me and get my signature?" "Therereallywasnottime," said Todd, dropping his words out one by one, with a staccato expression. "That is too absurd." Todd shrugged his shoulders, as though he would have said"Well, if you will have it so, I cannot help it;" and then he said "I was in the City. I heard the rumour of the instability of Brown. I flew into a shop. I wrote the order like a flash of lightning. I went to Brown's like an avalanche, and I brought away the money, as if Heaven and earth were coming together." There was not the ghost of a smile upon Todd's face as he made use of these superlatives. Mrs. Lovett began to be staggered. "Then you have it here?" "No, no!" "You have. Tell me that you have, and that this Mr. Black you mentioned is a mere delusion." "Black may be no colour, but it is not a delusion." "You trifle with me. Beware!" "In a word then, my charming Mrs. Lovett, I dreaded to bring the money here. I thought my house the most unsafe place in the world for it. I and you stand upon the brink of a precipicea slumbering volcano is beneath our feet. Pshaw! Where is your old acuteness, that you do not see at once how truly foolish it would have been to bring the money here?" "Juggler! Fiend!" "Hard words, Mrs. Lovett." She dashed her hand across her brow, as though by that physical effort she could brush from her intellect the sophistical cobwebs that Todd had endeavoured to move before it, and then she said "I know not. I care not. All I askall I demandis my share of the money. Give it to me, and let me go." "I will." "When?" "This day. Stay, the day is fast going, but I will say this night, if you really, in your cool judgment, insist upon it." "I do. I do!" "Well, you shall have. This night after business was over and the shop was closed, I intended to have come to you, and fully planned all this that you have unfortunately tortured yourself by finding out. I regret that you think of so quickly leaving the profits of a partnership which, in a short time longer, would have made us rich as monarchs. Of course, if you leave, I am compelled." "You compelled?" "Yes. How can I carry on business without you? How could I, without your aid, dispose of the" "Hush, hush!" Mrs. Lovett shuddered. "As you please," said Todd. "I only say, I regret that a copartnership that promised such happy results should now be broken up. However, that is a matter for your personal consideration merely. If I had thought of leaving, and being content with what I had already got, of course it would have compelled you to do so. Therefore I cannot complain, although I may regret your excuse of a right of action that equally belonged to me." "If I only thought you sincere" "And why not?" "If I could only bring myself to believe that the money was once more rightly invested" "You shall come with me yourself, if you like, in the morning to Mr. Black the broker in Abchurch Lane, No. 3, and ascertain that all is right. You shall there sign your name in his book, so that he may know it, and then you will be satisfied, I presume?" "Yes, I should then." "And this dream of leaving off business would vanish?" "Perhaps it would. Butbut" "But what?" "Why did you say to Brown that our union was to take place?" "Because it was necessary to say something, to account for the sudden withdrawal of the money; and surely I may be pardoned, charming Mrs. Lovett, for even in imagination dreaming, that so much beauty was mine." The horrible leer with which Todd looked upon her at this moment made her shudder again; and the expression of palpable hatred and disgust that her countenance wore, added yet another, and not the least considerable, link to the chain of revenge which Todd cherished against her in his cruel and most secret heart. While he was philosophising about guilty associations producing a feeling of mutual distrust, he should have likewise added that they soon produce mutual hatred. For a few moments they looked at each otherthat guilty pairwith expressions that sought to read each other's souls; but they were both tolerable adepts in the art of dissimulation. The silence was the most awkward for Todd, so he broke it first by saying "You are satisfied, let me hope?" "I will be." "You shall be." "Yes, when I have my money. Henceforward, Todd, we will have much shorter reckonings, so shall we keep much longer friends. If you keep, in some secret place, your half of the proceeds of ourour" "Business," said Todd. Mrs. Lovett made a sort of gulph of the word, but she adopted it. "If you, I say, keep your half of the proceeds of our business, and I keep mine, I don't see how it is possible for us to quarrel." "Quite impossible." He began to strop a razor diligently, and to try its edge across his thumb nail. Mrs. Lovett's passionthat overwhelming passion which had induced her to enter Todd's shop, and defy him to a species of single combat of witshad in a great measure subsided, giving place to a calmer and more reflective feeling. One of the results of that feeling was a selfquestion to the effect of, "What will be the result of an open quarrel with Todd?" Mrs. Lovett shook a little at the answer she felt forced to give herself to this question. That answer was continued in two wordsmutual destruction! Yes, that would be the consequence. "Todd," she said in a softened tone, "if I had forged your name, and gone to the city and possessed myself of all the money, what would you have thought? Tell me that." "Just what you thoughtthat it was the most scandalous breach of faith that could possibly be; but an explanation ought to put that right." "It has." "Then you are satisfied?" "I am. At what time shall we go together, tomorrow morning, to Mr. Black's in Abchurch Lane?" "Name your own time," said Todd with the most assumed air in the world. "Black lives at Ballam Hill, and don't get to business until ten; but any time after that will do." "I will come here at ten, then." "So be it. Ah, Mrs. Lovett, how charming it is to be able to explain away these little difficulties of sentiment. Never trust to appearances. How very deceitful they are apt to be." There was an air of candour about Todd, that might have deceived the devil himself. Notwithstanding all his hideous uglinessnotwithstanding his voice was of the lowest order, and notwithstanding that frightful laugh, and that obliquity of vision that seemed peculiar to himself in its terrible malignancy, there was a plausibility about his manner, when he pleased, that was truly astonishing. Even Mrs. Lovett, with all her knowledge of the man, felt that it was a hard struggle to disbelieve his representations. What must it have been to those who knew him not? "No," said Mrs. Lovett, "it don't do to trust to appearances." She still held the iron in her hand. "Nor," added Todd, giving the razor he had been putting an edge to, a flourish, "nor will it do to listen always to the dictates of compassion; for if we did, what miseries might we inflict upon ourselves. Now, here is a cure in point." "Where?" "I allude to this little affair between us. If you had flown to Bowstreet, and there, to spite me, made a full disclosure of certain little facts, why, the result would have been that we might both have slept in Newgate tonight." "Yes, yes." "And then there would have been no recal. You could not have freed us by telling the police that you had made a mistake. Then the gallows would have risen up in our dreams." "Horrible!" "And it being easily discovered that it was no love of public justice or feeling of remorse, that induced you to the betrayal, they would have shown you no mercy, but you would have swung from the halter amid the shouts and execrations of" "No, no!" "I say yes." "No more of thisno more of this. Can you bear to paint such a picturedoes it not seem to you as though you stood upon that scaffold, and heard those shouts? Oh, horror, horror!" "You don't like the picture?" "No, no!" "Ha! ha! Well, Mrs. Lovett, you and I had far better be friends than foes; and above all, you ought by this time to feel that you could trust me. The very fact that to all the world else I am false, ought to prove to you that to you I am true. No human being can exist purely isolated, and I am not an exception." "Say no moresay no more. We will meet tomorrow." "Tomorrow be it, then." "At ten." "At ten be it, and then we will go to Black. Come now, since all this is settled, take a glass of wine to our" "No, no. Not that. II am not very well, A throbbing headacheaa. That is, no!" "As you pleaseas you please.
Bytheby, did Black give me a receipt, or did he say it was not usual? Stay a moment, I will look in my secretaire. Sit down a moment in the shaving chair; I will be with you again directly." "We will settle that tomorrow," said Mrs. Lovett; "I feel convinced that Black did not give you a receipt. Goodday." She left the shop, unceremoniously carrying the iron with her. Todd breathed more freely when Mrs. Lovett was gone. He gave one of his horrible laughs as he watched her through the opening in his window. "Ha! ha! Curses on her; but I will have her life first, ere she sees one guinea of my hoard!" He saw Charley Green crossing the road. "Ah, the boy comes back. 'Tis well. I don't know how or why it is, but the sight of that boy makes me uneasy. I think it will be better to cut his throat and have done with him. I" Todd was suddenly silent. He saw two women pass, and as they did so, one pointed to his shop and said something to the other, who lifted up her hands as though in pious horror. One of these women was Mrs. Ragg, poor Tobias's mother. The other was a stranger to Todd, but she looked like what Mrs. Ragg had been, namely, a laundress in the temple. "Curses," he muttered. Johanna entered the shop. Todd caught up his hat. "Charley?" "Yes, sir." "I shall be gone five minutes. Be vigilant. If any one should come, you can say I have stepped a few doors off to trim Mr. Pentwheezle's whiskers." "Yes, sir." Todd darted from the shop. Mrs. Ragg and her friend were in that deep and earnest course that is a foe to rapid locomotion, so they had not got many yards from Todd's door. He was rarely seen, however, for either to "Paint a moral or adorn a tale" Mrs. Ragg turned suddenly and pointed to the shop, and then both the ladies lifted up their hands as though in horror, after which they resumed their deep and allabsorbing discourse as before. Todd followed them closely, and yet with abundance of caution. CHAPTER LXXX. TODD TAKES A JOURNEY TO THE TEMPLE. The two females took their way to the Temple. Todd had been quite right in his conjectures. The friend of Mrs. Ragg was one of the old compatriots of the laundress tribe; and that good lady herself, although, while there was no temptation to do otherwise, she had kept well the secret of her son's residence at Colonel Jeffery's, broke down like a frail and weak vessel as she was with the weight of the secret the moment she got into a gossip with an old friend. Now Mrs. Ragg had only come into that neighbourhood upon some little errand of her own, and with a positive promise of returning to the colonel's house as soon as possible. She would have kept this promise, but that amid the purlieus of Fetterlane she encountered Martha Jones her old acquaintance. One word begot another, and at last as they walked up Fleetstreet, Mrs. Ragg could not help, with many headshakings and muttered interjectional phrases, letting Martha Jones know that she had a secret. Nay, as she passed Todd's shop, she could not help intimating that she fully believed certain persons, not a hundred miles off, who might be barbers or who might not, would some day come to a bad end in front of Newgate, in the Old Bailey. It was at this insinuation that Martha Jones lifted up her hands, and Mrs. Ragg lifted up hers in sympathy. Todd had seen this action upon the part of the ladies. To overhear what they were saying was to Todd a great object. That it in some measure concerned him he could not for a moment doubt, since the headshaking and handuplifting reference that had been made to his shop by them both as they passed, could not mean anything else. And so, as we have said, he followed them cautiously, dodging behind bulky passengers, so that they should not see him by any sudden glance backwards. One corpulent old lady served him for a shield half up Fleet Street, until, indeed, she turned into a religious bookseller's shop, and left him nothing but thin passengers to interfere between him and the possibility of observation. But Mrs. Ragg and her friend Martha Jones were much too fully engaged to look behind them. In due course, they arrived opposite to the Temple; and then, after much flurrying, in consequence of real and supposed danger from the passing vehicles, they got across the way. They at once dived into the recesses of the legallylearned Temple. Todd dashed after them. "Now, my dear Mrs. Ragg," said Martha Jones, "you must not say No. It's got a beautiful head upon it, and will do you good." "Nono. Really." "Like cream." "But, really, II" "Come, come, it ain't often you is in the Temple, and I knew very well he don't miss a bottle now and then; and 'twix you and me and the pump, I think we has as much a right to that beautiful bottled ale as Mr. Juggas has, for I'd take my bible oath, he don't mean to pay for it, Mrs. Ragg." "You don't say so?" "Yes, I does, Mrs. Ragg. Oh, he's a bad 'un, he is. Ah, Mrs. Ragg, you don't know, nor nobody else, what takes place in his chambers of a night." "Is it possible?" "Yes. I often say to myself what universal profundity he must be possessed with, for he was once intended, he says, for the church, and I heard him say he'd have stuck to it like bricks, if he could have heard of any church that was intended for him." "Shocking!" "Yes, Mrs. Ragg. There's profundity for you." Did Martha Jones mean profanity? "Ah," interposed Mrs. Ragg, "we live in a world." "Yes, Mrs. Ragg, we does; but as you was a saying?" "Eh?" "As you was a saying about somebody being hung, if rights was rights, you know." "Oh, dear, really you must not ask me. Indeed you must not." "Well, I won't; but here we are, in Pump Court." Todd darted into a doorway, and watched them up the staircase of No. 6, in that highly classic locality. He slunk into the doorway, and by taking a perspective glance up the staircase, he saw them stop upon the first floor. He saw that they turned to the right. He darted up a few stairs, and just caught sight of a black door. Then there was a sharp sound, as of some small latch closing suddenly, after which all was still. Todd ascended the stairs. "Curses on them!" he muttered. "What can they mean by looking in such a manner at my shop? I thought the last time I saw that woman, Ragg, that she was cognizant of something. If now she, in her babbling, would give me any news of TobiasPho! he ishe must be dead." By this time Todd had got to the top of the first flight of stairs, and stood upon the landing, close to several open doorsthat is to say, outer black heavylooking doorsand within them were smaller ones, armed with knockers. "To the right," he muttered. "They went to the rightthis must be the door." He paused at one and listened. Not a sound met his ears, and his impatience began to get extreme. That these two women were going to have a conference about him he fully believed; and that he should be so near at hand, and yet not near enough to listen to it, was indeed galling. In a few moments it became insupportable. "I must and will know what they mean," he said. "My threats may wring the truth from them; and if necessary, I should not scruple to silence them both. Dead men tell no tales, so goes the proverb, and it applies equally well to dead women." Todd smiled. He was always fond of a conceit. "Yes," he muttered, "every circumstance says to me now in audible language, 'Gogogo!' and go I will, far away from England. I feel that I have not now many hours to spare. This fracas with Mrs. Lovett expedites my departure wonderfully, and tomorrow's dawn shall not see me in London. But I willI must ascertain what these women are about. Yes, and I will do so at all risks." A glance showed him that the act of temerity was a safe one. The door opened upon a dingy sort of passage, in which were some mops, pails, and brooms. At its further extremity there was another door, but it was not quite shut, and from the room into which it opened, came the murmer of voices. There were other doors right and left, but Todd heeded only that one which conducted to the room inhabited. He crept along the passage at a snail's pace; and then having achieved a station exactly outside the door, he placed one of his hands behind one of his elephantinelooking ears, and while his countenance looked like that of some malignant demon, he listened to what was going on within that apartment. Martha Jones was speaking. Todd Listens And Learns A Dangerous Secret. Todd Listens And Learns A Dangerous Secret. "It is good, indeed, Mrs. Ragg, as you may well say, and the glasses sticks to the table, when they is left overnight, showing, as Mr. Juggus says, as it's a gluetenious quality this ale is." "Sticks to the table?" said Mrs. Ragg. "Yes, mum, sticks. But as you was a saying?" "Well, Martha, in course I know that what goes to you goes no farther." "Not a step." "And you won't mention it to no one?" "Not a soul. Another glass?" "No, no." "Only one. Nonsense! it don't get into your head. It's as harmless as milk, Mr. Juggus says." "But ain't you afeard, Martha, he may come in?" "Not he, Mrs. Ragg. Chambers won't see him agin till night. Oh, he's a shocking young man. Well, Mrs. Ragg, as you was a saying?" "Well, it is good. As I was a saying, Martha, I don't feel uneasy now about Tobias, poor boy; for if ever a poor lad, as was a orphan in a halfandhalf kind of way, seeing that I am his natural mother, and living, and thanking God for the same, and health, leastways, as far as it goes at this present moment of speakin, IIBless me, where was I?" "At Tobias." "Oh, yes, I was at Tobias. As I was saying, if ever a poor body was well provided for, Tobias is. The colonel" "The who?" "The colonel, Marthathe colonel as has took the care of him, and who, sooner or later, will have all the truth out of him about the Toddey Sween." "Who? Who?" "Bless my poor head, I mean Sweeney Todd. Dear me, what am I thinking of?" "The barber?" "Yes, Martha; that horrid barber in Fleetstreet; and between you and me, there isn't in all the mortal world a more horrid wretch living than he is." "I'm all of a shake." "Hehe" "Yes, yes. What" "He takes folks in and does for 'em." "Kills 'em?" "Kills 'em." "Whatwhywhat? You don't mean to saywhy? Take another glass Mrs. Ragg. You don't mean to say that Tobias says, that Todd the barber is a murderer?My dear Mrs. Ragg, take another glass, and tell us all about it; only look at the cream on the top of it." "You'll excuse me, Mrs. Jones, but the truth is, I aught not to say more than I have said; and if the colonel only knew I'd said as much, I can tell you, I think he'd be like a roaring lion. But Tobias is quite a gentleman now, you see, and sleeps in as fine a bed as a nobleman could have for love or money. The colonel is very good to him; and there never was such a kind goodgood." Mrs. Ragg began to run over with tears of ale. "Bless me, and where does he live?" "Who?" "The colonel. The good, kind, colonelcolonelaa dear me, I forget what you said his name was." "Jeffery, and may his end be peace. He will get the reward of all his good actions in another world than this, Martha. Ah, Martha, such men as he can afford to smile at their latter ends.Nono, I couldn't." "Only half a glass; look at the" "Nono" "Cream on it." "I must go, indeed. In course the colonel, since I have been his cook, knows what cooking is, for though I say it, perhaps as should not, I am a cook, and not a spiler of folks' victuals. Of course what's said, goes no further. I know I can trust you, Martha." "Oh dear, yes, in course. I'll just put on my shawl and walk a little way with you, Mrs. Ragg. Dear medear me!" "What is it, Martha?" "Its a raining like cats and dogs, it is. Well, I never; what shall you do, Mrs. Ragg? What shall you do?" "Call a coach, I shall, Martha. The last words the colonel said to me was, 'Mrs. Ragg, rather than there should be any delay in your return,' says he, 'as Tobias may want you, call a coach, and I will pay for it.'" Todd had only just time to dart down the staircase before the two ladies made their appearance; and then hiding sometimes in doorways, and sometimes behind columns and corners, he dodged them into Fleetstreet. A coach was duly called, and Mrs. Ragg by the assistance of Martha Jones, was safely bestowed inside it. Todd heard distinctly the colonel's address given to the coachman, who would have it twice over, so that he should be sure he had it all right. "That will do," said Todd. He darted across the street, and made the best of his way to his shop again. He listened at the door for a few moments before he entered, and he thought he heard the sound of weeping. He listened more attentively, and then he was sure. Some one was sobbing bitterly within the shop. "It must be Charley," thought Todd. He placed his ear quite close to the panel of the door, in the hope that the boy would speak. Todd was quite an adept at listening, but this time he was disappointed, for the sham Charley Green spoke not one word. Yet the deep sobs continued. Todd was not in the best of tempers. He could stand the delay no longer, and bouncing into the shop, he cried "What the devil is the meaning of all this? What is the meaning of it, you young rascal? I suspect" "Yes, sir," said Johanna, looking Todd full in the face, "and so do I." "Youyou? suspect what?" "That I shall have to have it out, for its aching distracts me. Did you ever have the toothache, sir?" "The toothache?" "Yes, sir. It'sit's worse than the heartache, and that I have had." "Ah!humph! Any one been?" "One gentleman, sir, to be shaved; he says he will call again." "Very goodvery good." Todd took from his pocket the key of the backparlourthat key without which in his own possession he never left the shop; and then, after casting upon Johanna a somewhat sinister and threatening look, he muttered to himself "I suspect that boy. If he refuse to come into the parlour, I will cut his throat in the shop; but if he come in I shall be better satisfied. Charley? Come here." "Yes, sir," said Johanna, and she walked boldly into the parlour. "Shut the door." She closed it. "Humph," said Todd. "It is no matter. I will call you again when I want you." CHAPTER LXXXI. JOHANNA IS ENCOURAGED. Was Todd satisfied with Johanna's excuse about the toothache? Was he satisfied of the good foible of the supposed Charley Green, by the readiness with which she had come into the parlour? We shall see. If he were not satisfied, he was staggered in his suspicions sufficiently to delayand delay just then was to Sweeney Toddone of the most fatal things that could be imagined. There are crumbs of consolation under all circumstances. When Johanna was best sent out of the shop, upon the occasion of the visit of Mrs. Lovett to Todd, she had scarcely got a half dozen steps from the door of the barber's, when a man in passing her, and without pausing a moment, said "Miss Oakley, be so good as to follow me." Johanna at once obeyed the mandate. The man walked rapidly on until a fruiterer's shop was gained, into which he at once walked. "Mr. Oston," he said to a man behind the counter, "is your parlour vacant?" "Yes, Sir Richard, and quite at your service," said the fruiterer. By this Johanna found that she had made no mistake, and that the person she had followed was no other than Sir Richard Blunt, the magistrate, who was interesting himself so much for her safety, as well as for the discovery of what had befallen Mark Ingestrie. The fruiterer's parlour was a prettily fitted up place, where a couple of lovers might in a very romantic manner, if they chose, eat strawberries and cream, and quite enjoy each other's blissful society, in whispered nothing the while. Sir Richard handed Johanna a seat as he said"Miss Oakley, I am very much pleased, indeed, to have this opportunity of seeing you, and of saying a few words to you." "Ah, Sir, how much do I owe you." "Nay, Miss Oakley, you owe me nothing. When once I happily become aware of your situation, it becomes my duty as well as my inclination to protect you in every way against what, I am sure you will forgive me, for calling your rashness." "Call it what you will, sir." "Well, Miss Oakley, we will dismiss that part of the subject. Are you going upon any errand, or have you a little time to spare." "I have some time." "Then it is a very proper thing that you should enjoy it in taking some proper refreshment." "I want nothing." "Nay, but you shall have something whether you want it or not, before I say any more to you about Todd and his affairs." Johanna, whose mental excitement had prevented her completely from feeling the amount of exhaustion, which otherwise must by that time have come over her, would still have protested that she wanted nothing, but Sir Richard Blunt opened the door of the parlour, and called out "Mr. Orton, is your daughter at home?" "Yes, Sir Richard, Ann is up stairs." "Very good. My young friend here can find the way, I dare say. Is it the first floor?" "Yes, don't you hear her practising upon her spinet." The tinkling sounds of a spinet, then all the fashion; came upon their ears, and Sir Richard, said to Johanna "Go up stairs, now, to that young lady. She is about your own age, and her father's housekeeper. She will find you something to eat and drink, and then come down to me, as soon as you can." Sir Richard nodded to Mr. Orton, who nodded in return, and then Johanna seeing that it was all right, ascended the staircase, and guided by the sound of the spinet, soon found herself in a tolerably handsome room, upon the first floor. A young girl with a profusion of chesnut curls hanging down her back, was seated at the spinet. Johanna made up to her at once, and throwing her arms round her neck, said "And will you say a kind word to me?" The girl gave a slight scream, and rose. "Well, I'm sure, you impertinanthandsome" "Girl," said Johanna. "Boy," faltered Miss Orton. "No, girl," added Johanna. "Your father sent me to you, and Sir Richard Blunt suggested it. Shall I leave you again." "Oh, nono," said Ann Orton, as she sprang towards Johanna, and kissed her on both cheeks, "you are Miss Johanna Oakley." "How is it that you know me?" "My father is an old friend of Sir Richard's, and he has told us all your story. How truly delighted I am to see you. And so you have escaped from that odious Todd, and" "Immediate refreshment, my dear, and all the attention you can cram into a very short space of time to Miss Oakley, my dear," said Mr. Orton, just putting his head so far into the room as to make himself plainly and distinctly heard. "Yes, father, yes." "How kind you all are," said Johanna. "Nonoat least we wish to be, but what I mean is that we are no kinder than we ought to be. My father is so good, I have no mother." "And I, too, am motherless." "Yes, II heard that Mrs. Oakley" "Lived, you would say; and yet am I motherless." Johanna burst into tears. The sense of desolation that came over the young girl's heart whenever she thought how little of a mother the fanatical personage who owned that title was to her, generally overcame all her firmness, as upon the present occasion. Ann flung her arms around Johanna, and the two young creatures wept in unison. We will leave them to their sacred intercourse. Sir Richard Blunt remained in conversation with Mr. Orton for about a quarter of an hour, and then both Johanna and Ann came down stairs. Johanna looked calmer and happier. Ann had said some kind things to hersuch as none but a young girl can say to a young girl. "I am ready," said Johanna. "Ready for what?" enquired Sir Richard Blunt, with a look of earnest affection in the face of the beautiful heroinefor if ever there were a heroine, we really think Johanna Oakley was one, and we are quite sure that you agree with us. "For my mission," said Johanna, "I am ready." "And can you really find courage to go again to thatthat" Sir Richard could not find a fitting name for Todd's home, but Johanna understood him, and she replied gently "I may not pause now. It is my duty." "Your duty?" "Yes. Oh, MarkMark, I cannot restore you from the dead, but in the sacred cause of justice I may bring your murderer to the light of day. It is my duty to do so much for your memory." Ann turned aside to hide her tears. Mr. Orton, too, was much affected, and there was an unwonted jar, as though some false note had had been struck in voice of Sir Richard Blunt as he spoke, saying "Miss Oakley, I will notI cannot deny that by your going back to Todd's house, you may materially assist in the cause of justice. But yet I advise you not to do so." "I know you are all careful of my safety, while I" "Ah, Johanna," said Ann, "you do not know yet that you are so desolate as to wish to die." "Yes, yesI am desolate." "And so," added Sir Richard, "because you loved one who has been, according to your judgment upon the circumstances that have come to your knowledge, torn from you by death, you will admit no other ties which could bind you to the world. Is that right? Is it like you?" The tones of voice in which these words were uttered, as well as the sentiment embodied in them, sunk deeply into Johanna's heart. Clasping her hands together, she cried "Oh, no, no! Do no think me so inhuman. Do not think me so very ungrateful." "Had you forgotten, Arabella Wilmot? Had you forgotten your father? Nay, had you forgotten the brave Colonel Jeffery?" "No, no! I ought not to forget any, when so many have so kindly remembered me, and you too, sir, I ought not, and will not forget you, for you have been a kind friend to me." "Nay, I am nothing." "Seek not, sir, to disparage what you have done, you have been all kindness to me." Before he was aware of what she was about, Johanna had seized the hand of Sir Richard Blunt, and for one brief moment touched it with her lips. The good magistrate was sensibly affected. "God bless me!" said Mr. Orton, "something very big keeps blocking up the whole of my window." They all looked, and as they were silent at that moment, they heard a voice from the street, say "Come! Come, my dear! Don't set the waterworks agoing. Always remember, that easy does it. You come in here, and have something to eat, if you won't go home. Lor bless me! what will they think has become of me at the tower?" "Why, it is Ben!" cried Johanna. "Ben?" said Ann. "Who is Ben?" "Hush! Stop," said Sir Richard, "I pray you, stop." Johanna would have rushed out to speak to Ben, who certainly was at the window of the fruiterer's shop, with Arabella Wilmot upon his arm, endeavouring to persuade her to enter, and partake of some refreshment. "I will bring him in," said Sir Richard. "Retire into the parlour, I beg of you, Miss Oakley, for he will make quite a scene in the shop if you do not." Johanna knew well Ben's affection for her, and doubted not, but that as Sir Richard said, he would not scruple to show it, even in the open shop, probably to the great edification of the passers by. She accordingly retired to the parlour with Ann. In a few moments, Sir Richard Blunt ushered in both Ben and Arabella Wilmot. Arabella with a shriek of joy, rushed into Johanna's arms, and then with excess of emotion she fainted. Ben caught up Johanna fairly off her feet, as though he had been dancing some little child, and holding her in a sitting posture upon one arm, he said "Bless you! Easy does it. Easy I saydoesit. Don't you think I'm a crying. It's a teachest has flew in my eye from that grocer's shop opposite. Oh, you little rogue, you. Easy does it. What you have got them what do you call 'ems on, have you?" The kiss that Ben gave her might have been heard at Sweeney Todd's, and then when prevailed upon to sit down, he would insist upon holding her fast upon his knee. "I must go," said Johanna, and then looking at Arabella, she added"Let me go, before she awakens from her transient forgetfulness to beg me to stay." Ben was furious at the idea of Johanna going back to Todd's, but Sir Richard, overruled him, and after some trouble, got him to consent. Then turning to Johanna, he said "The moment night comes on, you will have some visitors, and remember, Miss Oakley, that St. Dunstan's is the watchword. Whoever comes to you with that in his mouth, is a friend." "I will remember, and now farewell and God bless and reward you for all your goodness to me. I will live for the many who love me yet, and whom I love in this world." Was it not a world of wonders that amid all this, Johanna did not go mad? Surely something more than mortal strength must have sustained that young and innocent girl in the midst of all these strange events. No human power that she possessed, could have possibly prevented her mind from sinking, and the hideous fascinations of an overcharged fancy from breeding "Rude riot in her brain." But there was a power who supported hera power which from the commencement of the world has supported manya power which while the world continues, will support many more, strengthening the weak and trampling on the strong. The power of love in all the magic of its deep and full intensity. Yes, this was the power which armed that frail and delicatelooking girl with strength to cope with such a manman shall we call him? no, we may say such a fiend as Sweeney Todd. If it required no small amount of moral courage to go in the first instance upon that expeditionso fraught with danger, to Todd's shopwhat did it require now to enable her to return after having passed through much peril, and tasting the sweets of friendship and sympathy? Surely any heart but Johanna's must have shrunk aghast from ever again even in thought, approaching that dreadful place. And yet she went. Yes upon her mission of justice she went. To be sure, she was told that as far as human means went, she would be upheld and supported from those without; but what could that assure to her further than that if she fell she should not fall unavenged? Truly, if some higher, some far nobler impulse than that derived from any consciousness that she was looked after, had not strengthened her, the girl's spirit, must have sunk beneath the weight of many terrors. With a sad smile she once again crossed the threshold of that house, which she now no longer suspected to be the murderer's haunt. She knew it. CHAPTER LXXXII. TODD PLANS. How she sped with Todd we are already aware. Let us take a peep at the archdemon in that parlour, which he considered his sanctuary, his city of refuge as it were. At least Todd considered it to be such, whether it was or not. He sits at a table, the table beneath which there was no floor, and covering up his face with his huge hands, he sets about thinking. Yes, that man now abandons himself to thought, as to how he is, with a blaze of wickedness, to disappear from the scene of his iniquities. It was not remorse that now filled his brain. It was not any feeling of bitter heartfelt regret for what he had done that oppressed him now. No such feeling might possibly find a home in his heart at the hour of success, but now when he saw and felt that he was surrounded by many difficulties, it had no home in his brain. But yet he thought that they were only difficulties that now surrounded; he did not as yet dream of positive danger. He still reasoned, as you have heard him reason before, namely, that if anything beyond mere suspicion were entertained regarding his mode of life, he would be at once apprehended. He thought that somebodymost likely Colonel Jefferywas trying to find out something, and the fact that he, Todd, was there in his own parlour, a free man, appeared to him proofsufficient that nothing was found out. "How fallacious!" If he had but known that he was virtually in custody even then, as he, indeed, really was, for Fleetstreet was alive with officers and the emissaries of the police. If he had but guessed so much for a moment what a wild tumult would have been raised in his brain. But he knew nothing and suspected little. After a time from generalizing upon his condition, Todd began to be particular, and then he laid down, as it were, one proposition or fact which he intended should be the groundwork of all in other proceedings. That proposition was contained in the words "Before the dawn of tomorrow I must be off!" "That's settled," said Todd, and he gave the table a blow with his hand. "Yes, that's settled." The table creaked ominously, and Todd rose to peep into the shop to see what his boy was doing. Charley Green, alias, Johanna Oakley, was sitting upon a low stool reading a bill that some one had thrown into the shop, and which detailed the merits of some merchandize. How far away from the contents of that bill which she held before her face, were her thoughts? "Good," said Todd. "That boy, at all events, suspects nothing, and yet his death is one of the things which had better not be left to chance. He shall fall in the general way of this place. What proper feeling errandboy would wish to survive his master's absence. Ha!" Of late Todd had not been very profuse in his laughs, but now he came out with one quite of the old sort. The sound startled himself, and he retired to the table again. By the dim light he opened a desk and supplied himself with writing materials; the twilight was creeping on, and he could only just see. Spreading a piece of paper before him, he proceeded to make a memoranda of what he had to do. It was no bad plan this of Todd's, and the paper, when it was finished was quite a curiosity in its way. It ran thus Mem.To go to Colonel Jeffery's, and by some means get into the house and murder Tobias. Mem.To pack off goods to the wharf where the Hamburg vessel, called the Dianna, sails from. Mem.To arrange combustibles for setting fire to the house. Mem.To cut Charley Green's throat, if any suspicion ariseif not to let him be smothered in the fire. Mem.To have a letter ready to post to Sir Richard Blunt, the magistrate, accusing Mrs. Lovett of her own crimes, and mine likewise. "I think that is all," said Todd. He folded the paper and placed it in his bosom, after which he came out of the parlour into the shop, and called to Johanna. "Charles?" "Yes, sir." "Go to the market, and get me a couple of stout porterI want something carried a short distance." "Yes, sir." Away went Johanna, but before she got half way down to Fleet Market she met Sir Richard, who said "What is it?" "He wants a couple of porters to carry something." "Very well, get them. Depend upon me." "I do, sir. I feel now in good heart to go through with anything, for you are near to me, and I know that I am safe." "You are safe. It will need to be some very extraordinary circumstances, indeed, that could compromise you. But go at once for these porters; I, and my men will take good care to find where they go to." There was no difficulty in finding parties in abundance at the end of Fleet Market, and Johanna speedily returned, followed by two sturdy fellows. Todd had quite a smile upon his face, as he received them. "This way," he said"This way. I hope you have been lucky to day, and have had plenty of work." "No, master," said one, "we haven't, I'm sorry to say." "Indeed," added Todd. "Well, I am very glad I have a little job for you. You see these two little boxes. You can carry one each of you, and I will go with you and show you where to." One of the porters raised one of the boxes, and then he gave a long whistle, as he said "I say, master is there penny pieces or paving stones in this here, its deuced heavy, that it is." "And so is this, Bill," said the other. "Oh, my eyes ain't it. There must be a quarter of a pound of goose feathers in here." "Ha! ha!" said Todd, "How funny you both are." "Funny?" "Yes, to be sure, but come. This will put strength into you if you had none before.
" He took a bottle and glass from a cupboard, and gave each of the men a full measure of such frightfully strong spirits, that they winked again, and the tears came into their eyes, as they drank it. "Now shoulder the little boxes, and come along," he said, "and I tell you what I'll do. If you step in here in the evening, and I should happen to be at home, I'll give each of you a shave for nothing, and polish you off in such a manner, that you will recollect it as long you live." "Thank you, masterthank you. We'll come." One of the porters helped his companion with the chest on to his back and head, and Todd then lent a helping hand with the other. "Charley," he said. "I shall be back in a quarter of an hour." Away he went, preceding the porter by some half dozen steps only, but yet ever and anon keeping a wary eye upon the two chests, which contained cash, and jewels, sufficient to found a little kingdom. If he got clear off with those two chests only, he felt that he would not give himself much uneasiness about what was left behind. But was Todd going to trust these two porters from out his own immediate neighbourhood, with the secret of the destination of the boxes? No. He was by far too crafty for that. After proceeding some distance, he took them round the unfrequented side of St. Paul's Church yard, and stopping suddenly at the door of a house that was to let, he said "This will do." "In here, master." "This will do. Put them down." The porters complied, and Todd set down upon one of the boxes, as he said "How much?" "A shilling each of us, master." "There's double the money, and now be off, both of you, about your business." The porters were rather surprised, but as they considered themselves sufficiently paid, they made no objection, and walked off with considerable alacrity, leaving Todd, and his treasure in the street. "Now for a coach," he muttered. "Now for a coach. Here boy"to a ragged boy who was creeping on at some short distance. "Earn a penny by fetching me a coach directly." The boy darted off, and in a very few minutes brought Todd a hackney coach. The boxes, too, were got upon it by the united efforts of Todd, the coachman, and the boy, and then, and not till then did Todd give the correct address of the wharf in Thames Street from which the Hamburg ship was going, and in which he fully intended to embark that night. The ship was advertised to sail at the turn of the tide, which would be about four o'clock in the morning. All this did not take long to do. The coach rumbled along Thames Street, but Todd was not aware that Mr. Crotchet had got up behind the vehicle, but such was the fact, and when the lumbering old machine stopped at the wharf, that gentleman got down, and felt quite satisfied with the discovery he had made. "He's a trying of it on," soliloquised Mr. Crotchet in the bolting line, "but it ain't no manner of a go. He'll swing, and he can't help it, if he were to book himself to the moon, and there was a coach or a ship as went all the way, and no stoppages." "Mem," said Todd to himself. "To go to Colonel Jeffery's and murder TobiasHa!" "Lor!" said the coachman, "was that you, sir?" "What do you mean?" "Why as made that horrid sort of noise." "Mind your business, my friend, and tell me if you can take me quickly to Islington, for I have no time to lose." "Like the wind, sir, you can go with these here osses," replied the coachman, "did you ever see sich bits o' blood, sir, one on 'ems blind, and' t'other on 'em is deaf, which is advantages as you don't get in one pair." "Advantages?" "Lor bless you, yes, sir. The blind 'un goes unknown quick, cos you sees, sir, he thinks he's only in some dark place, and in course he wants to get out on it as soon as he can." "Indeed?" "Yes, sir, and the deaf 'un, he goes quick too, cos as he hears nothink, he thinks as there never was sich a quiet place as he's go's, and he does it out o' feeling and gratitude, sir, yer sees." "Be quick then, and charge your own price." Todd sprang into the vehicle, and stimulated by the idea of charging his own price, the coachman certainly did make the bits of blood do wonders, and in quite an incredibly short space of time, Todd found himself in the immediate neighbourhood of the Colonel's house. It was now getting dark, but that was what he wished. He dismissed the coach, and took from the angle of a wall, near at hand, a long and earnest look at the Colonel's house, and as he did so dark and hideous thoughts concerning Tobias passed through his mind. CHAPTER LXXXII. TODD VISITS THE COLONEL "Well, Tobias," said Colonel Jeffery, as he entered the pretty, cheerful room into which the now convalescent boy had been removed. "Well, Tobias, how are you now?" "Much better, sir. Oh, sir,II" "What would you say?" "I feel that when I see you, sir, I ought to say so much to convince you of how truly, and deeply grateful I am to you, and yet I can scarcely ever say a word about it. I pray for your happiness, sir, indeed I do. Your name and my mother's, andand Minna Gray's, are always uttered to God by me." "Now, Tobias," said Colonel Jeffery gravely. "I am quite satisfied that as regards all that has passed, you feel as you ought to feel, and for my own part, I beg you to feel and to know that your saying anything about it only distresses me." "Distresses you, sir?" "Yes, it does, indeed. I see your eyes are upon the door. You expect Minna, to day, I am sure." "Yes, sir,sheshemy mother was to bring her, sir." A ringing at a bell now came upon Tobias's ear, and his colour went and came fitfully. "You are still very weak, my poor boy," said the colonel, "but you are certainly much improved. Do you feel any confusion in your head now?" "None at all, only when I think of Todd suddenly, ever it makes me feel cold and sick, and something seems to rush through my heart." "Oh, that will go away. That is nothing. There, I will draw up the blind for you. The evening is coming, and the sky is overclouded. You can see better now, and there is one coming whom I know you wish to lose no sight of." "I hear her foot upon the stairs," said Tobias. "Do you?It is more than I do." "Ah, sir, the senses are sharpened, I think, by illness." "Not so much as by love. Tobias! do you hear her footstep now?" "Yes, and it is like music." He had his head on one side in an attitude of listening; and then with joy sparkling from every feature of his face, he spoke again "She comesshe comes. Ah, she comes fast. My ownmy beautiful. She comeshe comes." "This is real love," said the colonel, and he stepped from the room. Nearly on the landing at the head of the stairs, he met Minna Gray. "Welcome," he said as he held out his hand to her. "You will find your young friend up and much better." Minna could only look her thanks. Mrs. Ragg was following her, and as the ascent of stairs was always rather a task to that good Lady, she was making a noise like a stranded grampus in breathing. "Ah, colonel," she said, "young legs get up stairs faster than old ones, sir, as you see. Wellwell, there was a time when first I knew poor dear Ragg, who is of course dead and gone, quite premature." "Exactly, Mrs. Ragg," said the colonel, as he rapidly descended the stairs. "Did you ever, my dear, know such a strange man?" said Mrs. Ragg to Minna. "Who?" "The colonel, to be sure. So soon as I begin to tell him any little what do you call it. No it ain't nannygoatthat's ridiculous. It'sit'swhat is it?" "Anecdote do you mean, Mrs. Ragg?" "Yes, to be sure. Well, as I was a saying, no sooner do I begin telling him a little nannygoatno, I mean anecdote, than off he is like a shot." Minna smiled to herself, and she was far from wondering that the colonel was off like a shot, for well she knew, that when Mrs. Ragg did begin anything concerning the late Mr. Ragg, it usually lasted three quarters of an hour at the very least. "Minna, Minna!" called Tobias. "I am here, Tobias." In another moment she was in the room. Truly it was a pleasant thing to see the face of Tobias, when, his sunshine, as he called Minna, came close to him, and in her soft voice asked him if he was better. "Don't mind me," said Mrs. Ragg, "I am going to darn a stocking or two. that's all. Just say what you both like. Young folks will be young folks. Bless me, I recollect just as if it were only yesterday, when I used to speak to poor departed Mr. Ragg, who is, premature, dead and gone, in a manner of speaking. Ah, dear me! How the world goes round and roundround and round, continually." Tobias and Minna were so well accustomed to the garrulity of Mrs. Ragg, and so well aware that she required no answer, that they let her talk on, and did not mind her, as she requested they would not; and so the evening grew apace, and the light gradually began to wane, as those two young loving hearts spoke together of the future, and indulged in that day dream of happiness which can only belong to youth and love. Todd is skulking round the angle of the garden wall, from which he can get a view of the colonel's house, and yet not be seen himself. The more he looked the more the desire grew upon him, notwithstanding the immense risk he ran of personal detection, by so doing, to get into the house, and finish the career of poor Tobias. He would have had no particular objection rather to have taken the life of Mrs. Ragg, if it could be easily and comfortably done. It has been said that there are folks in the world who never forgive any one for doing them a kindness; and such paradoxical views of human nature have been attempted to be laid down as truths; but whether this be so or not, is still to be proved, although it is certain that nothing stirs the evil passions of men who will inflict injury upon the innocent, as to find themselves baffled in their villany. From that moment the matter becomes a personal affair of vengeance. Hence, since Todd had become thoroughly aware that Tobias had escaped from the death he had intended for him at the madhouse, his rage against the boy knew no bounds. Indeed, the reader will conclude that it must have been a feeling of no ordinary strength, that, at such a busy and ticklish time, would take Todd to the colonel's house at all. It was revengebitter, uncompromising revenge! Now, you must know the colonel's house was one of those halfvilla, halfmansionlike residences, that are so common in the neighbourhood of London. There was a kind of terrace in the front, and a garden with flowering shrubs, that had a pretty enough appearance, and which at night afforded abundance of shelter. It was by this front garden that Todd hoped to reach the house. When it was nearly dark, he slunk in, crouching down among the trees and shrubs, and crawling along like a serpent as he was. He soon came to a flight of stone steps that led to the kitchens. By the time Todd had got thus far, some of her domestic duties had called Mrs. Ragg to the lower part of the house. He saw by the firelight that some one was going about the kitchen, close to the foot of the stone steps; but he could not exactly, by that dim and uncertain radiance, take upon himself to say that it was Mrs. Ragg. She soon lit a candle, though, and then all was clear. He saw the good lady preparing divers lights for the upper rooms. While Todd was halfway down the stone steps, peeping into the kitchen, one of the other servants of the house came into that receptacle for culinary articles, and commenced putting on a bonnet and shawl. Todd could not hear one word of what was said by Mrs. Ragg and this young woman who was getting ready to go out; but he saw them talk, and by their manner he felt convinced that it was only upon ordinary topics. If the young woman left the house by the steps upon which Todd was, and which it was more than likely she would do, his situation would be anything but a pleasant one, and discovery would be certain. To obviate the chance of this, he stepped back, and crouched down in among the shrubs in the garden. He was not wrong in his conjectures, for in a few moments the servant, who was going out, ascended the steps, and passed him so closely, that by stretching out his hand, he could, if he had been so minded, have touched her dress. In a short time she was out of earshot. Todd emerged from his concealment again, and crept down the steps, and once more peeped into the kitchen. Mrs. Ragg was still busy with the candles. He was just considering what he should do, when he heard the tramp of horses' feet in the road above. He ascended sufficient of the steps to enable himself to get a peep at what was going on. He saw a groom well mounted, and leading another horse. Then no other than Colonel Jeffrey himself, although he did not of his own knowledge, feel assured that it was him, come out at the front door of the house and mounted. "Now, William," said the colonel, "we must ride sharply." "Yes, sir," said the groom. Another moment and they were gone. "This is lucky," said Todd. "It is not likely that there is any other room in the house; and if not, I have the game in my own hands." He crept down the remainder of the stone steps, and placed his ear quite close to the kitchen window. Mrs. Ragg was enjoying a little conversation to herself. "Ah!" she said, "it's always the waygirls will be girls; but what I blame her for is, that she don't ask the colonel's leave at once, and say'Sir, your disorderly has won my infections, and may he come here and take a cup of tea?'" This was Greek to Todd. "What is the old fool talking about," he muttered. "But I will soon give her a subject that will last for her life." He now arrived at the door of the kitchen. It was very unlikely to be locked or otherwise fastened, so immediately after the young woman, who had left the house, and passed so close to him, Todd. Yet he listened for a few moments more, as Mrs. Ragg kept making observations to herself. "Listeners hear no good of themselves, says the proverb, and at all events it was verified in this instance." "Lor' a mussy," ejaculated Mrs. Ragg, "how my mind do run upon that horrid old ugly monster of a Todd to day. Well, I do hope I shall never look upon his frightful face again, and how awful he did squint, too. Dear me, what did the colonel say he had with his visioncould it bea something afixity? No that isn't it." "Obliquity!" said Todd, popping his head in at the kitchen door. "It was obliquity, and if you scream or make the least alarm, I'll skin you, and strew this kitchen with your mangled remains!" Mrs. Ragg sank into a chair with a melodramatic groan, that would have made her fortune over the water in domestic tragedy if she could have done it so naturally. Todd kept his eye upon her. That basilisklike eye, which had fascinated the good woman often, and this time it acted as a kind of spell, for truly might he have said, or rather might some one have said for him, "He held her with his glittering eye." Todd's first care now was to get between Mrs. Ragg and the kitchen door, lest upon some sudden impulse she should rise and flee. Then he folded his arms, and looked at her calmly, and with such a devilish smile as might have become Mephistopheles himself, while contemplating the ruin of a soul. He took from his pocket a razor. "Mercy," gasped Mrs. Ragg. "Where is Tobias?" Todd Horrifies Mrs. Ragg. Todd Horrifies Mrs. Ragg. "Up stairs. Back room, second floor, looking into the garden." "Alone?" "No, Minna Grey is with him." "Listen to me. If you stir from here until I come to you again, I will not only murder you, but Tobias likewise, and every one whom I meet with in this house. You know me, and can come to some opinion as to whether or not I am a man likely to keep my word. Remain where you are; move not, speak not, and all will be well." Mrs. Ragg slowly slid off her chair, and fell to the floor of the kitchen, where she lay, in what seemed a swoon. "That will do as well," said Todd as he glanced at her, "and yet as I return." He made a movement with his hand across his throat to indicate what he would do, and then feeling assured that he had little or, indeed, no opposition to expect in the house, he left the kitchen, and walked up stairs. When he reached the top of the kitchen stairs he paused to listen. All was very still in the house. "'Tis well," he said "tis well. This deed of blood shall be done, and long before it can be thought that it was I who struck the blow, I shall be gone." Alas! After passing through so much! After being persued in so almost a miraculous manner from the murderous intentions of Todd, backed by the cupidity of Fogg, and his subordinate Watson, was poor Tobias yet to die a terrible death as a victim to the cruel passions of his relentless persecutor? No, we will not yet believe that such is to be the fate of poor honest Tobias, although at the present time, his prospects look gloomy. Todd may, and no doubt has taken as worthy lives, but we will hope that the hand of Providence will prevent him from taking this one. He reached the landing of the first floor, and he paused to listen again. He thought this time, that he heard the faint sound of voices above, but he was not quite sure. Otherwise all was quiet. This was a critical situation for Todd. If any one, who was a painter of pictures or of morals had but seen him, Sweeney Todd, as he there stood, they would no longer have doubted either that there was a devil, or that some persons in this world, were actuated by a devilish fiend. He looked the incarnate fiend!the Mephistopheles of the imagination, such as he is painted by the German enthusiast. His laugh too? Was not that satanic? He set himself to listen to the voices that he heard in that quiet rooms and the sounds, holy and full of affection as they were, awakened no chord of answering feeling, in that bold, bad man's breast. He stood apart from human nature, a solitary being. A wreck upon the ocean of society "None loving, and by none beloved." Who would be Sweeney Todd, for all the wealth, real or fabled, of a million Californias? "He is here," he said, "I know his voice. Tobias is here. Ah! he mentions the name of God. Ha! He is more fitting to go to that heaven he can talk of so glibly, but there is none. There is none! No, no! all that is a fable." Of course Todd could not believe in a divinity of goodness and mercy. If he had, what on earth could have saved him from absolute madness? CHAPTER LXXXIII. TOBIAS IN JEOPARDY. "And so you do love me, Minna?" said Tobias. How his voice shook like a reed swayed by the wind, and yet what a world of melody was in it. "Can you ask me to say yes?" was the reply of the fair young creature by his side. "Can you ask me to say yes, Tobias?" "It seems to me," said Tobias, "as though it would be such a joy to hear you say so, Minna, and yet I will not ask you." "How well you have got, Tobias. Your cheek has got its old colour back again. The colour it had long before you knew there was such a man as Sweeney Todd in the world. Your eyes are bright too, and your voice has its old pleasant sound." "Used it to be pleasant to you, Minna?" She held up her hand, and shook her head laughingly. "No questions, Tobias! No questions. I will confess nothing." "Stop!" said Tobias, as he put himself into an attitude of listening, "what was that, I thought I heard something? It was like a suppressed growl. I wish the colonel would come home. Did you not hear it, Minna?" Minna had heard it, but she did not say she had. "Where did it come from, Tobias?" "From the stairhead, Minna." "Oh, it is some accidental noise, such as is common to all houses, and such as always defy conjecture and explanation, and being nothing and meaning nothing, always comes to nothing. Yet I will go and see. Perhaps a door has been left open, and is banging to and fro by the wind, and if so it will only vex you to hear it again, Tobias." It was Todd, who upon hearing the soft and tender speeches from the young lovers, had not been able to suppress a growl, and now that he had heard Minna Grey talk of coming to look what it was, he felt the necessity of instantly concealing himself somewhere. It was not likely she would come down the stairs, so Todd adopted an original mode of keeping himself out of sight. He descended steps sufficient, that by laying at full length along them, his head did not reach the top, and in the darkness he then considered that he should be quite safe from the casual glance, that in all likelihood, merely to satisfy Tobias, Minna would give outside the room door. Todd thought by her manner she had heard nothing. "No, no, Minna," said Tobias, "there is no occasion. It is nothing, I dare say, and I don't like you to be out of my sight a moment." "It is only a moment." She rose, and proceeded to the door. An unknown feeling of dread, she knew not why, was at the heart of Minna. Certainly the slight sound she had heard, and that too in the house of Colonel Jeffery, was not sufficient to warrant such a feeling, and yet there, at her heart, it sat brooding. She stood for a moment at the door. It was only for a moment. "How foolish I am," she thought, and then she passed out on to the landing, where she stood for a moment glancing round her. "It is nothing, Minna," called out Tobias, "or shall I try and come. I feel quite strong enough to do so." "Oh, nono! It is nothing." Minna stepped lightly back and sat down. She clasped her hands very tight indeed together, and then placed both upon her breast. She had seen Todd. Yes, Minna Grey had seen the man that had been, and who was for all she knew to the contrary still to be, the bane of Tobias's existence. The clear eyes of youth had noticed the lumbering figure as it lay upon the stairs before them. And she did not screamshe did not cry for helpshe did not faint, she only crept back as we have seen, and held her hands upon her heart, and looked at Tobias. There was no mistaking Todd. Once seen he was known for ever. Like some hideous picture, there dwelt the memory of Sweeney Todd upon the young imagination of the fair Minna Grey. Once before, a long time ago, so it seemed to her, she had seen him in the Temple skulking up an old staircase. From that moment the face was Daguerreotyped upon her brain. It was never to be forgotten, and with the face comes the figure too. That she saw upon the stairs. Alas! Poor Minn! "And so it was nothing but one of those odd accidents that will occur in defiance of all experience, and calculation," said Tobias. "Just that," replied Minna. "Ah, my dear Minna. We are so safe here. It always seems to me as though the very air of this house, belonging as it does to such a man, so full of goodness as the colonel is, such that nothing very bad could live in it for long." "II hope soI think so.What a calm and pleasant evening it is, Tobias, did you see the new book of the seasons, so full of pretty engravings in the shape of birds and trees, and flowers, that the colonel has purchased." "New book?" "Yes, it lies in his small study, upon this floor. I will fetch it for you, if you wish it, Tobias?" "Nay, I will go." "You are still weak. Remain in peace upon the couch, dear Tobias, and I will go for you." Before she left the room, she kissed the forehead of the boy. A tear, too, fell upon his hand. "Who knows," she thought, "that I shall ever see him in life again?" "Minna, you weep." "Weep? NonoI am soso happy." She hastily left the room. Todd had heard what had passed, and had turned to hide himself again. The young girl knew that she passed the murderer within a hair's breadth. She knew that he had but to stretch out his right hand and say"Minna Gray, you are my victim!" and his victim she would have become. Was not that dreadful? And she so young and so fairso upon the threshold, as it were, of the garden of her existenceso loving, and so wellbeloved. She felt for a moment, as she crossed the landingjust for a moment as though she were going mad. But the eye of the Omnipotent was upon that house. She staggered on. She made her way into a bedroom. It was the colonel's. Above the mantelshelf, supported on a small bracket, was a pair of pistols. They were of a large size, and she had heard from the current gossip of the house, how they were always loaded, and how the servants feared to touch them, and how even they shrank from making the bed, lest the pistol from some malice aforethought, or from something incidental to such watching, should go off at once of their own accord, and inevitably shoot whoever chanced to be in the room. Minna Gray laid her hand upon the dreaded weapons. "For Tobias! for Tobias!" she gasped. Then she paused to listen. All was still as the grave. Todd was not yet ready for the murder, or he wished to take their lives both together, and in the one room. That was more probable. Then she began to think that he must have some suspicion, and that it was necessary upon her part to do something more than merely make no alarm. The idea of singing occurred to her. It was a childish song that she had been taught, when a pretty child, that she now warbled forth a few lines of "If I were a forest bird, I'd shun the noisy town; I'd seek the verdure of the spring The dear autumnal brown. And even when the winter came, By sunny skies bereft, I'd sleep in some deep distant cave, Which wanton winds had left." She crossed the landing. "Minna," said Tobias. "My Minna!" "I come." She passed into the room, and the moment she crossed the thresholdshe turned her face to it and presented both the pistols before her. Then as she wound, inch by inch, into the centre of the room, all her power of further concealment of her feelings deserted her, and she could only say, in a strange choking tone "Todd!Todd!Todd!" "Nonono! Oh, God, no!" cried Tobias. "Todd!Todd!Todd!" "Nono! Help! help!" "Dn!" said Sweeney Todd, as he dashed open the door of the chamber, and stood upon the threshold with a glittering knife in his right hand. "Hold!" shrieked Minna Gray. "Another step, murderer, and I send you to your God!" Todd waited. He could almost see down the barrels of the large pistols, which a touch of the young girl's finger would explode in his face. With a sharp convulsive cry, Tobias fell to the floor. The blood gushed from his mouth, and he lay bereft of sensation. Heroic Conduct Of Minna Gray. Heroic Conduct Of Minna Gray. "Away!" cried Minna. "Monster, away! Another moment, and as Heaven hears me, I will fire; oncetwice" Todd darted to the stair head, but he darted away again quicker than he had gone there; for who, to his horror, should he meet, advancing with great speed up the steps, but Mrs. Ragg, who had managed to get out of the kitchen, and who bore, as a weapon of offence and defence, the large kitchen poker, which was of a glowing red heat. Todd caught a touch of it on his face. "Oh, you villain of the world!" cried Mrs. Ragg, "I'll teach you to come here murdering people. My poor Tobias is no more, I know; but I'll take the law of you, I will. Murder! murder! Police! Colonel!" With an alacrity, that was far beyond to all appearance Mrs. Ragg's powers, that good lady pursued Todd with the redhot poker. He dared not take refuge in Tobias's room, for there stood Minna with the pistols in her hand, so he darted up the first flight of stairs he saw, which led to the top of the house. Mrs. Ragg pursued him; but when she got to the head of the stairs, Minna pressed too hard upon the hairtrigger of one of the pistols, and off it went. Mrs. Ragg fully believed herself shot, and rolled down the stairs, poker included; while Todd, labouring under the impression that the shot was at him, became still more anxious to find some place of refuge. Upon the landing, which he was not a moment in reaching, he found a great show of doors; for he was, in fact, upon the floor from which all the sleeping rooms of the servants opened. It was quite a chance that the first one he bounced into was one that had in the roof a little square trapdoor, facetiously called "a fire escape;" but which, in the event of a fire, would have acquired the agility of a harlequin, and the coolness of a taxgatherer to get through. Todd dragged a bedstead beneath the trap; and then his great height enabled him to thrust it open, and project his head through it. He found that part of his corporality was in the roof as it werethat is to say, in the cavity, between the ceiling of the room and the house. A trapdoor of somewhat larger size in the actual roof, opened to the air. Todd dragged himself through, and was fairly upon the top of the colonel's house. A slippery elevation! But surely that was better than facing a redhot poker, and a pair of hairtrigger duelling pistols; and so, for a time, the desire to escape kept down every other feeling. Even his revengeful thoughts gave way to the great principle of selfpreservation; and Todd was only intent upon safely getting away. He glared round him upon the night sky, and a gaudy assemblage of chimney tops. What was he to do? In a minute he uttered a string of such curses, as we cannot very well here set down, and he turned preternaturally calm and still. "Shall I go back," he said, "or escape?" He heard the tramp of horses' feet, and peeping carefully over the front parapet of the house, he saw Colonel Jeffery arrive on horseback, and dismount. His groom led the horse away, and the colonel ascended the steps. Then, and not until then, Todd made up his mind. "Escape," he said, "and be off." There was a long sloping part of the roof close to where he was, and he thought that if he slid down that very carefully he should be able to get on to the roof of the next house, and so perchance through their trap door, and by dint of violence or cunning, or both united, reach the street. It was a desperate resource, but his only one. The top part of the long sloping roof was easily gained, and then Todd began to let himself down very carefully, but the angle of the roof was greater than he had imagined, and by the time he got about half way down he found a dangerous and most uncomfortable acceleration of motion ensuing. It was in vain he tried to stop himself down he went with a speed into the gutter behind the coppingstone, that left him lying there for a few moments half stunned, and scarcely conscious if he were safe or not. The colonel's house, however, was stoutly built, and Todd's weight had not displaced anything; so that there he lay safe enough, wedged into a narrow rain gutter, from which, when he did recover himself sufficiently to make the attempt, he found some difficulty in wrenching himself out of. Sore and shaken, Todd now looked about him. He was close to the roof of the nextdoor house. To be sure there was a chasm of sixty feet; but its width was not as many inches, so Todd ought, with his long legs, to easily step it. CHAPTER LXXXIV. TODD'S WONDERFUL ESCAPE. The step was but a trifle; and yet, shaken as Todd was by his fall, it really seemed to him to be one of the most hazardous and nervous things in the world to take it. He made two feints before he succeeded. At length he stood fairly upon the roof of the adjoining house. He did not say "Thank God!"; such words were not exactly in the vocabulary of Sweeney Todd; but he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and seemed to think that he had effected something at last. And yet how far was he from safety? It is some satisfaction to have got such a man as Todd upon the housetops. Who pities him? Who would be violently afflicted if he made a false step and broke his neck? No one, we apprehend; but such men, somehow, do not make false steps; and if they do, they manage to escape the consequences. Surely it was about as ticklish a thing to crawl up a sloping roof as to come down one.
Todd did not think so, however, and he began to shuffle up the roof of the house he was now on, looking like some gigantic tortoise, slowly making its way. Reasoning from his experience of the colonel's house, Todd thought he should very well be able to pitch upon the trap, in the roof of the domicile upon which he was, nor was he wrong. He found it in precisely the same relative position, and then he paused. He drew a long breath. "What a mad adventure this is," he said; "and yet what a satisfaction it would have been to me, before I left England, to be able to feel that I had had my revenge upon that brat Tobias. That he had not altogether failed me after I had paid so much money to be rid of him. But that is over. I have failed in that attempt; but they shall not say it cost me my life. They will be bold people who stop me in my passage to the street in this house." He felt the trapdoor. It was fast. "Humph!" he said, "doors are but bonds; and the rains of a few winters rot them quickly enough. We shall see." The knife, with which he would have been well pleased to give poor Tobias his quietus, was thick and strong. He slid it under the wooden trap, and by mere force lifted it up. The nails of the bolt easily withdrew themselves from the rotten wood. Todd was right. The rains of a few winters had done their work. It was not exactly a time in the evening, when, in such a class of house, any one might be expected to be found in the attics; so Todd made no scruple of at once removing the lower trap in the ceiling. He dropped comfortably enough on to the floor. And now, coming suddenly as he did from the light, faint as it was, of the open air in the room, which he found himself, seemed to be involved in profound darkness; but that he knew would wear away in a few moments, and he stood still for his eyes to get accustomed to the semiobscurity of the place. Gradually, then, as though out of chaos, there loomed a bedstead and all the necessary appointments of a bedroom. It was untenanted; and so Todd, after listening intently, and believing, from the marked stillness that there prevailed, that the upper part of the house was deserted, walked to the door, and opening it, stood upon the landing. "If I can now but step down stairs noiselessly, and open the street door, all will be well. People don't sit upon the staircase, and I may be fortunate enough to encounter no one." There was no time to lose. Affairs in Fleetstreet required his presence; and, besides, the present moment might be the most propitious, for all he knew, for the enterprise. Down he went, not clinging to the balustradesfor who should say they might not wheeze and creak?not walking upon the middle of the stairs, for there was no saying what telltale sounds they might give vocality to; but sliding along close to the wall, and stepping so quietly, that it would have required attentive ears to have detected his silent and steady march. And so, flight by flight of these stairs Todd descended in safety, until he reached the passage. Yes, he got to the passage without the shadow of an interruption. Then he heard voices in one of the parlours. "Confound them!" said Todd, "they will hear me open the street door to a certainty; but it must be done." He crept up to the door. There was some complicated latch upon it that defied all his knowledge of latches, and all his perseverance; and yet, no doubt, it was something that only required a touch; but he might be hours in finding out in the dark where to apply that touch. He still heard the voices in the parlour. More than five minutesprecious minutes to himhad already been consumed in fumbling at the lock of the street door; and then Todd gave it up as useless, and he crept to the parlourdoor to listen to the speakers, and so, perhaps, ascertain the force that was within. A female voice was speaking. "Oh, dear me, yes, I daresay," it said. "You no doubt think that house can be kept for nothing, and that a respectable female wants no clothes to her back; but I can tell you, Mr. Simmons, that you will find yourself wonderfully mistaken, sir." "Pshaw!" said a man's voice. "Pshaw! I know what I mean, and so do you. You be quiet wife, and think yourself well off, that you are as you are." "Well off?" "Yes, to be sure, well off." "Well off, when I was forced to go to Mr. Rickup's party, in the same dress they saw me in last Easter. Oh! you brute!" "What's the matter with the dress?" "The matter? Why I'll tell you what the matter is. The matter is, and the long and short of everything, that you are a brute." "Very conclusive indeed. The deuce take me if it ain't." "I suppose by the deuce, you mean the devil, Mr. Simmons; and if he don't take you some day, he won't have his own. Ha! ha! you may laugh, but there's many a true word spoken in jest, Mr. Simmons." "Oh, you are in jest, are you?" "No sir, I am not, and I should like to know what woman could jest with only one black silk, and, that turned. Yes, Mr. Simmons, you often call upon the deuce to take this, and to take that. Mind he don't come some day to you when you least expect it sir, and say" "Lend me a light!" said Todd, popping his awfully ugly face right over the top of the half open door, a feat which he was able to accomplish by standing on his tip toes. There are things that can be described, but certainly the consternation of Mr. and Mrs. Simmons cannot be included in the list. They gazed upon the face of Todd in speechless horror, nor did he render himself a bit less attractive by several of his most hideous contortions of visage. Finding then that both husband and wife appeared spellbound, Todd stepped into the room, and taking a candle from the table, he stalked into the passage with it. The light in his hand threw a light upon the mystery of the lock. Todd opened the streetdoor, and passed out in a moment. To hurl the candle and candlestick into the passage, and close the door, was the next movement of Todd, but then he saw two figures upon the steps leading to Colonel Jeffery's house, and he shrunk back a moment. "Now William," said Colonel Jeffery himself, "you will take this letter to Sir Richard Blunt, and tell him to use his own discretion about it." "Yes, sir." "Be quick, and give it into no hands but his own." "Certainly, sir." "Remember, William, this is important." The groom touched his hat, and went away at a good pace, and Colonel Jeffery himself closed the door. "Indeed," muttered Todd. "Indeed. So, Sir Richard Blunt, who is called an active magistrate, is to know of my little adventure here? Wellwellwe shall see." He darted from the door of the house, through which he had made so highly successful and adventurous a progress, and pursued William with such strides as soon brought him close up to him. But the thoroughfare in which they were was too public a one for Todd to venture upon any overt act in it. He followed William sufficiently closely however to be enabled to take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself to possess himself by violence of the letter. Now William had been told the affair was urgent, so of course he took all the nearest cuts he could to the house of Sir Richard Blunt, and such a mode of progress soon brought him into a sufficiently quiet street for Todd's purpose. The latter looked right and left. He turned completely round, and no one was cominga more favourable opportunity could not be. Stepping lightly up to William he by one heavy blow upon the back of his neck felled him. The groom lay insensible. Todd had seen him place the colonel's letter in his breastpocket, and at once he dived his huge hand into that receptacle to find it. He was successfulone glance at the epistle that he drew forth sufficed to assure him that it was the one he sought. It was duly addressed to Sir Richard Blunt"With speed and private." "Indeed, very private," said Todd. "Wretch! Wretch!" cried some one from a window, and Todd knew then that the deed of violence had been witnessed by some one from one of the houses. With an execration, he darted off at full speed, and soon placed a perfect labyrinth of streets between him and all pursuit. He thrust the letter all crumbled up into his pocket, and he would not pause to read it until he was much nearer to Fleetstreet than to the colonel's house, or the scene of his attack upon the groom. Then, by the light of a more than usually brilliant lamp, which with its expiring energies was showing the world what an old oil lamp could do, he opened and read the brief letter. It was as follows. "Dear Sir Richard. "Todd has been here upon murderous thoughts intent. Poor Tobias has, I fear, broken a bloodvessel, and is in a most precarious condition. I leave all to you. The villain escaped, but is injured I think." "Yours very faithfully, "John Jeffery." "To Sir Richard Blunt. "Broken a bloodvessel," said Todd. "Ha! ha! Broken a bloodvessel. Ha! Then Tobias may yet be food for worms, and the meat of the pretty crawlers to the banquet. Ha!" He walked on with quite a feeling of elation; and yet there was, as he came to think, a somethinghe could not exactly define whatabout the tone of the letter, that began upon second thoughts to give him no small share of uneasiness. The familiar way in which he was mentioned as Todd merely, without further description, argued some foregone conclusion. It seemed to say, Todd, the man whom we both know so well, and have our eyes upon. Did it mean that? A cold perspiration broke out upon the forehead of the guilty wretch. What was he to think? What was he to do? He read the letter again. It sounded much more unmeaning and strange now. He had at first been too much dazzled by the pleasant intelligence regarding Tobias, to comprehend fully the alarming tone of the epistle; but now it waked upon his imagination, and his brain soon became vexed and troubled. "Offoff, and away," he muttered. "Yes, I must be off before the dawn. The interception of this letter saves me for some few hours. In the morning, the colonel will see Sir Richard Blunt, and then they will come to arrest me; but I shall be upon the German Ocean by then. Yes, the Hamburgh ship for me." He was so near his home now that it was not worth while to call a coach. He could run to Fleet Street quicker, so off he set at a great pace till his breath failed him. Then he held on to a post so faint and weak, that a little child might have apprehended him. "Curse them all," he said. "I wish they all had but one throat, and I a knife at it. All who cross me, I mean." Time was rather an important element now in Todd's affairs, and he felt that he could not allow himself a long period even to recover from the state of exhaustion in which he was. After a few minutes rest, he pushed on. One of those sudden changes that the climate of this country is subject to, now took place; and although the sky had looked serene and bright, and there had been twinkling stars in the blue firmament but a short time before, Todd began to find that his clothing was but little protection against the steady rain that commenced falling with a perseverance that threatened something lasting. "All is against me," he said. "All is against me." He struggled on with the rain dashing in his face, and trickling, despite all his exertions to the contrary, down his neck. Suddenly he paused, and laid his finger upon his forehead, as though a sudden thought of more than ordinary importance had come across his mind. "The turpentine!" he said. "The turpentine. Confound it, I forget the turpentine." What this might mean was one of Todd's own secrets; but before he went home, he ran down several streets until he came to a kind of wholesale drug warehouse. He rang the bell violently. "What is it?" said a voice. "The small keg of turpentine that was to be sent to Mr. Todd's in Fleet Street, is particularly wanted." "It was sent about half an hour ago." "Oh, thank youthank you. That will do. A wet night." In a few minutes more he was at his own shopdoor. CHAPTER LXXXV. SIR RICHARD MAKES PLANS. Johanna had had a long time to herself in Todd's shop now. When first he left upon that expedition of murder, she had almost been afraid to stir, for she had feared he might momentarily return; but as his stay became longer and longer protracted, she plucked up courage. She began to look about her. "As yet," she said to herself, "what has been done towards arriving at a solution of the mysteries of this dreadful place?" The more she thought, the more she felt compelled to answer this inquiry in an unsatisfactory manner. What had been done? The only thing that could be said to be settled, was the fact that Todd was guilty, and that Mrs. Lovett was his accomplice. That he, by some diabolical means, murdered people who came into his shop to be shaved, was a fact, incontestable; but how he did the deed, still remained a mystery. The care which Todd always bestowed for the purpose of concealing the manner in which he committed the murder, had hitherto been successful. No one but himself, and probably Mrs. Lovett, knew exactly how he did the deed. It has been of course sufficiently observed that he never attempted anything amiss when two people were in the shop. That he always made it a point to get rid of Johanna upon occasions when he thought he had a chance of making a victim; and that in fact he had, by the very fact that Sir Richard Blunt and his officers had in various disguises followed people into his shop, been for some time prevented from the commission of his usual murders. Now without in the smallest degree disguising what he did know, it is quite clear that Sir Richard Blunt up to that time did not know how Todd did the deeds of blood for which his shop was to become famous, and himself infamous. That people went in and never came out again, was about the extent of what was really known. The authorities, including Sir Richard Blunt, were extremely anxious to know exactly how these murders were committed, and hence they waited with the hope, that something would occur to throw a light upon that part of the subject, before they apprehended Todd. At any moment, of course, he could have been seized, and he little suspected that he was upon such a mine. If anything, however, could be said to expedite the arrest of Todd, it would certainly be what had taken place at the colonel's house. Now, to all appearance, when the colonel came home so close upon the events that had happened in his absence, and had so very nearly been fatal to both Minna Gray and Tobias, Todd had made his escape. A rapid, but effective search of his, the colonel's house, sufficed to prove that there he was not. The appearance of Tobias, with blood gushing from his mouth, was sufficiently alarming, and it was under the impression that he was dying from the rupture of a bloodvessel, that the colonel wrote the note to Sir Richard Blunt, which was intercepted by Sweeney Todd himself. Upon the arrival, however, of the surgeon, who was immediately sent for, it was soon ascertained that the bloodvessel which had given way in poor Tobias, was not on the lungs, and that the danger arising from it was by no means great, provided he were kept quiet and properly attended to. Minna Gray received this information with deep thankfulness, and the colonel, upon hearing it, immediately sought Sir Richard to consult with him upon the subject in its now altered state, for the idea that Tobias was dying, had made him, the colonel, view the affair much more passionately than prudently. By dint of some trouble, the colonel found Sir Richard Blunt, and then to his no small surprise, for he had known his groom long, and thought he could thoroughly depend upon him, he found that the magistrate had received no note at all upon the subject, so that of course no steps had been taken. Upon hearing the affair detailed to him, Sir Richard Blunt said "I regret this much, as it will put Todd in a fright and expedite his departure." "But was he not going by the Hamburgh packet before daydawn? At any rate, I understood you that by the manner in which you had dogged him, you had thoroughly ascertained that fact?" "I had, but had taken steps to prevent him." "You would arrest him tonight?" "No, I do not think it advisable to arrest him just yet. The fact is, I do not know all that I want to know; but in order to stop him from leaving his shop tonight, I have caused the Hamburgh Captain Owners, to write to him, since he had taken a passage, telling him that the ships stores would not be ready until tomorrow, when at one hour before sunrise he would sail." "Then you want to keep him in his shop another day?" "I do. I hope and expect that during that day, something may occur to clear up the mystery that still attaches to the mode in which he commits his murders." "It may so." "I think I can take measures by running some little personal risk to make it do so; but something must be hit upon to calm his mind, regarding this affair at your house now, for he will expect nothing but instant arrest on its account." "What can I do?" "If you will be guided by me you will write Todd a letter, threatening him that if there is any more interference with Tobias, you will prosecute him, but that you will, if you hear no more of him at your house, say nothing of the past. You need be under no fear that he will derive any future advantage from such a promise, as any charge against him connected with poor Tobias will sink into insignificance, compared with other offences." "True! true!" "Such a letter, couched with the one concerning the nondeparture of the ship, may keep him in his shop over tomorrow." "And then" "Then he sleeps in Newgate, from which building he steps on to the scaffold." "But has he not sent many trunks and packages to the ship?" "Yes, and I have as regularly removed them all to the policeoffice at Bow Street. We have already some thousands of pounds worth of property of the most costly description." "But Johanna? What is to become of her?" "You may depend upon it that Todd will pursue the same course with her that he did with Tobias. He will give her a trifle of money, and tell her to get a night's lodging out; and in that case she knows where to come to be quite safe and comfortable. But if such should not be the case, my protecting arm is over her; I think I can almost defy Todd to do her any injury." "Think you so?" "Yes, I have made such arrangements that if she were missed only for ten minutes, Todd's house would be searched from top to bottom. I would not, for this right hand, that any harm should come to her." "Nor Inor I." "Be at ease regarding her, colonel." "I know how fully we may trust to you, and therefore I will be at ease regarding her; and I will at once write the letter to Todd you suggest to me." "Do so. His fears upon your account must be calmed down." The colonel accordingly wrote the necessary note to Todd. Of course, neither he nor Sir Richard Blunt knew that Todd had another reason for wishing to be off that night, which consisted in his great unwillingness to meet Mrs. Lovett in the morning; for it will be recollected that he had an appointment with that lady upon money matters at an early hour. The reader is now fully aware of how matters stand, and will be able to comprehend easily the remarkable events which rapidly ensued upon this state of things, and therefore we can at once return to Todd. We left him upon his doorstep. It was never Todd's custom to walk at once into his house as any one else would do upon their arrival, whose "Conscience was not redolent of guilt!" but he would peep and pry about, and linger like a moth fluttering around a candle, or a rat smelling at some tempting morsel, which might be connected with some artfully contrived trap, before he entered. He wanted sadly to get a peep at what Charley was doing. Now, poor Johanna, fortunately at that moment, was only sitting before the little miserable fire, holding her face in her hands, and deeply thinking of the once happy past. She had brought out from beneath the counter the sleeve of a sailor's jacket, which she had found upon her former examination of the shop, and after sprinkling it with some tears, for she fully believed it must have belonged to Mark Ingestrie, she had hidden it again. And now as she sat in that house of murder all alone, she was picturing to herself every tone and look of her lover when he had first told her that he loved her before, as she might have said in the words of the old song "He loved me, and he sped away Far o'er the raging sea, To seek the gems of other lands, And bring them all to me." At that moment, with all external objects hidden from her perception she could almost fancy she could hear his voice as he had said to her"My darling, I shall come back rich and prosperous, and we shall be happy." Alas! how sadly had that dream ended. He who had escaped the perils of the deephe who had successfully battled with the tempest, and all the perils by sea and by land incidental to the life he had embarked in, had returned miserably to perish, almost within hearing of her for whom he had adventured so much. The thought was maddening! "And I live!" she said; "I can live after that! Oh, MarkMarkI did not love you well enough, or I could not have existed so long after the horrible certainly of your fate has been revealed to me. They may say what they will to try to make me calmer and happier, but I know that he is Todd's victim." After this she sat for a time in a kind of stupor, and it was during that interval that Todd arrived home. There was no light in the shop but what at times came from a little flickering flame, that would splutter into a moment's brief existence in the fire; but Todd, as he glared through the upper portion of the halfglass door at a spot where he knew the blind did not prevent him, could just see Johanna thus sitting. "Humph!" he said. "The boy is quiet enough, and probably, after all, may suspect nothing; although I don't at all like his manner at times; yet it is safer to kill him before I go. It is absolute security. He shall help me to arrange everything to set the house on fire, and then when I have completed all my arrangements, it will be easy to knock him on the head." With this he opened the door. Johanna started. "Well," said Todd, "well, any one been?" "Only a man to be shaved, sir. I told him you would be home soon, but he could not wait, so he left." "Let him leave and get shaved at the devil!" said Todd. "You are sure no one has been here peeping and prying, and asking questions which you would be quite delighted to answer, eh?" "Peeping and prying, sir?" "Yes, peeping and prying. You know the meaning of that. Don't put on a look of surprise at me. It won't do. I known what you boys are. Curse you all! Yes, I know what you are." Johanna made no answer. Todd took off his hat, and shook the rain from it violently. Then in a voice that made Johanna start again, he cried "Light the lamp, idiot!" It was quite clear that the occurrences at the colonel's had not improved Todd's temper at all, and that upon very little pretext for it, he would have committed some act of violence, of which Johanna might be the victim. Anything short of that she could endure, but she had made up her mind that if even he so much as laid his hand upon her, her power of further patience would be gone, and she would be compelled to adopt the means of summoning aid which had been pointed out to her by Sir Richard Bluntnamely, by casting something through the window into the street. She lit the shoplamp as quickly as she could. "A lazy life you lead," said Todd. "A lazy life, indeed. Well, well," he added, softening his tone, "it don't matterI shall polish you off for all that, Charley. What a pretty boy you are." "Sir?" "I say what a pretty boy you are. Why, you must have been your mamma's pet, that you must. I was. Ha! ha! Look at me, now. I was fondled and kissed once, and called a pretty boy. Ha!" Johanna shuddered. "Yes," added Todd, as he wiped himself down with a soiled towel, "yes, my mother used to make quite a pet of me. I often used to wish I was strong enough to throttle her! Ha! ha! That I did!" "Throttle her, sir?" "Yes," added Todd, fiercely. "What the devil did she bring me into the world for her own gratifications, unless she had plenty of money to give me that I might enjoy myself in it?" "I don't know, sir." "You don't know? Who the devil supposed you did know? Answer me that, you imp! Well, well, Charley, you and I won't quarrel about such matters. Come, my boy, I want you to be of use to me tonight." "Tonight, sir?" "Yes, tonight. Is it broad daylight? Is the sun shining? Is there no such thing as night, under cover of which black deeds are done? Curse you! why do you ask if tonight is the time for action?" "I will do your bidding, sir." "Yes; andAh! who is this?" "Is this here keg of turpentine for you?" said a man, with it upon his shoulder. "Mr. Todd's this is, ain't it?" "Yesyes. Put it down, my good fellow. You ought to have something to drink." "Thank you kindly, sir." "But you must pay for it yourself. There is a publichouse opposite." The man went away swearing; and scarcely had he crossed the threshold, when a letter was brought by a lad, and handed to Todd. Before he could ask any questions, the lad was gone. Todd held the letter in his hand, and glared at the direction. It was to him, sure enough, and written in a very clerklike hand, too. Before he could open it, some one hit the door a blow upon the outside, and it swung open. "Is this Todd's, the barber?" "Yes," said Johanna. "Then give him that letter, little chap, will you?" "Stop!" cried Todd. "Stop. Where do you come from, and who are you? Stop, you rascal. Will you stop? Confound you, I wish I had a razor at your throat." CHAPTER LXXXVI. TODD RECEIVES TWO EXTRAORDINARY LETTERS, AND ACTS UPON THEM. Todd looked the picture of amazement. "Two letters!" he muttered, "two letters to me, who seldom receive any? To me who have no acquaintancesno relations? Bah! It must be some mistake, or perhaps, after all, some infernal nonsense about the parish." He tore open the last received one, and read as follows "Colonel Jeffery informs Sweeney Todd that, although from a variety of reasons he may not think proper to prosecute him for his recent outrage at his house, he will, upon a repetition of such conduct, at once hand him over to the police." Todd's countenance, during the perusal of this brief note, betrayed a variety of emotions; and when he had concluded it, he let it drop from his hands, and knitting his brows, he muttered "What does this mean?" That there wasthat there must be something much more than met the eye in this boasted clemency of the colonel towards him, he felt quite convinced; but what it was, he was puzzled to think for a time. At length, brightening up, he said "Yes, I have it. It is Tobiasit is Tobias. He cannot rid himself from the idea that I have some mysterious power of injuring his mother; and perhaps, after all, he may have made no disclosures to the colonel injurious to me." Comforted by this wide supposition, Todd picked up the letter again, and put it in his pocket carefully. "It is as well," he said, "for I shall not now be hurried. No, I shall not be at all hurried now, which I might have been.Charley." "Yes, sir." "Trim the lamp." Johanna did so; and while the process was going on, Todd opened the other letter, it was as follows "Sir,We beg to inform you that our Hamburgh vessel in which you have done us the favour to take passage, will not sail until tomorrow night at four, God willing, and that consequently there will be no occasion for your coming on board earlier.We are, sir, "Your obedient servants, "Brown, Buggins, Muggs, and Screamer." "To Mr. S. Todd." Todd ground his teeth together in a horrible manner. He dashed the letter to the floor, and stamped upon it. "Curse Brown and Buggins!" he cried. "I only wish I could dash out Muggs and Screamer's brains with Brown and Buggins's skulls. Confound them and their ships. May they all go to the bottom when I am out of them, and be smashed and dd!" Johanna was amazed at this sudden torrent of wrath. She could not imagine what had produced it, for Todd had read the letter in a muttering tone, that effectually prevented her from hearing any of it. Suddenly he rose and rushed into the back room, and bolted the door upon himself. He went to think what was best to be done. When he was alone he read both the letters again, and then he burst out into such a torrent of wrath against the shipowners, that it was a mercy Johanna's ears were spared the dreadful words that came from his lips. Suddenly he saw a postscript at the foot of the shipowner's letter, which he had at first overlooked. "P. S.The ship is removed to Crimmins's Wharf, but will be at her old moorings at time mentioned above." "Dn Crimmins and his wharf, too!" cried Todd. He flung himself into a chair, and sat for a time profoundly still. During that period he tried to make up his mind as to what it would be best for him, under the circumstances, to do. Many plans floated through his imagination. He could not for a long time bring himself to believe that the letter of the colonel's was anything but a feint to throw him off his guard in some way. At length he got into a calmer frame of mind. "Shall I leave at once, or stay till tomorrow night, that is the question?" He argued this with himself, pro and con. If he left he would have to secret himself somewhere all the following day, and the fact of his having left would make an active search, safe to be instituted for him, which would possibly be successful. Besides, how was he to conveniently set fire to his house, unless he was off on the moment that the flames burst forth? Then if he stayed he had Mrs. Lovett to encounter, but that was all; and surely he could put her off for a few hours? Surely she, of all people in the world, was not to run to a policeoffice and destroy both him and herself, just because she did not get some money at ten o'clock that he had promised to hand to her. "She shall be put off," he said, suddenly, "and I will stay over tomorrow. I am safer here than anywhere else, of that I feel assured. If there are any suspicious whisperings about me at all, they will grow to loud clamours the moment I am gone, and then they may reach the ears of these shipowners, and they may say at once, 'Why we have such a man with a passage taken in one of our Hamburgh ships.' Let them say that when the ship is some twenty hours gone with me on board, and I don't care; but with me on land, and the ship only to sail, instead of having actually sailed, it is quite a different matter." He rose from his seat. His mind was made up. He had not quite decided what he should say to Mrs. Lovett, but he had decided upon staying. "Charley will live another day," he muttered; "but tomorrow night he dies, and his body will be consumed with this house, and, I hope, a good part of Fleetstreet. It will not be prudent to get him to assist now in disposing the combustibles to fire the house. He might speak of it before tomorrow night." Todd came out into the shop. "Charley, my boy!" How kindly he spoke! "I am here, sir." "You must not mind what I say when I am vexed. Many things happen to put me out of the way. Sometimes people that I have done I don't know how much for, turn out to be very ungrateful, and then I get chafed, you see, Charley." "Yes, sir, no doubt." "But, after I have retired to the parlour and prayed a little, my mind soon recovers its usual religious tone, and its wonted serenity; and for the sake of the Almighty, who, you know, is good to us all, Charley, I forgive all that is done to me, and pray for the wicked." Johanna shuddered. This hypocrisy sounded awful to her.
"Never go to rest, Charley, without saying your prayers. There's threepence for you. You can get yourself a bed in the neighbourhood for that amount somewhere, I daresay. I am very sorry I cannot accommodate you here, Charley. Now go away, and let me have you here by seven in the morning; and mind, above all things, cultivate a religious spirit, and do unto your neighbours as you would that your neighbours should do unto you." Johanna could not reply. "Here is a tract that you can read before you go to sleep, if they allow you a candle, when you get abed. It is entitled 'Groans of Grace, or the Sinner Sifted,' a most godly production, from a pious bookseller in Paternosterrow, Charley." "Yes," Johanna just managed to say. "Now you may go." She darted from the shop. "Hilloa! hilloa! Stopstop, Charley! Stopstop, will you? Confound you, stop! The infernal shutters are not up. Do you hear? I forgot them." Todd rushed to his door. He looked right and left, and over the way, and, in fact, everywhere, but no Charley was to be seen. The fact is, that Johanna, the moment she felt herself released from the shop, had darted over the way, and into the fruiterers, where she had found so friendly a welcome before, and all this was done in such a moment, that she was housed before Todd could get his shopdoor open. "Welcome!" said a voice. She found it proceeded from the fruiterer's daughter, who had behaved so kindly to her. Johanna burst into tears. "What has happened?what has happened?" cried the young girl. "Nothing, now," said Johanna. "But I cannot keep up longer than when I am in that shop. As soon as I am fairly out of the presence of that dreadful man, I feel ready to faint." "Be of good cheer," said a deeptoned voice. She looked up, and saw Sir Richard Blunt. "You here, sir?" "Yes, Johanna. I have been now for some time watching Todd's shop from our friend's firstfloor window. I saw you dart across the road, and for the moment feared something had gone wrong. Did Todd get two letters?" "He did." "They will, I hope, keep him quiet until another night. Dare you go back again, Johanna, to that place?" "Yes, if it be necessary; but he has told me to sleep out, and the gust of pleasure I felt at the permission, almost, I fear, betrayed me." "He came to the door and looked furiously after you, but he did not see which way you had come. You were over here like a flash of light." "He would have had me back again, then?What could that be for?" "At all events, you shall not go until the morning, and not then, unless after a night's rest here, you feel that you can do so with a good heart." "Oh yes, I will fulfil my mission." "Todd is putting up his shutters," said the fruiterer, as he came in from his front shop. "Ah, then the secret is out," said Sir Richard Blunt. "That is what he wanted you back for, Johanna. He had forgotten at the moment all about the shutters you may depend. I am glad he spared you the trouble, at any rate. I do not like you to perform any service for such a rank villain as he is." "It would not have been for him, sir." "For who, then?" "For the dead. I feel that I am bound to bring to justice the murderer of Mark Ingestrie. When I was here last, sir, you strove to comfort me, by making me feel a sort of hope that he was not dead, but I cannot think thatI would that I could, but indeed I cannot, sir." "Do not be too sure, Johanna." "Nay, look at that." She laid before the magistrate the sleeve of the jacket that she had found at Todd's, and which fancy, for she certainly had no proof that way tending, told her had belonged to Mark Ingestrie. "What is this?" "Look at it, sir. My heart tells me it was his!" "And so you suppose there was never but one sailor's jacket with ivory buttons on the wrist in the world, and never any one who wore one, but Mark Ingestrie?" "Nay, the place in which it was found brings conviction." "Not at all. Do you forget there was such a person as Thornhill in the world, Johanna?" "No; but why will every one persist in fancying Thornhill and Ingestrie to be two persons, when I am convinced they were but one? Let who will identify this as part of Thornhill's apparel, and I will weep for Mark." "I cannot just now shake this supposition." "You never will." "If I live I will, Johanna, I give you my word for so much. Pray who is the best to judge of such things? You, a young girl who have seen little or nothing of the world, and whose natural apprehension is rendered obscure by the conflict of your affections, or I whose business it is to come to an accurate conclusion of such matters? I repeat my conviction, that Thornhill was not Mark Ingestrie." "Oh, if I could think so!" "You will." "You have no doubt, sir, but Thornhill perished by the hand of Todd?" "None whatever." Johanna looked deeply affected. "Come," added Sir Richard, "you want both rest and refreshment, and you can have both here at this house. Tomorrow I hope will end all your trials, my dear girl, and I shall live, I trust, to see you smile as you ought to smile, and to be as happy as only a very dim recollection of the past will make you." "Ah, nonever happy." "You must love some one. You must recover, and in the cares and joys of a new existence, you must only look back upon what has passed, as though you pondered upon the phantasma of some fearful dream; and when you see all around you smiling" "It will be cruel for them to smile, sir; and it is now cruel of you to speak to me of loving another, when you know my affections are with Ingestrie, in that world to which he has gone before me, but to which I look forward to as the place of our happy meeting, where we shall part again no more." "Well, I thought I could find you a lover that would be to your mind when all these affairs were over." "Sir?" "Nay, be not offended. You know I am your sincere friend." "I know you are, and that is what makes it so grievous to me to hear you talk in such a strain, sir." "Then I will say no more." "I thank you, Sir Richard; and I will forget what you have said, because I will recollect nothing from you, or committed with you, but kindness and consideration." Sir Richard smiled slightly for a moment, as he turned aside and spoke to his friend the fruiterer for some minutes in a low tone. The young girl who had before behaved with such kindness to Johanna, took her by the hand, and led her upstairs. "Come," she said, "you shall tell me all you have suffered opposite since we parted last, and I will speak to you of him whom you love." "You are too good to me." While all this was going on so close to him, Todd, with many oaths and execrations, was putting up his own shutters, which he did with a violence that nearly knocked the front of the window in. When he had finished, he walked into his house, and closing the door, he said, in a low tone "I must make up my mind what to say to Mrs. Lovett in the morning. I am afraid she will be hard to pacify." At this moment a man peered out from the inn gateway opposite, and said to himself "Now begins my watch. I dare say now Mrs. Lovett has some particular reason for watching this barber, though she did not tell me. However, a guinea for one night's work is not bad pay." CHAPTER LXXXVII. MR. LUPIN MEDDLES WITH OTHER FOLKS' AFFAIRS. "Brother Oakley, is sister Oakley within?" This rather cool speechcool considering all the circumstanceswas uttered by no other than the Reverend Mr. Lupin to Mr. Oakley, who was working in his shop on the morning after Johanna had gone upon her perilous enterprise to Todd's. Mr. Oakley looked up with surprise upon his features. "What?" he said. "Is sister Oakley within, brother?" "Don't call me brother, you canting hypocrite. How do you make out any such relationship, I should like to know?" "Are we not all brothers in the Lord?" "Pho! Go along." "Nay, brother Oakley, my coming to you upon this day hath, in good truth, a meaning." As he said these words, the countenance of the pious man had upon it a malignant expression, and there was a twinkle about his eyes, which said as plainly as possible, "And that meaning is mischief!" Old Oakley looked at him for some few seconds, and then he said "Hark you, Mr. Lupin, you have already meddled too much in my affairs, and I desire now that you will be so good as to leave them alone." "Humph! brother Oakley, what I have to say, concerns thee to hear, but I would rather say it to thy wife, who is a sister in the faith, and assuredly one of the elect, than I would say it to you, who will assuredly go to a warm place below for your want of faith; so I say again, is sister Oakley within?" "If you mean my wife," replied the old spectaclemaker, "I am sorry to say that nobody knows less of her going out and coming home than I do." "Truly, she frequents the Tabernacle of the Lord, called Ebenezer, where we all put up a hearty and moving prayer for you." "Nobody asks you. I believe you are a set of rascals." "How pleasant this is." "What is pleasant?" "To be nailed. How charming it is for the friends of Satan to call the Saints hard names. Brother Oakley, you are lost, indeed." "If you call me brother again, you shall be lost, Mr. Lupin. I tell you once for all, I don't know anything of my wife's going out or coming home, and I don't want to see you in my shop any more. If it were not for one person in this world, and that one an angel, if ever one lived upon the earth, I should not care how soon my head was laid low." "Humph! brother Oakley! Humph!" Oakley caught up a file to throw at the head of the hypocrite, but there was such an expression of triumph upon his face, that the heart of the old spectaclemaker sunk within him as he thought to himself, "This man brings ill news, or he would never look as he does." The file dropped from his hands, and pushing his spectacles up to the top of his head, he glared at Lupin as he said "Speakspeak! What have you to say?" "Humph!" "Speak man, if you be a man!" "Humph, brother Oakley; you have a daughterJohanna?" "Yes, yes!" cried old Oakley. "My heart told me that it was of my child this wretch came to speak. Tell me all instantly. Speakwhat of my dear Johanna? I will wrest the truth from you. Has anything happenedis she well? Speakspeak!" Mr. Oakley sprang upon the preacher, and seizing him by the throat, forced him back until he fell upon an old chest in the shop that was full of tools and the lid of which giving way with Lupin's weight and the sudden concussion with which he came upon it, precipitated him into the box among a number of pointed implements, the effect of which may be better imagined than described, as the newspapers say. "Murder! murder!" screamed the preacher. "Now you rascal!" cried old Oakley. "Say what you have got to say, and at once, too." "Murder!" again gasped Lupin. "Brother Oakley, spare my life." "I will not spare it if you are not quite explicit as regards what you have hinted of my child. Speak at once. Tell me what you have to say?" "Let me get up. Oh, be merciful, and let me get up." "No. You can stay very well where you are. Be quiet and speak freely, in which case no harm will come to you." "Did you say, be quiet, brother Oakley? Truly you would be anything but quiet in my situation. What induces you to keep all your tools in this chest with the points uppermost?" "You are trying to prevaricate now," said Oakley, suddenly snatching from the wall of his shop an antique sword, that had hung there as a sort of ornament, not entirely inconsistent with his trade. "You are trying to prevaricate with me now, and I must and will have your life. Prepare for the worst. You have now aroused feelings that cannot be so easily quelled again. Your last hour has come!" The sight of the sword awakened the most lively feelings of terror in the mind of the preacher. He gave a howl of dismay, and made the most frantic efforts to get up out of the toolchest; but that was no easy matter, particularly as old Oakley flourished the antique sword in dangerous proximity to his nose. At length, lifting up his hands in the most supplicating manner, he cried "Mercymercy, and I will tell." "Go on, then. Quick." "Yesyes. Oh, dear! Yes. I was sojourning in this ungodly city, and taking my way, deep in thought, upon the wickedness of the world, the greater portion of the inhabitants of which will assuredly go down below, where there is howling and" "You rascal, I'll make you howl if you do not come to the point quickly." A flourish of the sword, so close to the face of Mr. Lupin that he really believed for the moment it had taken the end of his nose off, admonished him that the patience of Mr. Oakley was nearly exhausted, and in a whining tone, he added "Truly, I was in the street called Fleetstreet; when as I was crossing the way, a young lad nearly upset me into the kennel. He did not see me, but I saw him. Truly, brother Oakley, I saw the face of thatthat individual." "Well, what is that to me? I ask you what is he to me? Go on." "Oh, oh, oh! Don't say I have not prepared you for the worst. Oh, oh, oh! Now, brother Oakley, I will tell you, even although it provoke an abundance of wrath. That boythat individual who nearly overthrew me, one of the elect as I am, into the kennel, had the face of your daughter, Johanna." The spectaclemaker looked confused, as well he might. "The face of my daughter, Johanna?" he said. "What do you mean? Is all this cockandabull story about some boy in the street, who happened in your eyes to bear a resemblance to my child?" "Humph! Ay, truly. Humph! so striking a resemblance, that sitting here, even as I am upon the points of many instruments of steel and of iron, I aver that that boy was Johanna Oakley." Oakley staggered back, and the antique sword dropped from his hand, a proceeding which Mr. Lupin proffited sufficiently by to scramble out of the toolchest, and make towards the door. In another moment he would have left the shop, for he had done all the mischief he could, by telling the anxious father such a tale, but suddenly Oakley snatched the sword from the floor again, and rushing after Mr. Lupin, he caught him by the skirts at the very nick of time, and dragged him into the shop again. Holding then the sword to his throat, he said "Scoundrel! How dare you come and tell me such a thing? Your life, your worthless life, ought to pay the penalty of such an odious falsehood." "No, no!" cried Lupin falling upon his knees, for he saw the sword uplifted. "No! What if it be true? What if it be true?" The old man's hands shook, and the point of the sword which had been in most dreadful proximity to Mr. Lupin's throat, was gradually lowered until it touched the floor. "Tell me againtell me again!" gasped Oakley. The preacher saw that his danger was over, and rising, he took a handkerchief from his pocket, and began deliberately to dust his knees, as he said in a low snuffling voice "Truly, you are a vessel of wrath, brother Oakley." "Stop!" cried Oakley. "I have told you before not to call me brother I have no fellowship or brotherhood with you. Do not tempt me to more violence by the use of that word." "Let it be as you please," said Lupin, "but as regards the maiden, who for a surety is fair to look upon, although all flesh is grass, and beauty waneth after a season" "I want none of your canting reflections. To your tale. When and where was it that you saw my child?" "In the street called Fleet, as I and all of us are sinners. She wore nether garments suitable and conformable unto a boy, but not to a girl, as the way of the world goeth; and yet she looked comely did the maidenay, very comely. I was moved to see her truly. Her eyes there was no mistaking, and her lipsAy, it was the maiden; but after sitting in the kennel for one moment into which I fell, and getting up again amid the laughter of the ungodly bystanders, I found that she was gone." "And so you have come on to me with this monstrous tale?" "Monstrous tail?" said Mr. Lupin, turning round as though he expected to find such an appendage flourishing behind him. "I am not aware" The old spectaclemaker staggered into a seat, and holding his hands clasped before him for a few moments, he strove to think calmly of what had been told to him. The preacher was not slow in taking advantage of this condition into which Mr. Oakley fell, to protect himself against any further danger from the sword. He picked up that weapon from the floor, and not finding any place readily in the shop where he might effectually hide it, he held it behind his back, and finally thrust the long blade of it between his coat and his waistcoat, where he thought it was to be sure wonderfully well hidden. He did not calculate that the point projected above his coatcollar and his head some six inches or so, presenting a very singular appearance indeed. He then waited for Oakley to speak, for to tell the truth, the curiosity of Lupin was strongly excited concerning Johanna, as well as his sense of enjoyment, tickled by the distress of the father whom he considered his enemy. After this he waited patiently enough to see what course the afflicted man would pursue, and, indeed, the whole conduct of Lupin was most convincing of the fact, that he entertained no doubt whatever as to the identity of the supposed boy he had seen in Fleet Street. The time at which he had seen Johanna, must have been when she ran over the road from Todd's shop, and took refuge in the fruiterer's. Well, then, poor Mr. Oakley was trying to think. He was trying to convince himself that it could not possibly have been Johanna who had been seen by the preacher; but then there was still present to his mind, the impression that had been made upon it by the singular manner in which she had bidden him adieu upon the last occasion of his seeing her. He remembered how she had come back, after leaving the shop with her young friend, Arabella Wilmot, and how then, with a burst of feeling, she had taken of him a second farewell. No wonder then that, by combining that with the information Lupin had brought, the father found enough to shudder at; and he did shudder. Mr. Lupin watched him attentively. Suddenly rising, with a face pale as death itself, Oakley advanced to Lupin, and laying his hand upon his breast, he said to him "Man, I suspect that there is much hypocrisy in your nature. It may be unjust to do soit may be that I am doing you a wrong, but yet I do think in my heart that you are one of those who adopt the garb and the language of piety for the selfish purposes of human nature. And yet you must have some feeling at the bottom of even such a heart as yours, there must be some touch of humanity; and by that I conjure you to say if you have told the truth to me in this matter concerning my child." "I have," said Lupin. "If you have not, I will say nothing to you, I will be guilty of no attempt at revengeful violence. Only tell me so, and you shall go in peace." "What I have told you of the maiden is true," said Lupin. "I saw herwith these eyes I saw her." The spectaclemaker slipped off his working apron and the black sleeves he wore over his coat to protect it from the dust and other destructive matters incidental to his workbench, and then he snatched his hat from a peg upon which it hung in the shop. "Come," he said. "Come. You and I will walk together to the house, where I was told Johanna was to be; and if I do not find her there, I will thank you for the information you have given to me. I will not stop to inquire what were your motives in giving it, but I will thank you for it. Come. Come with me." "Truly I will come with you," said Lupin, "for I am curiousthat is to say, I am in a religious point of view, anxious to know what has become of the maiden, who was so fair to look upon always, although she had not a godly spirit." Oakley locked up his shop, and put the key in his pocket. Then taking the preacher by the arm, he set off at a fast pace for the house of Arabella Wilmot. CHAPTER LXXXVIII. TODD ASTONISHES MRS. LOVETT'S SPY. We return to Todd. After he had put up his own shutters, and properly secured his doors for the night, he lit the lamp in his parlour, and glancing curiously around him, he muttered "Yes. This will assuredly be the last night here. How I hate the look of anything, and how eagerly I shall banish from my mind all kind of remembrance of this place when I am in another land, as I shall be shortly. Let me see I will embrace the catholic religion, and I will be most devout. The regularity of my religious exercises shall do much for me. Indeed, I do not think I could have remained so long in London, if I had not had the prudence to be regular at the church. It is true that of late I have neglected all that, but then I am going soon, and it does not matter." Todd sat down, and looked over the memoranda of things he had to do that he had made. He felt tolerably satisfied with the condition of affairs. That Colonel Jeffery and that others suspected him, he could not doubt; but he felt quite confident that he should be far off, before those suspicions repaired into anything dangerous to him. He still clung to the idea that they knew nothing, or else they would arrest him; and while such did not ensue, he considered himself as in a tolerably safe position. He then set about the preparations for firing his house. We need not follow him through those preparations. We need not state how he soaked clothes in turpentine and oil, and how he placed them in such positions, combined with small packages of gunpowder, and lumps of rosin, that if a torch were to be applied at the lower part of the house, the whole would be in a few moments in a blaze. Suffice it to say, that Todd worked hard for the next two hours, and that by the time they had gone, he had got everything ready for the perpetration of that last crime which he intended to commit, before he crossed the threshold of his house upon the following night, to leave it for ever. Todd Preparing Combustibles To Fire His House. Todd Preparing Combustibles To Fire His House. More than once during these two hours he drank brandy. The ardent spirit had become necessary to the existence of Todd now; and when he took a draught at the conclusion of his labours, he smiled grimly as he said "Charley Green will have quite a funeral of flame. He shall die, and his body shall be consumed in the blazing fragments of this house, and it will go hard but this side of Fleet Street suffers. Oh, if the flames would only spread to the old church, I should rejoice much at that, and they may do so.Yes, they may do so. Ha! ha! I shall be remembered in London." As he spoke, a dull heavy sort of sound at the outer door of his house came upon his ears. It was as though something heavy had been thrown against it. With fear expressed upon every feature of his face, Todd listened for a repetition of the sound. It did not come again. Todd began to breathe a little more freely, and yet he kept asking himself"What was it?"and the utmost powers of his imagination could return him no feasible answer to the interesting inquiry. But nothing was more easy than to go to the door and see if any one was there, or if anything had happened to it. Should he open it for such a purpose? Should he unbar and unbolt at the risk of he knew not what? No he would, from the first floor balcony, and there was a frail one, reconnoitre the street. He should then be easily able to see if there were any danger. He had no sooner made this determination, than he carried it out, by ascending the dark blackened staircase, conducting to the upper part of his house, that staircase which was now so completely covered by combustible materials. At every few steps he took he listened attentively. He thought there might yet be a repetition of the sound; but noall was still; and by the time he reached his first floor, he was in some sort recovered from his first fright. That was something. He left his light upon the stairhead, for he had no wish to point himself out to the chance passengers in Fleet Street, or perhaps to some enemy, by going into that room with a light in his hand. No, Todd was much too acute for that; so carefully closing the door, so that no ray of light got in from the staircase, he crept to the window. The shutters had to be unfastened, for Todd's house was always carefully closed up like the Duke of Wellington's at the present day. He very quickly unclosed one of the longdisused windows, and opening it gently, looked out over the edge of the little crazy balcony into the street. Something big and black was against his door. The more Todd bent his gaze upon this object, the more a kind of undefined terror took possession of him, and the more puzzled he was to give a name to the dark mass that had been laid upon his threshold. There was no lamp very near his house, or else, miserable as was the light from those old oil apologies for illuminators, some few rays might have fallen upon the dark mass, and told Todd what it was. But noall was dark and dubious, and he strained his eyes in vain to penetrate the mystery. "I must go down," he said; "I must open the door. Yes, I cannot live and not know what this is. I must open the door, however reluctantly, and ascertain precisely. Ah!" While Todd was talking, and still keeping his eyes fixed upon the mysterious object at his door, he saw suddenly in the midst of it a bright luminous spark, as if something connected with it was of a red heat, and slowly smouldering on fire. If he was before puzzled to account for the phenomenon of a dark object, without shape or form, lying propped up against his door, he was now more than ever confounded, and his imagination started some of the most improbable conjectures in the world, to account for the appearance. He thought that it must be some combustible, which, in the course of a few moments, would go off with a stunning report, and blow his streetdoor to atoms; but then again, what could be the object of such a thing? The more he considered the affair from above, the more he was puzzled and terrified; so at last, with a feeling of desperation, he ran down stairs and began to unfasten the streetdoor. He did not pause in his work until he had flung it open, and then the mystery was explained. A man, half asleep, with a lighted pipe in his mouth, rolled backwards into the shop; and as he did so, with the dreamy halfconsciousness that he was upon some sort of duty, he said "I'll watch him, Mrs. Lovett. He shan't get away without your knowing of it, ma'am." Todd understood the man's errand in a moment. Of course he had been employed to watch him by Mrs. Lovett, who had a slight idea that he might not be forthcoming for the promised morning settlement. Todd seized the man by the collar, and dragging him fairly into the shop, closed the door again. "Ah!" he said, "a good joke." "What's a joke, sir?" said the man. "What's a joke? Murder! Where am I?where am I? Help!" "Hush!" said Todd. "Hush! It's of no consequence. I know all about it man. Mrs. Lovett employed you to watch me. She was a little jealous, but we have made it all right now, and she asked me, if I saw you, to pay you and give you a glass of something, beside." "Did she, sir?" "To be sure she did; so come in, and you can tell her when you see her in the morning, that you had of me a glass of as good liquor as could be found in London. Bythebye, what am I to pay you?" "A guinea, sir." "Exactly. It was a guinea, of course. This way, my friend, this way. Don't fall over the shavingchair, I beg of you. You can't hurt it, for it is a fixture; but you might hurt yourself, and that is of more importance to you, you know. While we do live in this world, if it be for ever so short a time, we may as well live comfortably." Talking away thus all suspicion from the man who was not one of the brightest of geniuses in the world, Todd led the way to the parlourthat fatal parlour which had been the last scene of more than one mortal life. He closed the door, and then in quite a goodhumoured way, he pointed to the seat, saying "Rest yourself, my friendrest yourself, while I get out the bottle. And so it is one guinea that I am to give you, eh?" "Yes, sir; and all I can say is that I am very glad to hear that you and Mrs. Lovett have made matters all right again. Very glad, indeed, sir, I may say. In course, I shouldn't have took the liberty of sitting down by your door, sir, if she had not told me to watch the house and let her know, if so, be as you come out of it, or if I saw any packages moving. She didn't say anything to me what it was for; but a guinea is just as well earned easy as not, you see, sir!" "Certainly, my friend, certainly. Drink that." The man tossed off the glass of something that Todd gave him, and then he licked his lips, as he said "What is it, sir? It's strong, but I can't say, for my part, that I like the flavour of it much." "Not like it?" "Not much, sir." "Why it's a most expensive foreign liquor that is, and by all the best judges in the kingdom is never found fault with. Very few persons, indeed, have tasted it; but of those few, not one has come to me to say, Mr. Todd" "Good God!" said the man, as he clasped his head with both of his hands. "Good God, how strange I feel. I must be going mad!" "Mad!" cried Todd, as he leant far over the table so as to bring his face quite close to the man's. "Mad! not at all. What you feel now is part of your deathpang. You are dyingI have poisoned you. Do you hear that? You have watched me, and I have in return poisoned you. Do you understand that?" Todd Poisons Mrs. Lovett's Spy And Tells Him Of It. Todd Poisons Mrs. Lovett's Spy And Tells Him Of It. The dying man made an ineffectual effort to rise from the chair, but he could not. With a gasping sob he let his head sink upon his breasthe was dead! "They perish," said Todd, "one by one; they who oppose me, perish, and so shall they all. Ha! so shall they all; and she who set this fool on to his destruction shall feel, yet, the pang of death, and know that she owes it to me! Yes, Mrs. Lovett, yes." He closed his arms over his breast, and looked at the body for some moments in silence; and then, with a sneer upon his lips, he added "No, Mrs. Lovett, you did not show your judgment in this matter. Had you wished to watch me, you should have done it yourself, and not employed this poor weak wretch who has paid the price of his folly. Gogo!" He struck the chair from under the dead man with his foot, and the corpse that had partially been supported by it and the table, fell to the floor. Another kick sent it under the large table, and then, as another of Todd's victims had once done, it disappeared. "Tomorrow night, by this time," said Todd, musingly, "where shall I be!" CHAPTER LXXXIX. MR. OAKLEY IS IN DESPAIR AT THE LOSS OF JOHANNA. The anxiety of poor Mr. Oakley increased each moment as he and the preacher neared the house of Arabella Wilmot's friends. We regret to say that Mr. Lupin did enjoy the mental agony of the father; but it was in his nature so to do, and we must take poor humanity as we find it. It must be recollected that Mr. Lupin had, through Johanna, suffered great malefactions. The treatment he had received at the hands of Big Ben, although most richly deserved, had been on account of Johanna, and as regarded the old spectaclemaker himself, he had always occupied an antagonistic position as regarded Mr. Lupin. No wonder then, we say, that human nature, particularly in its evangelical variety, was not proof against the fascination of a little revenge. Now, Mr. Lupin felt so sure that he had made no mistake, but that it was no other than the fair Johanna whom he had seen in what he called the unseemly apparel, that he did not feel inclined to draw back for a moment in the matter.
Curiosity, as well as a natural (to him) feeling of malignity, urged him to stick by the father in order that he might know the result of inquiries that he, Lupin, had no opportunity or excuse for making, but which Mr. Oakley might institute with the most perfect and unquestionable profundity. As we have before had occasion to remark, the distance between Oakley's shop and the residence of the friends of Arabella was but short, so that, at the speed which the excited feelings of the fond father induced him to adopt, he soon stood upon the threshold of the residence, beneath the roof of which he hoped, notwithstanding the news so confidently brought by Lupin, to find his muchloved, idolized child. "You shall see," he said to Lupin, catching his breath as he spoke; "you shall see how very wrong you are." "Humph!" said Lupin. "You shall see," continued poor Oakley, still dallying with the knocker; "you shall see what an error you have made, and how impossible it is that my childmy good and kind Johannacould be the person you saw in Fleetstreet." "Ah!" said Lupin. Mr. Oakley knocked at the door, and, as one of the family had seen him through the blinds of the parlourwindow, he was at once admitted, and kindly received by those who knew him and his worth well. He asked, in an odd gasping manner, that Mr. Lupin might have permission to come in, which was readily granted; and with a solemn air, shaking his head at the vanities he saw in the shape of some profane statuary in the hall, the preacher followed Oakley to the diningroom. It was an aunt of Arabella's to whom they were introduced, and, with a smile, she said "Really, Mr. Oakley, a visit from you is such a rarity that we ought not to know how to make enough of you when you do come. Why, it must have been Christmas twelvemonths since you were last beneath this roof. Don't you remember when your dear, good, pretty Johanna won all hearts?" "Yes, yes," said Oakley, glancing triumphantly at Lupin. "My dear child, whom all the world lovesGod bless her!She is pure, and good, and faultless as an angel." "That, Mr. Oakley," said the lady, "I believe she is. We are as fond of her here, and always as glad to see her, as though she belonged to us. Indeed, we quite envy you such a treasure as she is." Tears gushed into the grateful father's eyes, as he heard his childhis own Johannashe who reigned all alone in his heart, and yet filled it so completelyso spoken of. How glad he was that there was some one besides himself present to hear all that, although that one was an enemy! With what a triumphant glance he looked around him. "Humph!" said Lupin. That humph recalled Oakley to the business of his visit, and yet how hot and parched his lips got, when he would have framed the allimportant question, "Is my child here?"and how he shook, and gasped for breath a moment before he could speak. At length, he found couragenot to ask if Johanna was there. Nono. He felt that he dared not doubt that. It would have been madness to doubt it, sheer insanity. So he put the question indirectly, and he contrived to say "I hope the two girls are quite well, quitequitewell." "Two girls!" said the aunt. "Two girls!" "Yes," gasped Oakley. "Johanna and Arabella, you knowyour Arabella, and my Johannamy child." "You ought to know, Mr. Oakley, considering that they are at your house, you know. I hope that neither of them have been at all indisposed? Surely that is not the case, and this is not your strange way of breaking it to us, Mr. Oakley?" The bereaved fatheryes, at that moment he felt that he was a bereaved fatherclutched the arms of the chair upon which he sat, and his face turned of a ghastly paleness. He made an inarticulate effort to speak, but could only produce a strange gurgling noise. "Gracious Heavens! he is ill," cried Arabella's aunt. "No, madam," said Lupin. "He is only convinced." "Convinced of what?" "Of what he himself will tell you, madam." "Help! help!" cried Oakley. "Help! My childmy Johannamy beautiful child. Mercyhelp. Give her to my arms again. Oh, nonono, she could not leave me thus. It is falseit is some desperate juggle! My childmy child, come once again to these arms.GodGod help me!" Arabella's aunt rose in the greatest alarm, and rung the bell so sharply, that it brought everybody that was in the house to that room, and Mr. Lupin, when he saw what a congregation there was, rose up and said in a snuffling voice "Is there any objection to a prayer?" "The greatest at present, sir," said Arabella's aunt. "Sir, there is a time for all things. The state of poor Mr. Oakley, now claims all our care. If you are his friend" At these words, Oakley appeared to shake off much of the prostrating effects of the first dreadful conviction, that what Lupin had told him was true, and he said "Nono, he is no friendhe is a bitter enemy. The enemy of my peace, and of my dear child. I am calmer now, and I demandI implore, that that man be made to leave this house." "Brother Oakley," said Lupin, "you brought me here." "And I now command you hence. Begone, villain, begone; go and exult over the heartbroken father's grief; go and tell the tale where you will. You cannot move me nowgogogo." "Truly I will go presently, but first of all, I say to you, brother Oakley, hardened sinner as you are, repent. Down upon your knees all of you, and join me in prayer, that the unbelievers may roll upon billows of burning brimstone, and that" "Come," said a man, who happened to be in the house upon some domestic errand, "Mrs. Wilmot says you are to go, and go you shall. Come, be offI know who you are. You are the rascal that married the widow in Moorfields, but who, they say, has another wife in Liverpool. If you don't go, I shall give you in charge for bigamy, and the widow says she will spend her last penny in prosecuting you." Mr. Lupin Unmasked. Mr. Lupin Unmasked. To meet any one half so well informed about his affairs, would have been a terrible blow to Mr. Lupin; but when he found that this man, who was a kind of jobbing cabinetmaker, knew so much, his great goggle eyes opened to an alarming width, and he made a movement towards the door. Still, he did not like to go without saying something. "Flee, ye wretches," he said, "from the wrath to come! You will all go into the bottomless pit, you will, and I shall rejoice at it; and sing many songs of joy over you. Scoffers and mockers, I leave you all to your fate. The devil will have you all, and that is a great comfort and gratification to the elect and to the saints." With this, Mr. Lupin made a precipitate retreat, having achieved about as little in the way of satisfying his curiosity as could very well be conceived. It was a reliefa great relief to Mr. Oakley to be rid of such a witness to his feelings as Lupin; and when he had fairly gone, and the outer door was closed upon him, the spectaclemaker, with clasped hands, and countenance expressive of the greatest possible amount of mental agony, spoke "Dismiss all but ourselves, madam," he said. "There's that to say which may be said to you alone, but which it would break my heart to say to many." The room was soon clear, and then Oakley continued in a low faltering voice to make those inquiries, each answer to which was so fatal to his peace of mind. "Madam," he said, "is not my childmy Johannahere staying on a visit with Arabella?" "No, nocertainly not." This was so frightfully conclusive, that it was some few moments before he could go on; but when he did, he said "Is Arabella in the house?" "That, Mr. Oakley," replied the aunt, "is a question I cannot answer you at the moment; but rest and compose yourself for a few moments, and I will ascertain myself if she be in or out, and if the latter, when she was last seen." "I am much beholden to you, madam. I am a poor old man, much broken in spirit, and with but one strong tie to bind me to a world which has nearly done with me. That tie is the love of my dear child, Johanna. Alas! if that be broken, I am all adrift, and at the mercy of the winds and waves of evil fortune; and the sooner I close my eyes in the long sleep of death, the better for me and all who feel for me." "Nay, Mr. Oakley, I look upon it as a thing almost criminal to despair. There is one maxim which I have learnt in my experience of life, and which I am sure you must have had abundant opportunities of learning likewise. It is, 'Never to trust to appearances.'" The old man looked at her with a saddened aspect. It was quite evident his feelings had been too strongly acted upon to make any philosophy available to him; and when she left the room to make the inquiries concerning Arabella, he wrung his hands, and wept. "Yes," he said, "yes, I am indeed alone nowa wrecka straw upon the ocean of society. The sooner I drift in the grave now, the better for me, and all who pity the old man. Oh, JohannaJohanna. My childmy beautiful, why did you not wait until I was dead before you left me? Then I should have slept calmly, and known nothing; but now my days and nights will be dreams of horror." The door opened and the aunt reappeared. "Arabella is not within," she said, "and has not been seen for some hours now. When last seen her manner was evidently perturbed. But now, Mr. Oakley, sit down by me and tell me as clearly and as distinctly, all you know and all you fear. There are few evils in this world but there are some remedies for, and you shall have my true and calm opinion if you will tell me all." It is something astonishing, and yet one of the most ordinary of mental phenomena, to note what a power a cool and clear intellect will exert over one that is distracted and full of woe and clamorous grief. Mr. Oakley did sit down by the side of Arabella's aunt, and he told her all that happened the girl of which, of course, was the real or supposed appearance of Johanna in Fleet Street, in male attire. The collateral circumstances, such as the hurried and half frantic farewell of him in the shop by Johanna, and the misrepresentation by Arabella, that she (Johanna) was going to stop there, evidently made a deep impression upon the aunt. Her countenance changed visibly, as she said faintly "God help us all." "Lost! lost," cried Oakley. "Yes, youeven you, hopeful as you were, and hopeful as you would fain have made meeven you, now that you know all, feel that she is lost. God, indeed, only can help me now." "No, Mr. Oakley," said the aunt, rallying, "I will not yet trust to appearances, although I own that they are bad. I will come to no conclusion until I have seen Arabella, and got the truth from her. It is quite clear that there is some secret between the two young creatures. It is quite clear that there is something going on that we know nothing of, and to speculate upon which may only involve us in an inextricable labyrinth of conjectures. I say, there is some secret, but it may not be a guilty one." "Notnot guilty?" "No, Mr. Oakley, there are many degrees of indiscretion to pass through ere the gulf of guilt is reached at last. I have faith in ArabellaI have faith in Johanna; and even now, admitting for a moment the truth of what that man whom you brought with you here, reports, Johanna may only have to be blamed for folly." "Dodo you think he did so see her?" "I doubt it much." "Mother," said a lad of fifteen, coming hastily into the room. "Mother I" He paused upon seeing Mr. Oakley there, and stammered out some apology "He had only come to tell his mother that a whole suit of his clothes were missing from his room and that he could find them nowhere, and he could not make it out; and one of his hats was gone too, and a pair of shoes, and" Old Oakley fell back in his chair with a groan. "She has them," he said. "She has them. My child, whom I shall never see again, has them." CHAPTER XC. MORNING IN FLEET STREET AGAIN. Another day has dawned upon the great cityanother sun has risen upon the iniquities of hosts of men, but upon no amount of coldblooded, hardened, pitiless criminality that could come near to that of Sweeney Todd. No, he certainly held the position of being in London, then, the worst of the worst. But who shall take upon himself now to say that in this pestridden, loyaltymad, abuseloving city of London, there are not some who are more than even Sweeney Todd's equals? Who shall say that hidden scenes of guilt and horror are not transacting all around us, that would, in their black iniquity, far transcend anything that Sweeney Todd has done or dreamt of doing? Let the imagination run riot in its fanciful conjectures of what human nature is capable of, and in London there shall be found those who will reduce to practice the worst frenzied deeds that can be conceived. Yes, the dawn of another day had come, and Todd had made all his preparations. Nothing was wanting, but the match that was to set Fleet Street, he fondly hoped, in a blaze. His own house, he felt quite certain, could not escape. It would be a charred mass long before any effectual means could be procured to check the devastation of the flames, and then as the good ship spread its swelling sails to the wind to bear him to another shore, he should be lighted upon his way by the glare of the great fire in Fleet Street, that no one would be able to guess the origin of. So he told himself. Shortsighted mortals that we are! How little Todd, with all his clevernessall his farseeing thrift and fancydreamt of the volcano upon which he stood. How little he for one moment imagined it was possible that the sword of justice hung over him by so slender a thread. How he would have glared at any one who might have told him that he only moved about by sufferance; and yet such was the fact. Sir Richard Blunt could put his hand upon him at any moment, and say, "Todd, you are my prisoner. To Newgateto Newgate, from whence only you will emerge to your trial, and to the scaffold!" No, Todd, good easy soul, had not the slightest idea of his real position upon that morning. He waited rather impatiently for the arrival of Johanna to take down the shutters, and she urged upon Sir Richard Blunt and her friends at the fruiterer's, the propriety of her going and doing that morning piece of work; but they would not hear of it. She at length used an argument which made Sir Richard adopt another course than keeping her at the fruiterer's until Todd should get out of all patience and open his shop himself. "It is possible," she said, "that I may be subjected to illusage if I am not there; and then being compelled to call for aid as I might, you would feel that you were forced to take Todd into custody before the time at which you have resolved so to do." "That is true," said Sir Richard; and then, after some little consideration, he added, "I have a plan that will save you both ways. You shall be in time, and yet you shall not take down Todd's shutters." They could none of them conceive at the moment how Sir Richard intended to manage this; but they quickly saw that it was easy enough. Opening just a little way one of the windows of the first floor at the fruiterer's, he blew a whistle that he had suspended round his neck by a small chain. In the course of a few moments, Crotchet walked into the shop. "Governor here?" he said. "I heard him a chirping for me just nowdidn't I?" "Yes, Crotchet," said the fruiterer, who knew him quite well. "Step upstairs; you will find him there." Crotchet was soon in the presence of Sir Richard, and Johanna, and the fruiterer's daughter. He made a rough sort of salute to the whole party, and then remarked again that he had heard the governor a chirping, he rather thought. "Yes, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, "you're quite right. You know this young lady here?"indicating Johanna. "Reether!" said Crotchet. "Well, then, you will seem to be passing Todd's shop when she commences taking down the shutters; and, seeing that they are too heavy for such a mere boy, you goodnaturedly take them down for himyou understand? It is the last time that they will be taken down for Todd, I think." "All's right," said Crotchet; "I understandsit's as good as done. Lord! what a scrouge there will be at the hanging o' that barber, to be sure, unless he manages to cheat the gallows; and I takes notice in my hexperieace as them 'ere wery bad 'uns seldom does try that 'ere game on, with all their bounce." "Now, Miss Oakley," said Sir Richard Blunt, "I think, then, your time has come; and, as Crotchet will take down the shutters, you may as well go over at once. I think you thoroughly understand what you have to doand if Todd asks you where you lodged, you had better say that the servants here offered to let you sleep by the kitchen fire, and you accepted the offerfor he may be watching for you now, and see you come out of this house, for all we know to the contrary. And now remember, without any reference to my plans or what I would rather do, if you feel yourself, or fancy you feel yourself in the least danger, take the means I have pointed out to you of summoning aid, and aid will come to you." "I will," said Johanna. "Heaven speed you, then! This will be the last day, I think, of the career of that bold bad man. I intend to make such an effort to get under his house today, as I hope and expect will enable me to come at the grand secret, namely, of how he disposes of his victims so quicklyfor that there is some wonderful jugglery in it, I am certain." Johanna took a kind leave of the fruiterer's daughter, who had lavished upon her all those attentions which, in Johanna's position, became so precious from one of her own sex; and then, assuming a careless manner, with her hat put on in a boyish slovenly sort of way, she boldly crossed the road to Sweeney Todd's. He had been watching through a hole in the upper part of one of the shutters. In a moment all sorts of ugly suspicions took possession of his mind. What could Charley Green, his errandboy from Oxford, who knew no one, and was unknown to all London, doing at a tradesman's house in Fleet Street at such an hour in the morning? How came he to know the people of that house? How came he to dream of going there? Todd was boiling with anger and curiosity when he opened the door and admitted Johanna, a thing that he was unmindful enough to do before she knocked for admission, which alone would have been amply sufficient to point out to her that she had been watched from some peephole in the house. He stretched out his hand and dragged her in. He controlled his temper sufficiently to enable him to gratify his curiosity. He made quite certain that Charley Green would tell him some story of where he had been, which should not convict the fruiterer. By the light of a miserable candle that Todd had burning in the dark closed shop, he glared at Johanna. "Wellwell," he said. "A good night's rest, Charley?" "Tolerable, sir!" "Humph! ha! And did you find a place to sleep at cheaply and decently, my good lad, eh?" "I was very fortunate indeed, sir." "Oh, you were very fortunate indeed?" "Yes, sir. I am, through being country bred I suppose, fond of fruit, so when I left you last night, I bought an apple at a shop opposite." "Oh, at Mr. aa" "I don't know the name, sir," said Johanna, "but I can run out and ascertain, I dare say." Todd gave a low sort of growl. He did not know if he were being foiled by innocence or by art. With an impatient gesture, he added "Never mind the apples, I wish to know where you slept, Charley, that I may judge if it was a proper place, there are so many wicked people in London." "Are there, sir?" "Bah! Go on. Where did you sleep?" "Well, sir, as there was a kind temperedlooking servant in the fruiterer's shop, I thought she might be able to tell me of some place where I could lodge, and when she had heard my story" "Storystory? What story?" "How destitute I was, sir, and how kind you had been to employ me without a character, and how happy and contented I was in your service, sir. So when she had heard all that, she said, 'It is too late for you to go lodginghunting tonight. There is an old bench in our kitchen, and if you like you may sleep on that.'" Todd gave a growl. "And so you slept there?" "Yes, sir." He paced the shop for some few moments in deep thought, knitting his brows and trying to make something out of what he had heard, contrary to what it seemed; but Johanna's story was too straightforward and simple for him to find any flaw in it, and after a few moments he felt compelled to admit to himself that it must be the truth. Turning to her with something of the amount of amiability one might expect from a bear, he said "Open the shop!" "Yes, sir, directly." Johanna propped the door wide open, and then having, by the dim light of the miserable candle, found a screw which fastened a bar across the shutters, she speedily released it, and then went into the street. At that moment Crotchet came along, whistling in so thoroughly careless a manner, that even Johanna thought he had forgotten his instructions and was about to pass the shop. She had her hand upon the bar when he stopped, saying, in an offhanded manner "Why little 'un, them 'ere shutters is too much for you, I'll give you a helping hand. Lor bless you, don't say anything about it. It ain't no sort o' trouble to me my little chap. Here goes." Mr. Crotchet began opening Todd's shop with such a fury and a vengeance, that the clatter and the speed with which the operation was being accomplished, brought Todd out of the parlour to see what on earth Charley was about. When he saw Crotchet coming in with three shutters in his arms at once, he could scarcely believe his eyes, and he roared out "What's this? Who are you?" "Easyeasy," said Crotchet. "Don't get in the way old gentleman. Easy. There now!" Crotchet managed to give Todd such a rap on the side of the head with the shutters, that a thousand lights danced in his eyes, and he writhed with pain. "Well, I never," said Crotchet, "I hope I haven't hurt you, old man? You see I was a passing, and seed as these here shutters was rather a bit topheavy for your little son here, and I thought I'd give him a helping hand. To be sure he didn't want me to, but you see I would, and perhaps as your old head is getting better, you wouldn't mind a pint of beer, old gentleman?" "You atrocious villain," yelled Todd, "I'll cut your throat. I'll polish you off. I'llI'llwould you like to be shaved?" "I've had a scrape already," said Crotchet, "and if you won't stand the beer, why you won't, and there's no bones broke arter all. Good morning, old Grampus. Good morning my little chap, I wishes you good luck; and if I am passing again, I don't mind lending you a helping hand, though the governor is about one o' the ugliest, nastiest tempered brutes, I ever came near in all my life." Crotchet went away whistling with great composure. CHAPTER XCI. MR. TODD'S FIRST CUSTOMERS. Todd seized Johanna by the arm, and dragged her into the shop. He locked the door, and then confronting her, he said "How kind it was of your friend, to take down the shutters for you, Charley Green." "My friend, sir?" "Yes, your friend who declined being shaved, you know, because you told him last night that he had better go to some other shop." "Really, sir," said Johanna, "I don't know what you mean." "Come, come, Charley, confess that you do know some one in London, as well as you know me. Confess, now, that people are so fond of interfering in other folk's affairs, that you have been set on to watch me. I shall not be at all angry, indeed, I shall not, I assure you. Not the least; only tell me the truth. That is all I ask of you, my boy, and you will find that it is no bad thing to make a friend of Sweeney Todd." "If I had, sir, anything to confess," replied Johanna, "except that at times I do feel that I wish I had not run away from my motherinlaw at Oxford, I should soon tell it all to you." "And so that is all, Charley?" "All at present, sir." "What a good lad. What an exemplary lad. Light the shop fire, if you please, Charley. Humph! I am wrong," muttered Todd to himself; "but yet I will cut his throat before I leave tonight. It will be safer and more satisfactory to do so, and besides, he has given me some uneasiness, and I hate him for his quiet gentle ways. I hate everybody. I would cut the throats of all the world if I could. Light the fire quickly, you young hound, will you?" Johanna trembled. She felt that anything but a blow from Todd she could put up with, but in her pocket she kept a jagged piece of flint stone, which would go through the window in a moment; and she felt that through she must throw it, if he only so much as raised his hand against her. The fire blazed up, and Todd at that moment had no further excuse for abusing Charley. With a sulky growl, he said "You can call me out if any one comes," and then he retired to his back parlour, closing and locking the door as usual. The morning felt rather raw, and Johanna was glad to warm her hands at the fire in the shop, which soon burnt brightly; but she did not venture upon keeping up a bright blaze for long. Todd's mode of managing the fire, was always to keep a dry turf smouldering upon the top of it, from which ample heat enough was emitted to keep the shavingpot upon the simmer. She now placed upon the fire one of those turfs, a small pile of which were always ready in the corner of the shop. She had scarcely done so, when the shop door opened, and a man walked in. "Is Mr. Todd in, my little man?" he said. "Yes, sir. Do you wish to see him?" Johanna wished, if it were possible, to discourage visitors, but the man sat down at once in the shaving chair, and placed his hat upon the floor, adding as he did so "Yes, a right down good shave I want. As good as if St. Dunstan himself wanted one." The manner in which the man pronounced the words St. Dunstan was so marked that Johanna felt convinced at once he was a friend, and she felt quite a gush of pleasure at the thought that Sir Richard Blunt had such a continual supervising eye upon her safety. She felt that she must not look at this man otherwise than as a stranger. She felt that the least word of recognition might be fatal both to him and to her. She knew that Todd had some small orifice through which from his parlour he peeped into the shop, and that his eye was now upon her she did not doubt. "I will call Mr. Todd, sir," she said in a moment. "He is close at hand." "Thank you," replied the man. "I sit here as comfortable as St. Dunstan." "Yes," said Johanna, as she heard the watchword of safety and friendship once more uttered by that man who was in truth one of Sir Richard's most confidential and trustworthy officers. She at once now proceeded to the door of the parlour, and tapped at it until Todd opened it, and popped his head out with a grim smile. "Oh, Charley my dear," he said, "does a gentleman want me?" "Yes, sir." "Ahem! Good morning, sir," added Todd, as he advanced, tying on his apron. "A shave, I presume, sir? A close shave, sir? I do think of all the luxuries in life, sir, a good close shavewhat I call a regular polish off, siris one of the greatest in a small way. Charley, ain't it near breakfast time, my good lad?" "Yes, sir," said Johanna. "I daresay it is." "Very good. The hotwater. Thank you my dearyou will take two pence from the till, Charley, and get yourself somewhere about the market aWell now?" A thin man in a cloak made his appearance at the door of the shop, and taking off his hat, made a bow, as he said "I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to the pious Mr. Todd?" "My name is Todd, sir. What is it?" "I am truly delighted," said the tall thin man sitting down upon the nearest seat, and placing his hat upon his knees. "I am truly delighted to see you. Pray go on shaving that gentleman, as I shall be some time." "Some time about what?" almost screamed Todd. "Finding the tract, from which I purpose reading to you a few extracts upon the allimportant subject of the election of grace, and the insufficiency of works." Todd stropped a razor, and glared at the intruder, who, fitting on his nose with great precision a pair of blue spectacles, began rummaging in his hat. "Humph! this is it. Nothis is not it. Well, I thought I had it here, and so I have. This isno. This is an imaginary and highly religious discourse upon saints, and St. Dunstan in particular." Johanna knew in a moment that this other man was a friend likewise. He, too, had pronounced the words St. Dunstan in a peculiar manner. Todd suddenly became quite calm. "Sir," he said, "I take it as a very particular favour, indeed, that you should have called here upon such an errand, and I only beg that you will not hurry yourself in the least; I can go on shaving this gentleman, and perhaps when he is gone, you will permit me the honour of operating upon you?" "With great pleasure," replied the man. "Dear me, where can the tract be? Is this it? Nothis is about the pious milkmaid, who always put up a prayer for the milkingpail, to prevent the cow from kicking it over. Dear me, where can it be? Oh, is this it? Nothis is the story of the pious barber's boy, who, when he had an opportunity, went over the way and found his father there! Dear me, where can it be?" Johanna started. "The barber's boy," she thought, "who went over the way and found his father there? Those words are for me." She was now in quite a fever of anxiety to leave the shop, for she did not doubt but that by some means her father had heard of her position, and she felt that then nothing but the actual sight of her in perfect health and safety would satisfy him. But she dared not show the anxiety she felt. She bent over the fire, and affected to be stirring the turf. "You can go and get your breakfast, Charley," said Todd. "Thank you, sir." Johanna would not betray any haste, but she shook with agitation as she neared the door; and then she recollected that she had not taken the twopence from the till as she had been told to do, and that the circumstance of not doing so might create suspicion. She crept back and possessed herself of the pence. Todd watched her with the eyes of a demon. "Are you going, my dear Charley?" he said. "Yes, sir." She left the shop, and then her first impulse would have induced her to hurry over the road to the fruiterer's shop, but her eyes fell upon the figure of Sir Richard Blunt standing in the fruiterer's doorway. He moved his hand signifying that she should go towards the market, and she did so. He quickly followed her. She did not look behind her, until she was quite in the old Fleetmarket; and then, just as she looked round, Sir Richard Blunt touched her arm. "You understood my message?" he said. "Yes. My father." "Exactly. It is concerning him. It appears that some busybody, a man I understand named Lupin, has seen you in your present disguise, and informed him of it." "I know the man. He is one of those saintly hypocrites, who make religion the cloak for their vices." "Yes, there are not a few of them," said Sir Richard. "They revel in vice, and daily try to make the Almighty an accomplice in their offences against society. Well, then, Johanna, this man has tortured your father with an account of your being in this disguise." "It would torture him." "Naturally, without he knew all the reasons for it; but it appears that he went to the house of Miss Wilmot, and after some trouble saw her, when she, finding that he knew quite enough to make him wretched, and not enough to explain your position, frankly told him all, and brought him to me." "It was the best." "Most decidedly it was, and I need only say that he is anxiously waiting to see you, at our friend the fruiterer's house; but as it would not do for you to go direct from Todd's door to there, I have intercepted you, you see, to take you by a safer route.
" "How good, and kind, and considerate you are to me," said Johanna, as she looked up in the face of the magistrate, while tears started to her eyes. "Without you how miserably I must have failed in this adventure. Todd would no doubt before this have discovered me, and taken my life." "Don't say a word about that," replied Sir Richard. "Recollect that after all it was my duty to protect you; and if I have been a little more anxious than usual in the performance of that duty, it is because I admire your heroic constancy and courage, and hope to see you happy yet." "Alas! the sun of my happiness has set for ever. I can only now pray to Heaven, that it will endow me with patience to bear its decrees with serenity." "Well," added Sir Richard, "we will say no more upon that subject, just now. Come with me, and I will take you to your father by a safer way than just crossing the road from Todd's shop to the fruiterer's." He led her down a court in Bridgestreet, and thence through a complete labyrinth of passages, some of which still exist at the back of Fleet Street, and some of which have been swept away, until they reached a door in a dingylooking wall, at which he paused. "This is the back of the fruiterer's house," he said, "and I dare say some one is waiting for me." He tapped three times distinctly at the door, and then it was opened immediately by the fruiterer's daughter, who with a smile clasped Johanna in her arms. "Welcome," she said. "Welcome once again." "Ah, my dear friend," said Johanna, "I shall learn to bless the circumstances, commencing in affliction as they did, that have brought me acquainted with such kind hearts." They all three now crossed a little paved yard, and were soon in the fruiterer's house. "Where is my dear father?" said Johanna. "Where is he?" "This way," said the young girl, who took so great an interest in the fate of Johanna. "This way, dear. He is in our room up stairs, and will be no less delighted to see you, then you will be delighted to see him." "I am sure of that," said Johanna. She ran up the stairs with more speed that the fruiterer's daughter could make, and in another moment was in her father's arms. CHAPTER XCII. MR. OAKLEY'S ANXIETIES MUCH DIMINISH. For some few moments after this meeting, neither Mr. Oakley nor Johanna could speak. At length the old spectaclemaker was just able to say "Great God, I thank thee, that once again I hold my darling to my heart." "Fatherfather," said Johanna. "Did you think for one moment that I could have left you?" "No my dear, no; but I was bewildered by all I heard. I was half mad I think until I was told all; and now we will go home, my pretty darling, at once, and we will have no secrets from each other. Dear heart, what a pretty boy you make to be sure. But comecome. I am in an agony until I have you home again." "Father, listen to me." "Yes my childmy darling. Yes." "If it had not been for Sir Richard Blunt I should now have been with the dead, and you and I would never have met again, but in another world, father. I owe him, therefore, you will say, some gratitude." "Some gratitude, my darling? We owe him a world of gratitude. Alas, we shall never be able to repay him, but we will pray that he may be as happy as his noble heart deserves, my dear. God bless him!" "And, father, we will do any little thing he asks of us." "We will fly to obey his commands, my dear, in all things. Night or day, he will only have to speak to us, and what he says shall be our law." "Then, father, he asks of me, for the cause of public justice, that I should go back to Todd's, and wear this dress for the remainder only of today. Can we refuse him?" "Alas! Alas!" said the old man, "more troublemore anxietymore danger." "No, father. No danger. He will watch over me, and I have faith that Heaven is with me." "Can I part with you again?" "Yes, for such an object. Do not, father, say no to me, for you may say, and I will obey you; but with your own free consent, let me go now, and do the bidding of the great and the good man who has saved me to once more rest upon your breast, and kiss your cheek." The old man shook for a moment, and then he said "Go, go, my child. Go, and take with you my blessing, and the blessing of God, for surely that must be yours; but, oh! be careful. Remember, my darling, that upon your safety hangs my life; for if I were to hear that anything had happened to you, it would kill me. I have nothing now but you in the world to live for." "Oh, father, you do not mean to tell me that my mother is no more?" "No, my dear. No.Ask me nothing now. You shall know all at another time. Only tell me when I shall see you again." "At sunset," said Sir Richard Blunt, as he stepped into the room at this moment. "At sunset, I hope, Mr. Oakley; and in the meantime be assured of her perfect safety. I offer my life as security for hers, and would not hesitate to sacrifice it for her." The manner of the magistrate was such that no one could for one moment doubt that he spoke the genuine sentiments at his heart; and such words, coming from such a quarter, it may be well supposed were calculated to produce a great impression. "I am satisfied," said Mr. Oakley. "I should be more than an unreasonable man if I were not fully convinced now of the safety of Johanna." When she had got her father to say this much, Johanna was anxious to be off, and she signified as much to Sir Richard Blunt, who fully acquiesced in the propriety of the measure, for already her absence had been quite long enough from the shop, and Todd might not be in the best of humours at her return. After one more embrace, Johanna tore herself from her father's arms, and followed the magistrate from the fruiterer's house, by the same route which had conducted her to it. On their way, he explained to her some little matters of which she was in ignorance, or at least concerning which she could only conjecture. "Both the persons, whom you left in Todd's shop," he said, "belong to my force; and the one only went for the protection of the other, as I, of course, surmised that you would be at once sent out of the way upon some real or mock errand, to give Todd opportunity of committing a murder. My great object is to find out precisely how he does the deed; and the man who came in to be shaved was to make what observations of the place he could during the ceremony, while the other distracted Todd's attention." "I understand," said Johanna. "I of course knew that they were friends when they mentioned the watchword of St. Dunstan to me." "Exactly. I gave them instructions to seize the very first opportunity of letting you hear the watchword. Are there any large cupboards in the shop?" "Yes. There is one of great size." "Would it, do you think, hold two men?" "Oh, yes. Perchance you, who are tall, might have to stoop a little; but with that exception as to height, there is most ample space." "That will do then. I cannot tell you, of course, the exact hour; but be it when it may, the moment Todd leaves the shop to day to go upon any business out of doors, two persons from me will come to hide themselves in that cupboard." "They will use the watchword?" "Yes, certainly; and you will so dispose any movable article in the shop, as to take away any idea that the cupboard had been visited, or in the slightest degree interfered with." "That I can easily do." "Well, here we are, then, in Fleetstreet again; and mind all this that I have planned has nothing to do with your proceedings to call for assistance, if any special or unforeseen danger should occur to you." Johanna, upon this, showed him the jagged stone she had in her pocket, to cast through the window. "Yes, that would do," said Sir Richard; "but I would gladly supply you with arms. Do you think you could manage a pistol, if you had one?" "Yes. I have often looked at some firearms that my father had in his shop to sell once, and I have seen them used." "I am glad of that," continued Sir Richard. "Here are two very small pistols loaded. They may be thoroughly depended upon in a room; but they would not carry any distance, in consequence of the shortness of the barrel. If, however, you should be in any sudden and extreme danger from Todd, anywhere else than in the shop, or there, if you are pushed for time, one of these fired in his face will be tolerably effective. You can keep them both in your pocket." The magistrate, as he spoke, handed to Johanna a pair of very small, but exquisitely made pistols, encircled with silver mounting, and she carefully concealed them, feeling still more secure from any treachery upon the part of Todd, now that she held his life as much, if not more, in her hands, than he held hers in his. Sir Richard Gives Johanna Pistols For Her Protection. Sir Richard Gives Johanna Pistols For Her Protection. She shook her kind friend warmly by the hand, and then hastened to the barber's shop. As she got near to it, she saw the tall thin man who had so perplexed Todd about the religious tract, come out, and Todd followed him to the door, looking after him with such an expression of deadly malice, that Johanna could not but pause a moment to look at him. He suddenly turned his eyes towards her, and saw her. He beckoned with his finger, and she entered the shop. "Well, Charley," he said, with quite an affectation of good humour. "You are a good lad." "I am glad you think so, sir," she replied, seeing that Todd paused for an answer. "I cannot but think so. I shall have to look over some accounts in the parlour this morning, and if anybodyany female, I meancomes for me, say I have gone to the city, and that, after that, I said I would call in Bell Yard before I came home. You well remember that, Bell Yard. Be vigilant and discreet, and you shall have the reward that I have all along intended for you, and which you should not miss upon any account." "I am much beholden to you, sir. But if any one should come to be shaved while you are in the parlour, what shall I say to them?" "You can say I have gone to the Temple to dress Mr. Block's new wig, if you like, so that you got rid of them, for I must not be disturbed on any consideration." "Very well, sir." "Put another turf on the fire, Charley, and make yourself quite comfortable." What inconsistent amenity this was upon the part of Todd. It seemed as though he had turned over a new leaf completely, and intended to put an end to all suspicions, if he had any, of Charley Green; and after thatafter that, Todd still preserved his kind intention of cutting his throat with one of the razors. "The very best thing you can do with people," muttered Todd to himself, as he went into the parlour, "is to cut their throats as soon as they cease to be useful to you, for from that moment, if you do not put them out of the way, they are almost certain to be mischievous to you." What a pleasant lot of maxims Todd had, and what a beautiful system of moral philosophy his was, to be sure! One thing was quite evident, and that was that he fully expected and dreaded the visit of Mrs. Lovett upon money matters. It will be recollected that ten o'clock was named as about the hour when that lady was to bring in her little account in the partnership affair of Todd, Lovett, Co.; and as he (Todd) had for once in his life been fairly bothered to make any further excuses to so pertinacious a creditor as Mrs. Lovett, he had hit upon the plan of trying to put her off during the day by one means or another, and at night he would, at an earlier hour than he had before intended, be off and away. Everything was in readiness, and he considered Mrs. Lovett his only hindrancea danger he scarcely thought herfor, at the very worst, he could not conceive that even her passion would be sufficient to induce her to sacrifice herself, for the sake of revenge upon him. His house was prepared so that a match would at any moment suffice to give the touch that would set it in a blaze; and then, as he said"Who shall say where the conflagration among the old welldried wooden houses of Fleetstreet may reach to?" His passage in the Hamburgh ship was securethe fearful proceeds of his life of rapine and murder were in her hold. How uncommonly safe Todd thought himself, and how well he considered he had managed his affairs. Shortsighted mortals that we are! How often we mistake the shifting morass of difficulty for the terra firma of prosperity, and how often do we weep for those events, which, in themselves and their results, form the groundwork of the happiness of a life! Truly we are "Such things as air is made of." If Todd now for one moment could have imagined that his plunder, which he believed was so safe on board the Hamburgh ship, was actually, on the contrary, at the office of Sir Richard Blunt, in Cravenstreet, what would have been his sensations? Would he have laughed and sniggered over the bumper of brandy he was holding to his lips in his parlour? No, indeed. If he could but have guessed that the ship in which he had intended to embark, was then twentyfour hours on her route, and battling with the surging waves of the German Ocean, how would he have felt! Strange to say, he never had felt so confident of success and triumph as upon that day. He could have said with Romeo in Mantua "My bosom's lord sits lightly on its throne," while, like Romeo, he was on the eve of a blow that at once was to topple to the dust the very structure of all his hopes. He of course fully expected a visit from Mrs. Lovett, but he did hope that she would take an answer from Charley, and go away again. If she did not he trusted to the inspiration of the moment to be able to say something to her which might have the effect of producing that which he wanted only, namely, delay. CHAPTER XCIII. SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S SUBTERRANEAN EXPEDITION. While Todd is thus waiting anxiously for the arrival of his old ally in iniquity, but who now he considered to be his most deadly foe, and his worst possible hindrance to carry out his deeplyby far too deeplylaid schemes, we shall have time to take a peep at some proceedings of Sir Richard Blunt's, which are rather entertaining, and decidedly important. Johanna had not been long gone from the fruiterer's shop, before Sir Richard said to the fruiterer "If you are ready we will go now to the church at once. I have left quite a sufficient guard over the safety of Miss Oakley, and besides this affair will not take us I daresay above a couple of hours." "Not so long I think," replied the fruiterer. "I am quite ready, and no doubt your men are in the church by this time. They are apt to be punctual." "They would not suit me for long if they were not," replied Sir Richard. "Punctuality is the one grand principle which is the hinge of all my business, and the secret of by far the larger portion of my success." They walked rapidly up Fleet Street together, until they came opposite to St. Dunstan's Church, and then they crossed the road and tapped lightly at a little wicket in the great door of the building. The wicket was immediately opened by a man who touched his hat to Sir Richard. "All right?" asked the magistrate, "and every one here?" "Yes, sir. Every one." "That will do then. Be sure you fasten the door in the inside, so that that troublesome beadle, if he should be smitten with a desire to visit the church, cannot get in; and if he should come and be troublesome, take him into custody at once, and shut him him up anywhere that may keep him out of harm's way for the next twelve hours or so." "Yes, sir." This man, whose business it evidently was to stay by the door, carefully fastened it, and Sir Richard Blunt with his friend from Fleet Street advanced into the body of the church. He had not gone far before a pew opened, and six persons came out. One of these was a welldressed elderly man, who said, as the magistrate approached him "I have made all the necessary observations, Sir Richard, and am quite easy and confident that I can direct your men how to excavate directly to Todd's house." "Thank you Sir Christopher," said the magistrate. "I am very much indebted to you for the trouble you have taken in this affair, which I think is now near its climax." "I hope so, Sir Richard. This way if you please." The whole party now proceeded to the same slab of stone which the magistrate had had before removed, for the purpose of making his inquiries below the surface of the earth. The slab was standing on its edge against a column of the nearest aisle, and the deep dark opening to the vaults was before them. "There is but little foul air," said Sir Christopher. "The stone has been off they tell me many hours. Shall I go first, or will you, Sir Richard?" "Allow me," said the magistrate; "should there be any risks, it is my duty first to encounter them." "As you please, Sir Richard. As you please, sir. I willingly give place to you, because I know, if there be any difficulty how much better calculated you are than any one here to overcome it." The magistrate made a slight bow to the compliment, and then taking a link in his hand, he descended the stairs leading to the vaults of St. Dunstan's. It will be well recollected that he had been in those vaults before, and that he had made certain discoveries, which to a vast extent implicated Mrs. Lovett in the crimes of Sweeney Todd; but his object upon this present visit was of a different character. In plain language, this was an attempt to ascertain if there were any underground modes of communication between Todd's house, and the vaults of old St. Dunstan's church. That there were some such subterraneous passages had become, after the most mature consideration, a firm conviction upon the mind of Sir Richard Blunt, and hence he had resolved upon such an exploration of the spot as should confirm or dispel the idea for ever. Those whom he had with him, were all persons upon whom he could thoroughly depend; and the ancient architect, who had given his services, was to point out the exact direction in which to proceed. Upon reaching the foot of the stone steps, instead of traversing the passage that led in the direction of Bell Yard, which he had formerly done, Sir Richard turned directly the other way, saying as he did so "This, I presume, will be our direction?" "We shall see in a moment," said the architect. "I have taken the bearings so exactly, that I can point out to you the precise course." He forced into the ground to a sufficient depth to make it stand steady, his walking stick, and then removing a little gold cap from the top of it, he disclosed a small compass, which after some oscillations, steadied itself. "Then," said Sir Christopher, "through that wall would lead in a direct line to Todd's house." "This will assist us," said Sir Richard. "We will, before we actually begin excavating, endeavour to find some of the vaults which may run in that direction, and so perhaps save ourselves an immense amount of labour." "Very good," said Sir Christopher Wren, "I can at any time give you, from any place, the exact bearing of Todd's house, for I have it fixed in my mind, and can read it off from the compass plate in a moment." They now at once made their way into the vaults, and by dint of keeping to the right hand, they avoided going much out of their course. These vaults were of great extent, and although some of them, owing to being full of the dead, had been bricked up, yet they were very easily opened, and in many cases a direct thoroughfare for considerable distances was affected. Ever and anon the compass was appealed to, and showed them that they were approaching Todd's house. One of the party, a welldressed gentlemanlylooking man, now stepped forward, and said to Sir Richard "Here, according to the plans of the church, the vaults end." "Then we can get no further?" "Not an inch, Sir Richard." "Then here commences in reality our mission, which is to try to discover some communication between the lower part of the house occupied by Sweeney Todd, and these vaults. Let us each use our utmost discrimination to affect that object." He lighted for himself a small lantern, and commenced a rigorous search of the walls, but for some few minutes could find nothing to excite the least suspicion. At length he paused at one portion of one of the vaults, where a kind of wooden tomb had been erected close to the wall. A large piece of dirty oak was placed upright against the earth work. "If there be any mode of leaving this vault, but the one we have entered," he said, "it is here." At these words, so significant as they were of some discovery having been made by Sir Richard, all those who were with him made their way to that spot, and from their several lanterns, a glare of light was thrown upon the wooden monument. "This," said the person who had before spoken of the plan of the vaults, "this is the monument of a Sir Giles Horseman, who was killed by accident and interred here about twentytwo years ago. It was a very unusual thing to make any such erection in a vault, but his widow wished it, and the authorities saw no good reason for interfering." The monument had evidently consisted of an oaken kind of square ornamental tomb affixed to the wall, and extending out about six feet into the vault. That portion of it which did so extend into the vault had fallen in, but the piece of oak which had been originally affixed to the wall there remained. "What leads you to suppose, Sir Richard," said the architect, "that this place will show us anything?" "This," said the magistrate, as he picked up from amid the rubbish of the broken monument, a nearly new glove of thick leather. "How did this get here?" The glove was passed from hand to hand, and duly examined. No one owned it, and the only remark that could be made upon it was, that it was of an immense size. "Then," said Sir Richard Blunt, "since it belongs to none of us, I give it as my opinion that it belongs to Sweeney Todd, and has fallen from his hand in this place." "It must be so," said the fruiterer. "I know of no hand in the City of London that such a glove would fit but his." "But how came he here?" said Sir Christopher. "That is the question. How could he get here." "We shall see," said the magistrate. "Lend me that small iron crowbar, Jenkins." The crowbar was handed to Sir Richard Blunt, and at one touch with it down come the piece of oak that was against the wall. That was conclusive, for, instead of the solid wall beyond it, there was a deep crevice or opening just sufficient to enable one person to go through it. "This is the place," said the magistrate. There was a deathlike silence among all present. Every ear was on the stretch, and every eye was fixed upon the narrow opening in the wall of the vault. It would almost seem as though every one expected Sweeney Todd to appear with one of his victims on his back that he had just, to use his own expressive phraseology, succeeded in polishing off. Sir Christopher stuck up his compass again, and it was his voice that first broke the stillness. "The route is direct," he said. "To Todd's house?" asked Sir Richard. "Yes, direct." "Then all we have got to do is to follow it. It is an enterprise perhaps attended with some danger, and certainly with much horror, I think. Now, I do not ask any one to follow me, but go I will." "I will follow you, Sir Richard," said the fruiterer. "I reside in Fleet Street, and rather than not ferret out such a villain as Todd from the neighbourhood, I would run any risks. I am with you, sir." "And I," said Sir Christopher Wren. "And Iand I," cried every one. "Come on," said the magistrate. "Come on. I will take the small lantern, and if I meet Todd, my great aim will be to take him a prisoner, not to kill him; and mind all of you, if by any chance a scuffle with that man should ensue, it would be a scandalous cheating of the gallows to do him any injury that might even delay his execution. Now, come on." It required no small amount of real courage to lead the way in that expedition into the very bowels of the earth as it were; but with the small lantern elevated as far above his head as the roof of the passage would admit of, Sir Richard stepped cautiously and slowly on. The excavation in which they were was roughly but well made. At intervals of about twelve feet each, there always occurred two upright pieces of plank supporting a third piece on the roof, and firmly wedged in, so that there was but little likelihood of a fall of earth from above. Suddenly a scuffling noise was heard, and Sir Richard for a moment paused. "What is it?" said the fruiterer. "Only some rats," he replied. "I daresay there are plenty of such gentlemen in this quarter of the world, and probably they never saw so large a party here before. They are scudding along in a regiment here." After going on for about twenty paces further, Sir Richard found a door completely blocking up the passage. By dint of careful investigation of it, he found it was locked, and the key in the other side of the lock. He pushed it through with some difficulty, and then, with a skeleton key, opened the door in the course of a few moments. "Come on," he said. "Ah! this is a different place." They now found themselves in some regularly constructed vaults, arched with stone, down the sides of which there rolled long streams of moisture. They were all quite at a loss to know what place they had got into, for they knew of nothing of the sort beneath Fleet Street, and they gazed about them with wonder. CHAPTER XCIV. IN THE VAULTS. "Who on earth would have thought of vaults like these in such a situation?" said the fruiterer. "They are," said Sir Christopher, "undoubtedly the remains of some public building, which probably at a very distant date has occupied the site above. They are well built, and really of considerable architectural beauty in some respects. I am quite pleased at the opportunity of seeing such a place." "It looks," remarked the magistrate, "as though it had been long hidden from the world. It is such men as Sweeney Todd who find out more underground secrets in a month than we should in a lifetime; but I hope that we shall find out all his cleverness and most abhorrent iniquities now." The air in this stone place was by no means very bad, and indeed, after the vaults, there was rather an agreeable damp kind of freshness in it; while it was evident, by the manner in which the lights burnt in it, that there was no want of vitality in its atmosphere. At first it was no easy matter to find any kind of outlet from the place. After some searching, however, another door was discovered, very similar, indeed, to the one that Sir Richard Blunt had opened with the picklock, and that, too, was found to be locked on the other side, and the key, as in the former case, in the lock. "All this locking of doors," said the magistrate, "was, I have no sort of doubt, to protect himself from any night visit upon the part of Mrs. Lovett, from whom I feel certain that Sweeney Todd has been expecting attempts upon his life, as much as to my own knowledge he has made attempts upon hers; but by some kind of fatality, or providence, they seem to be unable to harm each other." "It is a providence," said Sir Christopher. "They must both suffer the penalty of outraging, as they have done, the laws of God and man; and the retribution would be by no means complete were they to fall by the hands or each other." "I think you are right, sir," said the fruiterer. The door which was now opened, only led to some other vaults, which somewhat resembled those the party had just left, only that they were by no means so lofty or so carefully constructed as they were; and before they had proceeded far, some evidences of habitation began to show themselves. Some old boots occupied a place in one corner, and some old hats, and other articles of clothing, were lying in a confused heap in another. Sir Richard Blunt looked upon all this as ample testimony that he was quite close to the abode of Sweeney Todd, and he accordingly turned to his friends, saying "It is necessary that we proceed with the utmost caution. I think, a very few steps will take us into the cellars of Todd's house, and the object now is not by any means to give him the least alarm, but merely to find out, if possible, by what means he murders and disposes of his victims." Acting upon this caution, they extinguished all the lights, with the exception of one lantern, and that Sir Richard Blunt himself carried, as he still continued to head the expedition. Suddenly he came upon an arched doorway without a door; and hardly had he proceeded a few paces, when he saw something lying in a strange confused mass upon the floor, which, upon a closer examination, proved to be a dead body. The reader will probably in this body see the spy who had been employed by Mrs. Lovett to see that Todd did not run away in the course of the preceding night. The Body Found Under Todd's House. The Body Found Under Todd's House. The body was lying upon some stones, that seemed to have been placed one upon another in such a position that their most jagged corners and uneven surfaces should be uppermost. A glance at the roof showed a square, blacklooking hole. Sir Richard Blunt was upon the point of saying something, when overhead they heard the distinct tramp of a man. The magistrate immediately placed his finger upon his lips, and all was as still as the grave in that place. Presently they heard a voice, and they all knew that it was the voice of Sweeney Todd. It came from above, and reached their ears with sufficient clearness to enable them to catch the words "Her death is certain if I can but get her to cross the threshold of this parlour!" Then the pacing to and fro of that really wretched man continued. The few words that Todd had spoken, had been sufficient to convince Sir Richard Blunt of one thing, which was, that they were beneath the parlour, and not the shop. It was from the shop the people disappeared, so the heart of Todd's mystery remained yet to be reached. There was another small doorway a little to the left of where he stood, and Sir Richard, upon the impulse of the moment, passed through it alone. He came back again in a moment. "Gentlemen," he whispered, "have we seen enough?" They nodded, and without another word, he led the way back again from the dreary subterranean abode of murder. It was only to the fruiterer he whispered, after they had gotten some distance from the spot upon which the dead body lay "I know all." "Indeed?" "Yes. When we get back to your home, I will tell you. Let for the meantime the general impression be, that all there was to learn consisted of the secret of that square hole in the flooring of the parlour." "Yes, yes! But there is more?" "Much more. You and Sir Christopher at present, I think, are the only two persons I shall be communicative with. The whole world will know it all, soon enough, but long and old habits of caution, always induce me to keep my information as quiet as I possibly can." "You are quite right, Sir Richard. Even I shall feel it to be no offence if you keep entirely to yourself what you have seen." "No, no! I wish to avail myself of your advice, which has done me good service upon more than one occasion; so when we get to your house, we will talk the matter fully over." By this time they had got so far from the immediate vicinity of Todd's house, that such excessive caution in conversing was no longer necessary, and the magistrate pausing, made a general remark to all. "The less that is said about what we have seen here, the better it will be. Let me beg of every one not to give the smallest hint to any one, even in the most confidential manner, of the discoveries that have been made here today." An immediate assent was of course given to this proposition, and in the course of five minutes they were all in St.
Dunstan's church. It was something amusing to Sir Richard, at that moment, to notice the look of relief there was upon every countenance, now that the investigation into that underground and unknown region was over. Each person seemed as if he had just escaped from the toils and hazards of a battle. By a glance at his watch, Sir Richard ascertained that only one hour and a quarter had been consumed in the whole affair, and he was pleased to think how soon again he should be personally superintending the safety of Johanna. Before, however, the party got half way to the door of the church, they heard a vociferous argumentation going on in that quarter, and the voice of the beadle, who was well known to Sir Richard, was heard exclaiming "I will come in. I'm the beadle. Fire! Fire! I will come in. What! keep a beadle out of his own church? Oh! Oh! Oh! Conwulsions conwulsions! It ain't possible." "Gentlemen," said the magistrate, "we must repress our friend the beadle's curiosity. Let us all say 'Hush' to him as we go out, and not another word." This was generally understood, and they walked slowly in a kind of procession to the church door. "Pitchforks and hatchets!" cried the beadle. "I will come in. Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes. Look at my hat and coat; I ain't a himposter, but a real beetle! Bless us, who is here? Whywhy, there ain't no service nor a wedding. What a lot of folks. Have they been a grabbing of the Communion plate? Oh, murder, conwulsions, and thieves!" Sir Richard went close up to him, and in the most mysterious way in the world, whispered in his ear "Hush." "Eh?" said the beadle. Sir Christopher took hold of him by the collar of the coat, and said"Hush." "Well, butbut" The fruiterer beckoned to him with great gravity, and when he come forward a pace or two, said"Hush." "But good gracious what am I to hush about? What is it allwhat does it meantell us, for goodness gracious sake? I don't know anything; I'm an assan idiot. What am I to hush aboutI shall sit upon no end of thorns and nettles, till I know.What is it?" "Hush! hush! hush!" said every one as he passed the now nearly distracted beadle, and finally there he was left in the church porch with nothing in the shape of information, but hush! The man who had been left by the magistrate as a sentinel at the church door, was the last to leave, and he took his cue from all the others; and when the beadle laid hold of him crying"I'll take you up. I won't let you go," he gently sat him on the floor; and then saying "Hush!" away he went likewise. The large slab in the church, that usually covered up the passage leading to the vaults, was left uncovered; but then the beadle perfectly understood that that was for the sole purpose of relieving the vaults, during the week, of the accumulation of mephitic vapours supposed to be in them; and at all events no impulse of curiosity could be sufficiently strong in him to induce so desperate a step as a descent alone into those dreary abodes of the departed; so that he was, in a manner of speaking, compelled to put up entirely with "Hush!" for his portion of the mystery. Sir Richard bade goodday to every one but the fruiterer at the door of the church; and then with him he walked to his shop opposite to Todd's. Crotchet was close at hand, and he came into the shop, at a signal from the magistrate to do so. "Is all right, Crotchet?" "Right as a trivet, sir. Lord bless you about so much as a sneeze, but I'll find it out; and as for little Miss Thingamybob, he shan't hurt a hair of her pretty little bit of a head." "That's right, Crotchet. Remember that the bringing to justice, with ample evidence of all his crimes, of Sweeney Todd, is a great object; but it is an infinitely greater one to preserve the life of Johanna Oakley." "I knows it," said Crotchet. "Resume your charge, then, Crotchet. All will be well, and this will be Todd's last day out of Newgate." Crotchet nodded, and made his exit. In the succeeding half hour, it would seem that Sir Richard Blunt made his old acquaintance, the fruiterer, thoroughly acquainted with all he knew of the way in which Todd got rid of his victims. What that way was will very shortly now appear; and we think it had better appear in this regular and most authentic narrative, than in a chance conversation between Sir Richard Blunt and his friend. It was the special duty of one officer to come into the fruiterer's shop with a report and a description of whoever went into Todd's house, and now this man made his appearance. "Well, Jervis," said the magistrate, "so Todd has a customer, has he?" "I don't know, sir. It is a woman, well dressed, and rather tall than otherwise." "Mrs. Lovett, without a doubt. No one need go and look after that lady, for I don't know any one, except you or I, Jervis, who is so capable of taking care of number one. Todd will find her a troublesome customer, and if she is at all the woman I take her to be, she will not go into his back parlour quite so easily as he would fain persuade her." "Then no one need follow, sir?" "No; but if the young lad comes out, you may just look in and ask some frivolous question to see what is going on. If the female is not in the shopshe is dead." "Dead, sir!" "Yes. She will not live a minute after she leaves the shop; but you may depend she will not do so; she is to the full as well acquainted with Todd as we are, so there is no sort of apprehension of her coming to any harm. I should indeed be sorry to lose her." Sir Richard Blunt was right in his guess. It was no other than Mrs. Lovett, who, agreeably to her appointment with Todd, called upon him for her half of the plunder for the last few years. CHAPTER XCV. MRS. LOVETT IS VERY INTRACTABLE INDEED Before entering the shop, Mrs. Lovett hovered about it, peeping at the things in the window, and glancing about her as though she had some uncomfortable ideas in her mind concerning the place, and was coquetting with her feelings a little before she could make up her mind to go into it. At length she laid her hand upon the handle of the door, and turned it. She stood upon the threshold, and her sharp glance at once comprehended that Todd was not there. Johanna advanced towards her, and waited for her to speak. "Oh," she said. "Is Mr. Todd in?" "No," said Johanna. "No, madam." Johanna did not think it worth while at that time to expose herself to the great danger of disobeying Todd's positive commands, to say he was not at home, merely upon a point of punctilious truth. Mrs. Lovett looked keenly at her. "So," she said, "he is outis he?" "Yes, madam." "And you are Mr. Todd's boy?" The emphasis which Mrs. Lovett placed upon the word boy, rather alarmed Johanna, and she was more terrified when Mrs. Lovett marched twice round her, as though she were performing some incantation, glaring at her all the while from top to toe. Whatever was Mrs. Lovett's opinion of Johanna, however, she magnanimously kept it to herself; but the young girl had a sort of perception, that her suit had not escaped the keen and penetrating eyes of Mrs. Lovett. This conviction gave a great air of timidity to Johanna's manner in speaking to the bold bad woman who confronted her. "And so he is out?" added Mrs. Lovett. "Yes, madam." "How long has he been gone?" "Only a short time." "Well, my principal business this day, is to see Mr. Todd. I have made such arrangements at home, that I can wait here the whole day if necessary, for see him I mustand see him I will; I had a sort of presentiment that he might be out, notwithstanding I have an appointment with him." With this Mrs. Lovett sat down and composed herself evidently for a long waitshe did not sit in the shavingchair though. Johanna thought that as she passed it, she rather shuddered; but that might have been a mere fancy upon the part of our young friend. Mrs. Lovett was not exactly of the shuddering order of human beings. "Did he say when he should return?" "No, madam." All these questions of Mrs. Lovett's were asked with a sneering kind of incredulity, that was quite sufficient to show Johanna how completely she disbelieved the statement concerning the absence of Todd. That she would wait until Todd was perforce obliged to show himself, Johanna did not doubt. There was something about the pale face and compressed lips of Mrs. Lovett that at once bespoke such a determination; but should any scene of unusual violence ensue, Johanna made up her mind to rush from the shop, if near the door, and if not able to do that, to cast a missile through the window, which she knew would bring her immediate help. "How long have you been with Mr. Todd?" asked Mrs. Lovett of Johanna. "Only a few days, madam." "And what made you come?" "My necessities, madam. I was in want of a situation, and Mr. Todd wanted an errand boy." "Humph!" said Mrs. Lovett. "This is very strange." She rested her head upon her hand for a few moments, and appeared to be lost in thought, and at times Johanna could see that she was keenly eyeing her. Truly, Johanna had never felt so thoroughly uncomfortable since she had been in Todd's shop, for she could not but feel that she was discovered. The only question was now whether, when she did see Todd, Mrs. Lovett would think it worth her while to speak of the affair at all. The probability, however, was that she was too much engrossed in the business that brought her there to pay more than a passing attention to a mystery which, to all appearance, could not in any way concern her. But Todd all this while was a prisoner in his own parlour, and it may easily be imagined how he chafed and fumed over such a state of things. If any convenient mode of taking the life of Mrs. Lovett had but presented itself to him, how gladly he would have embraced it; but none did; and after enduring the present state of affairs for about a quarter of an hour, he coolly opened the parlour door and walked into the shop as if nothing were amiss. Mrs. Lovett was not at all taken by surprise at this proceeding. She merely rose and took a step towards the door, as she said, in a cool sarcastic tone "I am glad you have come home." "Come home?" said Todd, with a wellacted look of surprise. "Come home? What do you mean, my dear madam? I am particularly glad to see you, and was particularly desirous to do so." "Indeed!" "Yes, to be sure. Really, do you know, I told the lad here, to deny me to anybody but you." "And he made the slight mistake of denying you to me only." "Is it possible?Can such things be? Oh, you careless rascal. Upon my word, some employers would pull your earsthat they would. I'm ashamed of youthat I am. Really, Mrs. Lovett, these boys are always annoying one in some way or another; but walk in, if you pleasewalk in, and we will soon settle our little affairs." "Excuse me," said Mrs. Lovett, "I prefer the shop, Mr. Todd." "You don't say so?" "You hear me say so, and you might know by this time, that when I say anythingI mean it." "Of course, Mrs. Lovett, of course," said Todd; "I know you for a lady of infinite powers of mindof great susceptibilityof feelingof uncommon intellect and thrift. Please to step into the parlour, and I will settle with you at once, for I believe you call for a small trifle that you are entitled to from me, Mrs. Lovett." "I do call for what I am entitled to, and I will have it here." "Charley, just go to St. Dunstan's, my lad, and bring me word the exact time; and then, you can do it all under one, you know, just walk down Fleetmarket, and see if you can find any loveapples, and if so, you can ask the price of them, and let me know." "Yes, sir," said Johanna. In another moment she was gone. Mrs. Lovett took another step nearer to the door, and actually laid her hand upon it to prevent it closing thoroughly. She did not think that she would be safe if it were shut; and then addressing Todd, she said "All disguise between you and I, is useless now, Todd. Give me my half of the money that has been earned by blood. It may have the curse of murder clinging to it, but I will have itI say I will have it." "Are you mad?" "Not yetnot yet. But I shall be, and then it will be time for you to beware of me." "Mrs. LovettMrs. Lovett, is it not a melancholy thing, that you and I, who may be said to be at war with all the world, should begin to quarrel with each other? If we are not true to one another, what can we expect from others? Have we not for so long carried on our snug little business in safety, merely because we were good friends?" "No, Todd, no. We never were friendsyou know that as well as I do. It is a principal of human nature, that those who are associated together for wicked purposes are never friends. You and I have not been exceptions to the rule. We hate each otherwe always did and will, you know it." "Dear, dear!" said Todd, lifting up his hands, and approaching a step nearer to Mrs. Lovett. "This is afflictingthis is truly afflicting to hear such words from you, Mrs. Lovett." "Keep offkeep off, I say! Another step, and I will at once into the street, and then to the passersby scream out for public vengeance upon Todd the murderer!" "Hush!hush! God of Heaven! woman, what do you mean by speaking of murder in such a tone?" "I mean, Todd, what I say; and what I threaten I will do. Keep offkeep off! I will not have you another step nearer to me with that hangdog look." "Moderate your tone, woman!" said Todd, as he stamped upon the floor of the shop; "moderate your tone, woman, or you will destroy yourself and me." "I care not." "You care not?what do you mean by that? Have you gone mad in earnest? What do you mean by you care not? Has the scaffold any charms for you?" "It might have for once, with you for a companion on it, Sweeney Todd; but if I am desperate and reckless, you have yourself to thank for it. Well you know that, Todd. I have toiled, and sinned, and murdered, for what you have done the same, for gold!Gold was the God of my idolatry, and it was yours. We both seized the same idea. We both saw how gold alone was worshipped in the land. We saw how Heaven was affected to be worshipped by all; but we found out that gold was the real divinity. We saw that it was for the lucre of gain that the priest clothed himself in the garments of his pretended ministry, and spake his mock prayers to the people. We saw that it was for gold only that the rulers of the land struggled and fought. We found that the love and the worship of gold was the true religion of all; and we sought to possess ourselves of the idol." "Mad!mad!" cried Todd. "No, I speak sanely enough now. I say, we found out that by the possession of gold in christian, canting, religious, virtuous England, we should find many worshippers. We found out that thousands upon thousands would bend the knee to us on that account, and on that account only. If we were paragons of virtue, we might rot and starve; but if we were monsters of vice, if we had but gold, and kept but by the side of the law, we should be kingsemperors upon the earth." "Bah! bah! bah!" cried Todd. "Well, we took a royal road to our object. We murdered for it, Todd. You dipped your hands in gore, and I helped you. Yes, I do not deny that I helped you." "Peace, woman!" "I will not hold my peace. The time has come for you to hear me, and I will make you do so. I will speak trumpettongued, and if you like not that word murder, I will shriek it in your ears. If you like not the word blood, I will on the housetops proclaim and tell the people that it is synonymous with Todd. Ha! ha! You shrink now." CHAPTER XCVI. THE BOAT ON THE RIVER. Todd did shrink aghast. This wild vehemence of Mrs. Lovett's was something that he did not expect. Every word that she uttered filled him with alarm. He began really to think that she had gone mad, and that he might have everything to dread from her wild vehemence, and that probably he had gone too far in cheating her out of the result of her labours. "Peace," he said. "Peace, and you shall be satisfied." "I will be satisfied." "Well, well, of course you shall. But you cannot be if you destroy both yourself and me, which your present conduct threatens." "I tell you I joined with you in murder for the love of gold, and I will have my recompense. Give me that which is mine own. I will have it, or I will drag you with me to the halter. Do you understand that, Sweeney Todd? I ask you, do you understand that?" "It is plain enough," said Todd. "Then give me my goldgold for blood. Give it to me, and let me go." "You are really so precipitate. Upon my word, Mrs. Lovett, you are quite an altered woman, that you are. I certainly never did expect to hear such language from you. Any one would think that you had an idea I meant to cheat you." Mrs. Lovett made an impatient gesture, but Todd continued "Now, anything more repugnant to my feelings than that could not possibly be, I assure you; and I consider you fully entitled to 22,000 8s. 3d., which is precisely your half of the proceeds of the little business." "Give me the money." "Now, do you suppose, Mrs. Lovett, that I am so green as to keep here in the house no less a sum than 22,000 8s. 3d.? You really must think I have taken leave of my senses, to dream for one moment of such a thing." "Where is it, then?where is it? I see you are bent upon driving me mad." "Why, really, Mrs. L., it would be insulting you to say that you were perfectly in your right senses at this moment; but come, sit down, and we will see what can be done. Sit down, and compose yourself." "In the shaving chair" "Haha, that's a good joke. In the shaving chair! Haha! No Mrs. L., I don't exactly want to polish you off. Sit down where you like, but not in the shaving chair, if you don't fancy it, Mrs. L. Pray sit down." "For you to cut my throat?" "What?" "I say, for you to cut my throat? Do you think I am not sharp sighted enough to see that razor partially hidden in your sleeve? No, Todd, I am well aware that you are panting to murder me. I tell you I know it, and it is useless your making the faintest attempt to conceal it. The fact is broad and evident; but I am upon my guard, and I am armed likewise, Todd." "Armed?" "Yes, Todd, I am armed, and you are terrified at the idea, as I knew you would be. Nothing to you is so horrible as death. You who have sent so many from the world, will yourself go from it howling with fright. I am armed, but I do not mean to tell you how." "You are wrong, Mrs. Lovett. What on earth would be the use of my taking your life?" "You would have all then." "All? What do I want with all? I am not a young man now, and all I wish is the means of enjoyment for the remainder of my days. That I can well command with a less sum than my half of that which we have to divide will come to. I have no one that I care to leave a sixpence to, and therefore what need I trouble myself to hoard? You are quite mistaken, Mrs. Lovett." "Give me my money then." "I will, of course; but I tell you it is at the banker's, Messrs. Grunt, Mack, Stickinton, and Fubbs. Yes, that is the name of the highly respectable firm in whose hands for the present both my money and yours is deposited; and from the high character of the house, I should say it could not possibly be in safer hands." "My share will be quite safe with me, or if unsafe, you need not care. I will have it." "Step into the parlour, and I will write you an order for your half, and you can get it in half an hour." "No Todd. You will make the attempt to murder me if I step into the parlour. I will not even come further into your shop, than here upon the threshold of it, with the door in my hand. Why do you keep a razor concealed in your sleeve?" "OhIIt's a little habit of mine; but allow me to assure you how very incorrect your suspicions are, Mrs. Lovett; and if you will not come in, I will write the order, and bring it to you; or what do you say to my going with you to the bankers, where you can yourself ask what is the amount of the sum standing in my name there; and when you have ascertained it, you can have half of it to a sixpence." "Come, then. I confess, Todd, I am sufficiently suspicious of you, that I would rather not lose sight of you." "Dear me, how dreadful it is for friends to be in such a state of feeling towards each other, to be sure. But the time will come, Mrs. Lovett, when you will see my conduct in a different light, and you will smile at the suspicion which you say you now entertain, but which sometimes I cannot help thinking are not the genuine sentiments of your heart." "Comecome, at once." "I must wait for the boy; I cannot leave the shop until the boy is here to mind it in my absence.Oh, here he is." At this moment, Johanna, who had not troubled herself to go to the market at all, came back. "Well, what is the exact time," said Todd, "by St. Dunstan's?" "A quarterpast eleven, sir." "How very satisfactory. I am only going a little way with this lady, and will soon be back. You can keep up the fire, Charley, and in that corner you will find some religious tracts, which will I hope improve your mind. Above all things, my lad, never neglect your religious exercises. I hope you said your prayers last night, Charley?" "I did, sir," said Johanna, and she said it with a look that added the query, "did you say your's?" Todd hesitated a moment, as though something were passing through his mind respecting Johanna, and then he muttered to himself "There is time enough, yet." No doubt he had begun to entertain serious suspicions of Master Charley, and in those few words was alluding to his intention of taking his life before the coming night. "Now, my dear Mrs. Lovett," said Todd, as he put on his hat, and pressed it down unusually over his brows, "I am ready." "And I," she said. Todd only glanced round the shop, to be certain that he had left everything as he wished it, and he tried the parlour door. Then he at once stalked into Fleet Street, followed by Mrs. Lovett. "It will look better for you to take my arm," he said. "I don't care how it looks," she replied. "All I want is my money. Do not touch me, or you will see good cause shortly to me having done so. Go on and I will follow you; but if you attempt to escape me, I will raise the street in pursuit of you, by screaming out that you are Todd the mur" "Hushhush, woman. Do you know where you are?" "Yes, in the street, but I do not care. All I want is my money, and I will have it." "Curses on you and your money too," muttered Todd, as he crossed Fleet Street, and turned up Bridge Street at a rapid pace. He passed all the turnings leading to the city, and kept on his way towards the bridge. Mrs. Lovett followed him closely. "Stop!" she said. "Stop!" Todd stopped and turned about. He was mortally afraid that she would carry out some of her threats if he exhibited anything of a restive spirit towards her. "Whither are you going?" she said. "This is not the way to the City." "It is by the Thames." "By the Thames?" "Yes, I go by water; I do not wish to run the risk of meeting all sorts of people in the streets. I have not communicated to you that we are in great danger, but it is a fact. I do not now think that I shall get fairly off, but you will, if I am not interfered with before you get your money. By taking a boat at the stairs here by Blackfriars Bridge, we can be landed at a spot within about twenty yards of the bankinghouse, which will be by far the safer route." Mrs. Lovett did not much fancy the river excursion; but she considered that after all there would be a waterman in the boat, and that the river at that time of the day was populous, so she thought that Todd dared not attempt anything. "Very well," she said; "so that we are quick, I care not." "I am to the full," said Todd, "as anxious as you can be to get the job settled." Mrs. Lovett thought that there was something ominous in the way in which he pronounced the word "job;" but then she thought perhaps she was too critical, and she followed him to the stairs by the side of the old bridge, certainly not without suspicions, but they were only general ones. The idea struck her, however, that she should be safer with two watermen, and she said "We will have two men, and by so doing we shall go quicker down the stream." "So we shall," said Todd; "it is a good idea. Hilloa! first oars, herefirst oars!" "Here you are, sir," said a waterman. "We want a couple of you," said Todd. "Yes, your honour. Here we areme and my mate. All's right, your honour. Now, Bill, look alive.Mind the step, ma'am. That's yer sort. Where to, your honour?" "To Pigs Quay." "Ay, ay. Give way, Bill, give way. A nice day for the water, your honour; a fine fresh air, and not too much of it. Easy, Bill." "Very," said Todd, as he took his place beside Mrs. Lovett in the stern of the boat, which in a moment, propelled by the vigorous strokes of the two rowers, shot out into the middle of the stream. He whispered to Mrs. Lovett"Now, how delightful it would be if you and I, with all our money, were going from England today!" "No." "No? Why, I cannot conceive anything more pleasant. Ha! ha!" Both Todd and Mrs. Lovett were so much occupied in watching each other, that they did not perceive another boat push off from the same stairs at which they had embarked with two men in it, and which kept in their wake pretty closely. The two watermen of Todd's boat, however, saw it, and they looked at each other, but they said nothing. They went upon the wise plan, that it was no business of theirs; and so they pulled away, while Todd glanced uneasily into the pale face of Mrs. Lovett. To say that Mrs. Lovett kept an eye upon Todd, would be but faintly to express the felinelike watchfulness with which she regarded him, as they sat together in the boat. There was not the slightest movement of his eyethe least twitch of a muscle of his face, that she did not observe, and strive to draw some conclusion from; and he felt that his very soul was being looked into by that bold woman, who had been the companion of his iniquity, and whom he was now plotting and planning, by some mad desperate means, to deprive of her share of that illgotten wealth, which never in this world, even if ten times the amount, could make either of them happy. CHAPTER XCVII. THE ATTEMPTED MURDER ON THE THAMES. The boat that followed Todd did not, after a time, keep quite in the wake of the one containing him and Mrs. Lovett. It rather went on a line parallel to it, but it kept at a convenient distance; and there were those in that boat, who never took an eye off Todd and his female accomplice. It must not be for one moment supposed that Mrs. Lovett was quite deceived by Todd's representations concerning the money; but then it must be considered that, with all her cunning, that lady was in a very difficult position indeedone that it was impossible to change for the better. If she had boldly told Todd that she doubtednay, that she absolutely disbelieved all that he said about the money being lodged with a firm in the city, she gained nothing, but simply placed herself in a position that forced upon her some violent action. What that action could be would have been Mrs. Lovett's great difficulty. Of course she would have had no trouble in the world in going at once to a policeoffice, and denouncing Todd. That, to be sure, would have been a great revenge; but then, in the midst of all her anger, she did not forget that by so doing she had to criminate herself, and from that moment put an end to all her dreams of revelling in some foreign land upon the produce of her crimes. Situated, then, as she was, Mrs. Lovett felt that she had no sort of resource but to follow Todd up, as it wereto keep close to him, and partly to worry him, and partly to shame him into doing her justice. Well she knew that he was upon the point of fleeing from the scene of his iniquities; and well she knew what a hindrance it would be to his arrangements to have her at his elbow continually. And so she thought that he would see it was better to pay her, and be rid of her, and so every one would have thought; but Todd's nature was of that mad implacable character, that anything in the shape of opposition only made a wish a passion. "I will not pay her," he muttered to himself, "if my refusal so to do brings us both to the gallows!" If Mrs. Lovett could have dived sufficiently deep into Todd's mind to be aware of this sentiment, she might have changed her tactics; but who could have thought it? Who could have supposed that any passion but selfpreservation could master all others in his mind? The two boats sped on towards London Bridgenot the elegant structure that now spans the Thames, but the previous one, with its narrow arches, and its dangerous fall of water when the tide was ebbing, which was the case upon this occasion. The watermen looked uneasily at the arch through which it would be necessary to go, and where the tide was raging with unexampled fury, and lashing the sides of the arch like a millstream, bearing upon its surface millions of bubbles, and making such a seething roaring sound, that it was a point of attraction to some idle chance passengers upon the bridge to watch any adventurous wherry as it shot through the dangerous passage. "A rough tide, Bill," growled one of the watermen. "Ay," said the other. "Do you want to go through the bridge, master?" Todd smiled grimly as he replied by asking a question. "Is it dangerous?" "Why, you see, master, it may be or it may not. But we are not the sort to say no, if a fare says as he wants to go through the bridge. To be sure there be times when there is a squall upon the river, and then any man may say no." "But that is not now," said Todd. "No, master, that is not now, so if you must go through the bridge, only say so, and through we go. We have been lots o' times when it's as bad, ay, and perhaps a trifle waser than it is now. Haven't we, Bill?" "Ay, ay." "If," said Todd, "the lady has no particular objection." "Can we not land upon this side of the bridge?" said Mrs. Lovett. "In course, ma'am," said one of the boatmen. "In course, ma'am." "But," added Todd hastily, "we must, then, until tomorrow, abandon the business upon which we came, as landing upon this side of the bridge will not suit me by any means." "Pass through," cried Mrs. Lovett sternly. "I for one will not abandon the business upon which I came, except with my life. It is more than life to me, and I will go upon it, let it lead me where it may." "And I," said Todd, in a voice of great indifference, "I, too, am of precisely that opinion. So through the bridge we must go at any risk, if you, my men, will take us." "Pull away. Bill," was the only reply of the waterman. "Pull away, Bill, and keep her steady. On we go." By this time a curious throng of persons had assembled on the bridge to watch the wherry, for previous to its approach two others had declined the dangerous passage of the arch, and had landed their passengers at a small stairs some distance from the strong eddying current that leaped and bubbled through the arch. It was therefore something of a treat for the crowd to see their boat make for the dreaded spot, an evident determination on the part of the rowers to shoot through the arch of the bridge if it were possible so to do. No one spoke on board the boat. The watermen pulled very steady into the current, keeping over their shoulders a wary eye upon the head of the boat. Todd's eyes gleamed like two coals of fire, and Mrs. Lovett was as pale as death itself. Perhaps at that moment she reflected that she had trusted herself with all her sins on board that little boat amid the wild rush of waters; but if she did, she said nothing. Neither by word nor by action did she give indication of the fear that was tugging at her heart.
And now the little wherry was floating in the boiling surge that flew towards the arch, and made when it got there such a battle to get through. There was no occasion for pulling. The only good they could now do with their oars was to steady the little craft, and so far as was possible to keep her head to the current. That this was done by the two watermen with admirable and practised skill, every one who watched the progress of the party from the bridge or elsewhere could perceive; and now the critical moment was at hand, and the boat being caught like a reed, was swept under the bridge by the rapid current. "Easy, Bill," cried one of the men. "Easy it is," said the other. "You will upset us, my dear madam," said Todd, "if you move;" and then, while the two men were fully engaged with the boat, and by far too much occupied with the necessary movements for the preservation of themselves and their little craft, Todd, with one blow upon the head, struck Mrs. Lovett overboard. She uttered a piercing shriek. "What's that?what's that?" cried the boatmen. The boat scraped against the side of the arch for a moment, and then shot through it with a terrific bound into the comparatively still water on the other side of the bridge. "I'm afraid," said Todd, "that the lady has fallen overboard." "Afraid!" cried one of the watermen. "Why, good God! don't you see she has; and there she goes, along with the stream. Pull away, Bill; don't you see her? There she goes!" "Alas, poor thing!" said Todd. Old London Bridge.Todd Tries His Murderous Hand On Mrs. Lovett. Old London Bridge.Todd Tries His Murderous Hand On Mrs. Lovett. He affected to be overcome by his feelings, and to be compelled to rest his head upon his hands, while he kept his hotlooking bloodshot eyes fixed upon the form of Mrs. Lovett in the water. And now a scene ensued of deep interest to Todda scene which he watched with the greatest attention. It was a scene upon the issue of which he felt that his life depended. If Mrs. Lovett were saved, his life would not be worth an hour's purchase. If she were drowned, he was, so he fancied, a free man; and he saw that from the shore several boats put off after her, while the two men in his wherry pulled as though their lives depended upon hers. Todd could have struck them for the exertions that they were making, but he dared not even speak one deprecating word to make them pause. He was condemned only to watch what was going on; and truly a most interesting scene it was. Mrs. Lovett had on a large cloak, and it was by the aid of that, as well as by the strength of the current, that she floated so long as to make it quite remarkable, and to induce the opinion in the minds of some of the spectators that she was swimming. Suddenly, just as a boat that had put off from the stairs by the Custom House reached her, down she went. "Gone!" said Todd. "Yes, she's gone," said one of the watermen. "She's gone, poor thing, whoever she was, and no one will get her now." "Are you sure of that?" "Ah, master, as sure as may be; but you are a witness that it was no fault of ours, master." "Certainly," said Todd. "The fact is, that she got alarmed the moment the boat shot under the arch, and rose up. I tried to catch her, but she toppled over into the water." "Natural enough, sir. If she did get up, over she was sure to go. Did you hear what a shriek she gave, Bill? My eye, if I don't dream of that, I'm a Dutchman! I fancy it is ringing in my ears. Yet I have heard a few odd sounds on the river in my time, but that was the very worst." "And she is gone," said Todd. "Why does that boat linger there upon the spot where she went down? Staystay, I cannot see if you pull into shore so quick. Now that barge is between me and the boat." "There's nothing to see now, sir." "Wellwell. That will dothat will do. Poor creature! Viewing it in one way, my friends, it's a happy release, for she was a little touched in her intellect, poor thing; but it's dreadful to lose one to whom you are much attached; notwithstanding, I shall shed many a tear over her loss, and of the two I had really much rather it had been myself. Alas! alas! you see how deeply affected I am!" "It's no use grieving, sir." "Not a whitnot a whit. I know that, but I can't help it. Take that and divide it between you. I give it to you as a kind of assurance that it is not your fault the poor thing fell overboard." "Thank your honour," said the man in whose huge palm Todd had placed a guinea. "We may be asked who you are possibly, sir, if the body should be found." "Oh, certainlycertainly," said Todd, "that is well thought of. I am the Rev. Silas Mugginthorpe, preacher at the new chapel in Little Britain. Will you remember?" "Oh, yes sir. All's right." Todd ascended the slippery steps of the little landingplace with an awfully demoniac chuckle upon his face, and when he reached the top of them he struck his breast with his clenched hand, as he said in a voice of fierce glee "'Tis done'tis done. Ha, ha, ha! 'Tis done. Why, Mrs. Lovett, you have surely been singularly indiscreet today. Ha, ha! Food for fishes, if fishes can live in the Thames. Ha, ha! Farewell, Mrs. Lovett, a long farewell to you. Soso you thought, did you, to get the better of Sweeney Todd? To stick to him like a bear until he should be compelled to, what you called, settle with you? Well, he has settled with youhe has! Ha, ha!" Thus in wild ferocious glee did Todd walk through the city back to his own house after perpetrating this the worst murder, if there can be at all degrees in murder, that he had ever done. People got out of his way as they heard his wild demoniac laugh, and many, after one glance at his awful face, crossed over to the other side of the street with precipitation. "Goodday, Mrs. Lovett," he kept muttering. "A charming day, Mrs. Lovett, and charmingly you look today, only a little swelled and bloated with the water. You wish me to settle with you? Oh, of course, I will settle with you before we part. Ha, ha!" Todd had never been so thoroughly pleased in all his life. More than once he stopped in the street to laugh, and twice on his route he called at noted hostels in the city to refresh himself with a glass of something strong and hot. He fancied that he wore upon his countenance quite an amiable aspect, and if one can fancy the devil himself looking sentimental, or an ogre looking religious and humane, we may have some sort of mixed idea of how Todd looked when he was amiable. In this blissful condition he reached Fleet Street, and just as he crossed the way from Ludgate Hill to the top of Fleet Market he was accosted by a miserablelooking woman in widow's weeds, with a girl in one hand and a boy in the other. They were begging, that was evident, for each of the children, and genteel pleasantlooking children they were, although now dejected by destitution, had upon its breast a little written paper with the one word, "Want" upon it. That word ought to have been sufficient to unlock the hearts of the passers by, and yet how the crowd hurried on! The Widow Asks For Charity Of Her Husband's MurdererTodd. The Widow Asks For Charity Of Her Husband's MurdererTodd. "Oh, Mr. Todd," said the woman, "can you spare a trifle for the little ones?" "Who are you," he said, "that you address me by my name, woman?" "My name is Cummins, sir. Don't you recollect how my poor husband, John Cummins, went out one day about a month ago, to carry the watchcases he had to polish to his employers, saying that he would call at your shop and be shaved before he went into the city, and didn't call, sir, as you kindly told me, but has never been heard of since? The city people will have it that he ran away; but ah, sir, I know him better. Would he run away from me and from those that he loved so well? Oh, nonono, I know John better." CHAPTER XCVIII. JOHANNA HAS A VISITOR WHILE TODD IS GONE UPON THE RIVER. "Well?" said Todd. "Well, sir, I was thinking thatthat you might spare a trifle for the children, sir. They are starvingdo you hear, Mr. Todd?they are starving, and have no father now." "What was the value of the watchcases your husband had with him, Mrs. Cummins, when he disappeared?" "About a hundred pounds, sir, they tell me. But don't you believe, sir, for one moment that John deserted me and theseah no, sir." "You really think so?" "I am sure of it, sir, quitequite sure of it. He loved me, sir, and thesehe did indeed, sir. You will help us, Mr. Toddoh, say that you will do what you can for us." "Certainly, my good womancertainly. What is this little fellow's name, Mrs. Cummins?" "WilliamWilliam is his name," said the poor woman, in such a flurry from the idea of what Todd was going to do for the children that she could hardly speak, but caught her breath hysterically. "His name is William, Mr. Todd." "And this little girl, ma'am?" "Ann, sirAnn. That is her name, Mr. Todd. The same, if you please, sir, as her poor mother's. Look up, Ann, my dear, and courtesy to the gentleman. God bless you, Mr. Todd, for thinking of me and mine. God bless you, sir!" "Ann and William," said Todd, "Ann and William; and very nice children they are, too, in my opinion, Mrs. Cummins." "They are good children, sir." Mrs. Cummins burst into tears at the idea of what Todd was going to do for the children, for the whole of the parish was impressed with the idea that he was well to do. "They are very good children Mr. Todd; and although a charge to me, are still a blessing; for now that John is gone, they seem to hold me to the world, sir." "Well, Mrs. Cummins, I am glad you have applied to me, for if you had not, I certainly should not have known the names of your children. As it is, however, whenever I pray, I will think of them, and of you; and in the meantime, I commend you to the care of that Providence which, of course, cannot permit the widow and the fatherless to want anything in this world, or the next either." Todd walked leisurely on. "Ha! ha!" he laughed. "Good again. What have I to do with charity, or charity with me? I am at war with all the world, and at war with Heaven, too, if there be one, which I will not admit! No, noI will not admit that." While Todd was away upon this errand of getting rid of Mrs. Lovett, which we have seen he has accomplished so much to his satisfaction, Johanna was not entirely without visitors. The excellent watch that was kept upon the movements of Todd, in their minutest particular, by Sir Richard Blunt and his officers, let them know perfectly well that Todd was from home; but it was not from them that Johanna had her first visit after Todd was gone. He had not left the shop above ten minutes when Johanna heard a mysterious noise outside the door of it. It sounded as if someone were scraping it with something. At first she felt a little uneasy at the sound, but as it increased she calmed herself, and resolved upon ascertaining what it was. Turning to the door, cautiously she opened it a little way. That was quite sufficient to dispel any fears that she might have, for the paw of a dog was immediately thrust through the opening; and when upon this Johanna opened the door freely, Hector, with a loud bark, dashed into the shop. So fierce was the dog's demeanour, that Johanna shrank aside, but master Hector saw with half an eye that he had frightened her, so he went up to her, and licked her hand in token of amity, after which he barked loudly at the shop, as though he would have said, "Mind though I am friends with you, I am still the uncompromising foe of all else in this place." "Alas poor dog," said Johanna as the tears rushed to her eyes, "you will never see your master again." The young girl's grief for the loss of her lover seemed all to be roused up freshly from the depths of her heart at this appearance of the dog, which she had some reason to believe had been the companion of Mark Ingestrie. She sat down upon the little stool by the fire, and covering face with her hands, she wept bitterly. In the meantime, Hector, finding that Todd was not there to do battle with him, made up his mind for a grand rummage in the shop; and truly he conducted it with a perseverance and a recklessness of consequences that was wonderful. He was on the counter that ran along under the windowhe was under ithe was on every shelf, and he tore open every cupboard; but alas! poor Hector could find no token of his lost master. At length the howling and the scratching that he made induced Johanna to look up to see what he wanted. She was rather appalled at the confusion he had created, and she could not think what he wanted until she found that there was a shelf at the top of the cupboard, that was equally out of her reach as it was out of his. "I cannot help you, my poor friend," she said. "There seems to be nothing on that shelf." Hector, however, having retired to a remote corner of the shop, and got on a chair in order that he might get a good look at the shelf, was of a different opinion; and, finding that he was not to calculate upon any help from Johanna, he made various springs up to the shelf with his mouth open, until at last he caught hold of a little bit of tape that seemed to be hanging over the edge of it. The tape was attached to something, which Hector immediately, with a loud bark of defiance, took possession of, partly by standing upon it, and partly by holding it in his mouth. Upon stooping to see what this was, Johanna discovered that it was a waistcoat of blue cloth. At first Hector did not seem much to fancy even letting her look at it; but after looking intently in her face for a few moments, he very quietly resigned it to her, only he kept very close to it while she turned it round and round and looked at it. It might have been Mark Ingestrie's. It looked something like the sort of garment that a master mariner might be supposed to wear, and the evident recognition of it by the dog spoke wonders in favour of the supposition that it had belonged to his master at one time or another. Johanna thought that in one of the pockets there seemed something, and upon putting in her hand she found a small piece of paper folded in four. To undo it was the work of a moment, and then she saw upon it the following words "Mr. Oakley, Spectaclemaker, 33, Fore Street, City." Her senses seemed upon the point of deserting her. Every object for a moment appeared to whirl round her in a mad dance. Who should know betterah, who should know half so well as shethe handwriting which conveyed those few words to her senses? It was the handwriting of her lost lover, Mark Ingestrie! "Hilloa! Pison, is you here?" cried a voice at the shop door at this moment. Johanna started to her feet. "Who are you?what do you want?" she cried. "Murder!murder! He has been foully murdered, I say; I will swear itIIGod help me!" With the little scrap of paper in her hand, she staggered back until she came to the huge shavingchair, into which she sank with a longdrawn sigh. "Why, what's the row?" said the man, who was no other than Hector's friend, the ostler, from the inn opposite. "What's the row? Now what an outandout willain of a dog you is, Pison, to cut over here like bricks as soon as you can git loose to do so. Don't you know that old Todd is a busting to do you an ill turn some o' these days? and yet you will come, you hidiot." "Mr. Todd is out," said Johanna. "Oh, is he, my little man? Well, the devil go with him, that's all I say. Come along, that's a good dog." Pison only wagged his tail in recognition of the friendly feeling between him and the ostler, and then he kept quite close to Johanna and the waistcoat, which the moment he saw her drop, he laid hold of, and held tight with such an expression as was quite enough to convince the ostler he would not readily give it up again. "Now what a hanimal you is," cried the ostler. "Whose blessed veskut is that you as got?" "He found it here," said Johanna. "Did you see his master on the day when he came here?" "No, my little chap, I didn't; but I don't care who knows itit's my 'pinion that whosomedever his master was, old Sweeney Todd, your master, knows more on him than most folks. Come away, Pison, will you?" The dog did not now show much disinclination to follow the ostler, but he kept the waistcoat firmly in his grasp, as he left the shop after him. Johanna still held that little scrap of paper in her hand, and oh! what a world of food for reflection did it present her with. Was it, or was it not, an establishment of the fact of Mark Ingestrie having been Todd's victim? That was the question that Johanna put to herself, as through her tears, that fell like rain, she gazed upon that paper, with those few words upon it, in the wellknown hand of her lover. The more Johanna reflected upon this question, the more difficult a one did she find it to answer in any way that was at all satisfactory to her feelings. The strong presumption that Mark Ingestrie had fallen a victim to Todd had not been sufficiently obliterated by all that Sir Richard Blunt had said to her to free her mind from a strong bias to fancy anything that transpired at Todd's a corroboration of that fact. "Yes," she said, mournfully, "yes, poorpoor Mark. Each day only adds to my conviction that you became this man's victim, and that that fatal String of Pearls, which you fondly thought would be a means of uniting us together by removing the disabilities of want of fortune, has been your death. That waistcoat, which your faithful dog has carried with him, is another relic of you, and this scrap of paper is but another link in the chain of circumstances that convinces me we shall never meet again in this world." Poor Johanna was absolutely reasoning herself into an agony of grief, when the door of the shop opened, and an old man with white hair made his appearance. "Is Mr. Todd within?" he said. "No, sir," replied Johanna. "And is it possible," added the old man, straightening himself up, "that I am disguised so well that even you do not know me, Johanna?" In a moment now she recognised the voice. It was that of Sir Richard Blunt. "Oh, sir," she said, "I do indeed know you now, and I am veryvery wretched." "Has anything new occurred, Johanna, to produce this feeling?" "Yes, sir. The dog, that my heart tells me belonged to poor Mark, has been over here, and with a rare instinct he found a piece of apparel, in the pocket of which was this paper. It is in his writing. I know it tootoo well to be denied. Ah, sir, you, even you, will no longer now seek to delude me with false hopes. But do not tarry here, sir; Todd has been long gone, and may at any chance moment come back again." "Be at rest upon that point, Johanna. He cannot come back without my being made aware of it by my friends without. But tell me in what way you attach such serious importance to this piece of paper, Johanna?" "In what way, my dear friend? Do I not say that it is in poor Mark's own handwriting? How could it come here unless he brought it? Oh, sir, do not ask me in what way I attach importance to it. Rather let me ask you how, otherwise than upon the supposition of his having become one of Todd's victims, can you account for its being here at all?" "Really," said Sir Richard, "this Mark Ingestrie must have been a very forgetful young man." "Forgetful?" "Yes. It seems that it was necessary for him to carry your name and address in his pocket. Now if he had given such a slip of paper as this to another person for fear he should forget what was not so deeply imprinted in his memory I should not have wondered at it for a moment." Johanna clasped her hands and looked the magistrate in the face, as she said "Then, sir, you thinkthat is, you believethatthat this is no proof of poor Mark having been here?" "As I hope for mercy in Heaven, it is to my mind a proof the other way, Johanna." She burst into a passion of hysterical weeping. Sir Richard Blunt knew too much of human nature to interfere by word or gesture, with this effort of nature to relieve the overchanged heart, and he waited patiently, affecting to be looking upon some old prints upon the wall until he heard the sobs decrease to sighs. Then he turned with a smile to Johanna, and said "My dear girl, gather hope from that scrap of paper, not despair. Depend upon it the address of your father held too conspicuous a place in the heart of him who loved you to require that it should have been written upon a piece of paper. You know that my theory on the subject is that Mr. Thornhill was actually sent to you by Mark Ingestrie, and that it was he who perished here." "And Mark himselfif that were so?" "His fate has still to be elucidated; but that he perished here I do not believe, as I have often told you." "This is an exquisite relief," said Johanna, as she laid her hand upon her heart. "Make much of it," said Sir Richard; "something even yet seems to tell me that you will be happy. I cannot think it possible that Heaven would permit such a man as Todd to destroy your earthly felicity. But how comes the shop in such confusion?" "It was the dog. He would look everywhere, and I had not the heart nor the strength to prevent him. Todd has a horror of him; and fright will keep him quiet when I tell him the cause of the mischief that is done here." "Perhaps then it will be better to leave it as it is," said Sir Richard, "than awaken his suspicions by attempting to put the place to rights, in which you might fail in some particulars known to him. And now tell me, Johanna, what passed between him and this Mrs. Lovett?" "But a few words, sir, before I was sent out. There is one thing though that I suspect, and that is that Mrs. Lovett has found out my secret." "Indeed?" "Yes, she regarded me with a strange gaze that made me feel that she penetrated my disguise. I know not if she will say as much to Todd, but one glance of his eye upon me when he returns will satisfy me upon that, I think." At this moment a bugle sounded in Fleet Street. "That is my signal," said Sir Richard. "Todd is coming. I will be close at hand, Johanna, lest Mrs. Lovett has told him your secret, and you should find yourself in any danger. Farewell! Heaven hold you in its keeping." CHAPTER XCIX. THE COOK FEELS THAT ALL THE WORLD NEGLECTS HIM, AND THEN HE GETS A LETTER. Sir Richard Blunt left the shop, and Johanna had just time to conceal the scrap of paper which she had found in the waistcoat, and to seem to be busy at the fire, when Todd made his appearance. She had never seen such a grim smile upon Todd's face as it now wore. He was for once in his life fairly pleased. When had he made such a morning's work as that? Not even in his acquisition of those fatal Pearls had he gained so much as by that one slight push that had sent Mrs. Lovett and her claims into the river so neatly. No wonder Sweeney Todd was elated and delighted. He had all the money now to himself. There was no one now to say to him "Where is my share?" He had all the produce of another's awful criminality to add to his own. Was he not thus a very happy man for a little while? The sunshine of the heart was not a thing to last long in such a bosom as Sweeney Todd's. His was not that sweet and lasting hilarity of soul that can alone arise from a deep and sincere consciousness of right. No! The fierce delight of a successful stroke of villany may for a time resemble happiness, but it is a resemblance as weak as that between the faint watery ray of a winter's sun and the full blaze of the godlike luminary in all the beauty of the vernal season. But for the time, we say, Todd was pleased, and the demoniac triumph of his soul beamed forth from his eyes and played around the puckered corners of his huge mouth. "Well, Charley," he said, "how goes it with you, my lad?" Johanna stared as well she might to hear Todd speak in such a mild pacific sort of way. "Sir?" she said. "I say, how goes it with you, my good boy. How have you passed the time in my unavoidable absence upon a little business?" "Quite tolerable, sir, thank you, with the exception that a dog pushed his way into the shop, and, as you see, sir, has made some confusion." "A dog?" "Yes, sir. A large one, black and white. I had no strength to turn him out, so he had his will in the shop, and tossed the things about as you see, sir." "My malediction upon that confounded dog. He is mad, Charley, I tell you, he is stark, staring mad. Why did you not throw open razors at him until one had transfixed him?" "I don't like touching the razors, sir." "You don'tyou don't? He! he! What will he think when one touches him?" muttered Todd to himself as he turned aside and made a movement as though cutting a throat. "You don't like touching the razors, Charley?" "No, sir, I thought you would be angry if I had, so the dog had all his own way here. I would have put the place to rights, but I thought you aught to see it as it is." "Right, my boyright. Tomorrow will be quite time enough to put it to rights. Yes, tomorrow. Has any one called, Charley?" "No, sir." "Well I am glad of that, for when one is off upon an action of charity one don't like one's business to suffer as well. It's quite unknown what I give away, and I always like to see the object myself, you know, Charley, as I find I can then better adapt my benevolence to their real wants, which is a greata very great object." "I should think it was, sir." "You are a clever observant lad, Charley, and you will, when you leave me, I feel convinced, drop into a genteel independence. You will want for nothing then, I feel quite assured, Charley." "You are very good, sir." "I strive to be good, Charley, and by the help of the gospel we may all be good to some extentsinners that we are. Now, simple as is, it's really a great thing to be supplied in an unlimited manner with cold water." "No doubt of it, sir." "Well, I have supplied the person to whom my benevolence has extended this morning, with, I hope, an unlimited quantity, and always fresh. He!" Todd here executed one of his awful laughs, and then went into his parlour grinning at his own hideous facetiousness over the murder he had committed. Johanna had managed to say, from time to time, what was expected by way of answer to him, but it was with a shuddering consciousness that he had been about some great crime that she did so; and when he had left the shop, she said faintly to herself "He has murdered Mrs. Lovett." It was sufficient, if Todd went out with an enemy and came home jocular, to conclude what had happened. That person then might be fairly presumed to be no more, and hence, with a shudder of horror pervading her frame, did Johanna whisper to herself "He has surely murdered Mrs. Lovett." The first thing that Todd did when he was alone in his parlour, and the door fast, was to produce the memoranda he had made of all that he had to do previous to leaving England. One item ran thus "Mem. To pay Mrs. Lovet in full." After that item he wrote paid, and then he laughed again in his hideous way, and leaning his head upon his hand, or rather his chin upon it, he spoke in a chuckling tone. "She will turn up some dayyes, she will turn up some day, and the swollen disgusting mass, that was once the bold and glittering Mrs. Lovett, will be pulled through the river mud by a boathook, and then there will be an inquest, and a verdict of found drowned, with a statement that the body was in too advanced a state of decomposition to be identified. Ha!" Todd actually rubbed his hands together, and then he took a good drop of brandy, and felt himself quite a pleasant sort of character, and one upon whom the fickle goddess, Fortune, had taken to smiling in her most bland and pleasant way. "When I am snug and comfortable at Hamburgh," he said, "how eagerly I shall look for the London papers, to let me know how far the fire in Fleet Street, that is to happen tonight, has extended. How I shall laugh if it travel to the old church, and burns that down likewise. Ha! I think I shall take to laughing as a regular thing when I am fairly abroad with all my money, and safeso safe as I shall be, so veryvery safe." Yes, there sat Sweeney Todd rejoicing. He might have said with Romeo in Mantua "My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne, And all this day an unaccustomed spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts." But as it was with the young husband of the sainted Juliet, the day of reckoning was coming to Todd, and the spirit that spoke of comfort, joy, and security to his heart and brain, was after all a false one. But we must leave Todd to his selffelicitations, while we request the reader's kind company to Bell Yard, for certain things had taken place in the establishment of Mrs. Lovett which it is highly necessary should find a place in this veracious and carefully collected narrative. When Mrs. Lovett, with a full notion of the projected perfidy of Todd, left home for the purpose of bringing that individual to a sense of his wrong doings, and insisting upon a settlement, she did not awaken popular remark or popular interest by shutting up her shop, but she took such measures as she believed would last very well until she got back again. She was not sanguine upon the subject of getting back very soon, for she had made up her mind that back she would not come without the money. Previously, then, to leaving, she sought the narrow opening in the strong irondoor through which she was accustomed to speak to the discontented cook, and fastening a bottle of wine by the neck to a piece of cord, she let it down into the prisonhouse of piemanufactory, saying as she did so "I keep my word with you. Here is wine. I trust that you will keep your word with me. A batch is wanted at twelve today, as you know." "Very well," said the cook. "Very well. They shall be ready. But you promised me freedom, Mrs. Lovett." "I did, and freedom you shall have shortly. All you have to do now is to attend to business for a little while. When I ring at twelve, send up the batch." "I willI will. But yet" "What is it now?" "If you only could fancy, Mrs. Lovett, what it was to pass one's time in this place, you would have some feeling for me. Will you send or bring me some real butcher's meat?" Bang went the wicketdoor, and the cook found himself once again shut out from the world in those dismal vaults of Mrs. Lovett's house. "Twelve o'clock," muttered Mrs. Lovett, as she proceeded to her parlour. "I shall surely be home by twelve. Todd will find out that I am too persevering for him. His fears will force him to pay me, although his justice never would. I will threaten him into payment. The odious villain! to attempt yet to deprive me of all that I have toiled for, with the exception of what of late I have had the prudence to keep in the house!" The next thing that Mrs. Lovett had to do was to get some one to effectually mind the shop in her absence, and for that purpose she pitched upon a Mrs. Stag, a tall, gauntlooking female, who acted as a kind of supernumerary laundress in Lincoln's Inn. With this person Mrs. Lovett felt that she need have no delicacy as regards lockingup and so forth; and as Mrs. Stag laboured under a defect of hearing, she would not be likely to pay any attention to what might take place below; but still Mrs. Lovett was determined to leave nothing to chance, and she left Mrs. Stag a note which was to go down on the movable platform to the cook in case she, Mrs. Lovett, was not at home at the twelve o'clock batch. This note contained the following words, which, as Mrs. Stag's parents and guardians had omitted to include reading in her education, were perfectly safe from her scrutiny "Send up the four o'clock batch, and you will be free within twentyfour hours from then." This she concluded would keep him quiet; and within twentyfour hours Mrs.
Lovett felt that her affairs must be settled in some way or another; so that it was a very safe promise, even if she had not still retained in her own hands the means of breaking it if there should be occasion so to do. Truly, Mrs. Lovett was, in the full acceptation of the term, a woman of business. Mrs. Stag was sure to look in the first thing in the morning upon Mrs. Lovett; so that as soon as that useful and submissive personage made her appearance in Bell Yard, she was duly installed in authority in the shopthe parlour being properly fastened up against Mrs. Stag and all intruders. "You will be so good as to sit here until I come back, Mrs. Stag?" said Mrs. Lovett; "and sell as many pies as you can. I am going to the christening of a friend's child, who is anxious that I should be its godmother." What a delightful godmother Mrs. Lovett would have made! "Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Stag. "I think I shall be back at twelve o' clock; but if I am not, you can let this note go down with the empty tray on the trapdoor after you have slid off it the twelve o' clock batch of pies." "Yes, ma'am." "You will answer no questions to any one. All you have to say is, that I am out in the neighbourhood, and may come home at any minute, as indeed I may. I shall, of course, pay you, Mrs. Stag, for your whole day. Pray help yourself to a pie or two, as you feel inclined. Good morning." "Good mornin', ma'am, good mornin'. She's a very pleasant woman," said Mrs. Stag, after Mrs. Lovett had left; "she's a remarkably pleasant woman. What a delicious pie, to be sure!" Mrs. Stag was deep in the mysteries of a yesterday's veal. "It's very odd," added the laundress, as she wiped the gravy from the sides of her mouth; "it's very odd that Mrs. Lovett is so very particular in shutting up her parlour always, when she might know what a likely thing it is that anybody may want to look at the drawers and cupboards. It's a most remarkable thing to think what she can have there that she will lock up in such a way." Upon this, just with a faint forlorn sort of hope that the door might be left open, Mrs. Stag tried it, but it was fast; and, with a sigh of disappointment, she returned to her seat again. In another moment a yesterday's pork yielded up its fascinations to the appetite of Mrs. Stag. This, then, was the sort of life that Mrs. Stag passed in the shop. Lamentations and gravygravy and lamentations; and while she was thus occupied, the cook was pacing the cellars in rather a discontented mood, with his hands behind his back, reflecting upon things past, present, and to come, and upon his own dismal situation in particular. "I cannot stand this," he said, "I really cannot stand this. I have had promises from Mrs. Lovett of freedom, and I have had similar promises from he who came to the grating in the door, but none of the promises have been fulfilled. I cannot stand this any longer, it is impossible. I am driven mad as it is already. I must do something. I can no longer exist in this way." The cook looked about him, as many people are in the habit of doing when they say they must do something, without having a very clear notion of what it is to be; but as he at length fixed his eye upon that piece of machinery, far up to the roof, by which the batches of pies went up to the shop, and by which flour and butter and other matters, always excepting meat, found their way down to him, an idea took possession of him. What that idea was will show itself in another place. CHAPTER C. TODD TAKES HIS LAST WALK UP FLEET STREET AND TO BELL YARD. The twelve o'clock batch of pies went up, and down came the little missive of Mrs. Lovett respecting the four o'clock lot to the cook; but no Mrs. Lovett made her appearance, to relieve Mrs. Stag from her duties in the shop. "Ah," said that elongated lady, "it's all very well of Mrs. L. to say she would pay me for the day. I suppose she means to make a day of it, and that's the reason. Now, young man, what's for you?" "A pork with a nob of veal in it to give it a relish," was the reply of the young scion of the law, to whom Stag had addressed herself. "Go along with you, I don't want none o' your impertinence." "Now, ma'am, look alive. Two veals if you please. One porkfive porksfour veals. Do you make half a veal?" "No we don't." "A hot porkthree porkstwo porkseight veals. Don't be pushing in that wayfour porkssmash. There, now, I've dropped mine, and it's all along of you." "Do be quiet," said Stag, "gentlemen do be quiet; 'patience,' says Paul, 'and I'll soon serve you all.' What are you laughing at, you little jackanapes? You ought to be ashamed of yourself to be making faces at a female twice you age." "And three times your size," said a voice. There was a great roar of laughter at this, but by degrees poor Stag got through the business of the twelve o'clock batch, and sat down with a sigh, to console herself, by eating two or three of the most lusciouslooking that remained. "It ain't to be denied," said Stag, "but they are good. I never met with such gravy in all my life as is in 'em. Yes, they are firstrate. I'll just put one in the crown of my bonnet, for there's no knowing a minute now when Mrs. L. may pop in upon one at unawareslike. It's a comfort to have one of these pies, promiscous like, at one's hand, to lay hold of just in this sort of way, and pass in one's mouth in this kind of way. Oh, heart alive, but this is a good one. I declare the gravy is running out of it like water from a plug, when there's no house on fire, and it ain't wanted." Mrs. Stag would have done very well indeed if she could but have got something to drink. That certainly was a drawback, that at first the lady's ingenuity did not present any means of speedily overcoming; but as necessity is the mother of invention, Mrs. Stag at last hit upon a plan. "There's plenty of money in the till, of course," she said, "and suppose I stand at the door, and wait, till some wretch of a boy passes, and then give him a halfpenny for himself, just to run to the corner and get me a drop of something warm and comfortable." Mrs. Stag had no sooner started this "suppose," than she felt a burning desire to carry it out; and accordingly, history says, that at a quarter to one she might have been seen at the door of Mrs. Lovett's pieshop, with a shilling in one hand, a halfpenny in another, and a bottle concealed in her pocket, looking like an ogress at every boy who passed, and who looked as though he wanted a halfpenny, and consequently would go upon the secret message, for the purpose of earning one there and then. Presently one came along the centre of Bell Yard, who seemed just the sort of person. "Boy, boy!" cried Mrs. Stag. "Well, old 'un," he replied, "what do you bring it inWilful Murder with the chill off, or what?" "Don't be owdacious. If you want to earn a pennyI mean a halfpennyhonestly, take this shilling and this bottle, and go to the corner, and get a quartern of the best." "The best what?" "Oh, you foolish boy. Gin, of course; but remember that my eye is upon you." It was well that Mrs. Stag spoke in the singular regarding her optical organ, for she had but one. The boy professed a ready acquiescence, and away he went, with the bottle and the shilling. Alas! Mrs. Stag was left lamenting. He came not back again, and from thenceforward Mrs. Stag lost the small amount of faith she had had in boyhood. The wellconcocted scheme had failed, and there she was, with countless halfpence in the till, and so thirsting for strong water, that she was half inclined to make a grand rush herself to the nearest publichouse, and chance any one in the interim helping themselves to the pies ad lib. But she was not reduced to that extremity. Suddenly the window was darkened by a shadow, and through one of the topmost panes an immense hideous face, with an awful grin upon it, confronted Mrs. Stag. The good lady was fascinatednot in an agreeable sense, but in quite the reverseshe could not take her eyes from off the hideous gigantic face, as it placed itself close to the frame of illmade greenish glass, in order to get a good view into the shop. "Goodness gracious, it's Luficer himself!" said Mrs. Stag. "I'm a lost woman. Quite a lost woman. I'm undone. It's Luficer himself, I'm sure and certain!" Probably the hideous eyes that belonged to the hideous face, conveyed the impression to the brain behind them that Mrs. Stag was in a state of apprehension; for suddenly the face was withdrawn, and Toddyes, Todd himself, for to whom else could such a face belong?made his way into the shop. Mrs. Stag groaned again, and in a stammering voice, said "If you please, sir. II ain't ready yet." "Ready for what?" said Todd. "To go totothe brimstone beds, if you please, sir. I haven't done half enough yet." "Pho!" said Todd. "My good woman, you don't surely take me for the devil? I am an old friend of Mrs. Lovett's, and a neighbour. I have just stepped in to ask her how she does to day." Mrs. Stag drew a long breath of relief as she said "Well, really, sir, I begs your parding. It must have been the pane of glass thatthatthat" "Threw my face out of shape a little," said Todd, making one of his most hideous contortions, and finishing it off with a loud "Ha!" Mrs. Stag nearly fell off her chair. But it was not Todd's wish to frighten her, although he had, in the hilarity of his heart, yielded, like Lord Brougham, to the speculative fun of the moment. He now tried to reassure her. "Don't be at all alarmed at me, madam," he said. "Mrs. Lovett laughs often at my little funny ways. Is she at home?" Todd knew what sort of home he had provided Mrs. Lovett with, and this visit to Bell Yard was one partly of curiosity and partly of triumph, to ascertain how she had left things in her absence from her establishment. "No, sir," said Mrs. Stag, replying to the question of Todd; "she is not at home, sir." "Dear me, I thought she was always in at this time of the day. When, madam, do you expect her?" "Leastways," said Mrs. Stag, "I don't know, sir." "Were you here, madam, when she left home?" "Yes, I were." "Oh, and did she leave any message, madam, in case Mr. Todd from Fleet Street should call? Pray recollect yourself, my dear madam, as it may possibly be important. I do not say that it is, but it may be." "No, sir," replied Mrs. Stag; "oh dear, no. All she said was, that she was going to a christening." "A christening? Ha! She has been christened!" "Sir!" "I only said she had been christened, and no stint of the water, that was all, madam; but I perfectly understand you. Mrs. Lovett has gone to the christening of some one of those sweet little innocents, all perfume and flabbiness, that take one's heart completely by storm. Ah, my dear madam, when one looks at the slumbering infant, how one feels an irresistible desire to smother it." "Lor, sir!" "With soft kisses, my dear madam. Only fancy me now a baby!" Todd made so awful a contortion of visage contingent upon this supposition that poor Mrs. Stag, in the nervous condition which the whole adventure had thrown her into, nearly fainted right away. Indeed, the only thing that recovered her was hearing her visitor say "I am really very thirsty today. How do you feel, madam?" These were delightful words. "Oh, sir," she said, "how very odd. I am thirsty likewise." "Well, that is remarkable," said Todd. "Now, my dear madam, I don't make a common thing of saying as much to anybody, but you, who are a lady evidently of refined taste and intellectual capabilities, I am sure, will understand me, and make allowances for my feelings when I say that I prefer to anything elsegin!" "You don't mean it, sir?" "Indeed, but I do." "Oh, how could I mistake you for anything but a very nice man indeed, and a perfect gentleman. It's one of the most singular things in all the world, but I never do hardly take anything, yet what I do take isis" "Gin." Mrs. Stag nodded and smiled faintly. "Well, my dear madam, I don't see why we should not have a drop while I wait for Mrs. Lovett. Don't you trouble yourself, my dear madam. Now really do not. I know that you will like to have to say to that good, delightful, Mrs. Lovett, that you have not left the shop since she was absent; I will get it. They will lend me a bottle, and I have capacious pockets." "But for you, sir, to" Todd was gone. "Well, really, he is a very nice sort of conversable man," said Mrs. Stag to herself, "when you come to know him, and he ain't near so ugly as he looks after all. I do hope Mrs. Lovett won't trouble herself to come home for the next half hour, since Mr. Todd has been so good as to call and to make himself so very agreeable about thethe gin." Todd went into Fleet Street for the gin, and he returned by the dark archway leading into Bell Yard. It was darker then than it is now, and in the deepness of an ancient doorway, he paused to drop into the ginnot a deadly poisonbut such a potion as he knew would soon wrap up the senses of Mrs. Lovett's substitute in oblivion. This narcotic he took from a small phial he had in his breastpocket. He did not say anything, but he gave one laugh, and then he walked on to the pieshop, where he was eagerly and warmly welcomed by Mrs. Stag, who very assiduously placed a chair for him, saying, as she did so, that "Mrs. Lovett would quite stare if she were to pop in just then, and see them enjoying themselves, in a manner of speaking, in so delightful a manner." "I should stare!" said Todd. "You would, sir?" "Yes; I rather am inclined to think that that christening business will detain her. By this time she has got into the thick of it, my dear madam, you may depend, although I am quite certain she will be strictly temporate, and take nothing but water." "Do you think so, sir?" "I am sure of it. Can you find a glass, madam? I have not the happiness of knowing your name." "Stay, if you please, sir. I have one glass here without a foot. It's an odd thing, but Mrs. Lovett shuts up the place when she goes out, as if we were all thieves and murderers." "Does she really? Wellwell, we will manage with one glass, my dear Mrs. Stag. It is the first time we have had a drop together, and I have only to hope that it will not be the last. I ought not, perhaps, to say it before your face, but you are the most entertaining company that I have met with for a long time.Drink, madam." "After you, sir." "Nono, I insist." Mrs. Stag drank off the full glass that Todd presented her with, and then affecting to pour one out for himself, but dexterously keeping the bottle between him and the lady, he only carried the empty glass to his lips. Now, Mrs. Stag was a decided connoisseur in gin, and she suddenly assumed a thoughtful air, and looked up to the ceiling as she slightly moved her lips. "Rather an unusual taste after it's down, don't you think, sir?" she said. "Has it? Well, I don't know. Perhaps you have been tasting a pie, madam, and that may have influenced the flavour. Try it again. You never can tell the taste of a glass of gin, in my opinion, until you have taken two at least. Try this, Mrs. Stag." "Really II. Thank you, sir." Off went a second glass, and then Todd glared at her with the eyes of a fiend, as he said, placing the bottle upon the counter, "That ought to be a dose, I think." "Sir?" stammered Mrs. Stag. "IIGod bless meIsirginIthat is lots of piesgingravy. Mrs. Lovettin the crown of a bonnetImy dear, my dearBless us all. Lock it all upnonono. GinIgood againPiesgravy." Todd caught her by the throat or she would have fallen; and then, as she became quite insensible, he thrust her under the counter. Todd Performs An Operation On Mrs. Stag. Todd Performs An Operation On Mrs. Stag. CHAPTER CI. TODD MAKES HIMSELF QUITE AT HOME IN BELLYARD. "Idiot!" said Todd, as he spurned the insensible form of Mrs. Stag with his foot. "Idiot! I would kill you, but that it would not do me any good. The narcotic you have taken in the gin may or may not carry you off for all I care. It don't matter to me one straw." He glared around him for a few moments with the fierceness of an ogre, and then walking to the shopdoor, he deliberately locked and bolted it, so that no one could get in, even if they were expiring for a pie. "Humph," he said. "This is a time of day when it is not likely the shop will be troubled with many customers. It is between the batches, I know, so I am safe for an hour; and during that time if I do not make some discoveries here, it will surely be my own fault." Again he glared around him with the ogrelike aspect, and he ran his eyes carefully over the whole shop, from corner to cornerfrom floor to roof, and from roof to floor. At length he said "Where now, if I were hiding anything, would I select a place in this shop?" After putting this question to himself Todd again ran his eyes over the shop, and at length he came to the conclusion that it was not there he should seek for any hiding place at all, and he certainly paid the sagacity of Mrs. Lovett one of the highest compliments he possibly could by concluding that she would do as he would under like circumstances. "No," he said. "The shop is no hiding place for the secret store of my late friend Mrs. Lovett. Nono. I must seek in the very centre of her home, for that which I would find. Let me thinklet me think." Todd felt himself quite at home in Bell Yard. He was in truth the landlord of the house. It had not been safe to make the extensive underground alterations in the place if Mrs. Lovett had been the tenant of a stranger merely; so Todd had purchased the freehold, and such being the case, and his tenant, the charming Mrs. Lovett, being as he firmly believed, at the bottom of the Thames, who should feel at home in the place if he, Sweeney Todd, did not? He felt that he had time, too. There was no hurry in life, and he quite smiled to himself, as he said "How often I have longed for a rummage among my dear departed friend Mrs. Lovett's goods and chattels, and now how many happily and singly circumstances have changed about to enable me to gratify my inclination. Ha!" Todd, in the security of his bad heart, uttered one of his old laughsbut then for the whole of that day he had been unusually happy. His good terms with himself shone out even of his eyes, horrible eyes. "Yes," he said, "yes, she is deaddeaddead. Ha! ha! Mrs. Lovettclever, fascinating creaturehow muddy you lie tonight. Ha!" It was not prudent, however, to waste time, although he had plenty of itit never is; so up rose Todd, and proceeded to the parlour. How fastlocked the door was! "Now really," he said, "it is a thousand pities that poor dear Mrs. L. has gone down to the bottom of the Thames with her keys in her pocket. It would have made no manner of difference in the world to her to have let me have them. It would have saved me some little trouble, and the doors some little damage." With a malicious grin, as though he delighted in the mischief he had made, he dashed himself bodily against the parlour door, and burst it open with a crash. "That will do," he said. "To be sure, the party who, when my absence gets noised about, comes to take possession of this house, would rather that the doors were whole; but what of that? Ha! I have mortgaged it twice over for its full value, and they may fight about it if they like. Ha! ha! How they will litigate, and I shall read the pleasant account of it in the papers." By this time Todd was in Mrs. Lovett's parlour, and folding his arms across his breast, he gazed about him with a feeling of marked satisfaction, as he said "For five years she has been making, of course, a private purse for herself, the dear creature, as well as looking to the share of the money in the bank; and for the last few weeks, since our agreement together has not been quite so perfect, she has kept all her takings herself; so reasoning upon that, she must, bless her provident spirit, have a tolerable sum laid by somewhere, which I, as her executor, will most assuredly pounce upon." At this moment some one clamoured for admission at the shopdoor, rapping at it with a pennypiece in a manner that sounded very persevering. "Curses on you," muttered Todd, "who are you?" "A twopennya twopennya twopenny!" cried a boy, who was at the door, in a singsong sort of voice"I want a twopennya twopenny." Rap, rap, rap! went one of the pennypieces against the upper half of the shopdoor, which was of glass. Rap, rap, rap! Todd felt quite convinced that that boy would not go without some sort of answer being given to his demand, so he slunk round the shop, crouching down, until he came close to the door, and then assuming one of his most hideous faces, he suddenly rose up, and from within half an inch of the boy's face upon the other side of the glass, he confronted him. So horrible and so completely unexpected was this face to the boy, that for a moment or two he seemed to be absolutely paralysed by it, and then, with a cry of terror, he dropped the pennypiece with which he had been rapping the window, and fled up Bell Yard as though the evil one himself were at his heels. "That will do," said Todd. He went back to the parlour and glared round him again in the hope of finding something there, but the only cupboard which he observed was fast locked. One blow with the poker, using it javelinlike, forced it open, and Todd began flinging out upon the floor the glass and china, with which it was well enough filled, without any mercy. What cared he for such matters? Would he not before twelve hours now be miles and miles away? What, then, was glass and china to him? Nothingabsolutely nothing. He was disappointed, though, for he did not find the supposed concealed hoard of Mrs. Lovett behind the other things in this cupboard. "Be it so," he said. "No doubt she fancies her bedroom is the safest place, after all, for her moneythat is easily sought. Bless you, Mrs. Lovett, I will find your gold yet!" With this view, Todd, by the aid of the poker, broke open another door, namely, the one which led from the parlour to the staircase, that would enable him to ascend to the upper part of the house. Truly, Mrs. Lovett was great in the lockingup wayvery great indeed. Todd was now getting out of patience just a little, but only a little, that was all. He naturally enough in his own house wanted to make discoveries a little quicker than he was making them, that was all; and so he felt put out of his way a little, as any gentleman might under such circumstances. He swore a little, and was not so polite in his mention of the deceased Mrs. Lovett as he might have been. He ascended the stairs three at a time. "I wonder," he said, when he reached the top of the first flight; "I wonder where the wily wretch slept. She never would let me up stairs since she occupied the house." The lockingup propensities of Mrs. Lovett did not continue past the groundfloor; and Todd found all the doors upon the floor he was now on readily enough yield to his touch. The second one he went into was undoubtedly the room he sought. It was rather elegantly furnished as a bed chamber; and as Todd stood in the centre of the floor, he chuckled to himself, and muttered "Ha! when she rose this morning, she did not quite fancy she was taking her last look at this chamber. Ha! ha! Well, my dear Mrs. L., you had some taste, I will admit, for this room is very nicely got up. It is a world of pities you had not sense enough to be my slave, but you must try to be my equal, which in your poor vanity you thought I could permit. Nonono!that was impossible. Why should I single you out of all the world, Mrs. Lovett, to be just to?" This, in Todd's estimation, was a very conclusive argument, indeed. Whether it would have been so to Mrs. Lovett is another thing. And now the arch villain commenced a search in the chamber of his victim of the most extraordinary character for minuteness that could possibly be conceived. It was quite clear that there he expected to find something worth looking for, and that if he were foiled, it should not be for want of due diligence in the investigation. Todd Destroys Mrs. Lovett's Furniture. Todd Destroys Mrs. Lovett's Furniture. In the course of ten minutes, the trim and wellkept bedroom was one scene of confusion and disorder. The dressingglass was thrown down, and, being in his way once, was kicked to the other end of the room, and smashed to fragments. The bedclothes were tossed hither and thither in the most reckless manner. Boxes were burst open and ransacked, but all in vain. Not one pennypiece could Todd discover. "Confound her!" he said, as he wiped his brow with a lace cap he picked off the dressingtable; "confound her! I begin to suspect that what she had of her own she put in her pocket this morning, and it has gone down to the bottom of the river with her! How infernally provoking!" He peeped up the chimney, and got nothing by that motion but a flop of soot in his eye. He stamped and swore and cursed in the most horrible manner that can possibly be conceived. Feeling that Mrs. Lovett in the matter of her little private savings had been one too many for him, he looked rather hopelessly through the other rooms of the house. They were all completely vacant, and from the appearance of the dust upon the floors of them did not seem to have been entered for years past. He gave up the search in despair, and gloomily walked down stairs to the parlour again. "It is lost," he said. "It is lost. Well, I must even be content with that which I have I don't think any one will be the richer for what is here. No, no. It could not have escaped my search, and if it has done so by a miracle, or next thing to one, it will remain until the house falls to pieces years hence, perhaps, and fall into the hands of some one when I am deNonowhat puts that word dead into my mouth? I hate to think of it! I am young in constitution, and shall live manymany years yet; oh, yes, II need have no fear of death." Todd glared round him as though he expected that the very impersonification of the grim King of Terrors would rise up before him to take vengeance for being treated so slightingly; but all was still. He wiped his brow again with the lace cap of Mrs. Lovett, which he had mechanically retained when he left the bedroom, and then he began to ask himself what should be done with the shop. "For a few hours yet," he said, "a few short hours, there must be no disturbance and no commotion in this neighbourhood with which my name may possibly be connected. After that, they may do what they like and say what they like, but now all must be peace and silence. What shall I do with this confounded shop, now? I wish I had not given so strong a dose of the narcotic to you, old woman, left in charge by Mrs. Lovett. Ah, what is that?" The sound from the shop as of some one being violently sick, came upon Todd's ears. "Ah," he said, "so the narcotic has taken that effect, has it, upon Mrs. Lovett's representative? Well, well, she will recover from it much sooner than I thought she would, and that will now be all the better, for it absolves me of my difficulty about the shop for the next few hours." He walked into the shop and found Mrs. Stag sitting up behind the counter, and in rather a dubious condition as regarded the peace of her stomach. "Well, ma'am," said Todd. "How are you now?" "The Lord have mercy upon us!" "Amen! But how came you in this state, ma'am?" "The pies, sir. The pies. You really have no idea of how very rich they are, sir. It's all along of the pies, that's all, sir; but I am getting better, though my head is none of the best." "Yes," said Todd. "Of course it was the very rich pies. It could not have been what you drank." "Oh, no, no. Oh, dear no. That wasn't enough to hurt an infant, sir, as you ought to know. What a mercy it is that Mrs. Lovett has not come home, for she is rather a violent woman at times. It's really quite a mercy." "She won't be home just yet, I think," said Todd. "You will have time to get completely to rights before you see her, and when you do see her I would advise you to make your peace with the other world as quickly as you can!" Todd closed the parlour door; and as it was only the lock that had given, it did not show much symptoms of what had happened to it; as that in all likelihood Mrs. Stag, supposing that it was fast as she had first found it, would not pay any attention to it or scrutinise it sufficiently to be aware that it had been at all tampered with by any one. "Only a few hours after all," muttered Todd, "and then I don't care what anybody thinks or says about this shop and its affairs, or about me in connection with them. Ah, I had quite forgotten. I wonder what Mrs. Lovett's cook is about?" Todd paused, and gave some few moments' thought to the cook. He had an idea of going down to the oven cellar, and killing him, so that he might feel quite certain he was out of the way of perpetrating any mischief; but a second thought determined him in the other way. "Nono," he said. "What can he do? No doubt the house will be shut after a time, and then he will starve to death. Ha!" CHAPTER CII. TAKES A SLIGHT GLANCE AT TOBIAS AND HIS INTENDED. The idea of the cook being starved to death, had quite reconciled Todd to the notion of leaving him alone; so he left the shop, and proceeded to his own domicile in Fleet Street, and as nothing of great moment has occurred during his absence, we will take the liberty of conducting the reader to the house of Colonel Jeffery, and taking a slight peep at our old friend Tobias, whom we left in rather a critical position. Tobias had been in so delicate a condition, prior to the last outrage of Todd at the colonel's house, that one might suppose such a thing would go far towards terminating his mortal career, and so indeed it did; but in youth there is such a tenacity to life that we may fairly look for the most extraordinary things in the shape of clinging to the vital principle, and in the way of getting over injuries. Poor Tobias was, to be sure, thrown back by Todd's attack, but he was not destroyed. The medical man gave it as his opinion, that the mental shock was by far worse than the physical injury, and he said to the colonel "Some means must be devised to make him believe that he is quite free from any further attack upon the part of Todd, or he will never recover. He will awaken, it is true, from the trance he is now in, but it will be to all the horrors and dread of some expected fresh attack from Todd." "But I will assure him of my protection," said the colonel. "I will in the most positive manner tell him that he shall here be perfectly safe from that man." "Excuse me, colonel," replied the surgeon, "but all that was done before, and yet Tobias has found that Todd reached him, even in one of the rooms of this house. You will find that he will be very sceptical regarding your powers to protect him now from that bold and infamous man. I hope I am not offending you, colonel, by my plain speaking?" "Not at all my dear sir, not at all. Do not think of such a thing. Plain speaking, when it is dictated by friendly feeling, is one of the most admirable things in all the world, and no one can possibly admire it more than I do. I feel, too, the full force of what you have said, and that to the ears of Tobias it would sound like a farce for me to offer to protect him from the further assaults of Sweeney Todd." "But something may be done that is quite of a decisive character upon the subject, colonel." "What do you mean?" "I mean, that to sick folks I say anything that I think will tend to their recovery, even although I may feel that I am a little transgressing the bounds of truth. We must consider what we say to people in the position of Tobias, as so much medicine artfully administered to him.
" "I quite agree with you, and I feel that you have some important suggestion to make to me regarding Tobias. What is it?" "Then, colonel, if I were you, I should not hesitate for one moment to tell him that Todd was dead." "Dead?" "Yes, that is the only thing that will thoroughly convince Tobias he has nothing further to fear from him. I think it not only one of those delusions that are in themselves harmless, but I think it a justifiable dose of moral medicine." "It shall be done," said the colonel. "It shall be done. I do not hesitate about it for a moment. I thank you for the idea, and if that will do Tobias any good, he shall have the full benefit of it at my hands. Shall we seek him now?" "Yes, I hope that he is in a state to fully comprehend what is said to him, and in that case the sooner we say this from which we expect such good results, the better it will be. I am most anxious to witness the effect it will have upon his mind, colonel. If I mistake not, it will be one far exceeding anything you can suppose." Upon this they both went up stairs to the chamber in which poor Tobias lay. The boy was upon a bed, lying to all appearance bereft of sense. His breathing was rather laborious, and every now and then there was a nervous twitching of the muscles of the face, which bespoke how ill at ease the whole system was. At times too he would mutter some incoherent words, during which both the medical man and the colonel thought they could distinguish the name of Todd. "Yes," said the surgeon, "that is the spectre that is ever present to the imagination of this poor boy and we must speedily get rid of it from him, or it will assuredly kill him. I would not answer for his life another twentyfour hours, if his fancy were still to continue to be tortured by an expectation of the appearance of Todd." "Will you, or shall I, speak to him?" "You, if you please, colonel; he knows your voice better no doubt than he does mine." Colonel Jeffery bent his head close down to Tobias's ear, and in a clear correct voice spoke to him. "Tobias, I have come to say something very important to you. It is something which I hope will do you good to hear. Do you comprehend me, Tobias?" The sufferer uttered a faint groan, as he tossed one of his arms uneasily about upon the coverlet. "You quite understand me, Tobias? Only say that you do so, and I shall be satisfied to go on, and say to you what I have to say." "Todd, Todd!" gasped Tobias. "Oh, God! cominghe is coming." "You hear," said the surgeon. "That is what his imagination runs upon. That is proof conclusive." "It is, poor boy," said the colonel. "But I wish I could get him to say that he fully comprehends my words." "Never mind that. I would recommend that you make the communication to him at once, and abruptly. It will, in all likelihood, thus have more effect than if you dilute it by any great note of preparation before it reaches his ears." The Colonel nodded his acquiescence; and then, once more inclining his mouth to Tobias's ear, he said, in clear and moderately loud accents "Sweeney Todd is dead!" Tobias at once sprang up to a sitting posture in the bed, and cried "No, no! Is it really so?" "Yes," added the colonel. "Sweeney Todd is dead." For a moment or two Tobias looked from the colonel to the surgeon, and from the surgeon to the colonel, with a bewildered expression of countenance, and then burst into tears. "That will do," said the surgeon. "It has succeeded?" whispered the colonel. "Fully. It could not do better. He will recover full consciousness now when those tears are over. All will go well with him; but do not, by word or look, insinuate the remotest doubt of the truth of what you have told him. It would be better to say the same thing to any of the servants that may come about him." "I willI will; and particularly to his master, whom I would as soon trust with a secret as I would with the command of a regiment of cavalry." Tobias wept for the space of about ten minutes, and then he looked up with a face in which there was a totally different expression to what it had borne but a short time previously, and with a faltering voice he spoke "And so Todd is gone at last?" "He has," replied the colonel; "and, therefore, you may now, Tobias, make your mind quite easy about him." "Oh, quitequite!" By the long breath that Tobias drew, it was evident what an exquisite relief it was to him to be able to feel that the man who had been the bane of his young life was no more. No assurance of protection from him could have come near the feeling of satisfaction that he now felt in the consciousness of such a release. But Todd being dead, settled the affair at once. There was no drawback upon his satisfaction. "Oh!" he said, "I do indeed feel that life is with me again, and that I can be happy. Where is Minna?" "She cannot remain here always," replied the colonel; "but she will be in the house shortly, upon a visit to your mother, and you shall yourself have the pleasure of communicating the welcome news of Todd's death to hernews which to her bears as great a significance as it does to you." "Oh, yes," replied Tobias. "Minna will be pleased. We ought not to rejoice at the death of any one; but then Todd was so very, very bad a man, that his dying is a good thing, as it keeps him from loading his soul with more wickedness." "That," said the medical man, "is the proper view to take of the matter, Tobias; but now you will permit me to say to you that you should not talk too much, nor overtax your young strength. I will darken the room, by closing the shutters; and it is highly desirable that you should enjoy a few hours calm sleep, which now, with the conviction that Todd is dead, I do not see any difficulty in your doing." "Oh, nono," said Tobias, with quite a bright expression upon his face. "Oh, no. I shall sleep well now. Quite well, for what have I to fear now?" These few words were spoken in such a tone of calm composure, that the colonel had every reason to rejoice in the experiment he had tried, upon the advice of the medical man. The latter closed the shutters of the room all but one, so that there was but a soft and chastened light in the room; and then, with a smile upon his face, Tobiasafter hoping that they would arouse him when Minna should come, and receiving a promise that wayturned his face to his pillow, and composed himself to the first pure rest he had had since the attack that the villain Todd had made upon him in the colonel's house. "It is not much of a deception," said Colonel Jeffery to the surgeon, when the latter was leaving the house, "for I believe now that Todd's hours are indeed numbered. He will be arrested tonight." "I am glad to hear it," replied the surgeon. "Such a notable villain ought to be as quickly as possible put out of the world." "He ought, indeed; and from what I hear from Sir Richard Blunt, I believe that before twentyfour hours are gone over my head, the whole of London will ring with the name of Todd, and the story of his frightful criminality." Tobias slept quietly, and securely for four hours, during which space of time he was twice visited by Minna Gray, who had arrived while he was in that state of repose. The colonel, although he felt the danger of letting Mrs. Ragg know that the report to Tobias of the death of Todd was premature, felt no such scruple with regard to Minna. Indeed he considered that it would have been an insult to her judgment not to have told her exactly how the case stood. When she heard it all, and upon visiting Tobias's bedroom, found what a sweet sleep he was in, and what a quiet gentle smile was upon his face, she tearfully acknowledged what a good thing the innocent deception was which had produced such a result. "It will save him," she said. "It will," replied the colonel; "and be sure that you keep sufficient guard over yourself to keep from betraying the secret." "Oh, sir, trust me, I will." "And remember that in this house, Minna, it is known only to you and to me. If Tobias should ask you anything about it, you had better know nothing, for I promised him that he should have the pleasure of making the communication to you himself, therefore you cannot be puzzled by any questions regarding particulars when he is your informant." Minna joyfully concurred with all that the colonel said upon this head; and then, after a long talk with Mrs. Ragg in the kitchenthat good lady having the most implicit faith in the story of the death of Todd, and the profoundest hope that she should soon hear the full particulars of that eventshe betook herself to the bedside of Tobias, there to await his awakening. When he did open his eyes, they were clear and bright, and the fever had left his brow and cheeks. The first object his eye rested upon was Minna, and the first words he said were "Todd is dead!" "Ah, then, Tobias, you have nothing now to fear, for you have not an enemy in the world." "No," he cried, "I have now nothing to fearbut, my Minna, my own, my beautiful! how much I have to love! We shall be now, Minna, very, very happy, indeed, and God will bless me for your dear sake!" CHAPTER CIII. MR. LUPIN HAS A SINGULAR INTERVIEW WITH MRS. OAKLEY. Amid all the exciting circumstances that it has been our duty to relateamid the turmoil of events consequent upon the wild villainy of Todd, and the urgent attempts of Mrs. Lovett to get her accounts auditedwe have very much lost sight of Mrs. Oakley. Perhaps the reader has not been altogether unwilling to lose sight of a lady who, we will admit, was not calculated to make great advances in his esteem. But yet one thing must be recollected, and that is that Mrs. Oakley is Johanna's mother! That we opine is a fact which she should be given some degree of attention for; and insomuch as the bright eyes of the fair and nobleminded Johanna might be dimmed by an additional tear if anything very serious was to become of Mrs. Oakley, we will go a little out of our way just now to see what that deluded parsonridden woman is about. The outgoings and the incomings of Mrs. Oakley for a long time past had been so various and discursive, that the poor spectaclemaker had long since left off considering that he had anything in the shape of a domestic establishment. Certainly, Johanna was always at hand, until lately, to attend to her father's comfortsbut the wife never. There was either a prayermeeting, or a lovefeast, or some congregation or another assembled to hear or to see Mr. Lupin; so that if the wife and the mother went to such places to learn her duties, it was pretty evident that the lesson occupied the whole of her time. But still at times she did come home. At odd seasons she was to be found groaning and snuffling at the fireside in the little dark parlour at the back of the shop; but now for some few days she had totally disappeared. Mr. Oakley was alone. Up a dingy court in the City, not a hundred miles from the dingy purlieus of Monkwell Street, there was a dingy conventicle, upon the front of which the word "Ebenezer" announced its character, or its wouldbe character. The upper part of this chapel was converted into a dwellingplace, and there luxuriated Mr. Lupin. The flock (geese, of course!) of the reverend gent rented the edifice, so that there he was rent free, and there he was in the habit of inviting to tea such of the females of his congregation who either had money of their own, or whose husbands had tills easily accessible, or pockets into which the wife's hand could be dipped at discretion; and dipped it generally was at indiscretion;for folks, whether they be wives or not, when they can dip into other folks' pockets, do not always know how much to take just and no more. Now Mr. Lupin had established a Threedaystwohours andgeneralsubscriptionsaving graceprayer, which consisted of praying every two hours for three days and three nights, and at each prayer making an offering in hard cash for the use of the church and the gospel, he (Mr. Lupin) being both the church and the gospel. Alas! what will not human folly in the name of religion stoop to! There were womenmothers of families, who came to Mr. Lupin's house above the chapel with what plunder they could get together, and there actually stand the three days and three nights, the reverend gent making it is duty to keep them awake at the end of every two hours at least, as he pretended to pray, and sending them away completely placid, but with the comfortable conviction, as they themselves expressed it, that their "souls were saved alive." Mrs. Oakley was one of these dupes. Now, although these proceedings were very profitable to Mr. Lupin, he found that it was very irksome to get up himself in the middle of the night to awaken the sinners to prayer, so he used to introduce brandyandwater after he had pretty well tired out his devotee, and ascertained the amount of money he was likely to get, and in the confusion of mind consequent upon that gentle stimulant, the time went on very glibly. "Sister Oakley," said Lupin, on the evening of the first day of Mrs. Oakley's residence beneath his highlyspiritual roof. "Sister Oakley, truly you will be a great brand snatched from the burningHow much money have you got?" "Alas!" said Mrs. Oakley, "business must be bad, for I only found in the till three pounds elevenandsixpence." Mr. Lupin groaned. "But I will from time to time take what I can, and let you have it, for the welfare of one's precious soul is above all price." "Truly, Sister Oakley, it is, and you may as well give me the small instalment now if it shall seem right unto thee, sister. I thank you in the name of the Lord! Humphonly three pounds elevenandsixpence. Well, well, we shall do better another time, perhaps, sister. Rest in peace, and I will from time to time come in and awaken thee to prayer. Truly and verily I have a hard time of it always." It was on the second night that fatigue had had a great effect upon Mrs. Oakley, and upon the reverend gent likewise that he brought her a tumbler of hot brandyandwater, saying as he placed it by her "Truly I have had a dream, and the Lord told me to give you this. I pray you take it, Mrs. O., and may it put you in mind of the glory of the world that is to comeAmen!" Mr. Lupin retired, and as the stimulant was not at all an ungrateful thing to Mrs. Oakley, she was about to raise it to her lips, when a stunning knock at the chapel door made her give such a start, that she dropped glass, and spirit, and spoon to the ground. No doubt, a repetition of the knock at the moment, prevented Lupin from hearing the crash, which the fall in spirits produced. Mrs. Oakley heard him open the window of his room, and in a voice of stifled anger cry "Who is there? Who is there?" "It's me, Groggs, and you know it," said a female voice. "Come down and open the door, or I will rouse the whole neighbourhood." "Come, you be off. I have some one here." "What, another idiot? Ho!ho!ho! Why, Groggs, they will find you out some day, and limb you. If they only knew that you were Groggs the returned transport, how they would mob you to be sure. But I have come for money, old fellow, and I will have it. I ain't drunk, but I have had enoughjust enough, mark me old boy, and you know what I am capable of when that's the case. I am your wife and you know it. Ho! ho!" Dab came the knocker again upon the chapel door. "Do you want to be my ruin?" said Lupin. "Stay a moment and I will throw you out five shillings; but if you make any noise you shall not have one farthing from me." "Shall I not? Ha!ha! Shall I not? Five shillings indeed!" The lady upon this, feeling no doubt that both her wants and his powers of persuasion were made very light of, commenced such a tremendous knocking at the door, that the terrified Lupin at once descended to let her in, uttering such terrible curses as he went that Mrs. Oakley was petrified with dismay. Foolish woman! Did she expect that her idol would turn out to be anything but a common brazen image? In the course of a few moments she heard the couple coming up stairs again, and when they reached the top, she heard Lupin say, "Confound you, you always will come with your infernal demands at the very worst and most awkward times and seasons to me. Did you not take ten pounds some time ago, and promise to come near me no more?" "Ha!ha! Yes, I did. But I am here again you see. You thought I would drink myself to death with that amount of money, and that you would get rid of me, but it did me good. Ho!ho!ho! The good stuff did me good." "You are a fool," said Lupin. "I tell you, woman, you will be my ruin, my absolute ruin; and then where will your supplies come from I should like to know? Why I have an idiot only in the next room, of whom I hope to make a good thing; and if you had only come in five minutes sooner you would have been heard by her, and I should have been done up here." "And why don't she hear you now? Have you cut her throat like you did the woman's by Wapping?" "Hush!hush! you devil! Why do you allude to that?" "Because I like, my beauty. Because I know you did it. And whenever I do mention it, the gallows shines out in your face as plainay, as plain as this hand; and I like to see you quake and change colour, and be ready almost to fall down with your fears. Ho!ho! I like that. Yes, it's as good to me as a drop of drink, that it is." "I only wish your throat was cut, that is all." "I know you do. But you won't try that on upon me. Nono. You won't try that on. Look at this, my beauty. Do you think I would step into a place of yours without something in the shape of a friend with me? Ohnono" The lady exhibited the handle and point of the blade of a knife, as she spoke, at which Mr. Lupin staggered back, and then in a faltering voice he said "I will go and see how my portion has worked with the idiot I mentioned. I gave her a good dose of laudanum in a glass of brandy and water." It may be imagined with what feelings Mrs. Oakley heard this interesting little dialogue. It may be imagined, if she had at the bottom of her heart any lingering feelings of right or wrong, how they were likely to be roused up by all thishow her thoughts were likely to fly back to the house she had made wretched, and virtually deserted for so long a period of time. And now what was to become of her? Had she not heard Lupin denounced by one who knew him well as a murdereran allegation which he had not even in the faintest manner denied? Mrs. Oakley went down upon her knees in earnest, and wringing her hands, she cried "God save me for my poor husband and my child's sake!" We will suppose that if any appeals at all reach Heaven, that this was one of those that would be sure to get there. Hastily pushing aside with her hands the fragments of the broken glass, Mrs. Oakley flung herself upon the floor, at the moment that Lupin with a light in his hand entered the room. "Hilloa!" he said. All was still. Mrs. Oakley did not move hand nor foot. She scarcely dared to breathe, for she felt that upon his belief that she had swallowed the narcotic her life rested. When he saw her lying upon the floor, he gave a short laugh, as he said "I thought she could not resist the brandy and water. The laudanum has done its work quickly indeed. It's well that it has, for if it had not Well, well! If I only now had the courage to take a knife to my wife, and get rid of her once and for all, I should do well. Sister Oakley, you will not awaken for many hours, and when you do, you will be by far too much confused to know if you have said all your prayers or not. I shall make a fortune out of these women." Mrs. Oakley felt upon the point of fainting, and if he had but touched her, she was certain that she must have gone off; but he felt so satisfied with the powerful dose of laudanum that he had given her in the brandy and water, that he did not think it worth while in any way further to interfere with her. "Old and ugly too!" he muttered, as he left the room. Perhaps these last words cut Mrs. Oakley to the soul more quickly than all he had previously said. If she was not from that moment cured of what might in her case be called Lupinism, it was a very odd thing indeed. The Rev. gent had been gone more than ten minutes before Mrs. Oakley gathered courage to look up, and to listen to what was taking place in the next room. Then she found that Lupin was speaking. She was still too much overcome by terror to rise, but she managed to crawl along the floor, until she reached the wall between the two rooms. It was a flimsy wall that, composed only of canvas, for the rooms above the chapel had been got up in a very extemporaneous kind of way. Nothing could take place in the way of conversation in the next room, that might be distinctly enough heard in the one that Mrs. Oakley was in. As we have said, Lupin was speaking. Mrs. Oakley placed her ear close to the canvas, and heard every word that he uttered. "Listen to reason," he said, "listen to reason, Jane. Of course, I will give you as much money as I can. I do not attempt to deny your claim upon me, and what is to hinder us working together, and making a good thing of it? Ah, if I could only persuade you to be a religious woman." "Gammon!" said Jane. "I know that very well," said Lupin. "That's the very thing. I know it is gammon as well as you do. What's that?" Mrs. Oakley had made a slight noise in the next room. CHAPTER CIV. MRS. OAKLEY SEES A STRANGE SIGHT, AND THINKS THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME. "What's that, eh?" added Lupin. Mrs. Oakley sank flat upon the floor in a moment; she thought that now surely her last hour was come. "I thought I heard a noise. Did you, Jane?" added Lupin. "I didn't hear anything," said the woman. "It's your conscience, old boy, that makes you hear all sorts of things. You know you are a hard one, and no mistake. You know, there ain't exactly your equal in London for a vagabond. But come, hand out the cash, for I ain't particularly fond of your company, nor you of mine, I take it." "It must have been imagination," muttered Lupin, still alluding to the noise he had heard or fancied he had heard. "It must have been imagination, and the wind at night does certainly make odd noises in the chapel at times, know." "Bother the noises. Give me the money, and let me go, I say. Come, be quick about it, or else I shall think of some way of helping myself, and you know when I begin, that I am apt to be rather troublesome." "A little," said Lupin. "Just a little. But as I was saying, Janeyou and I together might make a fortune quite easily. You are a clever woman." "Am I really? When did you find that out, you old rogue?" "Really, Jane, it is difficult to talk with you while you are in such a humour. Come, will you take something to drink? Say you will, and you shall have the very best I can get you. Only you must promise to take it in moderation, and not get much the worse for it, Jane." "Do you think now that I am such an idiot as to take a drain of anything in your place? No! I am not quite so green as that. Give me some money and I'll fetch something, and as long as I have got my hand on the bottle, where I will take good care to keep it, I shall know that I am safe from you, but not otherwise. You would like to give me a drop of the same stuff you have set the woman in the next room to sleep with, wouldn't you now, my beauty?" "No, Jane. Not you. You are not such a fool as to be taken in as she is. Such poor tricks won't do for you, I know well. There is money, and there is an empty bottle. Go and get what you like for yourself, as you wish not what I may happen to have in the place. I will let you in again, so you need not be afraid of that, Jane." "Afraid? Afraid? That's a likely thing, indeed. I afraid of being kept out by you? No, old boy, if you did keep me out one minute longer than my patience lasted, and that would not be very long I think, I would raise such a racket about your ears, that you would wish yourself anywhere but where you are. How did I get in before, when you would have given one of your ears to keep me out? Why, by frightening you, of course, and I'll do it again. Give me hold of the bottle. I afraid of you, indeed? A likely thing." The lady left the room with the bottle and half a guinea in her hand, while Lupin, with affected solicitude, lighted her to the door of the chapel, and lingered until he heard her footsteps die away right up the dismal dingylooking court. While Lupin was lighting his wife down the stairs, Mrs. Oakley found a small slit in the canvas that the division between the two rooms, and she industriously widened it, so that she was enabled to see into the adjoining apartment. She then waited in fear and in trembling the return of Lupin. The arch hypocrite was not many minutes in making his appearance. He set the candlestick down upon the table with a force that nearly started the candle out of it, and then in a fierce voice he cried "Doneshe is done at last! Ha! ha! Jane, you are done at last! I kept that bottle for an emergency. It seemed empty, but smeared all around its inner side is a sufficient quantity of a powerful narcotic to affect the very devil himself if he were to drink anything that had been poured into it. You think yourself mighty clever, Jane; but you are done at last. Now what a capital thing it is that I have sent that old fool, Mrs. Oakley, to sleep, for otherwise I should certainly be under the necessity of cutting her throat." Mrs. Oakley could hardly suppress a groan at this intelligence; but the exigences of her situation pressed strongly upon her, and she did succeed in smothering her feelings and keeping herself quiet. Lupin paced the room anxiously waiting for his wife's return; and in the course of about five minutes, a heavy dab of a single knock upon the chapel door announced that fact. He immediately snatched up the candle and ran down stairs to let her in, lest according to her threat she should get to the end of her very limited stock of patience. They came up the stairs togetherJane was speaking "Brandy!" she said; "I have got brandy, and I mean to keep my hand on the bottle, I tell you. Ah, I know youno one knows you better than I do. You may impose upon everybody but me. You won't find it so very easy a thing to get the better of me; I'll keep my hand on the bottle." "How very suspicious you are," said Lupin, "It's quite distressing." "Is it? Ho! ho! Well, I'll have my drop and then I will go. If you are civil to me whenever I choose to come it will be better for you; but I am not the sort of person to stand any nonsense, I can assure you." "No, Jane, I never said you were," replied Lupin; "and I hope that tonight will see the beginning as it were of a kind of reconciliation and better feeling between us. I am sure I always thought of you with kindness." By this time they were in the room, and the lady half drew the knife she had before exhibited from the bosom of her dress, as she said "Look at thislook at this! I distrust you all the more when you talk as you do now, and I tell you that if I have any of your nonsense, I will pretty soon settle you. You mean something, I know, by the twinkle of your eye. I have watched you before, and I know you." "Now, really, this is too bad," said Lupin, as he wiped his face with a remarkably old handkerchief; "this is too bad, Jane. If I am kind and civil to you, that don't suit; and if I am rough and rather stern, you fly out at that too. What am I to do? Will nothing please you?" "Bah!" said Jane. "Hold your nonsence. How much money am I to have when I have finished the brandy? That is the question now." "Will three guineas be enough, Jane, just for the present occasion?" "No, I must have five, or if you don't produce them, I'll make you." "You shall have them, Jane. You see how complying I am to you. But won't you give me a drop of the brandy? You don't mean to take it all?" "Yes I do. It's only half a pint, and what's that? You can drink some of what you said you had in the place. I didn't go out to buy for you. Besides, I won't trust it a moment out of my hands. You would put something in it before I could wink." "Really, really! What a strange woman. But won't you have a glass, Jane, to drink it out of? Let me get you a glass now?" "No, you would put something in that too. Oh, I am up to your tricks, I am, old boy. You won't get the better of me. Very good brandy it is, too. Ah! strong rather." Jane took a hearty pull at the bottle, so hearty a one that two thirds of the mixture vanished, and then with her hand on the neck of it, she sat glaring at Lupin, who was on the opposite side of the table, with an awfully satanic grin upon his ugly features. "It has an odd taste." "An odd taste?" cried Lupin. "It's a capital thing that you bought it yourself, and kept your hand over the bottle. I'm very glad of that, old woman." "But I feel oddIIain't the thing. I don't feel very well, Lupin." "Ha, ha, ha!" "II feel as if I were dying. II don't see things very clearly. I am illill. Oh, what is this? Something is amiss. Mercy, mercy!" "Ha, ha, ha!" "IIshall fall. Help! The room swims round with me. I am poisoned. I know I am. Mercy! help! murder! Oh, spare me." "Ha, ha, ha!" Lupin rose and went round the table. He caught hold of the wretched woman by the head, and applying his mouth close to her ear, he said "Jane! There was something in the bottle, and I intend to cut your throat. I hope the knife you have got with you has a good edge to it?" She tried to scream, but an indistinct, strange, stifled cry only came from her lips. She tried to get up, but her limbs refused their office. The powerful narcotic had taken effect, and she fell forward, her head striking the table heavily, and upsetting the bottle with the remainder of the drugged brandy in it as she did so. "Done!" said Lupin. "Done at last. Oh, how I have watched for such an opportunity as this. How often I have pleased myself with the idea of meeting her in some lonely place when she was off her guard, and killing her, but I never thought that anything could happen half so lucky as this. Let me think. I am quite alone in this building, or as good as alone, for Mrs. Oakley sleeps soundly. I can easily drag the dead body down stairs, and place it in one of the vaults underneath the chapel, to which I have the key. I will wrench open some coffin if that be all, and cram her in on the top of the dead there previously. Ah, that will do, and then I defy any circumstances to find me out. How safe amurI mean a death this will be to be sure. How veryvery safe." Mrs. Oakley shook in every limb, but she kept her eyes steadfastly fixed at the small hole in the canvas, through which she could see into the room, and by a horrible species of fascination, she felt that if she had ever so much wished to do so, she could not then have withdrawn it. No! she was as it were condemned as a fiat of destiny, as a punishment for her weak and criminal credulity regarding that man, to be a witness to the dreadful deed he proposed committing, within the sphere of her observation. It was dreadful. It was truly horrible. But it was not now by any means to be avoided. Lupin disappeared for a few seconds into a room where he usually himself slept. From thence he returned with a washhand basin in his hand, which he placed upon the floor. He then fumbled about the clothing of his wife until he found the knife that she had twice so threateningly exhibited to him. He held it up to the light and narrowly scrutinised it. "It will do I think," he said. He tried its keenness upon the edge of the sole of his shoe, and he was satisfied that it had been well prepared for mischief. "It will do well," he said. "Well, nothing can be better. From this night I shall be free from the fears that have haunted me night and day for so long.
This woman is the only person in all London who really knows me, and who has it in her power to destroy all my prospects. When she is gone, I shall be perfectly easy and safe, and surely never was such a deed as this done with so much positive safety." Mrs. Oakley felt sickened at what she saw, but still she looked upon it with that same species of horrible fascination which it is saidand said truly, tooprevents the victim of a serpent's glittering eye from escaping the jaws of the destroyer. She saw it all. She did not moveshe did not screamshe did not weepbut as if frozen to the spot, she, with a statuesque calmness, looked upon that most horrible scene of blood. She was the witness appointed by Heaven to see it done, and she could not escape her mission. Lupin twined his left hand in the hair at the back of the head of the wretched woman, and then he held her head over the washhand basin. There was a bright flash of the knife, and then a gushing, gurgling sound, and blood poured into the basin, hot, hissing and frothing. The light fell upon the face of Lupin, and at that time so changed was it, that Mrs. Oakley could not have recognised it, and, but that she knew from the antecedents that it was no other than he, she might have doubted if some devil had not risen up through the floor to do the deed of blood. He dropped the knife to the floor. Lupin Drugs His Wife, And Then Cuts Her Throat. Lupin Drugs His Wife, And Then Cuts Her Throat. The murdered woman made a faint movement with her arms, and then all was over. The blood still rolled forth and filled the washhand basin. Lupin caught the cover from the table, throwing everything that was upon it to the floor, and wrapped it many times round the head, face, and neck of his victim. "It is done!" he said. "It is done!" He still held the body by the hair of the head, and dragging it along the floor, he dropped it near the door opening on to the staircase. He then went to a cupboard in the room, and finding a bottle, he plunged the neck of it into his mouth, and drank deeply. The draught was ardent spirit, but it had no more effect upon him at that moment than as though it had been so much water from a spring. That is to say, it had no intoxicating effect. It may have stilled some of the emotions of dread and horror which his own crime must have called up from the bottom even of such a heart as his. He was human, and he could not be utterly callous. Leaning against the cupboarddoor for a few seconds he gasped out "Yes, it is done. It is quite done, and now for the worst. Now for the body, and the vaults, and the dead. Can I do it? can I do it? I must. Yes, I must. There is no safety for me if I do not. I shall come else to the scaffold. I think already that I see the hooting crowdthe rope and the crossbeam. Now they hold my arms. Now they tell me to call upon God for mercy to my wretched bloodstained soul. Now the mob shouts. The hangman touches meI feel the rope about my neck. They draw the cap over my face, and so shut out the world from me for ever. I dieI struggleI writheI faintGodGodGod help me!" He fell heavily to the floor of the room. CHAPTER CV. MRS. OAKLEY ESCAPES, AND TAKES A DIFFERENT VIEW OF THINGS IN GENERAL. Mrs. Oakley nearly fainted herself at this juncture, but she felt that her life was in jeopardy, and by a strong mental effort, such as she could hardly have supposed herself capable of making, she sustained herself, and preserved her senses. Lupin lay for some minutes quite insensible upon the floor, but he did not lie long enough for Mrs. Oakley to take advantage of his temporary swoon and leave the place. Had she perhaps been very prompt and resolute, and selfpossessed, she might have done so, but under the whole of the circumstances, it was not to be supposed that such could be her state of mind; so the slight opportunity, for, after all, it was only a slight one, if one at all, was let slip by her. She was just beginning to ask herself if there was a chance of getting away before Lupin should recover, when he uttered a hideous groan, and moved slightly. After these indications of recovery, Mrs. Oakley was afraid to move; and certainly, the slightest indication of her being otherwise than in the state of insensibility which Lupin believed to be her condition, there is very little doubt it would have been the signal for her death. The man who commits a murder for the attainment of any object of importance to him, will not scruple to commit another to hide the first deed from the eyes of the world. And now Lupin slowly rose to a sitting posture, and glared around him for a few moments in silence. Then he spoke. "What is this?" he said. "What is all this? What is the meaning of all this? Blood!blood! Is this blood upon my hands? Nonoyes, it isit is. Ah! I recollect." He held his bloodstained hands to his eyes for a few moments, and then as he withdrew them, he slowly turned his eyes to where the body lay. With a shudder he dragged himself along the floor further off from it, gasping out as he did so "Offoff, horrible object!offoff!" His distempered imagination, no doubt, pictured the body as following him. Is there not, indeed, a prompt retribution in this world? "Offoff, I say! No further!Not dead?not dead yet? How much blood have you in you now to shed? Offoff!" He reached the wall. He could get no further, and thus pursued still by the same wild insane idea, he sprung to his feet, and uttering a loud cry, he caught up a chair and held it out at arm's length before him, shouting "Keep awaykeep away! Keep off, I sayII did not do it. Who shall say I did it? Who saw me do it?" He slowly dropped the chair, and then in a more composed voice he said "Hush! hush! I am mad to raise these cries. They will alarm the court. I am madmad!" Mrs. Oakley had hoped that his ravings would reach some other ears then hers, and that his apprehension, with the bleeding witness of his crime close at hand, would follow as a thing of course, and then how gladly would she have flown from her place of concealment, and cried out "He did it! I saw him! That is the man!" But such was not the case. Either he really did not call out loud enough to make himself heard, or the inhabitants of the court were too much accustomed to all sorts of sounds to pay any attention even to the ravings of a murderer! No one came. No one even knocked at the chapeldoor to know if anything was amiss, and when she saw him calm, and in a measure selfpossessed again, her heart died within her. "Murder! murder!" he said; "I have done murder! Yes, I have steeped my hands in bloodagainagain! It is not the first time, but one does not become familiar with murder. I did not feel as I feel now when I took a life before. Oh, horror! horror!" He shook, but soon again recovered himself. "The vaults! The vaults!" he said. "They will hide the dead. Who will look for this woman? What friends has she? Is there one in all the world who cares if she be alive or dead? Not one. Is there one who will stir six steps to find out what has become of her? Not one." Again he solaced himself with a draught of brandy, and then he set about making his preparations for disposing of the dead body of his slaughtered victim. From a drawer in the room he took a large sheet, and spread it upon the floor. Then he kicked and pushed the dead body with his feet on to it, and then he deliberately rolled it up round and round in the sheet, and at each fold feeling that it was further removed from his sight, he seemed to breathe more and more freely. He spoke in something like his old tones. "That will dothat will do. The vaults will be the place. Was there ever such a cunning place for murder to be done in as a chapel, with its ready receptacles of the dead beneath it? There let her rot. She will never come up in judgment against me from there. It is done now. The deed that I often thought of doing, and yet never had the courage, nor the opportunity at the same time, to accomplish until tonight. The vaultsthe vaults. Ay, the vaults!" He lit a lantern that he took from the cupboard, and then he opened the door that communicated with the staircase terminating in the chapel. He listened as though he fancied that some one might be below listening to the deed of blood above. "All is still," he muttered, "so very still. It is providential. It is the will of Heaven that this woman should die to night, and after all I am but the instrument of its decreesnothing more. That is comforting." He now dragged the body to the door he had opened, but he did not carry it. When he got it there he overbalanced it, and let it fall down. Mrs. Oakley, even from where she was, heard the horrible smash with which it reached the bottom of the stairs. Lupin followed with the lantern. And now it would seem as if another opportunity had presented itself to Mrs. Oakley to escape. The staircase down which Lupin had gone communicated with the chapel. It was another flight that led to the ordinary door through which any one passed who might be coming to the private part of the house. That staircase of course she expected to reach without going through the room in which the murder was committed, as her room and the adjoining one both opened upon its landing as well as into each other. Mrs. Oakley slowly rose from her knees. "God help us," she said, "and give me strength to make an attempt to leave this frightful place. There will surely be time while Lupin is in the vaults. Oh, yes, there will surely be time." She tottered along with as little strength as though she had been lying for weeks upon a bed of sickness, so completely had she been unnerved by what she had seen. She touched the handle of the door. Even that was support. And then, she turned it. The door did not open. It was locked! Mrs. Oakley felt as if at that moment all her chance of escape was gone. She felt as though she were given over by providence to Lupin to be murdered. Why had he locked the door, but that if by any rare chance she should awaken from the lethargic sleep into which he supposed her to be plunged, she should have no outlet but through the room in which he would be? But he was not there now, and the door of communication between her room and that in which the murder had been done might not be fast. To try it was the work now of a moment; Mrs. Oakley felt a little more selfpossessed with the knowledge that Lupin was not close at hand, and she opened the door. It yielded readily enough to her touch. She was in the room of murderin the very atmosphere of blood. She glanced around her, and, although she had seen all through the opening in the canvas partition, yet she was horrified to find herself closer to the spot upon which the fearful deed had been done. Lupin, when he had lit his lantern with which to go to the vaults, had not extinguished the ordinary light that burnt in his room. That had a long spectrallooking wick; but it gave sufficient light to enable Mrs. Oakley to see the blood upon the floor. She sickened at the sight. But if she were to escape, it must be done at once. Lupin would not be likely to linger longer by one brief moment in the vaults than was absolutely necessary; and he might return before she had effected her purpose yet. She flew to the door of his room, which opened on to the landing. She made an effort to open it. Alas! it was in vain; it, too, was locked, and the key was gone! "I am a prisoner!" said Mrs. Oakley, as she clasped her hands; "I am a prisoner to this dreadful man!" For some few moments now she felt completely overwhelmed by this misfortune. The only outlet from the room that was not fast, was that which Lupin himself had taken, and which led to the chapel. Should she venture that way or not?that was the question. Could she resolve upon staying where she was, and trusting to an escape in the morning? No, no; she told herself that would be too horrible. She would have, then, to look at Lupin in the face, and to talk to him. "Nonono! I cannot do that," she said. "I will go down the staircase that he has gone downI will pass through the chapelI will try to open the chapel door, and then I will rush out with the cry of murder upon my lips." It was a trembling anxious thing to follow the murderer and his victim down that staircase; but having found all other mode of egress denied to her, Mrs. Oakley attempted it. Slowly she went, step by step; and ever and anon she paused to listen for any sound that should be indicative of Lupin's whereaboutsbut she heard nothing. "He must be deep beneath the chapel," she said, "among the vaultsthat is where he must be. I shall be safe if I hasten now. Oh, so safequite safe!" She did hasten, and another moment brought her to the foot of the stairs. A door in the chapelwall terminated them. That was the door against which Mrs. Oakley had heard the dead body strike with such a frightful crash when Lupin had cast it down the stairs. It was swinging open now. Another moment and she was in the chapel. From out of the aperture, occasioned by the lifting up of a large square trapdoor in the centre of the chapel floor, there came a faint stream of light. Mrs. Oakley knew that that trapdoor led to the vaults. She knew that a flight of steps was immediately beneath it which lead to the loathsome receptacles of the dead, where the pious members of Mr. Lupin's flock were laid when they and this world had bidden each other adieu. She knew that he derived no despicable revenue from letting such lodgings to the dead. And he was down there with his victimthe first person that he ever permitted to lie there without a fee! Mrs. Oakley, to reach the chapel door, must needs pass quite close to the open trapdoor; and as she neared it, a terrible curiosity took possession of herit was to see what Lupin was doing belowit was to ascertain in what way he disposed of his victim's body. She thought that she ought to see that. She thought, then, that she could tell all, and bring the hounds of justice to the very spot where the murdered woman lay. She paused for a moment upon the brink of the trap, and then, by an impulse that at the moment seemed, and was, irresistible, she began the descent among the vaults. These vaults were quite dignified by being so called. They were nothing but cellarsnothing in the world but damp gloomy cellarsand Lupin made as much of them as he did of the chapel overhead. The corpses lay there thick and threefold. A ghostly company! and yet Lupin had many underground lodgings to let. What cared he if the fumes from the dead came up, and made havoc upon hot Sundays among the living? What cared he what mischief the charnelhouse beneath the planks did to the old and to the young? His own constitution, he had a strong impression, could be fortified by copious libations of brandy. Probably he was wrong in his practice, but he had faith in his remedy, and that was a great thinga very great thing, indeed. Mrs. Oakley slowly crept down the steps leading to the vaults. She was guided by the faint light of Lupin's lantern, which was she knew not where. Twice she paused to listen if he were coming, as in such a case she would have flown back upon the wings of terror, but she heard nothing, and she passed onward. Twelve steps led to the lowest depth upon which the vaults were situated. Then there was a kind of passage, upon which were flag stones very roughly and clumsily laid down. Right and left of this passage the vaults were. It wound completely round the chapel, but she had not to go very far to ascertain where Lupin was at work. The light of the lantern guided her to the halfopen door of the vault, within which he was at work. CHAPTER CVI. MR. LUPIN FINDS HIMSELF IN AN AWKWARD PREDICAMENT. Mrs. Oakley peeped into the vault, but she held herself in readiness to fly at a moment's notice, and then she thought she could easily hide among the pews in the chapel. Nothing, she thought, could be very well easier than such a course. Could she not hide in the very pew that she had for a long time called her own? And then by watching Lupin, she should have the advantage of seeing in a moment when he had done his work, and there would then be little trouble in eluding him. On tiptoe, Mrs. Oakley advanced to the halfopened door of the vault, and peeped in upon the man, who thought himself so very safe. The eye of heaven, he must have thought, saw him; but he would have staked his life forthwith upon the fact, that no human observation was bent upon his actions; and yet there was some one for whom he entertained the greatest contemptone whom he would have defied to injure him, gathering up evidence to hang him. Go on, Lupin. Bury your victim. But don't think yourself so very safe just yet. It is an old saying, that "Murder will out." Do you think that yours will prove the exception? From a recess in the wall Lupin had dragged a coffin. It was an old one and rather rotten, so that by the aid of a small crowbar that he had therewhat use did Lupin find for a crowbar in the vaults beneath his chapel? Was it to rip open the coffins and rob even the dead? Well, wellby the aid of this crowbar, he soon forced open the lid of the coffin. He stood in it then, and stamped down the remains with his feet to make room for the murdered body. Mr. Lupin Crushes The Corpse To Make Room For His Murdered Wife. Mr. Lupin Crushes The Corpse To Make Room For His Murdered Wife. Mrs. Oakley sickened at this; she had not quite expected to see such a horror as that. It appeared to her at the moment, to be worse than the murder above stairs. She really felt quite faint as she saw him. When he had flattened the nearly decayed body in the coffin as much as he could, he lifted the corpse of his victim from the floor of the vault. It was still closely enveloped in the large sheet, although at one part the blood had begun to make its way through all the folds upon folds of that wrapper, and he threw it into the coffin. It more than filled it. Poor Mrs. Oakley shut her eyes; she knew what he was going to do. She knew it from what he had done, and she saw it in his eyes. He was of course going to tread down the dead body of her he had murdered, in the same way that he had already trodden down the halfdecomposed one in the coffin. Strange companionship! How little the very respectable defunct, who had been expensively placed in one of the vaults, could have imagined that sheit was a femalethat she should be trodden down as flat as any pancake, to make room for the Reverend Josiah Lupin's murdered wife! "To what base uses may we come as last." Mrs. Oakley heard him treading and stamping, and then she opened her eyes, and she saw him fitting on the lid of the coffin again. He had made it hold its double burthen. And now she had surely seen all that she came to see, and yet with a frightful fascination she lingered as though spellbound to the spot. She thought that she had plenty of time. Of course Lupin would put the coffin into its recess again, and that would take him some time. It would, with its additional weight, certainly be no easy task, but he set about it, and it is astonishing what herculean labours people will perform, when their necks are to answer for any delay or dereliction of the duty. Lupin dragged the coffin to its receptacle on a low shelf, and fairly hitched one end of it in the aperture made for its reception. By the assistance of the lever he pushed it fairly in, and then he paused and wiped his brow. "It is done," he said. He leaned heavily against the damp wall. "It is doneit is done. This will be one of the undiscovered murders that are done in London. I am safe now. Nobody will miss hernobody will look for hernobody will dream that this vault can possibly conceal such a crime; and now that the terror of it, and the horror of doing it, is all over, I feel like a new man, and am much rejoiced." "Rejoiced," thought Mrs. Oakley with a shudder. "She was the torment of my life," added Lupin. "I knew no peace while she lived. Success had no charm for me. Go where I would, think of what I would, do what I would, I always had the dread of that woman before my eyes; but nownow I am rid of her." He took up his lantern from the floor of the vault. Now it was time for Mrs. Oakley to fly. She turned and hastily ran up the staircase of the vault. The idea took possession, and it was after all only a fancy, that Lupin was pursuing her with the crowbar in his hand. But how it urged her on. What wings it gave her, but confused her the while, so that instead of hurrying to the chapel door, and making a bold effort to open it as she had meant to do, she only sought the door in the wall, and the staircase down which she had come to the chapel, nor did she pause until she found herself in the murder room. Then with a heart beating so wildly, that she was fain to lay her hands upon it in the hope of stopping its maddening pulsation, she stopped to listen. It was only fancy. It was a delusion. No Lupin was pursuing her from the vaults. "Thank Heaven!" she said. "Thank Heaven! but oh, why am I here? Why have I come here again, instead of making my escape by the chapel door? This is a fatal error. Oh, Heaven save me! Is there yet time? Does he linger yet sufficiently long in the vaults, to enable me to take refuge among the pews?" These were questions which the stillness in the chapel below seemed to answer in the affirmative, and once more Mrs. Oakley approached the staircase to descend it. She got three steps down the stairs, and then she heard a footstep below. It was too late. Lupin was coming up. Yes, it was too late! He approached with a heavy and regular footfall. That heaviness and regularity were sufficient evidences that he had not heard her, and had no suspicion that she nor any one else had been a witness to his crime. So far she was comparatively safe, but the blessed chance of escape without any meeting with him was gone. Upup, he came! Mrs. Oakley retreated step by step as he advanced. She passed into the chamber, which may for distinction's sake be called her own room, and there she cast herself upon the couch, and closed her eyes shudderingly. She had a presentiment that Lupin would come to look at her to see that she still slumbered. She was right. He had not been in the room where the deed of blood had been committed many minutes, when he opened the door of communication between the two apartments, and came in not with the lantern, but with the candle he had left burning upon the table. He did not come above three steps into the room, and then he spoke "Sister Oakley it is time to pray." Mrs. Oakley moved notspoke not. "Sister Oakley, will you be so good as to rise, and go to the corner of the next street on a little errand for me?" How tempting this was! but Mrs. Oakley had the discretion to imagine the wolf in the sheep's clothing now; she saw in all this only a clear mode of ascertaining if she were awake or not, and she would not speak nor move. This was, in truth, a wise policy upon the part of Mrs. Oakley. That it was so, became abundantly apparent when Lupin spoke again. "All is right," he said. "The opiate has done its work bravely, I feel easy now, and yet I don't know how I came for a moment to feel otherwise, or to imagine for a moment there was danger from this woman. If I only had any proof that there was, I would soon put it beyond her power to be mischievous. But, nono, she has slept soundly and knows nothing." It required, indeed, no ordinary nerve during this speech of Lupin's, for Mrs. Oakley to preserve the stillness of apparent deep sleep; but we none of us know what we can do until we are put to it; after all, what a just punishment to Mrs. Oakley was all that she was now going through. She had had more faith in that bold, bad, mountebank of a parson than in Heaven itself, and she was justly punished. Having then made this trial of her sleeping state, Mr. Lupin retired with the candle again, quite satisfiedat least one would have thought so; and as he had talked of the amazing ease of mind he felt now that he had, murdered his wife, it was rather surprising that he did not go to bed and sleep serenely instead of pacing his room to and fro for more than four hours mumbling disjointed words and sentences to himself as he did so, for Mrs. Oakley heard him, but she did not dare to move. Suddenly he flung open the door between the two rooms, and in a startling voice he cried "Fire! fire!" It was truly a wonder that upon this Mrs. Oakley did not jump up, it sounded so very alarming; but it was not to be, and with a presence of mind that surely was not all her own, she yet remained profoundly still. "Fool that I am," muttered Lupin, "to be continually assailed by dread of this woman, when everything assures me that she has been in a sound sleep caused by a powerful narcotic, during the whole night; but the morning is now near at hand, and she will soon awaken. I have already got what money I can, from her, and I must give her breakfast and then send her off. It would be useless to kill her." The manner in which Lupin pronounced these last words was very alarming for it implied rather that he was asking himself the question whether it would be useless to kill her or not, than the expression of a decided opinion; but still Mrs. Oakley moved not. Lupin, suddenly, as though he had quite made up his mind not to trouble himself about her any more, slammed to the door of communication between the two rooms. Mrs. Oakley breathed freely againthat is, comparatively freely; and yet what a shocking agonizing idea it was that she might have to breakfast with that dreadful man. What should she say to him?how should she look at him? The dawn was coming, and she shook with apprehension to find that such was the fact, and Lupin had said that she would soon awaken; so, effect to awaken she must, in order to keep up the delusion; but how should she manage then to deceive the suspicious vigilance of such a man? But all this had to be encountered. How was it to be avoided? She could do nothing but arm herself with such fortitude as she could call to her aid. Oh, how she wished herself in her own parlour behind the shop, and upon her knees asking the pardon of her husband for all that she had done, and for all that she had not done! What would she have not given even to have seen the honest face of big Ben, the beefeater! The light of the coming day grew each moment stronger, and at length Mrs. Oakley thought it would be prudent to seem to wake up, and calling out "Mr. Lupin! Mr. Lupin!" she rose from the couch. Lupin opened the door of communication between the two rooms, and glared at her. "Did you call, sister Oakley?" "Yes, reverend sir, surely I have been sleeping, and have forgotten some of the prayers." "No; truly, sister Oakley, I have watched for you, and I can assure you that you will enter into the kingdom always, provided that you are regular in your contributions to the chapel, for at the last that of a surety will be demanded to be known of you, sister Oakley." "I have been thinking of that, brother Lupin," said Mrs. Oakley, "and this day week I will manage to bring two pounds." "Only two?" "I will make it three, if I can, brother Oakley; but my head feels quite confused and giddy. It is very strange." "Ah," whispered Lupin to himself. "That is the natural effect of the narcotic. It has worked well. Then," he said aloud, "sister Oakley, I pray you to walk in to this room, and I will provide for you what the profane world call the breakfast, for although food for the soul is in alway preferable to food for the body, yet we must not always neglect our earthly tabernacle." "I am much obliged to you," said Mrs. Oakley. "You may depend upon my regular offerings to the chapel." CHAPTER CVII. MRS. OAKLEY DISSEMBLES. With trembling steps, Mrs. Oakley followed Lupin, the murderer, into his own room. Of course she was resolved to see nothing, and to make no remark that could in any way direct the attention of Lupin more closely to her, and, oh, how she panted for some opportunity of rushing into the street and crying aloud to the passers by, that the pious hypocrite was a murderer. But as yet she felt that her life depended upon the manner in which she played her part. "Truly, sister Oakley," said Lupin, "I hope you passed a quiet and peaceful night. Amen!" "Very," replied Mrs. Oakley. "Ah, I wish I could say as much, sister Oakley." "And can you not?" "Alas! no, I had some dreamssome very bad dreams; but Satan always will be doing something, you know, sister. Do you know I dreamt of a murder!" As he uttered these words, no Grand Inquisitor could have looked more keenly into the eyes of a victim, than did Mr. Lupin into the face of Mrs. Oakley; but she divined his motive, she felt that he was trying her, but she had even in such a moment sufficient presence of mind to keep her eyes steadily upon his face, and to say with seeming unconcern, "Murder, did you say, Mr. Lupin?" "Yes, I did say murder, and you." He pointed at her with his finger, but finding that she only looked surprised, rather, he added"and you are one of the elect, I rejoice to say, sister Oakley. Amen! It is a capital thing to be saved!" "It is, indeed, Mr. Lupin." "Wellwell. Let us have the carnal meal, called breakfast. I will proceed, God willing, to the corner of the court, and purchase two eggs, Mrs. Oakley, if it be pleasing to you." "Anything you like, Mr. Lupin; I have but a poor appetite in the morning, always." Mr. Lupin put on his hat, and after slowly turning round and casting an anxious glance upon the room and every object within, to assure himself that he had left no evidences of his crime behind him, he slowly left to get the eggs. Mrs. Oakley heard him descend the stairs, and she heard the door close behind him. Then she asked herself if that were really and truly an opportunity of escape that she dared attempt to avail herself of, or if it were only one in seeming, and that if she were upon its provocation to attempt to leave the place, she would only be confirming the slight suspicions that might be in the mind of Lupin, concerning her privity to his deed of blood. He had talked of only going to the corner of the court, and how did she know that he had even gone so far? Might not the message about the eggs be merely a pretended one, to see what she would do? This was a consideration that kept her, tremblingly, where she was. About five minutes elapsed, and then she heard a knock at the door below. Who could that be? Mr. Lupin had a key with which he always let himself in, so it could not be he. What was she to think? what was she to do? Suddenly then she heard the door opened, and then after a few moments delay some footstep sounded upon the stairs, but it was very unlike that of Lupin, the murderer. The delightful thought came over the imagination of Mrs. Oakley, that some one was coming to whom she might at once make an avowal of all she knew of Lupin's guilt, and who might be able to protect her from the vengeance of the murderer. She rose, and peeped through the keyhole. She saw Lupin coming up the stairs. He was making quite a laborious effort to tread differently to what was usual with him, and from that moment Mrs. Oakley felt that she was to be subjected to some extraordinary trial of her selfpossession. She crept back to her seat, and waited in terror. In the course of a few moments, Lupin, after treading with a heavy thump upon every stair, instead of gliding up in his usual manner, reaching the door at which he tapped, and then in an assumed voice, which if she, Mrs. Oakley, had not known he was there, would have deceived her, he said "Hilloa! who's at home?" "Who's there?" said Mrs. Oakley. "It's John Smith," cried Lupin. "I am an officer of the police.
Has anybody anything to say to me here? They tell me in the court that some odd noises were heard in the night." "I don't know anything about it," said Mrs. Oakley, "but if you will come in and wait until Mr. Lupin comes in, he may like to see you." "Oh, no, no, no! It's no matter. Good morning, ma'am." Down stairs went Lupin, thinking he had acted the officer to perfection, and making no doubt in the world but that he had thoroughly deceived Mrs. Oakley, who he was now quite satisfied knew absolutely nothing about the murder. In the course of a couple of minutes, Mr. Lupin in his own character came gliding in. "I am afraid I have kept you waiting, sister Oakley." "Oh, not at all, but there has been a man there who says his name is Smith, and he" "I met him! I met him! It is all right. He heard something going on in the next house, I suppose, and mistook it for this. Pray cook the eggs to your liking, sister Oakley, and help yourself to anything. Don't be particular, sister Oakley, but make yourself at home." "I will, reverend sir, I will." Mrs. Oakley was really playing her part very well, but she fancied each moment that the murderer would see something in her manner to give him a suspicion that she knew too much for his safety. She was wrong though, for upon the contrary, Mr. Lupin felt quite satisfied that the secret of his guilt was confined to his own breast. "I pray you, sister Oakley," he said, "to eat freely of my humble fare, and after breakfast we will have a prayer." It seemed to Mrs. Oakley, now that she had awakened to a sense of the awful hypocrisy of Mr. Lupin, something very horrible for him to talk of having a prayer; but she took care not to show what she felt in that particular. "How kind and good of you," she said. "Ay, truly, sister Oakley, I am kind and good, and yet there are envious folks in the world, who I dare say would not hesitate to give even me a bad name." "Impossible, surely." "I would it were, I would it were, my dear sister Oakley, I would it were impossible." "It seems to me, reverend sir, as though it would not be in the power of poor human nature to praise you too much; but it is time that I should think of going home now, if you please." "Well, sister, if you must go home among the heathens and the Philistines, I will not hinder you; but with the hope of seeing you soon again, I will now offer up a prayer." It was truly sickening even to Mrs. Oakley, whose feelings the reader will think could not be very fine, to see such an arch hypocrite offering up a prayer to that Deity whom he must so bitterly have offended by his awful crimes. But Mr. Lupin cut the prayer tolerably short, and then giving to Mrs. Oakley what he called the kiss of peace, and to which, loathsome as it was from him, she felt herself forced to submit, he bade her good day. And now, indeed, she began to entertain a sanguine hope, that she would be released from his company, and she should soon be in a condition to denounce him to justice for the awful crime which she had seen him commit. She could not possibly avoid a slight feeling of satisfaction to appear upon her face. "You seem pleased," said Lupin. "I am, reverend sir." "May I ask what at?" "Ah, how can I be otherwise than delighted, when I am assured by such a saint upon earth as yourself that I am one of the elect?" This was an answer with which, whether it was satisfactory or not, Mr. Lupin was, as it were, compelled to put up with; but taking up his hat, he said "Truly, sister Oakley, it will become me to see you a part of the way home." Mrs. Oakley expressed her satisfaction with the holy man's company, and they both descended the stairs together. She felt, however, an exquisite pang of alarm upon finding that Lupin led her down the staircase that led to the chapel, and not down the one which would have conducted them to the ordinary door of exit from the domestic portion of the building. But even with all the dread upon her soul that he might be meditating some awful act in the chapel, she felt that she must assume a calmness though she felt it not. "Why this leads to the chapel," she said. She thought it would sound more natural for her to make that remark, than to say nothing about it. "Yes, sister it does, and here is the trapdoor that conducts to the vaults." He suddenly turned upon her, and clutched her by the arm, as he spoke. Poor Mrs. Oakley then really thought that her last hour was come, and that all along in pretending to have no suspicion of her, he was only dissembling. It was a mercy she did not at that terrible moment commit herself in some way. Surely Heaven supported her, for she did not. "Reverend sir," she said, "what mean you?" "What mean I? I mean will you descend to the vaults with me." "And pray? Yes, if you wish it." "Nothingnothing," muttered Lupin. "What a fool I am. I might have been well convinced long ago, and yet I cannot forbear new trials. All is safe, all is safe. This way, sister Oakley, this way. I will only see you to the corner of your own street." "Many thanks." They both emerged from the chapel. Lupin slammed the door after him, and arm in arm they walked up the court together. Poor Mrs. Oakley felt that to be the most trying moment of all for her nerves. While she had much to dowhile she was alone with Lupin in the domestic portion of the chapel, and while she knew that the least slip of the tongue, or the least want of control over her feelings might be her deathshe conducted herself gallantly; but now when she was fairly in the open air, now that she was in comparative safety, her feelings almost got the better of her. It was only by a powerful effort that she could at all control them. She felt that by suddenly quitting the arm of Lupin, and making a rush for it, she might escape him, but then she did not want him to escape the consequences of his crime, for Mrs. Oakley had a woman's sympathy with the fate even of the not very respectable Mrs. Lupin. Besides, with all the vindictive hate that he might be supposed to feel upon finding that his guilt was known, he might yet pursue her, and before she could find aid, kill her. "I must still dissemble," she thought, "and speak this most monstrous villain fairly." "Quite a charming morning, reverend sir," she said. "Very," said Lupin. "I really am afraid that I am sadly intruding upon your time, by letting you come with me?" "Oh, nonono." He seemed to be getting very thoughtful, and Mrs. Oakley was proportionably more and more upon her guard, for she felt convinced that if he really thought she knew anything of his guilt he would kill her. Now they emerged from the court; but it was yet rather an early hour in the morning, and but very few passengers were in the streets. The only person that was tolerably close to them was an elderly woman, and Mrs. Oakley much as she panted for an opportunity of separating herself from Lupin, felt that the time to do so had not yet come. On they went, in the direction of Mrs. Oakley's house, that house that she now began to feel she had so much neglected, to look after what, in the language of scripture, might truly have been termed "Strange Idols"that home which she now looked to as a haven of safety from the terror of death itself. "How silent you are, sister," said Lupin. "Yes, I was thinking." "Of what?" he said, fiercely. "Of how much I should be able to take from Mr. Oakley's till, to bring to you, this day week." "Oh! oh!" "You may depend, reverend sir, it shall be as much as possible. Of course I must be cautious, though." "Oh, yesyes." They had now reached within a few paces of the corner of the street, and yet Mrs. Oakley had seen no one upon whom, from their appearance, she thought she could rely to call to for aid against the murderer. Suddenly then round the corner, there came a bulky form. The heavy tread of some one of unusual weight sounded upon the street pavement. Big Ben, the beefeater, with his arms behind him, and in a very thoughtful mood, came pacing slowly along. As Mrs. Oakley said afterwards, her heart, at that moment, was in her mouth. She could not dissemble an instant longer with Lupin, but with a loud shriek that echoed far and wide in the streets, she suddenly sprang from him, crying "Ben, Ben, dear strong Ben, seize this man! He is a murderer!" "Dn! Done at last!" cried Lupin. He turned to fly, but treading upon a piece of cabbageleaf that was upon the pavement, down he fell. "Easy does it," said Ben, and he flung himself upon the top of Lupin, spreading out his arms and legs, and holding him by sheer weight as firmly to the pavement as though he had been nailed there. "Help, help, help! Murder! help!" shouted Mrs. Oakley. "Murder, murder, murder!" People began to flock to them from all parts. Lupin succeeded in getting a knife from his pocket, but Mrs. Oakley held him by the wrist with both hands, and in a minute more he was in the grasp of two strong men, one of whom was a policeofficer, and who gloried in the job. CHAPTER CVIII. RETURNS TO MRS. LOVETT, AND SHOWS HOW SHE GOT OUT OF THE RIVER. Our readers have been aware for a long time past that Mrs. Lovett was no common, everyday, sort of woman, and what we are about to relate concerning her, will be further proof that way tending, if it should be by any sceptical person in any way required. To all appearance, Todd had seen the last of her on the river. But Todd was born to be deceived, and at the time he should have recollected an old adage, to the effect that, folks who are born to be hanged are very seldom drowned. We shall see. Mrs. Lovett did go down, but as fortune and the amazingly strong current of the river would have it, she came up again, with a barge between her and Todd, and involuntarily laying hold of the side of the barge, there she remained, too exhausted to cry out, until Todd was far off. She was seen at last by a man who was at the window of a publichouse, and in the course of ten minutes after Todd had began to congratulate himself upon the demise of Mrs. Lovett, she was in a warm bed at the publichouse, and her clothes drying at the kitchenfire. She had scarcely been for a moment at all insensible; and as she lay in bed she had a most accurate perception of all that happened. The reader may suppose that the feelings of Mrs. Lovett towards Sweeney Todd, were by no means ameliorated by the morning's proceedings. And yet how calculating she was in her rage! As the effects of her submersion wore off, and her ordinary strength came back to her, her mind became intently fixed upon but one object, and that was how to be completely and bitterly revenged upon Todd. "He shall hang," she said. "He shall hang, but I must think of the means, while I likewise take care to avoid the gallows myself; but he shall hang, let the consequences be what they may." The landlady of the publichouse was very assiduous in her attention to Mrs. Lovett, and while she was thus thinking of her revenge upon Todd, she (the landlady) made her appearance in the room with a steaming glass of mulled and spiced wine. "I hope you are better," she said; "and if you will give me the name and address of your friends, I will send to them at once." "Friends!" said Mrs. Lovett. "How came you to think that I had any friends?" "Well, I hardly thought you were without. Don't most folks have friends of some sort or another?" "Ah, I had forgotten. I have a friend with mea very dear friend, who will not forsake me. I have more of them at homefor I have a home." "Oh," thought the landlady, "she is raving." "Bring me my stays," said Mrs. Lovett. The stays, which, together with the rest of her apparel, now had got quite dry, was brought to her, and in a little secret pocket in them, Mrs. Lovett dived with her two fingers, and found a damp five pound note. "Take that," she said, "for your trouble. I do not want any change. Only be so good now as to help me to dress, and tell me what the time is." "Three o'clock," said the landlady, "and I'm sure you can't think how pleased I am that you are better. Do you really think you are strong enough to go home yet?" "Yes. What I have to do at home will lend me strength, if I wanted it." Mrs. Lovett was soon dressed, and at her request a coach was sent for; and in the course of halfanhour from the time that the landlady had asked her if she should send for her friends, she, Mrs. Lovett, was bowling along the dense thoroughfares of the city to her home. What pen could describe the dark and malignant thoughts that filled her brain as she proceeded? What language would be strong enough to depict the storm of passion that raged in the bosom of that imperious woman? It must suffice, that she made herself a solemn promise of vengeance against Todd, let the risk or the actual consequences to herself be what they might. If with perfect safety to herself she could be revenged upon himof course she would; but she resolved not to hesitate, even if it involved a selfsacrifice, so full of the very agony of rage was she. "He shall hanghe shall hang!" Such were the words she uttered as the lumbering hackneycoach reached Fleet Street. For all she knew to the contrary, Todd might be looking from his door, for that he had gone home in great triumph at the thought of having got rid of her she did not doubt; and so as it was just then a great object with her to keep him in that pleasant delusion, she got quite down among the straw at the bottom of the hackneycoach. But she kept her eyesthose bright metalliclooking eyes, which, with a questionable taste, had been so much admired by the lawyers' clerks of the Temple and Lincoln's Innshe kept her eyes just on the edge of the coach window, so that she might have a passing glance at Todd's shop. Todd was at the door. How pleased and selfsatisfied he looked! He was rubbing his huge hands slowly together, and a grim smile was on his horrible features. Mrs. Lovett clinched her hands until her nails made marks in the palms of them that did not come out for hours, and in a harsh growling voice, she said "Ah, grin on, grin on, fiendyour hours from now shall be numbered. You shall hang, hang, and I shall hope to see you in your last agony. If any bribe can induce the hangman, by some common bungling to protract your pain, he has but to name his price and he shall have it." The coach rolled on. Mrs. Lovett rose up from among the straw with a shudder. The immersion in the river had not drowned her certainly, but it had done her no good; and she could not conceal from herself, that a serious illness might very probably result from her unexpected cold bath. "Never mind!" she said. "Never mind! What care I so that I complete my revenge against Todd? If I die after that it will not much matter. I will have my revenge." The coach stopped at the corner of Bellyard. "That will do," said Mrs. Lovett as she pulled the checkstring. "That will do. I will alight here." She paid the coachman double the amount of his fare, so he only muttered a few curses between his teeth, and drove off. With quite a staggering step, for Mrs. Lovett was anything but well, she walked to her own shop. The door was closed, and she looked through the upper half of it which was of glass, just in time to see the highly trustworthy personage whom she had left in charge of the concern, place a bottle to her lips, and slowly lift it up. Mrs. Lovett opened the door, just as the titillating contents of the bottle were rippling over the palate of the lady, who had had such an adventure with Todd. "Wretch!" exclaimed Mrs. Lovett. Down fell the bottle, and smashed into many fragments on the floor of the shop. An unmistakable odour of gin filled the air. "So," cried Mrs. Lovett, "this is the way you employ your time is it, while I am away?" Mrs. Lovett Finds Somebody OutAt Home. Mrs. Lovett Finds Somebody OutAt Home. "TTTodd," stuttered the woman, "TTTodd is such a nice man." "Todd, do you say?" "YesII sayTTodd is a nice man." "Answer me, wretch, instantly. Has he been here? Speak, or I will shake your wretched life out of you." Mrs. Lovett suited the action to the word, and the word to the action, for she clutched her substitute by the throat, and shook her vehemently. "DDDon't Mrs. L.Iwilltell allall. I will indeed." "Speak then. Has Todd been here?" "In course, and quite a nice manII may sayquite a ginI mean a nice mana cordial old Tom. No! Cream of theTodd." "Wretch!" Mrs. Lovett paced the shop for a few moments in an agony of rage. Todd presuming upon her death had actually been there, no doubt upon an expedition to ransack the place. A touch to the lock of the parlour door, told her at once that it was open, and from that moment she no longer could doubt but that the whole house had been subject to the scrutiny of Sweeney Todd. "The wretch!" she said. "He thought to find enough no doubt to reward his pains, but he has been deceived in that hope, I feel well assured. What I have here, I have too well hidden for any search of a few hours to find it. If they were to pull the house to pieces, brick by brick and timber by timber, they might find something to pay them for their labour." The lady with the partiality for gin, now seemed to be lapsing into a state of somnolency, but Mrs. Lovett gave her rather a rough shake. "Tell me," she said, "when did this man come, and what did he say to you?" "Gin!" "I ask you what Todd said to you?" "Oh, yes. Ireallyfine times. Old Tom Toddcream of the Todd." It was quite clear that she was too far gone in drunkenness for anything distinct or to be relied upon to be got from her, and the only thing Mrs. Lovett had to do, was to consider what to do with her. If she threw her out of the shop into the court, the probability was, that a crowd would collect round her, and that was just what Mrs. Lovett did not want. Indeed, for all she, Mrs. Lovett knew, the drunken woman might stagger round to Todd's, and let him know what of all things, she wished to keep secret from him, namely, that she had returned. Mrs. Lovett had not yet formed her plans, and certainly until she had done so, she did not want any premature knowledge of her rescue from drowning to reach the ears of Todd. But what to do with the drunken woman was the question. Mrs. Lovett had to think a little over that. At length, however, she made up her mind, and approaching the lady who had such a partiality for Old Tom, she said "Did you ever taste my cordial spirit, that I have up stairs in my bedroom?" "Eh?" "Come, I will give you a bottle of it, if you will walk up stairs. Only try." By the assistance of Mrs. Lovett, the gin heroine rose and tottered to the staircase; Mrs. Lovett pushed her on, and stair by stair she managed to mount to the first floor. It was by far too great a job to get her any further, so opening the door of the backroom, Mrs. Lovett pushed her in with violence, and slammed the door upon her. "Lie there and rot," she said, "so that you are out of my way. Lie there and rot, idiot." Without then pausing to cast another thought or look at her victim, Mrs. Lovett walked down the staircase again to the shop. When there, she felt a kind of faintness come over her, and she was compelled to sit down for a few minutes to recover herself. "How much I have to think of," she said, when she had a little recovered. "How much I have to think of, and how little a time in which to think. Something must be done before midnight. Todd will fly if I do not do something." A racking pain in her head, compelled her to rest it upon her hands. "If I thought," she said, "that I should get very illif I thought that there was any chance that I should die, I would go at once to the police office and denounce him. But no'tis only a passing pang, and I shall soon be bettershall soon be myself again." She did not speak now for some few moments, and during that time she rocked to and fro, for the pain in her head was excessive. It did not last, however, but gradually went off, leaving only a sensation of dulness behind it, with some amount of confusion. Then Mrs. Lovett, as well as she was able, set about thinking calmly and dispassionately, as she hoped, about the best means of satisfying her revenge against Todd. That that revenge should be complete and ample, she was resolved. Gradually she began to work out a plan of operations, and as she did so, her eyes brightened, and something of her old expression of bold confidence came back to her. She rose and paced the shop. "Yes, the villain shall die," she said, "by the hands of the executionerI swear it! And he shall know, too, that it is I who have doomed him to such a death. He shall feel that, had he kept faith with we all would have been well; but now he shall hanghang!and I shall look on and see his torments!" CHAPTER CIX. JOHANNA HAS PLENTY OF COMPANY AT TODD'S. We return to Johanna, whom for a few hours, owing to the pressure of other circumstances, we have been compelled, with all manner of reluctance, to neglect. Recent events, although they had by no manner of means tended to decrease the just confidence which Johanna had in her own safety, had yet much agitated her; and she at times feared that she should not be able to carry on the farce of composure before Todd much longer. "Charley, my dear boy," said Todd, "you are a very good lad, indeed, and I like you." "I am very glad to hear you say so, sirvery glad." "That is right; but when I say I like any one, I do not confine myself to that mere expression of liking, and there an end. Of course, as a religious man, I love my enemies, and feel myself bound to do soeh, Charley?" "Of course, sir." Poor Johanna had no resource but to seem to be deceived by this most disgusting hypocrisy. "But although," continued Todd, waving a razor in the air; "although I may love my enemies, I need not to go out of my way, you know, Charley, to do good things to them as I would to my friends; but you I will do all I can for; and as it may very materially help you to get an honest independence in the course of a little time, I will manage to accommodate you with sleeping here tonight and all nights henceforth." "How kind of you, sir!" "I am glad you appreciate it, Charley; and I feel quite sure that your slumber will be most profound." Todd, upon this, made one of his diabolical faces, and then, taking his hat, he marched out, merely adding as he crossed the threshold of the door "I shall not be long gone, Charley." The day was on the decline, and a strong impression came over Johanna's mind that something in particular would happen before it wholly passed away into darkness. She almost trembled to think what that something could be, and that she might be compelled to be a witness to violence, from which her gentle spirit revolted; and had it not been that she had determined nothing should stop her from investigating the fate of poor Mark Ingestrie, she could even then have rushed into the street in despair. But as the soft daylight deepened into the dim shadows of evening, she grew more composed, and was better able, with a calmer spirit, to wait the progress of events. "I am alone once more," said Johanna, "in this dreadful place. Again he leaves me with all my dark and terrible thoughts of the fate of him whom I have so fondly loved thronging around my heart; and this night, no doubt, he thinks to kill me! Oh, Mark Ingestrie! if I were only but quite sure that you had gone to that world from whence there is no return, I think I could, with scarce a sigh, let this dreadful man send me after you!" Johanna rested her head upon her hands, and wept bitterly. Suddenly a voice close to her said "St. Dunstan." She sprang from the little low seat upon which she was, and, with a cry of alarm, was about to make a rush from the shop, when the intruder caught her by the arm, saying "Don't you know me, Johanna?" "Ah, Sir Richard! my dear friend, it is, indeed, you, and I am safe againI am safe!" "Certainly you are safe; and permit me to say that you have all along been tolerably safe, Johanna. But how very incautious you are. Here I have come into the shop, and actually stood by you for some few moments, you knowing nothing of it! What now if Todd had so come in?" "He would have killed me." "He might have done so. But now all danger is quite over, for you will have protectors at your hand. Do you know where Todd has gone?" "I do not." "Well, it don't matter. Let me look at this largest cupboard. I wonder if it will hold two of my men? Let me see. Oh, yes, easily and comfortably. I will be back in a moment." He went no further than the door, and when he came back, he brought with him Mr. Crotchet and another person, and pointing to the cupboard, he said "You will stow yourselves there, if you please, and keep quiet until I call upon you to come out." "I believe you," said Crotchet. "Lord bless you, we shall be snug enough. How is you, Miss O.? I suppose by this time you feels quite at home in your breech" "Silence!" said Sir Richard. "Go to your duty at once, Crotchet. Miss Oakley is in no humour to attend to you just now." Upon this, Mr. Crotchet and the other man got into the cupboard, and a chair was placed against it; and then Sir Richard said to Johanna "I will come in to be shaved when I know that Todd is here, and your trials will soon be over." "To be shaved?By him?" "Yes. But believe me there is no danger. Any one may come here now to be shaved with perfect safety. I have made such arrangements that Todd cannot take another life." "Thank Heaven!" "Here is a letter from your friend, Miss Wilmot, which I promised her I would deliver to you. Be careful how you let Todd see it. Read it at once, and then you had better destroy it at once. I must go now; but, of course, if you should be in any danger, call upon my men in the cupboard to assist you, and they will do so at once, although it may spoil my plot a little." "Oh! how much I owe you." "Nay, nay, no more upon that head. Farewell now, for a brief space. We shall very soon meet again. Keep a fair and agreeable face to Todd, if you can, for I do not wish, if it can possibly be helped, anything to mar the plot I have got up for his absolute conviction upon abundant testimony." Sir Richard shook hands with Johanna, and then hastily left the shop, for he did not wish just then to be found there by Todd, who might return at any moment. The moment he was gone Johanna eagerly opened the letter that had been brought to her, and found it to contain the following words "My Dear Johanna,This is a selfish letter; for as I cannot see you, I think I should go mad if I did not write to you; so I do so for the ease of my own heart and brain. For the love of Heaven, and for the love of all you hold dear in this world, get away from Todd as quickly as you can; and when I see you again, I shall have something to say to you which will give you more pleasure than ever, with my bad advice, I have given you pain. "Sir Richard Blunt has kindly promised to give this to you, and you know that I amYour ever affectionate Arabella." "Yes," said Johanna, when she had finished the epistle. "In truth I know you are ever my affectionate Arabella, and I am most happy in such a friend. But this must not meet Todd's eye. Ah! that footstep, I know it too well. He comeshe comes." She had just hidden the letter, when Sweeney Todd made his appearance. "Anybody been?" he asked. "Yes, one man, but he would not wait." "Ah, wanted to be shaved, I suppose; but no matterno matter; and I hope you have been quiet, and not been attempting to indulge your curiosity in any way, since I have been gone. Hush! here's somebody coming. Why, it's old Mr. Wrankley, the tobacconist, I declare. Goodday to you, sirshaved, I suppose? I'm glad you have come, sir, for I have been out till this moment. Hot water, Charley, directly, and hand me that razor." Johanna, in handing Todd the razor, knocked the edge of it against the chair, and it being uncommonly sharp, cut a great slice of the wood off one of the arms of it. "What shameful carelessness," said Todd; "I have half a mind to lay the strop over your back, sir; here you have spoilt a capital razornot a bit of edge left upon it." "Oh, excuse him, Mr. Toddexcuse him," said the old gentleman; "he's only a little lad, after all. Let me intercede for him." "Very good, sir; if you wish me to look over it, of course I will; and, thank God, we have a stock of razors, of course, always at hand. Is there any news stirring, sir?" "Nothing that I know of, Mr. Todd, except it's the illness of Mr. Cummings, the overseer. They say he got home about twelve to his own house, in Chancerylane, and ever since then he has been as sick as a dog, and all they can get him to say is, 'Oh, those piesoh, those pies!'" "Very odd, sir." "Very. I think Mr. Cummings must be touched in the upper story, do you know, Mr. Todd. He's a very respectable man, but, between you and I, was never over bright." "Certainly not, sircertainly not. But it's a very odd case. What pies can he possibly mean, sir? Did you call when you came from home?" "No. Ha, ha! I can't help laughing; but, ha, ha! I have come away from home on the sly, you see. The fact is, my wife's cousinhilloa!I think you have cut me." "No, nowe can't cut anybody for threehalfpence, sir. I think I will just give you another lather, sir, before I polish you off. And so you have the pearls with you; well, how odd things come round, to be sure." "What do you mean?" "This shavingbrush is just in a good state now. Always as a shavingbrush is on the point of wearing out, it's the best. Charley, you will go at once to Mr. Cummings, and ask if he is any better; you need not hurry, that's a good lad. I am not at all angry with you now. And so, sir, they think at home that you have gone after some business over the water, do they, and have not the least idea that you have come to be shaved? There, be off, Charleyshut the door, that's a good lad, bless you." When Johanna came back, the tobacconist was gone. "Well," said Sweeney Todd, as he sharpened a razor very leisurely, "how is Mr. Cummings?" "I found out his house, sir, with some difficulty, and they say he is better having gone to sleep." "Oh, very good! I am going to look over some accounts in the parlour, so don't choose to be disturbed, you understand; and for the next ten minutes, if anybody comes, you will say I am out." Sweeney Todd walked quite coolly into the parlour, and Johanna heard him lock the door on the inside; a strange, undefined sensation of terror crept over her, she knew not why, and she shuddered, as she looked around her. The cupboard door was not close shut, and she knew not what prompted her to approach and peep in. On the first shelf was the hat of the tobacconist it was rather a remarkable one, and recognised in a moment. "What has happened? Good God! what can have happened?" thought Johanna, as she staggered back, until she reached the shavingchair, into which she cast herself for support. Her eyes fell upon the arm which she had taken such a shaving off with the razor, but all was perfectly whole and correct; there was not the least mark of the cut that so recently had been given to it; and lost in wonder, Johanna, for more than a minute, continued looking for the mark of the injury she knew could not have been, by any possibility, effaced. And yet she found it not, although there was the chair, just as usual, with its wide spreading arms and its worn, tarnished paint and gilding. No wonder that Johanna rubbed her eyes, and asked herself if she were really awake? What could account for such a phenomenon? The chair was a fixture too, and the others in the shop were of a widely different make and construction, so it could not have been changed. "Alas! alas!" mourned Johanna, "my mind is full of horrible surmises, and yet I can form no rational conjecture. I suspect everything, and know nothing.
What can I do? What ought I to do, to relieve myself from this state of horrible suspense? Am I really in a place where, by some frightful ingenuity, murder has become bold and familiar, or can it be all a delusion?" She covered her face with her hands for a time, and when she uncovered them, she saw that Sweeney Todd was staring at her with looks of suspicion from the inner room. The necessity of instantly acting her part came over Johanna, and she gave a loud scream. "What the devil is all this about?" said Todd, advancing with a sinister expression. "What's the meaning of it? I suspect" "Yes, sir," said Johanna, "and so do I; I must tomorrow have it out." "Have what out?" "My tooth, sirit's been aching for some hours; did you ever have the toothache? If you did, you can feel for me, and not wonder that I lean my head upon my hands and groan." Todd looked about half satisfied at this excuse of Johanna's, and for a few moments as he looked at her, she thought that after all she should have to call upon her friends in the cupboard to save her from the danger that his eyes, in their flashing ghastliness, threatened. Another moment, and her lips would have parted with the shrill cry of "Murder!" upon them, and then Heaven only knows what might have been the result; but he turned suddenly, and went into the parlour, muttering to himself "It is not worth while now, and this night ends it allyes, this night ends it all." He slammed the door violently behind him, and Johanna was relieved from the horror which his gaze had awakened, in her heart. She stood still, but gradually she recovered her former calmnessif calmness it could at all be called, seeing that it was only a stiller species of agitation. But she now began to recall the words of Sir Richard Blunt to the effect that measures had been taken that no more murders could be committed by Todd, and she began to feel comforted. "There is something that I do not know yet," she said; "Sir Richard should have told me how there could be no more murders done here, and then I should not have suffered what I did, and what I still suffer with the thought that almost before my eyes a fellow creature has been hurried into eternity; and yet I ought to have faith, and in defiance of all the seeming evidences of a horrible deed about me, I ought, I suppose, to believe that it has been prevented in some most strange and miraculous way." The more Johanna thought over this promise of Sir Richard Blunt's the more she became convinced that he would never have given utterance to it if he had not felt perfectly sure it would be fulfilled, and so she got comforted, and once again resolved to play her part in that dreadful drama of real life, in the vortex of which, with the purest and the holiest of motives, she had plunged recklessly, we will admit, but yet from motives entitling her to sympathy on earth, and protection in heaven. Todd remained for a considerable time in the parlour; and when he came out, Johanna saw that he had made some alteration in his apparel. The first words he uttered were "Keep a good fire, Charley." "Yes, sir." "Did you ever see a house on fire, my boy?" "I never did, sir." "Ah! It must be an amusing sighta very amusing sight, especially if the conflagration spreads, and one has an opportunity of viewing it from the water. Talking of water, the lady who was here this morningMrs. Lovettwas very fond of water, and now she has got plenty of it. Ah!" "Really, sir? Has she gone to the seaside?" Johanna looked Todd rather hard in the face as she spoke these words, and the close observation seemed to anger him, for he spoke hastily and sharply "What is it to you? Get out of my way, will you? and you may begin to think of shutting up, I think, for we shall have no more customers tonight. I am tired and weary. You are to sleep under the counter, you know." "Yes, sir, you told me so. I daresay I shall be very comfortable there." "And you have not been peeping and prying about, have you?" "Not at all." "Not looking even into that cupboard, I suppose, eh? It's not locked, but that's no reason why you should look into itnot that there is any secrets in it; but I object to peeping and prying upon principle." Todd, as he spoke, advanced towards the cupboard, and Johanna thought that in another moment a discovery would undoubtedly take place of the two officers who were there concealed; and probably that would have been the case, had not the handle of the shop door been turned at that moment, and a man presented himself, when Todd turned quickly, and saw that he was a substantiallooking farmer, with dirty topboots, as if he had just come off a journey. "Well, master," said the visitor, "I wants a clean shave." "Oh," said Todd, not in the best of humours, "it's rather late; but I suppose you would not like to wait till morning, for I don't know if I have any hot water." "Oh, cold will do." "Cold? Oh, dear no; we never shave in cold water; and if you must, you must; so sit down, sir, and we will soon settle the business." "Thank you, thank you. I can't go to bed comfortable without a clean shave, do you see? I have come up from Braintree with beasts on commission, and I'm staying at the Bull's Head, you see." "Oh, indeed," said Todd, as he adjusted the shaving cloth, "the Bull's Head." "Yes, master; why I brought up a matter o' 220 beasts, I did, do you see, and was on my pooney, as good a stepper as you'd wish to see; and I sold 'em all, do you see, for 550 pun. Ho, ho! good work that, do you see, and only fortytwo on 'em was my beasts, do you see; I've got a missus at home, and a daughter; my girl's called Johannaahem!" Up to this point Johanna had not suspected that the game had begun, and that this was no other than Sir Richard himself, most admirably disguised, who had come to put an end to the malpractices of Sweeney Todd; but his marked pronunciation of her name at once opened her eyes to that fact, and she knew that something interesting must soon happen. "And so you sold them all?" said Todd. "Yes, master, I did, and I've got the money in my pocket now, in banknotes; I never leaves my money about at inns, do you see, master; safe bind, safe find, you see; I carries it about with me." "A good plan, too," said Todd; "Charley, some hot water; that's a good ladandandCharley?" "Yes, sir." "While I am finishing off this gentleman, you may as well just run to the Temple to Mr. Serjeant Toldrunis and ask for his wig; we shall have to do it in the morning, and may as well have it the first thing in the day to begin upon; and you need not hurry, Charley, as we shall shut up when you come back." "Very good, sir." Johanna walked out, but went no further than the shop window, close to which she placed her eyes, so that, between a pomatum jar and a lot of hair brushes, she could clearly see what was going on. "A nicelooking little lad, that," said Todd's customer. "Very, sir; an orphan boy; I took him out of charity, poor little fellow; but then, we ought to try to do all the good we can." "Just so; I'm glad I have come to be shaved here. Mine's rather a strong beard, I think, do you see." "Why, sir, in a manner of speaking," replied Todd, "it is a strong beard. I suppose you didn't come to London alone, sir?" CHAPTER CX. TODD'S HOUR HAS COME. The hideous face that Todd made above the head of his customer at this moment, was more like that which Mephistopheles might have made, after achieving the destruction of a human soul, than anything human. Sir Richard Blunt quickly replied to Todd's question, by saying "Oh, yes, quite alone; except the drovers I had no company with me; why do you ask?" "Why, sir, I thought if you had any gentleman with you who might be waiting at the Bull's Head, you would recommend him to me if anything was wanting in my way, you know, sir; you might have just left him, saying you were going to Todd the barber's, to have a clean shave, sir." "No, not at all; the fact is, I did not come out to have a shave, but a walk, and it wasn't till I gave my chin a stroke, and found what a beard I had, that I thought of it; and then passing your shop, in I popped, do you see." "Exactly, sir, I comprehend; you are quite alone in London?" "Oh, quite; but when I come again, I'll come to you to be shaved, you may depend, and I'll recommend you, too." "I'm very much obliged to you," said Todd, as he passed his hand over the chin of his customer, "I'm very much obliged; I find I must give you another lather, sir, and I'll get another razor with a keener edge, now that I have taken off all the rough, as one may say, in a manner of speaking." "Oh, I shall do." "No, no, don't move, sir, I shall not detain you a moment; I have my other razors in the next room, and will polish you off now, sir, before you will know where you are; you know, sir, you have promised to recommend me, so I must do the best I can with you." "Well, well, a clean shave is a comfort, but don't be long, for I want to get back, do you see." "Not a moment, not a moment." Sweeney Todd walked into his backparlour, conveying with him the only light that was in the shop, so that the dim glimpse that, up to this time, Johanna from the outside had contrived to get of what was going on, was denied to her; and all that met her eyes was impenetrable darkness. Oh, what a world of anxious agonising sensations crossed the mind of the young and beautiful girl at that moment. She felt as if some great crisis in her history had arrived, and that she was condemned to look in vain into darkness to see of what it consisted. We must not, however, allow the reader to remain in the same state of mystification, which came over the perceptive faculties of Johanna Oakley; but we shall proceed to state clearly and distinctly what did happen in the barber's shop while he went to get an uncommonly keen razor in his backparlour. The moment his back was turned, the seeming farmer who had made such a good thing of his beasts, sprang from the shaving chair, as if he had been electrified; and yet he did not do it with any appearance of fright, nor did he make any noise. It was only astonishingly quick, and then he placed himself close to the window, and waited patiently with his eyes fixed upon the chair, to see what would happen next. In the space of about a quarter of a minute, there came from the next room a sound like the rapid drawing back of a heavy bolt, and then in an instant, the shaving chair disappeared beneath the floor; and the circumstances by which Sweeney Todd's customers disappeared was evident. There was a piece of the flooring turning upon a centre, and the weight of the chair when a bolt was withdrawn by means of simple leverage from the inner room, weighed down one end of the top, which, by a little apparatus, was to swing completely round, there being another chair on the under surface, which thus became the upper, exactly resembling the one in which the unhappy customer was supposed to be 'polished off.' Hence was it that in one moment, as if by magic, Sweeney Todd's visitors disappeared, and there was the empty chair. No doubt, he trusted to a fall of about twenty feet below, on to a stone floor, to be the death of them, or, at all events, to stun them until he could go down to finish the murder, andto cut them up for Mrs. Lovett's pies! after robbing them of all the money and valuables they might have about them. In another moment, the sound as of a bolt was again heard, and Sir Richard Blunt, who had played the part of the wealthy farmer, feeling that the trap was closed again, seated himself in the new chair that had made its appearance with all the nonchalance in life, as if nothing had happened. It was a full minute before Todd ventured to look from the parlour into the darkened shop, and then he shook so that he had to hold by the door to steady himself. "That's done," he said. "That's the last, I hope. It is time I finished; I never felt so nervous since the first time. Then I did quake a little. How quiet he went I have sometimes had a shriek ringing in my ears for a whole week." It was a large highbacked piece of furniture that shaving chair, so that, when Todd crept into the shop with the light in his hand, he had not the remotest idea it was tenanted; but when he got round it, and saw his customer calmly waiting with the lather upon his face, the cry of horror that came gurgling and gushing from his throat was horrible to hear. "Why, what's the matter," said Sir Richard. "O God, the dead! the dead! O God!" cried Todd, "this is the beginning of my punishment. Have mercy, Heaven! oh, do not look upon me with those dead eyes." "Murderer!" shouted Sir Richard, in a voice that rung like the blast of a trumpet through the house. In an instant he sprang upon Sweeney Todd, and grappled him by the throat. There was a short struggle, and they were down upon the floor together, but Todd's wrists were suddenly laid hold of, and a pair of handcuffs most scientifically put upon him by the officers who, at the word 'murderer,' that being a preconcerted signal, came from the cupboard where they had been concealed. "Secure him well, my men," said the magistrate, "and don't let him lay violent hands upon himself." Sweeney Todd's Hour Has Come. Sweeney Todd's Hour Has Come. Johanna rushed into the shop, and clung to the arm of Sir Richard, crying "Is it all over! Is it indeed all done now?" "It is, Miss Oakley." The moment Todd heard these few words addressed to Charley Green as he thought him, he turned his glassy bloodshot eyes upon Johanna, and glared at her for the space of about half a minute in silence. He then, although handcuffed, made a sudden and violent effort to reach her, but he was in too experienced hands, and he was held back most effectually. He struck his forehead with his fettered hands, making a gash in it from which the blood flowed freely, as in infuriated accents, he said "Oh foolfool, to be cheated by a girl! I had my suspicions that the boy was a spy, but I never thought for one moment there was a disguise of sex. Oh, idiot! idiot! And who are you, sir?" "I am Sir Richard Blunt." Todd groaned and staggered. The officers would have let him sit down in the shaving chair for a moment or two to recover from the shock his mind had sustained by his capture, but when he found that it was the shaving chair he was led to, he shuddered, and in a wailing voice, said "Nono! not therenot there! Anywhere but there. I dare not sit there!" "It isn't worth while sitting at all," said Crotchet. "I'm blowed if I ain't all crumpled up in a blessed mummy by being in that cupboard so jolly long. All my joints is agoing crinkleycrankley." Todd looked in the face of Sir Richard Blunt, and in a faint voice spoke "II don't feel very well. There's a little drop of cordial medicine that I often take in my coat pocket. You see I can't get at it, my hands being manacled. I only want to take a drop to comfort me." "Get it out, Crotchet," said Sir Richard. "Here ye is," said Crotchet, as he produced a little bottle, with a pale strawcoloured liquid in, from Todd's pocket. "Give it to me. Oh, give it to me," said Todd. "I will thank you much. It will recover me. Give it to me!" "No, Todd," said Sir Richard, as he took the little bottle and put it in his own pocket. "I do not intend, if I can help it, to permit you to evade the law by poisoning yourself." Finding himself thus defeated in his insidious attempt upon his own life, Todd got quite frantic with rage, and had a grand struggle with the officers, in his endeavours to get at some of the razors that were near at hand in the shop; but they effectually prevented him from doing so, and finally he became too much exhausted to make any further efforts. "My curses be upon you all!" he said. "May you, and all who belong to you" But we cannot transcribe the horrible denunciations of Todd. They were too horrible even for the officers to listen to with patience, and Sir Richard Blunt, turning to Johanna, said "Run over the way to your friends at the fruiterer's. All is over now, and your disguise is no longer needed." Johanna did not pause another moment, but ran over the way, and in the course of a few moments she was in the arms of the fruiterer's daughter, where she relieved her overcharged heart by weeping bitterly. "Shut up the shop, Crotchet," said Sir Richard Blunt, "and then get a coach. I will lodge this man at once in Newgate, and then we will see to Mrs. Lovett." At this name Todd looked up. "She has escaped you," he said. "I don't think so," responded Sir Richard. "But I say she hasshe is dead she fell into the Thames this morning and was drowned." "Oh, you allude to your pushing her into the river this morning near Londonbridge?" said Sir Richard. "I saw that affair myself." Todd glared at him. "But it was not of much consequence. We got her out, and she is all right again now at her shop in Bellyard." Todd held his hands over his eyes for some moments, and then he said in a low voice "It is all a dream, or I am mad." Crotchet, in obedience to the orders he had received, put up the shutters of Todd's shop, and then fetched a coach, during the whole of which time, Sir Richard Blunt himself kept his hand upon Todd's collar, so that he could control him if he should again become so violent as he had been. The spirit to struggle was, however, gone from Todd for the time being. Indeed, he seemed to be completely stunned by his capture, and to be able only to see things darkly. He was yet to awaken to a full consciousness of his situation, and let that awakening be when it would, it was sure to be awful. "All's right," said Crotchet. "Here's the vehicle, and the crib is shut up." "Crotchet!" "Yes, your worship. What is it? Why, you never looked at a feller in that sort of way before." "I never did have anything so important to say to you, Crotchet, nor did I ever place in your hands so important a trust. It is one that will make you or mar you, Crotchet. I have myself important business here, or I would myself take this man to Newgate. As it is, Crotchet, I wish to entrust you with that important piece of duty, and I rely upon you, Crotchet, for keeping an eye upon him, and delivering him in safety." "It's as good as done," said Crotchet. "If he gets away from me, he has only another individual to do, and that's the old gent as is down below, with the long tail. Lor' bless you, sir, didn't I say from the first, as Todd smugged the people as comed to him to be shaved?" "You did, Crotchet." "Werry good. Then does yer think as I'm the feller all for to let him go when once I've got a hold of him? Rather not!" "I entrust you with him then, Crotchet. Take him away. I give him entirely into your hands." Upon this, Crotchet slid his arm beneath that of Sweeney Todd, and looking in his face with a most grotesque air of satisfaction, he said, "kim upkim up!" He then, by an immense exertion of strength, hoisted Todd completely over the door step, after which, catching him with both hands about the small of his back, he pitched him into the coach. "My eye," said the coachman, "has the gemman had a drop too much?" "He will have," said Crotchet, "some o' these odd days. To Newgateto Newgate." Crotchet rode inside along with Todd "for fear he should be dull," he said, and the other officer got up outside the coach, and then off it went to that dreadful building that Todd had often grimly smiled at as he passed, but into which as a resident he had never expected to enter. Sir Richard Blunt remained in the shop of Sweeney Todd. The oil lamp that hung by a chain from the ceiling shed a tolerable light over all objects, and no sooner had the magistrate fastened the outer door after the departure of Crotchet with Todd, than he stamped three times heavily upon the floor of the shop. This signal was immediately answered by three distinct taps from underneath the floor, and then the magistrate stamped again in the same manner. The effect of all this stamping and countersignals was immediately very apparent. The great chair which has played so prominent a part in he atrocities of Sweeney Todd slowly sunk, and the revolving plank hung suspended by its axle, while a voice from below called out "Is all right, sir?" "Yes, Crotchet has taken him to Newgate. I am now alone. Come up." "We are coming, sir. We all heard a little disturbance, but the floor is very thick you know, sir. So we could not take upon ourselves to say exactly what was happening." "Oh, it's all right. He resisted, but by this time he is within the stone walls of Newgate. Let me lend you a hand." Sir Richard Blunt stooped over the aperture in the floor, and the first person that got up was no other than Mr. Wrankley the Tobacconist. "How do you feel after your tumble?" said Sir Richard. "Oh, very well. The fact is they caught me so capitally below that it was quite easy. Todd did not think it worth his while to come down to see if I were alive or dead." "Ah, that was the only chance; but of course if he had done so he must have been taken at once into custodythat would have been all. Come on, my friends, come on. Our trouble with regard to Todd is over now, I think." The two churchwardens of St. Dunstan's and the beadle, and four of Sir Richard Blunt's officers, and the fruiterer from opposite, now came up from below the shop of Sweeney Todd, where they had been all waiting to catch Mr. Wrankley when the chair should descend with him. "Conwulsions!" said the beadle, "I runned agin everybody when I seed him acoming. I thought to myself, if a parochial authority had been served in that 'ere way, there would have been an end of the world at once." "I had some idea of asking you at one time to play that little part for me," said Sir Richard. "Conwulsions! had you, sir?" "Yes. But now, my friends, let us make a careful search of this house; and among the first things we have to do is, to remove all the combustible materials that Todd has stowed in various parts of it, for unless I am much deceived, the premises are in such a state that the merest accident would set them in a blaze." "Conwulsions!" then cried the beadle. "I ain't declared out of danger yet then!" CHAPTER CXI. MRS. LOVETT PLANS. We hasten to Bell Yard again. Mrs. Lovett's immersion in the Thames had really not done her much harm. Perhaps the river was a little purer than we now find it, and probably it had not entirely got rid of its name of the "Silver Thames"an appellation that now would be really out of place, unless we can imagine some silver of a much more dingy hue than silver ordinarily presents to the eye of the observer. She soon, we find, settled in her own mind a plan of action, notwithstanding the rather complicated and embarrassing circumstances in which she found herself placed. That plan of action had for its basis the impeachment of Todd as a murderer, at the same time that it looked forward to her own escape from the hands of justice. Her first action was to quiet the cook in the regions below, for if she did not take some such step, she was very much afraid her establishment might come to a standstill some few hours before she intended that it should do so. With this object, she wrote upon a little slip of paper the following words, and passed it into the cellar through an almost imperceptible crevice in the flooring of the shop "Early tomorrow morning you shall have your liberty, together with gold to take you where you please. All I require of you is, that you do your ordinary duty tonight, and send up the nine o'clock batch of pies." This, she considered, could not but have its due effect upon the discontented cook; and having transmitted it to him in the manner we have described, she sat down at her desk to write the impeachment of Todd. In the course of an hour, Mrs. Lovett had filled two pages of writing paper with a full account of how persons met their death in the barber's shop. She sealed the letter, and directed it to Sir Richard Blunt in a bold free hand. "It is done," she said. "When I am far from London, as I can easily find the means of being, this will reach the hands of the magistrate to whom it is addressed, and who has the character of being sharp and active." (Mrs. Lovett did not know how sharp and active Sir Richard had already been in her affairs!) "He will act upon it. Todd, in the midst of his guilt, with many evidences of it about him, will be taken, and I shall escape! Yes, I shall escape, with about a tithe of what I ought to havebut I shall have revenge!" On one of the shelves of the shopcertainly out of reach, but only just sostood an old dirtylooking tin jar, such as fancy biscuits might be kept in. No one for a moment would have thought of looking for anything valuable in such a place; and yet, keeping the shop door locked the while, lest any intruder should at unawares pop in and see what she was about, it was to this tin can upon its dirty shelf that Mrs. Lovett cautiously went. "Those who hide can find," she muttered. "I warrant now that Todd had searched in every seemingly cunning and intricate hidingplace in this whole house, and he has gone away disappointed. The secret of hiding anything is not to try to find some place where people may be baffled when they look, but to light upon some place into which they will not look at all." With these words, Mrs. Lovett took down the tin can, and having from the upper portion of it removed some dusty, mouldy small biscuits, she dived her hand into it, and fished up a leathern bag. The tape that held its mouth together was sealed, and a glance sufficed to convince Mrs. Lovett that it had not been touched. "Safe, safe!" she muttered. "It is but a thousand pounds, but it is safe, and it will enable me to fly from this placeit will enable me to have vengeance upon Todd; and small as the sum is, in some country, where money is worth more than it is in pampered England, I shall yet be able to live upon it. I will not complain if I have but the joy of reading an account of the execution of Todd. I fear I must deny myself the pleasure of seeing that sight." The little leathern bag she hid about her, and then she carefully replaced the tin case upon the shelf whence she had taken it, to disburthen it of its costly contents. After this Mrs. Lovett got much calmer. She had not the least apprehension now of a visit from Todd. She saw by the state of the house that his search had been a prolonged one, and until he shut up his own shop, she did not expect that he would again think of coming to Bell Yard, and as that would be ten o'clock, she fully believed that before then she would be far away. And then she sat behind her counter, looking only a shade or so paler than was her wont, and moving her lips slightly now and then as she settled in her own mind the course that she would take so as to baffle all pursuit. "With no luggage but my gold and notes," she muttered, "I will leave this place at half past nine, by which time the last batch of pies will have been up and sold, and all will be quiet. That will be a little more money to me. Then on foot I will take my way to Highgateyes, to Highgate, and I will trust no conveyance, for that might be a ready means of tracing me. I will go on foot. Then passing Highgate, I will go on foot upon the Great North Road until some coach overtakes me. It will not matter whither it be going, so that it takes me on that road; and by one conveyance and another, I shall at length reach Liverpool, from which port I shall find some vessel starting to some place abroad, where I can live free from the chance of detection. Yes, that is the plan! That is the plan!" Mrs. Lovett was a woman of some tact, and the plan of operations she had chalked out was all very well, provided such very malapropos proceedings had not taken place at Sweeney Todd's in the meantime. Little did Mrs. Lovett suspect what was there transpiring. And now we will leave her for a brief space behind her counter, ruminating, and at odd times smiling to herself in a ghastly fashion, while we pop down to the cellars, and take a glance at the impatient imprisoned cook. About ten minutes before he received the letterif letter the little flattering memorandum of Mrs. Lovett could be calledfrom his mistress, the cook had been a little alarmed by a noise in the stone pantry, where the mysterious meat used to make its appearance. Upon proceeding to the spot with a light, he found lying upon the floor a sealed paper, upon lifting which he saw was addressed to himself, and at one corner was written the following words "Definitive instructions for tonight from Sir Richard Blunt." To tear open the letter and to read it with great care, was the work of a few moments only, and then drawing a long breath, the cook said "Thank God! I shall not stop another night in this place. I shall be free before midnight. Oh, what an oppressivewhat an overpowering joy it will be to me once more to see the skyto breathe pure fresh air, and to feel that I have bid adieu for ever to this dreadfuldreadful place." The poor cook looked around him with a shudder, and then he had hardly placed the magistrate's letter securely in his bosom, when the little missive from Mrs. Lovett came fluttering to his feet, through the crack in the roof. "'Tis well," he said, when he had read it. "'Tis very well. This will chime in most admirably with my instructions from Sir Richard Blunt. Mrs. Lovett I thank you. You shall have the nine o'clock batch. Oh, yes, you shall have them. I am all obedience. Alas, if she whom I loved had not been false to me, I might yet, young as I am, feel the sunshine of joy in the great world again. But I can never love another, and she is lostlost to me for ever. Ay, for ever!" With this the poor cook, who but a few moments before had been so elated by the thoughts of freedom, sat himself down, and in quite a disconsolate manner rested his head upon his hands, and gave himself up to bitter fancy. "That she should be false to me," he said mournfully. "It does indeed almost transcend belief. She, so young, so gentle, so innocent, and so guileless. If an angel from Heaven had come and told me as much I should have doubted still; but I cannot mistrust the evidence of my own senses. I saw her. Yes, I saw her!" The cook rose and paced the gloomy place to and fro in the restlessness of a blighted heart, and no one to look at him could for a moment have supposed that he was near his freedom from an imprisonment of the most painful and maddening description to one of his impatient temperament. But so it is with us all; no sooner do we to all appearance see the end of one evil, than with an activity of imagination worthy to be excited in better things, we provide ourselves with some real or unreal reason for the heartache. "I will so contrive," said the cook, "that before I leave for ever the land of my birth, I will once more look upon her. Yes, I will once again drink in, from a contemplation of her wondrous beauty, most delicious poison; and then when I have feasted my eyes, and perchance grieved my heart, I will at once go far away, and beneath the sun of other skies than this, I will wait for death." The more the poor cook thought of this unknown beauty of his, who surely had behaved to him very ill, or he could not have spoken of her in such terms, the more sorrow got upon his countenance, and imparted its sad sweetness to his tones. Surely the time had not been very far distant when that young man must have been in a widely different sphere of life to that limited one in which he now moved. Suddenly, however, he was recalled to a consciousness of what he had to do, by the clock striking seven. He counted the strokes, and then pausing before one of the large ovens, he said "The time has now come when I must cease to be making preparations to obey the mandate of my imperious mistress.
She will not now be content merely to have issued her orders, but she will keep an eye upon me to see that they are being executed, and unarmed as I am, and without the knowledge of what power of mischief she may have, I feel that it would not be safe yet to provoke her. Nono. I must seem to do her bidding." With this, the cook set about the manufacture of the pies; and as it would really have been much more troublesome to sham making them than to make them in earnest, he really did manufacture a hundred of them. But it was after all with a very bad grace that the poor imprisoned cook now made the pies; and probably so very indifferent a batch of those delicious pieces of pastry had never before found its way into the ovens of Mrs. Lovett. The cook was not wrong in his idea that his imperious mistress would take a peep at him before nine o'clock. At about eight, the little grating in the highup door was tapped by something that Mrs. Lovett had in her hand, with which to attract the attention of the cook. He looked up, and saw her dimly. "Are you busy?" she said. "Yes, madam, as busy as the nine o'clock batch usually makes me. Do you not hear the oven?" "I do'tis well." "Ah, madam," said the dissembling cook, "it will be well, indeed, if you keep your word with me, and set me tonight at freedom." "Do you doubt it?" "I have no particular reason to doubt it, further than that the unfortunate are always inclined to doubt too good news. That is all, madam." "If you doubt, you will be agreeably disappointed, for I shall keep my word with you. You have done for me much better than I ever expected, and I will be grateful to you now that you are going. I have said that you shall not go without means, and you shall have a purse of twenty guineas to help you on your way wherever you wish." "How kind you are, madam! Ah, I shall be able now to forgive you for all that I have suffered in this placeand, after all, it has been a refuge from want." "It has. No one can be better pleased than I am to find you view things so reasonably. Send up the nine o'clock batch; and then wait patiently until I come to you." "I will." "Till then, goodnight!" Mrs. Lovett left the grating; and as she went up to the shop, she muttered to herself "They will, when they find him here, suspect he is an accomplice. Well, let them hang him, for all I care. What can it matter to me?" CHAPTER CXII. MRS. LOVETT FINDS THAT IT IS EASIER TO PLAN THAN TO EXECUTE. It wants five minutes to nine, and Mrs. Lovett's shop is filling with persons anxious to devour or to carry away one or more of the nine o'clock batch of savoury, delightful, gushing gravy pies. Many of Mrs. Lovett's customers paid her in advance for the pies, in order that they might be quite sure of getting their orders fulfilled when the first batch should make its gracious appearance from the depths below. "Well, Jiggs," said one of the legal fraternity to another, "how are you today, old fellow? What do you bring it in?" "Oh! I ain't very blooming. The fact is, the count and I, and a few others, made a night of it last evening; and somehow or another I don't think whiskeyandwater, halfandhalf, and tripe, go well together." "I should wonder if they did." "And so I've come for a pie just to settle my stomach; you see I'm rather delicate." "Ah! you are just like me, young man, there," said an elderly personage; "I have a delicate stomach, and the slightest thing disagrees with me. A mere idea will make me quite ill." "Will it, really?" "Yes; and my wife, she" "Oh, bother your wife! It's only five minutes to nine, don't you see? What a crowd there is, to be sure. Mrs. Lovett, you charmer, I hope you have ordered enough pies to be made tonight? You see what a lot of customers you have." "Oh, there will be plenty." "That's right. I say, don't push so; you'll be in time, I tell you; don't be pushing and driving in that sort of wayI've got ribs." "And so have I. Last night I didn't get a pie at all, and my old woman is in a certain condition, you see, gentlemen, and won't fancy anything but one of Lovett's veal pies; so I've come all the way from Newington to get one for" "Hold your row, will you? and don't push." "For to have the child marked with a pie on its" "Behind there, I say; don't be pushing a fellow as if it were half price at a theatre." Each moment added some new comers to the throng, and at last any strangers who had known nothing of the attractions of Mrs. Lovett's pieshop and had walked down Bell Yard, would have been astonished at the throng of persons there assembleda throng that was each moment increasing in density, and becoming more and more urgent and clamorous. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! Yes, it is nine at last. It strikes by old St. Dunstan's church clock, and in weaker strains the chronometical machine at the pieshop echoes the sound. What excitement there is to get at the pies when they shall come! Mrs. Lovett lets down the square moveable platform that goes on pullies in the cellar; some machinery, which only requires a handle to be turned, brings up a hundred pies in a tray. These are eagerly seized by parties who have previously paid, and such a smacking of lips ensues as never was known. Down goes the platform for the next hundred, and a gentlemanly man says "Let me work the handle, Mrs. Lovett, if you please; it's too much for you I'm sure." "Sir, you are very kind, but I never allow anybody on this side of the counter but my own people, sir. I can turn the handle myself, sir, if you please, with the assistance of this girl. Keep your distance, sir, nobody wants your help." "But my dear madam, only consider your delicacy. Really you ought not to be permitted to work away like a negro slave at a winch handle. Really you ought not." The man who spoke thus obligingly to Mrs. Lovett, was tall and stout, and the lawyers clerks repressed the ire they otherwise would probably have given utterance to at thus finding any one quizzing their charming Mrs. Lovett. "Sir, I tell you again that I don't want your help; keep your distance, sir, if you please." "Now don't get angry, fair one," said the man. "You don't know but I might have made you an offer before I left the shop." "Sir," said Mrs. Lovett, drawing herself up and striking terror into the hearts of the limbs of the law. "Sir! What do you want? Say what you want, and be served, sir, and then go. Do you want a pie, sir?" "A pie? Oh, dear no, I don't want a pie. I would not eat one of the nasty things on any account. Pah!" Here the man spat on the floor. "Oh, dear, don't ask me to eat any of your pies." "Shame, shame," said several of the lawyers clerks. "Will any gentleman who thinks it a shame, be so good as to step forward and say so a little closer?" Everybody shrunk back upon this, instead of accepting the challenge, and Mrs. Lovett soon saw that she must, despite all the legal chivalry by which she was surrounded, fight her battles herself. With a look of vehement anger, she cried "Beware, sir, I am not to be trifled with. If you carry your jokes too far, you will wish that you had not found your way, sir, into this shop." "That, madam," said the tall stout man, "is not surely possible, when I have the beauty of a Mrs. Lovett to gaze upon, and render the place so exquisitely attractive; but if you will not permit me to have the pleasure of helping you up with the next batch of pies, which, after all, you may find heavier than you expect, I must leave you to do it yourself." "So that I am not troubled any longer by you, sir, at all," said Mrs. Lovett, "I don't care how heavy the next batch of pies may happen to be, sir." "Very good, madam." "Upon my word," said a small boy, giving the side of his face a violent rub with the hope of finding the ghost of a whisker there, "it's really too bad." "Ah, who's that? Let me get at him!" "Oh, no, no, Imeanthat it's too bad of Mrs. Lovett, my dear sir. Oh, don't." "Oh, very good; I am satisfied. Now, madam, you see that even your dear friends here, from Lincoln's InnAre you from the Inn, small boy?" "Yes, sir, if you please." "Very good. As I was saying, Mrs. Lovett, you now must of necessity perceive, that even your friends from the Inn, feel that your conduct is really too bad, madam." Mrs. Lovett was upon this so dreadfully angry, that she disdained any reply to the tall stout man, but at once she applied herself to the windlass, which worked up the little platform, upon which a whole tray of a hundred pies was wont to come up, and began to turn it with what might be called a vengeance. How very strange it wassurely the words of the tall stout impertinent stranger were prophetic, for never before had Mrs. Lovett found what a job it was to work that handle, as upon that night. The axle creaked, and the cords and the pullies strained and wheezed, but she was a determined woman, and she worked away at it. "I told you so, my dear madam," said the stranger; "it is more evidently than you can do." "Peace, sir." "I am done; work away ma'am, only don't say afterwards that I did not offer to help you, that's all." Indignation was swelling at the heart of Mrs. Lovett, but she felt that if she wasted her breath upon the impertinent stranger, she should have none for the windlass; so setting her teeth, she fagged at it with a strength and a will that if she had not been in a right royal passion, she could not have brought to bear upon it on any account. There was quite an awful stillness in the shop. All eyes were bent upon Mrs. Lovett, and the cavity through which the next batch of those delicious pies were coming. Those who had had the good fortune to get one of the first lot, had only had their appetites heightened by the luxurious feast they had partaken of, while those who had had as yet none, actually licked their lips, and snuffed up the delightful aroma from the remains of the first batch. "Two for me, Mrs. Lovett," cried a voice. "One veal for me. Three porksone pork." The voices grew fast and furious. "Silence!" cried the tall stout man. "I will engage that everybody shall be fully satisfied; and no one shall leave here without a thorough conviction that his wants in pies has been more than attended to." The platform could be made to stop at any stage of its upward progress, by means of a ratchet wheel and a catch, and now Mrs. Lovett paused to take breath. She attributed the unusual difficulty in working the machinery to her own weakness, contingent upon her recent immersion in the Thames. "Sir," she said between her clenched teeth, addressing the man who was such an eyesore to her in the shop. "Sir, I don't know who you are, but I hope to be able to show you when I have served these gentlemen, that even I am not to be insulted with impunity." "Anything you please, madam," he replied, "in a small way, only don't exert yourself too much." Mrs. Lovett flew to the windlass again, and from the manner in which she now worked at it, it was quite clear that when she had her hands free from that job, she fully intended to make good her threats against the tall stout man. The young beardless scions of the law, trembled at the idea of what might happen. And now the tops of the pies appeared. Then they saw the rim of the large tray upon which they were, and then just as the platform itself was level with the floor of the shop, up flew tray and pies, as if something had exploded beneath them, and a tall slim man sprung upon the counter. It was the cook, who from the cellars beneath, had laid himself as flat as he could beneath the tray of pies, and so had been worked up to the shop by Mrs. Lovett! Mrs. Lovett's Cook Astonishes Her Customers, Rather. Mrs. Lovett's Cook Astonishes Her Customers, Rather. "Gentlemen," he cried, "I am Mrs. Lovett's cook. The pies are made of human flesh!" We shrink, we tremble at the idea of attempting to describe the scene that ensued in the shop of Mrs. Lovett contingent upon this frightful apparition, and still more frightful speech of the cook; but dutyour duty to the publicrequires that we should say something upon the occasion. If we can do nothing more, we can briefly enumerate what did actually take place in some instances. About twenty clerks rushed into Bell Yard, and there and then, to the intense surprise of the passersby, became intensely sick. The cook, with one spring, cleared the counter, and alighted amongst the customers, and with another spring, the tall impertinent man, who had made many remarks to Mrs. Lovett of an aggravating tendency, cleared the counter likewise in the other direction, and, alighting close to Mrs. Lovett, he cried "Madam, you are my prisoner!" For a moment, and only for a moment, the greatthe cunning, and the redoubtable Mrs. Lovett, lost her selfpossession, and, staggering back, she lurched heavily against the glasscase next to the wall, immediately behind the counter. It was only for a moment, though, that such an effect was produced upon Mrs. Lovett; and then, with a spring like an enraged tigress, she caught up a knife that was used for slipping under the pies and getting them cleanly out of the little tins, and rushed upon the tall stranger. Yes, she rushed upon him; but for once in a way, even Mrs. Lovett had met with her match. With a dexterity, that only long practice in dealings with the more desperate portion of human nature could have taught him, the tall man closed with her, and had the knife out of her hand in a moment. He at once threw it right through the window into Bell Yard, and then, holding Mrs. Lovett in his arms, he said "My dear madam, you only distress yourself for nothing; all resistance is perfectly useless. Either I must take you prisoner, or you me, and I decidedly incline to the former alternative." The knife that had been thrown through the window was not without its object, for in a moment afterwards Mr. Crotchet made his appearance in the shop. "All right, Crotchet," said he who had captured Mrs. Lovett; "first clap the bracelets on this lady." "Here yer is," said Crotchet. "Lor, mum! I had a eye on you months and months agone. How is you, mum, in yer feelin's this here nice evening?Eh mum?" "A knifea knife! Oh, for a knife!" cried Mrs. Lovett. "Exactly, mum," added Crotchet, as he with professional dexterity slipped the handcuffs on her wrists. "Would you like one with a hivory handle, mum? or would anything more common do, mum?" Mrs. Lovett fell to the floor, or rather she cast herself to it, and began voluntarily beating her head against the boards. They quickly lifted her up; and then the tall stranger turned to the cook, who, after leaping over the counter, had sat down upon a chair in a state of complete exhaustion, and he said "Do you know the way to Sir Richard's office, in Craven Street? He expects you there, I believe?" "Yes, yes. But now that all is over, I feel very ill." "In that case, I will go with you, then. Crotchet, who have you got outside?" "Only two of our pals, Muster Green; but it's all right, if so be as you leaves the lady to us." "Very well. The warrant is at Newgate, and the governor is expecting her instant arrival. You will get a coach at the corner of the yard, and be off with her at once." "All's right," said Crotchet. "I knowed as she'd be nabbed, and I had one all ready, you sees." "That was right, Crotchet. How amazingly quick everybody has left the shop. Whywhy, what is all this?" As the officer spoke, about half a dozen squares of glass in the shop window of the house were broken in, and a ringing shout from a dense mob that was rapidly collecting in the yard, came upon the ears of the officer. The two men whom Crotchet had mentioned, with difficulty pressed their way into the shop, and one of them cried "The people that were in the shop have spread the news all over the neighbourhood, and the place is getting jammed up with a mob, every one of which is mad, I think, for they talk of nothing but of the tearing of Mrs. Lovett to pieces. They are pouring in from Fleet Street and Carey Street by hundreds at a time." CHAPTER CXIII. THE ROUTE TO NEWGATEMRS. LOVETT'S DANGER FROM THE MOB. Mrs. Lovett, upon hearing these words, turned ghastly pale, but she did not speak. The officers looked at each other with something like dismay, and then before either of them could say another word, there arose a wild prolonged shout from without. "Out with herout with her! Kill her! Tear her to bits and hang her on the lamppost in the middle of Bell Yard! Out with her! Drag her out! Hang her! hang her!" "The coach you say is waiting, Crotchet?" said the officer, who had been intrusted by Sir Richard Blunt with the conduct of the whole business connected with Mrs. Lovett's capture. "It were," said Crotchet, "and that coachman ain't the sort of fellow to move on till I tell him. I knows him." "Very good, then we must make a dash for it, and get her away by main force, it must be done, let the risk and the consequences be what they may, and the sooner the better, too. Come on, madam." "Deathdeath!" said Mrs. Lovett. "Kill me here, some of you, kill me at once; but do not let me be torn to pieces by a savage mob. Oh, God, they yell for my blood! Save me from them, and kill me here. A knife! oh, for a knife!" "And a fork too, mum," said Crotchet; "in course, if you wants 'em. I tells you what it is, Mr. Green, that there mob is just savage, and we have about as much chance of getting her down to Fleet Street with her head on her shoulders, as all of us have of flying over the blessed house tops." "We must. It is our duty, and if we fail, they must kill us, which I don't think they will do. Come on." "I will go with you," said the cook, starting up from the chair upon which he had on account of his weakness been compelled to seat himself, "I will go with you, and implore the people to let the law take its course upon this woman." "In the cupboard, in the parlour," said Mrs. Lovett, speaking in a strange gasping tone, "there is a letter addressed by me to Sir Richard Blunt. It will be worth your while to save it from the mob. Let me show you where to lay your hands upon it, and if you have any wish to take a greater criminal than I, go to the shop of one Sweeney Todd, a barber, in Fleet Street. His number is sixty nine. Seize him, for he is the head of all the criminality you can possibly impute to me. Seize him, and I shall be content." "The man you mention," said Mr. Green, "has been in Newgate an hour nearly." "Newgate?" "Yes. We took him first, and then attended to you." "Toddcapturedin Newgateand I in fancied security here remained wasting the previous moments upon which hung my life. Oh, foolfooldoltidiot. A knife! Oh, sirs, I pray you to give me the means of instant death. What can the law do, but take my life? What have you all come here, and plotted and planned for, but to take my life? I will do it. Oh, I pray you to give me the means, and I will satisfy you and justice, and die at once." Another loud roar from the infuriated people without, drowned whatever the officer might have said in reply to this appeal from Mrs. Lovett, and again arose the wild shouts of "Out with her!Out with her!Hang her!Hang the murderess!Hang her in the yard!Out with her!" "Forward!" cried Mr. Green. "To hesitate is only to make our situation ten times worse. Forward!" "Hold a bit," cried Crotchet, "let me speak to the people; I knows how to humour 'em. Only you see if I don't get her along. Come, mum, just step this aways if yer pleases. Open the door, Mr. Cook, and let me out first." The cook opened the door, and before the mob could rush into the place, Crotchet stepped on to the threshold of the shop, and in a tremendous voice that made itself heard above all others, he cried "Hurrah! Hurrah!" Nothing is easier than to throw a cry into a crowd, and to get it echoed to your heart's content; and so some couple of hundred voices now immediately cried"Hurrah!" and when the vast volume of sound had died away, Crotchet in such a voice that it must have been heard in Fleet Street quite plainly, said "My opinion is, that Mrs. Lovett ought to be hung outright, and at once without any more bother about it." "Hurrah!Hang her!Hang her!" shouted the mob. "And," added Crotchet, "I propose the lamppost at the top of Fleet Market as a nice public sort of place to do the job in. She says she won't walk, but I have a coach in Fleet Street, and we will pop her into that, and so take her along quite snug." "Yes, yes," cried the people. "Bring her along, that will do." "Oh, will it?" muttered Crochet to himself. "What a precious set of ninnies you are. If I get her once in the coach, and she gets out again except to step into the stone jug, may I be hanged myself." "I think you have managed it, Crotchet," whispered Mr. Green, "I think that will do." "To be sure it will, sir. All's right. Bless your heart, mobs is the stupidest beasts as is. You may do anything you like with them if you will only let them have their own way a little, but if so be as you trys to fight 'em, they is all horns and porkipines, quills and stone walls, and iron rails, they is!" "You are right enough, Crotchet; and now then let Smith stay here and mind the house, and shut it all up snug till the morning; when it can be thoroughly searched, and you and I and Simmons here will go with Mrs. Lovett." "And I too," said the cook. "We can go to Sir Richard's afterwards." "So we canso we can. Come on, now." "You will deliver me up to the mob," screamed Mrs. Lovett. "Mercy! Mercy! I shall be torn limb from limb. Oh, what a death! Are you men or fiends that you will condemn me to it? Mercy!mercy!" This sudden passion of Mrs. Lovett's was the very thing the officers would have desired, inasmuch as it materially helped to deceive the mob, and to prevent any idea upon the part of the infuriated people, that there was any collusion between the officers and Mrs. Lovett, for the purpose of getting her safely to prison. They dragged her out into Bell Yard, and then the shouts that the mob set up was truly terrific. "Lights! Links!" cried a voice. "Let's show her the way!" In a moment an oilshop opposite to Mrs. Lovett's was plundered of a score or two of links, and being lighted with great rapidity from the solitary oillamp that there stood in the middle of Bell Yard, they sent a bright lurid glare upon the sea of heads, that seemed so close they might have been walked upon all the way to Fleet Street. Another shout echoed far and near, and then Crotchet took hold of one of Mrs. Lovett's arms, and Mr. Green hold of the other, and the cook and the other officers following, they all began slowly to make way through the mob. "Let's get along with her," cried Crotchet. "I have her tight. She won't get away. Some of you get a good stout rope ready, and make a noose in it. We will hang her on the lamppost at the top of the market. Bring her along. Make way a little. Only a little!" Mrs. Lovett shrieked as she saw the sea of angry faces before, behind, and on all sides of her. She thought that surely her last hour was come, and that a far more horrible death than any she had ever calculated upon in her worst moments of depression, was about to be hers. Her eyes were bloodshotshe bit her under lip through, and the blood poured from her mouthshe each moment that she could gather breath to do so, raised a fearful shriek, and the mob shouted and yelled, and swayed to and fro, and the links were tossed from hand to hand, flashing, and throwing around them thousands of bright sparks, and people rapidly joined the mob. CHAPTER CXIV. THE COOK WAITS UPON SIR RICHARD BLUNT AND HEARS NEWS. It took a quarter of an hour to reach the coach from the door of Mrs. Lovett's shop, a distance that in twenty steps any one might have traversed; and, oh! what a quarter of an hour of horrible suffering that was to the wretched woman, whose crimes had so infuriated the populace, that with one voice they called for her death! Mrs. Lovett's Escort To The Gallows. Mrs. Lovett's Escort To The Gallows. The coach door was opened, and Crotchet pushed his prisoner in. Mr. Green, and the other officer and the cook followed her. "I will go on the box," said Crotchet. "Very well," said Green, "but be mindful of your own safety, Crotchet." "All's right. There ain't any more o' my sort in London, and I know I am rather a valuable piece o' goods. Has anybody got the rope ready for the lady?" "Here you are," said a man, "I have one." "You get up behind then," said Crotchet, "for of course you know we shall soon want you." "Yes, I will. That's right! It's all right, friends. I am to get up behind with the rope. Here's the rope!" "Three cheers for the rope!" cried somebody, and the cheers were given with deafening violence. What will not a mob give three cheers foray, or any number of cheers you like to name? A piece of poor humanity in tinsel and fine linen, called a king or queena popular crya murderessa ropeanything will suffice. Surely, Mr. Crotchet, you know something of the people! "Now," said Crotchet to the coachman, "are you as bold as brass, and as strong as an iron file?" The coachman looked puzzled, but Mr. Crotchet pursued his queries. "Will these 'osses, if they is frightened a bit, cut along quick?" "Rather," said the coachman. "The blessed fact is, that they won't cut along unless you do frighten them a bit; and as for me being an old file and having lots o' brass, I doesn't consider as I'm a bit worser nor my neighbours." "You is as hignorant as a badger!" said Crotchet. "Make yourself easy and give me the reins. The mobs o' people thinks as we is a going to hang the woman at the corner of Fleet Market, but if I lives another ten minutes, she will be in Newgate. There may be something of a scuffle, and if anything happens to you, or to the coach or the 'osses, the county will pay handsomely, so now give me the reins. You may not like to whip through them, but I haven't the least objection." The coachman looked scared and nervous, but he gave up the reins and the whip to Crotchet, and then leaning back on the box, he waited with no small trepidation the result of the expected disturbance, while he had only Mr. Crotchet's word that the county would pay for handsomely. The short distance from the corner of Bell Yard to the end of Fleet Market was rapidly traversed, and when that interesting point was reached, the dense mass of people set up another shout, and began to surround the lamppost that was there, and to fill up all the avenues. "Get the rope up," said Crotchet. "Yes, yes. Hurrah! hurrah! Pull her out, and hang her!" The highly interesting process of getting the rope fixed upon the little projecting piece of iron, upon which the lamplighter was wont to rest his ladder, had the effect that Crotchet expected, namely, to attract general attention; and then, taking advantage of the moment, he seized the whip and used it with such effect upon the horses, that, terrified and half maddened, they set off with the coach at a tearing gallop. For a moment or twoand in that moment or two Mr. Crotchet with his prisoner got to the corner of the Old Baileythe mob were so staggered by this unexpected elopement of the hackneycoach, that not a soul followed it. The idea that the horses had of their own accord started, being probably alarmed at the links, was the first that possessed the people, and many voices called out loudly "Pull 'em inpull 'em in! Saw their heads off!" But when they saw Mr. Crotchet fairly turn into the Old Bailey, the trick that had been played upon them became apparent; and one yell of indignation and rage burst from the multitude. The pursuit was immediate; but Mr. Crotchet had too much the start of the mob, and long before the struggling infuriated people, impeding each other as they tore along, had reached the corner of the Old Bailey, Mrs. Lovett was in the lobby of the prison, and the officers safely with her. She looked like a corpse. The colour of her face was that of soiled white wax. But mobs, if they cannot wreak their vengeance upon what may be, for distinction's sake, called the legitimate object of their displeasure, will do so upon something else; and upon reaching the door of Newgate, and finding there was no sort of chance of getting hold of Mrs. Lovett, they took the horses out of the hackneycoach, and started them off through the streets to go where they liked; and then, dragging the coach to Smithfield, they then and there made a bonfire of it, and were very much satisfied and delighted, indeed. "Now, mum," said Crotchet to Mrs. Lovett, "didn't I say I'd bring yer to the old stone jug as safe as ninepence?" She only looked at him vacantly; and then, glaring around her with a shudder, she said "And this is Newgate!" "Just a few," said Crotchet. The governor at this moment made his appearance, and began to give orders as to where Mrs. Lovett should be placed. A slight change of colour came over her face, as she said "Shall I see Todd?" "Not at present," said the governor. "I should like to see him to forgive him; for no doubt it is to him that I owe this situation. He has betrayed me!" The look which she put on when she uttered the words "I should like to see him to forgive him," was so truly demoniac, that it was quite clear if she did see Todd, that whether she were armed or not, she would fly upon him, and try to take his life; and although in that she might fail, there would be very little doubt but that, in the process of failure, she would inflict upon him some very serious injury. It was not likely, though, that the officials of Newgate would indulge her with an opportunity. "You had better all of you wait here," said the governor to Mr. Crotchet, and the officers, and the cook, "until the mob is gone." "The street is quite clear, sir," said a turnkey, "They have taken the coach to knock it to pieces, I suppose, sir." "And I'm done up at last!" said the coachman, wringing his hands, for he had, in fear for his own safety, made his way into the lobby of Newgate along with Mr. Crotchet; "I'm done up at last!" "Not at all," said the governor. "We would not have lost such a prisoner as this Mrs. Lovett, for the worth of fifty coaches. Every penny of your loss will be made good to you. There is a guinea, in the meantimego home, and do not distress yourself upon the subject, my good fellow." Upon this the coachman was greatly comforted, and with Mr. Crotchet and the officers, he left the lobby of Newgate at the same moment that Mrs. Lovett was led off into the interim of that gloomy and horrible abode. The object of the officer was now to get to the private office of Sir Richard Blunt as soon as possible, and let him know of the successful capture of Mrs. Lovett. Sir Richard, too, it will be remembered, had left a special message with the cook to repair to his office as soon as he could after his release from his bondage in Bell Yard, so that the liberated cook, who felt that he owed that liberation to the advice and assistance of Sir Richard, did not scruple to obey the directions of the magistrate at once. The privateoffice of Sir Richard, it will be recollected, was in Craven Street, at the bottom of the Strand. Upon the route there, Mr. Crotchet and the cook held a long and very serious discourse about the proceedings of Mrs. Lovett, and if the cook was able to tell the active and enterprising Crotchet much that was curious regarding the underground operations at Mrs. Lovett's, he, in return, received some curious edifying information concerning the lady's business connexion with Sweeney Todd, with the particulars of which the cook had been completely ignorant.
By the time they reached Craven Street, therefore, the cook's eyes were considerably opened, and many matters that had been to him extremely obscure, became all at once quite clear, so that he was upon the whole far from sorry for the companionship of the eccentric Crotchet on the road down the Strand to the magistrate's private office. Sir Richard was at home, and anxiously expecting them, so that upon the first hint of their presence they were introduced to him, and he received the report of the officer with evident satisfaction. "Thank God," he said, "two of the greatest malefactors the world ever saw are now in the hands of justice." "Yes," said Crotchet. "They are cotched." "You may depend all of you," added Sir Richard, "that your conduct and great skill in exertions in this affair shall be by me communicated to the Secretary of State, who will not leave you unrewarded. Pray wait for me in the outer room, I have some private business with this gentleman." The officers were a little surprised to hear Sir Richard Blunt call Mrs. Lovett's cook, "this gentleman;" but they of course took no notice of the circumstance while in the presence of their principal, and in a few moments the magistrate was alone with the cook. From a cupboard in his room, then Sir Richard Blunt took wine and other refreshments, and laid them before the cook, saying "Refresh yourself, my friend; but for your own sake, as your fare has been but indifferent for some time, I beg you to be sparing." "I will, sir. I owe you muchvery much!" "You are free now." "Iamsir." "And yet you are very unhappy." The cook started and changed colour slightly. He filled, for himself, a glass of wine, and after drinking it he heaved a sigh, as he said "Sir, I am unhappy. I do not care how soon the world and I part, sir. The hopethe dream of my life has gone from me. All that I lived forall that I cherished as the brightest expectation of joy in this world has passed away like a vapour, and left not a rack behind. I am unhappy, and better, far better, would it have been for me if Sweeney Todd had taken my life, or if by some subtle poison, Mrs. Lovett had shuffled me out of the worldI am unhappy." "Indeed! And you really think you have nothing in this world now to live for?" "I do. But it is not a thought only. It is a knowledgeit is a fact that cannot be gainsaid or controverted. I tell you, sir, that I can never now hope to realise the happiness which was the daydream of my existence, and which has passed from me like a dream, nevernever to come again. It was in the despair contingent upon such thoughts and feelings, that I went to Mrs. Lovett and became her slave; but now I will be off far away from England, and on some foreign shore I will lay my bones." "But, my good sir, you will be wanted on the trial of your old friend, Mrs. Lovett." "Cannot you hang the woman without my help?" "Yes, I think we might, but so material a witness to her infamy as yourself cannot be dispensed with. Of course I do not pretend to be a conjuror, or to say to any man'You shall be happy in spite of all your prognostications to the contrary;' but from what you have told me of your story, I must confess that to my perception you take much too gloomy a view of your condition." "Too gloomy!" exclaimed the cook, as he filled himself up another glass of wine. "Too gloomy! My dear, sir, you don't know how I loved that girlyou don't know how IIBut it is no matter nowall that is past. Oh God! that she should be false to meshe of all persons in the great world!" "And so you will let this little disappointment of the heart, place you in your youth quite beside all possible enjoyment? Is this wise, sir? Is it even manly?" The poor cook was silent for a few moments, and then in a voice of deep emotion, he said "Sir, you don't know how much I loved her. You do not know how I pictured to myself happiness with her alone. You do not know, sir, how, even when death stared me in the face, I thought of her and her only, and howBut no matterno matter, sir. She is false, and it is madness to speak of her. Let her go, sir. It is just possible that in the time to come, I may outlive the despair that now fills my heart." "You surely will." "I do not think it. But I will hope that I may." "And have you really no hopeno innate lurking supposition in your mind, that you may be doing her an injustice in your suspicions of her faith?" "Suspicions?" "Ay, sir, suspicions, for even you must admit that you know nothing." "Know nothing, sir?" "Absolutely nothing. You will find, if you come to consider the affair, that, as I say, you know nothing, but suspect much; and so upon mere suspicion you will make your future life miserable. I would not so bend to circumstances if the whole world stood up before me, and told me I was right in my dread thoughts of one whom I had loved." The poor cook glanced at Sir Richard Blunt, and for the space of about half a minute, not one word passed between them. Then in a low voice, the cook said "You have read Romeo and Juliet, sir?" "Yeswhat then?" "There is one line there, in which we read that 'He jests at scars who never felt a wound.'" "Well, how would you apply that line to the present circumstances?" "I would say you have never loved, sir, and I have loved." "A broad assumption that, my friend," said Sir Richard Blunt, "a very broad assertion, indeed. But come, I have to spare a short time. Will you, in recompense for what I have done for you, relate to me more fully than you have done, how it is that you suspect her whom you loved of falsehood to you?" "Do not say loved, sir; I love her still." "I am glad to hear it. I pray you to go on, and tell me now all, if you feel that you can have sufficient confidence in me, and that you can view me with a sufficient friendly feeling." "Oh, sir, why do you doubt me? Do I not owe to you my life? Do I not owe it to you that I escaped the death that without a doubt was designed for me by Todd? and was it not by your persevering, that at length I had patience enough to wait until the proper time had come for my release, when it could be accomplished without the shadow of a doubt as to the result?" "Well," said Sir Richard Blunt, with a smile, "I hope then that I have established some claim upon you; so now tell me your story, my friend, and at the end of it I will, from my experience, do what I can to bring you substantial comfort." "You shall hear all, sir," said the cook, "but comfort and I have parted long since, I fear, from each other for ever." CHAPTER CXV. THE COOK BECOMES A VERY IMPORTANT PERSONAGE. At this last declaration of Mrs. Lovett's late cook, regarding the tender adieu that he and comfort had taken of each other, Sir Richard Blunt only smiled faintly, and slightly inclined his hand as much as to say "That is all very well, but I am waiting to hear your story, if you please." "Well, sir," added the cook. "You already know that I am not exactly what I seem, and that my being in that most abominable woman's employment as a cook, was one of those odd freaks of fortune, which will at times detract the due order of society, and place people in the most extraordinary positions." "Exactly." "I am, sir, an orphan, and was brought up by an uncle with every expectation that he would be kind and liberal to me as I progressed in years; but he had taken his own course and had made up his mind as to what I was to be, how I was to look, and what I was to say and to do, without asking himself the question, if nature was good enough to coincide with him or not. The consequence was then, that directly he found me very different from what he wished me to be, he was very angry indeed, and then I put the finishing stroke to his displeasure, by committing the greatest crime that in his eyes I could commit I fell in love." "Humph!" "Yes, sir, that was just what he said at first, when some officious friend told of it, and sending for me he said'You must give up all love nonsense if you wish to preserve my favour,' upon which I said'Sir, did you never love?' 'That is not the question,' he said. 'It is of your follies now, not mine, that we are speaking,' and so he turned me out of the room." "And what did you do? Did you give up your love?" "No, sir; if he had asked me to give up my life that would have been much easier to me." "Go on. What then happened?" "Why, sir, my uncle and I met very seldom, but there was one upon my track that he paid to follow me, and to report my actions to him; and that spyoh, that I had caught him! that spy made my uncle acquainted with the fact, that I continued, despite his prohibition, to meet with the only being who ever awakened in my bosom a tender feeling; and so I was abandoned by my relative, and left penniless almost." "But you had youth and health?" "I had, and I resolved to make use of those advantages as best I might, by endeavouring while they lasted, frail and fluttering possessions as they are, to make a home for myself and for her whom I loved." "The feeling, I presume, was reciprocal?" "I thought so." "Was it only a thought, then?" "Alas! no. It was a certainty; and if an angel with wings fresh spread from Heaven, and carrying upon them the soft light of an eternal world, had come to me and told me that she would be false to me, I would not have believed as much." "And yet" "And yet, as you say, I have found her false. Wellwell, Sir Richardlet me proceed. The thought of her unmans me at moments, but in time I may recover from such feelings." "Most unquestionably you will; and then you will look to your present condition of mind with such a smile of incredulity, and only a faint faith in your own memory that paints you such feelings." "I cannot say, sir, that it will not be so, but I do not think so. To proceed, however. I heard that an expedition was about to start to explore some rich islands in the Southern Sea. If successful, every one who took part in it would be enriched; and if unsuccessful, I could not lose my life in a better cause then in trying to make a happy home for her whom I love. I at once embraced the proposition, and became one of the adventurers, much against the inclination of the gentle girl whom I loved, and who in imagination pictured to herself a thousand dangers as involved in the enterprise." "You went?" "I did, and with every hope of returning in about a year an independent man. I thought little of the perils I was about to encounter in my voyage. I and the fair girl upon whom I had fixed my best hopes and affections parted, after many tears and protestations of fidelity. I kept my faith." "And she?" "Broke hers." "As you thinkas you think. You cannot be too cautious, my young friend, in making assertions of that character." "Cautious, sir? Am I to believe the evidence of my own eyes, or am I not?" "Not always," said Sir Richard Blunt, calmly. "But I pray you go on with your narrative." "I will. The principal object of the voyage failed entirely; but by pure accident I got possession of a String of Pearls, of very great value indeed, which, provided I could get home in safety, would value in Europe quite a sufficient sum to enable us to live in comfort. But the dangers of the deep assailed us. We were wrecked; and fully believing that I should not survive, I handed the pearls to a stronger comrade, and begged him to take them to her whom I had loved, to tell herself my fate, and to bid her not weep for me, since I had died happy in the thought that I had achieved something for her; and so, my friend and I parted. I was preserved and got on board a merchant vessel bound for England, where I arrived absolutely penniless. But I had a heart full of hope and joy; for if I could but find my poor girl faithful to me, I felt that we might yet be happy, whether my comrade had lived to bring to her the pearls or not." "And you found her?" "You shall hear, sir. I walked from Southampton to London, subsisting on the road as best I could. Sometimes I met with kind treatment at farmhouses, and sometimes with quite the reverse, until at length I reached London tolerably exhausted, as you may suppose, and in anything but a good plight." "Well, but you found your girl all right, I suppose?" "No. I walked up the Strand; and as some of our happiest interviews had taken place in the Temple Gardens, I could not resist turning aside for a moment to look at the old familiar spot, when what do you think was the sight that met my eyes?" "I really can't say." "I will tell you, sir. I saw her whom I lovedthe young and beautiful girl for whom I had gone through so muchthe being upon whose faith and constancy I would at any time have staked my lifethe, as I thought, most innocent, guileless creature upon the face of the earth" "Well, well, my good friend, what did you see this paragon of perfection about?" "You will not believe it, sir." "Oh, yes, I shalldo not be afraid of thatI shall believe it. Your narrative bears too much the stamp of truth about it for me to doubt it for a moment. I pray you to go on." "I will then. The first object that met my eyes in that Temple Garden was the being whom I loved so fondly leaning upon the arm of a man in a military undressleaning, did I say, upon his arm? she was almost upon his breast, and he was actually supporting her with one of his arms round her waist." "Well?" "What, sir! Is that all you can say to it? Would you say 'Well?' if you saw the only creature you ever loved in such a situation, sir? Well, indeed!" "My dear friend, do not get excited, now." "Oh, sir, it would excite a stick or a stone." "Excuse me, then, for having said 'Well,' and go on with your story. What did she say to excuse herself to you?" "'Tis well, sirof course, I cannot expect others to feel as I do upon such an occasion. I did not speak to her, sir. The sight of such perfidy was enough for me. From that moment she fell from the height I had raised her to in my imagination, and nothing she could say, and nothing I could say, would raise her up again." "And you, then, only walked away?" "That is all. With such a pang at my heart at the moment as I wonder did not kill me, I walked away, and left her to her own conclusions." "Thenthen, my young friend, you did the very reverse of what I should have done, for you should have gone up to her, and politely taken leave of her, so as to let her know at all events that you were aware of her perfidy. I should not have been content to let her have the satisfaction of thinking I was at the bottom of the sea while she was enjoying a flirtation with her officer; but, of course, different people take different courses upon emergencies. There is one thing, however, that I wonder you did not inquire about." "What was that?" "Your String of Pearls. How could you tell but that your friend had got to London, and had actually given her the Pearls with your message appended to them? I really am surprised that you did not step forward and say, 'Oblige me, miss, with my pearls, if you no longer favour me with your affections!'" "No, no. To tell the truth, I was too heartbroken at the time to care about anything in all the world; I had lost her who was to me the greatest jewel it had ever contained, and I cared for nothing else. I do believe I was a little mad, for I walked about the rest of that day, not knowing where I went to, and at last I found myself, tired, worn out, famishing, opposite to Mrs. Lovett's shopwindow, and the steam of those abominable pies began to tempt me, so much that I went into the shop, and after some talk, I actually accepted the situation of cook to her, and there, but for you, I should have breathed my last." "Not a doubt of it. And now, my young friend, you know that I am a policemagistrate, and I dare say you have heard a great deal about my sources of information, and the odd way in which I find out things when folks think they keep them a profound secret. You have told me all your history, but you have thought proper, as you were, if you pleased, quite justified in doing, to withhold your name." "I have done so, but I hardly know why. I will tell it to you, however, now." "Hold, I know it." "You know it, sir?" "Yes, your name is Mark Ingestrie!" "It is, indeed. But how you came to know that, sir, is to me most mysterious." "Oh, I know more than that. The name of the young lady who, you believe, played you such a trick, is Johanna Oakley." Mark Ingestrie, for it was indeed no other, sprang to his feet, exclaiming "Are you man or devil, that you know what I have never breathed to you?" "Don't be surprised, my young friend. I can tell you a little more than that even. The friend to whom you intrusted your String of Pearls, was named Francis Thornhill; and his doglet me seeOh, his large dog was called 'Hector.'" Mark Ingestrie trembled excessively, and sinking back in his seat, he turned very pale. "This must be a dream," he said, "or you, sir, get your information from the spirits of the dead." "Not at all. But have you faith in my inspiration now sufficient to induce you to believe anything that I may tell you?" "In good truth, I have; and I may well have, for after what you have already told me, your power of knowledge cannot by me be for one moment doubted." "Very well, then. In the first place, Mr. Francis Thornhill reached London in safety." "He did?" "I tell you so. He arrived in London with your String of Pearls in his pocket. He fully believed you were dead. Indeed, he fancied that he had seen the last of you, and was quite prepared to say as much to Miss Johanna Oakley." "And he did? That will be some excuse for her, if she thought that I was gone." "No, he did not. On his route he turned into the shop of Sweeney Todd to be shaved, and there he was murdered." "Murdered!" "Yes, most foully murdered; and the String of Pearls got into the possession of that man, proving ultimately one of the means by which his frightful villainous crime came to light. The dog remained at Todd's door seeking for its master, to the great discomfiture of the murderer, who made every effort within his power for its destruction, in which however he did not succeed." "Gracious Heaven! my poor friend Thornhill to meet with such a fate! Oh God! and all on account of that fatal String of Pearls! Oh, ThornhillThornhill! rather would I have sunk for ever beneath the wave, than such a dreadful end should have been yours." "The past cannot be recalled," said Sir Richard. "It is only with the present, and with the future that we have anything to do now. Would you like to hear more?" "More? Of whom? Is he not dead?my poor friend?" "Yes, he is dead; but I can tell you more of other people. I can tell you that Johanna Oakley was faithful to you. I can tell you that she mourned your loss as you would wish her to mourn it, knowing how you would mourn hers. I can tell you that the gentleman's arm she was leaning upon was only a dear friend, and that the fact of her having to be supported by him at the unlucky moment when you saw this was solely owing to the deep grief she was plunged into upon your account." "Oh nonono!" "I say yes. It was so, Mr. Ingestrie; and if you had at that moment stepped forward, you would have saved yourself much misery, and you would have saved her such heartbreaking thoughts, and such danger, as it will frighten you to listen to." CHAPTER CXVI. JOHANNA IS AMPLY PAID FOR HER BRIEF SERVICE AT TODD'S. Upon hearing all this, poor Mark Ingestrie turned very faint and fell back in his chair, looking so pale and wan, that Sir Richard Blunt was compelled to go across the room to hold him up. After giving him a glass of wine, he recovered, and with a deep sigh he said "And so I have wronged her after all! Oh, my Johanna, I am unworthy of you!" "That," said Sir Richard, "is a subject entirely for the young lady's own consideration.N. O. W." Mark Ingestrie looked curiously in the face of Sir Richard Blunt, as with marked emphasis upon each letter he said, "N. O. W!" But he had not to wait long for an explanation of what it meant. A door at the back of the room was flung open, and Johanna sprung forward with a cry of joy. In another moment she was in the arms of Mark Ingestrie, and Sir Richard Blunt had left the room. The Meeting Of Mark And Johanna. The Meeting Of Mark And Johanna. It would be quite impossible, if we had the will to attempt it, for us to go through the scene that took place between Johanna Oakley and Mark Ingestrie in the magistrate's parlour. For about half an hour they quite forgot where they were, or that there was any one in the world but themselves. At the end of that period of time, though, Sir Richard Blunt gently walked into the room. "Well," he said, "have you come to any understanding about that military man in the Temple Gardens?" Johanna sprang towards the magistrate, and placing her arms upon his breast, she kissed him on the cheek. "Sir," she said, "you are our very dear friend, and I love you as I love my father." "God bless you!" said Sir Richard, "You have, by those few words, more then repaid me for all that I have done. Are you happy?" "Very, very happy." "So very happy, sir," said Ingestrie, as his eyes glistened through tears of joy, "that I can hardly believe in its reality." "And yet you are both so poor." "Ah, sir, what is poverty when we shall be together?" "We will face that foe, Mark, I think," said Johanna, with a smile, "and he shall not extort a tear from us." "Well," said Sir Richard, as he opened his desk, "since you are not to be knocked down by poverty, what say you to riches? Do you know these, Mr. Ingestrie?" "Why, that is my String of Pearls." "Yes. I took this from Todd's escritoire myself, and they are yours and Johanna's. Will you permit me always to call you Johanna?" "Oh, yesyes. Do so. All who love me call me Johanna." "Very well. This String of Pearls, I have ascertained, is worth a sufficient sum to place you both very far above all the primary exigences of life. It will be necessary to produce them at the trial of Sweeney Todd, but after that event they will be handed to you to do what you please with them, when you can realise them at at once, and be happy enough with the proceeds." "If my poor friend, Thornhill," sighed Mark Ingestrie, "could but have lived to see this day!" "That, indeed, would have been a joy," said Johanna. "Yes," said the magistrate; "but the grave has closed on his poor remainsat least, I may say so figuratively. He was one of Todd's victims, one of his numerous victims; for I do believe that, for a long time, scarcely a week passed that did not witness some three or four murders in that man's shop." "Horrible!" "You may well use that expression, in speaking of the career of Sweeney Todd. It has been most horrible; but there cannot be a doubt of his expiating his crimes upon the scaffold, together with his partner in guilt, Mrs. Lovett." Mark Ingestrie gave a shudder as that woman's name was mentioned, for it put him in mind of the cellar where he had lived so long, and where it was only by the most good fortune that he had not terminated his career. Before they could say any more, one of the officers in attendance upon Sir Richard, announced Colonel Jeffery. "Ah, that is your dreadful military rival," said Sir Richard to Ingestrie. "That is the gentleman whom you saw in the garden of the Temple with Johanna." "I have much to thank him for. His conduct to Johanna has been most noble." The colonel smiled when he saw Mark Ingestrie and Johanna, for he well knew, from private information he had got from the magistrate, that Mark Ingestrie and Mrs. Lovett's cook were identical; and holding out his hand to the young man, he said "Accept of my best and sincerest wishes, Mr. Ingestrie." "And you, sir," said Mark, "accept of my best thanks. Our gratitude is largely due to you, sir." "I am quite repaid by this very happy result; and I have the pleasure of informing you, Sir Richard, that poor Tobias is very much better indeed." "Which I am rejoiced to hear," said Sir Richard. "And now, my dear Johanna, it is time for you to go home. You will hear from me in the morning, for I intend to do myself the pleasure of calling upon your father, and explaining all to him; for there are some circumstances that he is yet in ignorance of, and particularly concerning Mr. Ingestrie." "I will walk with you to your door, Johanna," said Mark rising and tottering. "No," said Sir Richard Blunt; "that must not be tonight. Do not let him, Johanna. He is by far too weak and unwell to do anything of the kind. A calm and long night's rest here will do him a world of good. Business prevents me from leaving the office; but I daresay the colonel will see Johanna in safety." "With pleasure," said Colonel Jeffery, "if Mr. Ingestrie has no objection to my doing so." "Sir," said Mark, "there is no one in all the world that I would more cheerfully see protecting my Johanna. I feel that I am in too great a state of exhaustion to go out. I leave her to your care, sir." "That is right," said Sir Richard Blunt. "Now, goodnight, Johanna, and God bless you. You will see me in the morning, recollect." Mark Ingestrie took a parting embrace of Johanna, and then she went off with the colonel, who, on their road home, told her how he and Arabella had got so far as to fix their wedding day, and how he should not feel at all happy unless both she and Mark Ingestrie were at the ceremony. "Indeed, he hoped," he said, "that they might give the parson only one trouble, by being married upon the same occasion." Johanna warded this last part of the colonel's speech; but she was fervent in her hopes that he and Arabella would be so very happy, and in her praises of her young friend; so in very pleasant discourse indeed, they reached the old spectaclemaker's shop, and then the colonel shook hands with Johanna, and bade her a kind and friendly adieu, and she was let in byto her immense surpriseher mother! Mrs. Oakley fell upon Johanna's neck in a passion of tears, crying "Come, my childcome to your mother's heart, and tell her that you forgive her for much past neglect and unkindness." "Oh, mother," said Johanna, "do not speak so. There is nothing to forgive; and if you are happy and we are all good friends, we will never think of the past." "That's right, my dear," said Mr. Oakley, from the passage; "that's right, my love. Come in, both of you." But it is necessary that we should briefly state how it was that this wonderful change in the behaviour of Mrs. Oakley came about, and for that purpose we must retrace our steps a little. The reader will be so good as to recollect that the last time Mrs. Oakley was introduced to his notice she was encumbered by Mr. Lupin, and had the pleasure of introducing that gentleman to the notice of Big Ben the beefeater, who had quickly put all idea of escape out of the question, as regarded that highly religious personage. At that point the presence of other events compelled us to leave the lady, and repair to Todd's shop, and to Mrs. Lovett's little concern in Bell Yard. The appearance of Lupin's face when he found that he was in the grasp of Big Ben, would have been quite a study for a painter. It transcended all description, and for the moment seemed as if he were bidding farewell to this world and to all his iniquities in it, without the intervention of the law. But in a few moments he recovered from this condition, and sliding on to his knees, and in a whining tone, he cried "Mercy, Mercy! Oh, let me go!" "At the end of a rope," said Big Ben. "Easy does it. What has he been and done, Mrs. O.?" "Murder, murder!" A crowd of people soon began to collect around them, and then Lupin made an effort to thrust himself out of the grasp of Big Ben, but the only result of the effort was very nearly to strangle himself. "You are killing the man, you great brute!" cried a woman. "You are throttling the poor man." "He will be murdered," shouted another female. "Oh, you great wretch, do you want to take his life?" "Listen to me," said Mrs. Oakley. "He has murdered his poor wife, and that is the reason I have asked that he should be held tight." "Murdered his wife!" exclaimed about twelve females in chorus. "Murdered his wife? Then hanging is a great deal too good for him. Hold him tight, sir, do. Oh, the wretch!" The tide of popular feeling fairly turned against Mr. Lupin, and Big Ben had as much difficulty now in preserving the half dead wretch from popular fury as if he had been accused of any other crime, he might have had to prevent popular sympathy from aiding his escape. "Oh!" cried one lady, of rather extensive proportions, who was the wife of a baker, "I should like to have him in a brisk oven for an hour and a half." "And I," said the lady of a butcher, "would see him slaughtered without so much as winking at him." "And serve him right, the wagabone!" cried Big Ben. "Come along, will you, you illlooking scarecrow! Easy does it. Will you walk? Oh, very well, don't. Who are you?" A little man with a constable's staff in his hand, rushed before Ben, crying out "What is it? what is it? I'm a constable. What is it?" "Murder!" said Mrs. Oakley. "I give that man in charge for murdering his wife. I saw him do it." "That will do," said the constable. "Give him to me. I'll take him. He dare not resist me. I'll have him." Big Ben looked at the constable and then he shook his head, as he said very gravely "I tell you what it is, my little man, you ain't fit to tussle with such a fellow as thisI'll take him along for you. Where is he to go?" "To the roundhouse, in course; but I'm a constable. I must take himI will take him! Give him to me, sir, directlyI will have himI must go with him!" "Wait a minute," said Ben. "Easy does it! You must go with him, you say? Very goodeasy does everything!" With this, Ben grasped Mr. Lupin round the middle, and placed him under his left arm, and suddenly pouncing, then, upon the constable, he caught him up and placed him under the right arm; and then away he walked, to the admiration of the populace, and paying about as much attention to the kicking of the constable and the kicking of Mr. Lupin, as though they were two dogs that he was carrying home. And so the murderer was taken to the roundhouse, where Mrs. Oakley duly preferred the charge against him, and promised to substantiate it before a magistrate when called upon so to do. CHAPTER CXVII. SHOWS HOW MRS. OAKLEY RECONCILED HERSELF TO EVERYBODY AT HOME. When Ben and Mrs. Oakley had thus disposed of Mr. Lupin, and left him to his solitary and not very pleasant reflections in a cell of the roundhouse, they found themselves together in the open street, and Ben, as he cast a woeful glance at her, said "Well, how does yer feel now? Easy does it! Oh, you aint abeen and behaved yourself properly latelyyou is like the old bear as we calls Nosey. He's always adoing what he shouldn't, and always anever doing what he should." "Ben?" "Well, blaze away. What is yer going to say now?" "I feel, Ben, that I am a very different woman from what I wasvery different." "Then you must have gained by the exchange, for you was, I will say it, anything but a pleasant bit o' goods. There's poor old Oakley amaking of spectacles all days, and awearing of his old eyes outand there's Miss Johanna, bless her heart! as wise a little bit o' human nature as you'd wish to see, whether she's in petticoats or the other things; and yet you neglects 'em both, all for to run arter a canting snivelling wagabone like this Lupin, that we wouldn't have among the beasteses at the Tower, if so be he'd come and offer himself." "I know it, BenI know it." "You know it! Why didn't you know it before?" "I don't know, Ben; but my eyes are open now. I have had a lesson that to my dying day I shall never forget. I have found that piety may only be a cloak with which to cover up the most monstrous iniquity.
" "Oh, you have made that discovery, have you?" "I have, indeed, Ben." "Well, I knowed as much as that when I was a small baby. It only shows how back'ard some folks is in coming for'ard with their edication." "Yes, Ben." "Well, and what is you going to be arter now?" "I wish to go home, and I want you to come with me, and to say a kind word for me; I want you to tell them how I now see the error of my ways, and how I am an altered woman, and mean to be a veryvery different person than I was." Here Mrs. Oakley's genuine feelings got the better of her, and she began to weep bitterly; and Ben, after looking at her for a few moments, cried out "Why, it's real, and not like our hyena that only does it to gammon us! Come, mother Oakley, just pop your front paw under my arm, and I'll go home with you; and if you don't get a welcome there, I'm not a beefeater. Why, the old man will fly right bang out of his wits for joy. You should only see what a house is when the mother and the wife don't do as she ought. Mother O., you should see what a bit of fire there is in the grate, and what a hearth." "I know itI ought to know it." "You ought to know it!" added Ben, putting himself into an oratorial attitude. "You should only see the old man when dinner time comes round. He goes into the parlour and he finds no fire; then he says'Dear me!'" "Yesyes." "Then he gives a boy a ha'penny to go and get him something that don't do him no sort of good from the cook's shop, and sometimes the boy nabs the ha'penny and the shilling both, and ain't never heard of again by any means no more." "No doubt, Ben." "Then, when tea comes round, it don't come round at all, and the old man has none; but he takes in a ha'porth of milk in a jug without a spout, and he drinks that up, cold and miserable, with a pennyloaf, you see." "Yesyes." "And then at night, when there ought to be a little sort of comfort round the fireside, there ain't none." "But Johanna, Benthere is Johanna?" "Johanna?" "Yes. Is she not there to see to some of her father's comforts? She loves himI know she does, Ben!" Ben placed his finger by the side of his nose, and in an aside to himself, he said "Now I'll touch her up a bitnow I'll punish her for all she has done, and it will serve her right." Then, elevating his voice, he added"Did you mention Johanna?" "Yes, Ben, I did." "Then I'm sorry you did. Perhaps you think she's been seeing to the old man's comforts a littleairing his nightcap, and so onEh? Is that the idea?" "Yes, I know that she would do anything gladly for her father. She was always most tenderly attached to him." "Humph!" "Why do you say, Humph, Ben?" "Just answer me one question, Mrs. O. Did you ever hear of a young girl as was neglected by her motherher mother who of all ought to be the person to attend to herturning out well?" "Do not terrify me, Ben." "Well, all I have got to say is, that Johanna can't be in two places at once, and as she isn't at home, how, I would ask any reasonable Christian, can she attend to the old man?" "Not at home, Ben?" "Notathome!" "Oh, Heaven! why did I not stay in that dreadful man's house, and let him murder me! Why did I not tell him at once that I knew of his crime, and implore him to make me his next victim! Oh, Ben, if you have any compassion in your disposition you will tell me all, and then I shall know what to hope, and what to dread." "Well," said Ben, "here goes then." "What goes?" "I mean I'm agoing to tell you all, as you seem as if you'd like to know it." "Do! Oh, do!" "Then of course Johanna being but a very young piece of goods, and not knowing much o' the ways o' this here world, and the habits and manners o' the wild beasteses as is in it, when she found as the old house wasn't good enough for her mother, she naturally enough thought it wasn't good enough for her, you know." "Oh, this is the most dreadful stroke of all!" "I should say it were," said Ben, quite solemnly. "Take it easy though, and you'll get through it in the course of time. Well then, when Johanna found as everything at home was sixes and sevens, she borrowed a pair of what do call 'ems of some boy, and a jacket, and off she went." "She what?" "She put on a pair of thingumyswell, breeches then, if you must have itand away she went, and the last I saw of her was in Fleet Street with 'em on." "Gracious Heaven!" "Very likely, but that don't alter the facts of the case, you know, Mrs. O. On she had 'em, and all I can say is that you might have knocked me down flat to see her, that you might. I didn't think I should ever have got home to the beasteses in the Tower again, it gave me such a turn." "Lost! Lost!" "Eh? What do you say? What have you lost now?" "My child! My Johanna!" "Oh! Ah, to be sure. But then you know, Mrs. O, you ought to have staid at home, and gived her ever so much good advice, you know; and when you saw she was bent upon putting on the boy's things, you as a mother ought to have said, 'My dear, take your legs out of that if yer pleases, and if yer don't, I'll pretty soon make you,' and then staid and gived the affair up as a bad job that wouldn't pay, and took to morals." "Yesyes. 'Tis I, and I only, who am to blame. I have been the destruction of my child. Farewell, Ben. You will perhaps in the course of time not think quite so badly of me as you now do. Farewell!" "Hold!" cried Ben as he clutched the arm of Mrs. Oakley only the more tightly in his own "What are you at now?" "Death is now my only resource. My child is lost to me, and I have driven her by my neglect to such a dreadful course. I cannot live now. Let me go, Ben. You will never hear of me again." "If I let you go may I beWell, no matterno matter. Come on. It's all one, you know, a hundred years hence." "But at present it is madness and despair. Let me go, I say. The river is not far off, and beneath its waters I shall at least find peace for my breaking heart. Let my death be considered as some sort of expiation of my sins." "Stop a bit." "Nonono." "But I say, yes. Things ain't quite so bad as you think 'em, only it was right o' me, you know, just to let you know what they might have been." "What do you tell me?" "Why that there ain't a better girl than Johanna in all the world, and that if all the mothers that ever was or ever will be, had neglected her and set her all their bad examples in the universal world, she would still be the little angel that she is now, and no mistake." "Then she is not from home? It is all a fable?" "Not quite, Mrs. O. just you trot on now comfortably by the side of me, and I will tell you the whole particulars, and then you will find that there ain't no occasion to go plumping into the river on Johanna's account." Poor Mrs. Oakley, with delight beaming upon every feature of her face, now listened to Ben while he explained the whole matter to her, as far as he himself was cognisant of it; and if he did not offer to be very explicit in minor details, she at all events heard from him quite enough to convince her that Johanna was all that the tenderest mother could wish. "Oh, Ben," she said, as the tears coursed each other down her cheeks, "how could you torture me as you have done?" "All for your own good," said Ben. "It only lets you see what might have happened if Johanna had not been the good little thing that she is, that's all." "Well, perhaps it is for the best that I should have suffered such a pang, and I only hope that Heaven will accept of it as some sort of expiation of my wickedness. If you had not held me, Ben, I should certainly have taken my life." "Not a doubt about it," said Ben; "and a pretty kittle of fish you would then have made of the whole affair. However, that's all right enough now, and as for old Oakley, all you have got to do is to go into the shop and say to him. 'Here I am, and I am sorry for the past, which I hope you will forgive, and for the future I will strive to be a good wife.'" "Must I say that, Ben?" "Yes, to be sure. If you are ashamed to say what's right, you may depend upon it you haven't much inclination to do it." "You have convinced me, Ben. I will humble myself. It is fit and proper that I should. So I will say as nearly as I can recollect just what you have told me to say." "You can't do better; and here we are at the corner of the street. Now if you would rather go in by yourself without me, only say the word, and I'm off." Mrs. Oakley hesitated for a moment and then she said "Yes, Ben, I would rather go alone." "Very good. I think it's better too, so goodby; and I'll call tomorrow and see how you are all getting on." "Do so, Ben. No one can possibly be more welcome than you will be. You will be sure to come tomorrow?" "Rather." With this Ben walked away, and Mrs. Oakley entered the house. What then passed we do not feel that we ought to relate. The humiliations of human nature, although for the best of purposes, and for the ultimate happiness of the parties themselves, are not subjects for the pen of the chronicler. Suffice it, that Mr. and Mrs. Oakley were perfectly reconciled, and were happy upon that day. CHAPTER CXVIII. TAKES A PEEP AT TOBIAS AT THE COLONEL'S HOUSE. The more stirring events of our story, have compelled us in some measure to neglect poor Tobias. He had suffered very much from that visit of Todd's to the colonel's house, and it had a very prejudicial effect upon his mind too, inasmuch as it deprived him of that feeling of security, which had before possessed him beneath that roof. The colonel felt this very acutely, and he could not help perceiving by Tobias's manner, that the faith he put in his assurance that Todd could not possibly again come near him, was not full and complete. Under these circumstances, then, it was a very great satisfaction to the colonel to be able to make the gratifying communication he had it in his power to make to Tobias, on the morning following the arrest of Todd and Mrs. Lovett. The illness contingent upon the fright that Todd had given the poor boy, or the relapse as we might call it, had in a great measure worn off, and if Tobias's mind could have been quite at ease, his recovery would have been as rapid as any one could possibly have wished or expected. As soon as he was up and about upon the following morning, then, after the arrests, the colonel sought Tobias's room, and with a cheerful smile upon his face he said "Well, Tobias, I come to bring you good news." "Indeed, sir?" said Tobias his colour coming and going in flushes. "I am very weak, andand if" "Come, come, Tobias. What I am going to tell you will strengthen you, I know. Todd is in Newgate!" Tobias drew a long breath. "Todd is in Newgate?" he replied. "Todd is in Newgate? The walls are very thick. I am safe now." "Yes, you are, indeed, Tobias. The walls of Newgate are thick, and the doors are massive and wellguarded. Be assured that Todd will never issue out at them but to his execution. Your old cunning enemy is at length more powerless by a great deal than you are, and from this moment you may completely banish all fear from your mind upon his account." "And the woman, sir, Mrs. Lovett?" "She is in Newgate likewise." "Both, both, and their crimes then are all known at last, and there will be no more murders, and no more poor boys driven mad as I was! Oh, God be thanked, it is indeed all over now, all over." With this Tobias burst into tears, and relieved his surcharged heart of a load of misery. In the course of about five minutes he looked up with such a great smile of happiness upon his face, that it was quite a joy to see it. "And you, sir, you," he said, "my dear friend have done all this!" "Not all, Tobias. I have helped in every way that lay in my power to bring the affair about, but it is Sir Richard Blunt the magistrate, who has toiled day and night almost in the matter, and who has at last brought it to so successful an issue, that the guilt of both Todd and Mrs. Lovett can be distinctly and clearly proved, without the shadow of a doubt." "Unhappy wretches!" "They are, indeed, Tobias, unhappy wretches, and may Heaven have mercy upon them. Some other old friends of yours, too, will, before nightfall I think, find a home in Newgate." "Indeed, sir, whom mean you?" "The folks at the madhouse at Peckham. Sir Richard would have had them apprehended some time ago, but he was afraid that it might give the alarm to Todd, before the affair was ripe enough to enable him to be arrested, with a certainty of his crimes being clearly understood and brought home to him. Now, however, that is all over, and they will be punished." "They are very, very wicked. I think, sir, they are almost worse than Sweeney Todd." "They are, if anything; but they will meet with their deserts, never fear; and as Minna Gray is expected every moment, so your mother tells me, I will not deprive you of the gratification of giving her the piece of news yourself. Of course, all the town will know it soon through the medium of the press; and Sir Richard Blunt, too, will be here in the course of the morning, to arrange with you concerning your evidence." "My evidence? Shall I be wanted?" "Yes, Tobias. Surely you would not like so notorious a criminal to find a loophole of escape, from the want of your evidence?" "Oh, no, noI will go. I have only to tell the truth, and that should never be denied for or against. I will go, sir." "You are right, Tobias. It is a duty you owe to society. If some one long ago, and before you even had the evil fortune to go into his shop, had found out and exposed the iniquities of Sweeney Todd, how much misery would have been spared in this world both to you and to others!" "Ah, yes, sir; and yet" "Yet what, Tobias?" "I was only thinking, sir, that what at times seems like our very worst misfortunes, at times turn out to be the very things that are the making of us." "Indeed, Tobias?" "Yes, sir. If I had not been Sweeney Todd's boy, and if he had not persecuted me in the way he did, I should never have known what it was to have the friend I now have in you, sir; and perhaps she whom I love so dearly, would not have thought so much of me, if she had not deeply pitied me for all that I suffered." "There is profound philosophy in what you say, my poor boy," replied the colonel; "and if we could only bring ourselves to think, when things apparently go wrong with us, that after all it is for the best, we should be much happier than we are now; but with our shortsighted wisdom, we hastily take upon ourselves to decide upon matters concerning the issues of which we know nothing, and so by anticipation we make ourselves pleased or sorrowful, when the precise contrary may be the real result." "Yes, sir," said Tobias, "I have had time to think of that, and of many other strange things, as I lay here." "Then you have done yourself some good, Tobias. But I hear a light footstep upon the stairs, and I will now leave you, for I can guess by that heightened colour that you hear it likewise, and I know that two may be good company but three none." Tobias would have said something deprecatory of the colonel leaving him, and he did begin, but with a smile his kind and hospitable friend took his leave, and Tobias soon had the satisfaction of relating to the young girl, whom he was so tenderly attached to, that nothing further was now to be feared from Sweeney Todd or from Mrs. Lovett. We may now leave Tobias in good company; and it was really surprising to those who have not made a habit of noting the intimate connection there is between the mind and the body, to see how from the very moment that he felt assured there was nothing further to apprehend from Sweeney Todd, Tobias's health picked up and improved. The absolute dread with which that bold impious bad man had inspired the boy, had been the sole cause of keeping him in so delicate a state. His dreams had been all of Todd; but now that word Newgate, in conjunction with Todd's name, was a spell that brought with it peace and security. Tobias, as he sat with the hand of the young and fair girl who had pleased his boyish fancy in his own, was now truly happy. When Johanna got home, after being escorted from Sir Richard Blunt's house in Craven Street by Colonel Jeffery, she found her mother at home, and not a little surprised was she to find herself suddenly clasped in that mother's arms, a most unwonted process for Mrs. Oakley to go through. "Oh, my child, my dear child!" sobbed the now repentant woman. "Can you forgive me as your father has done?" "Forgive you, mother? Oh, do not speak to me in such a way as that. It is quite a joy to find youyou are really my mother?" "You might well doubt it, my dear child; but the future is before us all, and then you will find that it was only when I could not have been in my right mind, that I preferred any place to my own home." Old Oakley wiped his eyes as he said to Johanna "Yes, my darling, your mother has come back to us now in every sense of the word, and all the past is to be forgotten, except such of it as will be pleasant to remember. Your good friend, and I may say the good friend of us all, Sir Richard Blunt, sent us a letter to say that you would be here tonight, and God bless him my child, for watching over you as he did." "Oh, how perilous an enterprise you went upon, my darling," said Mrs. Oakley. The door of the adjoining room was partially open, and from it now stepped forward Arabella, saying "It is I who ought to ask pardon of you all for advising that step; and you will grant me that pardon I am sure, if upon no other ground, upon that that I have suffered greatly for my folly and precipitation." "My dear Arabella," said Johanna, "you must not blame yourself in such a way. How pleased I am to find you here, my dear friend. Ah! at one time how little did we ever expect to meet all thus, in this little room!" Johanna and Arabella embraced each other, and while they were so occupied, big Ben came out of the room from whence Arabella had proceeded, and flinging his arms round them both, he made a great roaring noise, in imitation of the largest of the bears in the Tower collection. At the moment, Johanna was alarmed, and could not conceive what it was; but Arabella, who knew that Ben had been in the room, waiting for some opportunity of coming out in a highly practical manner, only laughed, and then Johanna knew in a moment who it was, and she cried "Ben, it is you!" "Yes, it's me," said Ben, "and I'm only astonished at you two girls fancying I was going to be quiet, and see all that kissing and hugging going on, and not come in for any of it. Don't kick now, for I must kiss you both, and there's an end of it. It's no use akicking." To the credit of both Arabella and Johanna we may state, that they neither of them kicked, but very quietly let Ben kiss them both. "Well," said Ben as he plumped himself down upon a chair after the salute. "Well!Murder! Where am I going to now?" "Dear me," said Mrs. Oakley. "All four legs of the chair are broken off, and Ben is on the floor." "Really, Ben," said Mr. Oakley, "you ought to be perfectly careful when you sit down." "Easy does it," said Ben. "I really thought I was going to kingdom come. Pull me, Johanna, my dear. Pull me up." Johanna shook her head, and declined the Herculean attempt, so that Ben had to scramble to his feet the best way he could, and then as he sat down upon the sofa which was sufficiently strong to withstand any shocks, Mrs. Oakley asked him what it was he had been upon the point of saying, when the chair had so very unceremoniously given way with him; but Ben had quite forgotten it, only he said he recollected something else that was quite as good, and that was that he ordered to come about that hour a foaming tankard of mulled wine, and then he winked at Mrs. Oakley and hoped she had no medicine in the house to put in it. "Oh, no, Ben," she said, "and if there isn't a knock at the door; and if you ordered it at the Unicorn's Tail, you may depend that's it." "Very good," said Ben, and then he proceeded to the door and found that it was the boy from the Unicorn's dorsal appendage with the spiced wine; and after whispering to bring a similar quantity in half an hour, and to keep on at it every half hour until further orders, Ben took it into the parlour, and a happier party than was there could not have been found in all London. CHAPTER CXIX. THE CRIMINALS IN NEWGATE.TODD'S ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE. It is grievous to turn from the contemplation of so pleasant and grateful a scene as that that was taking place at the old spectaclemaker's house, to dive into the interior of Newgate. But thither it is that now we would conduct the reader. The state of mind that Todd was in after his arrest, was one that such a man with such strong passions as he had was exceedingly unlikely to come to. It is difficult to describe it, but if we say that he was mentally stunned, we shall be as near the mark as language will permit us to be. He walked, and looked, and spoke very much like a man in a dream; and it is really doubtful whether, for some hours, he comprehended the full measure of the calamity that had befallen him on his apprehension. At Newgate they are quite accustomed to find this unnatural calmness in great criminals immediately after their arrest, so they take their measures accordingly. Sir Richard Blunt had given some very special instructions to the Governor of Newgate concerning his prisoner, when he should arrive and be placed in his custody, so everything was ready for Todd. How little he suspected that for two days and two nights the very cell he was to occupy in Newgate had been actually pointed out, and that the irons in which his limbs were to be encompassed were waiting for him in the lobby! He was placed in a small stone room that had no light but what came from a little orifice in the roof, and that was only a borrowed light after all, so that the cell was in a state of semidarkness always. Into this place he was hurried, and the blacksmith who was in the habit of officiating upon such occasions, riveted upon him, as was then the custom, a complete set of irons. All this Todd looked at with seeming indifference. His face had upon it an unnatural flush, and probably Todd had never looked so strangely well in health as upon the occasion of the first few hours he spent in Newgate. "Now, old fellow," said one of the turnkeys, "I'm not to be very far off, in case you should happen to want to say anything; and if you give a rap at the door, I'll come to you." "In case I want to say anything?" said Todd. "Yes, to be sure. What, are you asleep?" "Am I asleep?" "Why, he's gone a little bit out of his mind," said the blacksmith, as he gathered up his tools to be gone. The turnkey shook his head. "Are you quite sure you have made a tight job of that?" "Sure? Ay, that I am. If he gets out of them, put me in 'em, that's all. Oh, no! It would takelet me seeit would take about half a dozen of him to twist out o' that suit of armour. They are just about the best we have in the old stone jug." "Good." "Yes, they are good." "I mean very well. And now Mr. Sweeney Todd, we will leave you to your own reflections, old boy, and much good may they do you. Goodnight, old fellow. I always says goodnight to the prisoners, cos it has a tender sort o' sound, and disposes of 'em to sleep. It's kind o' me, but I always was tenderhearted, as any little chick, I was." Bang went the cell door, and its triple locks were shot into their hoops. Todd was alone. He had sat down upon a stool that was in the cell; and that stool, with a sort of bench fastened to the wall, was the only furniture it contained; and there he sat for about half an hour, during which time one of the most extraordinary changes that ever took place in the face of any human being, took place in his. It seemed as if the wear and tear of years had been concentrated into minutes; and in that short space of time he passed from a middle aged, to be an old man. Then reflection came! "Newgate!" he cried as he sprang to his feet. The chains rattled and clanked together. "ChainsNewgatea celldeath! Found out at last! At the moment of my triumphdefeateddetected! Newgatechainsdeath!" He fell back upon the stool again, and sat for the space of about two minutes in perfect silence. Then he sprang up again with such a wild yell of rage and mental agony, that not only the cell, but the whole of that portion of the prison, echoed again with it. The turnkey opened a small wicket in the door, which when it was opened from without, still was defended by iron bars across it, and peering into the cell, he said "Hilloa! What now?" "Hilloa!" shouted Todd. "Airair!" "Air? Why what do you mean by gammoning a fellow in that sort o' way for, eh? Haven't you got lots o' air? Well, of all the unreasonable coves as ever I comed across, you is the worstest. Be quiet, will you?" "Nono! Deathdeath! Give me the means of instant death. I am going madmadmad!" "Oh, no yer ain't. It's only yer first few hours in the stonejug that has comed over you a little, that's all, old fellow. You'll soon pick up, and behave yourself like any other christian. All you have got to do is never to mind, and then it's nothink at all, old chap." Clap went shut the little wicket door again. "Help! Help!" shouted Todd. "Take these irons off me. It is only a dream after all. Back, back you grinning fiendswhy do you look at me when you know that it is not real? Nono, it cannot be, you know that it cannot be real." "Be quiet will you?" shouted the turnkey. "Keep off, I say. All is well. Mrs. Lovett deadquite dead. The boy to die too. The house in a blazeall is well arranged. Why do you mock and joke at me?" "Well, I never!" said the turnkey. "I do begin to think now that he's getting queer in the upper story. I have heard of its driving some of 'em mad to be bowled out when they didn't expect it, more 'special when it's a hanging affair. I wonder what he will say next? He's a regular rum un, he is." "What have I done?" shouted Todd. "What have I done? Nothingnothing. The dead tell no tales. All is safequite safe. The grave is a good secret keeper. I think Tobias is dead toowhy not? Mrs. Lovett is dead. This is not Newgate. These are not chains. It is only the nightmare. Ha! ha! ha! It is only the nightmareI can laugh now!" "Oh, can you?" said the turnkey. "It's rather an odd sort o' laugh though, to my thinking. Howsomdever, there's no rule agin grinning, so you can go on at it as long as you like." "Mercy!" suddenly shrieked Todd, and then down he fell upon the floor of the cell, and lay quite still. The turnkey looked curiously in at him, through the little grating. "Humph!" he said, "I must go and report him to the Governor, and he will do whatsomdever he likes about him; but I suppose as they will send the doctor to him, and all that ere sort o' thing, for it won't do to let him slip out o' the world and quite cheat the gallows; oh dear no." Muttering these and similar remarks to himself, the turnkey went, as he was bound in duty to do upon any very extraordinary conduct upon the part of any prisoner in his department, to report what Todd was about to the Governor. "Ah!" said that functionary, the surgeon, "and I will soon come to him. I fully expected we should have some trouble with that man. It really is too bad, that when people come into the prison, they will not be quiet. It would be just as well for them, and much more comfortable for me." "Werry much, sir," said the turnkey. "Wellwell, he shall be attended to." "Werry good, sir." The turnkey went back and took up his post again outside Todd's door, and in the course of ten minutes or so, without making the least hurry of the subject, the Governor and the jail surgeon arrived and entered the cell. Todd was picked up, and then it was found that he had struck his head against the stone floor, and so produced a state of insensibility, but whether he had done it on purpose or by accident, they could come to no opinion. "Lay him on the bench," said the surgeon, "I can do nothing with him. He will come to himself again in a little while, I daresay, and be all right again in the morning." "He seems really, indeed, to be a very troublesome man," said the Governor to the surgeon. "Very likely. Have you a mind for a game of cribbage tonight, Governor? I suppose this fellow will hang?" "Yes, I don't mind a game. Yes, they will tuck him up." With this they left Todd's cell, and the turnkey closed the door, and made the highly philosophical remark to himself of "Werry good." Todd remained until the morning in a state of insensibility, and when he awakened from it he was very much depressed in strength indeed. He lay for about two hours gazing on the ceiling of his cell, and then the door was opened, and the turnkey appeared with a bason of milkandwater and a lump of coarse bread. "Breakfast!" he cried. Todd glared at him. "Breakfast; don't you understand that, old cock? However, it's all one to me. There it istake it or leave it." Todd did not speak, and the not over luxurious meal was placed on the table, or rather upon the end of the bench upon which he lay, and which served the purpose of a table. The moment Todd heard the door of the cell closed behind the turnkey, he rose from his recumbent posture, and, although he staggered when he got to his feet, he seized the bason, and at once, without tasting any of its contents, broke it against the corner of the bench to fragments. "I shall elude them yet!" he said. "They think they have me in their toilsbut I shall elude them yet!" He selected a long jagged piece of the broken bason, and dragging down his cravat with one hand, he was upon the very point of plunging it into his throat with the other, when the turnkey sprang into the cell. Todd In Newgate, Tries To Commit Suicide. Todd In Newgate, Tries To Commit Suicide. "Hold a bit!" he cried. "We don't allow that sort of thing here with any of our customers. You should have thought of those games before you got into the stone jug!" With one powerful blow, the turnkey struck the piece of the broken bason from the hand of Todd, and with another he felled him to the floor. "None o' your nonsense," he said; and then he carefully collected the pieces of the broken bason. "Why should you grudge me the means of death," said Todd, "when you know that you have brought me here among you to die?" "Contrary to rules." "In mercy, I ask you only to give me leave to take my own life, for I have failed in the object of my living." "Contrary to rules." The turnkey left the cell, then, as coolly as if nothing had happened, and carefully locked the door again, while he went to report the attempted suicide of the prisoner to the proper quarter. Foiled, then, in every way, Todd looked round the cell for some means of ridding himself of his life and his troubles together; but he found none. He then paced the cell to and fro like a maniac, as he muttered to himself "All lostlostlostall lost! Foiled, too, at the moment when I thought myself most securewhen I had made every preparation to leave England for ever! Oh, dolt that I was, not to have done so long ago, when I had halfay, when I had only a quarter of the sum that I should this day have fled with! In my dreams I have seen myself as I am now, and the sight has shaken me, but I never thought to be so in reality. Is there any hope for me? What do they know?what can they know?" Upon these questions, Todd paused in his uneasy walk in the cell, and sat down upon the low stool to think. His head rested upon his breast, and he was profoundly still. CHAPTER CXX. A LUNCHEON AT SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S.THE DOG AND HIS OLD FRIEND. We willingly leave Todd to his own reflections upon the disastrous state of his affairs, while we solicit the attention of our readers to the private house and office of Sir Richard Blunt again, in Craven Street.
The worthy magistrate had quite a party to lunch on that day, and he had fixed the hour as eleven when he wished to see his friends. Those friends consisted of Johanna Oakley, Mark Ingestrie, Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, Colonel Jeffery, Arabella Wilmot, and Big Ben, who was, at the special request of Johanna, gladly included in the party. A happier party than that could not very well have been found throughout the whole length and breadth of London; and there was but one slight shade of disquietude upon the face of Johanna, when she at times thought that at one o'clock she would have to attend the policeoffice at Bow Street to give her testimony against Todd the murderer. "Well," said Ben, "here we are aliveall alive, and as merry as so many grigs; and all I can say is, my tulips, that I will show the wild beasteses to anybody as likes to come to the Tower, free, gratis and for nothing. Take it easy, Mr. Ingestrie, and don't be casting sheep'seyes at Johanna. The little love of a thing ain't at all used to itindeed, she ain't; and the only person as she lets love her above a bit, and takes it easy with, is me; so don't come any nonsense." "But, Mr. Ben," said Mark, "I may look sometimes?" "Yes, now and then, if you take things easy." Old Mr. Oakley had got on his spectacles, and seemed as if he could not be done looking at Mark Ingestrie; and more than once, or twice, or thrice, the old gentleman would shake hands with him, telling him that he looked upon him quite as one risen up from the dead, in a manner of speaking. "Yes, sir, you may well, indeed, look upon me as such; but I hope now for long life and happiness." A glance at Johanna was sufficiently expressive of with whom he hoped for happinessand that glance was returned with one of those sweet endearing looks that only those who truly love can cast one upon another. "And I, too," said Colonel Jeffery, "put in my claim to the happiness of the future, for am I not blessed with one whom I feel that I can love!" "Stop!" said Arabella. "We won't have any conversation of this sort before company, colonel, if you please; so I will trouble you to be quiet." "I am all submission," said the colonel; "and I hope my humble conduct upon this occasion will be to you all, ladies and gentlemen, a good example of what I shall be when I am married." This was said in so comical a manner that the whole party laughed amazingly, and then Sir Richard Blunt said rather gravely "I expect two old friends here this morning." "Old friends?" said everybody, in surprise. "Yes. The one is the captain of the ship which brought poor Mr. Thornhill and his dog home, and who has been to Hamburgh with his vessel, and the other is the dog himself." At this moment an officer, for Sir Richard was quite wholly attended upon by the police at that private office of his, came in to say that a gentleman wanted to see him. "It is the worthy captain," said Sir Richard; "show him in at once." "If you please, Sir Richard," added the officer, "there is a man, too, with a great dog who wishes to see you, and the dog has been in the hall once, and walked off with a plate of cheesecakes and a pickled tongue that were coming in to your worship." A roar of laughter testified to the amusement which this freak of Hector's caused, and Sir Richard said "Well, I don't know any one who was so much entitled to be invited to lunch as Hector, and no doubt he thought so too; and as we had not the courtesy to open the door for him, and properly accommodate him, he has helped himself on the road, that's all." "Shall I admit him, sir?" "Yes, and the man who is with him. He is one of the witnesses who I trust will help to bring Todd to justice. Show them all in." In a very few minutes the captain of the vessel, with whom the reader had some slight acquaintance at the beginning of this most veritable narrative, made his appearance, and Colonel Jeffery warmly shook hands with him. The dog knew the colonel and the captain likewise, and was most vociferous in his joy to see them. It was an affecting thing then to see the creature pause suddenly in his manifestations of delight, and look sad and solemn, after which he uttered a dismal howl, and catching the colonel by the skirt of his coat, he tried to pull him towards the door of the room. "Poor fellow," said the captain, "he does not forget his master yet, I see." "No," said Colonel Jeffery, "nor never will. If he had his own way now, and we would follow him, I lay any wager he would take us to Sweeney Todd's shop." "In course he would, sir," said the ostler. "In course he would. Lord bless you, gemmen, if this here dog as I calls Pison, cos why he was pisoned, was only to get hold of Todd, I would not give much for his chances. You sees, gemmen, as I have kept him in good condition." "He does look well," said the captain. "Indeed it does you great credit," said Colonel Jeffery; "but his keep must cost something. There is my guinea towards it." The colonel placed a guinea in the ostler's hand, and his example was followed by all present, so that the ostler found himself growing quite a man of substance when he least expected it. "Lor, Pison," he said, "you'll be a fortin for a fellow yet, you will. But I hope, gemmen, as you don't mean to take him away, cos if that's the caper, here's the money agin, and I'd rather keep Pison. He's got fond o' me by this time, poor fellow, and I have got fond on him, as I hav'nt no other brothers and sisters or family of my own." "It would indeed be unfair," said the colonel, "to deprive you of him. But tell me, are you comfortable in your situation?" "Lor bless you, sir, it ain't much of a situation. Lots of hard work, and werry little for it." "Well, if you like to come into my service and bring Hector with youyou are welcome." "Oh, won't I, sir, above a bit. Why, Pison, we is promoted, old fellor. We is a going to a new place, where there will be no end of grub, old chap." "You shall not have any complaints to make in that department," said the colonel. "So then," said the captain, "it is quite clear that Mr. Thornhill was murdered by that rascal of a barber?" "Quite," replied Sir Richard Blunt, "and it is for that murder we mean to try Todd. If, however, by any chance, he should escape conviction upon that, we will be provided with two more indictments against him, so that he is tolerably well cared for; but the murder of Mr. Thornhill is what we mean ostensibly to go upon." "That's right, sir," said the ostler, "and I'll bring Pison as a witness to all the blessed facts. He'll settle the business, even if the jury is half as stupid agin as usual." "He will be committed for trial this morning," said Sir Richard Blunt, "for the murder of Mr. Thornhill; and that woman, Mrs. Lovett, will be arraigned as an accessory before the fact, so that there can be very little doubt of the fate of both of them; and if ever two notorious criminals deserved that the last dread sentence of the law should be carried out against them, Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are those two." "They could not be worse," said the captain. "No, that would be impossible," remarked the colonel. "I shall be glad when this gloomy tragedy is over though. The public mind will soon be filled with it, and we shall hear of nothing but of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, with all their sayings and doings, for the next few months to come." "That is true enough," said Sir Richard Blunt. "But I don't think you will find any but one feeling upon the subject, and that will be one of universal condemnation." "Not a doubt of it." "There is another too who will suffer the just reward of his crimes," said the magistrate glancing at Mrs. Oakley. She shook her head and sighed, for she shrunk naturally from the awfully responsible share she was condemned to have in the conviction of Mr. Lupin. "I will do my duty," she said, "in that dreadful piece of business. The guilt of Lupin, although not so extensive as Todd's, is to the full as great." "It is indeed, madam." "Ah, yes!" said Ben. "They are a bad lot altogether, and the sooner they are hung up like a rope of ingions the better. Bless me, I always was delicate, and so was obliged to take things easy; but I have more than once looked into that horrid pie shop in Bell Yard, and thought I should like a smack of about fifteen or twenty of them, just to stay my stomach till I got home to the Tower; and what a mercy it was I never bought 'em." "It was, indeed, my friend," Sir Richard said. "Yes, you may say that, my dear, siryou may say that. With my very delicate stomach, I should have been as good as done brown if I had had 'em. I should have fallen a victim to the wild beasteses, the very next time as I went anear 'em; and all I can say is, as I shall be uncommon glad to show these creatures to any of this company, as will come to the Tower at feeding time." Ben had made this liberal offer so often that the company left off thanking him for it; but the ostler whispered to him "I'll come and bring Pison." "No, will you though?" said Ben. "Yes, to be sure I will. Who knows but he'd like to see them wild beasteses, as perhaps he has only heard of 'em in a wery promiscous sort o' way." "Not a doubt of it," cried Ben, "not a doubt of itonly when he does come you must tell him to take things easy, and not be discomposed at any of the roaring and bellowing, as the creatures sets up at times." "Oh, I'll hold him." "You needn't go for to hold him. Just you impress upon him afore he comes that easy does it, that's all you need do, and then he'll know very well what to do." "Won't I!" The conversation was rather breaking up into small fragments, when the magistrate rose from his seat. "Now then," said Sir Richard Blunt, "it is time for us to go to Bow Street, where I appear as a witness today, instead of as a magistrate." As he spoke, the clock in the office sounded the halfpast twelve. All the guests of the magistrate rose, for they knew that his duties were imperative. There was a tone of great gravity now about Sir Richard Blunt as he spoke "I fully expect," he said, "that Todd will be committed for trial and Mrs. Lovett likewise. Already she has made repeated applications to her attendants in prison, to be permitted to become evidence against Todd." "Which will surely not be permitted?" said the colonel. "Certainly not; the evidence against him is quite clear enough without the assistance of Mrs. Lovett, while the proofs of her criminality with him, are of too strong a character for her to be given any chance of escape." "She is a dreadful woman." "She is, indeed; but you will all of you soon see how she conducts herself now, for she will be brought up with Todd." CHAPTER CXXI. TODD IS COMMITTED FOR TRIAL, AND EXPECTS THE WORST. By the time the police office at Bow Street opened upon the morning, a wild vague, and uncertain sort of rumour had spread itself over London, concerning the discoveries that had been made at Todd's house in Fleet Street, and at Mrs. Lovett's in Bell Yard, Temple Bar. Of course, the affair had lost nothing from manytongued rumour, and the popular belief was, that Todd's house had been found full of dead bodies from the attics to the cellars, while Mrs. Lovett had been actually detected in the very act of scraping some dead man's bones, for tidbits to make a veal pie of. A dense crowd had assembled in Fleet Street, to have a look at Todd's now shutup house, and that thoroughfare very soon, in consequence, became no thoroughfare at all. Bell Yard too was so completely blocked up, that the lawyers who were in the habit of using it as a short cut from the Temple to Lincoln's Inn, were forced to take the slight round of Chancery Lane instead; and the confusion and general excitement in the whole of the neighbourhood was immense. But it was in Bow Street, and round the doors of the policeoffice, that the densest crowd, and the greatest excitement prevailed. There it was only with the greatest difficulty that the officers and others officially connected with the public office could get in and out of it as occasion required; and the three or four magistrates who thought proper to attend upon that occasion, had quite a struggle to get into the court at all. By dint of great perseverance, our friends, with Sir Richard Blunt, at length succeeded in forcing a passage through the crowd, to the magistrates private entrance, and having once passed that, they were no longer in the smallest degree incommoded. "Well, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, as he encountered that individual, "Have you been to Newgate this morning?" "Rather, Sir Richard." "Any news?" "No. Only that Todd has been a trying it on a little, that's all." "What do you mean?" "Why he's only petikler anxious to save Jack Ketch any trouble on his account, that's all, Sir Richard; so he's been trying to put himself out o' this here world, and shove himself into t'other, without going through all the trouble of being hung, that's all, sir." "I fully expected that both Todd and Mrs. Lovett would make some such attempts; but I hope the governor of Newgate has been sufficiently careful to prevent the possibility of either of them succeeding." "It's all right," added Crotchet. "I seed 'em both, and they is as lively as black beetles as has been trod on by somebody as isn't a very light weight." The doors of the court had not been opened, but when they were, the struggle for admission was tremendous, and it required the utmost exertions of the officers of the establishment to keep anything like a semblance of order. The few night charges were rapidly disposed of, and while a gentleman who looked very foolish, was fined five shillings for being drunk and disorderly the evening previous, a roaring shout from the mob in the street proclaimed the arrival of the two important prisoners from Newgate. Up to some time after his arrest, Todd, notwithstanding some stray words that would indicate a contrary state of things, fully believed that he had succeeded in murdering Mrs. Lovett, and it was not until the morning that he became aware of her escape from drowning in the Thames. It did not require a conjuror to tell the authorities that there would be some trouble in getting the prisoners to Bow Street, so it was thought better to make one job of it, and to place Todd and Mrs. Lovett in the same coach along with four officers. With this intent the coach was brought close to the wicketgate of Newgate, and Todd and Mrs. Lovett, well guarded, were brought to the lobby at the same moment. The moment Todd caught sight of Mrs. Lovett, a kind of spasm seemed to shake his frame, and pointing to her, he cried "Does that woman indeed live, or is she but some fiend in the shape of such a one come to torment me?" "That is Mrs. Lovett," said the Governor. "Oh, nonono," added Todd, "it is not soit cannot be. The dark rolling river cannot so give up its dead." "You were well disposed that it should not," said Mrs. Lovett, bending upon Todd a most ferocious glance. "She is saved!" gasped Todd. "Yes, I am saved to your confusion. I call you all to witness," she then added in a loud voice, "that I had no idea of the extent of Todd's iniquity; but what I do know I will freely tell as evidence for the crown against him." Mrs. Lovett looked peculiarly at the Governor while she uttered these words, for she was anxious to know what he thought of them, but that functionary took not the remotest notice. At this moment one of the warders announced the sheriff, and one of the Sheriffs of London with his gold chain of office on, appeared in the lobby. To him Mrs. Lovett immediately turned, saying "Sir, I offer myself as king's evidence. Do you understand me?" "Perfectly, madam; but I have nothing to do with the matter." "Nothing to do, sir? Then why do you wear that bauble?" "My office, so far as you are concerned, madam, will be to keep you in safe custody, and see that the sentence of the law is carried into effect upon you, in case you should be convicted of the crimes laid to your charge." "But I turn king's evidence. It is quite a common thing that you have all heard of that often enough." "Now, madam, the coach is ready," said a turnkey. "Where are you going to take me? Is not this Newgate?" "Yes, but you must undergo an examination at the policeoffice in Bow Street." Without any further ceremony, Mrs. Lovett was handed into the coach, and Todd after her. She was at first placed in the seat immediately opposite to him, but she insisted upon changing it, saying, that she could not bear to look at him all the way that she went, and as it was a matter of no moment which way she sat, the officers so far indulged her as to permit her to change her place. In this way then, both of them upon the same seat, while three officers sat opposite to them, and one with them, dividing them, they arrived at Bow Street, and were met by that roaring shout, that everybody had heard, from without the court. Of course every precaution had been taken to prevent the mob from wreaking their vengeance upon the criminals, which they were welldisposed to do. A number of people were knocked down and some of the officers rather roughly treated; but the result was, that Todd and Mrs. Lovett were got into the office in safety. Sweeney Todd, as he ascended the steps of the office, turned his head for a moment, and looked at the sea of angry faces that was in the street. He shuddered and passed on. Mrs. Lovett did not look round at all. With great difficulty the door of the office was closed, and then in a few moments Todd and Mrs. Lovett were placed side by side at the bar of justice. There was one person sitting on the bench near to Sir Richard Blunt, upon whom Todd fixed his eyes in amazement. That person was Johanna Oakley. The features came at once to his recollection, and as though he really doubted if he were awake or not, he more than once pressed his hand upon his eyes. Todd And Mrs. Lovett At Bow Street Police Office. Todd And Mrs. Lovett At Bow Street Police Office. His and every one else's attention were, however, speedily taken up by the conduct of Mrs. Lovett. The moment comparative order was restored in the crowded court, so that what she said could be distinctly and clearly heard, she spoke "I am willing to turn king's evidence upon this occasion, and to declare all I know of Todd's nefarious transactions. I am quite willing to tell allI don't perhaps know the full extent of Todd's guilt, but I repeat I will turn king's evidence, and tell all I do know." A gentleman, plainly dressed in black, rose new, and in a calm, assured voice, said "Upon the part of the crown I reject the offer of the female prisoner. Anything she may say will be used as evidence against her, if it bear that construction." "Reject?" cried Mrs. Lovett. "And pray, sir, who are you that you dare reject such a proposition for furthering the ends of justice?" "That, madam, is the AttorneyGeneral," said an officer. "Oh," said Mrs. Lovett, "and am I to understand that I am accused of any participation in Todd's crimes?" "You will find by the evidence that will be adduced against you of what you are accused," said the magistrate. "You, I believe, Sir Richard Blunt, give these people in charge?" "Yes," said Sir Richard rising. "I charge them with, in the first place, the wilful murder of Charles James Thornhill. If your worship should think fit, from the evidence that will be brought forward, to commit them upon that charge, I shall not at present trouble you with any others, although I am fully prepared with several." "What is the meaning of all this?" cried Mrs. Lovett. "I will be heard." Sir Richard Blunt paid no manner of attention to her, but brought before the magistrate quite sufficient evidence to warrant him in committing both the prisoners for trial. The only great effect that the proceedings seemed to have upon Todd consisted in his surprise when Johanna Oakley came forward, and to her examination he listened attentively indeed. When she related how, under the name of Charles Green, she had taken the situation of errand boy at Todd's shop, and been in daily communication with Sir Richard Blunt, Todd dashed his clenched fist against his own head, crying "DoltIdiotidiot! and I did suspect it once!" Johanna went on then to state how in hunting over Todd's shop and house for some vestige of Mark Ingestrie, the sleeve of a seaman's jacket was found, which she had thought belonged to him, but which would be identified by the captain of the ship as having been part of Mr. Thornhill's apparel when he went on shore upon that fatal morning of his murder, no doubt by Todd. The evidence against Mrs. Lovett consisted of the fact of there being an underground communication all the way from the cellars of Todd's house to her cooking concern; and Mark Ingestrie had quite enough to tell of that to make it tolerably clear they acted in concert. Of course there could be but one opinion in the minds of all present of the guilt of the prisoners; but it was necessary that that guilt should be legally as well as morally proved, and hence the evidence was very carefully arranged to meet the exigencies of the case. "Have you any legal adviser?" said the Magistrate to Todd. "No," was the brief response. The same question was put to Mrs. Lovett, but she did not answer, and the deathlike paleness of her countenance sufficiently testified that it was out of her power to do so. In another moment, overcome by dread and chagrin, she fainted. "Is she dead?" said Todd. No one replied to the question, and he added "Look to her well or she will yet baffle you. If ever the spirit of a fiend found a home in any human brain it is in that woman's. I say to you, look to her well, or she will still baffle you all by some rare device you little dream of." Mrs. Lovett in her insensible state was carried from the court, and a surgeon was in prompt attendance upon her. It was found that there was nothing the matter with her; she had merely fainted through sheer vexation of spirit at finding that her overtures to be evidence against Todd were not attended to in the way she had wished; for now, with the loss of everything but life, how glad she would have been to back out of those odious transactions which clung to her. Todd was asked if he had anything to say. "Really," he said. "I do not know what it is all about. I am a poor humble man, who get but a scanty living by shaving any kind customer, and all this must be some desperate conspiracy against me on the part of the Roman Catholic, I think." "The Roman Catholics?" "Yes, your worship. I never would shave or dress the hair of a Roman Catholic if I knew it, and more than one of that religion have sworn to be avenged upon me." "And is this your defence?" "Yes, exactly; it is all I can say; and if I perish, it will be as one of the most innocent of men who ever was persecuted to death." "Well," said the magistrate, "I have heard many a singular defence, but never one like this." "It'sit's truth," said Todd, "that staggers your worship." "Well, you can try what effect it will have upon a jury. I commit you for trial on the charge of wilful murder." "Murder of whom?" "Charles James Thornhill." "Oh, your worship, he is alive and well, and now in Havannah. If I have murdered him, where is the body?" "We are prepared," said the Attorney General, "with that objection. At the trial we will tell the jury where the body is." Mrs. Lovett, now having sufficiently recovered, was brought into court to hear that she was committed for trial, but she made no remark upon that circumstance whatever; and in the course of a few moments another shout from the multitude without announced that the prisoners were off to Newgate. CHAPTER CXXII. A LARGE PARTY VISITS BIG BEN AND THE LIONS IN THE TOWER. On the morning following the committal of Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd to Newgate for trial, a rather large party met at the office of Sir Richard Blunt, in Craven Street, Strand. The fact was that after the proceedings at the policeoffice, Big Ben had earnestly besought them all to name the day to visit him and the lions in the Tower, and as no day was so convenient to Sir Richard as that immediately following, it was arranged that they were all to meet at the private office in Craven Street, and go there by water to the Tower. The sun shone beautifully; and to look at that party no one would have supposed that there had ever been such persons as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett in the world. The party consisted of Colonel Jeffery, Tobias, Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, Minna Gray, Johanna, Mark Ingestrie, Arabella Wilmot, and the fruiterer's daughter from Fleet Street, who had been so kind to Johanna during that very sad and anxious time that she had passed while in the temporary service of Todd. Tobias And Minna Rejoice At The Capture Of Todd And Mrs. Lovett. Tobias And Minna Rejoice At The Capture Of Todd And Mrs. Lovett. So happylooking and smiling a party surely could not have been found in all London, as they made up. It will be seen that there were no less than three couples intent upon matrimony, for although it was understood that Tobias was to wait two years yet before he married, he looked as happy as the rest. A large eightoared barge was at the stairs at the bottom of the street to convey them, and as they all walked to it arminarm, and in couples, everybody who met them would have it that it was a wedding, and many jocular remarks were made to them by the way. "Upon my word," said Sir Richard, "I shall be considered a matchmaker, and folks will say that I keep this office of my own only as a matrimonial speculation." "You certainly," said the colonel, "have been the cause of two or three matches, at all events, for, but for you, I doubt if any of us would have felt as we feel to day, Sir Richard." "He has restored Mark Ingestrie to me," said Johanna. "And my Johanna to me," said Ingestrie. "And my dear Minna to me," cried Tobias. "Stopstop!" cried Sir Richard. "And I am quite certain," said the colonel, "that I owe to him the joy of calling Arabella mine." Sir Richard Blunt came now to a halt, as he said "Stop, all of you, or I will not go one step further. If we get into this kind of talk, who is to say where it will end? Let us enjoy ourselves, and make it a rule to say anything but revert to the past. It has its joys and its sorrows, but it had better upon this occasion be left to itself." "Agreedagreed," said everybody. The barge was a very handsome one. Indeed Sir Richard Blunt had borrowed it of one of the city companies for the occasion, and beneath the gay awning they could all sit with perfect ease. And now in the course of another five minutes they were going down the river, quite at a slashing pace, towards the old Tower; and as they were animated by the many pleasing sights upon the river, their conversation soon became animated and spirited. "What is that?A wherry coming towards us from the Templestairs," said the colonel. All eyes were bent upon the wherry, which shot out from the little landingplace by the side of the Temple Gardens, and presently they, with one accord, cried out "It's Hector!" In truth Hector was there, but with him was the colonel's new groom, the late ostler, who had been so efficient a protector to the dog, and the captain of the ship, whom he knew so well. "Barge ahoi!" cried the captain. "Ayay!" shouted Ingestrie in reply, and the wherry shot alongside the barge. "Well," said the captain, "I do think for you all to go on such a party as this, and not ask me and Hector, is too bad." "But," said Sir Richard Blunt, "you told me you were going to be very busy at the docks." "So I did, but I found our owner had not come to town, and I have nothing to do today. I called at your house, colonel, hoping to be in time to come with you, but you had gone. Hector, however, saw me, and made such a racket I was forced to bring him." "And no one can be more glad to see you and Hector than I," cried the colonel. "And I didn't like, sir," said the ostler, "not for to come for to go, when Pison said as he'd like to come." "Very good," said the colonel smiling. "Come on board." The waterman who was with the wherry laid it alongside the barge, and having been liberally paid for his freight, rowed off again, leaving with the barge party, his two customers and the dog. The Tower was soon in sight, for at that time there were not by any means so many obstructions to the navigation of the River Thames as are to be found now, and the stream too was very much clearer than now it can boast of being. The host of manufactories that have since risen upon its banks were not then thought of. "I do think," said Colonel Jeffery, "that I can see our friend Ben at the landing place. Look, Mr. Oakley, is that not Ben?" "Bless you, sir," said Mr. Oakley, "I couldn't see so far if you would make me king of England for doing so. Johanna, my love, you have young eyes, and know Ben well." "Yes, pa, it is Ben, and he is waving his hand to us, and looks so pleased." "He is a most worthy honest fellow," said Sir Richard Blunt. "I like him very much, from what little I have seen of him. He has the simplicity of a child." "Yes," added the colonel, "and the candour and honesty of a lover of human nature. I believe a better heart than Ben's never beat in human bosom." "I am quite sure of it," said Johanna. "I love Ben very much indeed. He has been ever a kind and indulgent friend to me." "Do you hear that, Mr. Ingestrie?" said Arabella. "Yes," laughed Mark, "but I decline investing Ben with any of the attributes of a rival. Now, I love you, Miss Wilmot very much indeed, because you have always been such a dear kind friend to Johanna; and I daresay the colonel will permit me to do so." "To be sure I willat a distance," said the colonel. Everybody laughed at this, and then, as the rowers increased their exertions to come in to the Tower stairs with some eclat, the barge soon was safely moored at the landing place. "Here you are all of you," cried Ben, capering in his huge delight. "Here you all are. Come along. Oh, how hungry I am." "That sounds as if you meant to eat us, Ben," said Sir Richard, as he stepped from the barge. "Oh, dear no. Only I have got a little bit of lunch ready for you all, and as I helped to place it on the table it made me so hungry that I've been half mad ever since, and I'm as thirsty too as can be. Oh, Mr. Jeffery, I often think if the Thames were only strong ale, what a place the Tower would be." "You may depend," said Sir Richard, "if it were, the government would pretty soon bottle it all off." Johanna was going to step on shore, but Ben made a dash at her, and lifting her up as you would some little child, he seated her on his left arm, and so fairly carried her into the Tower. "You wait, Miss Arabella," he cried. "I'll come for you." This so alarmed Miss Wilmot that she sprang on shore in a moment, and all the party laughed heartily to see Mark Ingestrie flying along after Ben, and shouting as he went "Put her downput her down! Ben!Ben! She'd rather walk. Put her down!" Ben paid no manner of attention to any of these remonstrances, but carried Johanna right into the Tower before he set her upon her feet again, which he then did as tenderly as though she had been some infant, only just learning to walk. "Mind how you go," he said. "Take it easy. Easy does it." "But I can walk, Ben." "Very good. Mind how you does, you nice little thing. Oh, I likes you a great deal better in the petticoats and not the breeches." "Well, Ben," said Mark Ingestrie, "I am certainly very much obliged to youvery much, indeed." "Don't mention it, my boy," replied Ben, totally oblivious of the manner in which Mark Ingestrie uttered the wordsa manner which betrayed some little pique upon the occasion.
The laughter of Johanna and his friends, however, soon chased away the temporary cloud. "Where's the t'other little one?" said Ben. "I am here," cried Arabella, laughing. "Oh, you got on without me, did you? Very good only if you had only waited, I shouldn't have thought it no trouble at all, whatsomedever. Easy does it, you know." "Thank you, Ben. I'd just as soon walk, and a little rather, perhaps, of the two. It was quite amusing enough to see you carry Johanna." "Wellwell, there ain't much gratitude in this world. Come on, all of you, for you must be famished; and as for me, I haven't had a bit of anything to eat for a whole hour and a half, and then it was only a pound and three quarters of beefsteak, and a half quartern loaf!" "But we are none of us hungry," said Johanna. "Never mind that," replied Ben, "you don't know what you may be; so always eat when you can get it. That's my maxim, and I find it answers very well. Plenty to eat and drink, and taking things easy, is how I get through the world, and you'll all on you find it the best in the long run." "There are worse philosophies than that going," said Sir Richard Blunt to Colonel Jeffery. "Very much worse," laughed the colonel. Ben now led the way along a narrow arched passage, and through two rather gloomy corridors to a stone room, with a grand arched roof, in the ancient fortress; and there, sure enough, they found the little snack, as he called it, laid out very nicely for their reception. A table ran along the centre of the room, and at one end of it there was placed an immense round of corn beef. At the other was a haunch of mutton, weighing at least thirty pounds. Somewhat about the middle of the table was an enormous turkey; and those dishes, with a ham and four tongues, made up a tolerable repast. Six halfgallon flagons, filled with old Burton Ale, stood at regular distances upon the table. "It's only," said Ben, "a slight snack, after all; but I hope you will be just able to find enough." "Enough!" cried Sir Richard. "Why, there's enough for fifty people." "There's almost enough for a regiment!" said the colonel. "Oh, you are joking," said Ben; "but come, sit down. You, father Oakley, sit here by this little bit of mutton, and I'll cut up the beef." After considerable laughing they were all seated; and then Ben, finding that Johanna was on one side of him, and Miss Wilmot on the other, declared that he was quite satisfied. He cut, first of all, a cold tongue in halves down the middle lengthways, and placed one half upon a plate for Johanna, and the other on a plate for Arabella. Then upon the tongue in each plate, he placed about a pound of ham. "Take that, my little dears," he said, "to begin with, and don't be sparing now, for there's the turkey and the mutton, you know, to fall back upon. Easy does it." The room resounded with shrieks of laughter at the looks of utter distressful dismay which Johanna and Arabella cast upon their plates; and Ben looked from one face to another in perfect astonishment, for he could not see any joke for the life of him. "Dear Ben," said Johanna, "do you really imagine we can eat a tenth part of all this?" "Do I imagine?In course I does. Only you begin. Lord bless you, that ain't much. Comecome, you want your ale, I suppose. So here it is." Upon this, Ben poured them each out about a quart of the strong ale, and requested them to take an easy pull at that. They found that it was of no use requesting Ben to diminish the quantity he helped them to; so they just, as he advised, took it easy, and ate what they had a mind to do. As for Ben himself, he cut one large slice off the round of beef, and then placed upon it two slices of ham, so that the thicknessfor he was not a delicate carverwas about three inches; and so he set to work, every now and then taking up one of the halfgallon ale flagons, and pledging the company all round. Probably, rough and homely as was Ben's lunch, not one of them present had ever enjoyed such a meal more than they this did; and if we might judge by the loud laughter that echoed about the old arched roof, a merrier hour was never spent than in the Tower with Big Ben. But it was a sadness to Ben to find that such little progress was made in the consumption of his eatables and drinkables; and he uttered many groans as he watched Johanna and Arabella. CHAPTER CXXIII. THE BEASTS AT THE TOWER. All good things must have an end, and Ben's lunch in the Tower was not any exception to the rule. At last even he was satisfied that nobody would eat any more, although he was very far indeed from being satisfied that they had had enough. "Won't anybody be so good," he said, "as just to try and pick a little bit of something?" "Nono!" was the general response. "Indeed, Ben," said Colonel Jeffery, "if we take any more we shall positively be ill, and I'm sure you don't wish that." "Oh, dear, no," groaned Ben; "but it's quite clear to me, of course, that you don't like the lunch, or else you could not have took it so very easy." With one accord upon this, everybody declared that they had liked it amazingly well. "Then you will all try a drop more ale?" Upon this, they rose from the table, for they had a wellgrounded suspicion that if they staid any longer, Ben would try to force something down their throats, whether they would or not. "Ah, well," said Ben, with a sigh, when he found that they would not be prevailed upon to take anything else. "Then we may as well go and see the lions in the Tower." "Oh, yes," added Johanna, "I have heard so much of them, that I quite long to see them." "Should you, my duck?" cried Ben; "then come along." Here Ben would have carried Johanna again, for somehow he had got the idea fixed in his head that the kindest thing he could possibly do as regarded Johanna was to prevent her from using her feet; but Mark Ingestrie interposed, saying "Ben, she would much rather walk. You forget, my kind friend, that she is no longer now a child." "Oh, dear," said Ben, with a look of profound wisdom, "if you come to that, we are all children. Look at me, I'm only a fine baby." Everybody laughed at this sally of Ben's, as well they might; and then, being fully convinced that no more eating nor drinking was at all practicable, Ben proceeded to lead the way to the lions. "Is there any danger?" said Arabella. "I hope you will not let any of them out of their cages, Mr. Ben." "Oh, dear, no, there's no danger, and we don't let any of them out. We only pokes them up a bit with a long pole, to make 'em rather lively to visitors." "And have no accidents ever happened?" said Johanna. "Lord bless you, no. To be sure one of the warders, who was rather a new hand, would put his hand in between the bars of the lion's den and get it snapped off; and once a leopard we had here broke loose, and jumped on the back of a sentinel, and half eat him up; but we haven't had any accidents." "Why, what do you call them, Ben?" "Oh, nothing at all." "I dare say," said Sir Richard Blunt, "that the poor warder and the sentinel would have called those little incidents something." "Well, perhaps they might," said Ben. "In course people will think of themselves before anybody else; but, howsomdever, don't you be after going to be afeard, my little dears; and if any of the beasteses was to get out, always recollect that easy does it, and it's no use making a fuss." "I suppose you think, Ben, that if we are to be eaten up by a lion or a leopard, there's no such thing as avoiding our fate," said the colonel. "Is that your idea?" "Well, I hardly know," said Ben. "But one day we had a young chapa new warderwho came here out of the country, and he said he had had a dream the night before he came that he should be devoured by a wolf. Now we hadn't a wolf in the Tower collection at all, so, in course, we all laughed at him, and told him he would have to go to foreign parts to bring his dream true. But you'd hardly believe it, that very day afore the young fellow had been one hour in the Tower, there comes a boat to the stairs, with an officer, and he asks to see the keeper of the beasts, and he says to him'My ship is lying at the Nore, and we have brought from Friesland one of the largest wolves as ever was known for the Tower collection,' says he, 'and he's in a large bag we made on purpose to hold him in the boat.' Well, when the young warder heard this he said'That's my wolf. He has come for me!' and off he set a trembling like anything. The wolf was brought in in a coal sack, and we got him into an empty den that was shut up with a chain and a staple only; but as all the fastenings were out of his reach, he could not interfere with it if he was ever so cunning. Well, night came, and we all took it easy, and went to bed; but in the middle of the night what should we hear but the most horrid howling that ever you could think of, and when we ran to the Lion Tower, where it came from, we found the iron door of the wolf's den open, and the young warder lying, half in and half out of it, stone dead. The wolf had had him by the throat." "And what became of the wolf?" said Johanna. "He was gone, and we never so much as heard of him from that day to this." "Well, Ben," said the colonel, "that is a very good story of the lions in the Tower, and here we are, I think, close to them." A terrific roar at this moment proved the colonel's words to be tolerably true. "Ah, they are feeding some on 'em," said Ben. "It just the time, and they will not be convinced as easy does it." "It is hard enough, Ben," said Sir Richard Blunt, "to convince human beings of that piece of philosophy, to say nothing of lions and tigers." "Oh, but," said Ben, with great gravity, "lions and tigers is generally much more reasonable than human beings." Another roar from the menagerie joined in as bass to the laugh with which this piece of philosophy from so unlikely a person as Ben was received. "Come on," he said; "come on. They can make a noise, but that's just about all they can do. Come on, my little dearsand if you fell at all afeard, all you have got to do is to take hold of the lion by the nose, and then you'll find he looks upon you as one of them as takes things easy, and he won't say another word to you anyhow." "We will leave that to you, Ben," said Johanna, "and in the meantime, I will keep close to you, you know." "Do, my little duck; and I'll just carry you." "Nonono!" Johanna darted away; for if she had not done so, Ben would inevitably have had her up in his arms by way of showing his affection for her. It was a fixed idea of his, and was not to be shaken by any denials or remonstrances. And now in a few minutes, after traversing the highly picturesque and antique passages of the Tower, the little party arrived at where the lions were kept. The colonel gave a caution to the late ostler of the inn in Fleet Street to keep an eye over Hector, who not being accustomed to an introduction to such animals as he was about to see, might fancy himself called upon to do something out of the way upon the occasion. "Oh, I'll watch him, sir," said the man. "Come here, Pison, will you? and don't you be after going and interfering with wild beasteses. Lor bless you, sir, he'll be quite glad to see 'em, and will go on speaking of 'em for ever afterwardsI know he will." "Here you are," said Ben, as he halted opposite the door of a lordly lion. They all looked at the immense creature with a vast amount of interest, for such creatures were rather rarities at that time in London. While our friends are thus examining the king of the forest, as he crunches a huge beef bone with his formidable jaws, we may give a brief account of the wild creatures that in old times were kept in the tower. There was Pedore, a beautiful lioness, brought from Senegal, and presented to the king by Governor V. Harora. Csar, brother to Pedore, brought from the same place, and presented to his majesty, by Captain Haycraft. He has been in the Tower about eight months, is three years and a half old, and supposed to be the finest lion ever seen in England. His looks strike the stoutest beholder with astonishing awe. His head is large, being covered with a long shagged mane that reaches to his shoulders, and adds rather to the terror than majesty of his countenance; for his eyes being very fiery, and darting, as it were, a kind of red flame through his long, shaggy, and dishevelled hair, raises such an idea of fierceness as cannot be excited in a mind unaccompanied with fear, nor can we conceive it possible for human courage to encounter a creature of such a dreadful aspect, without the intervention of some lucky circumstance, notwithstanding the stories that have been related of men killing lions in equal combat. His mouth opens wide, and discovers a frightful set of teeth; and when he roars he may be heard at a great distance. Miss Jane, a beautiful lioness, about six years old, brought from the coast of Barbary, by Sir Jacob Wyatt. Phillis, a large wolf, brought from Boulogne, in France, and presented to his majesty by Colonel Hollingworth. It is in form not unlike a dog of a mixed breed, and has been in the Tower about five years. These are very ravenous creatures, which inhabit the immense forests in France and other parts, and are a terror to men and cattle. In the severe season of the year they come from the woods and fall ravenously upon every living thing they meet, and have been known to enter houses in search of food. Sukey, a North American bear, brought over by Lord Bruce. She has been in the Tower about twelve months. Hector, a most beautiful lion, sent from the Emperor of Morocco as a present to his majesty. He is fourteen years old, and has been in the Tower about ten. He greatly resembles Csar. Helena, companion to Hector, a very handsome lioness, and presented also by the Emperor of Morocco. Miss Gregory, a beautiful leopardess, about twenty years of age. She was sent to his late majesty by the Dey of Algiers, and presented by the late Algerine Ambassador. Sir Robert, a fine leopard, of a shining yellow colour intermixed with bright spots. He was brought from Senegal byTouchit, Esq. He has been in his present situation about eight years, during which he has had seven young ones by two different leopardesses. The young, however, all died soon after being whelped, except one which lived about ten months. Miss Nancy, a very beautiful lioness, brought from Senegal, and presented to his majesty by Brady, Esq. She has been here only about nine months, is not quite two years old, and seems very tractable. A lion monkey. This beast is of a black colour, with very shaggy hair. It was brought from the Cape of Good Hope, and has been here about four months. An American black bear, lately brought over by Colonel Clarke. A racoon, brought from Norway by Colonel Clarke. This is a very small beast, and exceedingly harmless. It lives on the seasands, and chiefly on shell fish, which it takes in a very safe and dexterous manner; for whenever the fish opens its shell to receive either air or nourishment, this creature, we are told, puts a small pebble in, so that the shell may not close again, and picks out the fish with its claws. Rose, a large Norway wolf, presented about four years since by Herr Widderman. He is about six years old, and appears very fierce and ravenous. Miss Sally, a beautiful leopardess, presented by the Emperor of Morocco, and brought over in the same ship with Hector. These were the principal inhabitants of what was called the Lion's Tower; and Ben, who was never so much in his glory as when he was describing the creatures and commenting upon them, went through the list of them with commendable accuracy. It was quite impossible but that the party should very much admire these wild inhabitants of the woods and wastes of nature, and Ben was wonderfully gratified at the fearless manner in which both Johanna and Arabella approached the dens. The inspection of the beasts lasted more than an hour, and then, as Sir Richard Blunt had no more time at his disposal, they all again proceeded to the barge that was waiting for them. Ben accompanied the party from the Tower, as the Oakleys had invited him to dine with them. "Ah," he said, "by the time we get to your house, cousin Oakley, I shall be half famished. Thank goodness! I have ordered something to eat to be put on board the barge, in case we should be sharp set." CHAPTER CXXIV. RETURNS TO NEWGATE, AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF MRS. LOVETT. While those persons, in whose happiness we and our readers, no doubt, likewise feel a kindly interest, are thus in the happy society of each other, compensating themselves for many of the mischances and deep anxieties of the past, some events were taking place in Newgate of a character well worth the recording. Mrs. Lovett, when she found that her proposition to turn evidence against Todd would not be listened to, but that it was the fixed determination of the authorities to include her in the prosecution, became deeply despondent. Upon being taken back to Newgate, she did not say one word to any one; but when she was placed in her cell, she paced to and fro in its narrow confines with that restless perturbed manner which may be noticed in wild animals when caged. After about an hour, then, she called to one of the attendants of the prison, saying "I wish to speak to some one who has authority to hear what I may choose to relate." "The chaplain will come," was the reply. "The chaplain!" repeated Mrs. Lovett with a burst of rage, "what do I want with chaplains? Do I not know perfectly well that when a person is found too idiotic for ordinary duties he is made a chaplain of a jail? No! I will not speak to any of your chaplains." "Well, I never!" said the turnkey. "Our chaplain for certain ain't a conjuror, but I never heard afore that he was sent here on account of being weak in the upper story. It's likely enough though for all that. Perhaps Mrs. Lovett, you'd like to see the Governor?" "Yes, he will do much better." "Very good." Such a prisoner as Mrs. Lovett could command an interview with the Governor of Newgate at any reasonable period; and that functionary having been apprised of her wish to see him, together with what she had said of the chaplain, repaired to her cell with an illconcealed smile upon his face, for in his heart he perfectly agreed in Mrs. Lovett's estimation of jail chaplains. "Well, madam," he said. "What have you to say to me?" "In the first place, sir, I am here without other clothing then that which I now wear. Is it inconsistent with your regulations for me to have a box of clothes brought me from my home?" "Oh noyou can have them. I will get an order from the committing magistrate for you to have your clothes brought here. Of course they will be scrupulously examined before they reach you." "What for?" "It is our custom, that's all." "You are afraid that I should escape?" "Oh, nono! No woman ever yet escaped from Newgate, and I don't think any man ever will again." "Perhaps not. For my part, I care not how many men escape, so that you take good care Sweeney Todd does not." "You may make yourself easy upon that score." "Goodthen when I get my clothes here, I will make a full confession of all I know, regarding Todd's crimes." "And your own?" "Yes, if you like. And my own. Be it so. But mark me, I will have no pettifogging, prying, canting parsons in the cell. If you bring your chaplain here I am mute." "Very well, I will say as much. Of course, if you are inclined to make a confession, you can make it to whom you please." "I should presume so." With this, the Governor left Mrs. Lovett, and she commenced again her uneasy pacing of the cell. In about two hours, a large box was brought to her with nearly the whole of her clothes from her house in Bell Yard. She selected a dress, with a number of heavy flounces, and put it on, appearing to be much better satisfied than she had been. "Ah," said the turnkey, "that's the way with women. Give them dress, and even in Newgate they feel comfortable, but make 'em go shabby, and you had much better hang them outright." Another hour passed, and then the Governor, with a magistrate and writing materials, came to the cell of the wretched woman. "If Mrs. Lovett," he said, "you still think proper to persevere in your intention of making a confession, this gentleman, who is a magistrate, will in his official capacity receive it, and I will witness it; but you do it entirely at your own risk and peril." "I know it," replied Mrs. Lovett, "and I likewise do it to the risk of the peril of Sweeney Todd." "You can make what statement you please. How far it will be taken as evidence against another, will depend entirely upon how it is in essentials corroborated by others," said the magistrate. "I am content. Now, sir, will you listen to me?" "Most certainly." The Governor arranged his writing materials, and while the magistrate listened, Mrs. Lovett said in a calm clear voice "Believing that I am upon the brink of the grave, I make this statement. Todd first connived the idea of that mutual guilt which we have both since carried out. He bought the house in Bell Yard, as likewise the one in Fleet Street, and by his own exertions, he excavated an underground connection between the two, mining right under St. Dunstan's church, and through the vaults of that building. When he had completed all his arrangements, he came to me, and cautiously made his offer; but he did not tell me that those arrangements were then complete, as that he doubtless thought would have placed him too much in my power, in the event of my refusing to cooperate with him in his iniquity. He need not have given himself that amount of trouble; I was willing. The plan he proposed was, that the pieshop should be opened, for the sole purpose of getting rid of the bodies of people, whom he might think proper to murder, in or under his shop. He said that fearing nothing, and believing nothing, he had come to the conclusion, that money was the great thing to be desired in this world, inasmuch as to it he had found that all people bowed down. He said that after the murder of any one, he would take the flesh from the bones quickly, and convey to the shelves of the bakehouse in Bell Yard the pieces, as materials for the pies. Minor arrangements he left to me. He murdered many. The business went on and prospered, and we both grew rich. He refused me my share of the spoil; and so I believe we both fell to our present state." Mrs. Lovett Makes Her Confession To The Governor Of Newgate. Mrs. Lovett Makes Her Confession To The Governor Of Newgate. "Have you any more to add?" said the magistrate. "Nothing. But I will answer you any question you may choose to ask of me upon the subject." "No. It is not my province to ask anything. This is clearly a voluntary statement and confession. No questions need be, or ought to be, asked concerning it at all." "Very well." "You are aware that it will be used against you." "And against Todd?" "Yes, it is a strong corroboration of the evidence against him; and as such, if there had been any doubt, would have gone far towards making his conviction certain." "Then I am satisfied, sir." The magistrate slightly inclined his head and left the cell with the Governor. When they were outside he said to the latter "I would advise you to keep a sharp watch upon that woman. My firm opinion is, that she contemplates suicide, and that this statement is merely made for the purpose of damaging Todd as much as possible." "No doubt, sir. You may depend upon our keeping a good watch upon her. It is quite impossible she can do herself a mischief. There is literally nothing in the cell for her to convert to any such use; besides, I doubt if really great criminals ever have the courage to die by their own hands." "Well, it may be so; of course your experience of these people is very considerable. I only tell you my impression." "For which, sir, I am much obliged, and will be doubly cautious." Mrs. Lovett, when she was once more alone, paced her cell in the same restless manner that she had done before. It was not then so much as it is now the custom in Newgate to keep such a strict watch upon prisoners before conviction, and with the exception that there was a man in the passage close at hand, boxed up in a sentrybox, and whose duty it was now and then to open the small square wicket in the cell door, and see that the prisoner was all right, Mrs. Lovett had no surveillance over her. As she paced to and fro, she muttered to herself "Yes, I will do it. They think that I would go through the formal parade of a trial. They think that I will stand in one of their courts shrinking before a jury; but I will notI will not. Oh no, Todd may do all that. It is fitting that he should; but I, having failed in my one great enterprise, will bid adieu to life." She paused, for the man was at the wicket. "Do you want anything?" he said. "No, my friend. Only the poor privilege of being alone." "Humph! I thought I heard you speaking." "I was only rehearsing my defence." "Oh, well; that's a new dodge anyhow. You take it easy, Ma'am Lovett, if anybody ever did." "Innocence, my friend, should be composed." The turnkey stared at her through the little bars that crossed even that small orifice in the door, and then closed it without another word. He was scarcely used to such an amount of cool effrontery as he found exhibited by Mrs. Lovett. "Alone again," she said. "Alone again. I must be cautious, or they will suspect my purpose. I must only converse with myself in faint whispers. I would not be thwarted willingly in this my last and boldest act; and I am resolved that I will not live to look upon the light of another day. I am resolved, and wound up to my purpose. Oh, what poor fools they are to fancy they can prevent such a one as I am from dying when and how I wish! They have unwittingly supplied me with the ready means of death today." These words were spoken so low, that if the turnkey had been listening with all his might on the other side of the door he could not possibly have overheard them. The recent visit of that functionary, if the peep through the little opening in the door could be called a visit, had taught Mrs. Lovett to be more cautious how she trusted the air of her cell with the secret resolves of her teeming brain. But now that she had really and truly made up her mind to commit suicide, all the worst passions of her nature seemed to be up in arms and to wage wild war in her heart and brain; while amid them all was the intense hatred of Todd, and the hope that she should be revenged upon him, by his being brought to death upon the scaffold, triumphant over every other. "I had hoped," she said; "oh, how I had hoped, that I might have had the satisfaction of witnessing such a scenebut that is past now. I must go before him; but still it is with the conviction that die he must. I feel, I know that he will not have the courage to do as I am about to do, and if he had, I am certain he has not provided himself with the means of success as I have provided myself." These last words she scarcely whispered to herself, so very fearful was she that they might be overheard by the turnkey who was so close at hand. And now a fear came over her that he was watching her through some little hole or crevice of the door, and the very thought was sufficient to make her wonderfully uneasy. If it were so, there was quite sufficient reflected light in the cell to make every one of her actions easily observable, and so her cherished design of taking her own life would be defeated completely. In lieu of a piece of whalebone in the back of her dress, there was a small tin tube, soldered perfectly tight against the escape of any fluid, and made fast at each end. That tin tube had been in the dress she now selected for many months, and it was filled with a subtle liquid poison, a very few drops of which would prove certainly fatal. She dreaded that she should be observed to take this ingenious contrivance from her dress and pounced upon before she could break it open and make use of its contents. She sat down on the miserable kind of bench which served as a bed, and in a very low whisper to herself she said "I must wait till nightyes, I must wait till night!" She knew well that the indulgence of a light would be denied to her, and she smiled to herself, as she thought how that mistaken piece of prison policy would enable her to free herself from what now was the bitter encumbrance of existence. "The twilight," she muttered, "will soon creep into this gloomy place, and it will be my twilight, toothe twilight of my life before, and only just before, the night of death begins. That night will know no dawnthat long, long sleep which will know no waking! Yea, I will then escape from this strong prison!" CHAPTER CXXV. MRS. LOVETT SEES SOME TWILIGHT SPECTRES IN HER CELL. After she had sat for some time in this state of feeling, and just before the darkness got so apparent that but little could be seen of the few articles that the place contained, she heard the door open. A flash of light came into the place. "Who is that?" she cried. "Oh, you needn't think as it's robbersit's only me," said a voice. "You are quite safe here, ma'am. That's one good of being in the stone jug you needn't be afraid of thieves breaking into your place." She saw that it was the turnkey whose duty it was to keep watch in the passage outside her cell. "What do you want here?" she said, "Cannot I have the poor privilege of being left alone?" "Oh, yes, only it's your rations' time, and here's your boiled rice and water, and here's your loaf, mum. In course, that ain't exactly the sort of thing you have been accustomed to; but it's all the county allowsonly between you and me and the post, Mrs. Lovett, as they say you have got a pretty heavy purse, you can have just what you like." "Indeed!" "Yes, in a moderate way you know. You have only to pay, and you can have anything." "Then even Newgate is like the rest of the world. Money rules even here, does it?" "Why, in a manner of speaking, a guinea is worth twentyone shillings here, just the same as it is outside, ma'am." "Then how much will purchase my liberty?" The turnkey shook his head. "There, ma'am, you ask for an article that I don't deal in. My shop don't keep such a thing as liberty. What I mean is, that you may have just what you like to eat and drink." "Very well. In the morning you can bring me what I order." "Oh, yesyes." "I will pay handsomely for what I do order, for I have, as you say, a heavy purse. Much heavier, indeed it is, than any of you imagine, my friends." "Your humble servant, ma'am. I only wish Newgate was full of such as you." "Ah, I hear a footstep. Who is it that is about to intrude upon me tonight?" "It's the chaplain." "The chaplain? I thought he understood that I declined his visits completely." "Why, you see, ma'am, so you did, but it's his duty to go the round of all the cells before the prison shuts up for the night, so he will come, you see; and if I might advise you, ma'am, I should say be civil to him whatever you may think, for he can do you an ill turn if he likes in his report. He has more underhanded sort of power than you are aware of, Mrs. Lovett; so you had better, as I say, be civil to him, and keep your thoughts to yourself. Where's the odds, you know, ma'am?" "I am much obliged to you for this advice, and I will pay you for it. There is a couple of guineas for you as a slight remembrance of me, and let others say what they will, you at least will not accuse me of ingratitude for any benefit conferred upon me." "That I won't, ma'am; but here he comes. Mum is the word about what I have said, or else my place would not be worth much, I can tell you." "Depend upon me.
" The turnkey, with a great show of respect, backed out of the cell as the chaplain entered it. "Well, Mrs. Lovett," said the pious individual, "I hope to find you in a better frame of mind than upon my last visit to you." "Sir," said Mrs. Lovett, "if you will come to me at your own hour in the morning, I shall then present myself to you in a different manner, and I shall no longer object to anything you may be pleased to say to me." "What a blessed conversion. Really, now, this is very satisfactory indeed. Mrs. Lovett, of course you are a very great sinner, but if you attend to me, I can warrant your being received in the other world by ten thousand angels." "I thank you, sir. Half the number would be quite sufficient, I feel assured, for my poor deserts." "Oh no, ten thousandten thousand. Not one less than that number. But if you have any doubts about the reality of flames everlasting, I shall have great satisfaction in removing them, by holding your hand for a few moments in the flame of this candle." "You are very kind," said Mrs. Lovett, "but I shall be quite as well convinced if you hold yours, as I shall then I hope see the agony depicted in your countenance." "Humph!ah! No, I would rather not exactly. But quite rejoicing that you are in so very pious a frame of mind, I shall have the pleasure of seeing you tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock." "That will do very well," said Mrs. Lovett. The chaplain, thinking he had made quite a wonderful convert in Mrs. Lovett, and with serious thoughts of getting somebody to write a tract for him on the subject, left the cell, little suspecting how he was to be duped. "Well, you did gammon him," said the turnkey, "I will say that for you." "Can you not leave me a light?" "Agin the rules. Can't do it; but I'll wait till you have put the mattress to rights, if you like." "Oh, no. It will do very well. Good night." "Good night, Ma'am Lovett, and thank you for me. They may say what they likes about you, but I will stick up for you, so far that you are liberal with your tin, and that's a very good thing indeed. I ain't quite sure that it isn't everything, as this here world goes." The door of the cell was closed, and the last rays of the turnkey's candle disappeared. Mrs. Lovett was alone again in her dreary cell. The darkness now was very intense, indeed for during the few minutes that she had been conversing with the chaplain, the twilight had almost faded away, dropping quite into night, so that not an object was visible in the cell. She heard the turnkey's footsteps die away in the distance, and then indeed she felt truly alone. "And I shall not see the sunlight of another day," she said. "My pilgrimage is over." She pronounced these words with a shudder, for even she could not at such a moment feel quite at ease. She held in her hands the means of death, and yet she hesitatednot that she had the remotest intention of foregoing her fixed resolve; but feeling that at any moment she had it in her power now to carry it out, she lingered there upon the shores of life. "And it has come to this," she said. "After all my schemingafter all my resolves, it has come to suicide in a felon's cell. Well, I played a daring game, and for heavy stakes, and I have lost, that is all." She covered her eyes with her hands for several minutes, and slowly rocked to and fro. Who shall say what thoughts crossed that bold bad woman's soul at that time? Who shall say that in those few moments her memory did not fly back to some period when she was innocent and happy?for even Mrs. Lovett must have been innocent and happy once; and the thought that such had been her blessed state, compared to what it was now, was enough to drive her madquite mad. When she withdrew her hands from before her eyes she uttered a cry of terror. Memory had conjured up the forms of departed spirits to her; and now so strong had become the impression upon her mind in that hour of agony, that she thought she saw them in her cell. "Oh, mercymercy!" she said. "Why should I be tortured thus? Why should I suffer such horrors? Why do you glare at me with such fiery eyes for, horrible spectres!" Mrs. Lovett In Newgate.Is ConscienceStricken. Mrs. Lovett In Newgate.Is ConscienceStricken. She covered up her eyes again; but then a still more terrible supposition took possession of her, for instead of fancying that the spectres were in the darkness of the cell at some distance from her, she thought that they all came crowding up to within an inch of her face, gibing and mocking. "Offoff!" she cried, as she suddenly stretched out her arm. "Do not drive me quite mad." Her eyes glared in the darkness like those of some wild animal. They looked phosphorescent, and for some time such was the agony and the thraldom of her feelings, that she quite forgot she had the means of death in her hands. She began to question the spirits that fancy presented in the darkness as thronging her cell. "Who are you?" she said. "I know you not. I did not kill you! Why do you glare at me? And you, with your face matted with blood, I did not kill you. Who are you, too, with those mangled limbs? I killed none of you. Go to Sweeney Toddgo to Sweeney Todd!" She kept her hands stretched out before her, and she fancied that it was only by such an action that she kept them from touching her very face. Then she dropped upon her knees, and in the same wild halfscreaming voice she spoke again, crying "Away with you all! Todd it was that killed younot I. He would have killed me, too. Do you hear, that he tried to kill me? but he could not. What boy are you? Oh, I know you now. He sent you to the madhouse. You are George Allan. Well, I did not kill you. I see that there is blood upon you! But why do you all come to me and leave Todd's cell tenantless, except by himself? for you cannot be here and there both! Away, I say! Away to him! Do not come here to torture me!" Taptaptap came a sound on the door of the cell. "Hush!" she said. "Hush!" "What's the matter?" said the turnkey. "Nothingnothing." "But I heard you calling out about something." "It is nothing, my friend. All is right. I was onlyonly praying." "Humph!" said the turnkey. "If you were, it is something rather new, I reckon. She can't do any mischief, that's one comfort; and many of the worst ones as comes here don't pass very nice, cosy, comfortable nights. They fancies they sees all sorts of things, they does. Poor devils! I never seed nothing worse than myself or my wife in all my time, and I don't think I ever shall." Mrs. Lovett did not now utter one word until she was sure the turnkey was out of hearing. That slight interruption had recalled her to herself, and done much to banish from her disturbed imagination all those fancied monsters of the brain which had disturbed her. "Why did I yield even for a moment," she said, "to such a load of superstition? I thought that even at such a moment as this I should be free from such terrors. How I should have smiled in derision of any one else who had been weak enough to give way to themand yet how real they looked. How very unlike the mere creations of a disturbed brain. Could they be real? Is it possible?" Mrs. Lovett shook a little as she asked herself these questions, and it was only at such a moment that she could or was at all likely to ask them, for our readers may well believe that such a woman could have had no sort of belief in a providence, or she never, with her active intellect, could have fallen into the mistake of supposing that she was compassing happiness by committing crime. For awhile now the doubt that she had suggested to herself shook her very much. It was the very first time in all her wicked life that anything like a perception of a future state had crossed her mind; and each minute how fearfully to her the possibility, and then the probability, that there really was another world than this, began now to grow upon her. That thought was more full of agony than the appearance of the spectres had been to herthose spectres which were only called into existence by her own consciousness of overpowering guilt and deep iniquity. "I am going now," she said. "I am going. World that I hate, and all upon thee, farewell!" She broke the tin case containing the poison, and applying one of the broken ends to her lips, she swallowed two drops of the deadly liquid, and fell dead upon the floor of her cell. CHAPTER CXXVI. SWEENEY TODD IS PLACED UPON HIS TRIAL. It was about eight o'clock in the morning that the officials of Newgate found their way to the cell of Mrs. Lovett. At first they thought that she was sleeping upon the floor of her prison, but when they picked her up, they soon became aware of what had really happened, and the alarm spread through the prison. The governor was vexed, and the chaplain was vexed, and when the sheriff was sent for, he, too, was vexed, so they all revenged themselves upon the turnkey, whose duty it was to be in the passage adjoining the cell, and they fancied they met the justice of the case by discharging him. Of course, in a very few hours the news of Mrs. Lovett's suicide became known all over London, with very many exaggerations; and there was not one person in the whole of the vast population of the great city who did not know the fact, save and except that man who would feel most interested in it. We, of course, allude to Sweeney Todd. He, in his cell in Newgate, saw no newspapers, and held no conversation with the world without; and as none of the persons in any way connected with the prison chose to inform him of what had happened, he had not the least idea but that Mrs. Lovett was, along with him, suffering all the terrors of suspense antecedent to her trial upon the serious charge impending over her. Of course when the day of his, Todd's, trial should arrive, the fact could no longer be kept secret from him; and that day come at last to wither up any faint hopes that he might cling to. Scarcely ever in London had such an amount of public excitement been produced by any criminal proceedings, as by the trial of Sweeney Todd. While he pursued a monotonous life from day to day in his cell, haunted by all sorts of fears, and the prey of the most dismal apprehensions, the public appetite had been fed by all sorts of strange and vague stories concerning him. The most hideous crimes had been laid to his charge; and in the imagination of the people, the number of his victims was quadrupled, so that when the morning of his trial arrived, so great was the excitement, that business in the City was almost at a stand still, and soberminded men who did not see any peculiar interest in the sayings and doings of a great criminal, were of course disgusted that the popular taste should run that way. As regarded Todd himself, he had gone into Newgate with a fixed determination in his own mind to commit suicide if he possibly could; but he had not taken the precaution that Mrs. Lovett had long before, in providing the means of so doing; and consequently he was thrown upon the scanty resources that might present themselves to him in the prison. That those resources would be few and limited enough, may be well imagined, for the most special instructions had been given by Sir Richard Blunt to prevent Todd from committing suicide; and since Mrs. Lovett had so disposed of herself despite the authorities, those precautions had been redoubled; so that Todd, after two or three abortive attempts, and thinking the matter over in every way, saw that there was no chance for him in that way, and he made up his mind to abide his trial, with the hope that he might, during the course of it, be able to say enough to make Mrs. Lovett's conviction certain, while he felt certain that he could not possibly make his own situation worse than it was. He thought, too, that perhaps after conviction he might behave so cunningly as to deceive his jailer into an idea that he was full of contrition and resignation, and so, at some ungarded moment, achieve the object that now he felt to be impossible. With these hopes and feelings, then, little suspecting that Mrs. Lovett had already removed her case to a higher tribunal, Sweeney Todd awaited his trial. Probably he had no idea of the amount of excitement that his case had created outside the prison. The customary calm of the officials of the jail, had deceived him into a belief, that after all it was no such great matter; but he quite forgot that that was a professional calm, with which the people had nothing to do, and in which it was not at all likely they would participate. The Governor came into his cell about a quarter before nine o'clock on the morning fixed for his trial. "Sweeney Todd," he said, "you are wanted in court." "I am ready," said Todd. He rose with alacrity, and accompanied the Governor and two turnkeys. It was the custom then to place prisoners accused of such heavy offences as fell to Todd's charge in irons, and if the authorities had any suspicion of violent intentions upon the part of such prisoners, the irons accompanied them to the bar of the Old Bailey. Todd was so accompanied; and as he walked along, his irons made a melancholy clank together. His imprisonment preceding his trial had been uncommonly short, but yet it had been sufficient to bring him down greatly in appearance. He had never been one of the fat order of mortals, but now he looked like some great gaunt, ghost. Every patch of colour had forsaken his cheeks, and his eyes looked preternaturally lustrous. Those who had not been accustomed to the sight of him during his imprisonment in Newgate, shrunk from him as he followed the Governor through the gloomy passages of the prison. Two wellarmed officers keep close upon his heels, so that Todd could not complain of a want of attendants. Todd Goes To Take His Trial. Todd Goes To Take His Trial. Even he recoiled when he was brought into the court of the Old Bailey, for it was a complete sea of heads; and from the dock he could hear the roar and the shout, and the shrieks of people outside, who were still struggling for admission. It was then that the idea first seemed to strike him that the public, in him, had recognised one of those notorious criminals, that awaken in no small degree popular indignation by their acts. Indeed, upon his first appearance in the court, there was a strange kind of groan of execration, which was tolerably evident to all, and yet not defined enough for the judge to take any notice of. The strife continued at the door of the court, and it was quite evident that the officers were engaged in a severe struggle with the crowd outside. "Let the doors be closed," said the judge; "the court is already inconveniently crowded." Upon this order, the officers redoubled their exertions; and being assisted by some of the spectators already within the court, who were fearful of being trampled to death if the crowd should once get in, the doors were made to shut, and fastened. A yell of rage and disappointment came from the mob; and then a loud voice, that towered above all other noises, shouted "Bring Todd out and we will hang him at once without any further trouble. We only want Todd!" The countenance of the prisoner turned as white as paper, and his glaring eyes were fixed upon the doors of the court. "It is quite impossible," said the judge, "that the business of the court can be carried on under these circumstances; I hope that the civil power will be sufficient to repress this tumult without, otherwise it will be my duty to send for a guard of military, and then bloodshed may be the consequence, from which those who create this riot alone will be in any way answerable." "Bring him out!" cried a hundred voices. "Out with him! ToddTodd! We want Todd." There was then such a furious hammering at the doors of the court, that it was quite impossible to hear what any one said. Sir Richard Blunt suddenly appeared on the bench, and leaning over to the judge, he said "My lord, I am collecting a force with which I shall be able to clear the entrances to the court." "I wish you would, Sir Richard. This riot is most disgraceful." "It is, my lord; but it shall be suppressed now with as much speed as may be." With this, Sir Richard immediately retired. He collected together a force of fifty constables, and forming them into a sort of wedge, he suddenly opened a side door, and attacked the mob. The fight, for a handtohand fight it now was, did not last more than ten minutes, when the mob gave way, and "every one for himself" became the cry. In five minutes more the party of officers had possession of all the avenues to the court, and a profound silence succeeded to the riot that had taken place. "I think now," said the judge "we may proceed to business. This riot has been a most disgraceful one, and if the officers will bring any one before me who has taken part in it, I will commit him to prison at once." "They are all dispersed, my lord," said Sir Richard. "The court thanks you, sir," said the judge. "Let the proceedings commence at once." Todd now glared about him, and his lips kept moving as though he were repeating something to himself in a whisper. The Governor of Newgate leant forward, and said "Do you wish to say anything?" "Yes. Where is she?" "Mrs. Lovett do you mean?" "I do. Why am I here, and she not? Where is she? If she be innocent, why then so am I. I do not see her." "She will not be here." "Not here? Howwhy?" "She is dead." Todd nearly dropped to the floor, and from that moment a great portion of his courage, small as it was, departed, and he looked like a ghost rather than a living man. At times, he kept muttering to himself the word"Deaddeaddead!" The usual formalities were gone through, and then Todd was roused up to plead to the indictment, charging him with the murder of Francis Thornhill. The governor touched him on the shoulder. "Plead to the indictment," he said. "Dead!" cried Todd. "Why is she dead?" "Prisoner at the bar," said the clerk of the arraign. "Do you plead guilty or not guilty to the charge here made against you?" "Not guilty!" cried Todd, as he roused himself up, and glared at the judge like an enraged tiger. Government had entrusted the prosecution to the Attorney General of the time being, and that functionary was in court. He rose to open the case, and spoke as follows, amid the most breathless silence "My lord, and gentlemen of the jury "The prisoner at the bar was originally indicted along with a female named Lovett" "Where is she?" said Todd. "Prisoner," said the judge, "at the proper time you will have an opportunity of making any observation you may think fit, but it is scarcely necessary for me to inform you that this is not the time." "She is not dead!" cried Todd. "She has been let escape by some juggling, in order that all the vengeance of the law might be directed against me. It is not true that she is dead. Some of you are chargeable with allowing that woman to escape. I tell you that she is a fiend and not a woman. But she has had gold at her disposal, and she has bribed you allI say she has bought you all." "Prisoner," said the judge, "this cannot be permitted. You only deeply prejudice your own case by this conduct." "That is impossible. I know that you are all in one large conspiracy against me, and you have let that woman escape, in order that the last drop should not be wanting to fill my cup of bitterness to the overflowing." "It will be impossible," said the AttorneyGeneral, "to proceed with the case, if the prisoner at the bar continues these interruptions." "Prisoner," said the judge, "I, and all here present, are disposed to give any allowance and indulgence to a man in your situation; but let me beg of you to be silent." "I am done," said Todd, "but it is false to say that she is dead. That fiend cannot die. She is a devil, I tell you all, and if there be any here who fancy that she is dead, I tell them that they are mistaken. She cannot be killed. I know that well. Go on with what you call your proceedings; I have no more to say to you." CHAPTER CXXVII. THE TRIAL OF SWEENEY TODD CONTINUED. This ebullition of feeling upon the part of Sweeney Todd was by some of the spectators looked upon as a vague indication of insanity, while some of the members of the bench looked very mysterious, and asked themselves if it were not the first step in the direction of some very clever defence. But then they were gentlemen who never exactly saw anything as the world in general agrees to see it. The judge shook his head as if he rather doubted Sweeney Todd's implicit promise that he would not again interrupt the proceedings; and among the whole of the spectators of that most extraordinary trial, the most intense interest was evidently rather on the increase than the diminution. The judge finding that Todd did not again say anything for a few moments, slightly inclined his head to the AttorneyGeneral, as much as to say"Pray get on, now that there seems an opportunity of so doing;" and that personage, learned in the law, accordingly rose again, and having adjusted his gown, addressed himself again to the case before him, with his usual skill. "My lords, and gentlemen of the jury "If this were only some ordinary everyday proceeding, I should not sit so calmly under the indecorous interruptions of the prisoner at the bar; but when I feel, in common with all here present, that that person has so great a stake as his life upon the issue of this investigation, I am disposed in all charity to allow a latitude of action, that otherwise would not, and could not, be endured. "Gentlemen of the jury, I yet hope that these unseemly interruptions are over, and that I shall be permitted in peace to make those remarks to you, which it is my duty to make on behalf of the crown, who prosecutes in this serious case. "Nothing can be further from my wish than to heighten by any strength of phraseology or domestic detail the case against the prisoner at the bar. I shall confine myself to a recital of the bare facts of the case, feeling that, while I cannot detract from them, they are of such a character of horror, as to require no adventitious aid from the art of the orator. "Gentlemen, it appears that the prisoner at the bar is arraigned for the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill. From what information we have been able to collect, the prisoner, Sweeney Todd, is a native of the north of England. He came to London about eighteen years ago, and was in very great poverty, when he opened a small barber's shop in Crutched Friars. He remained in that shop about seventeen months, and then paid one hundred and twentyfive pounds for the lease of a house in Fleet Street, for which he was thus only to pay a rental to the Skinners' Company of seventeen pound ten per annum, he consenting to keep the premises in ordinary repair. "The lower part of this house had been a small hosier's; but the prisoner at the bar altered it into a barber's shop, and he has there continued to reside until his arrest upon the serious charge which we are brought here to investigate. "What were the pursuits of the prisoner during his occupancy of that house, it is not our province just now to inquire, as all our attention must be directed to a consideration of the one charge, to answer to which he stands at the bar of this court; and I shall, therefore, proceed to detail the evidence upon which the prosecution founds that charge "It appears that upon the third day of August last, a ship of 400 tons burthen, called the Star, arrived in the London Docks. On board of that ship was the captain, and a crew of nine seamen, and two boys. As passengers, there was a Colonel Jeffery, and a Mr. Thornhill, whose death is the motive of the present proceedings. There was likewise a large dog named Hector on board the vessel, which was very much attached to Mr. Thornhill. "Now, gentlemen of the jury, it had so happened that Francis Thornhill had been commissioned, during the progress of a wreck at sea by a young gentleman named Mark Ingestrie, to take a certain String of Oriental Pearls, valued at somewhere about sixteen thousand pounds sterling, to a young lady in London, named Johanna Oakley; and this Francis Thornhill, fully believing that Mark Ingestrie had perished at sea, was most anxious to fulfil his request regarding this valuable and important String of Pearls. "As early as possible he landed from the ship, taking the String of Pearls with him, and his faithful dog Hector accompanied him on shore." At this moment, Hector, who was in court, having for the second time heard his name mentioned, began to think probably that something was going on concerning him, and he set up a loud bark of defiance. The effect of this was greatly to interest some of the auditory, while it brought a smile to the faces of others. Todd turned deadly pale, and in a voice of alarm, he cried "Keep off the dogkeep off the dog, I say!" "Bow!wow!wow!" barked Hector again. "That dog," said the judge, "must be immediately removed from the court. Officers, see to it." "I beg, my lord," said the AttorneyGeneral, "that you will allow him to remain, for I assure your lordship that he is a witness in this most important case." "A witness?" "Yes, my lord; I speak advisedly, and as a favour I hope your lordship will permit him to remain." "Will anybody keep him quiet?" "Oh, yes, your worship," cried the ostler. "I'll keep Pison like a mouse as has fainted clean away." "Who is that man, and what does he say?" said the judge. "My lord," said the AttorneyGeneral, "he says he can keep the dog quite quiet if you will allow him to remain." "Oh, very well. Pray proceed, Mr. Attorney." The AttorneyGeneral then resumed. "With the String of Pearls then, and the dog, which the jury have seen, Mr. Francis Thornhill went into the City to fulfil the request of Mark Ingestrie. The address he had was to Mr. Oakley, a spectaclemaker in the City, with whom Miss Oakley, who was to have the String of Pearls, resided. "Gentlemen of the jury, neither Francis Thornhill nor the String of Pearls ever reach their destination. It appears that on his route, Thornhill went into the shop of the prisoner at the bar to be shaved, and no one ever saw him come out again. The dog though was found sitting at the door of the shop, and when Todd opened his shopdoor, the dog rushed in and brought out his master's hat. "Gentlemen, the captain of the ship and Colonel Jeffery, both became very anxious concerning the fate of Mr. Thornhill, and they made every inquiry. They questioned the prisoner at the bar, who at once admitted that he had shaved him, but stated that he had left his shop when that operation was over. The captain of the Star was compelled to go to Bristol with his ship, but Colonel Jeffery, in conjunction with a friend, pressed his inquiries about Mr. Thornhill without success. The matter appeared to be involved in the most profound mystery, and the only hope of an elucidation of it, consisted in the probability that such a valuable piece of property as the String of Pearls would be sure to turn up some day in some one's possession. Gentlemen, it did so turn up. It appeared that at Hammersmith resided a Mr. John Mundell, who lent money upon securities, and it will be deposed in evidence, that one evening the prisoner at the bar, magnificently attired, and in a handsome coach, went to this Mr. Mundell, and pawned a string of pearls for some thousands of pounds. "It is to be regretted that this Mundell cannot be brought before the jury. He is dead, gentlemen; but a confidential clerk of his, who saw the prisoner at the bar, will depose to the facts. "We thus then, gentlemen of the jury, commit the prisoner with the disappearance of Thornhill, and now we come to the strongest features of this most remarkable case. "It appears that for a considerable time past, the church of St. Dunstan's had become insufferable from a peculiar stench with which the whole of that sacred edifice appeared to be constantly filled, and it baffled all the authorities to account for it. "No one had been entombed in any of the vaults beneath the church for a considerable time, and in fact, there was no apparent reason for the frightful miasmatic odour that upon all occasions filled the edifice, and day by day got worse instead of better. Scientific men, gentlemen of the jury, were consulted with regard to this stench in the church, and various very learned theories were broached upon the subject; but no one thought of making an accurate examination of the vaults beneath the church, until Sir Richard Blunt, the wellknown magistrate, privately undertook it. "Gentlemen, Sir Richard Blunt found that almost every vault was full of the fresh remains of the dead. He found that into old coffins, the tenants of which had mouldered to dust, there had been thrust fresh bodies with scarcely any flesh remaining upon them, but yet sufficient to produce the stench in the church, by the effluvia arising from them, and finding its way into the pews. In one vault, too, was found the contents of which were too horrid for description; suffice it that it contained what butchers, when speaking of slaughtered animals, call the offal. The stench in St. Dunstan's Church was no longer a mystery. "Well, gentlemen of the jury, Sir Richard Blunt persevered in his investigations, and found that there was an underground connection from exactly beneath the shaving shop of the prisoner at the bar, and the cellarage of a house in Bell Yard, Templebar, which was his property; and which was in the occupation of a female, named Lovett, who this day would have stood at the bar by the side of the prisoner, had she not, despite every vigilance used to prevent such an act, succeeded in poisoning herself, while in prison in Newgate. "Gentlemen of the jury, it will be shown in evidence that the way the larger portion of the flesh of Todd's victims was got rid of was by converting it into meat and pork pies upon the premises of Mrs. Lovett. "Beneath Todd's shop was found a diabolical contrivance, by which he could make any one he pleased fall through the floor upon the chair they sat on to be shaved, while an empty chair, in all respects similar, took the place of the one that had been occupied by the unfortunate victim. If the unhappy man, thus betrayed in a moment of confidence, was not killed by the fall, he would, at all events, be sufficiently stunned to become an easy prey to Sweeney Todd, when he chose to go down and despatch him. "And now, gentlemen of the jury, and you, my lord, I may be told that these wholesale murders have nothing to do with the indictment, which simply charges the prisoner at the bar with the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill; but I reply that it was impossible to make apparent to the jury the mode by which Francis Thornhill came by his death, without going into these painful details. Todd's house was found crammed with property and clothing sufficient for one hundred and sixty people!" A thrill of horror pervaded the court at this announcement. "Yes, gentlemen of the jury; and among that clothing is the sleeve of a jacket, which will be sworn to as having belonged to Francis Thornhill; but we have yet more cogent evidence of the fact that Thornhill met his death at the hands of the prisoner at the bar. His hat, gentlemen, will be identified by the dog now in court. But, gentlemen, is that enough? No, the law wisely looks for the body of a murdered man; and I do not call to mind an instance of a conviction following from murder where there has not been some satisfactory identification of the remains of the murdered man. We will produce that proof. Among the skeletons found contiguous to Todd's premises, was one which will be sworn to as being that of the deceased, Mr. Thornhill.
One bone of that skeleton will be produced in court, and sworn to by a surgeon who had the care of it, when once fractured on board ship, and who, from repeated examinations such a surgeon only could make, knows it well." This announcement on the part of the AttorneyGeneral, produced an enormous amount of excitement in court, for many persons had come, prepossessed with the idea that the nonproduction of the dead body of the alleged murdered man would be a serious hitch in the prosecution. Todd looked up, and in a loud clear voice he cried "No! no!" "Yes," added the AttorneyGeneral. "Yes. Gentlemen of the jury, that is all I have to say for the prosecution. The facts are as clear as light, and you will hear from the mouths of creditable witnesses the various particulars which it has been my duty on behalf of the prosecution to lay before you this day." CHAPTER CXXVIII. TODD'S TRIAL CONTINUES, AND GOES ALL AGAINST HIM. The AttorneyGeneral sat down. It was quite clear now to the most superficial observer, that the case against Todd had been just picked out for convenience sake, and was one among many. From the moment that the AttorneyGeneral had mentioned what facts he could prove, the fate of the murderer was certain to the minds of all. They looked upon him in every respect as a doomed man. Of course the remarks of the AttorneyGeneral occupied a much greater space than we have felt that, in justice to the other portion of our story, we could give to them; but what we have presented to the reader was the essential portion of what he said. All eyes were turned upon Todd, to note how he took the statement for the prosecution; but there was little to be gleaned from his face. His eyes seemed to be wandering over the sea of faces in the court, as if he were in search of some one whom he was disappointed in not seeing. There was a pause of some few moments duration, and then the AttorneyGeneral called his first witness, who was examined by the Junior Counsel for the prosecution. This witness's deposition was very simple and concise. "I was master of the ship, Star," he said, "and arrived in the Port of London on the day named in the indictment against the prisoner at the bar. Mr. Francis Thornhill had mentioned to me and to Colonel Jeffery that he had a valuable String of Pearls to take to a young lady, named Johanna Oakley, and he left the ship with his dog, Hector, to deliver them. I never saw him again from that hour to this. I was anxious about him, and called at the barber's shop in Fleet Street, kept by the prisoner at the bar. The prisoner readily admitted that such a person had been shaved at his shop, and then had left it, but why the dog remained he could not tell. The dog named Hector was at the door of the prisoner's house. He had a hat with him. My name is Arthur Rose Fletcher, and I am forty two years of age." "Is this the hat that you saw with the dog in Fleet Street?" The hat was produced. "Yes, that is the hat. I will swear to it." "Whose hat is it, or was it?" "It belonged to Mr. Thornhill, who wore it on the day he left the ship to go into the city with the String of Pearls." "That is all then, Mr. Fletcher, that we need trouble you with at present." The judge now interposed; and in a mild voice addressing Todd, he said "It is not too late for you to consent to the appointment of counsel to watch your case. I dare say some gentleman of the bar will volunteer to do so." "With the prisoner's consent," said a counsel, who was sitting at the table below the judge, "I will attend to the case." "Be it so," said Todd, gloomily. Upon this the counsel rose, and addressing the captain of the ship, who had not yet left the witnessbox, he said to him "Mr. Fletcher, how is it that you can so positively identify this hat of the alleged murdered Mr. Thornhill, after such a space of time?" "By a remarkable flaw in the rim of it, sir. An accident occurred on board the ship, by which Mr. Thornhill's hat was burnt, and this is the same hat. When he left the ship we joked him about it, and he said that perhaps he would buy a new one in the City." "Indeed. Then he might have sold this one." "He might, certainly." "And so the dog seeing it left at some place where it was sold or given away, and not comprehending such transaction, might have taken possession of it." "Of that I can say nothing." "Very well, Mr. Fletcher. I don't think I need trouble you any further. This affair of the hat seems to fall to the ground most completely." The AttorneyGeneral did not say a word aloud, but he whispered something to the junior, who nodded in reply. The next witness called, was John Figgs, the groom at the coach office, who had rescued Hector from Todd's malevolence. His testimony was as follows "I saw a crowd of people round the door of Todd's shop, and I went over to see what it was all about. The dog as I calls Pison, but as everybody else calls Hector, was trying to get into the shop. Some one opened the door, and then he came out with a hat in his mouth, after rummaging all over the shop and upsetting no end of things. I tried to coax him away, but he would not come by no means. At last, the next day I found him very bad, and that he had been pisoned, and so I calls him Pison, and took him to the stables and got him over it." "What is it he says he calls the dog?" asked the judge, with a very perplexed look. "Pison, my lord." "But what is Pison?" "He means Poison." "Oh, is that it; then why don't he say Poison? It's very absurd for anybody to say Pison, when they mean Poison all the while." "It's all the same," said the groom. "Pison is my way, and the t'other is yourn, that's all!" "What became of the hat?" asked the junior counsel for the prosecution. "I don't know. When I found the dog, in a wery bad state indeed, it was gone." "Now, John Figgs," said Todd's counsel, "could you identify that hat again among five hundred hats like it?" "Five hundred?" "Yes, or a thousand." "Well, I should say not. It wouldn't be an easy matter to do that, I take it. I could tell you a particular horse among any lot, but I ain't so well known in the way of hats." "Is this the hat? Can you deliberately swear that this is the hat in question?" "I shouldn't like to swear it." "Very well, that will do." John Figgs was permitted to go down upon this, and it was quite evident that some faint hope was beginning to quicken in the eye of Sweeney Todd, as he found that his selfappointed counsel began to make so light of the evidence of the hat. For the moment he quite forgot what proofs were still to come to fix the deed of murder upon him. Colonel Jeffery was now called. He deposed clearly and distinctly as follows "I knew Mr. Thornhill, and much regretted his loss. In company with Mr. Fletcher I went to Todd's shop to make some inquiry about him, to the effect that he had been shaved there, and had then left. I did not feel satisfied, and when Mr. Fletcher was found to be in London, I got the assistance of a friend of mine, named Rathbone, and together we prosecuted what inquiries we could. I picked up a hat from Todd's passage, and after putting myself into communication with Sir Richard Blunt, I delivered the hat to him. I have been in constant communication with Sir Richard Blunt upon the subject of this inquiry for a long time. We found that the prisoner at the bar had a sort of apprentice or errand boy in his shop, named Tobias Ragg, and we endeavoured to get some disclosures from that boy, when he suddenly disappeared. I found him again on a doorstep in the City, and he has made certain disclosures which he will repeat in evidence to the court today. On the 4th of last month I accompanied Sir Richard Blunt to a cellar beneath Todd's shop, and he showed me a contrivance in the roof by which any one could be let down. We took workmen with us and made certain alterations. I afterwards accompanied Doctor Steers of the ship Star to the vaults of St. Dunstan's, and I saw Doctor Steers take a bone from there." "Pray look at that hat, Colonel Jeffery. Is it the same you found at Todd's door?" "It is." "Did you mark the bone that Doctor Steers took from the vaults of St. Dunstan's?" "I did, and I may state to save trouble, that I placed upon the hat a private mark by which I am enabled to swear to it." Todd's counsel rose, and in a very respectful voice, he said "Did you ever see this String of Pearls, about which so much fuss is made, colonel?" "Yes; Mr. Thornhill showed it to me." "Oh. Do you know a young lady named Johanna Oakley?" "I had that pleasure." "You had? Have you not now?" "I have the honour of her acquaintance since her marriage; she is now Mrs. Ingestrie." The counsel seemed to be a little staggered by this answer, but after a moment or two, he resumed saying "Do you know a young lady named Arabella Wilmot?" "I did." "What, colonel, did again? Is she married?" "Yes; that young lady is now Mrs. Jeffery, my wife." The counsel had evidently intended to make some point against the colonel's evidence, which was completely destroyed by the fact of the two marriages. But he resumed the attack by changing his ground. "Colonel," he said, "do you know a boy named Tobias Ragg?" "I do. He is a resident in my house." "Will you take upon your self to swear that that boy, or lad, or whatever he may be called, is in his right senses?" "I will." "Will you swear that he was never confined in a lunatic asylum, from which he made his escape raving mad, and that since then you have not kept him to listen to his wild conjectures and dreamy charges against the prisoner at the bar?" "I will swear that he is not mad, and" "Come, sir, I want an answer, yes or no." "Then you will not get one. Your question involves three or four propositions, some of which may be answered in the negative, and some in the affirmative; so how can you get a reply of yes or no?" "Comecome, sir. Remember where you are. We want no roundabout speeches here, but direct answers." "It is impossible to give a direct answer to such a speech as you made. Nothing but ignorance or trickery could induce you to ask such a thing." "We cannot allow such language here, sir. I call upon the court for its protection against the insolence of this witness." "The court does not think proper to interfere," said the judge, quietly. "Oh, very well. Then I am done." "But I am not," said the colonel. "I can inform you, and all whom it may concern, that the proprietor of the lunatic asylum, in which the boy, Ragg, was so unjustly confined, is now in Newgate, awaiting his trial for that and other offences, and that I have succeeded in completely breaking up the establishment." The counsel did not think proper to say anything more to the colonel, who was permitted, after firing this last shot at the enemy, to quit the witnessbox. Sir Richard Blunt was the next witness called, and as his evidence was expected to be very important indeed, all attention was paid to it. There was that buzz of expectation throughout the court, which is always to be heard upon such occasions, when anything very important is about to take place, and every one shifted his place, in order the more correctly to hear what was going on. The AttorneyGeneral himself arose to pursue the examination of Sir Richard Blunt. It was evident that the appearance of this witness roused Sweeney Todd more than anything else had done since the commencement of the proceedings. His eye lighted up, and setting his teeth hard, he prepared himself, with his left hand up to his ear, to catch every word that should fall from the lips of the man who had been his great enemy, and who had wound around him the web in which he had been caught at last. The appearance of Sir Richard Blunt was very attractive. There was always about him an air of great candour, and the expression of his features denoted generosity and boldness in a most astonishing degree. CHAPTER CXXIX. THE TRIAL OF SWEENEY TODD CONTINUED. The peculiar circumstances under which Sir Richard Blunt had found out all the villany of Todd, and overtook him and Mrs. Lovett in the midst of their iniquities, were wellknown to the people assembled in the court, and some slight manifestations of applause greeted him as he stood up in the witnessbox. This exhibition of feeling was not noticed by the court, and the AttorneyGeneral at once began his examination in chief. "Sir Richard," he said, "will you have the kindness to put into the form of a narration, what you have to say concerning the charge upon which the prisoner at the bar is arraigned?" "I will do so," replied Sir Richard, and then after a moment's pause, during which you might have heard a pin drop in the court, so intense was the stillness, the magistrate gave his important testimony against the now trembling wretch at the bar of that solemn court. "A considerable time ago," he said, "my attention was drawn to the circumstance that a number of persons had disappeared, who were residents about the neighbourhood of Fleet Street, and its vicinity. Such disappearances were totally and perfectly unaccountable. Not a trace could be found of very many respectable men, who had left their houses upon various objects, and never returned to them. "The most striking peculiarity of this affair was, that the men who disappeared were for the most part great substantial citizens, who were far from likely to have yielded to any of those temptations that at times bring the young and the heedless in this great City into fearful dangers. "I saw the Secretary of State upon the subject; and it was agreed that I was to have a carte blanche, as regarded expenses, and that I was to give nearly the whole of my time and attention to the unravelling of the mystery. It was then, that after my careful inquiry I found that out of thirteen disappearances no less than ten had declared their intention to be to get shaved, or their hair dressed, or to go through some process which required them to visit a barber. I then, personally, called at all the barber's shops in the neighbourhood, but never alone. To this fact of having some one waiting for me in the shop, I no doubt owe my life, for I have been eight times shaved and dressed by the prisoner at the bar." Todd uttered a deep groan, and looked at Sir Richard as though he would have said "Oh, that I had you the ninth time so much at my mercy!" There was quite a sensation, and a shudder through the court, as Sir Richard then stated how many times he had run the fearful risk of death at the hands of such a man as Todd; and then Sir Richard went on with his narration, which deeply and powerfully interested the judge, counsel, jury, and spectators. "I did not find anything suspicious in the shop itself of the prisoner at the bar; although each of these times that I was within it, I looked at it narrowly; but I did find that he always made an effort to get the person who was with me to leave the shop upon some pretext or another, which, of course, never succeeded; and then without, in the least, appearing vexed at the failure, he would go on with his shaving in the coolest possible manner. "This, however, was only suspicion, and I could take no advantage of it, unless something else developed itself likewise; but that was not long in happening. My attention was directed to the peculiar odour in St. Dunstan's Church, and from the moment that it was so, I in my own mind connected it with Sweeney Todd, and the disappearances of the persons who had so unaccountably been lost in the immediate neighbourhood of Fleet Street. In the midst of all this then, I had a formal application made to me concerning the disappearance of Mr. Francis Thornhill, who had been clearly traced to the shop of the prisoner at the bar, and never seen by any one to leave it. "From that moment I felt that it was in the prisoner's shop that the parties disappeared, but the means by which they were murdered remained a profound mystery, and I felt, that unless these means could be very distinctly proved, a conviction would be difficult. I instituted a careful search of the vaults beneath St. Dunstan's Church, and I found a secret passage communicating with the cellar of the pie shop in Bell Yard, and afterwards I found a similar passage communicating with the cellar under the prisoner's shop. "Upon reaching the latter cellar, the first object that presented itself to me was, a chair fixed to the roof by its legs. That chair I at once recognised as identically like the one in the shop, in which I had so frequently sat, and in a moment the whole truth burst upon me. The plank upon which the shaving chair rested, turned upon a centre, and could be so made to turn by a simple contrivance above, so that any unfortunate person could be let down in a moment, and the vacant or supplementary chair would come up and take the place of the one that had been above. "Prosecuting my researches, I found the skeleton of many persons in the vaults, and much putrid flesh, which fully accounted for the odour in St. Dunstan's Church. I found likewise that no meat from any butcher or salesman ever found its way to the pieshop in Bell Yard. So upon research actuated by that fact, I found that the supply of flesh was human, and that was the way the prisoner at the bar got rid of a great portion of his victims. "Measures were taken to prevent any more murders, by some persons in my pay always following any one into the shop; and then, when the evidence was all ready by the finding and identification of Mr. Francis Thornhill's leg bone, I took measures to apprehend the prisoner at the bar. I shall, of course, be happy to answer any questions that may be asked of me." The AttorneyGeneral then spoke, saying "Have you found out by what means the shavingchair in the shop of the prisoner was prevented from falling at the moment any one sat in it?" "Yes. By a simple piece of mechanism which communicated with the parlour, he could release the swinging board or keep it firm at his pleasure. I have had a model of the whole of the apparatus and building, which will be laid before the jury. It is here in the hands of an officer." "Here you is," said Crotchet, coming forward with a large parcel in his hands, which, upon being taken from its case, was found to be an accurate representation of Todd's house, with the diabolical contrivances he had got together for the purpose of murder. The model was handed to the jury, and excited immense and well deserved commendation. "I have no further questions to ask of you, Sir Richard," said the AttorneyGeneral; "but I am sure the court and jury cannot but feel much indebted to you for the very lucid manner in which you have given your evidence." "One moment, Sir Richard, if you please," said Todd's counsel as the magistrate was about to leave the witness box. "I will not detain you for long." "I am quite at your service, sir," said Sir Richard Blunt. "How was it then that after you felt convinced of the guilt of the prisoner at the bar, as you state that you were, although I think upon very insufficient grounds, that you did not at once arrest him? Does it not seem very strange that you permitted him for some weeks to go on just as usual?" "I did not permit him to go on just as usual. I took every precaution to prevent him from adding to the list of his offences. It is well known that a person in my situation must not act upon his own convictions of the guilt of any party. It was absolutely necessary that I should be able to bring satisfactory proof before a jury of the guilt of the prisoner at the bar, and it would have been quite premature to arrest him until I had that proof." "And pray, Sir Richard, when did you consider you had that proof?" "When the surgeon was able to swear to a portion of the remains of Mr. Francis Thornhill." "Oh, then I am to understand that you rest the case for the prosecution upon a bone?" "I do not prosecute." "But you took the prisoner into custody, sir; and am I to believe that you did so solely on account of the finding a bone in some of the vaults of St. Dunstan's?" "You can conclude so." "Oh, I can conclude so? Very well then. Gentleman of the jury, it appears that the whole case against the prisoner at the bar, my worthy and exemplary client, rests upon a bone. That will do, Sir Richard; we will not trouble you any further. Perhaps the court will stop the case, as it only rests upon a bone." "Not exactly," said the judge. The next witness was the surgeon, and his evidence was listened to with great attention. He said "I was in the vaults of St. Dunstan's church, and I looked over a great quantity of osteological remains. Among those remains I found a male femur." "A what, sir?" said Todd's counsel. "It would be better," said the judge, mildly, "if the witness would be so good as to give the vulgar names to what he may have to speak of, as the jury may well be excused for not being in possession of anatomical and scientific nomenclature." "I will endeavour to do so," said the surgeon. "I beg to assure the court, that it was from no feeling of pedantry that I used the scientific terms; but they are so common professionally, that they are used without thinking that they are other than the terms in common use." "That is just the way I view it," said the judge, "and the court had not the least idea of anything else. Pray go on, sir, with your evidence." "I found, then, a large quantity of human bones," said the surgeon, "in the vaults of St. Dunstan's, and among them a male thighbone, which I have with me." Here he produced from his greatcoat pocket the bone he spoke of, wrapped up in paper, and deliberately untying the string which bound the paper to it, he handed it to the jury. One of that body, more bold than the rest, took it, but several of the jurymen shrunk from it. "Now, sir," said the AttorneyGeneral, "can you upon your oath, without the slightest reservation, take upon yourself to say whose thighbone this was?" "I can. It was the thighbone of Mr. Francis Thornhill." "Will you state to the court and jury, the grounds upon which you arrive at that conclusion?" "I will, sir. Mr. Thornhill met with an accident of a tedious and painful nature. The external condyle or projection on the outer end of the thighbone, which makes part of the knee joint, was broken off, and there was a diagonal fracture about three inches higher up upon the bone. I had the sole care of the case, and although a cure was effected, it was not without considerable distortion of the bone, and general disarrangement of the parts adjacent. From my frequent examination I was perfectly well acquainted with the case, and I can swear that the bone in the hands of the jury was the one so broken, and to which I attended." "Very well, sir; that is all I wish to trouble you with." The AttorneyGeneral sat down, but Todd's counsel rose, and said "Did you ever have a similar case to that of Mr. Thornhill's under your treatment?" "Never a precisely similar one." "But you have heard of such cases?" "Certainly." "They are sufficiently common, not to be positively rare and curious in the profession?" "They are not common, but still they do occur sufficiently often to lose the character of rarity." "Of course. You have no other means of identifying the bone, but by its having been fractured in the way you describe?" "Certainly not." "Then, it may be the thighbone of any one who has suffered a similar injury." With this remark, the counsel sat down, and the surgeon was permitted to retire. The bone was laid upon the counsel's table, and there it reposed a sad memento of poor Thornhill, and a mute but eloquent piece of evidence against the prisoner at the bar. Todd, however, did not seem to be at all moved at the sight of the relict of the murdered victim. Probably he had for too long a time been intimate with the remains of mortality, during the frightful trade he had carried on, for such a circumstance to touch him in any perceptible way. The next witness called, was another medical man, who merely corroborated the ship'ssurgeon, as to the fact of the bone produced having been fractured in the way described. CHAPTER CXXX. TODD ENTERTAINS SOME HOPES OF AN ACQUITTAL. The next witness was the sexton of St. Dunstan's. "Will you state to the jury, when the last entombment took place in the vaults of St. Dunstan's?" was the question asked of him. "On the 30th. of January, five years ago," he replied, "a gentleman named Shaw, from Chancery Lane, was placed in a vault, but no one since then. The vaults were considered offensive to the living, and was not used." "Let the medical men be called again," said the AttorneyGeneral. They were so called; and the question put to them was, as to the age of the bone produced in court. They both swore that it could not have been six months in its present condition. It had all the aspect of a fresh bone, and they entertained no sort of doubt upon the subject, but that the flesh had been roughly taken off it, and then the slight remainder had rapidly dried and decayed. This, then, was the case for the prosecution, and it will be seen that the evidence or confession of Mrs. Lovett was not at all made use of or attended to, so that even in her dying hope of doing vast injury to Todd, she failed. The case was considered to be good enough without such testimony, and the lawyers, too, were of opinion that it would not be received by the judge, even if tendered, under all the circumstances. The AttorneyGeneral rose again, and said "That is the case, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury, for the prosecution; and we leave it in your hands to deal with as you shall think fit." Todd's counsel now rose to commence the speech for the defence, and he spoke rather ingeniously, as follows "My lord, and gentlemen of the jury "I have, upon the part of my client, the prisoner at the bar, most seriously to complain of the vast amount of extraneous matter that has been mixed up with this case. To one grain of wheat, we have had whole bushels of chaff; and gentlemen have been brought here surely to amuse the court with longwinded romances. "Gentlemen, the prisoner at the bar is clearly and distinctly charged with the murder of one Francis Thornhill, and instead of any evidence, near or remote, fixing that deed upon him, we have nothing but long stories about vaults, and bad odours in churches, and moveable floorboards, and chairs standing on their heads, and vaults, and secret passages, and pork pies! Really, gentlemen of the jury, I do think that the manner in which this prosecution has been got up against my virtuous and pious client, is an outrage to your commonsense." Todd rather looked up at this. It was something to hear even an Old Bailey counsel call him virtuous and pious; and a gleam of hope shot across his heart that things might not be quite so hard with him after all. "This, gentlemen of the jury," continued the counsel, "is an attempt, I must say, to take the life of a man from a variety of circumstances external to the real charge to which he is called upon here to plead. Let us examine the sort of evidence upon which it has been thought proper to put a fellowcreature to this bar upon a charge affecting his life. "In the first place, we are told that a number of very respectable men went out from their various respectable houses, and never went back again. Pray, what has that to do with the death of one Francis Thornhill? Then we are told that the respectable men went to get shaved; and then that Sir Richard Blunt had a shave no less than eight times at the prisoner's shop, and yet here he is quite alive and well to give his evidence here today, and no one will say that Sir Richard Blunt is not a respectable man. Then we have a bad smell in the church of St. Dunstan's. Really, gentlemen of the jury, you might as well say that the prisoner at the bar committed felony, because this court was not well ventilated. "We are told, to come more particularly to the evidence, such as it is, bearing upon the case, that Francis Thornhill left a certain shop intending to go into the City to a Miss Oakley, and that on the road he went into the prisoner's shop to be shaved, and from that we are asked to infer that he was murdered there, because nobody saw him come out. Really, this is too bad! Hundreds of people may have seen him come out, and no doubt did do so, but they happened not to know him, and so just because no one was passing who could say, 'Ah! Mr. Thornhill, how do you do? I see, you have had a clean shave today,' the prisoner at the bar is to be declared guilty of murder. "Then we are told a long story about a bone, and that is declared to be a bone of the deceased. Gentlemen of the jury, what would you think of a man who should produce a brick, and swear that it belonged to a certain house? But this bone is to be identified on account of having been fractured, when the medical witness swears that such fractures are far from rare. "Then again, a hat said to be the hat of the deceased is sworn to, as belonging to him, because of some injury it had received. Granted that it did belong to him. No doubt he sold it in Fleet Street and bought a new one, and there is no proof that that hat produced is the same one that is said to have been taken out of the prisoner's shop. "I do think, gentlemen, that you will see upon what a string of sophistry the evidence against the prisoner at the bar rests. Who shall take upon himself to say that Mr. Thornhill is not now alive and well somewhere? We all know that persons connected with the sea are rather uncertain in their movements. But, gentlemen, the prisoner at the bar has a plain unvarnished tale to tell, which will clear him from any suspicions." At this point, the learned counsel hitched up his gown upon his shoulders, and settled his wig upon his head, as though preparing for a grand effort, and then he continued "Gentlemen of the jury, my client is a religious man, as any one may see by the mild and gentlemanly look of his amiable countenance. He took the premises in Fleet Street in the pursuit of his highly useful calling; and he had no more idea that there was a moveable board in his shop, and that his shavingchair would go down with any one, than the child unborn. Is it likely that a man who could stoop to such baseness as to make money by murder would occupy himself with such a trivial employment as shaving for a penny? The deceased gentleman, Mr. Francis Thornhill, if he be deceased at all, came into my worthy client's shop to be shaved, and was, at that time, a little the worse for some small drops that he had indulged himself with, no doubt, as he came along. The prisoner at the bar did shave him; and then he said that he had to go and see a young lady, and that he should buy a new hat as he went along. The dog, about which so much has been said, came into the shop along with his master, and while the shaving was going on found out, and actually devoured, half a pound of tripe, off which the prisoner at the bar was going to make his humble dinner. "Oh! gentlemen of the jury, ask yourselves if a murderer is likely to make half a pound of tripe satisfy him for dinner! Ask your own consciences, and your own commonsense, that question. "Well, gentlemen of the jury, when he was shaved, and after my client had had to turn this dog twice out of his shop, Mr. Thornhill left and went towards Fleet Market. The prisoner watched him from his door, and actually saw him begin fighting with a porter at the top of the market; and then as another person came in to be shaved, the prisoner at the bar returned into his shop to attend to that customer, and saw no more of Mr. Thornhill. In the course of a quarter of an hour, however, the dog pushed the door of the shop open, and brought in a hat in his mouth, but the prisoner turned him out again, and that is all he knows of the transaction.
"Gentlemen of the jury, the prisoner at the bar is well known for his benevolence and his piety. Even at a time when the bad odour in St. Dunstan's induced many of the parishioners to go elsewhere, he always attended his own church, and in the most pious and exemplary manner made the responses. I ask you as men, gentlemen of the jury, if you could do that with the consciousness that you had committed a murder? "Gentlemen, it is for my client a most unfortunate thing that a person named Lovett, who kept the pieshop in Bell Yard, is not now in the land of the living. If she were so, there is no doubt but that she would have told some true tale of how the vaults beneath the old church connected with her shop, and so have cleared the prisoner at the bar of all participation in her crimes. "That murder has been committed in conjunction with that woman, who committed suicide rather than come forward and clear the prisoner at the bar, against whom she had a spite, there can be no doubt; but, gentlemen, it is the wrong man who now stands at this bar. The real murderer has yet to be discovered; and therefore it is that I call upon you, in the sacred name of justice, to acquit my client." With this the counsel sat down, and Todd looked positively hopeful. He drew a long breath or two, and ventured a keen glance towards the jurybox. "Do you call any witnesses," asked the junior counsel, "for the prosecution?" "Nonono. Witnesses! Innocence is its own best safeguard." "I waive my right of reply, my lord," said the AttorneyGeneral. Upon this, nothing remained for the judge to do but to sum up the evidence; and after arranging his notes, he proceeded to do so, in that clear and lucid style, for which some of our judges are so famous. "The prisoner at the bar, Sweeney Todd, stands charged with the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill. It appears that Francis Thornhill left a certain ship for the purpose of proceeding to a Miss Oakley in the City of London, with a String of Pearls, which had been confided to him to deliver to that lady by a Mr. Mark Ingestrie. "We have it in evidence, that Francis Thornhill on his route down or along the northern side of Fleet Street, went into the shaving shop, kept by the prisoner at the bar, and from that instant he is not again seen alive. The prisoner at the bar takes a String of Pearls, similar to those which were in the possession of Francis Thornhill, and raises upon them a considerable sum of money of a man named John Mundell. It appears then, that the hat of Mr. Francis Thornhill is taken from the premises of the prisoner by a dog; and it further appears, upon the clear testimony of respectable persons, that beneath the prisoner's shop is a contrivance by which people might be killed; and there or thereabouts contiguous to that contrivance, a certain bone is found, which is proved to be the thighbone of Francis Thornhill. "Gentlemen of the jury, the sequence of evidence by which it is attempted to bring this crime home to the prisoner at the bar, lies in a very small compass indeed. Firstly, there is the tracing of Francis Thornhill to the prisoner's shop, and his disappearance from thence. Then there is the hat found there or taken from there, and then there is the thighbone sworn to be that of Francis Thornhill, and certainly found in such contiguity to his premises, as to warrant a belief that he placed it there. "Gentlemen of the jury, the case is in your hands." This was a very short summing up, but the bar quite understood it to mean that the guilt of the prisoner was so clear and transparent, that it was not at all necessary for the judge to go elaborately through the evidence, but merely as a matter of form, leave the facts in evidence to the jury. And now came that awful moment to Todd, when the question of guilty or not guilty hovered on the lips of those twelve men, who were to decide upon his fate. The jury laid their heads together for a few moments only, and then they turned round and faced the court again. The clerk of the arraigns rose, and spoke "Gentleman of the jury. How say you? Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of the crime laid to his charge in the indictment?" "Guilty!" said the foreman. A cheer burst from the auditors, and the judge raised his hand, saying "Officers, repress this unmanly exultation that a fellowcreature is found guilty of a dreadful crime. I beg that any person so offending may be brought before me at once." The officer could not or would not find anybody so offending, but the judge's words had the effect of calming the tumult at all events, and then all eyes were turned upon Sweeney Todd, who stood in the dock glaring at the foreman of the jury, as though he had only imperfectly heard what he had said, or if he had perfectly heard him, doubting the evidence of his own senses, as regarded the real, full, and true meaning of the dreadful word "guilty!" CHAPTER CXXXI. TODD MAKES AN ATTEMPT UPON HIS OWN LIFE. In the course of a few minutes the tumult in the court was effectually suppressed, and then as it was known that the judge would sentence Todd at once, all eyes were turned upon the criminal, to note the effect which that awful moment was likely to have upon him. The judge spoke. "Sweeney Todd, you have been by an impartial and patient jury, convicted upon the clearest evidence of the murder of Francis Thornhill. Have you anything to say why sentence of death, according to the law, should not be passed forthwith upon you?" Todd did not seem to understand the question, and the Governor of Newgate repeated it to him. He started then, and glared at the judge, as in a deep hollow voice, he said "Death! death!Did you say death?" "Such says the lawnot I. If you have anything to say why that sentence should not be pronounced against you, now is your only time in which to say it." Todd passed his hand twice across his brow before he spoke, and then, in a vehement voice, he said "It is falseall false. I did not kill the man. There is a vile conspiracy against me. I say I did not do it. Who saw mewhat eye was upon me? I was at chapelat prayers, when you say among you that I did it. It is a plotnothing but a plot from first to last. You would make me the victim of it among you. Who saw me kill him? I know nothing of hidden places in the old house. It is not true, I say. A plota vile plot for my destruction." "Have you finished?" said the judge. "Have I not said enough? I know nothing of it. I am a poor man, and strive to get a living as best I might, and among you now you bring a bone from some churchyard to kill me with. You swear anythingI know you all well. If the man you say I killed be really dead, I here at this moment summon his spirit from another world, to come and bear witness for me that I did not kill him!" These last words Todd yelled out in such a tone of frantic passion, that everybody looked aghast; and more than once, more than commonly superstitious spectators thought that the appeal to the beings of a supernatural world might yet be answered in some way. There was a deathlike stillness in the court for some few moments, and then the Governor of Newgate in a whisper, said to Todd "Have you finished?" "Finished what?" he cried, in a startling tone. "Finished what?Finished pleading for my life? Yes, I have, for I know that they have made up their minds to murder me. I have no witnessesthey are all in the grave now. That woman, Lovett, who is dead, you tell meI cannot say if she be dead or not, she is hard to killthat woman could exculpate me; but, as I say, my witnesses are in the grave, and there is no truth in spirits visiting this world again, or she and the man you say I murdered would appear here, and yell in your ears, all of you, that I did not do it." The judge sat quite patiently. He was evidently resolved to hear quietly what Todd chose to say. It could but occupy a little more time; and as his fate was fixed, it did not matter. "If you have finished your observations, prisoner," said the judge, "it will now be my duty to proceed to pass upon you the sentence of the law." "But I have said I did not do it. I am not guilty." "It does not lie within my power to decide that question. The jury have found you guilty, and all I have to do in my capacity here is, in accordance with that finding, to sentence you according to law. If you could have stated any legal impediment to the passing of the sentence, it would have had effect; but now it is my painful duty to" "Hold! I will, and can state a legal impediment." "What is it?" "I am mad!" The judge opened his eyes rather wider than usual at this statement, and the jury looked at each other in wonder and amazement. Among the spectators there was a general movement, too, of surprise. "Mad!" said the judge. "Yes," added Todd, holding up his arms, "I am madquite mad. Do you think any other but a madman would have done the deeds with which you charge me? I either did not do them, and am saved, or I did do all these murders, the consequences of which you would heap upon my head, and am mad. What is there in the wide world would compensate a man for acting as you say I have acted? Could he ever know peace again? What is madness but an affliction of providence? and dare you take the life of a man, who has acted in a certain way, in consequence of a disease with which the Almighty has thought proper to visit him? I tell you you dare not, and that I am mad!" This speech was uttered with a vehemence that made it wonderfully effective; and at its conclusion Todd still held up his arms, and glared upon the judge with the look of one who had advanced something that was utterly and completely unanswerable. The judge leant over to the recorder, and whispered something to him, and the recorder whispered to the judge. "Mad! Mad!" shrieked Todd again. The AttorneyGeneral now whispered something to the judge, who nodded; and then addressing Todd, he said in calm and measured tones "However great the novelty of a plea of insanity, put in by the party himself, may be, it will yet meet with every attention. I shall now proceed to pass sentence of death upon you; and after you are removed to the jail of Newgate, certain physicians will see you, and report upon your mental condition to the Secretary of State, who will act accordingly." Todd dropped his arms. The judge put on the black cap, and continued "Sweeney Todd, you have been convicted of the crime of murder; and certain circumstances, which it would have been improper to produce before this court in the progress of your trial, lead irresistibly to the belief that your life for years past has been one frightful scene of murder; and that not only the unhappy gentleman for whose murder you now stand here in so awful a position has suffered from your frightful practices, but many others. It will be a satisfaction, too, to the court and the jury to know that the woman named Lovett, who you say would and could have proved your innocence, had she been in life, made, shortly before her death, a full confession, wherein she inculpated you most fearfully." "False! False!" cried Todd. The judge took not the slightest notice of the interruption, but continued his speech "It is now my painful duty to pass upon you the sentence of the law, which is, that you be hanged by the neck until dead, and may Heaven have mercy upon you, for you cannot expect that society can do otherwise than put out of life one who, like yourself, has been a terror and a scourge." "Quite mad!" cried Todd. "Quite mad!" "Officers, remove the prisoner," said the judge, who was much disgusted by the attempt of Todd upon their credulity, by stating that he was mad. The Governor of Newgate laid hold of him by the arm, but Todd raised his voice again, saying "One moment. Only one moment. Before I leave this court, I have a great desire to say something to Sir Richard Blunt." "If Sir Richard Blunt has no objection," said the judge, "the court can have none. Is that gentleman present?" "I am here," said Sir Richard, as he made his way towards the dock, in which Todd was. "What is it you have to say to me, Sweeney Todd?" "It is for your private ear." "Then, I decline to hear it. If you have anything to say to me, say it out, and openly. I decline any private communications." "Nay, but it really interests those whom you love. Come a little closer to me, and I will speak it." "Now," said Sir Richard, as he reached the front of the dock, "speak at once, and say what it is. The court is too indulgent to you." "Is it, really!" With the rapidity of thought, Todd drew a small table knife from the breast of his apparel, and made a stab at Sir Richard's neck with it; but the magistrate had had by far too long experience with such men as Todd to be so taken at unawares, and he dropped to the floor of the court before the point of the knife reached him. The Governor of Newgate sprung upon Todd, and disarmed him in a moment. Todd, On His Trial, Attempts To Kill Sir Richard Blunt. Todd, On His Trial, Attempts To Kill Sir Richard Blunt. From seeing Sir Richard Blunt drop, the general impression in the court was, that he was killed, or seriously injured, by Todd; and in a moment a scene of unparalleled confusion arose. Everybody got up from their seats, and the place was full of cries. "Kill him!" cried some."Down with him!" shouted others."Hang him at once! A surgeon for Sir Richard!" Amid this Babel of confusion, Sir Richard Blunt rose again, and sprung upon the barrister's table, calling out in a loud voice that rose above every other sound "I am perfectly unhurt." Upon this such a cheer arose in the court, that the judge saw that it was perfectly hopeless to attempt to stop it by any ordinary means, and he only held up his hand deprecatingly. The cheer was thrice repeated, and then Sir Richard dismounted from the table, and a deathlike stillness ensued in the court as the judge spoke. "How was it possible," he said, "that the prisoner at the bar could be furnished with such a weapon at a time like this?" The Governor of Newgate felt that this question was addressed to him, and he tremblingly spoke, saying "My lord, I have not the most distant idea upon the subject. He was searched this morning carefully before leaving his cell. It is beyond my comprehension." "My lord," said a counsel at the table, rising, "there was a very similar case about five years since, when a notorious criminal attacked a witness for the prosecution with a fork, and it appeared afterwards that as he was brought through some of the dayrooms of Newgate to the bar, he had hastily snatched it up from a table that he passed without the officers noticing him." "This is very likely a similar case," said the judge. "It may be so my lord," said the Governor. Todd yelled with rage, when he found that Sir Richard Blunt had escaped his malice. If he could but have taken his life or inflicted upon him some very serious injury, he would have been satisfied almost to have gone to death; but to fail was almost enough to drive him really mad. "Curses on ye all!" he cried; and then he burst into a torrent of such frightful invectives, that everybody shrunk aghast from it, and it is quite impossible that we should transfer it to our pages. How long he would have proceeded in such a storm, there is no knowing, had not the officers rushed upon him, and by main force dragged him from the dock and the court into the dark passages leading to Newgate. His voice was yet heard for several moments, uttering the most dreadful and diabolical curses! It may be supposed that after what had happened, the officials of the prison were not over tender in the treatment of Sweeney Todd, for they well knew that they would be some time before they heard the last of the knife business, and indeed it was a piece of gross carelessness to allow a man in Todd's situation, and such a man as Todd too, to have an opportunity of doing such very serious mischief in a moment as he might have done. There can be very little doubt, that if he had been content to do an injury to any other witness but Sir Richard Blunt, he would really have succeeded; but that personage was too wary to fall in such a way. It was not thought advisable by the prison authorities to take Todd back to the same cell from which they had brought him. It was an idea of the Governor, and by no means a bad one, that desperate criminals were caused to change their cells now and then, as it baffled and cut up completely any combination they might in their own minds have made for an attempted escape; so Todd found himself in a new place. "Why is this?" he said. "Why am I placed here? This cell is darker than the one I before occupied." "It's quite light enough for you," growled a turnkey. "Yes," added one of the officers who had been in court. "Folks who are keen and bright enough to pick up knives, and nobody see 'em, mustn't have too much light in their cell. Oh, won't it be a mercy when you are settled next Monday morning." "The fetters hurt me," said Todd. "Oh, they are too light," said the officer; "and for your satisfaction, I have to tell you that the Governor has ordered you another pair." At this moment a couple of blacksmiths came into the cell, carrying with them the heaviest set of irons in the whole prison, which the Governor had determined Sweeney Todd should be accommodated with. Without a word they proceeded to knock off the fetters that he wore. "So you are not contented," said Todd, "to cage me as though I were some wild animal, but you must load me with irons?" "And a good job too." "And you think to hang me?" "Rather!" "Then thus I disappoint you, and be my own executioner!" As he spoke, he snatched up one of the smith's hammers, and made a blow at his own forehead with it, which if it had taken effect, would unquestionably have fractured his skull, and killed him instantly; but one of the officers just managed to strike his arm at the moment and confuse his aim, so that although he did strike himself, it was not with anything like sufficient force to do himself any hurt. The hammer was wrested from him in a moment, and he was thrown to the floor of the cell, and the heavy irons placed upon him. Todd's Second Attempt At Suicide In The Condemned Cell At Newgate. Todd's Second Attempt At Suicide In The Condemned Cell At Newgate. CHAPTER CXXXII. TODD MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE IN NEWGATE, AND TRIES AN ESCAPE. In the course of a quarter of an hour more, Todd was left alone. The irons he wore weighed upwards of a hundredweight, and it was with some difficulty that he managed to get up, and sit upon the stone seat that was in the cell. It was close upon evening, and the cell was getting very dark indeed, so that the walls, close as they were together, were only very dimly discernable indeed. Todd rested his head upon his hands, and thought. "Has it then really come to this?" he said. "Am I truly doomed to die? Oh, what a dreadful thing it is for me now to begin to doubt of what I always thought myself so sure, namely, that there was no world beyond the grave. Oh, if I could only still please myself with an assurance of that! But I cannotI cannot now. Oh, nonono." He started, for the cell door opened, and the turnkey brought him in his food for the night, which he placed on the floor. It was not then the custom to sit up with condemned prisoners. "There," said the man, "it's more than you deserve. Goodnight, and be hanged to you. Here's the sheriff been kicking up the devil's delight in the prison about that knife affair." "I hope he will discharge you all," said Todd. "Do you?" "Oh, yes. I wish you had all one neck only, and I a knife at it. With what a pleasant gash I would force it ininin!" "Well, you are a nice article, I must say." "Bring me two candles, and pens, ink, and paper." The turnkey stared with astonishment. "Anything else," he said, "in a small way that you'd like? Buttered rolls, perhaps, and a glass of something good? Perhaps a blunderbuss would suit you? I tell you what it is, old fellow, it ain't very often that anybody goes out from here on a Monday morning to be scragged, that we don't feel a little sorry for them, but I don't think we shall any of us cry after you. You may sleep or do what you like now until tomorrow morning, for you have got it all to yourself. Two candles, indeed! Well I'm surewhat next? Two candles!Oh, my eye!" The turnkey banged shut the door of the cell, and barred and bolted it in a passion; and then away he went to the lobby, which was the great gossiping place, to relate the cool demands of Sweeney Todd. Once more the prisoner was alone. For some time he set in silence, and then he muttered "All the night to myself. He will not visit this cell until the morning. A longlong night; many hours of solitude. Well, I may chance to improve them. It was well in that scuffle for the hammer, when they threw me down, that I contrived to grasp a handful of tools from the smith's basket, and hid them among my clothing. Let me see what I haveay, let me see, or rather feel, for by this light, or rather by this darkness, I can only judge of them by the feel." The tools that Sweeney Todd had been clever enough to abstract from the smith's basket, consisted of two files and a chisel. He ran his fingers over them with some feeling of satisfaction. "Now," he muttered, "if the feeling to die were upon me, here are the means; but it has passed away, and even with these small weapons, and in a cell of Newgate, I do not feel quite so helpless as I was. It will be time to die if all should fail else, but yet if I could only for a time live for revenge, what a glorious thing it would be! How I should like yet to throttle Tobias. What a pleasure it would be to me to hold that girl by the throat, who so hoodwinked me as to impose herself upon me for a boy, and hear and see her choking. How I should like to see the blood of Sir Richard Blunt weltering forth while his colour faded, and he expired gradually!" Todd ground his teeth together in his rage. "Yes," he added, while he moved with difficulty under the weight of his iron. "Yes, I have bidden adieu to wealth and the power that wealth would have given me. I have carried on my life of crimes for nothing, and in blood I have waded to accomplish only this world of danger that now surrounds meto give to myself the poor privilege of suicide; but yet how fain I would live for vengeance!" His chains rattled upon his limbs. "Yes, for revenge. I would fain live for revenge. There are some five or six that I would like to kill! Yes, and I would gloat over their deathagonies, and shriek in their ears, 'I did it! I, Sweeney Todd, did it!'" The fetters entangled about his legs, and threw him heavily to the floor of the cell. He raved and cursed frightfully, until he was too much exhausted to continue such a course, and then he sat upon the floor, and with one of the files he began working away assiduously at the iron, in order to free himself from those clogs to his movements. As he so worked, he heard the prison clock strike ten. "Ten," he said. "Ten already. Of a truth I did not think it was so late. I must be quick. Others have escaped from Newgate, and why should not I? The attempt will and shall be made; and who knows but that it may be successful? A man may do much when he is resolved that he will do all he wishes or die." Todd filed away at the chains. "Who will stop me," he said, "with the feeling that will possess me? Who will say, 'I will stop this man, or he shall kill me?' No oneno one!" The file was a good one, and it bit fairly into the iron. In the course of a quarter of an hour Todd had one wrist at liberty, and that was a great thing. He was tired, however, of the comparatively slow progress of the file, and he made a great effort to break the chains from his ankles; but he only bruised himself in the attempt to do so without succeeding. With a feeling of exhaustion, he paused. "Oh, that I could find an opportunity of exerting so much force against those whom I hate!" he said. At this moment he fancied he heard a slight noise not far from him, and every faculty was immediately strained to assist in listening for a repetition of it. It did not come again then. "It must have been imagination," he said, "or some sound far off in the prison conveyed by echoes to this spot. I will not suffer myself to be alarmed or turned from my purpose. It is nothingnothing. I will use the file again." He commenced now upon the other wrist, and by the little experience he had gathered from his practice at the one which he had already filed in two, he got on more quickly with this one. He found that a long light movement of the file did more work than a rapid grating process. In much less time, then, this other wrist manacle was off, and he could lift up both his arm in freedom. "This is something," he said, "Nay, it is much, very much indeed. I feel it, and accept it as a kind of earnest of success. Where is the manwhere are the two or three men, that will dare to stand in my desperate way, when I have one of these files in each hand, and are free from fetters. They will need be mad to do it. Such an amount of zeal is not to be found. No, they will step aside and let me pass." It now became a matter of great importance with him, to get the other two fetters that bound his ankles undone. He felt as if he should go mad, if he did not quickly release himself from them now. Sitting upon the floor of the cell, he set to work; but he found that the file he had been using did not bite very well. The work it had done already had dulled its powers; but the other was fresh and keen, and with it he made great progress. The lefthand shackle was entirely removed, and now only by his right ankle was he connected with that hundredweight of iron, which held him to the ground. "I shall be free!" he muttered. "I shall be free! Did they think to hold me with these chains? Ha! ha! No. It may be, that there is a dark spirit of evil that aids men, such as I am; and if it be so, I will consent to be wholly his, if" Todd started, for the same noise that had before come upon his ears, now attracted him. It was plainer though than before; and at the moment he thought that it must be in his cell. A cry of terror rose to his lips, but he smothered it in the utterance, and bent again all his faculties to listen. The sound did not now pass away like an echo as it had done before, but it went on steadily, and he could trace it as localising itself against one of the walls of the cell. It was a profound mystery. He could not make out what it meant. It was a strange dull scraping noise. At times he thought it was some animal in the cella rat, probably; but then the sound was too continuous, and although he stamped once, and said 'Hush!' several times, it steadily continued. The darkness in the cell was now so intense, that it was in vain to attempt to pierce it. Any straining of the eyes only peopled the palpable black atmosphere with all sorts of strange shapes, conjured up by the imagination; so Todd was glad to close his eyes after a few moments' experience of that character. "I will know what this is," he said. "I must know what this is, and I will know!" He held out his arms, and he slowly advanced towards the side of the cell from whence the sound came. "Speak," he said, "if you are mortal, speak. If immortal, I fear you not. I am now past all such terrors. You can but kill me." His hands touched the cold stone wall; and then he felt it from the floor upwards, but nothing but the chill surface of the stones was perceptible; and yet the scraping noise continued, and at last he felt convinced that it came from the other side of the wall. Now he did not know what to think, for he had no means of knowing what was upon the other side of that wall. It might be a corridor of the prison. It might be a room belonging to one of the officials, who was about some work that, if explained, would not appear singular at all. He placed his ear to the exact spot from whence the noise came, and he listened attentively. As he so listened, Todd began to have other notions about that noise, and for more than once the square block of stone, against which his ear reposed, shook in its place. "It must be a cell like this," he said, "that is on the other side of the wall, and that, no doubt, is some prisoner at work, trying to effect his escape. If so, it is fortunate. He must be a bold man, and we can help each other." Still Todd hesitated what he should do, notwithstanding the hypothesis regarding the noise he heard appeared so very probable. He was resolved to spend a little more time in listening, for he felt that once to commit himself would possibly be to spoil his own chances of escape. He kept his ear to the stone of the wall, then which shook more and more each passing moment. Suddenly he heard a voice. In a drawling accent, it sang a few lines of a popular thieves' song "The beak looked big, and shook his head, Heigho, the beak! He wished such family cares were dead, That honest folks might get their bread, Heigho, the beak! The family cove, he grinned a grin, Heigho, the cove! Says he, to prig I think no sin; For sure a Romany must have tin Heigho, the cove!" "It must be all right," thought Todd, "or he would not sing that song; but what good it can do him to get from his own cell into this, I cannot imagine. He would be equally confined here as there, and all his labour thrown away. But together, we may do something. I will speak to him. Yes, I think I will speak to him." Todd still waited and lingered before he gave any intimation of his presence and knowledge of what was going on, and then the song ceased, and by the renewed vigour with which the tenant of the next cell worked at the stone, it would seem that he had got very impatient at the length of time it took him. Suddenly, the stone, which was about a foot square, shook so, that Todd withdrew from it, thinking that it would come out of its place altogether; and as it was evidently the object of the prisoner at the other side to push it through into Todd's cell, he thought it better to stand on one side, and let it come. Suddenly, with a crash, it fell through, and then Todd spoke, for the first time, to the prisoner. CHAPTER CXXXIII. THE PROGRESS OF THE OPERATIONS TO ESCAPE FROM NEWGATE. "Who's there? Who are you?" cried Todd. "The deuce!" said a voice, from the adjoining cell. "Sold at last, after all my trouble. Confound you, why didn't you speak before, and save me the last hour's work?" "What do you mean?" cried Todd. "I am a desperate man. Do not tamper with me. Do you belong to the prison, or do you not?" "I belong to the prison! I should think not. Don't you?" "Oh, nononono." "Why, you don't mean to say that you are a prisoner?" "I am, indeed, and condemned to die." "All's right then. Bravo! This is capital. I thought I was in the end cell, do you know, and that by working through the wall by the assistance of Providence alwaysBah! I can't get out of the old trade. I mean to say, that I thought I was working through a wall that would have taken me into one of the corridors of Newgate, and then there would have been a chance of getting off, you know." "I do not know, and did not know," said Todd; "but if there be really any chance of escape, I am a desperate man, and will risk anything for it. Only say that you will help me." "Help you? Of course I will. Do you think I am in love with these cold walls? No, I will get a light in a moment, and we can then have a look at each other. Are you in fetters?" "I was, but I have a file, and have succeeded in freeing myself from them completely. Are you?" "Yes, but I have muffled them with some pieces of my clothing that I have torn up for the purpose, and please the Lord they will make no noise.
" Todd was rather amazed at the religious expressions of the other prisoner; but he forbore to make any remark concerning them, and as something had been said about getting a light, he resolved to wait patiently until it was procured, when he would be able to see who it was that chance had so very strangely thrown him into companionship with. "You see," added the other prisoner, "a religious lady left me some tracts, and as I told her they did not allow light here, she was kind enough to smuggle me in some phosphorous matches, in case in the night I should wish to read." "Very kind of her," said Todd. "Oh, very. Let us praise theBother, I shall never get out of the habit of chaunting, I do believe." In a moment, now, a faint blue light illumed the cell adjoining to Todd's, and as the religious lady had been kind enough to bring some little wax ends of candles, the prisoner lit one, and placing it upon the ledge left by the displaced brick in the wall, he put his face close to it, and looked at Todd. Todd did the same thing, and looked at him. "Humph," said the prisoner. "They are not going to hang you for your beauty, whoever you are, my friend." "Nor you," said Todd, who was a little stung by this cool remark, "for I must say a more villanous looking countenance than yours I never saw in all my life." "Then you certainly never looked in a glass." "Hark you, my friend," said Todd. "If we are to aid each other in getting out of Newgate, it will not be by railing at each other through a square hole in the wall of our cells. We had better leave all remarks about our looks to other folks, and at once set to work about what is much more important, namely, breaking our way out of this most detestable of all places." "Truly," said the other; "you speak wisdom, and the LordPho! The deuce take it, when shall I get rid of the cant of the conventicle? My dear sir, you see before you a man who has been a great victim." "What is your name?" "Lupin they used to call me. The Reverend Josiah Lupin." "Ah," said Todd. "I heard something of your case. I believe you murdered a woman, did you not?" "Why, my friend," said Mrs. Oakley's old acquaintance, for indeed it was no other, "I don't mind confessing to you, that a woman met with a slight accident at my place, and they say I did it. But now that I have been so candid, pray who are you?" "They call me Todd." The Reverend Mr. Lupin screwed up his mouth, and whistled. "Humph," he said. "The religious lady only this morning told me all about you. You used to polish the people off in your barber's shop, and then make them into pork pies, I believe?" "Ha! ha!" said Todd. "And you had a charming assistant in the shape of a lady, named Lovett, I have been informed, who used to help you to scrape the bones of the poor devils who had only just slipped in for a shave, and by no means expected such a scrape." "Ha! ha!" said Todd. "Stop a bit," said Mr. Lupin, "don't come that sort of laugh again. It don't sound at all pleasant. Well, I think we may manage to get out of Newgate, do you know, by a little hard work, if you are willing; but mind you, I don't want to be made a pork or a veal pie of, if you please." "I never ate them myself," said Todd, "so there is no temptation; but I sincerely hope, my friend, that you do not believe one word of the many calumnies that have been heaped upon my character?" "Oh, dear no; and you, too, are well aware that I am the most falsely accused and innocent clergyman that ever lived." "Perfectly." "My dear, sir, you are a very reasonable man, and I don't see any reason on earth that we should not be capital friends from this moment. Just help me to move another of these stones and I shall be able to creep through the opening into your cell." Todd very kindly assisted the Reverend Mr. Lupin, and in the course of a few minutes, another of these large square blocks of stone that formed the wall of the cell being removed, he was able to creep through the aperture with the assistance of Todd. "All's right," said Lupin, as he shook himself. "And now, my new friend, I will borrow the same file with which you released yourself from your fetters, and git rid of mine." "Here it is," said Todd; "you work upon one leg, and I will work upon the other, for I have two files here, although one of them is a little blunted by the work it has already done. Yet it will help, and time is everything." "It is," said Lupin. "Work away, for I am not able to think of anything until I am free of these confounded irons." They worked in real earnest, and to such purpose, that in a much less space of time than anybody would have thought it possible to accomplish the process in, the fetters of Mr. Lupin dropped from him, and, like Todd, he stood so far free from restraint. "Now," he said, "I have some firstrate picklocks, and if providenceTush! tush! I mean if we are lucky, we shall get on capitally. The next thing we have to do is, to get out of here, and by far the shortest way is to work through the wall. Have you any other tools beside the files, for they are not much use now to us?" "Yes, a chisel." "A chisel? Oh, my friend, you are indeed a wonderful man. A chisel? What may not be done with a chisel! A strong, good chisel, too. Oh, if we do not chisel our way out of Newgate now, it will be very hard indeed. Come, you shall see an old hand at work. Perhaps you have not had much experience at prisonbreaking?" "Certainly not," said Todd. "Well, this will be a good lesson to you. Now you will see how nicely I will get one of these old square blocks of stone out of its place." Todd smiled grimly. Perhaps he thought he could have given the Reverend Josiah Lupin a good lesson in some things; but at that time he was only too happy to meet with a companion who promised such great things in the way of immediate escape. Certainly Mr. Lupin showed great dexterity in handling the chisel, with which he had been furnished by Todd; and in a much less space of time than any one would have thought the work could have been performed in, he had loosened the stone in the wall that he wished to dislodge. "Let us both push it," he said, "and we shall get it through easily." "But its fall will make an alarm," said Todd. "Oh, no. The distance is too short, and it will go down easy. Now for it." They pressed upon the stone both of them, and by a skilful joggling movement, Lupin got it to move along until it was beyond its centre of gravity, and then, with a heavy bump, down it went on the other side. They both now paused for some moments, and spoke not a word, for they were anxious to discover if the fall of the stone into the passage beyond the cells had made any noise sufficient to attract the attention of the prison officials. All was still. "It's as right as possible," said Lupin. "They are asleep, the greater part of them. The pretended vigilance in this place, and the sleepless watchfulness, is all a fudge. Turnkeys, and police officers, and Governors of Newgate, are but flesh and blood, and they will take things easy if they can." "You are quite a man of the world," said Todd. "Oh, yes; I have seen a little of it. But I say, Master Todd, deal candidly with me now. Have you not some secret hoard of cash, upon which we can make ourselves comfortable, when we get out of this mousetrap? I have not a penny piece; but you ought to have something, I should say. I don't mean to say but that I had money, but it was not hidden, and the police have got hold of that. If I were acquitted, they kindly said they would let me have it. But if found guilty, of which they did not entertain the smallest doubt, I could not want it." "Curses on them!" said Todd; "they had enough of mine to have made us both rich menvery rich men. Oh, that I had been off a month ago!" "Don't fret about that. We are all in the hands of a gracious proviPsha! I am forgetting again. Whatever you do, Todd, in this world, don't turn parson to a parcel of old women, for the phraseology will stick to you as long as you live, if you do. But cometell me now. You do know where to lay your hand upon money?" Todd thought that it would be very indiscreet to say no to this little proposition, so with a nod and a smile he replied "Only a few hundreds. That's all." "A few hundreds? That is a pretty good all, and will do very well indeed, my dear friend. Is it an understanding that we go halves?" "Quite, quite." "Then, if we don't get out of the stonejug pretty soon, it will be a strange thing to me. Now let us work away like bricks, and we will show them that two determined men can laugh at their bolts, and bars, and stone walls." "How confident you are," said Todd. "You surely forget that we must go through much, before we can see the outside of the walls of this dreadful place. I wish I could be as sure of the result as you are, or as you seem to be." "It is onehalf the battle to make sure; there goes another of the stones. Now follow me through this opening in the wall. It leads to a passage from which we can reach one of the smaller inner courts; and from that we shall get on through the chapel to the Governor's house, and if we can't get out there, it's a bad case." Mr. Lupin, who had, in a great measure, now that he no longer had any sanctified character to keep up, thrown of his timid nature, ventured to scramble through the opening in the wall, and he assisted Todd to follow him. The Two Murderers, Todd And Lupin, Escaping From The Cell Of Newgate. The Two Murderers, Todd And Lupin, Escaping From The Cell Of Newgate. They both now stood in a narrow vaulted passage, and then they paused again for several minutes to listen if any noise in the prison gave intimation that any one was stirring; but everything was perfectly still, and so deathlike was the silence, that, but that they well knew to the contrary, they might have supposed that they were the only living persons within that gloomy pile of building. The little bit of wax candle that had been brought to Lupin by the pious lady, and which he had lit in his own cell, for the purpose, at first, of having a good look at Todd, was now upon the point of going out; but he was very well provided with wax candleends, and he speedily lighted another, as he said in a tone of irony "The sheriffs will write a letter of threats to the pious lady, when they find how much she aided us in escaping." "They ought," said Todd. "We will pray for her." Lupin laughed, as he with a light step now crept along the vaulted passage, and reached a massive door at the end of it, up and down which he passed the light several times. Then he muttered to himself "Good! Only the lock, and it will need to be a good one if it resist me. I used to be rather an adept at this sort of thing." "Then you are," said Todd, "a professional" He paused, for he did not like to say thief; but Lupin himself added the word, cracksman, and Todd nodded. "Yes," added Lupin, "I was a cracksman, but I got known, so I thought the chapel dodge would suit me, and it did for a time, and would for some time longer, but that the little accident of which you have heard something took place in the chapel, and that idiot Mrs. Oakley found me out. Ah! you never after all can be a match for a crafty old woman. They will have you at some moment when you least expect it. She regularly sold me." CHAPTER CXXXIV. THE ESCAPE, AND THE RETREAT IN CAEN WOOD, HAMPSTEAD. While Mr. Lupin talked, he did not lose time, but he was working away at the lock of the door at the end of the passage. After a few moments there was a crackling sound, and then the lock yielded to the exertion of Mr. Lupin, and went back into its home. The door, with a wheezing sound, slowly opened. "All's right," whispered Lupin. "The less we say now, Todd, the better, for our voices will go farther now that we shall be clear of this passage. Come on. Follow me!" They both emerged into the night air; and crouching down, Lupin ran along the little yard in which they were, and which was not above halfadozen yards across. He paused at a door, and then suddenly starting away from it, he muttered "It is not this one. Ah! this is it! Stand quite close up against the wall, and then there will be the less chance of any one seeing you. I must work away at this door." "Where does it lead to?" whispered Todd. "To the chapel." Todd screwed himself up into the smallest space that he possibly could against the wall, close to the door, while Lupin tried to open it. That door for more than ten minutes baffled him. Probably that fact was owing in some degree to the circumstance of his being in the dark, for of course, before emerging from the vaulted passage, he had thought it prudent to extinguish the little light he had. "It baffles you," said Todd, in a voice of great anxiety. "As yet, yes. No. It is open." Todd breathed more freely. "Come in," said Lupin. "Come in. We have done wonders as yet, my friend, and we will do wonders yet, I think, if Providence only looks with a graciousThere I go again. When shall I forget that chapel, I wonder?" "It don't matter," said Todd. "I used to find a little religion answer very well myself." "Not a doubt of it. Now, then, that the door is fast, we may muster up a light again." With the aid of one of his matches, Lupin again illuminated the little wax end of the candle, and then Todd found that he was in a small kind of vestibule from which a green baize door led directly into the chapel. In fact, that was the entrance by which the lower class of offenders confined in Newgate were brought to the chapel on Sundays. The little building looked much larger by the faint light of that one candle than it really was, and Todd glared around him with a feeling of terror, as he had not felt since he had left his cell. Perhaps, after all, a good deal of that was owing to the low temperature of the chapel, that lent a chill to his system. "Look at that seat," said Lupin, pointing to one. "Do you know what it is?" "Only a seat," said Todd. "Is there anything particular in it?" "Nothing, except the kind of interest it might have for you, as being the one upon which the condemned prisoners sit, on the Sunday previous to their execution, that is all." Todd turned aside with a shudder. "Enough," he said. "Enough. That is enough. Let us get on, and not waste time in idle talking about such idle matters as these. I do not feel very well." "And I," said Lupin, "would give a few bright pieces out of those hundreds that you have hidden, for a glass of brandy. But that's not to be thought of now. This is a door that leads from the chapel to the Governor's house, through which the parson, and the Governor and Sheriffs come on the occasion of Sunday service here. It is by that we must attempt an escape in this place." Sweeney Todd, and Mr. Lupin looked like two spectres, as they crept noiselessly through the chapel of Newgate; but Lupin appeared to know perfectly well the route which it was necessary for him to take, and he soon went up three small steps, and applied his ear to the panel of a door to listen, as he said "Through here lies our route." "Is all still?" said Todd. "Quite. I don't believe, except ourselves, there is any one up and about in Newgate except a couple of lazy fellows in the vestibule; but we are too far off them to be in any danger of their overhearing us. This door will not give any trouble. Ah!" "What is the matter?" "It is bolted on the other side." "Then we are foiled?" "Not at all. It will take us a little time to unbolt it, that's all. Hand me the chisel." Todd handed it to him; and then holding the light for Lupin, the latter set to work upon the panelling of the door, to cut away sufficient of it to enable him to get his head through, to draw back the bolts, one of which was at the top of the door and another at the bottom of it. The door, though, was not built for strength, for it was scarcely imagined that it would ever be attacked, so that the panelling was only of an ordinary character; and as the chisel was a good one, and Mr. Lupin was tolerably expert in its use, the chips from the wood soon began noiselessly to fall about him. He worked in a circle, so that when he should get fairly through the panel, there would be quite space enough for him to get his arm through, and unfasten both the bolts; and this he completed in about ten minutes. "I should never have got on without you," said Todd. "The only notion I had of the affair, was to try and fight my way out of the prison, and if I fell in doing so, I was no worse off than I should be on Monday morningor, indeed, rather better, for I could not endure the agony of waiting for death." "They would not have killed you." "They must." "Nay, they will go through fire and water here, and suffer anything, rather than that a man should escape the gallows. They would have flung themselves upon you, and overpowered you by numbers, and on Monday morning, if you had a breath of life left in you, you would have been dragged out to death." Todd shuddered. "And you so innocent, too," added Lupin. "But it is the innocent that in this world, verily, are chastened alway." "You are getting into your old habit of preaching again," said Todd, roughly. "So I am. I am much obliged to you, my friend, to put me in mind of it. Very much obliged. I was for a moment preaching; but here is the door open, and now I beg that you will tread as though you trod upon a mine, for we do not know what persons in this portion of this confounded building may be upon the alert." "Oh, that we were only in the open air!" said Todd. "Hush! hush!" The villain Lupin, almost as bad in his way as Todd was in his, now shaded the little light with his hands, and crept on slowly and cautiously, until he reached the staircase, which was nicely empanelled, and up that he slowly took his way. Before he got to the top of it, he blew out the light, and waiting there until Todd was close to him, he said, in the smallest possible whisper "Follow me, and be careful, I am afraid the light might gleam through some keyhole, and betray us. Come on, and recollect that a slip or a stumble may be fatal. Think that the rope is about your neck." "I will," said Todd. "I will. I almost seem to feel it actually. Oh, yes, I will be very careful." "Hush! hush! Are you mad to go on talking so?" Todd said no more, and Lupin crept on until he got right to the top of the stairs. Then holding by a balustrade that was continued along the landing, he reached the head of another flight of steps, which led directly down to the hall or passage of the Governor's house. Lupin was terribly afraid that Todd would come upon these second stairs at unawares, and stumble down some of them, so he waited at the head of them, until Todd touched him, and then he whispered the one word, "Stairs." "Yes," replied Todd, and then Lupin commenced the descent, followed by his trembling companion, and for the matter of that, Lupin himself shook now like an aspen leaf. The steps were fourteen in number, and then, by the feel of a mat at the foot of them, Lupin was satisfied that he had actually gained the hall of the Governor's house. Todd was close behind him. "Stop!" whispered Lupin, and Todd stopped as suddenly as though he had been some piece of machinery that could be in a moment arrested in its progress. Lupin well knew now that without a light it would be folly to attempt opening the door of the Governor's house, which, as a matter of course, was well secured; and very reluctantly he lit another match, and ignited the wax candleend again. He placed Todd in such a position on the mat at the foot of the stairs, that his bulky tall form acted as a screen against the rays of the light ascending the staircase, and then, with something of his old nervousness and abject fear of manner and expression, he narrowly scrutinized the door. "Curses on all these precautions!" he muttered. "We may be detained here until morning." In good truth, the door of the Governor's house was very well fastened up, and Mr. Lupin might well feel a little staggered at the sight of it. A chain that was up across it, he easily removed, and the bolts offered no obstacles; but what was the most serious consisted of a small, but exquisitely made lock that was on the door, and the key of which, no doubt, at such an hour was under the Governor's pillow. Todd at that moment would have given anything to be able just to say "How are you getting on?" but in such a place, with, for all he knew to the contrary, the Governor of Newgate within a dozen yards of him, he dared not open his lips. And now Lupin brought all his old skill to bear upon that one little lock upon the Governor's door, and yet it resisted him. One five minutes' attempt to pick it was to him pretty conclusive evidence that it was not to be done. He had the chisel in his pocket, and in despair he inserted it between the door and the post. It broke short off by the handle. Lupin uttered a groan, which was echoed by Todd, and then they both stood glaring at each other in solemn silence. Todd crept towards Lupin, and leaning forward he whispered faintly "It can't be done?" "No," said Lupin, "that lock stops us." "Lostlost!" said Todd. "We are lost, then?" "Hush. Let me think. The key of this lock is with the Governor, of course. Now, Todd, you are a man of strong nerves, you know, or else it would have been quite impossible for you to have gone through life in the way you have done. What do you say to going and trying to get the key?" "II?" "Yes, to be sure. I have, up to this moment, you know, done all the work, and if this lock had not baffled me, I would have done the remainder cheerfully; but could you not take one of these filesthe end of it is very sharpand persuade the Governor to give up the key?" "Kill him, you mean?" "You may call it killing." "If I thought it could be done with anything like a certainty of result, I would make no more of the life of the Governor thanthan" Todd was at a loss for a simile, and Lupin helped him out of the difficulty by saying "Giving a man a clean shave for one penny, or eating a veal pie." Todd nodded. "Now, hark you," continued Lupin, speaking in the same very low whisper, indeed, that he had conducted the conversation in. "It is quite a maddening thing, you see, to find that there is nothing between us and liberty but this door. Every moment is of the greatest possible importance. Will you do it?" "Are you mad?" "No. I am quite sane, I confess, though that I have not the pluck to do it. You ought to be a man of courage. What is it to you, if you were to murder everybody in this house, so that you got this door open? That is the great object, the only object; and to you, you know, three or four more deaths will not make much consequence." "My friend," said Todd, with a sickly smile, "I am afraid you believe the calumnies that have been heaped upon my innocent head. But, if nothing can be done, but what you say, I will make the attempt. There are two files, though, and they are equally sharp. Do you take one, and I will take the other." "You want me with you?" "I do, most, surely." "Wellwell; if it must be so, it must. I will come. Let us set about it at once, and" Before Mr. Lupin could say another word, there came a sharp rap at the door from the outside with the knocker; and so sudden and so utterly unexpected was the sound at such an hour, that Lupin and Todd fell on each other in their hurry to escape, they knew not where. CHAPTER CXXXV. THE CHASE THROUGH SMITHFIELD, AND THE MURDER. They were afraid to speak, were those two murderers, as they now stood trembling in the passage of the Governor's house in Newgate. They could only be conscious of each other's presence by the hard breathing which their fears gave rise to, and as Lupin had extinguished the little light, the most intense darkness reigned around them. Bangbangbang! went the knocker upon the door of the Governor's house again. "Lostlost!" said Todd. If Lupin was not the most hardened villain of the two, he was certainly at that moment the most courageous. He aimed a blow at Todd in the dark to give effect to his admonition for silence; but it did not take effect. Todd, however, was quite still now, and in the course of a few moments the knock at the door was repeated a third time. Then Lupin whispered to Todd "Keep yourself up as close against the wall as you can. Some one will come to the door, and you can throttle whoever it is, while I take the key of the little lock from them." "Yes," said Todd, faintly. The word had hardly escaped his lips, when a flash of light from above came streaming down into the passage, and from each side of the door, close to the passage wall, against which they screwed themselves into as small a compass as possible, they saw a man approaching. The person who came to answer the knock at the Governor's door was evidently only just roused from sleep, for he was looking heavy, and yawning as he came. The candle he carried swayed to and fro in his hand, and it was very unlikely that he would see anything that was not remarkably close to his nose. "Ah, dear me" he yawned. "Can't people come at reasonable times? Who'd be a Governor's clerk, I wonder, toah, dear!get up at all hours of the night in Newgate. Ah, heigho!" Mr. Lupin wanted to say only two words to Todd, and those were "Kill him;" but he was afraid even to whisper them, lest Todd should not be equally discreet in reply. He knew he could whisper softly enough; but he thought his companion might not be so accomplished in that particular, so he was silent. Before the individual who had announced himself to be the Governor's clerk could get into the passage down the flight of stairs, the person on the outside of the door got impatient, and executed another rather startling rap. "Oh, bother you," said the clerk. "I only wish you were at the bottom of the Thames. I'm coming, stupid; don't you see the light through the little bit of glass at the top of the door, thatah, dear! how gapish I amyou keep hammering away there, as if you thought we were all deaf or stupid?" The clerk was evidently wakening up, but as he carried the light right in front of his eyes, he had not the smallest chance of seeing either Mr. Todd or Lupin, and in that way he reached the passage, or hall it might be called from courtesy. To be sure, how could he for one moment suspect to find two of the most notorious criminals in all Newgate snugly hidden in the hall? We must consider how very improbable such a thing was, before we blame the clerk for any imprudence in the matter. The grand object of Lupin, who kept his sharp little ferretlooking eyes upon the clerk as he descended, was to note if he had a key with him at all; if he had, there could be no doubt of its being the key of the little lock that had so baffled his, Lupin's, attempts to open it, upon the door of the Governor's house. To his great satisfaction he saw that, dangling from the clerk's finger by a piece of tape, he did carry a key, and Lupin at once naturally concluded it was the one he wanted. "Only just let me find out now," said the clerk, "that this is something about nothing, and won't I make a riot about it in the morning. To rouse a fellow out of his bed, it is really too bad, as if any kind of thing could not be just as well done in the day time as in the middle of night. Now stupid, who are you?" These last words he addressed to the person outside, by placing his mouth close to the keyhole. A voice responded something, the only recognisable word of which was "donkey." "What do you say?" cried the clerk, again. "You areaadonkey, do you say?" "No," said the voice from the outside through the keyhole. "But you are." "Oh, am I, you infernal vagabond? I'll soon let you know what's what, I will, you rascal." With this the clerk began to open the door, and the moment he got the key in the little lock, so that Mr. Lupin was thoroughly aware it was the one he wanted, he sprung upon the unfortunate clerk, and dashing his head against the door, which was heavily plated with iron, he knocked him insensible in a moment. To open the lock was the work of an instant, and the door creaked upon its hinges. "Who are you?" said Lupin. "A messenger from the Secretary of State," said the man on the outside, "and I shall report your insolence." "Don't," said Lupin. "Indeed, I shall." "Then take that." With the file he dealt him a frightful wound in the face, and then they both rolled down the whole flight of steps together, for Mr. Lupin had overbalanced himself with that blow. Todd sprang over them both, and gained the open street, just as a watchman who was opposite began to spring his rattle at seeing such a scuffle going on at the Governor's door. The messenger from the Secretary of State, notwithstanding his wound, grappled with Lupin, but that rascal got hold of him by his hair, and knocked his head against the pavement until he was quite dead. Then rising, he cried "Through Smithfield, Todd! Follow me." "I will," said Todd, and off they both set, pursued by the single watchman, who had happened to be the sole witness to the whole affair, and who, finding himself outstripped by the two men, wisely stopped at the corner of Giltspur Street to spring his rattle, which he did with a vengeance that soon brought others to his assistance. "An escape from Newgate!" the watchman kept crying"An escape from Newgate! There they gothrough Smithfield; two men, one very big and the other not so big! An escape from Newgate!" The Astonished Watchman.Leaving Newgate Behind. The Astonished Watchman.Leaving Newgate Behind. These cries soon sent about a dozen persons on the trail of the fugitives, and as the alarm was understood at the prison, four of the most bold and skillful men upon the premises at once started in pursuit. From the watchman who still stood at the end of Giltspur Street, they heard in what direction the prisoners had gone, and they did not lose a moment in dashing after them, calling out as they went "Fifty pounds reward for two prisoners escaped from Newgate! Fifty pounds reward for them!" These words summoned up many an idler who was trying to dream away the night in the pens of Smithfield, and the officers soon got together a rabble host for the pursuit of Todd and his villanous companion. But these officers with their fifty pounds reward were rather late in the field. It was the few persons who first heard the rattle and the outcries of the watchman, who were close upon the heels of the men, and they kept them well in sight right across Smithfield and so on towards Barbican. Todd heard the shouts of the pursuers, but he did not look back, for fear of losing time by so doing; and the fact was, that Mr. Lupin was so fleet of foot that it required all the exertion of Todd to keep up with him at all. Upon any less exciting occasion it is extremely doubtful if Todd could have kept up such a race; but as it was, he seemed to lose his wind, and then in some mysterious way to get on without any at all. Mr. Lupin crossed Aldersgate Street, and dashed down Barbican. He then turned down the first opening he came to on the right, and he did so, not because he was making for any known place of safety, but because he knew that a labyrinth of small streets were thereabouts, amid the intricacies of which he hoped to baffle his pursuers; and it was certainly under the circumstances very good policy in him to take the course he did.
From the moment of so abruptly turning out of Barbican, they were both out of sight of their pursuers, who had been able to keep them steadily in view up to this; but although that was the case, they were not without their perils, for a watchman met them both and aimed a blow at Lupin's legs with his stick, crying in an Irish brogue "Stop that, my beautyStop that any way!" Lupin sprang upon him like an enraged tiger, and turning the stick from his hands, he laid him flat with one blow of it and on he rushed, carrying it with him as a defence against the attack of any one else. They now turned a corner and met a string of halfdrunken gents of the period, arminarm, and occupying the whole breadth of the pavement. Lupin avoided them by swerving into the roadway, but they caught hold of Todd, crying "Here's the devil. Let's make him an offer for his tail!" Certainly, Sweeney Todd was not at that moment disposed for trifling, and he laid about him with his immense fists in such style that the gents were all rolling in the kennel in a moment or two; and then, however, before Todd could again reach Mr. Lupin so closely as he had been, he heard a loud shout of "There's one of them. Come on!Come on!" That was no drunken shout, and Todd immediately felt that the danger was imminent. He rushed on at increased speed, and just got up to Lupin at the corner. They turned it together, and then Todd managed to say "They comethey come!" "Officers?" said Lupin. "Yes, I think so. Onon. Oh, push on!" "This way." Lupin crossed the road, and sprung down a narrow court; but even as he did so, came that voice, crying "There they go. Stop themstop them! There they go! Fifty pounds reward!" A frightful oath burst from Todd's lips, as he emerged from the court still close upon the heels of Lupin. They were now in a tolerably wide street, and they saw but one individual in it, and he was evidently, by the curious manner in which he sometimes favoured the curbstone by walking upon it for a few paces, and then lumbered up against the house, just a little gone in intoxication. This individual, after some fumbling in his pocket, produced a latch key, and having staggered up the steps of a house, he made some ineffectual attempts to open the door. "Hold!" said Todd to Lupin. "Anything is better than this race for life. We can hide in the passage of that house until the pursuit is past. Come." "A good thought," said Lupin. By this time the inebriated individual had succeeded in opening the streetdoor with his latchkey, and he was so elated at having performed the feat, that he stopped to laugh before he entered the house. The moment, however, that he did get into the passage, Todd sprung up the steps, and very adroitly placed his foot against the door, so that when the person from within slammed it as he thought shut, it was a good two inches off that condition. It was then amusing to hear him, with drunken gravity and precision, as he thought, shooting the bolts into their sockets, after which, often tumbling on his way, he went along the passage, and up stairs. Todd opened the door. "Come," he said. "All's right," said Lupin. "Stop thief! Stop thief!" cried a chorus of voices at the corner of the street. "Indeed," said Lupin, "The Lord be good to you all." He stepped into the house after Todd, and very quietly closed the door. The passage was profoundly dark, and there they both stood, those two convicted murderers, listening to what was taking place outside their place of refuge. They heard the sounds of several voices, and it was quite evident that just about that spot the pursuers were baffled, and did not know now which course to take after the fugitives, who were so snugly ensconced so near them. CHAPTER CXXXVI. TODD AND LUPIN ESCAPE TO CAEN WOOD. "What's to be done?" said a voice. "I'll be hanged if I know," said another, "and yet I feel sure that they came this way. I thought how it would be when they took to all these streets. Lord bless you, we might have passed them in some doorway easy enougha dozen times." "So we might," said the other voice. "All we can do now, is to go round to the different outlets of the city, and give an alarm." "Well, I won't give it up yet," said a third person; "I feel quite sure they are lingering somewhere about here, and I'll be on the watch yet for a time, and hunt about quietly. You be off and give the notice to the watch, and leave Johnson and I to do what we can." "Very goodI wish you luck." There was a scuffle of feet, and it was quite clear that some of the men had gone off at a quick pace, leaving, no doubt, the two only in the street. "Well," whispered Lupin. "Well, my friend, what do you think of all this?" "I don't know what to think," said Todd. "I'm very tired." "Ah, and so am I, but that can't be helped. I ain't used to such a run as we have had. But it won't do us any harm. If we can get off, it will be a world's wonder, I can tell you. It ain't now every day that a fellow gives Newgate the goby." "Nono, and I must say that I did not myself expect it. But I was prepared to cheat the hangman." "Pho! That's a poorenough look out." "Yes, but it's a something. She did it." "She? Who the deuce is she?" "Mrs. Lovett." "Oh, I recollect. I have heard of herI have heard of her. She was the nice creature who lived in Bell Yard, wasn't she, and accommodated the folks with pies?" "Yes," said Todd, and if Lupin had seen the horrible contortion of visage with which he accompanied the word, even he, with all his nerve in such matters, might well have been excused for a sudden accession of terror. "Well," added Todd, after a pause, "you are a man of judgment Mr. Lupin, and all I want to know now, is what you mean to do?" "Get away from here as soon as possible. But it won't be quite safe to try it yet. This house is very quiet, and no doubt everybody is in bed and asleep, so I shall get a light and look about a little. It would be quite a providential thing to find something to eat." "Yes, and to drink," said Todd. "Just so. I would give something handsome now, if I had it, for a good glass of brandy. That run has made me first hot and then shivery all over; but who knows what luck may be in store for us? Come nowhere's a light, and we shall soon, by the help of providence, see what sort of a crib we have got into." It was lucky for them both that Lupin had retained about him the means of getting a light, for if he had not, they would have been left to conjectures merely regarding their position. He ignited one of the little pieces of waxends, and when the small flame rose and began to burn steadily, he held up the piece of candle, so they both looked curiously about them. The hall of the house in which they were was well got up. A handsome table and some old carved chairs were in it, with some crests upon the backs, and upon numerous pegs hung hats, cloaks, and coats. "Humph," said Lupin, "this is the very place for us, I shall take the great liberty of making free with some gentleman's coat and hat, and I think you had better do the same." Todd at once practically acquiesced in the suggestion, by slipping on a large cloak with sleeves, and placing upon his head a hat richly bound with silver lace. "Upon my word," said Lupin, "you almost look respectable." "Do I?" said Todd. "It isn't then on account of the company I am in." Lupin smiled, as he said "Very goodvery good, but the less we cut at each other, my friend, the better." "You began it," said Todd. "So I did, so we will say no more about it, as yours was the hardest hit. How do I look in the cloak and hat?" "Just nice," said Todd, making a frightful face. Lupin laughed again. "Come," he said. "Now that we have a little time to spare, let us see if these people keep a good larder. If they do and they lock it up at night, they will find that the cat has been at it by the morning, I rather think. Tread as lightly as you can, Todd, and keep down your voice as you have done. Sounds go so far in the night time." "They do," said Todd. "I have heard them at odd times." Lupin led the way along the hall, at the end of which was the staircase, and to the right of that a door which was not fast, so that they passed on quite easily to the domestic portion of the house, and soon found the way to a kitchen, which was upon the same floor. Then they opened a door that led into a little sort of outhouse, paved with red bricks, and in one corner of that was a larder, or safe, well stocked with provisions. Lupin took from it a magnificent quarter of venison, with scarcely a quarter of a pound cut from it; and that, with some bread were the only viands that he felt disposed to take from the larder. "It will be wholesome," he said, "and do us a world of good, by the aid of Providence; and we don't know what we may have to go through yet, in this world of woe. Amen!" "You fancy you are in the chapel again." "Dear me; yes, I doI do. Well, well, it don't matterit don't matter. Come, friend Todd. Let us recruit ourselves a little. Oh, that I could find the way to the wine cellar of these people; and yet that should not be a difficult matter. Let us think. It must be somewhere hereabouts." "There is a door," said Todd, pointing to one at the end of the outhouse. "It seems to be locked, and if so, it is no doubt that of the cellar." "We will try it," said Lupin. With this he quickly opened the door, by the aid of his picklocks, which no ordinary lock could withstand the fascinations of for a moment, and then sure enough the supposition of Todd was found to be correct, for a goodly collection of bottles in long rows presented themselves to the eye. Lupin at once laid hold of a bottle, and breaking off the neck of it he decanted a quantity of its contents into his throat, rubbing his stomach as he did so in a most ludicrous kind of way, to indicate how much he enjoyed the draught. "Nectar," he said, when he took the bottle from his mouth to enable himself to breathe; "nectar." "Is it?" said Todd, as he seized upon another bottle. "I am partial generally to something a trifle stronger than wine; but if it be really good, I have no particular objection to a drop." With this Todd finished off half a bottle of the rich and rare old port that was in the cellar. They then worked away at the haunch of venison; and having made a very hearty meal, they looked at each other as though they would both say"What next?" "You say you have money?" said Lupin. "True," said Todd. "But not here of course, my friend; and who knows what difficulties we may find in our way before we reach your nice little hoard? Where did you say it was?" "Hidden beneath a tree in Caen Wood, close to the village of Hampstead. I went one night, and myself placed the cash there in case of accidents." "And how much do you suppose, my friend, there is?" "I know what there is. I put away two thousand pounds, and that you know will be a thousand pounds for you, and another for me. I purpose in that manner equitably to share it, for I am not ungrateful for the great assistance you have been to me in this escape from Newgate." If Mr. Lupin had not swallowed twothirds of a bottle of old portwine, the probability is that he would have detected that Todd was deceiving him, by the whining canting tone in which he spoke. The fact was, that Todd had not one farthing hidden in Caen Wood; but he thought it highly desirable while there existed any danger, and while Mr. Lupin was likely to be useful to him, to keep up such a delusion. "Well," added Lupin, "you really are a liberal fellow; but as, I say, there is no knowing what good a trifle may be to us before we reach your snug two thousand pounds in Caen Wood, I propose to see what we can get in this house. People who keep such a good cellar, and such a capital larder, ought to have something in the place worth the taking in the way of cash." "Yes, but I am afraid it will be hazardous," said Todd. "A little, perhaps; but with this carving knife, don't you think we might make things pleasant?" "That is possible. Well, if anything worth having is to be got, let us set about it at once; for I think we have spent time enough in this house; and no doubt our friends are upon the move off, if they have not gone long before this." "Come on, then." They both left the kitchen, and each being armed with a knife, they cautiously opened all the room doors on that floor; but they only found the usual furniture of such apartments, and it was quite clear that no cash was to be had in that portion of the premises. "Come up stairs," said Lupin, with a look of savage determination. "Come on, Todd; we will see what can be done up stairs." They carefully ascended the staircase, but they only just peeped into the drawingroom, and then they went up to the floor upon which the bedrooms were situated. They paused at the first door they came to, and Lupin very carefully tried the lock. It was only on the latch, and in the room a rushlight was burning. They both crept in, and their footsteps made no noise upon the soft carpeting of the apartment. A bed was in the room, and upon it lay a young lady. Lupin gave a hideous grin as he looked at her, and then stooping down by the bedside he said, in a whisper "If you scream, everybody in this house will be murdered!If you scream, everybody in this house will be murdered! If youOh, that will do." The young lady awakened with a start, but the words that were twice repeated still rung in her ears, and scream she did not, but she looked half dead from fright. "Now, my dear," said Lupin, "Providence has brought us to your bedside, and if you make any disturbance, we mean to submit you and the whole of the family to the operation of a carvingknife, the Lord willing. All we want is money, and if we can get that quietly, we will go and not so much as ask your pretty little lips for a kiss." The Murderers In The Young Lady's Chamber. The Murderers In The Young Lady's Chamber. "Oh, Heaven protect me!" said the young lady. "Amen!" said Lupin. "Now my dear, who is in the house besides you?" "My father, the alderman, and my mother, and the servants above stairs.Oh, spare my parents." "Very good, where can any money be got hold of?" "Will a hundred pounds content you?" "Yes," said Todd, putting his head between the curtains at the foot of the bed. The young lady gave a faint cry, and Mr. Lupin flourished the carvingknife over her"Where are the hundred pounds?" he said, "and we will go." "In my father's room. It is the next room. His purse is on the dressingtable. If you will let me go and get it, I will give it to you upon your promise then to leave the house." "How are we to trust you not to say that we are here?" "I swear by all that is holyI use the name of the great God. Oh, indeed you may trust me." "Go," said Lupin. The young lady got out of bed, and both Todd and Lupin followed her from the room. She crossed the landing, and at once opened the door of a room. Then they heard a man's voice say"Who's that?" and the young lady replied"Only me, father. I want something out of your room. I shall not be a minute." "Bless the girl," said a female voice"What can she want?" In a minute or two the young lady came back to the landing where Todd and Lupin were waiting for her. "Now," said Lupin in a low voice"Now, my little dear, have you got it?" "Quickquick!" said Todd, "or you die. I am half a mind to cut your throat as it is, just for the pleasure of the thing." The young lady stood just upon the threshold of the door of her father's room, and then as Lupin held up his light, she raised both her hands, in each of which was a horsepistol, and presenting one at Lupin's head and one at Todd's, she said "Thieves! thieves! thieves!" CHAPTER CXXXVII. THE MURDER AT CAEN WOOD, HAMPSTEAD. It would be quite impossible to describe the effect that was produced upon Lupin and Sweeney Todd, by this heroic conduct on the part of the young lady, from whom they did not in the least expect any such active resistance to their proceedings. Lupin was constitutionally, by far the greater coward of the two, and when he saw the bright barrel of the pistol in such startling and unexpected contiguity to his head, he at once stepped back, and missing his footing, fell down the stairs to the landingplace immediately below that flight. Todd thought that there would be just a chance of dashing in upon the young lady and disarming her of her pistols; but now that both of them were levelled at him, and she began to cry out "Help! help! thieves!" again, louder than before, he reluctantly abandoned the idea, and turning, he bounded down the staircase. The young lady leant over the stairhead and fired one of the pistols after him, which so accelerated the movements of Todd, that he tumbled right over Mr. Lupin, and fell down all the way to the hall with Lupin after him. Under any other circumstances than the dangerous and exciting ones in which they were in, no doubt they would both of them have been too much hurt to do anything but lie on their backs in the hall; but the feeling that if they were taken it would be to death, was sufficient to rouse them, and they both scrambled to their feet. Lupin got the streetdoor open, and dashed out closely followed by Todd. A watchman tried to stop them, but him they felled with a blow, and then off went Lupin down a crossstreet, that led him into Oldstreet Road, and with Todd at his heels, who was very faint. "Stop, stop!" panted Todd, "stop!" "What for?" said Lupin. "I cannot run so fast. Are you hurt? Oh, that I had a knife at that girl's throat!" Lupin paused, and held by a post at the corner of a street, and swore dreadfully, as he too panted a little for breath, although he was by no means so much usedup as Todd was. But then Lupin was a younger man, and much lighter on his feet, than our old friend of murdering notoriety. "Oh, dear," said Todd. "What's to be done now?" "Nothing." "Nothing, did you say? But, my dear friend, something must be done. We have positively wasted half the night, and we are without money, and half dead. I am covered with bruises from head to foot by the fall down the staircase, and it will be daylight in another half hour or so at the utmost." "Ah," said Lupin, "we must breakfast somewhere, I'm thinking, my friend." "And so am I." "Well, well, we have made certainly a mess of our adventure at the alderman's; but it can't be helped now. The idea, only to think of it now, Todd, of you and I, two such men as we are, and as the world refutes us to be, being beaten back, and, you may say, thrown down two pair of stairs, by a girl of sixteen or thereabouts." Todd growled out some malediction. "It was the will of Providence," said Lupin. "But who is this? Stand aside, Todd, and let this old gentleman pass on. We may as well not be seen and described by any one." "Do you think he may likely have enough about him," whispered Todd, "to pay our expenses for the day?" "A lucky thought. It is more than likely that he has. Knock him down and rob him, Todd. There's not a soul in sight. Give him one of the knocks you used to give the poor devils you made the pies of, you know." "Be quiet," said Todd, "I am amazed that a man of your profound sense and sagacity, should give ear to such idle rumours about me! I am really both shocked and surprised, Mr. Lupin!" "Amen!" said Lupin. "You rob the old man, and we won't quarrel about any such nonsense, Todd. Here he comes, grinning like an old polecat. What business has a man of that age out at such a time as this?" "None," said Todd, "except to provide us with a little money." Todd cast a keen glance around him, and was convinced that the report of Mr. Lupin that no one was in sight was quite correct, so he stepped up to the old man, and said "Good morning, sir." "Thieves! thieves!" cried the old man, and began to run, but Todd put out one of his long legs and tripped him up. Then pouncing upon him, he extracted a wellfilled purse from his pocket, and holding it up to Lupin, he said "This will do?" "Rather," replied Lupin. "Come on." Off set Lupin again on a run, rather to the discomfiture of Todd, who had not had such a scampering about for a long time indeed; but yet he felt the necessity of getting as soon as possible out of the immediate vicinity of the old man whom they had just robbed, so they did not stop until they got right away on the northern side of Finsbury Square. That side of the ancient square of Finsbury was not built then; and beyond it, where there is now such a squalid and uninviting neighbourhood, there was nothing but fields. "Now," said Lupin. "Let us look at the purse!" "Here it is," said Todd. "It's very light!" The fact was, that notwithstanding the speed at which he was compelled to run to keep up with Lupin, or rather to keep a few paces only behind him, Todd had contrived to abstract the better part of the contents from the purse, and to pocket them; for the story with which he had tickled the ears of Lupin of his having any money concealed in Caen Wood, Hampstead, was a mere delusion, got up for the purpose of making him, Lupin, more than commonly solicitous concerning his, Todd's, safety in the escape from Newgate. "Yes," replied Todd, "it is light, but such as it is it may be of some service to us. Take it, Mr. Lupin, and you can be the treasurer you know I can trust to you." "Implicitly," said Lupin, as turning out the contents of the purse into his hand, he said"Here are four guineas and a half, and about six or seven shillings in loose silver." "Better than nothing," said Todd, with a look of great philosophy. "Our first care now is to get a breakfast." "I don't know," said Lupin. "I took quite enough at the alderman's to last me some time. I should say, get out of London as quickly as we possibly can; and when we are at Caen Wood, we can, at our ease, consider what course we will feel inclined to take with our money in our pockets." "A couple of thousands," said Todd. "Exactly so. I move that we strike across the fields now at once, and make for Highgate and Hampstead, so that at each step we shall be leaving some danger behind us." "Agreed," said Todd. "Come on! For my part I should like very much to find a conveyance of some sort; but that, I suppose, is impossible." "Quite! Besides, on foot we are much less likely to be recognised and described. Come on, Todd; you ought to be able to walk to Hampstead, surely, after the little trifling exercise that you have had only." "Trifling, do you call it?" said Todd, making one of his most hideous faces. "Trifling! I have not a bone in my body that don't ache. Trifling? I am one mass of bruises from top to toe, and I never, in all my life, felt so exhausted; but yet the love of life and of liberty will lend me strength; so, come on; I will go on to Hampstead, and I will reach it, my friend, unless I drop by the way." "Well spoke," said Lupin. They now pursued a course which led them rapidly by the back of the City Road, and through the now wellpopulated district called Hoxton; and keeping on in that way they crossed the highroad near to Stamford Hill, and soon began to get a good view of the heights of Highgate and Hampstead in the distance. "Brandy," said Todd, "brandy!" "Why, what's the matter?" "My good friend, I can't get on without some brandy. I am rather used to a little stimulant at times, so I must have it. Then we have no risk now to run by going into a publichouse." "I don't know that, Todd. But if you can't do without, some brandy you must have. To be sure, we are in luck's way, so far, that we are provided with hats and coats from the alderman's hall, and, therefore, people cannot have a description of us. The first quiet little hotel we come to, Todd, I promise you that I will not object to our stopping at, so that you may have your drop." "Yes," said Todd, "that will do. My good friend, it is the only thing that keeps me up. When I used to feel a little down in spirits I poured some other spirits down, and then I get up again." "Exactly. Here we are, at an old roadside house called the Adam and Eve, which will be the very thing. They may take you for Adam and me for Cain or Abel.Come along." They halted at the door of the little publichouse, but upon going in they found the landlord and landlady bargaining with a man who was hawking something, and the following words came upon the startled ears of Todd. "Only threepence, sir, I assure you, and the most exact likeness of Sweeney Todd, the murderer; taken while he was on his trial at the Old Bailey. You will see what a look he has, and the artist has been most successful in the squint and only threepence." "He will be hanged on Monday, of course?" said the publican's wife. "Oh yes, ma'am, in course, and there's expected such a crowd as never was known at the execution." "No doubt of it. Well, I'll give twopence." "And a drop of ale," said the publican. "Here you are, master, you shall have it. A capital likeness. If you was only now to catch a sight of the original Todd, you'd know him in a moment by the look of this picture, particularly the squint." "Come in," whispered Lupin to Todd. "Oh nonoI don't want the brandy now." "But I do. Your speaking about it, has got me into the mind of wanting some now; so come on and let us have it, my friend, at once. Why, you are not afraid that the portrait is too good a likeness, are you?" "Oh dear, I don't know," said Todd. "I believe I have a remarkable nose, and rather an engaging look about the eyes.Come along." "A quartern of the best brandy," said Lupin. Todd felt that now the safest thing he could do, was to brave the matter out, as anything in the shape of a retreat would be much worse than actually making an appearance at the bar of the publichouse; and then it was truly ridiculous to see the manner in which Todd strove to alter the cast of his features, by protruding one lip, and putting on what he thought as a kind of satisfied smirking smile, extremely difficult, indeed, for his usual expression of face. There was only one slight comfort he felt, and that was in the circumstance that the news of their escape from Newgate had not yet reached that place. "A nice, bracing morning, gentlemen," said the publican. "Very, by the goodness of providence," said Lupin. "Amen!" said Todd. "I have just, gentlemen, been buying a portrait of the execrable Todd; and if either of you have happened to see him in London, perhaps you can tell me if it is at all like the villain. We frighten our children now, if they misbehave themselves at all, and tell them that Todd is coming to make them into pies, and then they are as quiet as possible. Ha! ha!" "How funny," said Todd, "Well," said Lupin, as he looked at the twopenny portrait of Todd, with a pretended critical air, "I don't think it's like him at all. I saw him at Newgate; and my friend here, is more like him than this picture." "You don't say so, sir?" said the landlord. "He! he!" laughed Todd"ho! ho!" How he wished at that moment that he could have taken Lupin by the throat and strangled him! The brandy was duly discussed, and Lupin having paid for it out of the contents of the old gentleman's purse, took a courteous adieu of the landlord, and with Todd left the house. "Gracious goodness!" exclaimed Todd, "how could you dream of saying what you did about me at the bar?" "My good friend, that was for the express purpose of drowning suspicion for you. I saw the landlady staring at you most fixedly, and so I said it on purpose, for fear she should really begin to think you could be no other than Todd the murdererthe execrable Todd, with whom they frighten the children." "Oh, well," said Todd, "don't say anything more about it. I am quite satisfied. Indeed, I am more than satisfied, my dear friend." "I thought you would be, when you come to think" "Oh, dear, yes." "You may depend, Todd, that the greatest safety always runs alongside of the greatest danger; and that when you think that your fortunes are at the lowest, you may not unfrequently be upon the point of a highly favourable change and it's all by the goodness of Providence." "Bother you!" said Todd. "I do believe, if you were to live for a hundred years, you would not forget your chapel experience." "Perhaps not; but I made a good bit of money that way, taking one thing with another, Mr. Todd." CHAPTER CXXXVIII. CAEN WOOD AND HAMPSTEAD IN THE OLD TIMES. In such discourse as this, the precious pair beguiled the way to Highgate, from which they proposed crossing to Hampstead. Notwithstanding the liberal potations that they had taken at the Alderman's house; and notwithstanding the brandy that had since been discussed, they neither of them felt any the worse for the imbibition. Probably, the active exercise they took carried off all bad effects. But, certainly, when they reached Highgate, both Todd and Lupin were hungry. "Let us turn into the Old GateHouse Tavern," said Lupin. "Don't you think a more obscure place," suggested Todd, "would be better for us, as we do not by any means court popularity?" "No; there is more safety in a large place like the Gate House, where plenty of guests are coming and going continually, than in a little bit of a publichouse where we should be looked at, and scrutinised from top to toe, from the moment we went in to the moment we came out." "Very good," said Todd. "I think you reason well enough upon the point, and I give in to your better judgment completely. Ah! my good friend, I really don't know what I should have done at all without you." "Been hanged!" said Lupin. Todd gave a shudder, which was a tolerably convincing proof of how fully he agreed in what Mr. Lupin said; and then they went into the Old GateHouse Tavern, at Highgate, where they had a very plentiful breakfast; and by getting into a corner of the room, in which they sat, they did not attract any observation beyond the mere casual regards of the visitors to the house. Before they left though, Todd had the horror of hearing a great confusion of voices in the passage, and in a few moments one of the waiters came into the room, quite bursting with his news. "Gentlemen," he said, "the notorious Todd, and a man named Lupin, who was a murderer likewise, have escaped from Newgate!" "Escaped?" said Lupin. "You don't say so?" "Dear me, when?" said Todd. "Last night, gentlemen, last night; andcomingcoming!" The waiter was compelled to leave the room, as a bell rung violently. "Let us go," said Todd. "Yes, I think, now that the news has reached here, it will be wise to do so." "Come along, then." Todd rose in a moment; but Lupin in a whisper strictly cautioned him not to show any symptoms of hurry or alarm; and he was so far master of himself to see the necessity of such a caution, so that they both got safely out of the GateHouse Tavern, and took the route to Hampstead by Swains Lane, without having anything said to them. "This is an escape indeed," said Todd. "Yes," said Lupin, "you may depend that in a very little time there will be some officers at the GateHouse; but if we can get to the wood within the next half hour, I think we are safe enough. What do you think?" "I think that if our safety depends upon getting into Caen Wood in halfanhour, we ought to be there in half the time." "Do you? Then come on for a run." "Oh, dear," said Todd. "I am all aches and pains, and not at all fit for running; but I suppose I must. Don't go very fast, Mr. Lupin, or I shall never be able to keep up with you." "Then you go first and run as fast as you can without greatly distressing yourself, and I will adopt my speed to yours." "That will be better," said Todd.
Off they both set down Swains Lane, and as the first part of that wellknown thoroughfare from Highgate to Hampstead goes down hill, they got on speedily with very little exertion; but when the foot of the little slope was reached it was quite another thing, and Todd was fast subsiding into a walk, when Lupin cried to him "We are pursued!" At these words, Todd fell flat in the roadway. "Upup!" said Lupin, "there is a turn in the lane just ahead of us, and when we reach that we must get over the hedge and hide. I don't know that they are actually after us, but there are horsemen in the lane coming from Highgate." Todd got up as far as his hands and knees, and then, as his ears were close to the ground, he said "We are lost, for I can hear horsemen coming from the other direction too." "The deuce you can!" Mr. Lupin stooped to listen, and in a moment he was assured of the fact. He seized Mr. Todd by the collar, saying "Now, Todd, if you want to escape, rouse yourself and follow me; but if you don't care about it, say so at once, and I will look after my own safety." "Care about it?" cried Todd, "what else do you suppose I care about in all the world?" "Come on, then." "Here I am. Oh, yes I'm coming onas quick as you like now, Lupin. The dread of capture banishes all fatigue. I can now run like a hunted hare." "There is no occasion," said Lupin. "This way. We must hide now; speed would do us but little good against horsemen.This way." Lupin ran on until he got to the turn of the lane, which hid the horsemen from Highgate effectually from their view; and as the mounted party coming from the direction of Hampstead had not got so far as to appear, he thought it was just the place to halt at. "Now, Todd," he said, "we must get over the hedge here, and our only chance of safety, if these men are really on the lookout for us, is to hide in the meadow." Without waiting for Todd to make any remark upon the very doubtful means of escape presented, Lupin scrambled through the hedge. Todd then followed him, and the first care of Lupin's was to arrange the twigs that had been displaced in the hedge by their passage through it, so that there should not appear to be any gap at all there. Immediately upon the other side of the hedge which they had thus crossed there was a ditch, and a large heap of manure. Mr. Lupin, without the slightest ceremony, laid himself down, and pulling a lot of the manure heap over him, he nearly covered himself quite up. "This is very shocking," said Todd. "It's quite a luxury compared to a cell in Newgate," replied Lupin. "You had better be quick." The word Newgate acted upon the imagination of Todd as a very powerful spell, and he at once lay down and began to follow the example of his friend, Lupin; and indeed so very anxious was he while he was about it to hide himself completely, that he nearly smothered himself outright in the manure. "I hope this will do," he moaned. "Silence!" said Lupin. Todd was as still as death in a moment. As they now lay close to the earth, all sounds upon it were much more clearly brought to their senses than when they were walking, so that there was no sort of difficulty in distinguishing the tread of the horses that were coming from Highgate from those that proceeded from the other direction, and which latter ones were not quite so near as the others. Faintly, too, they could hear the hum of commotion, which showed that the party consisted of three or four persons. And now the mounted men from Highgate got right down into the hollow, close to the bend in the lane, and they paused, while one said, in a clear voice "We ought not to go any further. Those from Hampstead should meet us now, I think." "They are coming," said another. "Ah! so they are. I wonder if they have seen anything of the rascals. I do hope they will soon be nabbed, for this patrolling business is very tiresome." These words were quite sufficient, if any doubt had been upon the minds of Lupin and Todd, to convince them that the mounted men were after them, and of the great peril they would have been in if they had staid in the lane. To be sure there was nothing in what had been said to add to the supposition that the horsemen had any knowledge of the fact that the persons they sought were in that neighbourhood, and that might be considered to decrease the danger a little; but yet it was sufficiently great, under all circumstances. In the course of the next two minutes the Hampstead party came up and joined the others. "Any luck?" said one. "No, we came right on across the heath, but we neither saw nor heard anything of them, and it is quite impossible to say, as yet, that they have come in this direction at all. I don't myself think it at all likely." "Why not?" "Because of all neighbourhoods close to London, it is the most high and exposed, while at the same time it is not thickly peopled." "Well, there may be something in that. We have heard nothing of them in Highgate up to now, so I suppose we may go back again the way we came, and you will do the same." "Have you been in any of the meadows?" "No. But it's easy to get over the gate yonder, and take a look all round. The enclosures are not very numerous about here, and they would find it difficult to hide. Hold my horse, George, and I'll get into the meadows and take a look." When Todd heard these words, he looked upon himself as lost, and could hardly suppress a groan. The man who had last spoken got over a gate that was at some little distance off, and stood upon an elevated spot of the meadows to look about him. "There's nothing moving," he said. "Come along, then," cried another. "Let's get on." "Here's a compost heap; they are perhaps in the middle of that. Is it worth looking at?" "Not exactly. Come on." The man retired to the road again and mounted, and in the course of a few moments the two parties rode back again upon the way that they had come. "Todd?" said Lupin, "Todd?" "Oh!" groaned Todd. "Todd, I say, get up. Are you out of your mind? The danger is past now. They are gone." "Gone!" said Todd, looking up. "You don't say so? Didn't I hear one of them say that he would look in this very place?" "Yes; but that was only a joke." "A joke?" said Todd with a deep groan. "A joke was it? Oh, how very careful people should be when they make jokes, when other people are hiding from their enemies. It might be very funny to him, but it was quite the reverse to me." "That's true enough; but get up now, and in the name of everything that's safe and comfortable, let us get to the wood. These fellows are evidently patrolling the road, and they will be back again in a little while, and still come across us if we don't manage to get out of their way before that time.Come along. We can get to the wood now quickly." "Ah, dear me!" said Todd, as he shook himself to get rid of as much of the unsavoury mess he had lain in as possible. "Ah dear me! truly I have now hit upon evil times; and fortune, that I thought petted me, has slipped from me like a shadow, leaving me glad of a manure heap in a field as a place of shelter." "All that is very true," said Lupin, "but it don't get us on a bit." "I'm readyI'm quite ready," groaned Todd. They were upon the point of going into the lane again, but they were compelledor rather thought it prudentto wait until a man had passed, who, by the box that he carried on his back, was evidently a hawker of goods about the country. He soon trudged out of their way, and then they both got through the hedge again into the lane. The place of their destination was now close at hand, upon their left; and watching a favourable spot by which to do so, they crossed the hedge upon that side and got into the fields; but although a sharp run across two or three meadows would have taken them at once to Caen Wood, they did not think it at all prudent so to expose themselves to observation. "Skirt the hedge, Todd," said Lupin, "and stoop down so as to keep your head as much below the top of the hedgerow as possible. You are inconveniently tall, just now." Upon this instruction, Todd bent himself almost double, and in that attitude he managed to scramble close to the hedge, and up to his knees, at times, in the ditches and drains that he came across in such a situation. In this way, then, they got on until they reached the outskirts of Caen Wood. Not a creature was to be seen, and the most profound and solemn stillness, reigned around them. Todd was not used to that intense quiet of the country and he shook at it rather, but Lupin took no notice of his emotion. "Here we are, at last," he said, "and all you have to do, Todd, is to point out the spot where you have hidden your money, and then we will divide it, and wait until nightfall before we venture out of this snug place." "Come along," said Todd; "it's all right." And then they both dived amongst the trees, which, in some places, quite shut out the daylight. CHAPTER CXXXIX. THE ADVENTURES IN CAEN WOOD OF THE TWO MURDERERS. Todd was so much exhausted by the time they reached the wood, that he at once cast himself to the ground upon a heap of dry leaves, and he felt that he was speaking only the truth when he said "I could not go a step further just now, if it were to save my life, I feel that I could not; and here I must lie and rest." "Dear me!" said Mr. Lupin; "what a poor creature you must be. How old are you, Mr. Todd?" "I don't know," said Todd. "The church I was christened at was burnt down only the day after, and all the books burnt. My father and mother are dead, and the nurse was hanged, and the doctor cut his throat." "Upon my word," said Lupin, "they were a lively set. I suppose it was remorse did all that?" "Remorse! What do you mean by remorse?" "Why that sort of feeling, you know, might be awakened in their minds, by finding that you were not exactly the sort of baby that was expected. You must have looked a beauty in longclothes, Todd; and as for your age, I should guess it about fiftyfive." "Guess your own age," said Todd, "and leave mine alone." "Oh, if it's at all a sore subject I won't say another word about it. But come now, Todd, you charming creature, could you not manage to crawl a little way further?" "What for? If we are safe in the wood at all, we are safe enough here where we are now." "But, my dear friend, you quite forget." "Whatwhat? What do I forget? Don't plague me, Lupin. It is enough just now to remember that we have by almost a miracle made an escape from Newgate; and as for forgetting, I would be right glad to forget if I could that I had ever been there; but that will be impossible." "It won't be very easy," said Lupin, "and if possible, it will take a long time; but what I was just mildly going to remind you of was, that in this wood your two thousand pounds, you know, are hidden, and that we were to share the amount." "Ah, my dear friend, yes, I had not forgotten that little affair. It is, of course, very important; but let me rest a little, if you please." "Oh, certainlycertainly." "And then, my dear companion, it will be necessary to get a spade, you know, to dig it up. Our nails decidedly are neither long enough or strong enough, and I don't at all see how it is to be done without a spade, or something that shall be a good substitute for one." "Oh, nonsense," said Lupin. "How deep do you suppose it lies?" "About two feet." "Very good then, you need give yourself no uneasiness about the digging it up. I have the chisel and the two files here; and if I can't dig two feet into the earth with them, and my hands to shovel out the mould with, I'm a Dutchman, that's all. Only you show me the spot, that's all, and I won't ask you to tire yourself in the matter." "In a little," said Todd, "in a little. Without being so old as you would make me out, I am still older than you are Lupin, and cannot go through the amount of fatigue that you can. Just let me recover myself a little, and then instead of crawling to the spot where my money lies hidden, I shall be well able to walk to it and show it to you." "Very goodvery good. Of course I don't want to hurry you too much about the matter, only the sooner we do get a hold of the two thousand pounds the better. I wonder, too, that you don't feel rather anxious to see that it is quite safe, for some accident might have discovered it, for all you know to the contrary." "Oh no, my friend, nothing but an earthquake could do that. You may depend it is quite safe where I put it. In a little time I shall be able to show you the exact spot, which I have so accurately in my mind's eye, that I can walk to it with the greatest of ease; of course I did not trust such a valuable deposit to the ground without accurately marking the spot that I had made my bank." "Is it in gold?" "Allall. I did think of hiding notes, but I was afraid that the damp, if there should come any heavy rains, would have the effect of rotting them, and I had no iron box sufficiently small to place them in; so I brought all gold, and a good weight it was too." "Ah, we will make that weight light by dividing it." "Just so." Lupin's mouth actually watered at the idea of getting possession of such a sum, and as he turned his head aside, he muttered to himself "If I don't put Todd out of this world, and save the hangman the trouble, it shall go hard with me, and then I shall have all the money to myself, and I can get to America, and be a free and enlightened citizen for the remainder of my days." Mr. Lupin could hardly forbear an audible chuckle over this delightful prospect; so that it will be seen that both of these villains meditated evil intentions towards each other, from which it may be gathered how much faith is to be put in the association of men for any guilty design. Was it likely that such persons as Todd and Lupin, after being false and ruffianly to all the world, should be true to each other, except so far as their common interests dictated? No, Todd amused Lupin with the story of the buried gold in the wood at Hampstead, because he, Lupin, was of assistance in his escape from Newgate; and Lupin assisted him to escape with the idea of murdering him in the wood, and securing for himself all the money that he believed was there hidden! It was quite evident that Lupin was desperately impatient at the rest Todd was taking, previous to showing him where the money was hidden; and he walked to and fro, looking as vexed as possible, and yet fearing to say too much, lest he should get up a quarrel, the result of which might be, that Todd would refuse to show him where the gold was at all. "I think," he said, "if I were to manage to get a good thick stave off some tree, it would help considerably in digging, would it not?" "Without a doubt," said Todd. "Then I will try, and by the time I have got it, perhaps you will be rested enough, my dear friend, to make an effort to get up and show me the spot where to dig for the gold." "I shouldn't wonder," said Todd. Mr. Lupin found that he was obliged to be contented with this doubtful acquiescence of Todd's; and he busied himself, by the aid of the chisel and the files, in getting off a stout strong bough from a sycamoretree, which he shaped to a tolerable point. It looked like a formidable bludgeon; and as he eyed it, he thought what a capital knock on the head it would give to Mr. Todd. It was rather odd that the same idea crossed Todd's mind, and as he saw the bit of wood, he muttered to himself "That would do it. One blow from that would do it." Now, Todd had but one solitary incentive to the murder of Lupin, and that was, that he feared when he found out how he had been deceived regarding the money, he would find some mode of denouncing him to the police, while he took care of himself; and, therefore, upon that mere idea, Todd would take his life. But then, steeped in blood guiltiness as Todd was, the taking the life of any one always seemed to him to be the readiest way of solving any difficulty connected with them. It was his motive to consider that that was the shortest and easiest mode of settling the affair, if any one became at all troublesome; and he was not all likely to make an exception in favour of such a personage as Mr. Lupin. "All ready?" said Lupin. "Are you rested now?" "Yes," said Todd, as he rose. "Ah, dear me, yes, as much as I can expect, until I get a regular night's repose, you know, friend Lupin. But I don't expect that very soon." "Oh, who knows? We are continually, in this world, getting what we don't expect, and not getting what we do; so you may rest easy enough, Todd, much sooner than you expect. Come, lean on my arm if you feel fatigued." "Oh, no, thank you. Lend me the stick, it will help me on the best, for it seems just about my height." Lupin could not very well refuse Todd's request with any prospect of keeping him in good humour at the same time, so he gave him the stick, although it must be confessed he did not do so with the very best grace in the world. But Todd did get it, and that satisfied him. "Is it far off?" said Lupin. "Oh dear, no. Quite close at handquite close. There's a small chesnuttree, and a large chesnuttree, and there's a small firtree and a large firtree, and a large oaktree and a small oaktree, and then there is a blackberry bush and a little stream of water." "Good gracious, is there anything else?" said Lupin. "No, my dear friend, that is all." "Well. I must confess, that your description would not have very materially assisted me in finding the spot." "Indeed, I thought nothing could possibly be more clear." "Clear to you, Mr. Todd, it may be, but not to any one else; but that don't matter a bit as you are here yourself to point out the exact spot. Are we near it now?" "Yes, you see that cluster of bushes?" "Yes, oh yes." "Well, the money lies hidden right in there, and you cannot miss it if you scramble in." "Lend me the stick to clear away the brambles and the nettles, and I will creep in." "My dear friend, I shall fall down if I lend you the stick. There is no difficulty in getting in. Don't you see there is a gap that you have only to push through, and there you are?" "Wellwell," said Lupin. "That's enough; I will get through. Come on, let us secure the gold." Lupin stooped to push his way through the gap in the hedge, for the bushes grew so close together just there, that they resembled an enclosure carefully planted on purpose. Then Todd took the heavy stick that had been cut from the sycamore tree in both hands, and swinging it in the air, he brought it down with a stunning crack on the back of Lupin's head, just at the juncture of the neck. "God!" said Lupin, and it was the first time in his life that, with true sincerity, he had pronounced that sacred name. He then turned and sunk to the ground, with his face towards Todd. He could not speak now, but the look that he gave to his murderer was awful in the extreme. The injury he had received had quite paralysed him, and his hands hung helplessly. But the quality of mercy belonged not to Todd's composition. Again the huge stick was raised, and this time it fell upon the top of Lupin's head. The wretched man uttered one faint sigh and expired at once. "Dead!" said Todd, as he stood gaunt and erect before his victim, with the stick stretched out in his hand. "Deadquite dead. Ha!" Todd Kills The Murderer, Lupin. Todd Kills The Murderer, Lupin. Todd made one of his old faces. He must at that moment have fancied himself engaged upon his ancient business in the cellars beneath his house in Fleet Street, or he never could have made the sort of face which had become so very incidental to him in that locality. The body fell huddled up, and the change that rapidly took place in the countenance, was something truly awful to behold; but it had not much effect upon Todd. He had struck many a man down to rise no more, against whom he had no cause of suspicion or of dread; and it was not likely that he would scruple to do so to one whom he both feared and hated as he did Mr. Lupin. "That is done!" said Todd, as he slowly let his arm droop until the stick touched the ground; and then relinquishing his grasp of it, he let it fall entirely. "That is done!" A slight noise close at hand made the murderer start, and caused the blood to turn cold around his heart from very abject fear that there had been some witness to his crime. "What was that?" he said, "what was that?" All was still again. It was but some wild bird taking flight from a low branch of a neighbouring tree, not liking the vicinity of man, and especially such a man as Mr. Todd; for we may well suppose even those little feathered fragile things are gifted with some of that physiognomical power that seems to be an attribute or an instinct of all animals, with regard to the human race. "It was nothing," said Todd very gently. "It was nothing at all. This has been an easily done deed, and a safe one. Nearly noiseless, too. It may be many a long day ere the body be discovered. I will drag it in among the bushes, so as to hide it for as long a space as may be, else if it were found early it would be a kind of index to my route, and would, at all events, show that I had been here." Full of this idea, Todd laid hold of the body and turned it back upwards. He even did not like to look in the face more than he could help. Then seizing the corpse by the collar of his coat, he dragged it into the hollow space among the bushes, and cast it down, saying as he did so "Rest you there, Mr. Lupin. I have only saved the hangman, after all, the trouble of taking your life, for I can feel well assured, that such would have been your end. You thought yourself a clever fellow, but after all you were nothing to me. Rest there; you were useful up to the moment that we reached the wood, and were in comparative safety. After that, you became an encumbrance, and so I have got rid of you, as I am in the habit of doing all such encumbrances to my views." Sweeney Todd then crept out from among the bushes, and after having cast the stick with which he had done the murder in among the bushes on top of the body, he walked rapidly away to another part of the wood. Ever and anon he stopped to listen if he could catch the slightest indication of the presence of any one else in the wood; but all was still, save now and then the song of some wild bird, as it lit for a few moments upon the branch of some tree, to warble a few notes, and then dart off again into the fresh and fragrant air. "I am safe here," muttered Todd, "I am safe here for the present, and until nightfall I will remain; but between this time and sunset, I must determine what I shall do, and it must be done quickly, for on the morrow the pursuit will be of a wider, as well as of a closer character than what it has been today." CHAPTER CXL. SHOWS HOW THE NEWS OF TODD'S ESCAPE WAS RECEIVED BY ALL CONCERNED. Having traced Todd and Lupin thus far in their escape from the meshes in which the law had so properly bound them, we will now for a time leave the archvillain Todd in Caen Wood, Hampstead Heath, while we take a glance at what ensued in London, upon the escape of the two worthies from Newgate. It has often been remarked, that one person in London does not trouble himself about his neighbour's affairs, as is done in smaller communities, or know what is happening in his immediate vicinity; but it is likewise true, that nowhere does news travel so fast, or acquire so many exaggerations, as in London. Thus, then, in the course of a few hours, there was scarcely a person in the metropolis that was not aware of the escape of Sweeney Todd and Mr. Josiah Lupin from Newgate. And not only were they aware of the mere fact of the escape, but women had added so many extravagances to the whole affair, that it was quite wonderful to think of the fertility of invention of the illiterate persons who had added so many wonders and exaggerations to the real facts of the case, which, after all, lay, as the reader knows well, in a very small compass indeed, considering the magnitude of the result. Nor were the newspapers published on the ensuing morning at all backward in pandering to popular taste by making the affair as striking and as wonderful as they possibly could. In one quarter of the town it was firmly believed that not only had Todd and Lupin set Newgate on fire, but that they had murdered the governor and half a dozen turnkeys, and then made their way into the Old Bailey through the ruins of the prison over the dead bodies of their victims. In another part of London it was currently reported that an infuriated mob had attacked the prison, for the purpose of taking out Todd and hanging him forthwith, and that in the midst of the confusion incidental to such a scene, he had succeeded in making his escape in the disguise of a turnkey, with a huge bunch of keys in his hand as a symbol of his profession. Then again, in the highly religious district of Islington, it was fully believed, and, in fact, cried through the streets, that his Infernal Majesty, in his own proper person, had called at Newgate at about half past twelve at night, and taken away both the prisoners at once without any further ceremony. But all these idle rumours might be safely left to sink or swim as the incredulity or the credulity of their authors and hearers might determine, since it was after all only to a very few persons that the escape of Sweeney Todd was of the smallest importance, and, to still from that, the fate of Mr. Lupin was of any importance at all. The persons with whose feelings and wishes we and our readers feel interested, are those to whom the escape of Todd presented grounds for some anxious and painful reflections; and it is to them and their proceedings that we would now draw the attention of our readers. One of the first persons to whom the news was taken in a clear and compact unexaggerated form, was Sir Richard Blunt, and at an early hour of the morning he was roused from his rest by a messenger, who presented him with a brief note, containing only the following words from the Secretary of Newgate "Newgate. "Sir, "The prisoner, Sweeney Todd, has escaped from the jail, along with one Josiah Lupin. I am, Sir, Yours Obediently, "John Smith." "The deuce he has!" cried Sir Richard, as he sprung out of bed and began to dress himself with unusual speed, for Sir Richard seldom did anything in a hurry, as experience had long since told him how very little was gained by hurry and how much was sometimes lost. As soon as he got his things on, he descended to his private room, and there found an officer from the prison waiting to give him the particulars of the escape, which was done in a very few words. "And they are clear off?" said Sir Richard. "Quite so sir." "Well, after this, I rather think the Secretary of State will agree with my opinion, that it is not bolts and locks and bars that are to be trusted to, to keep notorious and bold malefactors in prison, but a stout and watchful personal superintendence; and until that is the case, there will be continual prison escapes. Such a man as Todd should not have been allowed to be for five minutes quite alone." "I think so, too," said the officer; "and there's another thing must be put a stop to before any good is done in Newgate." "What's that, my friend?" "Why, Sir Richard, the religious ladies must be stopped from coming in. The moment now that any notorious malefactor is cast for death, the prison is besieged by religious ladies, who, if they had their own way, would eat, drink, and sleep with him in his cell; and they bring in all sorts of things that are quite enough to help the fellow out of limbo. Why, Sir Richard, there was Michael Richardson that was cast for death for murdering his wife; a religious lady came to pray with him, and brought him in files and tools enough for him to get out of the stone jug, and off they both went together to America." "It is a serious evil." "I believe you, Sir Richard; and, I think, the only way will be to let 'em all know that before they pass the lobby they will be well searched by a couple of turnkeys." "That ought to stop them," said Sir Richard, as he rung the bell sharply. "You may depend upon it I will mention your suggestion to the Secretary of State." One of the magistrate's servants now made his appearance in answers to the summons by the bell. "My horse directly, Jones," said Sir Richard Blunt. "Yes, sir." In the course of ten minutes, Sir Richard Blunt was mounted, and off at a good trot to the City. Any one would have thought that he was going to Newgate; but such was not the case. The prisoners had flown, and he felt that by going to the prison he could only gratify his curiosity by seeing the precise mode in which they had effected their escape, when by going where he did go, he might do some good. He did not halt until he found himself at the shop of old Mr. Oakley, and then, although the hour was a very early one, he knocked at the door. Mr. Oakley put his head out at the window, and Sir Richard said "Don't be alarmed; I only want to speak to you for a few moments." "Oh, dear me, yes," said the old man. "I'm coming down stairs directlyI'm coming." In a few moments the old spectaclemaker opened the door, and came out to the side of the horse, from which the magistrate did not dismount, but leaning down to Mr. Oakley, he said, in an earnest tone "There's no occasion for any alarm, but I have come to tell you that Sweeney Todd has escaped from prison." "Oh, Lord!" "Hush! It is of no great moment. Where is your daughter and Mr. Ingestrie? I must put them upon their guard against anything that may arise, for there is no exactly saying what that rascal, Todd, may be at." "Oh, he will murder everybody." "I think, Mr. Oakley that is going just a little too far, for I will take good care that he don't murder me, nor any one else, if I can by any possibility help it. I will soon have him, I think. Where is Mr. Ingestrie, Mr. Oakley?" "Oh, dear, they are at the new house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. It's just opposite to the water if you go" "I know all about it, thank you, Mr. Oakley. All's right. Be under no apprehension, and above all things, don't you believe one word of anything you hear about Todd from popular rumour or from the newspapers. I will let you know everything that is of any consequence, personally or by letter. Good morning. I hope Mrs. Oakley is quite well this morning?" "Yes, charming; but, dear me!" "Yes, it is dear me. Good morning." Away rode the magistrate, and now he put his horse, which was a good one, to a smart trot, and made his way to Colonel Jeffery's house in a very short space of time; for London was not quite so large as it is now, and it was not a day's journey to go from one house to another if your friends happened to reside at different ends of the town. The colonel, at that hour of the morning, was up and walking in his garden. When Sir Richard Blunt was announced, he guessed at once that something very unusual had taken place; and after shaking hands, he said "I know there's some news. Sir Richard. Is it pleasant, or the other way?" "In truth," said Sir Richard, "that is a question I can scarcely answer you yet. All I have got to say is, that you had better look out, for they have let Todd get out of Newgate." "Escaped?" "Exactly so." "Now that is too bad. One would really have thought they would have taken care of such a fellow as that. How in the name of all that's abominable is it, that if any one escapes from Newgate, it is sure to be some notorious rascal who ought by all means to be the most carefully kept in it." "Ah! that I don't know, but I quite agree with you that it is a fact nevertheless." "It's a very awkward thing, and I am particularly obliged to you for coming to let me know.
" "Why, the fact is, colonel, my opinion of Todd is just this that now he has lost all his money he is just like a wild beast, and that revenge against all and every one who has been instrumental in bringing him to his present condition, will be the dominant feeling in his breast." "Not a doubt of it." "Then by awaking you to a sense of this danger both to yourself and to your protege, young Tobias, I am doing my duty. It is not courage that will protect any one from Sweeney Todd. If that had been the case, this is the last house I should have dreamt of coming to with a warning; but it will be only by the greatest circumspection that his attempt to assassinate may be avoided, and the villain foiled." "I thank you with all my heart, and feel the truth of your observation. I will not mention the matter to poor Tobias, for I feel that it would drive him half mad with terror; but I will take care to keep such a watch upon him, that no harm can come to him from Todd, now that I know that there is danger. He may, of course, hear of the affair from other sources, but he shall not from me." "That is right. Mind you, colonel, I don't think this state of alarm must last long, and as regards Tobias, I am in hope that at the same time he hears of Todd's escape, he may hear of his recapture, for I am going to set about that as soon as I possibly can, after I have warned every one interested to keep themselves on the lookout concerning the rascal." "You think you will have him again?" "Oh, yes. He must be without resources, or, at all events, comparatively so; and under such circumstances, we shall soon trace him. Besides, he is rather a remarkable man, and one who, once seen, is not only easily known again, but easily described; so that when I set all the agencies on foot which I have at my command to find him out, he cannot for long elude me." "I sincerely wish you every success." "Thank you, colonel, for I must now be off, for I have to get to Chelsea to warn the Ingestries of the possible, if not the probable danger of Todd trying some delectable scheme of revenge against them, for he is most furious I know against Johanna." "Off with you, Sir Richard, at once. Do not let me detain you, when you are upon such an errand. I would not have any harm come to Mrs. Ingestrie for worlds." "Nor I. Good morning." The magistrate mounted his horse again, and waving his hand to the colonel, he again started at a good round trot, and made the best of his way by the nearest possible route he could to Chelsea, where Mr. and Mrs. Ingestrie had set up housekeeping in Cheyne Walk. That portion of Chelsea was then very fashionable, and from the appearance of the houses even now, it is very easy to see that it must have been a very desirable place at one time. All the evidences of wealthy ease meet you on every hand, as you look at those broad, wellput together, aristocratic residences, with their pretty bit of highly cultivated garden in front of them, and their massive doorways. It was in one of these houses that Johanna and her young husband had taken up their residence. The string of pearls had been actually purchased by royalty of Johanna, and had produced a sum of money that had not only placed the young couple above all the ordinary pecuniary accidents of life, but had enabled them to surround Mr. and Mrs. Oakley with comforts, although the old spectaclemaker, from very habit, would stick to his shop, declaring, and no doubt with great truth, that his daily labour was now such a thing of habit that he would be miserable without it. It was a very different thing, though, for old Mr. Oakley now to work at the bench in his shop, when he felt that he was placed above the real necessity for doing so, to when he had worked very hard indeed to support himself and Johanna, during the period, too, when in consequence of Mrs. Oakley's rather insane predilection for the Reverend Josiah Lupin, there was no comfort in the house, and, but for Johanna, all would have gone to rack and ruin. The frightfully dirty ditch that lies before and beyond Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, was not then in existence, so that the really handsome row of residences was not destroyedas it is nowby such dubious companionship. The river, too, was much clearer than now of craft, and likewise much sweeter, so that really at times, when the sun shone upon its ripples, it really deserved the title of "The Silver Thames." It was still an early hour when Sir Richard Blunt reached Chelseathat is to say, it was what then was considered an early hour, for all the world was not in the hurry that is the fashion now, and people did everything in a much more easy and deliberate way than they do now. What is gained, or pretended to be gained, by all the hurryskurry and jostling and driving that characterises society at present? We must confess ourselves at a loss to imagine, and we are decidedly of opinion that people were both happier and better when everything was taken in an easy way, and when folks did not disturb their dignities by all sorts of frantic manoeuvres to save time, as if the whole end and aim of life was to get through as much of what is called business as possible, and as if the principal business of everybody was not to be as quiet and comfortable as possible. The magistrate could not but pause for a moment as he reached Cheyne Walk and saw the bright sun shining upon the water, and gilding with beauty the sails of some small craft that were taking advantage of a light pleasant breeze to get along without labour. "A pretty enough place this," he said, "and I don't know any that I should prefer to idle away my life in, if I had nothing to do, as I hope to have some of these odd daysbut not yet." CHAPTER CXLI. SHOWS HOW TODD MADE UP HIS MIND TO VENGEANCE. Sir Richard drew bridle opposite the house of Mr. Ingestrie, and called to an urchin who was passing to ring the bell for him. The boy complied and in a few moments a servant made an appearance, to whom Sir Richard said "If your master is stirring, pray tell him that a gentleman wishes to speak to him for a few moments." These words were hardly past the lips of the magistrate, when some one, with a bunch of flowers in her hand, and one of the prettiest of pretty morning dresses, came to the door. It was our old, dear, young, kind friend, Johanna! We cannot help calling her Johanna still, although, perhaps, it would be more proper for us to name her Mrs. Ingestrie; but it seems so odd to append that title of "Mrs." to our gentle, youthful Johanna, whose dangers in Todd's shop we have watched and trembled at so often in times past. "Ah! my dear friend," she cried, when she saw who it was. "I am so glad to see you!" "And I am equally glad to see you," said Sir Richard, "particularly as you look so well and so happy." Sir Richard Blunt Pays A Visit To Johanna, At Chelsea. Sir Richard Blunt Pays A Visit To Johanna, At Chelsea. "Yes, I am happy. Mark! Mark! here is Sir Richard come to breakfast with us." "Nay, I did not think of dismounting." "Oh, but you must. I will hold the bridle of the horse, and you will have to ride over me if you attempt to go away. MarkMark! where are you!" Upon these repeated calls, Mark Ingestrie make his appearance at the door, and looked pleased enough to see Sir Richard, who, finding that they would take no sort of denial, he felt that he could not do otherwise than dismount and enter the house. A servant of the Ingestries took charge of his horse, and he was soon in the breakfastroom of the pretty house, inhabited by the young couple. It did not escape the observation of Johanna that there was a cloud of seriousness upon the countenance of Sir Richard Blunt; but she did not make any remark, although each moment she felt more and more convinced that it was some matter of business that called the magistrate to their abode so early; for it will be remembered that although he had transacted a good quantity of business, the day was yet very young. Mark Ingestrie did not appear to have any idea beyond the fact that it was very kind of the magistrate to visit them; but the reader will easily excuse him for not being so acute an observer as Johanna. "I hope," said Mark, "that you will often take a canter over here, Sir Richard, before the business of the day commences, and breakfast with us. I know how very hopeless it is to expect you often at any other time." "It is rather so," replied Sir Richard, "and my stay now must be very limited indeed. How do you both like your new house?" "It is charming," said Johanna, "and the view from the windows is full of animation for the greater part of the day." "It's the view indoors," smiled Mark, "that to me is so delightful and so full of animation." "That is just what I should have supposed," said the magistrate, glancing at Johanna with a smile. "Now, positively, I must go and take my breakfast in some other room," said Johanna, "if there are to be any compliments. They are quite absurd, you know, among married folks." "And a little unfair," said Sir Richard, "at meal times, I think, above all others." "Indeed?" said Mark. "Yes, to be sure," added Johanna, "for you know one is either obliged to hear the compliments, which feed no one but with false viands, or leave the table upon which there may be something much more substantial and decidedly more palatable." "I give in," said Mark, "I give in. I don't for one moment profess to be a match for you alone, my dear; but when you get Sir Richard to side with you, I feel that I had better say as little as possible." "A graceful defeat," said Sir Richard, "is almost as good as a clumsy victory." "Much better," said Johanna, "a great deal better. But now, Sir Richard, you have not ridden over here to help us at our breakfast, or to talk badinage." Mark opened his eyes very wide indeed, and looked from Johanna to the magistrate, and from the magistrate to Johanna, with evident surprise. An expression of great anxiety was each moment gathering over the face of Johanna, which Sir Richard saw, and with all that tact which with him was a kind of second nature, he said "I have had the pleasure of seeing your father this morning, and they are all well at the old house, and as comfortable as can be." Johanna drew a long breath of relief, and then Mark Ingestrie cried in a voice of surprise "What? Do you mean to say you have been in the city before you came here, sir?" "I have, my friend, and I have been to Colonel Jeffery's, too, before I came here. If I had not, I should not be able to indulge myself with the pleasure of staying here for even the short time that I have been beneath your roof. I must, however, go." "Something has happened!" said Johanna. "So there has," said the magistrate with a smile, "but it cannot be anything very serious, you know, as all our dear friends are well. Anything falls light in comparison with the health and happiness of those whom we love." "Oh, yesyes," said Johanna. "You are right, and you are very good to preface bad news in so kind a manner, Sir Richard. It is good, and kind, and grateful, and like you in all respects. I thank you from my heart." "But what's it all about?" cried Mark Ingestrie. "Good gracious, what's it all about? Who talks of bad news? If all our friends are well, how can there be bad news? Do not keep us in suspense, Sir Richard!" "Nono," said Johanna. "I will not." Both Johanna and Mark Ingestrie looked most intently at the magistrate, as he said in his quiet way "Sweeney Todd has escaped from Newgate, and is now at large!" Mark Ingestrie sprang to his feet, and Johanna, for a moment, turned rather pale. "The villain!" cried Mark. "Hush!" said Johanna. "Oh, hush, Mark!" "It was of the utmost importance," continued Sir Richard Blunt, speaking quite calmly, "that all who were in any way comprehended in the list of what Sweeney Todd would call his enemies, should be speedily informed of this fact, and that is what has brought me to Chelsea at so early an hour in the morning." "We thank you from our hearts," said Johanna. "We do, indeed," said Mark. "But let him beware of me. He dare not, villain as he is, come within the reach of my arm. The spirit of my poor murdered friend, Thornhill, will cry aloud for vengeance, and nothing should save the murderer from death." "Oh, MarkMark!" said Johanna, "do not speak in such a strain. You do not know Todd. You know nothing of the character and of the capabilities of that man. He is not only one of the most wicked, but he is likewise one of the most crafty and unscrupulous." "That is true," said the magistrate. "He does not know him. Do you suppose for one moment, Mr. Ingestrie, that I would have ridden over here to give you such a special warning concerning this man, if I apprehended any open attack? Nothat I could have trusted to you to ward off. Your life has been one of danger and adventure; but not you, nor I, nor all the world, can be prepared against what Todd may, in the profound depths of his imagination, attempt." "All that is true," said Johanna, "most true." "You now really alarm me!" said Mark. "Then I did not mean to do so. All I wished was that you should be made aware of the real extent of the possible danger. For myself, I look upon all such men as Sweeney Todd as mad men, to a certain extent; and now that he is deprived of his money, there is no knowing but he may be willing to sacrifice his life for the gratification of, no doubt, one of the most powerful feelings of his mind, which is revenge!" "No doubt," said Johanna. A flush of colour came over the cheek of the young husband, and he took the hand of Johanna in his, as he said "Oh, Sir Richard, only tell me now I may best secure this treasure against the machinations of that monster in human shape." "Nay, now, Mr. Ingestrie," said Sir Richard, "do not fall into the other extreme, and make too much of this danger. We are very apt to pet some peril, until we make it to our imagination assume a much larger shape than really belongs to it. I hope that Todd will be in custody again soon." "Is it likely, sir?" "I fancy so. From this day I abandon all other objects and pursuits, and devote myself to that task alone." "Then there is a hope," said Johanna. "Yes," added Sir Richard. "My impression is that he has no money, and that I shall soon apprehend him; but if, unknown to me, he has any secret funds, he may make an attempt to leave the kingdom, and so foil me." "And if he does?" "I follow him, for I am determined that sooner or later, dead or alive, Todd shall be given up to the law." "But you will advise us what to do," said Mark Ingestrie. "In your experience you can suggest to us the best mode of proceeding in this emergency." "I have been thinking of that as I came along, and my advice is that you leave London immediately. I do not think that the danger, admitting that there is any at all, is immediate. Todd for some days will be far too intent upon evading pursuit and recognition to think of much else, besides his personal safety, so that you will have ample time to leave." "We will do so," said Johanna, "at once. Where would you advise us to go?" "There is a little fishing village on the south coast, called Brighthelmstone. It lies in a pleasant enough valley stretching to the sea. There you can remain quite unsuspected of Todd, and enjoy the fair sea breezes that make the place delightful, without a thought of danger, for it is not that way he will go, as the place is not a port from which he could take shipping if he wished to leave England; and if he did not wish to leave at all, nothing could be further from his thoughts than going so far from London, and the spot upon which all his revenge could alone be attempted to be gratified." "We will go," said Johanna, appealingly looking at Mark Ingestrie as she spoke. "Certainly," he replied. "Well, then," said Sir Richard, "since that is so far settled, I have a favour to ask of you both." "You have but to name it," said Ingestrie. "You ought rather to say that you have a command to give us both." "Yes," said Johanna, "that is so." "No. If I thought that, I should not like to mention it. But I appeal to your candour to say 'yes,' or 'no,' to the request, according as you really feel inclined when you hear it. You know how anxious Todd has been to take the life of the poor lad, Tobias, who has suffered so much at his hands." "Oh, yesyes," said Johanna. "Well. Have you any objection to take him with you?" "None in the least," cried Mark. Johanna turned to him with a smile, as she said "Mark, I thank you with all my heart for that ready reply and acquiescence with the proposal of Sir Richard Blunt, and I echo it by likewise saying, 'None in the least.'" "You have met the proposal as I anticipated you both would," said the magistrate, "or I should not have made it. You will find poor Tobias one of the most gentle and inoffensive of beings; but his nature has been so acted upon by Todd, that it would drive him to the verge of madness if he thought that the villain were at large; so I do not wish that he should know as much until it can be coupled with information of his recapture." "The secret shall be kept." "Then my business is concluded, and I am sorry to say my pleasure also; for it has been a real one to visit you both; and I must be off at once. I will communicate with Colonel Jeffery about Tobias, and manage how he shall come to you. A postchaise will take you in six hours to the place I have mentioned, which you will find marked on the map." "I know it," said Ingestrie. "That is well. And now goodday." The Ingestries took a warm and affectionate leave of Sir Richard, who, in ten minutes more, was on his road to London. CHAPTER CXLII. RETURNS TO TODD IN THE WOOD AT HAMPSTEAD. While all this was going on, contingent upon his elopement from Newgate, Todd was still in the wood at Hampsteadthat wood in which he had committed so barbarous a murder, in ridding the world of almost as great a rascal as himself, in the shape of Mr. Lupin. Todd was as anxious as possible to leave the wood, but he felt that to do so in daylight would be jeopardising himself much too seriously. He was not without money, as the reader is aware; and after placing some distance between himself and the dead body of Mr. Lupin, he sat down upon the roots of an old tree to think. It was not that Todd had any particular terrors connected with the dead body of Mr. Lupin that induced him to get away from the neighbourhood of the body, but he thought it was just possible some people might come into the wood, and in such a case he did not wish to be connected with the deed in consequence of any contiguity to it. "What shall I do?" said Todd, after he had rested for some time with his head upon his hand. "That is the questionwhat shall I do? I have some money, but not enough. Oh, that I had but a tithe of the amount that once was mine! I would yet leave England for ever, and forego all my thoughts of vengeance, unless I could contrive from a great distance to do some mischief, and that might be done if very cunningly contrived; but they have taken from me allall!" Here Mr. Todd indulged in a few expletives, with which we do not think proper to encumber our pages; and after swearing himself into a state of comparative calmness again, he held up his left hand, and separating the fingers, he began to count upon them the names of people. "Let me see," he said. "Let me see, how many throats now it would give me a very special pleasure to cutHumphHa. Sir Richard Bluntone; Tobias Raggtwo; Colonel Jefferythree; Johanna Oakleyfour; and her husband, that is, I suppose, by this time, fiveconfound him! Ah! those make up the five that I most specially should like to sacrifice! A whole handful of victims! After they were comfortably despatched, no doubt, I could think of a few more; but it is better to confine one's attention to the principals for a time. The others may drop in afterwards, when one has nothing more important to do." He thought he heard a noise in the wood, and he stooped his head to listen. It was nothing, or if it had been anything, it quickly ceased again, and he was tolerably satisfied that he was alone. "What a delightful thing, now, it would be," he muttered, "if I could poison the whole lot of them at once, with some drug that would give them the most excruciating agony! And then I should like to go round to them all, and shout in their ears'I did it!I, Sweeney Todd, did it!' That would be glorious, indeed! Ha! ha!" "Ha!" said a voice behind him, following up his hideous laugh most closely in point of tone. It was almost with what might be called a yell of terror that Todd sprang to his feet, and turned round, fully expecting to see some one; but not the slightest vestige of the presence of any human being met his eyes. After gazing for a moment or two, he thought that surely some one must be hiding behind one of the trees, and he sprang forward, crying "Disclose yourself, villain! Crafty wretch, you or I must die!" There was no reply to this; and he could find no one, although he looked narrowly about, for the next quarter of an hour, all over the spot. He felt quite convinced that no one could have slipped away without him hearing something of the footfall, however light it might be; and he was left, by this extraordinary circumstance, in a complete maze of terrified conjecture. He trembled in every limb from positive fright. No man was probably more generally free from what might be called superstitious terrors, than Sweeney Todd. At least, we may certainly say, that no guilty man ever could be more free from them. Had such not been the case, it is quite impossible that he could have carried on the career that he did; but of late, two or three things had happened to him to give his imagination a kind of jog upon such subjects. He might well be excused for a little kind of nervousness now, when he felt quite confident that a laugh from no mortal lungs had sounded within a few inches of his ears, at so strange a moment. "What can it be?" he said, in a voice of terror. "What can it be? Have I all along been mistaken; and is there such a thing as an invisible world of spirits about us? Oh, what can I think?what excuse can I now give myself for an unbelief, without which I should have gone quite mad longlong ago?" The heavy drops stood upon his brow, and he was forced to stagger back, and hold by a tree for support. After a few moments of this condition, however, the determined spirit of the man triumphed over the fears that beset him, and raising his voice, he said "Nono; I will never be the slave of such wild fancies! This is no time for me to give way to a belief in these things, which all my life I have laughed to scorn! If I had believed what the world pretends to believe, I must have been stark staring mad to load my soul with guilt in the way I have done, if my recompense had been the accumulated wealth of all the kingdoms of the earth; for death would, despite all that, come and rob me of all, leaving me poor as any beggar who lays him down by the road side to die!" While he spoke, he glared nervously and apprehensively about him, and then he drew a long breath, as he added "I take shame to myself now to have one particle of fear. Have not I, at the hour of midnight, many and many a time threaded the mazes of the dark vaults of St. Dunstan's, when I knew that I was all but surrounded by the festering, gaunt remains of heaps of my victims? and shall I here, with the open sky above me, and only the known neighbourhood of one dead villain, shake in such a way? Nono!" He stamped upon the ground to reassure himself; and then, as though willing to taunt the unseen laugher into a repetition of the mocking sound, he again cried "Ha!ha!" There was no response to this, and it was rather a disappointment to Todd that there was not, for a hope had been growing upon his mind to the effect, that it was only some echo in the wood, to which he had been indebted for his fright; but now, when it did not occur again as it ought to have done, if it had been a result from any natural cause, he was thrown back upon his strength of mind merely to shake it off as best he might. "Fancy! fancy!" he cried. "It was but fancy after all;" but he did not believe himself when he so spoke. Todd remained in the wood tolerably free from any more alarms, until the sun sunk in the west; and while there was positive darkness in that place where he was hiding, a sweet twilight still lingered over the fair face of nature. "I must not venture forth yet," he said, "but in another hour it will be dark alike upon the heath as in the wood, and then I will go into the village and get some refreshment, after which, I rather think, that London, with all its dangers, will be the best place for me. I have heard of people hiding there for many a day. I wonder, now, if a lodging in the Old Bailey would be a good thing? Surely they would never think of looking for me there." Todd rather chuckled over this pleasant idea of a lodging in the Old Bailey. It was just one of the notions that, for its practical extravagance, rather pleased him than otherwise, but although it had something to recommend it, it required rather more boldness than even he was master of to carry it out. But such thoughts sufficed to amuse him until darkness was upon the face of the land, and to withdraw his thoughts from other and more tormenting matters; so that for a time he even forgot the seemingly supernatural laugh that had sounded so oddly behind him, and produced in him such a world of alarm. He heard the clock of Hampstead Church proclaim the hour of nine, and then he thought that he might venture from his place of concealment; and yet it will be seen that Todd had not been able to concoct any definite plan of operations. Then he was wishing to do many things, and yet unable in that anxious state of his fortunes to do anything at all. Truly, Sir Richard Blunt was right enough, when he said that Todd, for a time, would be much too busy with his own affairs to take any active step for the accomplishment of any of his revenges. In the wood, now, the darkness was so great, that literally you could not see your hand before your face; and the only plan by which he could leave it was by blundering right on, and trusting to get out at any point to which his chance steps might lead him. In about a quarter of an hour he came to a rather precipitous bank, which he clambered up, and then he found himself on the outskirts of the wood, and not far from the village. He heard some one coming along the roadway, and whistling as he came. The moon was struggling against the shadowing influence of a mass of clouds in the horizon, and Todd felt that in a little time the whole place would be light enough. "Am I sufficiently unlike myself," he said, "to trust an appearance in the village? I want food, and most of all, I want drink. Yes, now more than ever; I cannot pretend to live without stimulants. Yes, I will risk it, and then I will go to London." He sprang down into the road, and in as careless a manner as he could, he walked on in the direction that he thought would take him to the village. The man who was whistling as he came along, rather increased his pace, and to the great alarm of Todd, overtook him, and said "A fine night, sir, we shall have? The moon is getting up nicely now, sir!" Todd breathed a little more freely. After all, it was not an enemy, but only one of those people so common in places a little way out of town, who are talkative to any one they may meet, for the mere love of talking. For once in his life, Todd determined upon being wonderfully gracious, and he replied quite in a tone of serenity "Yes, it is a nice night; and, as you say, the moon is rising beautifully." "Yes, sir," added the man, who was carrying something that Todd could not, for the life of him, make out. "Yes, sir, and I am not sorry to get home, now. I have been all round by Hendon, Golders Green, and Finchley, sticking bills." "Bills?" "Yes, sir, about the murderer Todd, you know!" "Oh, ah!" "You know, sir, he has got out of Newgate, and there's five hundred pounds reward offered by the guvment for him. A nice little set up that would be, sir, for any one, wouldn't it, sir?" "Very." "All the billstickers round London have had a job in putting up the bills, and they say that if it costs a million of money they intend to have him." "And very proper too," said Todd. "Can you spare a bill, my friend?" "Oh, yes. There's hand ones as well as posters. Here's one, sir, and you'll find a description of him. Oh, don't I only wish I could come across him, that's all; I'd make rather a tidy day's work then, I think. That would be a little better, sir, than the pastepot, wouldn't it?" "Rather," said Todd; "but he might be rather a dear bargain; for such a man, I should think, would not be very easily taken!" "There's something in that, sir, as you say, but yet I would have a try. Five hundred pounds, you know, sir, is not to be picked up everyday on the roadside." "Certainly not! Is that Hampstead where the lights are, to the left, there?" "Yes, right on. I live at westend, and my way lays this way. Good night, sir!" "Good night," said Todd. "I hope you may have the luck of meeting with this Todd, and so earning the five hundred pounds you mention; but I am afraid, after all, there is not much chance, for I heard he had gone down to the coast, and had got on board a vessel and was off by this time. That may not be true, though. Goodnight!" CHAPTER CXLIII. TODD TAKES A LOOK AT HIS OLD QUARTERS IN FLEET STREET. The village of Hampstead was, at the time of which we write, really a village. It still retains many of its old houses and picturesque beauties, but it is not quite such a little retired spot as it was. If ever any one walked through Hampstead, however, who was less inclined than another to pause and speculate upon its beauties, certainly that man was our doubtful acquaintance, Sweeney Todd. He did not think it quite prudent to stop in the High Street to solace himself with any worldly comforts, although he saw several publichouses very temptingly open, but passing right on, he descended Red Lion Hill, and paused at a little inn at the foot of it, that is to say, on the London side of the pretty village. Brandy was Todd's request, and he was met by a prompt, "Yes, sir;" but Todd had, among his varied experiences, to find out what Hampstead brandy was, and the moment he placed a portion of it in his mouth, his eyes goggled furiously, and spitting it out, he said, in a voice of anger "This is some mistake." "Mistake, sir?" "Yes; I asked for brandy, and you have given me the rinsings of some bottles and dirty glasses." "Oh, dear no, sir; that brandy is the very best that you will get in all Hampstead." "The best in all Hampstead!" repeated Todd, with a groan; "what must the worst be, I wonder?" "I assure you, sir, it is considered to be very good." "Considered?" said Todd. "Then, my friend, there's your money, and as the brandy is considered to be so good, you can drink it; but having some respect, from old companionship, for my inside, I decline it. Good evening." With these words, Todd laid a shilling upon the bar, and strode away. "Well," said the publican, "how singular! that's the eighth person who has refused that one quartern of brandy and paid for it. Here, wife, put this back into the bottle again, and shake it up well.
" Todd pursued his route down Haverstock Hill, until he came to the then straggling district of Camden Town, and there he did find a house at which he got just a tolerable glass of brandy, and feeling very much invigorated by the drop, he walked on more rapidly still; and a thought took possession of him, which, although it was perhaps not unattended with danger, might turn out to be a very felicitous one. During his career in the shop in Fleet Street, he had collected a number of watches from the pockets of the murdered persons, but he had always been afraid to attempt the disposal of the best of them. The fact was, that at that time everybody had not a watch as at present. It was an expensive article, and Mr. Soandso's watch was as well known as Mr. Soandso himself; so that it would have been one of the most hazardous things possible for Todd to have brought suspicion upon himself by going about disposing of the watches of his victims. It was the same, too, with some other costly articles, such as rings, lockets, and so on; and as he had realised as much money as he could previous to his arrangements for leaving England, Todd had left some of this description of property to perish in the fire, which he hoped to be the means of igniting in old Fleet Street upon his departure. Now, as he crept along by TottenhamCourtRoad, he mused upon the state of things. "If," he muttered, "I could only get into my late house in Fleet Street, I know where to lay my hand upon portable property, which was not worth my consideration while I had thousands of pounds in gold, but which now would be a fortune to me in my reduced circumstances. If I could but lay my hand upon it!" The more Todd thought over this proposition, the more pleased he was with it; and by the time he had indulged himself with two more glasses of brandy, it began to assume, to his mind, a much more tangible shape. "It may be done," he said, "it surely may be done. If I could only make my way in the church it might be done well, and surely one of these picklocks that I have about me might enable me to do that." The picklock he alluded to was one that he had put in his pocket to accommodate Mr. Lupin, when they were both so intent upon their escape from Newgate, and when Mr. Lupin was foolish enough to believe that Todd really had two thousand pounds buried in Caen Wood, Hampstead. There was one thing, however, which made Todd pause. He did not think he was sufficiently disguised to venture into the locality of his old residence, and, unfortunately for him, he was rather a peculiarlooking man. His great chance, however, was, that in Fleet Street surely no one would now think of looking for Sweeney Todd. "I must be bold," he said, "I must be bold and resolute. It will not do to shrink now. I will buy a knife." This was a pleasant idea to Todd. Buying a knife seemed almost like getting halfway to his revenge, and he went into an obscure cutler's shop, and bought a long doubleedged knife, for which he gave two shillings. He then carefully concealed it in his clothing. After this, he hit upon a plan of operations which he thought would have the effect of disguising him. At that period, wigs were so commonly worn that it was nothing at all particular for a person to go into a wigmakers, and select oneput it onpay for itand go away! "Yes," said Todd, "I will buy a wig; for I have art enough and knowledge of wigs to enable me to do soas shall produce the greatest possible change in my appearance. A wig, a wig will be the thing." Todd had hardly well made this declaration than he came upon a wigmakers, and in he went. Pointing to a wig that was on a block, and which had a very clerical kind of look, he inquired the price of it. "Oh, my dear sir," said the wigmaker, "that is much too old looking a perriwig for you. Let me recommend you a much younger wig. Now, sir, here's one that will take a matter of ten years off your age in a moment." Todd had discretion enough to know well that he could not make up young, so he merely pointed to the wig again and enquired the price. "Well, sir, it is a couple of guineas, but" Without another word, Todd laid down the couple of guineas, and putting the wig upon his head he left the shop, certainly having given the wigmaker an impression that he was the oddest customer he had had for some time; but little did he suspect that that odd customer was the criminal with whose name all London was ringing, and upon whose headwith or without a wigso heavy a price was set. After this, Todd made his way to a shop where secondhand clothing was bought and sold, and there he got accommodated with an old gray coat that reached down to the calves of his legs, and he bought likewise a very voluminous white cravat; and when he got into the street with these articles, and purchased at another shop a walking cane, with a great silver top to it, and put one hand behind his back and stooped very much, and moved along as if he were afflicted with all the corns and bunions that his toes could carry, and by bending his knees, decreased his height six inches, no one could have known him. At least, so Todd flattered himself. In this way he tottered on until he got to the immediate neighbourhood of Fleet Street. To be sure, with all his coolness and courage, he could not help shaking a little when he came to that well remembered neighbourhood. "And I," he thought to himself, "and I by this time hoped and expected to be far over the sea, instead of being such a wretch as I am now, crawling about, as it were, amid pitfalls and all sorts of dangers! Alas! alas!" He really shook now, and it was quite astonishing how, with his old wig, and his old gray coat and his stick, and his stooping posture, old and venerable, yes, positively venerable, Sweeney Todd actually looked. "Ain't you well, sir?" said a respectable man, stepping up to him. "Can I assist you?" Todd perpetrated about half a dozen wheezing coughs, and then, not sorry for an opportunity of trying his powers of imitation of age, he replied in a tremulous voice "Ah, sir! Yesold ageold age, sireugh!eugh!oh, dear me, I feel that I am on my last legs, and that they are on the shakeold age, sir, will come on; but it's a comfort to look back upon a long life well spent in deeds of charity!" "Not a doubt of it," said the stranger. "I was only afraid, sir, you were taken suddenly ill, as you stood there." "Oh, nonoeugh!no. Thank you, sir." "Good evening, sir." "Good evening, my good sir. Oh, if I had you only in my old shop with a razor at your throat, wouldn't I polish you off!" muttered Todd, as the stranger left him. In the course of another minute, Todd was on the Fleet Street side of Temple Bar. He could almost see his old housethat house in which he had passed years of deep iniquity, and which he had hoped, ere that time, would have been a heap of ruins. There it was, tall, dismal, and gaunt looking. The clock of St. Dunstan's struck eleven. "Eleven," he muttered. "A good hour. The streets are getting deserted now, and no one will know me. I will stoop yet more, and try to look olderolder still." Todd a little over acted his part, as he tottered down Fleet Street, so that some individuals turned to look after him, which was a thing he certainly did not wish, as his great object was to escape all observation if possibly he could; so he corrected that, and went on rather more strongly; and finally he came exactly opposite to his own house, and getting partially into a doorway, he looked long and fixedly at it. What thoughts, at that time, chased each other through the guilty mind of that man, it is hard to say; but he stood like a statue, fixing his regards upon the house for the space of about a quarter of an hour. Once only he clapped his teeth together, and gave a sort of savage growl. It was lucky for Todd that no one saw him just then, or they would have thought him rather an extraordinary old man. The house was perfectly dark from top to bottom. The shutters of the shop, of course, were all up, and the shutters of the firstfloor windows were likewise closed. The other windows had their old dingy blinds all down; and, to all outward appearance, that den of murder was deserted. But Todd could not believe such to be the case. In his own mind, he felt fully sure, that Sir Richard Blunt was not the man to leave the house without some sort of custody; and he quite settled with himself, that there was some one or more persons minding it, and, no doubt, by order, sitting there in one of the back rooms, so that no light should show in front. "Curses on them all!" he muttered. "Ah! you are looking at old Todd's house, sir?" said a voice. Todd started; and close to him was a person smoking a pipe, and looking as jolly as possible. "Yesyes," stammered Todd, for he was taken by surprise rather. "Oh, yes, sir. I am amazed at the great wickedness of human nature." "You may well, siryou may well! Lord bless me! I never thought him a good looking man, but I never thought any ill of him neither, and I have seen him lots of times." "Indeed, sir? Pray, what sort of man was he? I never saw him, as I live in Soho; and I am so much in years now, that in the bustling daytime I don't care to come into streets like this; for you see, sir, I can't move about as I could sixty years ago; and the peopleGod help themare all in such a hurry now, and they push me here and there in such a way, that my failing breath and limbs won't stand it; andandeugh!eugh! Oh, dear." "Poor old gentleman! I don't wonder at your not liking the crowds. How old may you be, sir?'" "A matter of eightynine, sir. It's an old age to get to, but II am younger than my brother, yetHa! ha! Oh dear, if it wasn't now for the rheumatism and the lumbago and a pain in my shoulder, and a few other little things, I should get on very well." "Not a doubt of it. But you asked me what Todd was like, and I'll tell you, sir. He was nigh upon six feet high, and his face was two feet of it. He was just as ugly as any one you would wish to see for a pattern in that way, and that's his house where he murdered all the people." "Peace be to their souls!" "Amen! And there are underground places that lead right away through the vaults of St. Dunstan's to Bellyard, where Mrs. Lovett's pieshop was, you know, sir." "I have heard. Ah, deardear, I have heard. A very wicked woman, indeedvery wicked; and yet, sir, it is to be hoped she has found mercy in another world." "There would need be plenty of it," said the man with the pipe, "if Mrs. Lovett is to be accommodated with any." "My friend," said Todd, "don't be profane; and now I must go, as I don't like being out late." "And so must I, for my pipe's out. I shall turn in, now. Good night, sir, and a pleasant walk home to you." "Thank you, sir, thank youeugh! eugh! I think if it were not for my cough, I should do very well." Todd hobbled away, and the man, who lived in Bouverie Street, went home. Todd had not got any real information from this man; but the brief conversation he had had with him, had given him a sort of confidence in his disguise, and in his power of acting, that he had not had before, so that, upon the whole, he was not sorry for the little incident. And now it was quite evident that the streets were getting very much deserted. During the whole length of Fleet Street there was not half a dozen persons to be seen at all, and Todd, after casting a rapid glance around him to note if he were observed, suddenly crossed the way, and boldly went up to the door of old St. Dunstan's Church. When once close to the door of the old building, he was so much in shadow that he felt tolerably secure from observation, but still he lingered a little, for he did not want to do anything so hastily as to rob it of its caution. With his back against the churchdoor he glanced right and left, and then for the space of five minutes he bent all his faculties to the one task of ascertaining if any one was sufficiently near to watch him, and he got perfectly satisfied that such was not the case. He stood securely against the old churchdoor. "So far," he muttered, "I am safequite safe." CHAPTER CXLIV. TODD MAKES HIS WAY INTO HIS OWN HOUSE. When Todd was satisfied that he was not watched or even observed by any one, he turned and commenced operations upon the door of the church. The cunning person who had put on the lock, had had a notion in his necromantic head, that the larger you made a lock the better it was, and the less likely to be picked; and the consequence of this was, that Todd found no difficulty in opening the churchdoor. The moment he felt the lock yield to the false key he employed, he took another keen glance around him, and, seeing no one, slipped into the sacred edifice and closed the door behind him. Feeling, then, up and down the door until his hand touched a bolt, he shot it into its socket, and then a feeling of great security took possession of him, although the interior of the church was most profoundly dark, and any one would have thought that such a man as Toddin such a placecould hardly have been free from some superstitious terrors. An overbearing selfishness, however, mingled with the most vengeful and angry feelings, kept Todd above all these sensations, which are mostly the result of vacant mindedness. The church felt cold, and the silence had about it a character such as the silence of no other kind of place has. It may be imagination, but the silence of a church deserted, always appears to us to be a silence different from any other, as the silence in a wood is entirely different from any other description of stillness. "All is quiet enough here," whispered Todd. "I and the dead have this place to ourselves now, and so we have often had it. Many a time have I waded about this building in the still hours of the night, when all London slept, and opened some little window, with the hope of letting out the stench from the dead bodies before the morning should bring people to the building; but it would not do. The smell of decomposition lingered in the air, and it is here still, though not so bad. Yes, it is here still! I can smell it now, and I know the odour well." Todd was sufficiently familiar with St. Dunstan's church almost to go over it even at that hour, and amid that darkness, without running against anything; but yet he was very careful as he went, and kept his arms outstretched before him. He dreaded to get a light, although he had the means of doing so, for Mr. Lupin had, at his request, given him some of the matches and little waxcandleends that the pious lady had supplied him with. Yet Todd knew how small a light would suffice to shine through some of the richly stained glass windows of the church, and therefore he dreaded to give himself a light. He felt confident that he should have no sort of difficulty in getting into the vaults, for in consequence of recent events the stone that covered up the entrance could not be fast, and he knew from past experience that his strength was sufficient to raise it if he once got hold of it, and if it were not fastened down by cement, which, no doubt, was not the case now. "I shall yet get," he said, "into my old house. The time has been rather short, and the goods there deposited by me in old times may there remain; and if so, I will carry away enough with me to keep me far above the necessities of life, and when once I have achieved that much, I will from some obscure place meditate upon my revenge." In the course of about ten minutes he found the flat stone that led into the vaults, and to his satisfaction he found that it was merely laid crosswise over the aperture, in order to prevent any one in day time from heedlessly tumbling in, but at night it was not, of course, expected that any one would be there to fall into such a danger. With one effort Todd removed it. "Good," he said. "Now I can make my way, and once below the level of the floor of the church, there will be no danger in at once accommodating myself with a light, which will be useful enough in the vaults." Getting upon his hands and knees now, Todd, for fear of a fall down the stone steps, cautiously got down the first few of them, and then he paused to light one of the bits of taper with which he was provided. In the course of a few moments the tiny flame was clear and bright, and shading it with his hand, Todd carefully descended the remainder of the stairs. How still everything was in those vaults of old St. Dunstan's. Were there no spirits from another worldspirits of the murdered, to flit in horrible palpability before the eyes of that man who had cut short their thread of life? Surely if ever a visitant from another world could have been expected, it would have been to appear to Todd to convince him that there was more beyond the grave than a forgotten name and a mouldering skeleton. When he reached the foot of the stairs and was satisfied that the little light was burning well, he held it up above his head and bent a keen glance around him. "Ha! ha!" he laughed, "so they have been doing their bestpoor fools as they are to meddle with such rubbishto rid the family vaults of some of the new tenants that I took occasion to introduce into them. Well, let them, let them! I did play a little havoc with the gentility of the dead, I must admit!" With this highly jocose remark, Todd passed on, taking a route well known to him, which would conduct him to the cellar that it will be recollected was immediately underneath his shop. It was from this that he hoped to get into the house. Todd In The Scene Of His Murders. Todd In The Scene Of His Murders. It took Todd much less time than it would have taken any one else to make his way to that cellar; but then no one was or could be so well acquainted with all the windings and turnings of the excavation that led to it as he, and finally he reached it, just as he found the necessity of lighting up another little piece of wax candle, as the one he had already lit had burnt right to his hand. He found a piece of wood, into which he stuck the new one securely, so that it was much handier to hold. Todd now felt the absolute necessity of being much more cautious than before, for he did know who might be in the shop above, and he did know that a very small sound below would make itself heard. Holding up the light, he saw that his nice little mechanical arrangement regarding the two chairs, remained just as it had been as he used to use it. "Ah!" he cried, "it will be some time in London again before people will sit down in a barber's chair with anything like confidence, particularly if it should chance to be a fixture. Ha!" Todd was getting quite merry now. The sight of the old familiar objects of that place had certainly raised his spirits very considerably, and no doubt the brandy had helped a little. Setting the light down in a corner of the cellar, he placed himself in an attitude of intense listening, which he kept up for about five minutes, at the end of which time he gave a nod, and muttered "There may be some one in the parlourthat I will not pretend to say no to; but the shop is free of human occupants. And now for the means of getting into it. If anybody can, I can, and that with tolerable ease, too." The apparatus by which Todd had been in the habit of letting down his customers, consisted of a slight system of lever, which he could move from the parlour, but provided he could reach so high, he could just as easily release the loose plank from where he was; in which case the chair that was above would have a preponderating influence, as that was on the heaviest arm of the plank from the centre upon which it turned. "I can manage that," he said; and then taking the knife from his pocket, he found that by its aid he could just reach high enough to touch the lever that acted as a kind of bolt to keep the plank in its place. The moment he removed that bolt the plank slowly moved, and then Todd caught the end of it in his hand, and pulled it right down, so that it assumed a perpendicular aspect completely. Holding then the piece of wood to which he had attached the wax light in his mouth, he climbed carefully and noiselessly up into his old shop; and when there he replaced the plank, and on the end of the board which was the counterpoise to the chair, he placed a weight, which he knew where to lay his hands upon, and which kept the chair in its place, although a very little would have overcome the counterpoise, and sent it down to the cellar below. Todd extinguished his light, and the moment he did so, he saw a very faint illumination coming from the parlour through a portion of the door, into which a square of glass was let in, and through which he, Todd, used to glare at poor Tobias. The sound of voices, too, came upon his ears, and he laid himself flat down on the floor, close to the wall, under a kind of bench that ran along it for a considerable distance. "I am certain I heard something," said a voice, and then the parlourdoor was opened, and a broad flash of light came into the shop. "I am quite sure I heard an odd noise." "Oh, nonsense," said some one else. "Nonsense." "But I did, I tell you." "Yes, you fancied it halfanhour ago, and it turned out to be nothing at all. Lord bless you, if I were to go on fancying things out of what I have heard since I have been in this house, minding it for Sir Richard Blunt, I should have been out of my mind long before this, I can tell you." "But it was very odd." "Well, the shop is not so large you can soon see if Todd is in it. Ha! ha! ha!" "No, no, I don't expect to see Todd there exactly, I confess; it would not be a very likely place in which to find him." "Well, is there anything now?" "Nono. It all seems much as usual, and yet I thought I did hear a noise; but I suppose it was nothing, or a rat, perhaps, for there are lots, they say, below. It might have been a rat. I did not think that before, and I feel all the easier now at the idea." "Then, come and finish our game." "Very goodall's right. You make a little drop of brandyandwater, and we will just have this game out before we go to rest, for I am getting tired and it's late." "Not quite twelve yet." "Ain't it? There it goes by St. Dunstan's clock." Todd counted the strokes of the clock, and by the time they ceased to reverberate in the night air, the man who most unquestionably had heard a noise in the shop, had gone into the parlour again, half satisfied that it was a rat, and sat down to the game at cards that had been interrupted. These were two men that had been put into the house to mind it, until the authorities should determine what to do with it, by Sir Richard Blunt. They were not officers of any skill or repute, although they were both constables; but then Sir Richard did not consider that anything in the shape of great intelligence was required in merely taking care of an empty housefor the idea of Todd ever visiting that place again, had certainly been one that did not even enter the farseeing brain of the magistrate. "It's my deal," Todd heard one of them say, "but you go on, while I mix the brandyandwater." "Indeed!" muttered Todd, as he gathered up his gaunt form from under the bench. "Indeed! So there are two of you, are there? Well, if there is another world, you can keep each other company on your road to it, for I am not going to let your lives stand in the way of my projects. Nono, I shall yet polish off somebody in my old place, and it is a pleasure that it should be two friends of that man Blunt, whom I so hate, that I have no words in which to express it!" Todd crept up to the parlour door with the long knife in his hand that he had bought at the cutler's in Camden Town, and putting his eyes close to the pane of glass in the door, he looked in at the two men. They really seemed to be quite comfortable, those two men. A bright fire was burning in the grate, and a kettle was singing away upon the hob at a great rate. A pack of cards, some pipes, and some glasses, were upon the table that they had dragged up close to the fireside; and they were, take them altogether, about as comfortable as anybody could well expect to be in that gloomy parlour of Todd's, at his house of murder in Fleet Street. They were stout strong men though, and as Todd looked, he thought to himself, that with all his strength, and with all his desperate fighting for life, as he would do, it was not a desirable thing for him to come into personal contact with them. "Cunning," he muttered, "will do more than strength. I must bide my timebut I will kill them both if they are in my way, and that they will be, is nearly past a doubt!" "There," said the man who was mixing the brandyandwater, "there, you will find that a stiff comfortable glass; lots of brandy, and lots of sugar, and only water enough to make it hot and steamy." "You know how to mix, Bill," said the other, as he took a drop and then was obliged to cough and wink again, it was so strong and hot. "Ah!" thought Todd, "if it would only choke you!" The other man then took his drink at the brandy, and he too coughed and winked, and then they both laughed and declared how precious strong it was, and one of them said "The fun of it is, that it was old Todd's; and when he laid in such good stuff as this, he little thought that we would be enjoying it. I wonder where he is?" "Oh, he's far enough off by this time, poking about at some of the seaports to try to get away, you may depend." "Is he," muttered Todd; "you will find, my kind friend, that I am near enough to cut your throat, I hope." CHAPTER CXLV. TODD HAS A NARROW ESCAPE, AND HAS A BIT OF REVENGE. It was quite a provoking thing, and gall and wormwood to Todd in a manner of speaking, to see those two boisterous men enjoying themselves in his parlour. There could be no doubt in the world, but that if he had had the means then and there to do so, he would have hurled destruction upon them both forthwith; but he could only look at them now, and wait for a better opportunity. The fact was, that now, for the first time, Todd found that the architecture of his old place of residence was far from being of the most convenient order; inasmuch as you could not reach the staircase leading to the upper part of the residence, without going through the parlour; so that he was a prisoner in the shop. "I tell you what it is, Bill," said one of the men, assuming quite a philosophical look. "That fellow, Todd, as used to live here, after all, was some use to society." "Was he?" "Yes, to be sure. Can't you guess?" "Not I. I can't see what use a fellow can be to society who cuts folks' throats." "Can't you?" "No, nor you neither, if you come to that." "Yes I can. Don't it make folks careful of going into a strange barber's shop, let me ask you that?" "Oh, you idiot. That's always the way with you. You begins with looking as wise as an owl as has found out something wonderful, and then when one comes to find out what it is, it's just nothing at all to nobody. I tell you what it is, old fellow, it strikes me you are getting a drop too much." "Nono; but I have got something on my mind." "It stands on a very small place, then. What is it?" "Just you listen and I'll tell you. I did think of not saying anything about it, because you see I thought, that is to say, I was afraid if I did, you would go off at once." "Off? Off?" "I don't mean deadI mean out of this place, that's all, not out of this world; but now I feel as if I ought to tell you all about it, you know, and then you can judge for yourself. You know you slept here last night on that large sofa in the corner?" "Yes, in course." "Very good; you had had what one may call just the other drop you know, and so" "No I hadn't, but you had. I recollect quite well you dropped your light, and had no end of trouble to get it lighted again, and kept knocking your head against the mantelshelf and saying 'Don't' as if somebody was doing it to you." "Go along with you. Will you listen, or won't you, while I tell the horrid anecdote?" "Horrid, is it?" "Above a bit. It's enough to make all your hair stand on end, like quills on a guinea hen, as the man says in the play; and I expect you'll dream of it all night; so here goes, and don't you interrupt me any more, now." "Go on. I won't." "Well, you know we had a pretty good fire here, as we have now; and as twelve o'clock went dingdong by old St. Dunstan's, we thought it was time to have some sleep, and you lay down on the sofa, saying as you could see by the fire light, while I took the candle to go up stairs to bed with, you knowold Todd's bed, I suppose it is, on the secondfloor, and rather damp and thin, you know." "Goodness, gracious! tell me something I don't know, will you? Do you want to drive a fellow out of his mind?" "Wellwell, don't be hasty! I'm getting on. I took the light, and shading it with one hand, for there's always a furious draught upon the stairs of this house; up I went, thinking of nothing at all. Well, in course, I had to pass the firstfloor, which is shut up, you know, and has all sorts of things in it." "Yes; go ongo on!" "Is it interesting?" "It is; only you go on. I'll warrant now it's a ghost you are coming to." "No, it ain't; but don't percipitate, and you shall hear all about it. Let me see, where was I?Oh, on the firstfloor landing But, as I say, I was thinking of nothing at all, when, all of a sudden, I heard a very odd kind of noise in the front room of the firstfloor." "I wonder you didn't fall headlong down stairs with fright, candle and all." "No, I didn't. It sounded like the murmur of people talking a long way off. Then I began to think it must be in the next house; and I thought of going up to bed, and paying no attention to it, and I did get up two or three steps of the secondfloor stairs, but still I heard it; and it got such a hold of my mind, do you know, that I couldn't leave it, but down I went again, and listened. I thought of coming to you; but, somehow, I didn't do so." "Now, go on!" "Well, after listening with my ear against the door for some time, I was certain that the sound was in the room; and I don't know how I screwed up courage enough to open the door very gently, and look in!" "You did?" "I did; and the very moment I did so, out went the light as clean as if you had taken your fingers and snuffed it out; but in the room there was a strange pale kind of light, that wasn't exactly like twilight, nor like moonlight, nor like any light that I ever saw, but you could see everything by it as plain as possible." "Wellwell?" "The room was crammed full of people, all dressed, and looking at each other; and some of them were speaking; and upon all their clothes and faces there was blood, sometimes more, and sometimes less; and all their eyes looked like the eyes of the dead; and then one voice more loud than the rest said'All murdered!All murdered by Todd! The Lord have mercy upon his soul!'" "Oh, gracious! What did you do?" "I felt as if my breath was going from me, and my heart kept swelling and swelling till I thought it would burst, and then I dropped the candle; and the next time I come to my senses, I found myself lying on the bed in the second floor, with all my clothes on!" "You dreamt it?" "Oh, nono. It's no use telling me that. I only wish I thought so, that's all." "But, I tell you, you did." "You may tell me as much as you like; but in the morning when I came down, there was the candle on the firstfloor landing, just as I had dropped it. What do you think of that? Of course, after I drew out my head again from the firstfloor front room I must have gone up stairs in the middle of my fright, and I dare say I fainted away, and didn't come to myself again till the morning." "Oh, stuff! Don't try to make me believe in your ghost stories. Ifif I thought it was true, I should bolt out of the house this minute.
" "You would, really?" "Yes, to be sure; is a fellow to stay in a place with his hair continually standing on end, I should like to know? Hardly. But it's all stuff. Take another drop of brandy! Now I tell you what, if you have the courage to go with me, I will take the light now and go up to the firstfloor, and have a good look all about it! What do you say to that, now? Will you do it?" "I don't much mind." "Only say the word, and I am quite ready." "Well, I will. If so be they are there, they won't do us any harm, for they took no more notice of me than as if I had been nothing at all. But how you do shake!" "I shake? You never were more mistaken in all your life. It's you that's shaking, and that makes you think I am. You are shaking, if you please; and if you don't like the job of going up stairs, only say so; I won't press it upon you!" "Oh, I'll go." "You are sure of it, now? You don't think it will make you ill? because I shouldn't like that. Come now, only say at once that you would rather not go, and there's an end to it." "Yes, but I rather would." "Come on, thencome on. Courage, my friend, courage. Look at me, and be courageous. You don't see me shivering and shaking and shrinking. Keep up your heart, and come on!" "You wretches," muttered Todd. "It shall go hard with me, now, but I will play you some trick that shall go right to drive you out of your shallow wits. Go! It is the very thing I would, of all others, have wished you to do." It was quite clear that the man who had proposed going up stairs to explore the firstfloor, was much the more alarmed of the two; and now that he had made the proposal, he would gladly have seized upon any excuse for backing out of it, short of actually confessing that his fears had got the better of him. No doubt he had been greatly in hopes that his companion, who had told the ghost story, would have shrunk from such an ordeal; but as he did not do so, there was no resource but to carry it out or confess that it was but a piece of braggadocio, which he wanted the firmness to carry out. He strove now to talk himself out of his fears. "Come oncome on! Ghosts, indeed! There are no such things, of course, as any reasonable man knows; and if there are, why, what harm can they do us? I say, what harm can they do us?" "I don't know!" "You don't know? No, nor nobody else! Come on, I say. Of course providence is providence, and if there are ghosts, I respect them very muchvery much indeed, and would do anything in the world to oblige them!" The valiant proposer of the experimental trip to the first floor uttered these last sentences in a loud voice, no doubt with the hope that if any of the ghostly company of the firstfloor were within hearing, they would be so good as to report the same to their friends, so that he might make his way there with quite a good understanding. They trimmed the candle now; and having each of them fortified himself with a glass of brandy that Todd had laid in for his own consumption, they commenced their exploit by leaving the parlour and slowly ascending the staircase that led to the upper portion of the house. Of course, Todd knew well the capabilities of that house, and long before the two men had actually left the parlour he had made up his mind what to do. The door of communication between the shop and the parlour was not fastened, so that he could on open at the moment; and when the men left that latter room he at once entered it. Todd's first movement, then, was to supply himself with a good dose of his own brandy, which he took direct from the bottle to save time. "Ah!" he whispered, drawing a long breath after the draught, "I feel myself again, now!" In order to carry out his plan, he knew that he had no time to spare; for he did not doubt but that the two men would make their visit as short as possible to the firstfloor; sowith cautious but rapid footstepshe slipped into the passage and at once commenced the ascent of the staircase after them. The light they carried guided him very well. How little they imagined that any of its beams shone upon the diabolical face of Sweeney Todd! "Can't you come on?" said one of the men to the other. "Damme, how you do lag behind, to be sure. Any one would think you were afraid." "Afraid? Me afraid! that is a good joke." "Well, come quicker, then." "You will both of you," thought Todd, "come down a little quicker, or I am very much mistaken indeed." The distance was short, and the landing of the first floor was soon gained by the men. He who had seen, or dreamed that he had seen, the strange sight in the room upon a former occasion, was decidedly the most courageous of the two. Perhaps, after all, he was the least imaginative. "I think you said it was the front room?" said the other. "Oh, yes, I heard not a sound in the back one. Here's the door. You hold the light while I listen a little." "YesII'll hold it. Keep up your courage, and don't shake now. Oh, what a coward you are!" "Well, that's a good one. You are shaking so yourself that you will have the light out, if you don't mind. Do try and be a little steady with it; and your teeth chatter so in your head, that they are for all the world like a set of castanets." "Oh, how you do talk. Come, listen at the door; I must say I don't hear anything; but I have the greatest respect for ghosts, I have. I never say one word against the deadGod bless 'em all!" While this man held the lightor rather waved it to and fro in his agitationthe other, with his ear placed flat against the panel of the door, listened attentively. All was perfectly still in the firstfloor, and he said "Perhaps they haven't begun yet, you know." "Perhaps not;shall we go away, now?" "Oh, nono. There's no end of curious things in the room; and now that we are here, let's go in, at all events, and have a little look about us. Don't be afraid. Comecome." "OhII ain't exactly afraid, only, you see, I don't see much the use of going in, andand, you know, we have already heard an odd noise in the shop, tonight." "But that was nothing, for I looked, you know." "Yesyes,butbut I'm afraid the fire will go out below, do you know." "Let it go, then. If you are too much of a coward to come with me into this room, say so at once, and you can go down stairs while I have a look at it by myself. You can't have the candle, though, for it is no use my going in by myself." "What! do you expect me to go in the dark? Oh dear, no, I could not do that; open the door, and I will follow you in; I ain't a bit afraid, only, you see, I feel very much interested, that's all." "Oh, well, that's quite another thing." With this, the most courageous of the two men opened the door of the front room on the firstfloor, and peeped into it. "All's right," he said. "There ain't so much as a mouse stirring. Come on!" Highly encouraged by this announcement, the other followed him; and they allowed the door to creak nearly shut after them. While this hesitation upon the stairs was going on, Todd had been about half way up from the passage, crouching down for fear they should by chance look that way, and see him; but when he found that they had fairly gone into the front room, he made as much speed to the top of the stairs as was consistent with extreme caution, and laying his hand upon the handle of the lock of the door of the back room on that floor, he noiselessly turned it, and the door at once yielding, he glided in. The two rooms communicated with each other by a pair of foldingdoors, and the light that the men carried sent some beams through the illfitting junction of the two, so that Todd could see very well about him. CHAPTER CXLVI. THERE IS A FIRE IN FLEET STREET AFTER ALL.TODD ESCAPES. When once he had gained that back room, Todd considered that his design against the peace of mind of the two men was all but accomplished; and it was with great difficulty that he kept himself from giving a hideous chuckle, that would at once have opened their ears to the fact that some one was close at hand, who, whether of this world or the next, was a proficient in horrid noises. He controlled this ebullition of illtimed mirth, however, and listened attentively. "There don't seem much else beside lots of clothes," said one of the men, "and hats, and sticks, and umbrellas." "Ah!" said the other, "and they all belong to the murdered men that Todd cut up to make pies of!" "Horrible!horrible!" "You may say that, old friend. It's only a great pity that Sir Richard has so expressly forbid anything to be touched in the old crib, or else there's some nice enough things here, I should say, that would make a fellow warm and comfortable in the winter nights." "Not a doubt of that. Here's a cloak, now!" "A beautyquite a beauty, I say. He can't know what is really here. Do you think he can?" "What, Sir Richard?" "Yes." "Oh, don't he. I wouldn't venture to touch so much as an old hat here, for I should feel, as sure as fate, he'd find it out." "Oh, nonsense, he couldn't; and as for the ghosts, they don't seem at all likely to interfere in the matter, for there's not one of them to be seen or heard of tonight." "No, I defy the ghostsahem! I begin to think, do you know, that ghosts are all a sham. Why here we are, two men as brave as lions, or we should not have come here, and yet the deuce a ghost is to be seen. I tell you what I'd do if one was to come. I'd say, 'Old fellow, was this your cloak?' and then if he said 'yes,' I'd say, 'well, old fellow, it's of no use to you now, you know; will you give it to me?'" "Ha!ha! Capital! Why you have quite got over all your fears." "Fears? Rubbish! I was only amusing myself to hear what you would say." "Was you, though? Only acting, after all?" "Precisely." "Well, then, I must say you did it remarkably well, and if you take to the stage you will make your fortune. Oh, here's a nice brown suit now, that would be just my size. I should feel inclined to say to the ghosts what you would say about the cloak." "Well, let's say it, and if nobody says anything to the contrary, we will take it for granted. I will take the cloak, and you the brown suit; Sir Richard will be none the wiser, and we shall be a little the richer, you know. 'Mr. Ghost, may I have this cloak, if you please, as you can't possibly want it?'" "Upon my life you are a funny fellow," said the other; and then holding up the brown suit, he said, "Mr. Ghost who once owned this, may I have this brown suit, as it is of no use to you now?" It was at this moment that Todd dashed open the two folding doors, and with one of the most frightful, fiendish yells that ever came from the throat of man, he made one bound into the front room. The effect of this appearance, and the sound that accompanied it, was all that Todd could possibly wish or expect. The two men were almost driven to madness. They dropped the light, and with shrieks of dismay they rushed to the doorthey tore it open, and then they both fell headlong down the staircase to the passage below, where they lay in a state of insensibility that was highly amusing to Todd. Todd Alarms The Two Bow Street Officers. Todd Alarms The Two Bow Street Officers. "Ha! ha!" he laughed, as he stood at the head of the stairs; "Ha! ha!" He listened, but not so much as a groan came from either of the men, and then he clapped his huge hands together with a report like the discharge of a pistol, and laughed again. Todd had not been so well pleased since his escape from Newgate. He slowly descended the stairs, and more than once he stopped to laugh again. The passage was intensely dark, so that when he reached it he trod upon one of the men, but that rather amused him, and he jumped violently upon the body. "Good," he said. "Perhaps they are both dead. Well, let them both die. It will be a lesson to others how far they interfere with me. Society and I are now fairly at war, and I will win as many battles as I can. They can't say but this is a wellfought one, two to one. Ha! They ought to make me a FieldMarshal. Ha!" Making the most hideous faces, just for the fun of the thing, Todd made his way to the parlour, and taking from a corner, where he knew to lay his hands upon them in a moment, a couple of old newspapers, he twisted them up into a kind of torch, and lighting it then at the fire, he went with it flaming in his hand to the passage. The two men lay profoundly still. Terror and the fall they had had, combined to throw them quite into a swooning state, from which probably it would be hours before they would recover. "This is capital," said Todd. "Lie there, both of you, until I have transacted the business in this house that brought me here. Then I will, perhaps, think of some amusing way of finishing you both offha!" Still carrying the flaming papers in his hand, Todd now made his way to the firstfloor, and found the candle that the men had dropped. That he lighted, as it would be much more convenient to him than the papers; and then he trod them out, for he did not wish any great light as yet to appear from the windows of that house, and perchance awaken the attention of some passing traveller or curious neighbour. Shading the light with his hand, and looking like some grim ogre, Todd took his way to the secondfloor. As he went, he every now and then muttered his satisfaction to himself, or gave utterance to one of his unearthly laughs; for in the whole of that night's adventure there was much to please him. In the first place, he hoped, and fully expected, to get enough booty from the house to place him a little at his ease as regarded money matters, provided that with it he should be fortunate enough to get away from England. Then, again, it was no small satisfaction to Todd to do anything which looked like a triumph over Sir Richard Blunt, and this not only looked like it, but really was. "A good step," he muttered, "a capital step, and a bold one, too; but bold steps are always good ones. Who knows but that from some place of security I may laugh at them all yet; and then, if I do not succeed in killing any of them before I go, I can at my leisure think of and mature some scheme of revenge against them; and there is much to be done with ingenuity, if you are quite unscrupulous. Ha! ha! I have some dainty schemes, if I can but carry them out in the time to comeha!" When Todd reached the secondfloor, he at once went into the frontroom, in one corner of which was a large old fashioned bureau. Now it was not to be supposed that this bureau had escaped the scrutiny of Sir Richard Blunt; but then it had so happened that before he came to search it he had all the evidence he wished against Todd, so that the search was not so complete or so scrutinising as it might have been. We shall see that it was not. "Ah" said Todd, as he drew out the drawers one after the other, "all the locks forced! Well, be it so. That was just what I expected. But I do not think they have moved it from the wall by the look of it." The bureau, it was quite evident, had not been removed from the wall. It was of immense weight, but Todd managed to move it by short sudden jerks; and then when he had got it quite away at right angles from the wall, he said "Here was it that I hid, until some favourable opportunity should occur for the private disposal of them, various articles of value, that I dare not try to convert into money in my open way, for fear of detection. Here are watches, and rings, and jewels, that were described in handbills, offering rewards for missing persons, and in advertisements in the papers; so that it became most unsafe for me to show them even to the not very scrupulous Hebrews, who have from time to time bought goods of me." As he spoke, he removed a portion of the back of the bureau, which slid out of its place softly and easily, for it was made with great skill and care. This sliding piece, when it was fairly removed, disclosed a receptacle capable of holding a great quantity of small articles, and filled up with narrow shelves, as if to hold them securely. There were costly watcheswigs with rare jewels set in them; for the fashion of wearing wigs was so common at the time, that many wealthy residents of the Temple would pop into Todd's shop for a little arrangement of their wigs or a puff of fresh powder, if they were going somewhere in a hurry, and so lost their lives. Then there were some pairs of rich diamond knee and shoe buckles, and a few lockets, and a whole heap of chains of gold. "Ah," said Todd; "here is enough to set me up for a time, if I can dispose of them; and now I must run risks that I would not think of while I had thousands at my command. I must take these things that I was content enough to leave behind me, lest they should at some inopportune moment lead to my detection. Now they shall do me service." Todd commenced filling his pockets with this dangerous kind of property, each article of which was associated with the frightful crime of murder! A couple of thousand pounds certainly would not have paid for what Todd upon this occasion managed to stow away about him; and he thought that if he could get onefourth of that amount for the articles, that it would not be a very bad night's work, considering the not very flourishing state of his finances at that time, compared with what they had been. During the process, though, of stocking himself with the contents of the secret place in the bureau, he more than once crept to the door of the room, and going out upon the landing, he leant over the staircase and listened. All was most profoundly still, and he was satisfied that Sir Richard Blunt's two men remained in the passage, in the same state of insensibilityif not of deathin which he had left them. Leaving there some articles of smaller importance than those with which he loaded himself, Todd pushed the bureau back into its place again; and then, taking the light in his hand, cautiously descended the stairs. When he reached the passage, there lay the two men as he had left them. Indeed, he had been absent much too short a space of time for any very material change to take place in their condition. "Well," he said. "Now to dispose of you two. What shall it be? Shall I cut your throats as you lie there, orno, no, I have hit it. No doubt you have both been full of curious speculations respecting how I disposed of those persons whom I polished off in my shop; so you shall both know exactly how it was done. Ha! a good joke." Todd's good joke consisted now of going into the parlour, and fastening the levers which held up the shavingchair. Then he lifted up one of the insensible bodies of the men, and carried it into the shop. "Sit there, or lie there, how you like," he said, as he flung the man into the large shavingchair. It was quite a treat now to Todd, and put him in mind of old times, to arrange his apparatus for giving this wretched man a tumble into the vaults below. He went into the parlour and drew the bolt, when away went the man and the chair, and the other chair that was on the reverse side of the plank took the place of that which had gone. "Ha! ha!" shouted Todd. "This is grandthis is most glorious! Ha! ha! Who would have thought, now, that I should ever live to be at my old work again in this house? It is capital! If that fall has not broken his neck, it's a wonder. It used to kill five out of seven; that was about the averageha!" Todd didn't fasten the bolt again, but went at once for the other man. He was sitting up! Todd staggered back for a moment, when he saw him in that position looking at him. The man rubbed his eyes with his hands and said in a weak voice "Good God! what is it all about?" Todd placed the light on the floor within the parlour, so that it shed sufficient rays into the shop to let him see every object in it; and then, with a cry like that of some wild beast rushing upon his prey, he dashed at the man. The struggle that ensued was a frightful one. Despair, and a feeling that he was fighting for his life, nerved the man, who had recovered just in time to engage in such a contest, and they both fought their way into the shop together. Todd made the greatest exertions to overcome the man, but it was not until he got him by the throat, and held him with a clutch of iron, that he could do so. Then he flung him upon the chair, but the man, with a last effort, dragged Todd after him, and down they both went together to the vault below! Todd And The Bow Street OfficersThe Death Grapple. Todd And The Bow Street OfficersThe Death Grapple. CHAPTER CXLVII. SIR RICHARD BLUNT AND CROTCHET COMMENCE THEIR SEARCH FOR TODD. When Sir Richard Blunt left Chelsea, he felt that he had given a sufficient warning to all who could feel in any way personally interested in the escape of Sweeney Todd from the punishment that his numerous crimes merited. He rode direct to the office of the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, and his name at once procured him an interview. This was not the supercilious personage who once before, upon an occasion of Sir Richard Blunt calling upon him regarding Sweeney Todd, had exhibited so much indifference upon the subject, and Sir Richard was received as he ought to be. "I have waited upon you, sir," said the magistrate, "to say that I have now made every arrangement that is possible for the purpose of counteracting any mischief that the man, Todd, might strive to do; and I think it very likely that I may not have the pleasure of seeing or communicating with you for some time." "Then you still think, Sir Richard, of going personally after the notorious ruffian?" "I do, sir. I feel that in some sort I am bound to rid society of that man. I had so large a share in his former apprehension, and in his conviction, that I feel his escape quite a personal matter; and I have no hesitation in saying that I shall not feel at ease until I have again placed him in the hands of the law." "It is most desirable that he should be so placed, Sir Richard, and I have only two things to say to you upon the subject. One is, that I hope you will be careful of your own safety in the affair; and the other is, that anything we can do or any facilities we can throw in your way, you may most unhesitatingly command in the prosecution of your most praiseworthy enterprise." "I thank you, sir. I shall take one man with me. His name is Crotchet; and I should wish that in your name I might tell him that, in the event of our search for Todd being successful, he may count upon an adequate reward." "Certainly! He shall have the whole reward, Sir Richard; and as for yourself, the ministry will not be unmindful of your service in a way that I am sure will be more gratifying to you than an offer of money." "Sir, I thank you. The government has already, upon more than two or three occasions, been sufficiently liberal to me as regards money to place me in a good position, and I have now no further desires of that sort. I will bid you good morning, sir, and at once start upon the expedition in search of Sweeney Todd. If he be alive and above ground in this country, I will have him." "If anybody will, you will, Sir Richard." The magistrate left the place, and repaired at once to his private office, which was close at hand, in Craven Street. There our old friend, Crotchet, was waiting for him. "Well, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, "I have just seen the Secretary of State, and if we catch Todd, you are to have all the money." "All on it, sir? Oh, my eye! No, I doesn't want all on it, Sir Richard. I isn't a pig." "I never thought you were, Crotchet; but you may make up your mind to the whole of the reward, as the government will provide for me in another way; so you know now, at starting, what you have to expect, and it will keep you in good heart during all the botheration we may have in looking after this man." "Why, so it will, sir, you see, so it will, and if I do catch him and get all this tin as is offered as a reward for him, I shall retire from the grabbing business, you see, sir." "What will you do then, Crotchet?" "Set up a publichouse, sir, and call it 'The Crotchet's Arms,' to be sure. That's the sort of ticket for me." "Well, Crotchet, you will be quite at liberty to do what you like; and now let us at once start on our errand. We will, from the door of Newgate, see if we cannot trace the progress of this man, with his new friend, that rascal, Lupin." A tap sounded on the panel of the door of the room in which Crotchet and Sir Richard were conversing. "Come in," said the magistrate, and his clerk entered with a written paper in his hand. "Here, sir," he said, "is a report from a city officer, which will give a clue to the route that Todd and Lupin have taken, sir." "Ah, that is welcome. Let me see it. 'Two men broke into the house of Alderman Stanhope; one a tall man with a large facethe other, shorter.' Humph! Not a doubt of it. I will go and see about it. No doubt it was Todd and his new friend Lupin. This is something of a clue, at all events however slight, and may, after all, put us upon the right track. Come on, Crotchet, we will do the best we can in this matter. Have you your pistols in good order?" "Yes, yer honour, and a pair of darbies in my pocket, that if once they get on the wrists of old Todd, he will find it no such easy matter to get them off again." "That is right. I only want to get face to face with the ruffian, and then I will engage that he shall not be much further trouble to society or to individuals." Sir Richard Blunt and Crotchet proceeded then at once to the house in the City, into which Lupin and Todd, it will be recollected, had made a violent entry, and from which they had been so gallantly repulsed by the young lady. Then, from the description of the assailants, not a shadow of a doubt remained upon the magistrate's mind that they were the parties he sought; but there all clue seemed to be lost. He and Crotchet stood in the street looking about them rather despairingly; and then they thought of going to the roundhouse close to Finsbury; and when they got there, they found an officer, who reported that two men answering the description of the fugitives had been seen making their way westward; and he had met a woman who had passed them, and who had heard the words "money," and "Caen Wood." This was, in good truth, most important intelligence, if it could be relied upon; and that was the only kind of doubt that Sir Richard had. He spoke to Crotchet about it. "What do you think, Crotchet? Is it worth while to follow this seeming clue to Highgate?" "Yes, yer honour, it is. We can go there and back again while we are considering about it here. It's clear enough as we shan't get any other news in this part of the town; and so I advises that we go off at once to Highgate, and calls at every publichouse on the road." "Every publichouse?" "Yes, yer honour. Todd won't do without his drops of something strong to keep him agoing. These kind of feelings go downdown, till they haven't the heart to say don't, when the hangman puts the noose round their necks, if they haven't their drops. It's brandy, yer worship, as keeps 'em a going." "I do believe, Crotchet, that there is a great deal of truth in what you say; and that it is only by use of stimulants that they keep up a kind of artificial strength, as well as drowning reflection; and so they go blundering on in the career of crime." "You may depend upon it, sir. They'd cut their own throats in a week, If it wasn't for the tipple, yer honour." Acting then upon the practical advice of Crotchet, which in a great measure accorded with his own convictions, Sir Richard Blunt repaired to a liverystable, and hired two good horses. He found no difficulty in getting them, upon declaring who he was; and so, well mounted, he and Crotchet went upon the very road that had been so recently traversed by the two culprits, Todd and Lupin. At the first publichouse they came to they got no news; but at the second they were told, that two men, answering the description they gave of those they sought, had called and had some brandy. The magistrate no longer doubted but that he was upon the right track now. With such a feeling, he pushed on, making what inquiries he could on the road; but until Highgate was reached they got no further news, and then, by dint of diligent ferreting out, they found a woman who had seen two men go down Swains Lane, and from the description she gave of them, there could be no doubt but that they were Todd and Lupin. Now as Swains Lane led direct to Caen Wood, it was a great confirmation of the former intelligence; and Sir Richard made up his mind to search the wood, as well as it could be done by him and Crotchet. They engaged a lad from Highgate to come with them, and to take care of the horses, while they should go into the wood; but they did not say one word to him regarding their object in going there, nor could he possibly suspect it. Sir Richard and Crotchet both thought it would be much more prudent to keep that to themselves, than to put it in the power of a boy to gossip about it to every one who might chance to pass that way, while he was minding the horses. When the wood was reached, Sir Richard said to the lad "Now, my boy, we shall not be very long gone, but you will bear in mind that if we are absent longer than you expected, you will be paid in proportion; so don't be impatient, but walk the horses up and down this bit of the lane; and think that you have got a very good job." "Thank you, sir," said the boy. "Across that there meadow is the nearest way to the wood. I seed two fellows go that way, early this morning, and one on 'em was the ugliest fellow I ever saw, and he calls out to the other'Come along Lupin, we shall be all right in the wood now. Come along, LupinHa! ha!'" "You heard that?" "Yes, sir, I did. You see, I was sloegathering in the hedge, and they don't let you do it, cos they say you breaks down all the young twigs, and spoils the hedge, and so you does; and so, sir, when I heard footsteps acoming, I hid myself right down among the long grass, so that they did not see me." Mr. Crotchet gave a long whistle. "Very good," said Sir Richard; "we shall be back with you soon. You take good care of the horses." "I will, sir." "What do you think of that, Crotchet?" said Sir Richard, as they made their way into the very meadow across which Todd and Lupin had run to get to Caen Wood. "It's the finger o' Providence, yer worship." "Well, I cannot deny, Crotchet, but that it may be so. At all events, whether it be Providence or chance, one thing is quite certain, and that is, that we are on the track of those whom we seek." "Not a doubt o' that, sir. Into the wood here they have been, but whether they have staid here or not, you see, sir, is quite another affair. But it's worth looking well to; at all events yer worship, and I shan't leave an old tree in this here place as we is coming to, that I shan't walk right round and have a jolly good look at, somehow or another." "Nor I, Crotchet. They may know of some hidingplace in this wood, for all we know to the contrary, and if they do, it strikes me we shall ferret them out." "In course we shall, sir; and here we is." They had reached the wood by this time, and before plunging into its recesses the magistrate looked carefully about him, and Crotchet did the same. "Do you think, your worship, there's a chance of such a fellow as Todd staying long here?" "Why do you think that?" said Sir Richard. "Why, sir," said Crotchet, putting his head on one side, "this here is a sort of place that makes a man think; and always when I am in a quiet place like this, with the beautiful trees all about me, and the little birds a singing, and the frogs a croaking, it makes me think of things that I don't always think of, and of those as has passed away like spirits, and as we may meet in t'other world nor this, sir.
" "Indeed, Crotchet, I do not wonder that the silence and solitude of nature should have that effect upon you." "Exactly, sir. In course, it ain't for me to say whether in this ere world there ought to be prigs, and sneaks, and cracksmen, and all that sort of thing or not; but I will say, sir, as I'm not a little surprised how anybody can do anything very wrong, sir, in the country." "Indeed, Crotchet?" "Yes, sir; it has an effect on me. When I gets among the old trees and sees the branches a waving about, and hear the wind a moaning among 'em, it makes me think as there ain't a great deal in this world as is worth the bothering about, you see, sir; and least of all is it worthwhile doing anything that ain't the right thing." "You are quite a philosopher, Crotchet, although you are not the first nor the only one upon whom the beauties of nature have produced an elevating effect. The reason I fear is that you are not familiar with such places as these. You are townbred, Crotchet, and you pass your life among the streets of London; so such places as this affect you with all the charm of novelty, while those who are born in the country know nothing and care nothing for its sights and sounds." "That's about it, sir, I shouldn't wonder," said Crotchet; "but I feels what I feels and thinks what I thinks." They now had fairly penetrated into Caen Wood; and we may here appropriately remark, that Caen Wood was much more of a real wood then, than it is now, when it is rather an imitation of one than one in reality. The smoke and the vegetationkilling vapours of London have almost succeeded in begriming the green trees even at that distance off; and in a few short years Caen Wood, we fear, will be but a thing of tradition in the land. So time works his changes! Sir Richard Blunt, with long practised sagacity, began his hunt through the wood. It could scarcely be said that he expected to find Todd there, but he would be satisfied if he found some conclusive evidence that he had been there, for that would show him that he was upon the track of the villain, and that he was not travelling wide from the course that Todd had taken. The idea that he might have at once, on foot, made his way to some part of the coast, haunted Sir Richard, notwithstanding all the seemingly conclusive evidence he had to the contrary; and knowing well, as he did, how very little reliance ought to be placed upon personal descriptions, he did buoy himself up with many hopes consequent upon the presumed identity of Todd with the person who had been seen by those who had described him. Taking a small piece of chalk from his pocket, the magistrate marked a few of the trees in the different directions where they searched, so that they might not, amid the labyrinths of the wood, give themselves increased trouble; and in the course of half an hour they had gone over a considerable portion of the wood. They paused at an open spot, and Crotchet lifted from the ground a thick stick that appeared to have been recently cut from a tree. "This is late work," he said. "Yes; and here are the marks of numerous footsteps. What is the meaning of this strange appearance on the ground, as if something had been dragged along it?" Crotchet looked at the appearance that Sir Richard pointed out, and then with a nod, he said "Let's follow this, Sir Richard. It strikes me that it leads to something." CHAPTER CXLVIII. SHOWS HOW TODD HAD A VERY NARROW ESCAPE INDEED. There was something in the tone of Crotchet that made the magistrate confident he suspected something very peculiar, and he followed him without a word. The track or trail upon the ground was very peculiar, it was broad and defined, and had turned in the direction that it went every little weed or blade of grass that was within its boundaries. A number of decayed leaves from the forest trees had likewise been swept along it; and the more any one might look at it the more they must feel convinced that something heavy had been dragged along it. What that something heavy was, Mr. Crotchet had his suspicions, and they were right. "This way, your worship," he said, "this way; it goes right into this hedge as nicely as possible, though the branches of these bushes are placed all smooth again." As he spoke, Crotchet began to beat the obstructing branches of a wild nut tree and a blackberrybush, that seemed, by their entwining arms, to have struck up a very close sort of acquaintance with each other; and then he suddenly cried out "Here it is, sir." "What, Crotchet?" "The dead 'un." "Dead! You don't mean to say that one such is here, and that the dead body of Todd is in the thicket?" "Come on, sir, I don't think it is him. It don't seem long enough; but here's somebody, as safe as possible, sir, for all that. Push your way through sir it's only prickles." The magistrate did push his way through, despite the vigorous opposition of the blackberrybush; and thenlying upon its facehe saw the dead body of a man. The readers of this narrative could have told Sir Richard Blunt what that body had been named while the breath of life was in it; but neither he nor Crotchet could at first make up their minds upon the subject. "Do you know him?" said Sir Richard. "I guess only." "Yes, and you guess as I do. This is Lupin, Todd's prison companion, and the companion in his escape." Crotchet nodded. "I went to Newgate," he said, "and had a good look at him, so that I should know him, sir, dead or alive; so I'll just turn him over, and have a good look at his face." With this, Crotchet carefullyby the aid of his footturned over the body, and the first glance he got at the dead face satisfied him. "Yes, your worship," he said, "Lupin it is, and Todd has killed him. You may take your oath of that." "Not a doubt of it such is the result of the association of such men. Todd has found him, or fancied he should find him, an encumbrance in the way of his own escape, and has sought this wood to take his life." "That's about it, sir." "And now, Crotchet, we may make certain of one thing, and that is, that Todd is not in this wood, nor in this neighbourhood either. I should say, that after this deed, the first thing he would do would be to fly from this spot." "Not a doubt of that, your worship; but the deuce of it is to find out which way he has gone." "We must be guided in that by the same mode of inquiry, Crotchet, that brought us here. We were successful in tracing him to this wood, and we may be equally successful in tracing him from it. We must go into the village of Hampstead, and give information about this dead body; and we will make there what inquiries we can." They were neither of them very anxious to remain in Caen Wood, after discovering how it was tenanted; and in a very short time they were mounted again, and went along the lane until they emerged upon Hampstead Heath, and so took the road to the village, where Sir Richard gave information to the authorities concerning the finding of the body of Lupin. There, too, he heard that a man answering the description of Todd had passed through the village, and refused to partake some questionable brandy, at a publichouse, on its outskirts. This man was evidently proceeding to London. Crotchet heard this information with great attention; and when he and Sir Richard Blunt were alone, he said "I tell you what it is, sirthe country will never suit Todd." "How do you mean, Crotchet?" "I mean, sir, that, in my opinion, he has gone back to London again. The country, sir, ain't the sort of place for such men as he is. You may depend upon it, he only came to the little wood to get rid of Lupin, and he has gone back to try and hide in London till the row is over." "You really think so?" "I do, sir; and if we want to find him, we must go, too." "Well, Crotchet, of one thing I am pretty well convinced, and that is, that he is not in this part of the country, for after the murder in the wood, which he will be in continual fear of being discovered, it is not likely he would stay about here; and so, as we have traced him a little on the road to London, we may as well, for all we know to the contrary, assume that he has gone there at once." "Come on, then, sir," said Crotchet; "I feel's what you call's a sort of aOh, dear me, what is it? A presentment" "A presentiment, Crotchet." "Ah, sir, that's it. I feel that sort of thing that old Todd will try and hide himself in some old crib in London, and not at all trust to the country, where everybody is looked at for all the world as though he were a strange cat. Lord bless you, sir, if I had done anything and wanted to hide, I should go into the very thick of the people of London, and I ain't quite sure but I'd take a lodging in Bow Street." Sir Richard Blunt was himself very much of Crotchet's opinion regarding Todd's proceedings, for his experience of the movements of malefactors had taught him that they generally, after their first attempt to try to get away, hover about the spot of their crimes; and it is a strange thing, that with regard to persons who have committed great crimes, there is a great similarity of action, as though the species of mind that could induce the commission of murder from example, were the same in other respects in all murderers. To London, then, with what expedition they could make, Sir Richard Blunt and Crotchet went, and although they made what inquiry they could, they found no news of Todd. And now we must leave them for awhile, thrown completely out in all their researches for the escaped criminal, while we once more proceed to the house in Fleet Street, where we left Todd in rather an uncomfortable situation. It will be recollected that, locked in the grasp of the officer, Todd and that individual had gone down with the chair through the opening in the floor of his shop. This was the first time that Todd had undertaken that mode of getting into the cellars of his house; and when he found the chair going, he gave himself up for lost, and uttered a cry of horror. It seemed to him at that moment as if that were the species of retribution which was to come over himdeath by the same dreadful means that had enabled him so often to inflict it upon others. No doubt Todd's anticipations of being dashed to destruction upon the stones below would have been correct had he gone down alone, or had there been no one already immediately beneath the trapdoor in the shop flooring; but as it was, he fell, fortunately for him, uppermost, and they both, he and the officer, fell upon the other man who had gone down only a short time previous. That saved Todd; but he was terribly shaken, and so was the officer, and it was a few moments before either of them recovered sufficiently to move a limb. The lives of those two depended upon who should recover his strength and energies first. Todd was that man. Hate is so much stronger a passion than every other, and it was under the influence of that feeling that Todd was the first of the two to recover; and the moment he did so, the yell of rage that he uttered really might have been heard in Fleet Street. It was very indiscreet of Todd, but at that moment he thought of nothing but revenge. His own safety became a secondary consideration with him. He grasped the officer by the throat! At the moment that, by the feel only, for that place was in the most profound darkness, Todd felt sure that he had the officer by the throat, he knew that his triumph was certain. It would have been as vain a thing to attempt to escape the chances of destiny, as to dream of avoiding the grasp of that iron hand that now closed upon the throat of the unfortunate officer. It was just then, though, that the officer began to recover a little from the shock of his fall. It was only to recover to die. Better for him would it have been had he slept on in insensibility to the pangs that were awaiting him; but that was not to be. "Ah, wretch!" shrieked Todd, "so you thought you had me? Downdown to death!Ha!ha!" The officer struggled much, and dashed about his feet and arms, but all was in vain. "Ha!ha!" laughed Todd, and that hideous laugh awakened as hideous an echo in the dismal place. "Ha!ha! I have you now. Oh! but I should like to protract your death and see you die by inches! Only that my time is precious, and for my own sake, I will put you quickly beyond the pale of life." The man tried to cry out; but the compression upon his throat of those bony fingers prevented him. He had his hand at liberty, and he caught Todd by the head and face, and began to do him as much mischief as he could. There was for a few seconds a fierce struggle, and then Todd, keeping still his right hand clasped about the throat of his victim, with the left laid hold of as much of his hair on the front of his head us he could, and raising his head then about six inches from the stone floor on which it had rested, he dashed it down again with all his might. The officer's arms fell nerveless to his sides, and he uttered a deep groan. Again Todd raised the head, and dashed it down, and that time he heard a crashing sound, and he felt satisfied that he had killed the man. There was now no further use in holding the throat of the dead man, and Todd let him go. "Ha!ha!" he said. "That is done. That is doneHa! Now am I once more lord and master in my own houseonce again I reign here supreme, and can do what it may please me to do. Ha! this is glorious! Why, it is like old times coming back to me again. I feel as if I could open my shop in the morning, and again polish off the neighbourhood. It seems as if all that had happened since last I stropped a razor above, had been but a dream. The arrestthe trialthe escapeNewgatethe wood at Hampstead! All a dreama dream!" He was silent, and the excitement of the moment of triumph had passed away. "Nono," he said. "No! It is too realmuch too real! Oh, it is real, indeed. I am the fugitive! The haunted man without a homewithout a friend; and I have this night nor any other night any place in which I may lay my head in safety. I am as one persecuted by all the world, without hopewithout pity! What will now become of me?" A low groan came upon Todd's ear. He started, and looked around him. He tried hard to pierce with his halfshut eyes the intense darkness, but he could not; and muttering to himself"Not yet deadnot yet dead?" he crept to an obscure corner of the cellar, and opened a door that led by a ladder to the floor of the back parlour, where there was a trap door, under which the large table usually stood, and which he could open from below. In the parlour Todd got a light, and feeling then still disturbed about the groan that he had heard below, he armed himself with an iron bar that belonged to the outer door, and with this in his right hand, and the light in his left, he crept back again to the cellar. A glance at the two men who lay there was sufficient to satisfy him that they were no more; and after then taking from them a couple of pairs of pistols, and a small sum of money, he crept back again to the parlour. As he did so, he heard St. Dunstan's clock strike the hour of four. "Four!" he said. "Four. It will not be light for nearly two hours yet, and I may rest myself awhile and think. Yes, it is necessary now that I should think; for I have timea little timeto do so, and much, oh, so much to think of. There's some of my own brandy, too, in the parlour, that's a comfort." The fire was still burning in the parlour grate. Todd raked the glowing embers together with the iron bar, and then he took a good draught at the brandy. It revived him most wonderfully, and he gave one of his old chuckles, as he muttered "Oh, that I could get a few whom I could name in such a position as I had yon man in in the cellar a short time since. That would be well, indeed. Ha! I am, after all, rather lucky, though." A sharp knock come, at this moment, at the outer door of the shop, and Todd sprang in alarm to his feet. CHAPTER CXLIX. TODD IS IN GREAT PERIL IN THE EARLY MORNING IN LONDON. The silence that ensued after that knock at his door, for he had become to consider it as his again, was like the silence of the grave. The only sound that Todd heard then, was the painful beating of his own heart. The guilty man was full of the most awful apprehensions. "What is it?" he said. "Who is it?who can it be? Surely, no one for me. There is no one who saw me. Nono! It cannot be. It is some accidental sound only. Ibeginto doubt if it were a knock at all.Oh, no, it was no knock." Bang! came the knock again. Todd actually started and uttered a cry of terror, and then he crouched down and crept towards the door. He might, to be sure, have made his escape from the premises, with some little trouble, by the way he had got into them; but he was most anxious to find out who it was that demanded admittance to the old shop in Fleet Street, with all its bad associations and character of terror; so he crept towards the door, and just as he reached it, the knock came again. If the whole of his future hopeswe allude to the future that might be for him in this world only, for Todd had no hopes nor thoughts of anotherhad depended upon his preserving silence and stillness, he could not have done so, and he gave another start. "Hushhush!" he then said. "Hush! I must be very cautious nowvery cautious, indeed. Hushhush!" He then, in a tone of voice that he strove to make as different as possible from his ordinary tone, and which he was very successful indeed in doing, he said "Who is there?" "It's me," said a voice, in defiance of all probability or grammar. "It's only me." "Oh! what a mercy," said Todd. "Open the door. Is it you, Joe? Why didn't you come home, eh? You might have got away easy enough. I have brought you something good to eat, old fellow, and some news." "Ah, what news, my boy?" "Why, they say that old Todd is in London." Todd fell to the floor in a sitting posture, and uttered a deep groan. It was some few moments before he could summon strength and courage to speak to the man again. But he began to feel the necessity of doing something, for the man began to hammer away at the door, and the very worst thing that could happen to Todd, just then, would have been that man going away from the door of the shop with an impression that all was not right within it, and spreading an alarm to that effect. "I will open the door just wide enough," muttered Todd, "and then I will drag him in and cut his throat, and throw him down into the cellar along with the two others. That will only make three this morningyes, this morning, I may say, for it is morning now." Acting upon this resolve, which certainly was diabolically to the purpose, Todd spoke to the man again, saying in the same assumed tone in which he had before addressed him "All's rightall's right. I'll open the door." "That's the thing; but you seem to have a bad cold." "So I haveso I have. A very bad cold; and it has affected my voice so that I can hardly speak at all." "So I hear." Todd slowly undid the fastenings of the door, and an infernal feeling of joy came over him at the idea of murdering this unhappy man likewise. It quite reconciled him to the danger in which he was, for he could not but know that the daylight was rapidly approaching, and that each moment increased his peril. "Yes," he muttered, "he will make three this morning, three idiots who fancy they are a match for me; but I will soon convince them of the contrary, I will soon put him out of his pains and anxieties in this world. Ha! he shall be an independent man, for he shall have no wants, and that is true independence." Todd drew the last bolt back that held the door. "Come, Joe, are you coming?" said the man. "Soon enough, my dear friend, soon enough," said Todd. "You will find me quite soon enough. Come in." Todd felt quite certain that if the man caught but the slightest glance at him, it would be sufficient to convince him that it was not Joe, and, therefore, he only now opened the door wide enough to let him slip into the shop, and kept himself back partially behind it, so as to be, with the exception of one arm, quite out of sight. The man hesitated. "Come in," said Todd. "Come in." "Why, what's the matter with you," said the man, "that makes you so mighty mysterious, eh? What is it, old fellow?" "Oh, nothing. Come in." The man stepped one foot across the threshold, and put his head in at the shopdoor. "Come, now," he said. "None of your jokes, Joe. Where are you?" Todd felt that that was a critical moment, and that if he failed to take advantage of it, the least thing would give the man the alarm, and he might draw back from the door altogether, and so stop him from executing that summary proceeding against him which he, Todd, thought essential to his interests. "No, old fellow. There's no trick. Come in." "Oh, but I" The man was drawing back his head, and Todd saw that the moment for action had come. Darting forward, he stretched out his right hand and caught the man by the throat, saying as he did so, in the voice of a demon "In, wretchin, I say!" The man's cravat came away in the hand of Todd, who rolled upon his back on the floor of the shop. The man finding himself free from the terrific grip that had been laid upon him, fled along Fleet Street, crying "Helphelp! thieves!murder! Todd!help! fire! murdermurder!" Todd lay upon his back with the cravat in his hand, and so utterly confounded was he by this accident, that for a few moments he felt disposed to lie there and give up all further contest with that fate that never seemed weary of now persecuting him after the long course of successful iniquity he had been permitted to carry on. He heard the loud cries of the man, and he knew that even at such an early hour how those cries would soon rouse sufficient assistance to be his destruction. He yet did not like to die without a struggle. Newgate, with its lonely cells, came up before his mind's eye, and then he pictured to himself the gibbet; and with a positive yell, partly of rage and partly of fear, he rose to his feet. "What shall I do?" he said. "Dare I rush out now into Fleet Street, and by taking the other direction to that in which this man has gone, try to find safety?" A moment's thought convinced him of the great danger of that plan, and he gave it up. There remained then nothing but the mode of retreat through the church; and no longer hesitating, he took the light in his hand and dashed open the little door that communicated with the narrow stairs that would take him underneath the shop. Before descending them he paused to listen, and he heard the cries and shouts of men afar off. He found that his foes were mustering in strong force to attack him; and clenching his double fist, he swore the most horrible oaths. This was a process that seemed to have some effect upon the spirits of Todd. The swearing acted as a kind of safety valve to his passion. He descended the staircase, and when he reached the foot of it he paused again. The noise in the street was not so acute. It had sobered down to a confused murmur, and he felt that his danger was upon the increase. Shading the light with one hand, for there was a current of air blowing in the cellars and secret passages, he looked like some fiend or vampire seeking for some victim among the dead. "They come," he said. "They come. They think they have me at last. They come to drag me to death. Oh that I had but the power of heaping destruction upon them all, of submitting them all to some wretched and lingering death, I would do it! Curses on themhow I should revel in their misery and pain." He went on a few paces past the dead bodies of the two men, and then he paused again, for he could distinctly hear the trampling of feet upon the pavement near to the house; and then, before he could utter a word, there come such a thundering appeal to the knocker of the outer door, that he dropped his candle, and it was immediately extinguished in the start that he gave. It was quite evident that his foes were now in earnest, and they were determined he should not escape them by any fault of theirs, for the knocking was continued with a vehemence enough to beat in the door; but so long as it did continue, it was a kind of signal that his enemies were upon the outside. "I may escape them yet," he said, tremblingly. "Oh, yes, who shall take upon them to say that I may not escape them yet? I can find my way in the dark wellquite well. I am sufficiently familiar with this place to do so." That was true enough; but yet, although Todd was, as he said, sufficiently familiar with the place to find his way through it in the dark, he could not make such good progress as when he had a lamp or a candle to guide him. He heard a loud crash above. "They have broken open the door," he said, "but yet I am safe, for I have a wonderful start of them. I am safe yet, and I am well armed, too. I hold the lives of several in my hands. They will not be so fond, from their love of me, to throw away their lives. Ha! I shall beat them yetI shall beat them yet." With his hands outstretched before him, so that he should not run against any obstacle, he took his way through the gloomy passages that led to the vaults beneath St. Dunstan's church. The distance was not great, but his danger was; and yet such was his insatiable desire to know what was going on in his house, that he paused more than once again to listen. From what he heard, he felt convinced that many persons had made their way into the shop and parlour, and he anticipated a thorough search of the house. "Let them," he said, "let them. There is nothing there now that it can interest me to keep secretabsolutely nothing. Let them search well in every room. It will give me the more time." He struggled on in the dark a little further, and then he suddenly paused. A thought had struck him. "Oh, what a glorious thing," he said, "if I could only now fire the old house, and so scorch some of those idiots, who are no doubt running from room to room full of mad delight at the opportunity to do so, and at the prospect that they may light upon me, and so share the money among them that is offered for my blood. It is a tempting thought." Todd felt in his pocket for the matches that had been supplied to him by his departed friend, Mr. Lupin, and he found that he had some of them left, although all the little bits of wax ends of candles were gone. "A match will do as well as a torch to set fire to a house. I will chance it, for afterwards I shall most bitterly repent not having done so. Oh, yes, I will go back and chance it. I know how to do it; and if that Sir Richard Blunt, whom I yet hope to see in death, has not removed the materials I placed for the firing of the house, I can do it easily. Oh, that will be most capital! I think it will make me laugh again! Ha!ha! yes, it will make me laugh again!" He stood for the space of time of about two minutes in deep thought, with his hands compressed upon his brow; and then he muttered "Yes, there is no difficulty. If I can but reach the flooring of that cupboard beneath the parlour, it will do." He rapidly made up his mind to attempt this most perilous act of setting fire to his old house, after all; notwithstanding it was now to his knowledge filled with his enemies, and that his returning was a matter of the greatest danger to himself. He crept back by the way he had gone, and soon reached the cellar again under his shop. That cellar run partially under the parlour likewise; and it was upon that circumstance, well known to him, that Todd based his hopes of being able, with safety to himself, to fire the old house. He shook a little as he reached the cellar underneath the shop. It was a natural thing that he should do so; for he knew that he was doing the very reverse of what impulse would have prompted him to do, namely, fly from his enemies. The mode of getting into that cellar might, for all he knew to the contrary, be found out at the most inopportune moment for him that could be conceived, and he might find himself surrounded almost at any moment by his foes. No wonder Todd shook a little. He quite forgot that the bodies of the two men were therehis two latest victims; and as he went crawling along with excessive care, the first thing he did, was to fall over them both, and measure his great length upon the floor of the cellar. It was quite astonishing how Todd controlled his temper, when he had any object in view which an ebullition of rage would have had the effect of jeopardising in any way. At another time, his oaths upon the occasion of such a fall would have been rather of the terrific order; but now he uttered not a word, but gathered himself up again with all the calmness and serenity of an ancient martyr, who feels that he is suffering for some great and good cause, dear to the interests of humanity. Sweeney Todd, however, was very anxious to discover if in his fall he had made noise enough to alarm those who were above; but he was soon satisfied that such was not the case, and that the lower part of the house was quite deserted, while they had made their way to the upper, intent upon searching in all the rooms for him (Todd). Ah! they little knew the piece of obdurate cunning that they had pitted against them there! "I shall do it!I shall do it!" muttered Todd, "I shall easily do it. There is no one to prevent me. Ha!ha! I do believe that I shall smother some of them, before they can possibly find the means of getting down stairs. That would be quite a mercy of providenceoh, quite!" CHAPTER CL. TODD SETS FIRE TO HIS HOUSE, AND THEN HIDES IN THE CHURCH. Immediately beneath the parlour, where a portion of the cellar went, there was a quantity of old lumber. Perhaps if that lumber had been looked very carefully over, among it there might have been found some fragments of old, and some of new coffins from St. Dunstan's; for with the rich, who had vaults of their own, it was the arrogant fashion to adorn the last sad and narrow home of humanity with silver plates and nails; and Todd had despoiled the grave of some of those costly trappings. Upon the heap of rubbish he scrambled, and that just enabled him comfortably to reach the floor of that parlour. That portion of the floor went under a cupboard in one corner, and in the floor of it three or four coarse round holes had been drilled with a centrebit. Todd had had his own motives for drilling those holes in the cupboard floor. He now put his finger through one of the holes, and when he did so, he gave a chuckle of delight, for he was convinced that the contents of that cupboard had not been in any way interfered with; and that, as a consequence, he should find no difficulty in firing the house completely. "So," he said, "this is the cleverness of your muchvaunted Sir Richard Blunt. He has left a cupboard as crammed with combustible materials as it well can be, to the mercy of the first accident that may set fire to them; and now the accident has come. Ha!" Again Todd listened attentively, and was still further satisfied that all was profoundly still in the parlour, although he heard the racket and the banging of doors in the upper part of the house. "This is good," said Todd. "This is capital. All is well now. The fire will have made most excellent progress before they will discover it, and I will warrant that if once it takes a firm hold of the woodwork of this old house, it is not a trifle that will stop its roaring progress." With this, Todd ignited one of his matches and thrust it alight through one of the holes in the floor of the cupboard. A slight cracking noise ensued immediately. "That will do," said Todd, and he withdrew the match and cast it upon the ground. The crackling noise continued. He turned and fled from the place with precipitation.
In the lower portion of that cupboard there was a quantity of hay, upon which oil and turpentine had been poured liberally. High up upon a shelf was a wooden bowl, with eight pounds of gunpowder in it, and Todd did not know a moment when the flames might reach it, when a terrific explosion would be sure to ensue. "It is done now," he said. "It is done, and they do not know it. More revengemore revenge! I shall have more revenge now, and there will be more death." He knew that there was only one thing that could by any possibility prevent the gunpowder in the wooden bowl from becoming speedily ignited, and that that would be in consequence of the hay being packed too close to do more than smoulder for a little time before bursting into a flame; but that it must and would do so eventually, there could be no possible doubt, and it was in that hearty conviction that Sweeney Todd now most fully gloried. And now, as he had done before, he kept his arms outstretched before him to prevent him from injuring himself against any of the walls or the abrupt turnings in the passages between his own house and old St. Dunstan's. He stooped, likewise, in order that he might not strike his head against the roof at in places where it was very low, and rough, and rugged. Once only Todd got a little bewildered, and did not well know his way, and then he ignited one of the matches, and by its small light he saw in a moment which way he was to go. "All is well," he said, and he rushed on; but yet he began to be a little surprised that he heard no noise from the houseno sound of the explosion; and inclining his ear to the ground, he stopped in one of the old vaults to listen. A low moaning sound came upon his ears like the muttering of distant thunder, and then a report as though some heavy piece of timber had fallen from a great height to the earth. He fancied that the vault in which he was shook a little, and in terror he rushed forward. The gunpowder had exploded in the cupboard, and Todd's imagination was left to revel in the thought of the mischief which it had done to the house and to all within it. In five minutes more he reached the foot of the little flight of stonesteps that led to the church. All was profoundly dark still, as he thought; but he had not got up above six of those steps when he became conscious that the light of early dawn had already found its way through the windows of the church, and was making everything within it dimly visible. Todd recoiled at this. He and daylight were decidedly not upon good terms with each other by any means. "It is morningit is morning!" he exclaimed. "What will become of me now? It is light." He staggered right back into the vaults again, and there gave himself to painful thought for awhile; as he did so, he heard loud shouts in the streetsshouts that awakened echoes in the old church; and if anything could have given to Todd, at such a time as that, very great satisfaction, it was to hear that those shouts were all commingled with the one prevailing cry of"Firefirefire!" That was a joy, indeed, to him. "It burnsit burns!" he said; "but I am here a prisoner; I dare not go out into the daylight; but the old house, with all that it contains, is wrapped in flames, and that is muchmuch! It is now everything. Oh, that I could hear the cries of those who find themselves wrapped up in the unappeasable element, and have no means of escape! They would, indeed, be music to my ears." This state of mental exultation passed away very quickly, as it was sure to do, and gave place to the most lively fears for his own personal safety; for, after all, that was the great thing with Toddat least it was while any portion of his deep revenges remained yet to be accomplished. "What shall I do?" That was the question that he kept repeating to himself. "What shall I do?" He advanced now right up the steps into the body of the church. There, at least, he knew that he was safe for the present; and as he stood and listened, he thought that in the bustle and in the confusion that men's minds were in regarding the fire, he might emerge from the church and no one notice him, and fairly get away without observation. If he only got a few streets off it would be sufficient, and he should be able to tell himself that he had indeed and in truth escaped. With these thoughts and feelings, he approached the church door. The nearer he got to the old doors of St. Dunstan, the more appallingly and distinctly there came upon his ears the cries and the shouts of the people who were hurrying to the fire, and he muttered to himself "Ah, it must be blazing briskly nowvery briskly. It must be quite a sight to the whole of London to see the old den burning so bravely." An engine came rattling on, and with a roar and a crash went past the church door. "Capital!" said Todd. "Upon my word this is capital!" Another engine, with the horses at a mad gallop, went by, and Todd quite rubbed his hands at the idea of the scene of confusion that he had by his own unaided efforts succeed in making in old Fleet Street. "They did not think," he said, "when they closed the gates of the old prison upon me, and told me I should die, that there was one half the mischief in me yet that they now find there is. Ay, and there is much more yet, that they dream not of, but which they shall know some day." He laid his hand upon the lock of the church door. A long ray of the faint early gray light of dawn streamed through the massive keyhole, and at the moment Todd laid his hand upon the lock that ray of light vanished. It was obstructed by some one on the outside. He recoiled several steps, and then from the outside he heard a voice say "Lor bless us, yes, it's that old villain Todd's house, gentlemen, in course. It's come to a bad end, like its master will come to, if he hasn't. When I saw the flames and heard 'em aroaring, I said to my missus 'Conwulsions!' says I, 'if that ain't Todd's house in a blaze.'" "You are right, Mr. Beadle," said a voice in reply. "Yes, gentlemen, perhaps I says it as oughtn't to say it, but I is commonly right in my way, you know, gentlemen; and so, as I says, 'Conwulsions! It's Todd's house a fire.'" "And you think," said another voice, "we shall get a good view of it from the old church tower?" "Yes, gentlemen," replied the beadle, whom the reader will not fail to recognise as our old acquaintance. "Yes, gentlemen. I'll warrant as you will get a capital view from the top of the old tower, where I will take you. Lor a mussy, how it is a roorin, that fire! I know'd it was Todd's house, and I said to my missus, 'Conwulsions!' says I, 'that's old villanous Todd's house afire!'" Todd ground his teeth together with rage as he listened to this; but he felt that if he would provide for his own safety, there was indeed now no time to lose, and he rapidly retreated into the body of the church. His first thought was to hide himself in one of the pews, but the divisions between them were not so high as to prevent a person of very moderate height indeed from looking over one of them, and there was quite light enough now for any one in such a case to have seen him, if they had chosen to glance into the pew in which he might take shelter. The case was urgent, however, and he had not much time for thought, so being close to the pulpit he ran up its steps, opened the little door, and ensconced himself within it in a moment. There, at all events, he felt that he was hidden securely from any merely casual observation. The church door was opened almost before he could get the pulpit door shut; but he did manage to close it, and he was satisfied that he had done so without exciting the attention of those who were entering the church. Todd could, of course, from where he was, hear, with the greatest clearness and precision, every word that they said to each other, as they walked up the aisle. Todd Sets Fire To His House, Then Hides Himself In St. Dunstan's Pulpit. Todd Sets Fire To His House, Then Hides Himself In St. Dunstan's Pulpit. One of the persons who were coming with the beadle to view the fire from the tower of the church went on speaking to his companions. "And so," he said, "I think, if no one be hurt, and the fire can be kept just within the limits of Todd's house, it will be no bad thing to have a place that is such a continual reminder of atrocious guilt, swept from the face of the earth." "Yes," said the other, "the only pity is, that Sweeney Todd is not in it to go with it. Then the good thing would be complete." "It would, gentlemen," said the beadle. "Oh, when you comes to think of what he did and what he might have doneOh, it makes my hair stand o' end, and my parochial blood curdle, to think of what he might have done, gentlemen." "He could not do worse than he did." "Not wus? not wus? Oh,oh!" "How is it possible? He committed a number of murders, and if you can find me anything worse he could have done, I shall indeed be very much surprised." "Gentlemen, he might have polished me off. That's what he might have done, for he has actually had me hold of by the nose. Oh, conwulsions! if I had only then thought that there was a chance of his polishing off, as he used to call it, a parochial authority, I should haveI should have" "What, Mr. Beadle?" "Flewed through the window, sir, that's what I should have done, and told the world at large what had happened." "Well, certainly, that would have been something." "Everything," said the other gentleman, in a tone of voice that showed how much he was inclined to enjoy a joke at the expense of the beadle. "It would have been everything. But how plain you can hear the roaring of the flames now, even in this church, with the door shut." "You can, indeed," said the other. "Ah, there dashes past another engine. Come, Mr. Beadle, the sooner we get on this tower the better." "In a minute, gentlemen; but now as you is here arter the blessed old church has been shut up all night, I jest ask you to say if it has the orrid smell as it used to have, which offended the holy nose of the bishop when he came to confirm the people." "I smell nothing." "Nor I." "Very good; then that's so far satisfactory. Cos you see, sirs, only yesterday Sir Christopher Wren and two gentlemen come and left in the church a pailful of chemists, for the express purpose of taking away the smell." "A what?" "A pailful of chemists." "Of chemicals, you mean, I suppose, although that would be a singularly inappropriate term. But come on, Mr. Beadle, we are very anxious to get on the tower." "This way, gentlemen, if you pleases. This will lead you nicely and fairly up those little stairs and right on. Oh, what a world we does live in, to be sure!" With this general philosophical remark, the beadle, opening a little door at the extremity of the south aisle, pushed his friends up a narrow staircase that led to the top of the tower of old St. Dunstan's, and from which certainly a very good view of the surrounding streets and of the Temple could be obtained; and in the clear light of early morning, before the million fires in London were lighted, that view was seen to be a tolerably distinct one. Todd muttered the bitterest maledictions upon them, as he heard them go up the little stairs. There he was, certainly, to all appearance, safe enough; and he might, for all he knew, be safe enough until the next Sunday; but how was he to live in a pulpit even for the whole of a day? It might be that he would have to wait there until the dim shadows of the night should come again, and wrap up the whole church in gloom; but how many weary hours must pass before that time would come, and what infinite danger there was, that he might drop into sleep after all his fatigues, and so forget his caution, and discover himself! Already the great fatigues he had passed through, and the many hours he had been debarred from rest, began to tell upon him; and it was with difficulty that he kept himself from dropping into slumber. He began to get fearfully alarmed at his situation. "What shall I do?" he said, "I must escapeescape! Yes. How the fire roars! I will not sleep. Oh, nono! It is done now; the old house is gonegone!" Todd fell fast asleep in the pulpit. CHAPTER CLI. SHIFTS THE SCENE TO ONE OF QUIET GOODNESS AND SERENITY. The necessities of our story force us for a short space of time to leave Sweeney Todd in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church, and his house in process of demolition by fire, while we take the reader back again to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where the Ingestries resided in such loving and pleasant union. The communication that Sir Richard Blunt had made to them, had had the effect of disturbing the serenity of Mark Ingestrie to a much greater extent than he would have liked to admit, or than he was at all likely to let Johanna know. She, too, the fair and gentle Johanna, felt an acute pang as she thought on the stern, revengeful character of Todd; and began to fancy, that if he wished to work her any woe, he would take a means of doing so which would touch her much more severely than as if he aimed at her own life, by attacking that of her husband, to whom, after so many perils, she was at length so very happily united. "Oh, Mark," she said, "you will, you must promise me that you will depart at once from here." "We will be gone directly, Johanna. But who have we here? Why, there is an arrival already. I will go and see who it is. It is some one in a coach." "Oh, nono, Mark, do not go." "Not go?" "No. You do not know but it may be some horrible scheme of that fiend in the shape of man, Todd, to lure you to the door, and kill you. I am full of fears, Mark, and cannot bear to let you go from my sight a moment." "Oh, Johanna, this is unlike you, indeed. There now, look from the window, dear, and you will soon see how little you have to fear. Why, it's your father and your mother. Do you not see them, or does your tears, and your fears together, blind you?" "A little of both, Mark," said Johanna, with a faint smile; "but I see that my dear father is there, and my mother, too. I will fly to welcome them. They have heard of the escape of Todd, and cannot endure to have us out of their sight." As Johanna spoke, she hurried to the door to receive Mr. and Mrs. Oakley. The old man caught her in his arms, as he said "Oh, my own dear child! Thank God I see you safe again!" "Safe, father?" "Yes, my darling. You know that dreadful man?thatthatOh, I don't know what to call" "The horrid Todd," put in Mrs. Oakley, as she kissed Johanna. "He has escaped, my dear, from Newgate; but, of course, Sir Richard Blunt has been here to tell you, as he said he would; so you know all about it." "Oh, yesyes. Come in; I am so glad you have come." "And so am I," said Mark Ingestrie, making his appearance in the hall; "for here is Johanna starting at every little noise, and I do believe if a mouse were now to run across the floor she would fancy that it was that old rascal, Sweeney Todd." "Ah! but, my dear boy," said Mr. Oakley; "you really don't seem to have any idea of what a dreadful man he isyou don't, indeed." "I don't care either, father; but I only wish one thing, and that is, that he would be so good as to trust himself, for about half a minute, within armslength of me, that's all." "Heaven forbid!" cried Mrs. Oakley. "My dear son, you don't know he used totowhat did he call it, Johanna?" "Polish people off, ma." "Ah, to be sure." "Well, it's no use talking," said Mark; "but if ever I get hold of him, I'll polish him off to some purpose. But you have just come in time for me to say a very serious thing to you, mother, indeed." "Oh, what is it?" cried Mrs. Oakley. "Don't agitate us," said old Mr. Oakley, putting on his spectacles upsidedown. "Don't agitate us, my boy, but tell us at once what the dreadful thing is." "Why, pa," said Johanna, "Mark did not say it was a dreadful thing he was going to say." "Well, then, my dear, what is it?" "Ah, that, indeed, I don't know; but I would wageryes, I would wager anything, that it is something not dreadful at all. Come, Mark, what is it?Speak out." "Then, it's just this," said Mark. "We are going out of London, and I want you both to come with us, for I know very well if you don't, that you will be as miserable as possible, thinking of Johanna, and that Johanna will be in much the same state thinking of you, and that you will dream every night of Todd." The old couple looked at each other with surprise and gratification. Mr. Oakley took off his spectacles, and said "My dear boy, do you know, I was just going to say thatthat" "That, in fact," put in Mrs. Oakley, "we would be glad to go with you, if you would let us, for Sir Richard said he would advise you both to go out of London, and leave him to find out and hang Todd at his leisure, you know." "Yes, that was it," said the old man. "That was the very thing that brought us over here, my dears; so if you will only be so good" "Come, come," said Mark, "it is, you must be so good. I asked you first, you know, so you do us the favour. Is not that it, Johanna? Of course it is." "You are very, very good and kind, Mark." "Oh, stuff! not at all; I say what I like, that's all, and when I say that it would please me mightily to have your father and mother with us, Johanna, where we are going, I mean it from my heart, as you know well." "I know you do, Mark. And poor Tobias, father, is to be with us likewise. You have heard all about poor Tobias?" "Oh, yesyes." "Well, then, Sir Richard Blunt told us that it would be the death of the poor lad if he should be in London and hear that Todd has escaped from Newgate. So we gladly agreed to take him with us, for hemore than any onehas suffered deeply from Todd's wickedness." "Hilloa!" cried Mark, as he glanced from the window. "If here is not another coach at the door!" "Oh, who is it?" said Mrs. Oakley. "It's Todd, of course, come to kill us all!" "I hope it is," said Mark. "I'll soon set you all at rest about him. But only look! If it ain't the colonel, and Arabella, and Tobias. Well, if Todd wants to be down upon us all at once, now is his time certainly to do so." In a few moments, the colonel and Arabella were shown into the room, and they were quite surprised to see the Oakleys there; but while Johanna and Arabella were embracing each other, Mark Ingestrie went up to the colonel, and pointing slightly to Tobias, he whispered "Does he know?" "Oh, nono." "Very good; but he had better, I am convinced, for it will be sure to slip out in conversation, some time or another, and then the poor lad will think much more of it than as if it were told to him in a quiet manner by his friends, for he will think that there is more to conceal than there really is. I am convinced that such will be the case." "Then we will take an opportunity of telling him, but not just now. I want to speak to Johanna." "There she is, then." "And what does he want to say to me?" said Johanna, as she shook hands with the colonel. "Why, athe fact is thatthat, in fact, Sir Richard told me he would advise you to go out of town; and as I am pretty well aware that you set sufficient store by his advice to follow it, I think it is very likely you will go out of town." "And so, dear," put in Arabella, "and so, dear, in a word, we want to go with you, if you think that such an arrangement will not be disagreeable to you." "Now, that is the unkindest thing you have said, Arabella, for a long time. How could you suppose that it would be other than most agreeable to me to have with us such valued friends?" "There, I told you that," said the colonel. "Of course it will be all right, and we shall make quite a merry party, I'll be bound; so that's as good as settled, and a very satisfactory thing it is, and the sooner we all set off the better. Here's Tobias quite delighted with the idea of his little excursion." "Ah, yes," said Tobias, "and it is so kind and good of you, colonel, and of all of you; but you know I leave my heart in London still, let me go where I may." "Never mind, Tobias," said Johanna. "I feel quite sure that you will find it in good keeping when you do come back again; so now we will make preparations at once for departure, and I hope we shall be quite delighted with where we are going. It is one of the pleasantest places, they tell me, on the coast, and will in time be a place of great importance." "Well," said the colonel, with a laugh, "it's quite a pleasant thing to hear that it is on the coast, for that is something towards a knowledge of where it is." "Ah, my dearBytheby," said Mrs. Oakley, "I should like to know where you really intend to take us all." "To the little fishing village of Brighthelmstone, for it is nothing more; but then it lies pleasantly between the hills, and you can see the Channel opening fairly before you, and there is an air upon the Downs that is full of life and joy. You will be sure to like it, mother, and so will you, father, and you, colonel, and you, my dear Arabella." "You don't mention me," said Mark. "Oh, that is because you know you are of no sort of consequence at all. You are nobody." "Thank you!" "Well now, my dears," said Mrs. Oakley, "don't begin to quarrel now, I beg of you, for that is the worst thing you can do; and so long as we get out of the way of having all our throats cut by that horrid Todd, I don't care where I go to or how many inconveniences I put up with, so long as it is a great way off; and I do hope that Sir Richard will soon catch him again, and regularly hang him, as he deserves, the wretch, that I do." A complete silence followed the utterance of the indiscreet speech of Mrs. Oakley's, which, if it did not at once open the eyes of poor Tobias to the real reason of the sudden journey, nothing would. All eyes were bent upon the lad; and rising from the seat which Johanna had made him take, he looked about him with dismay. "Oh, tell me, some one," he then said, "what does it all really mean? Believe me, my kind and dear friends, that I shall suffer less from the truth than as if I were left to make myself mad by thought. Oh, tell me all!" "You shall know all," said the colonel. "Oh, mothermother," said Johanna. "Why did you" Mrs. Oakley sat looking the picture of dismay, and Colonel Jeffrey added "This is an accident that I don't think is to be much lamented. Tobias must have known at some time, and it is better that he should know now that he is surrounded by his friends. Give me your hand, Tobias. You see that I smile, so it cannot be of great moment after all." "Oh, tell metell me!" "I will. Todd has made his escape from Newgate, that is all; but he is friendless and penniless, and it will be quite impossible that he can remain many days at large, as Sir Richard Blunt is already upon his track. Let me beg of you not to be in the least alarmed at this intelligence. It ought not to alarm you. Todd will have too much to do to look after his own affairs to enable him to give a thought to anybody else." "You will save me?" said Tobias. "I will. We will all stand between you and any harm; but, I repeat, I do not apprehend any danger to you." They all spoke to Tobias cheeringly, and in the course of half an hour they got him into quite a different state of mind; and then, as he was to form one of the party, it was quite a relief to them all that they did not feel compelled to keep a guard upon their tongues in his presence. In the evening of that day they were all at Brighton. Johanna And Company Leave Chelsea To Avoid The Vengeance Of Todd. Johanna And Company Leave Chelsea To Avoid The Vengeance Of Todd. CHAPTER CLII. TODD HAS SOME FURTHER ADVENTURES IN FLEET STREET. We left Todd in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church, while his old house was rapidly burning down. A perilous position for Todd! Perhaps, if he had courage sufficient to have made the attempt, he might have escaped at several junctures, but the dread of the consequences of capture was so strong in his heart and brain, that while he felt that he was undiscovered in the pulpit, he preferred remaining there to making any precipitate means of escape. It will be remembered how the beadle had taken up several gentlemen to the roof of the church, in order that they might get a good view of the fire; and it was during that time that Todd thought of escaping, but the rapid approach of daylight daunted him. "Oh, that I had remained in the wood at Hampstead, or anywhere but here in London, where the hands of all men are raised against me! Oh, I was madmad to come here. But I am not quite lost. If I thought that, my senses would go from me this moment. Oh, nono, I will be calm now again; I will not believe that I am quite lost yet." Of a truth, Todd felt that if he really gave up in despair, that he might commit some extravagance which would at once draw down upon him his enemies; and there he lay in the pulpit, his gaunt form huddled up so as completely to hide himself in it, and dreading to stay as much almost as he dreaded to leave. He heard still the loud shouts of people at the fire, and at times he thought he heard even the flames that were rapidly consuming the old den of iniquity in which he had committed so many crimes. The regular clank, clank, too, of the engine pumps came upon his ears, and he muttered "No, no, you may try your hardest, but you will not subdue that fire. It will blaze on in spite of you. You will notyou cannot, I say, subdue it. The house is too well prepared. I had a care for that before I left home. It will burn to the very grounday, and below the ground, too; and the spot of earth only will remain that held the foundation of my old house. Would that all whom I hate were at this moment writhing in the flames! Then I might feel some sort of satisfaction with myself, and even this place of peril would be for the time quite tolerable to me." No doubt it would have been a vast satisfaction to Todd to have all that he hated in the flames of his burning house; but as yet he could only tell himself that the puny vengeance he had achieved had been upon the most inferior tools of those who had wreaked his ruin, while the principals remained untouched and most completely unscathed. What had he yet done to Sir Richard Blunt? What to Tobias? What to Johanna? What even to the dog that had played no inconsiderable a part in his final conviction of the murder of its master? Little, indeed; and the thought that his revenges were all to do, scared his imagination, and filled him full of rage as well as terror. He heard the sound of the footsteps of the people who had gone to the roof of the church with the beadle to see the fire, coming down again, and he shrunk still closer into the bottom of the pulpit. "Oh," he said, "if they could but for one moment guess that I was here, what joy it would give them to drag me forth to the light of day! To once again cast me into the condemned one's cell, and then to hoot me to the gallows! But, nono; I will not die a felon's death. Rather by my own hands will I fall, if my fortune should reach such a wretched extremity. Hush!oh, hush! Why do I speak? They comethey come." "Well, gentlemen, as you say, the old house is gone at last," said the beadle, "and I must say, though fires always gives me a turn, and, as a parish authority perhaps I ought not to say it, I think it is a very good job." "A good job, Mr. Beadle?" said one. "How do you make that out?" "Why, sir, who would have lived in it? Who would have paid rent, and rates, and taxes, and given his Christmasbox to the beadle like a Christian, in Todd's old house, I should like to know?" "Well, you are right there." "I know I is, sir. The fact is, that house would have been like a great blot, sirs, in the middle of Fleet Street; no one would have taken it for love or money; and it a very good thing as it's gone at last." "You reason the matter very well, Mr. Beadle," said another, "and I for a certainty subscribe to your opinion, that it is a good thing it is gone at last, and I only hope that its late owner will soon be in the hands of justice. Somebody is trying the door of the church." The beadle went to it, and upon opening it two persons entered the church. One of them spoke at once, saying "Is the beadle of St. Dunstan's in the church?" Todd knew the voice. It was Sir Richard Blunt, and he shook so that the pulpit creaked again most ominously, so that if the attention of any one had chanced to be directed towards it, they might have felt a kind of suspicion that it was occupied. Luckily for Todd, no one looked up, nor in any way noticed the pulpit. "Lor, sir, yes," said the beadle. "Here I is, and if I don't make a great mistake, sir, you is Sir Richard Blunt." "I am." "Lor bless you, sir, that's the way with me. If I sees a indiwidal once, and knows 'em, I knows 'em again." "It's a capital faculty, Mr. Beadle. But my friend, Mr. Crotchet, here, will just go down with you through the vaults to make sure that the fire in Todd's house has in no way connected with this. We don't want to burn down the church." "Burn down the church, sir? Oh, conwulsions! Me go down into the vaults with this gentleman? Bless you, sir, I should only obstructify him in the discharge of his duty. I couldn't think of doing it, I assure you, sir. He can go by himself, you see, and then he will have the advantage of nobody to contradict him." "I'd rather go without him, Sir Richard," said Crotchet, who was the gentleman. "He's only a idiot!" The beadle marched up to Crotchet, until he got within about two inches of that gentleman's nose, and then slowly shaking his head to and fro, he said "Did you call me a hidiot?" "Yes, I did." "You did? Now, young man, mind what you say, because if you call me a hidiot, I shall be bound to do" "What?" "Nothing at all. I see you are rather a low fellow, so I shall treat you with the same contempt as I did the very common person that pulled my nose last weekSilent contempt! That's how I serve people. I despise you, accordingly." "Werry good," said Crotchet. "That's by far the safestest way, old feller. So now I'll go down into the vaults." "No news of Todd yet, Sir Richard?" said one of the gentlemen, walking up to the magistrate. "Oh, Sir Christopher Wren, I beg your pardon," said the magistrate. "I did not see you at the moment. I am sorry to say that although we have some news of Todd, we have not yet been able to catch him. But we must have him, England is not so very large a place after all, and I don't think he has any means of getting away from it." "The sooner the rascal expiates his crimes upon the scaffold the better. I never before heard of a criminal in whose whole career there was nothing found that could excite the faintest feeling of compassion." "He is a desperate bad fellow, indeed," said Sir Richard Blunt, "but I hope that he will not long trouble society. I have determined to give up all other pursuits until I take him, and I have a carte blanche from the Secretary of State to go to any expense, and to do what I please, in the way of capturing him." Todd's heart sunk within him at these words. Had they come from any one else, he would not have heeded them much but from him they were of fearful import. "Oh, that I could kill that man," he muttered, "then I should know some peace; but while he lives and while I live, we are like two planets in one orbit, and cannot long exist together." "I wish you every success," said Sir Christopher Wren. "I am obliged to you, Sir Christopher. The fact is, that Todd left his house pretty full of combustibles, and my men were unwise enough, contrary to my positive orders, to let them be there; and I am afraid that he may have contrived some mode of blowing up the church by a train or some other equally diabolical means, as he had such free and unrestrained access to it for so long." "What!" cried the beadle.
"What did you say, Sir Richard?" "I merely said that I was apprehensive Todd might have concocted some means of blowing up the church, that is all." "And me in it! And me in it! Conwulsions!" The beadle did not pause for another moment, but rushing to the door, he flew out of the church as if a barrel of gunpowder had been rolling after him, nor did he stop until he got right through Templebar and some distance down the Strand. "I am afraid I have frightened away our friend, the beadle," said Sir Richard Blunt. "And I don't wonder at it," replied Sir Christopher Wren. "I should not like exactly to be blown up along with the fragments of old St. Dunstan's Church myself, so I will go." "Ah, I am sorry I mentioned it." "Are you though? I am very much obliged to you for so doing. Excuse me, Sir Richard, for bidding you goodmorning rather abruptly, if you please." Sir Richard Blunt laughed as he bade Sir Christopher and his friend goodmorningbytheby, the friend had already made his way outside the churchdoor, and was waiting for Sir Christopher in no small degree of trepidation. "For God's sake," he said, "come along at once, or we may all be blown up together." "Well," said Sir Richard Blunt, as he paced up the aisle of the old church, "I would risk a little scorching, if at the end of it I could only lay my hand upon the shoulder of Sweeney Todd. What on earth can have become of the rascal? But I must be patientyes, patience will do it, for that we shall come face to face again, I feel to be as established a fact for the future, as that of my own existence now." "Oh," thought Todd, "if I now only dared to shoot him! If I only dared do it! And I would if it were not for the other one in the vaultsthat wretch they call Crotchet. And yet I have a pistol here. If I thought that after shooting him through the head or through the heart, I could by one bold rush get out of this church, what a glorious piece of work it would be! This Sir Richard Blunt is the only man that I dread. Were he no more, I should feel completely at peace. I could shoot him now." Todd took a pistol from his pocket and presented it through the little crevice of the very slightly open door of the pulpit. The door would open a little in spite of him. "Yes, oh, yes, I could shoot him now; but the report of the pistol would perhaps bring that other villain they call Crotchet from the vaults, and then who shall say what would happen? And yet I have another pistol, and could shoot him too. Oh, how glorious, if I could take the lives of both these men! It would indeed be a good work." The magistrate paced to and fro waiting for Crotchet, and little suspecting that Todd was so near to him, and with a pistol aimed at him! If he had only guessed as much, he would have freely risked the shot, and would soon have been in the pulpit along with Todd. But it was not to be. Sir Richard Blunt had not any supernatural power by which he could tell of the proximity of Todd from no evidence of that fact at all. "Yes," said Todd suddenly, "I will shoot him. I will risk all and shoot him now. If I die for it, I shall have, at least, had a great and glorious revenge! I will shoot him now, when he turns and walks up the aisle again." Todd felt calm and pleased now that he had actually made up his mind to shoot Sir Richard. He projected the barrel of the pistol about an inch or so through the crevice caused by the spring of the door, and he calmly waited for the opportunity of sending its deadly contents into the heart of the magistrate. The aisle down which Sir Richard had slowly paced was rather a long one, and he had walked down it some halfdozen times, in deep thought, and waiting for Crotchet. There was no reason on earth why he should not come up it again, and so expose himself to the deadly aim of Todd. He did commence the walk up it. If he had taken twenty steps he would have been a dead man; but chance, or providenceit is not for us to say whichhad it otherwise. After going about ten paces, he turned abruptly to the left, and made his way down a long narrow passage between the pews to the opening that led down to the vaults, where Crotchet was pursuing his inquiries. Todd was foiled. He drew back with a deep sigh. "He is saved!" he said. "He is saved! It is not to be!" Quite unconscious of the serious danger he had so narrowly escaped, Sir Richard went to the mouth of the opening to the vaults, and called out "Crotchet! Crotchet!" "Here you is, sir," replied Crotchet; "I was just coming. It's all right. The old wagabone hasn't done nothing, sir, to spread the fire out of his own blessed premises, as I can see. The church isn't in danger, sir, I take it." "Very good, Crotchet; then we need not remain here any longer. I cannot, for the life of me, think what has become of our man that we left in Todd's house. In all the riot and racket of the fire, no one seems to be at all aware of what has become of him. Is he a steady sort of a man, Crotchet?" "Why yes, Sir Richard, he is. But if the truth must be told, he has got the fault of many. He is fond of the" Here Crotchet went through expressively the pantomime of placing a glass to his lips and draining it off, after which he rubbed his stomach, as much as to say"Isn't it nice!" "I understand, Crotchet he drinks." "Rather, Sir Richard." "Ah, that is the case of allor of nearly allmen in his class of life. I should not wonder now, at all, if he has not been taking a glass of something, in consequence of feeling lonely, and so set fire to the old house." CHAPTER CLIII. TODD ASTONISHES THE BEADLE, AND ESCAPES PROM ST. DUNSTAN'S. "Oh!" groaned Todd to himself. "Oh, if I had but shot the villain before the other one came up from the vaults, and all would have been well; but I cannot shoot them both at once. It is not often that I lose anything by procrastination, but I have nowOh, yes, I have now! It is maddening!It is quite maddening! and I could find in my own heart almost to turn this pistol against my own life, only that I hope yet to live a little while for vengeance." A smart tap came against the church door. "Open the door, Crotchet," said Sir Richard. "We are alone in the church now, for the beadle was too careful of himself to remain after he found that there was some little danger." "Oh, sir," said Crotchet, with an expression of disgust in his face, "beadles is humbugs, sir; and this beadle of St. Dunstan's is the very worst of the worst of beadles. Didn't you notice, sir, what an old humbug he was before, when we was acoming here on the hunt about Todd and that beautiful creature Mrs. Lovett? Then, sir, we found out what sort of a beadle that was. I rather think I despises beadles, sir; I does, your worship." Tap came the knock at the church door again. "You forget, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, pointing to the door. "Lor, yer worship, so I did. I begs his blessed pardon whosomever it is. Come in. There's nobody but the right sort here, whoever it is. Hilloa! it's our friend, Green." "Ah, Green, are you looking for me?" said Sir Richard. "I was, sir." "Then you have news. What is it?" "Todd is in the neighbourhood, sir, or was an hour or two ago, I am well assured." "Todd?" "Yes, sir. He was in his own house. A man came to the door of it to see the person minding it, and the door was opened a little way, and Todd tried to pull him in, and would have pulled him in, but his neckcloth gave way, and then the fire broke out directly after. The man has been in too great a fright till just a little while ago to venture into the street again." "You have seen him?" "I have, sir." "Bring him here, Green." Green immediately left the church, and Mr. Crotchet set up a long and melancholy whistle. "In my heart I thought this might be," said Sir Richard, "and yet having no evidence to justify the suggestion of my fancy, I did not like to nurse the idea. Todd in this neighbourhoodTodd in his own house! Oh, what a chance!" "Your worship," said Crotchet, shaking his head and speaking slowly, with an appearance of great wisdom. "Your worship, it's mostly always the case. There's a special providence that always brings back folks as has done a murder back again to the place where they has done it; and the next time I'm on the lay for a cove as has done a slaughtering job, I shall sit myself down, yer worship, in the room where he did it and wait for him. It's a special thing of Providence, it is, sir, I feel as sure as though I did it myself, as isn't Providence at all, but just Crotchet, and no sort of mistake." "You are right, Crotchet, as far as examples go. We will only just listen to what this man that Green has gone for has got to say, and then we will be off and do our best." "Yes, yer worship, we will; and here he is." Green, the officer, now brought into the church the very man with whom Todd had had the little adventure at the door of his shop; and notwithstanding the time that had elapsed since that little incident, the man was still in a state of terror, which was quite manifest in every feature of his face. "Why, what's the matter with you?" said Crotchet, as he dealt the man a blow on the back that nearly took all his breath away. "You look as scared as if you had just seen a ghost, old fellow, that you do." "It was worse than a ghost." Sir Richard Blunt stepped up to the man, and said "Do you know me? I am Sir Richard Blunt the magistrate." "Oh, yes, sir, I know you." "Answer me then, clearly and distinctly, for much may depend upon it. Who was it opened the door of Todd's house for you, and strove, as I hear, to drag you into it?" "Sweeney Todd, sir." "Are you quite sure? Do you know him well by sight?" "Oh, yes, sir, I could swear it." "And you thought it very natural that he should be there, and if anybody there had so laid hold of you in the dark, you would, of course, at once have naturally concluded that it must be Todd?" "Oh, dear no, sir, I hadn't an idea that it could be him, sir; and if I hadn't seen his face, that I know quite well, I couldn't possibly have believed it to be him." "That is enough. I will not trouble you any further. I am much obliged to you for your information." "You are very welcome, Sir Richard; and I do hope you may catch the rascal soon. I shall never forget his having hold of me, for the longest day I have to live." Still shaking at the bare remembrance of the danger that he had run, the man left the church; and peeping over his shoulder every now and then as he went, for fear Todd should be close at hand, he took his route to quite a different quarter of the town, where he fancied he should feel more secure; for he could not make up his mind to anything but that Todd must have some special desire to lay hold of him, and add him to the already formidable musterroll of his victims. When he left the church, Sir Richard Blunt turned to Crotchet, and said "Crotchet, you may depend, now, that Todd is in London, and fancies that among its crowds will be his greatest chance of safety. I will take measures at once to discover him. Come along with me to Cravenstreet, and you too, Green, and I will explain to you both what I think will be the best plan to adopt." "All's right, sir; we'll have him," said Crotchet. "I think we shall," said Green, "for, large as London is, I rather think we know how to search it as well as most folks. I attend you, sir, and I will run any risk in the world to take the scoundrel prisoner." "And so will I," said Crotchet. "I know you both well," said Sir Richard, "and I cannot desire to be aided by better men than you both are. Come on. I will not speak further of any plans or projects except in my own office, where I know that there are no spies or eavesdroppers." "This blessed church is pretty safe," said Crotchet. "It ain't very likely that anybody is on the listening lay in it. It would be rather cold work, I take it. But, howsomdever, there's nothing like being on the right side of the hedge, and in one's own crib, that one knows all the ins and all the outs of, after all." They both followed Sir Richard Blunt from the church, and Todd felt that he was once again alone within that sacred edifice, the very atmosphere of which was profaned by the presence of such a wretch, so loaded with crimes as he was. "Gone," said Todd, looking up put of the pulpit, "and may all" We cannot repeat the maledictions of Todd. They were additionally awful spoken in such a building, and from such a place in that building. It was dreadful that the roof of a place reared to the worship of God, should be desecrated by the raving curses of such a man as Todd. He was silent after he had satisfied his first ebullition of rage, and then he was afraid that he had gone too far, and endangered his safety by making an appearance at all above the level of the pulpit, or by speaking. How did he know but that Sir Richard Blunt might, after all, have some sort of suspicion that he was not far off, and be listening close at hand? As this supposition, wild and vague as it was, and quite unsupported by any evidence, found a home in the brain of Todd, the perspiration of intense fear broke out upon his brow, and again he shook to the extent of making the old pulpit creak dreadfully. "Oh, hush! hush!" he moaned. "Be stillbe still. I am safe yet. There is no one here. I am safe, surely. There is no one in the church. Why do I suffer more, much more, from what does not happen, than from what does?" Still the notion clung to him for a little while, and he remained at the bottom of the pulpit quite needlessly for the next half hour, listening with all his might, in order to detect the slightest noise that might be indicative of the presence of a foe. But all was as still as the grave, and by slow degrees Sweeney Todd got more assured. "I breathe again," he said. "They do not suspect that I am here. It is much too unlikely a place for them to dream of for a moment. Even Sir Richard Blunt, with his utmost prescience, does not think of looking for me in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church. I am safeI am safe for the present." He agreed with this feeling that he was quite alone in the church, and he was right. He looked over the edge of the pulpit. How still and solemn the place looked! The morning had advanced quite sufficiently now to shed a dim light into the church, and the noise in the street contingent upon the fire had nearly passed away. The fact was, that the firemen had, after making a few efforts and finding them of no use, let Todd's house burn to the ground, and turned all their efforts towards saving the edifices on either side. In that object they were successful, so that the conflagration was over, and nothing remained but the frail wall of Todd's house. And so the clank of the enginepumps no longer sounded in his ears, but he could yet be certain that there was a great crowd in Fleet Street, for he heard the hum of voices, and occasionally the trouble that ensued when a vehicle tried to force its way through the dense mass of people that blocked up the thoroughfare, which at the best of times was none of the clearest. "Is there a chance now of escape," said Todd, "if I could only make up my mind to it? I do not forget that I am disguisedI ought not to forget that. Who will know me? and yet that man knew methat man that I missed killing at the old place. Yes, he knew me. He said he could swear to me. Confound him! I wish I could have sworn to his dead body. I wonder if they have left the churchdoor open, or, rather, only upon the latch? II will descend from here, and make a bold attempt." He opened the pulpitdoor, and had got about three steps down the little ornamental flight of winding stairs that led from the pulpit to the body of the building, when the churchdoor was suddenly opened, and he fled back with a precipitation that made some noise, when he might have done so in perfect quietness, for it was not very likely that any one would have looked up to the pulpit immediately upon their entrance to the building. A glance towards the door convinced Mr. Todd that it was the beadle. "Oh, dear, I thought I heard something," said the beadle, as he closed the door after him. "But I suppose it was only fancy, after all. Now they say that all the fire is out, and that it is quite impossible for the church to be blowed up, I suppose I may come in without any danger. Lor bless us, that Sir Richard Blunt, I do believe, would think no more of blowing up a beadle, than he would of eating a penny bun, that's my opinion of him." "Curses on your head!" muttered Todd. "Bless me, what a world we live in," said the beadle. "Wretchbeast," muttered Todd; "what does he want here at this time of day?" "Yes, tomorrow's Sunday," said the beadle, as if pursuing a train of thought that had found a home in his brain. "How the weeks do run round, to be sure, and one Sunday comes after another at such a rate, that it seems as if there was weeks and weeks and weeks of 'em, without any of the other days at all. I wish I hadn't to come here." Todd uttered faintly some dreadful imprecations, and the beadle continued talking to himself to keep his courage up, as was evident from his nervous and fidgetty manner. "Ah, dear, me. Conwulsions! I tried to persuade my wife to come and dust the communion table and the pulpitcushions for tomorrow, but she politely declined; she needn't have thrown the bellows at my head though, for all that." "Dust the pulpitcushions!" thought Todd. "The wretch is coming up here! I shall have to cut his throat, and leave him at the bottom of the pulpit for the parson to tread upon the first thing he does tomorrow, upon coming up here to preach." As Todd spoke, he took a clasped knife out of his pocket, and opened it with his teeth. "Oh, yes, my old friend, I shall, I see, be under the painful necessity of cutting your throat, that I shall, and I shall not hesitate about it at all." "Yes," added the beadle, "I mean to say that to throw the bellows at the man is like adding insult to injury, for it is blowing him up in a kind of way that's anything but agreeable. Lor! how cold and rum the church does feel. Rum? why did I say rum and put myself in mind of it? Oh, don't I like it, rather! If I only now had a glass of real fine old Jamaica rum at this moment, I'd be as happy as a bishop." "Oh, I'll rum you!" growled Todd. "Eh? Eh?" The beadle turned round three times, as though he were going to begin a game at blindman'sbluff, and then he said "I thought I heard something. Oh dear, how shivery I do get to be sure, when I'm alone in the church. I'll just get through the dusting job as quick as I can, and no mistake. Amen! Amen! I'm a miserable sinnerAmen!" CHAPTER CLIV. DETAILS THE PERILOUS SITUATION OF THE BEADLE. Todd had heard all this with anger and impatience rankling at his heart. He began to have the most serious thoughts of sacrificing the beadleindeed, if any good could have been got to himself by so doing, he would not have scrupled to do so with the greatest speed. As it was, however, he could not concoct any plan of proceedings quickly which would benefit him, and so he was compelled to remain an auditor of the beadle's private thoughts, and a spectator of what he was about, when he chose to peep over the edge of the pulpit. "Well, it's astonishing," continued the beadle, "what a fever that fellow Todd has kept me in for I don't know how long, one way or another me and Fleet Street have been regularly bothered by him. First of all, I was in all sorts of doubts and uncertainties about the matter before they took him and tried him, and was agoing to hang him, and then I did think that he was asgoodas donefor" As he uttered these last words, the beadle was banging one of the cushions of the communiontable, so that he was compelled for want of breath to utter them at intervals. "Oh, confound you!" muttered Todd, "if I only had hold of you, I would throttle you, and then think of what to do afterwards." Todd's great difficulty arose from the fact that he thought if he tried to descend from the pulpit, the beadle might see him and get the start of him in leaving the church, in which event the alarm that he would raise in Fleet Street would be such, that any attempt to escape would be attended by the greatest hazard. "There is nothing for it but to wait," said Todd to himself gloomily. "I can do nothing else; but woe to him when I do catch him!" "This dusting job on a Saturday," said the beadle, "does seem to me to be one of the most disagreeable of all that has to be done with the church. I don't mind one's duty on a Sunday, but this is horrid. On a Sunday there's lots of people, and the old place has a sort of cheerful look about it, but now I don't like it, and I've a good mind to get one of the charityboys of the blessed parish to keep me company." "I will kill him, too, if you do," muttered Todd. The beadle paused upon this thought concerning the charityboy; but as he had finished the communiontable, he did not think that for the mere dusting the pulpit and its cushions, it was worth while to make any fuss. "It will soon be over," he said, "very soon. I'll just pop up and settle the pulpit, and then get home again as quick as I possibly can. I do wonder, now, if that old Todd will be caught soon? The old wretch!" The beadle began the ascent of the pulpit. "It's my opinion," he said, "that Toddas he had other folks made up into piesought to be made into one himself, and then given to mad dogs for a supperHa! ha! That's a very good thought of mine, and when I go to the 'Pig'seye, Tooth, and Tinderbox,' tonight, I will out with it, and they will knock their pots and glasses against the table beautifully, and cry out'Well done, bravo!bravo!' I rather think I'm a great man at the 'Pig'seye, Tooth and Tinderbox.'" By this time the beadle had got quite to the top of the pulpit stairs, and had his hand on the door. Todd was crouched down at the bottom of the pulpit, waiting for him like some famished tiger ready to pounce upon his prey. He fully intended to murder the unfortunate beadle. "Well, here goes," said that most unhappilysituated functionary, as he stepped into the pulpit. Todd immediately grasped his legs. "If you say one word, you are a dead man!" The shock was too much for the nerves of the poor beadle of St. Dunstan's, and on the instant he fainted, and fell huddled up at the bottom of the little place. Todd immediately stood upon the prostrate form of the parochial authority. "Ha! ha!" he laughed, "I have him now, and I shall be able to leave St. Dunstan's yet." He trampled as hard upon the beadle as he could, and then he took the clasp knife from his pocket, and said "It will be better to kill him. Rise, idiot, rise, and tell me if you can, why I should not cut your throat?" The beadle neither moved nor spoke. "Is he dead?" said Todd. "Has the fright killed him? It is strange; but I have heard of such things. Why it surely must be so. The sudden shock has been the death of him, and it would be a waste of time for me to touch him. He is deadhe must be dead!" Todd, full of this feeling, retreated two or three steps down the little winding staircase of the pulpit, and then reaching in his hand, he caught hold of the poor beadle by the hair of his head, and dragged him sufficiently out of the pulpit to be enabled to look him in the face. The eyes were closed, the inspiration seemed to be stopped, and there was, in truth, every appearance of death about the unfortunate functionary of the old church. "Yes, dead," said Todd; "but it will be better for me. He will be found here, and as no violence will show upon him, the doctors will learnedly pronounce it a case of apoplexy, and there will arise no suspicion of my having been here at all. It is much better, oh, much, than as if I had killed him." With this feeling, Todd pushed what he considered to be the dead body of the beadle back into the pulpit again, and then himself rapidly descended the little spiral flight of stairs. The clock of St. Dunstan's struck the hour of ten, and Todd carefully counted the strokes. "Ten," he said. "A busy houra hour of broad daylight, and I with such a price upon my head, and the hands of all men lifted against me, in one of the most populous streets in the City of London! It is a fearful risk!" It was a fearful risk, and Todd might well shudder to find that his temerity had brought him into such a position; but yet he felt that if anything were to save him, it would be boldness, and not shrinking timidity. One great cause of dread had passed away from Todd when Sir Richard Blunt left the church. If in any way Todd had had to encounter him, he would have shrunk back appalled at the frightful risk. When he gained the body of the church, he glanced again up to the pulpit, but all was there profoundly still; and the fact of the death of the beadle appeared to him, Todd, to be so very firmly established, now, as to require no further confirmation. Although the beadle had closed the church door, he had placed the key, most probably for security, in the inner side of the lock, and there Todd found it. He thought it would be a good thing to put it in his pocket, and he did so accordingly; and when the key was removed, he placed his eye to the keyhole, and peeped out into Fleet Street. Todd could see the people passing quickly, but no one cast a glance towards the old church, and he began to reason with himself, that surely there could be no difficulty in getting into the street quite unnoticed, if not quite unobserved. Again he told himself that he was well disguised. "I dread no eye," he said, "but that of Sir Richard Blunt, and he is not here to look upon me. There is not one else, I think, in London that would know me through this disguise. There was never but one who could do so, and she is dead. Yes, Mrs. Lovett might have known me, but she is no more so I will venture. Yes, I will venture now." His heart failed him a little as he placed his hand upon the lock of the churchdoor. It well might do so, for the risk he run, or was about to run, was truly fearful. He was on the point of sallying out among a population, the whole of whom were familiar with his name, and to whom he was as a being accursed, who would upon the slightest hint of identity be gladly hunted to the death. Truly, Todd might well hesitate. But yet to hesitate was perhaps to be lost. How could he tell now one moment from another when some one might come to the churchdoor? and then he would be in a worse position than before. Yes, he felt that he must make the attempt to leave, whether that attempt should involve him in destruction or not, for to stay were far worse. He opened the door and coolly closed it again, and marched into Fleet Street. We say he did this coolly, but it were better to say that he acted a coolness that he was far from feeling. A very tempest of terror was at his heart. His brain for a moment or two felt like a volcano, and he reeled as he felt himself in the broad open light of day in Fleet Street among the throng of the population, and yet in that throng was in truth his greatest safety. "Ain't you well, sir?" said a man. Todd started and placed his hand upon the knife that he had handy in his pocket; and then he thought that after all it might only be a civil inquiry, and he replied "Oh, yes, thank youthank you, sir. But I am old." "I beg your pardon, sir." The man passed on. "Oh, curse you! I should like to settle you," said Todd to himself as he passed through Temple Bar; but what a relief it was to pass through Temple Bar at all! To leave that now frightfully dangerous Fleet Street behind him. Oh, yes, that was a relief indeed; and Todd felt as if some heavy weight had been taken off his heart upon the moment that he set foot in the Strand. "Am I safe?" he muttered. "Am I safe? Oh, no, no. Do not let me be too confident." He was superstitiously afraid of pluming himself upon the fact of having got so far in safety, lest at the moment that he did so, malignant destiny might be revenged upon him, by bringing in his way some one who might know him, even though his capital disguise; so he went on tremblingly. Todd did not like large open thoroughfares now, and yet, perhaps, if he had set to work reasoning upon the subject, he would have come to the conclusion that they were quite as safe, if not a few degrees safer for him, than bystreets but there was something in the glaring publicity of such a thoroughfare as the Strand that he shrunk from, and he was glad to get from it into the gloomy precincts of Holywell Street. That street then, as now, was certainly not the resort of the most choice of the population of London, but Todd liked it, and he was wonderfully attracted by a dirtylooking little publichouse which was then in it. A murder was committed in that house afterwards, and it lost its licence, and was eventually destroyed by fire. "Dare I go in here?" said Todd. "I am faint for want of food, and if I do not have something soon I feel that I shall sink, and then there will be a fuss, and who knows what horrible discovery might then take place? This house is dark and gloomy, and in all likelihood is the resort of gentlemen who are not in the habit of having any superfluous questions asked of them; so it will suit me well." He dived in at the narrow doorway, and found himself in one of the smallest and darkest publichouses that he had ever beheld in all his life, for although he had lived so long in Fleet Street so close at hand, he had never ventured into that den. "A nice parlour to the right, sir," said a rather masculinelooking specimen of the fair sex in the bar. "Thank you, madam." Todd went to the right, and opening a little door, which, in consequence of having a cord and pulley attached to it, made a great resistance, he entered a little grimy room, the walls of which were of wainscot, but so begrimed with tobacco smoke were they, that they were of the colour of the darkest rosewood, and the ceiling in no way differed from them in tint. A fire was burning in a little wretched grate, and the floor was covered with coarse sand, which crackled under Todd's feet. The furniture of this little den, which certainly had the name of 'Parlour' from courtesy only, consisted of the coldestlooking rigid wooden chairs and tables that could be imagined. Two men sat by the fire trying to warm themselves, for a cold wind was blowing in the streets of London, and the season was chilly and wintry for the time of the year. Todd, when he found the parlour had some one in it, would gladly have effected a retreat; but to do so, after he had made his way into the middle of the room, would have only aroused suspicion, so he resolved to go on, and carry the affair through; and for greater safety, he put on a very infirm aspect, and appeared to be bent double by age and disease. He coughed dreadfully. "You don't seem to be very well, sir," said one of the men. "Oh, dear me, no," said Todd. "When you are as old as I am, young man, you won't wonder at infirmities coming upon you." "Young man, do you call me? I am forty." "Ah, forty! When I was forty, and that was thirty years ago, I thought myself quite a youth. Oh, dear me, but what with the gout, and the lumbago, and two or three more little things, I am nearly done for now. Oh, dear me, life's a burthen." "What would you like to have, sir?" said a girl who waited upon the parlour guests, and who came in for Todd's order. "Anything, my dear, you have in the house to eat, and some brandy to drink, if you please." "Sit by the fire, sir," said one of the men; "you will be more comfortable. We ought to make way for age." "Oh, dear no, I thank you. I must be somewhere where I can rest my poor back at times, so I like this corner." It was a dark corner, and Todd preferred it. "It will do very well for me, if you please.
Oh, dear me; don't disturb yourselves, gentlemen, on my account, I beg of you. I am an old brokendown man, and have not long to live now in this world of care and sorrow." CHAPTER CLV. TODD GETS THE BETTER OF THE SHARPERS, AND TAKES A BOAT. The girl brought Todd a plate of roastbeef, a loaf, and some brandy, with which he regaled himself tolerably well; but he was uncomfortably conscious that the two men were looking at him all the while. "Gentlemen," he said, "it's a very odd thing, but my appetite continues good notwithstanding all my infirmities. I eat well, and I drink well, and the doctors say that that is what keeps me alive." "I should not wonder," said one of the men drily. "Yes," said the other, with a laugh, "you are like us, old gentleman; we live by victuals and drink." "Ah, I didn't mean that," said Todd; "you young people are so fond of your jokes. Dear me, when I was young I used to be fond of my joke, likewise, but now I am so old, that what with my winter cough, and the gout, and all that sort of thing, my joking days are long since gone by. I lost my poor wife, too, a little while agobless her heart! Ah, me!" Todd had the greatest inclination in the world to make up one of his old diabolical faces at this juncture; but he restrained himself, for he felt the danger of doing so; and then affecting to wipe away a tear, he added "But I find my consolation in religion. There's where, gentlemen, an old man may look for comfort, and that strength of heart and soul, which in this world is denied to him." "Very true, sirvery true." "Ah, gentlemen, it is true; and there's nothing in all the world like an easy conscience. That's the sort of thing to make a man feel serene and happy in this world, while he is preparing for the joys of the next." "How delightful it is, sir," said one of the men, "for us to meet with a gentleman who has the same opinion as ourselves. Will you join us in a glass, sir, if you please?" "Oh, yesyes, with pleasure. What a shocking bad fire, they tell me, has been in Fleet Street." "Yes, it's the notorious Todd's house." "Indeed!" The man who had proposed the social glass rang the bell, and ordered three tumblers of brandyandwater, and then he said "Ah, sir! if you or I could only lay hold of Sweeney Todd it would be rather a good day's work." "Oh, dear, God forbid!" said Todd. "He would soon lay me low if I were to try to lay hold of him, with, as I may say in a manner of speaking, one foot in the grave. I am not, in the natural order of things, long for this world, gentlemen, and it is not for me to lay hold of desperate characters." "That's true, sir; but do you know the reward that is offered for him by the Secretary of State?" "No! Is there really a reward for him?" "Yes, a thousand pounds clear to any one who will lodge him in any jail. A thousand pounds! Why, it makes a man's mouth water to think of it. One might retire, Bill, mightn't one, and give up all sorts of" Bill gave his enthusiastic comrade rather a severe cautionary kick under the table, and it seemed to have the effect of stopping the word 'thieving' from coming past his lips quite at unawaresat least that was the way Todd translated it. He had not the smallest doubt but that the publichouse was a very indifferent one, and that the two men whom he was in company with in it were two of the most arrant thieves in all London. Todd resolved to act accordingly, and he did not let them see that he had the least suspicion of them; but he kept such a wary eye upon their movements, that nothing they did or looked escaped him. They little supposed that so keen an observer watched them as Sweeney Todd was. The brandyandwater that had been ordered soon made its appearance; and Todd, while perpetrating a very wellacted fit of coughing, saw one of the men just slightly wink at the other, and take a little way from his waistcoat pocket a small bottle. "Oh!" thought Todd, "my brandyandwater will be prepared, I see; and if I do not look sharp, these fellows will rob me of all that I have run so much risk, and took so much trouble to get out of the old house." After a moment's thought, he rose and said "I will only go and pay for what I have had at the bar, and you must permit me likewise to pay for this." "Oh, nono!" "Oh, yes, but I willI will! I dare say that I have the most money, after all, for I have been very careful in my time, and saved a trifle, so you must permit me." The two thieves were so delighted at getting rid of him for a few moments, that although they declared it was too bad, they let him go. The moment he was gone, one said to the other, with a grin "Bill, put a good dose into the old chap's glass. He has got a rare gold watch in his pocket, and there's a ring on his finger, that if it isn't a diamond, it's as near like one as ever I heard of. Give him a good dose." "Well, but you know that even a few drops will settle him?" "Never mind that. It's all right enough; pour it in." They put enough of some deadly drug into the glass of brandyand water that stood next to where Todd had been sitting to kill a horse; and then he returned and sat down with a groan, as he said "It's quite a funny thing! There's a man at the bar inquiring for somebody; and he's got a red waistcoat on." "A red waistcoat!" cried both the the thieves, jumping up. "Did you say a red waistcoat?" "Why, yes; and I think he is what they call a Bow Street thingamyLord bless my old brain! what do they call them" "A runner?" "Ah, to be sure, a Bow Street runner, to be sure." Both the thieves bundled out of the parlour in a moment, and Todd was not idle while they were gone. The first thing he did was to decant his own brandyandwaterwhich had been druggedinto an empty glass. Then he filled his glass with the contents of one of the thieves' glasses. After that, he half filled that glass with the drugged spirit, and filled it up from the other thief's glass, and that again he filled up with the drugged spirit. By this means, each of them had half from the glass they hadas they thoughtso very cleverly drugged for him, to drink from; and as they had not scrupled to put in an over dose, it may be fairly presumed that there was in each of their glasses quite enough to make them very uncomfortable. They both returned. "There's nobody there now," said one. "Are you sure you saw him, sir? We can't see any one." "Didn't I tell you he was going away when I saw him? It was only the latch of the door catching his topcoat that made me see his red waistcoat; and it was a wonder then that I saw it, for I am not very noticeable in those things. Oh, dear, how bad my cough is." "Take some of your brandyandwater, sir," said one of the thieves, as he winked at the other. "It will do you good, sir." "Not a doubt of it," said the other. "Do you think so? Wellwell, perhaps it may. Here's my friendship to both of you, gentlemen; and I hope we shall none of us repent of this happy meeting. I am much pleased, gentlemen, to see you both, and hope the brandyandwater will do us all a world of good. I will give you a toast, gentlemen." "Ah, a toast!a toast!" "But mind gentlemen, you must take a good draught, if you drink my toastWill you?" "Will we? Ay, to be sure, if you will." "I promise, gentlemen; so here's the toastIt's to the very cunning fox who laid a trap for another, and caught his own tail in it!" "What a droll toast!" said the two thieves. They paused a moment, but as they saw their new friend drink at least onehalf of his brandyandwater in honour of the toast, they did the same thing, and looked at each other quite contented and pleased as possible that the drugged spirit, at the very first pull, had been so freely partaken offor they had found, by experience, the victims they would have made perceived a disagreeable taste, and would not drink twice. "Hilloa!" said Todd. "What's the matter, old gentleman?" "Do you know, this is very good brandyandwater?" "Glad you like it." "Like it?I couldn't be off liking it. It's capital! Let's finish these glasses, and have others at once." As he spoke he finished his glass, and the two thieves were so delighted that he had taken it all, that they at once finished theirs likewise; and then they looked at him, and then at each other, until one said to the other, as he made a wry face "I say, Bill, II don't much like my glass. How did yours taste, eh, old fellow?" "Very queer." "How strange," said Todd; "mine was beautiful! I hope, gentlemen, you have not made a mistake and put anything out of the way in your own glasses instead of mine?" "Oh, dear. Ohoh! I am going, Bill." "And so am I. Oh, murder! My head is going round and round like a hummingtop as big as St. Paul's." "And so is mine." "Then, gentlemen," said Todd, rising, "I shall have the pleasure of bidding you good day, and I hope you have just sense enough left to appreciate the toast of the 'cunning fox that laid a trap for another, in which he caught his own tail,' and I have the further pleasure of informing you that I am Sweeney Todd." The two thieves, quite overcome by the powerful and deathdealing narcotic they had placed in the liquor, fell to the floor in a state of perfect insensibility, and Todd very calmly walked out of the publichouse. Todd Turns The Tables On The Two Sharpers, And Escapes. Todd Turns The Tables On The Two Sharpers, And Escapes. "This will not do," he said, when he reached the westend of Holywell Street. "I must not run such risks as this. I must now be off. But where to? That is the question. Out of London, of course. The river, I thinkay, the river. That will be the best. I will house myself until night, and then I will hire a boat and go to Gravesend. From there I shall not find much difficulty in getting on board some foreign vessel, and with what I have in my pockets I will bid adieu to England for a little while, until I can sell my watches and jewels, and then I will come back and have my revenge yet upon those whom I only live now to destroy." Full of these thoughts, Todd went down one of the narrow streets leading to the Thames, and as he saw a bill in a window of lodgings to let, he thought he should be safer there than in a house of public entertainment. He resolved upon taking a lodging for a week at any cost, and then leaving it in the evening after he should have had some rest at it, which he might do for the remainder of the day, provided the people would take him in, which he had very little doubt of them doing, as he did not intend to object to their terms, and he did intend to pay in advance. Todd knocked at the door. It was answered by a woman of the true landlady species, who, upon hearing that it was the lodging Todd was after, was all smiles and sweetness immediately. "I have come up from the country, madam," said Todd, "and my luggage is at an inn in Gracechurch Street. I intend to send for it in the morning; and as I am weary, if you can accommodate me with a lodging, as I have some business to transact for my son, the Deacon, in London, I shall be much obliged." "Oh, dear, yes sir; walk in. We have every accommodation. The drawingroom floor, sir, at three guineas and a few extras." "That will just do," said Todd. "Will you be so good as to show me the rooms, madam?" Todd saw the rooms, and of course admired them very much; and then he said, in the blandest manner "I think the rooms very cheap, madam, and will take them at once, if you please. The reference I will give you, is to the Principal of Magdalen College, Oxford, the Reverend Peter Sly, madam. My own name is Bones, and my son is the Reverend Archdeacon Bones. I will pay you now a week in advance; and all I have to beg of you is, that you do yourself justice as to charges. I will lie down and rest for a few hours, if you please, madam." "Oh, dear, sir! yes, certainly, Mr. Bones. There shall be no noise to disturb you, and anything you want, if you will be so good as to ring for, I will supply you with the greatest pleasure." "Thank you, madam." Thus then was it that Todd secured himself what appeared to be a wonderfully safe asylum until night. He got into the bed with all his clothes on; for he did not know how sudden the emergency might be that might induce him to rise; and he soon fell into a deep sleep, for he had undergone the greatest fatigues of late. CHAPTER CLVI. SIR RICHARD BLUNT IS VERY NEAR TAKING HIS PRISONER. We left the poor beadle in anything but a pleasant situation in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church. Now it so happened that the beadle was particularly wanted at home; and as he did not make his appearance, his wife repaired to the church to search for him; but it was locked by Todd, who had swung the door shut after him, and as he had taken the key with him, she could not make her way into the sacred edifice. As she stood at the door, however, she distinctly heard deep groans issuing from some one within the church; and in a state of great alarm, she ran off to one of the churchwardens, who had a duplicate key, and related what she had heard. The churchwarden not being one of the most valorous of men, rather, upon the whole, declined to go into the church with no other escort than the beadle's wife; and as he, too, upon listening at the keyhole, heard the groans distinctly, he called upon the passersby to assist, and got together quickly enough about twenty people to go into the church with him. "Gentlemen," he said, "I don't know what it is, but there's groans; and in these horrid times, when, for all we know, Sweeney Todd is about the neighbourhood, one can't be too cautious." "Certainly," said everybody. "Then, gentlemen, if we all go in together when I open the door, it will be the very best plan." This was duly agreed to; and the churchwarden, with a trembling hand, turned his key in the lock, and opened the door. He then stepped aside, and let all the crowd go in first, thinking that, as he was a man in office, the parish could not afford to lose him, in case anything serious should happen. "Well, gentlemen," he cried, "what is it?" "Nothing," said everybody. "Then I will soon let nothing see that I, a churchwarden, am not to be frightened with impunitythat is to say, when I say frightened, I don't exactly mean that, but astonished, I mean. Come, comeif any one be here, I call upon them to surrender in the king's name!" A deep groan was the only response to this valorous speech; and the moment the churchwarden heard it, he bolted out of the church, and ran right across the way into a shop opposite. For a moment or two, this precipitate retreat of the churchwarden had something contagious in it, and the whole of the men who had been induced to stop and go into the church with him were inclined to retreat likewise; but curiosity detained some three of four of them, and that gave courage to the others. "What was it?" said one. "A groan," said another; "and it came from the pulpit." "The pulpit!" cried everybody. "Who ever heard of a pulpit groaning?" cried a third. "You stupid!" cried the second speaker "might it not be some one in the pulpit?andOh Lordthere's a head!" At this they all took to flight; but at the door they encountered a man, who called out "What's the matter? Can't you tell a fellow what the blessed row iseh?" This was no other than our old friend Crotchet, who was returning from a conference with Sir Richard Blunt at his private office in Craven Street. "Oh, it's a ghost! A ghost!" "A what?" "A ghost in the pulpit, and there is his head." "You don't say so?" said Crotchet, as he peered into the church, and shading his eyes with his hand, saw the beadle's head just peeping over the side of the pulpit in a most mysterious kind of way. "I'll soon have him out, ghost or no ghost." Courage is as contagious as fear, especially when somebody else volunteers to run all the risk; and so when Crotchet said he would soon have the somebody out of the pulpit, the whole crowd followed him into the church, applauding him very greatly for his prowess, and declaring that if he had not then arrived, they would soon have had the ghost or no ghost out of the sacred building, that they would. But they kept within a few paces of the door for all that, so that they might be ready for a rush into Fleet Street, if Mr. Crotchet should be overcome in the adventure. That was only prudent. But Crotchet was not exactly the man to be overcome in any adventure, and with an utter oblivion of all fear, he marched right into the middle of the church, and commenced the ascent of the pulpit stairs. "Comecome," said Crotchet. "This won't do, Mr. Ghost, if you please; just let me get hold of you, that's all." "Oh!" groaned the beadle. "Oh, yer is remarkably bad, is yer? but that sort of thing won't answer, by no means. Where is yer?" Crotchet opened the pulpit door, and reaching in his hand, he caught hold of the beadle by the leg, and fairly dragged him out on to the little spiral stairs, down which he let him roll with a great many bumps, until he landed in the body of the church all over bruises. "Why, goodness gracious!" cried the beadle's wife, "it's my wretch of a husband after all!" The beadle had just strength to assume a sitting posture, and then he cried"Murder!murder!murder!" until Mr. Crotchet, seizing a cushion from a pew, held it up before his mouth, to the imminent danger of choking him, and said "Hold your row! If you wants to be murdered, can't you get it done quietly, without alarming of all the parish? If you has got anything to say, say it; and if you has got nothink, keep it to yourself, stupid." "Todd!" gasped the beadle, the moment the pewcushion was withdrawn from his mouth. "ToddSweeney Todd!" "What?" cried Crotchet. "Here!he has been here, and I'm a dead manno, I'm a beadle. Oh, murder! murder!" "Don't begin that again. Be quiet, will you? If you have got anything to say about Todd, say it, for I'm the very man of all the world as wants to hear it. Speak up, and don't wink." "Oh, I've seen him. He's been here. I came to dust the bellowses, you see, after my wife had thrown the pulpit at my head, for asking her to come with me." "Oh, he's araving gentlemen," said the wife. "As I'm a sinner, it was the bellowses as I throwed at his stupid head, and not the pulpit as never was." "Go on," said Crotchet. "Confound the pulpit and the bellows too. It's about Todd I want to hear. Drive on, will you?" "Oh, yes. I'm a coming to that; but it curdles my blood, and makes my wig stand on end. I had dusted the communion table, and banged the cushions, and up I goes to the pulpit, meaning to do for that as soon as I could, when who should be there but Sweeney Todd!" "In the pulpit!" cried everybody. "In the pulpit," said the beadle. "Why didn't you nab him at once?" roared Crotchet. "Because, my good friend, he nabbed me at once. He laid hold of me by this legno, it was thisno it wasn't. It was thisthat isno" "Confound both your legs! Where is he now?" "Why, really I can't exactly say, for after stamping upon my inside for about half an hour, he left me for dead, and I was about half gone that way, and I have been a groaning ever since, till now. I am going fastvery fast, and there will be an election for beadle again in this here parish. Oh dearoh dear! Murdermurdermur" "What, you is coming that agin, is you," cried Crotchet, as he again caught up the pewcushion. "I shall be obligated, after all, for to push this down your blessed throat. Hold your noise, will you, Mr. What'syourname." The beadle was so terrified at the idea of the pewcushion again nearly smothering him, that despite all his injuries, he sprang to his feet and bolted out of the church. "Well, did yer ever know sich a feller?" said Crotchet. "Why, one would think he was afraid of Todd." The spectators thought that nothing was more probable; and as Mr. Crotchet considered that he had got all the information he was at all likely to get from the beadle, he did not at all trouble himself to go after him, but after considering for a few moments, decided upon seeking Sir Richard Blunt, and telling him that he had heard some unexpected news of Todd. Crotchet knew where to pitch upon Sir Richard at once; and when he related to him what had taken place, a look of great chagrin came over the face of the magistrate. "Crotchet," he said, "I have missed Todd, then, by what may be considered a hair's breadth. He must have been in the pulpit while I was in the church alone. Oh, that I could but for a moment have guessed as much! You, if you recollect, Crotchet, were in the vaults, and I was waiting for you." "To be sure, Sir Richard." "And so the rascal was almost within arm's length, and yet escaped me." Sir Richard Blunt paced to and fro in an agony of impatience and regret. To be so near apprehending Todd, and yet to miss him, was truly terrific. "Lor, sir," said Crotchet, "what's the use of fretting and pining about it? That won't bring it back, sir, I can tell you. After all, sir, you can't do better than grin and bear it, you know, which is the out and outest policy on all these here occasions, you know, yer worship. I wish as I'd a knowed he'd been in the church as much as you do; but you don't see me a cussin and a knocking my own head about it, no how." "You are right, Crotchet, but in good truth it is most desperately provoking. You will proceed as I have directed you, and I will run down to Norfolk Street river, for fear Todd should try to escape us that way. You will be so good, Crotchet, as to be as vigilant as possible. You know how to find me if you want me." "Rather, sir." At this moment, and just as Crotchet was upon the point of leaving the room, an officer brought in a little slip of paper to Sir Richard Blunt, upon which was the word "Ben." "BenBen?" said Sir Richard, "who is Ben? Oh, I think I know. Pray show him in at once. It is my friend the beefeater, from the Tower." "Easy does it," said Ben, popping his head in at the door of the room. "Easy does it." "So it does, Ben. Come in. I am glad to see you. You can go, Crotchet. Pray be seated, Ben, and tell me how I can serve you in any way, my good friend, and you may be assured that I shall have exceeding pleasure in doing so, if I possibly can in any way." "Lord bless you," said Ben, "I hardly knows. There's ups and downs in this here world, and ins and outs." "Not a doubt of it, Ben." "And retreats within retreats, Sir Richard, and foxes, and laughing hyenas, as you can't concilliorate no how, if you wollop 'em till you can't wollop 'em no more." "Precisely, Ben. If I were a hyena, I don't exactly think, do you know, that such a process would conciliate me." "Oh, dear yesit's the only way. But what I've come about, Sir Richard, is what I calls a delicate affair. Oh, dear yesI tries to take it easy but I can'tI'mI'm" "What, Ben?" "I'm in love! Oh!" "Well, Ben, there is no great wonder in that. I have been in love myself, and I believe very few indeed escape the soft impeachment. I hope your love is prosperous, Ben?" "Thank you kindly, Sir Richard, thank you; but, you see, I thought you might tell me if there was any vice or natural kicking running in the family, and that's why I comed here." "I tell you, Ben? Why I don't even know the name of the family." "Yes, you does, Sir Richard. The young woman as I fell in love with, is Miss Julia Hardman, and her father is one of those chaps as nabs the bad un's for you, you know, Sir Richard." "One of my officers?" "To be sure he is." "Does he reside in Norfolk Street, Strand?" "Does he? Ay, he does; and that's how I came to know the little morsel of a cretur as has made for the first time an impression upon my heart. Oh, Ben, Ben, little could anybody think as you was a marrying sort of person, and here you is in love with Miss Julia!" "It does seem to me a little extraordinary, Ben, for I must confess I have heard you say some rather severe things against the married state." "I haveI have; and if it hadn't a been for all the marrying setout with those two girls, Johanna and Arabella, I never should have got sich a idea in my head. Howsomedever, there it is, and there it is likely to remain. It's a agravation, but there it is!" "And how did you get acquainted with Julia Hardman?" "Oh, dear! There's a public house at the corner of her street, and after I had been to Cousin Oakley's, I used to go there at times and get a drain of something, you see, and then she used to come tripping in with a mug for the family beer, you see; and once it rained, so I took her up and carried her home beer and all, and that was how we got acquainted, you see, Sir Richard." "A very natural way too, Ben. All I can say is, that I know her father to be a very worthy man indeed, and I believe the daughter is a good and virtuous girl." "You don't say so? Then as there's no vice and kicking, I do believe I shall have to marry her out of hand." CHAPTER CLVII. TODD FINDS THAT HE HAS GOT OUT OF THE FRYINGPAN INTO THE FIRE. After this little explanatory conversation between Ben and Sir Richard Blunt, the reader will probably guess that Todd's evil fortune had actually carried him to that very house in Norfolk Street, Strand, occupied by the Hardman family, to which he, Sir Richard, talked of going to, to give instructions to his officer, and in which resided the identical Julia, that Ben had carried home, beer and all, in the shower, and to whom his large heart had become so deeply attached. Todd could hardly have fairly expected to be waylaid by such a conjunction of events; and certainly when he laid himself down so comfortably and easily in the bed at the lodginghouse for the luxury of a few hours' sleep, for which, if sleep he could, he had paid the moderate price of three guineas, he little dreamt that his enemies were rallying, as it were, around that house, and that in a short time their voices would be actually within his hearing. Truly it seemed as though there were henceforth to be no peace in this world for Todd; although, by circumstances little short of absolutely miraculous, he did continue to avoid absolute capture, near as he was to it at times. The great fatigue he had undergone, combined with the little refreshment he had taken at the publichouse in Hollywell Street, induced a feeling of sleep in Todd's frame; and after he had lain in the bed at the lodginghouse for about a quarter of an hour, and found the house perfectly still, and that the bed was very comfortable, he pulled the clothes nearly right over his face, and fell fast asleep. Nothing but sheer fatigue could have given Todd so unbroken a repose as he now enjoyed. It was for an hour or more quite undisturbed by any images calculated to give him uneasiness; and then he beganfor there was some noise in the houseto dream that he was hunted through the streets of London by an infuriate mob; and by one of those changes incidental to dreams, when the reason sleeps and imagination ascends the mental throne, he thought that the heads of all the mob were armed with horns, like those of cattle, and that they come raging after him with a determination to toss him. This was not a dream upon which any one was likely to be very still for any length of time, and Todd groaned in his sleep, and tossed his arms to and fro, and more than once uttered the word"Mercy!mercy!" Suddenly he started wide awake as a knock came at the door and roused him. Todd blessed that knock at the moment; for by waking him it had rescued him from the dream of terrors that had been vexing his brain. He sat up in bed, and for a moment or two could hardly collect his scattered senses sufficiently to assure himself that it was all a dream, and that he was in the lodginghouse in Norfolk Street; but the brain rapidly recovers from such temporary confusions; and Todd, with a long breath of immense relief, gasped out "It was, after all, but a dreamonly a dream! Oh, God! but it was horrible!" He fell back upon the pillow again; but sleep did not again come to him, and he began to feel a vague kind of curiosity to know who it was that had knocked at the door; and yet, he told himself, that it could not matter to him, for that in a house like that, of course, there must be plenty of people coming and going, and that, although the persons who kept it might control noises within the house, they could not possibly have any influence upon the knocker. "Oh, it's all right," said Todd. "It's all right. I will sleep againI must sleep again; for it yet wants hours and hours to the night, when I may, at least, make the attempt to get off fromfrom England for ever!" A faint sort of dozeit could not be called a sleepwas coming over Todd, when he suddenly heard the sound of voices; and he was startled wide awake by hearing his own name pronounced. Yes, he clearly heard some one say"Todd!" In a moment he sat up in bed, and intently listened. He held his breath, and he shook again, as his imagination began to picture to him a thousand dangers. There were footsteps upon the staircase, and in a few moments he heard persons go into the next roomthat is to say, the front one to that in which he lay, the room that he had paid for a few weeks' occupation of, and which was only divided from that in which he lay by a pair of foldingdoors, that he knew were just upon the latch, and might, at any moment, be opened to discover him. He then heard a female voice say "I do wish you would be quiet, Mr. Ben." "Ah," said another voice, "keep him in order, Julia, for he has been quite raving about your beauty as we came along the street, I can tell you. Do you think the servant will be able to find your father?" "Oh yes, Sir Richard. If ma were at home she could have said at once where he was; but Martha will find him, I dare say." Todd threw the bedclothes right over his head. It was no other than Sir Richard Blunt who was in the frontroom of that diabolical lodginghouse, and Todd looked upon himself as all but in custody. His sense of hearing seemed to be preternaturally acute, and although the bedclothes covered up his ears, and he could not be said to be exactly in his usual state, inasmuch as terror had half deprived him of his reasoning powers, yet he heard plainly, and with what might be called a perfect distinctness, every word that was spoken in the front room. Perhaps, even in the condemned cell of Newgate, Todd did not suffer such terrors as he was now assailed with in that lodging, where he thought he was so safe, and which he had, as he fancied, managed so cleverly. "Will you be quiet, Ben!" said the girl's voice again. "Make himmake him, Julia," said Sir Richard. "Lor bless your little bits of eyes," said Ben. "Do now come and sit in my lap, and I'll tell you such a lively story of how the leopard we have got at the Tower lost a bit off the end of his tail?" "I don't want to hear it." "You don't want to hear it? Comecome, my lambkin of a Juliawhen shall we be married? Oh, do name the day your Ben will be done for for life. I want it over." "Well, I'm sure," said Julia, "if you think you will be done for, you had better not think of it any more, Mr. Benjamin." "It won't bear thinking of, my dear. It's like a cold bath in January you had better shut yer eyes and tumble in." "Upon my word, Ben," said Sir Richard, laughing, "you are anything but gallant; and if I were Julia, I would not have you." "Not have me? Lord, yes, she'll have me. Only look at me." "Ah," said Julia, "you think, because you are a great monster of a fellow, that anybody would have you; but I can tell you that a husband half your size would be just as well, and I only wonder, after you have made all the neighbours laugh at me, that I have a word to say to such a mountain of a man, that I do, you wretch!" "Laugh!" cried Ben, "Why, my duck, what do they laugh at? I should like to catch them laughing.
" "Why, you know, you wretch, that that day it rained as if cats and dogs were coming down, you took me up as if I had been a baby, you did, and carried me home, and me with a jug of porter in my right hand, and the change out of a shilling in my left, so that I could not help myself a bit, and all the street laughing. Oh, I hate you!" "She hates me!" said Ben. "Oh!" "But she don't mean it, Ben," said Sir Richard. "Do you think she doesn't, sir?" "I am sure of it. Do you, now, Julia?" "Yes, Sir Richard, indeed I do, really now, for he is quite a horrid monster, and I only wonder they don't put him in one of the cages at the Tower along with the other wild beasts, and make a show of him. That's all that he is fit for." "Oh, you aggravating darling," said Ben, making a dart at Julia, and catching her up in his arms as you would some little child. "How can you go on so to your Ben?" "Murder!" cried Julia. "Oh, if you are going to have a fight for it," said Sir Richard, "I will go and wait down stairs, Julia." Bang came a knock at the streetdoor. "Oh, Ben, there's ma or pa," said Julia. "Let me down directly. Do Benoh, pray do. Let me down, Ben." "Do yer love your Ben?" "Anything you like, only let me down." "Very good. There yer is, then, agin on yer little mites of feet. Lor bless you, Sir Richard, that girl loves the very ground as I walks on, she does, and she has comed over me with her fascinations in such a way as never was known. Ain't she a nice 'un?sleek and shiny, with a capital mane. But you should see her at feedingtime, Sir Richard, how nice she does itquite delicate and pretty; and you should see her" The door of the room opened, and Hardman, the officer, made his appearance. "Your humble servant, Sir Richard. I hope I have not kept you waiting long? I was only in the neighbourhood." "No, Hardman, thank you, it's all right. I have not been here above a quarter of an hour." "I am glad of that, sir. How do you do, Mr. Ben?" "Pretty well," said Ben, "only a little hungry and thirsty, that's all; but don't trouble yourself about that, Mr. Hardman; I always do get hungry when I look at Julia." "I hope, Mr. Ben, that don't mean that you will dine off her some day when you are married?" "Oh, lor, no. Bless her heart, no. She loves me more and more, Mr. Hardman." "I am glad to hear it, Benvery glad to hear it. But I presume, Sir Richard, that you have some orders for me?" "Why, yes, Hardman. There's that rascal Todd, you know, still continues to elude us. What I want you to do is, to take charge entirely on the river, and to make what arrangements you like at the various quays and landingplaces, and with all the watermen, so that he shall not have a chance of escaping in that way." "Certainly, sir; I will set about it directly." "Do so, Hardman. Expense in this case is of no object, for the Secretary of State will guarantee all that; but of course I don't wish you to be extravagant on that account." "I quite understand you, Sir Richard, and will do my best." "That I am sure you will, Hardman; and now I will go. I shall feel no peace of mind until that man is dead, or in the cell again at Newgate." Todd popped his head out from under the clothes, and making the most hideous face, he shook one of his clenched fists in the direction of the front room. It would have been some satisfaction to him to have given a loud howl of rage but he dared not venture upon it; so he was forced to content himself with the pantomime of passion instead of its vocal expression. "I do hope, sir, we shall soon have him," said Hardman. "It seems to me to be next thing to impossible he should escape us for long. Do you think he has any money, sir?" "He cannot have much, for all he has, if any, must be but the produce of depredation since his escape from Newgate. He certainly has not extensive means, Hardman." "Then he must fall into our hands, sir. Julia, is that your mother just arrived, do you think?" "Yes, pa, it is ma's step. She has been out to get something or another, but I don't know what, as I was out myself all the morning; but it is ma, I know." Mrs. Hardman came into the room, looking very red and flushed, and with a large basket on her arm. She looked from one to the other of the assembled guests with surprise and horror. "What's the matter?" said her husband. "Why wife, you look panicstricken. What has happened?" "Oh, gracious! where's the gentleman?" "The gentleman?" cried everybody. "Yes, the lodger. The highly respectable gentleman who took the firstfloor only a couple of hours ago. Oh, gracious, where is he? and a capital lodger too, who paid in advance, and didn't mind extras at all." "But what lodger, mother?" said Julia. "Oh, mum, I forgotI forgot," said Martha, suddenly coming into the room, "I forgot to tell Miss Julia, mum, that an old gentleman had taken the first floor, mum, and gone to bed in the next room." "In bed in the next room?" said Sir Richard Blunt. "I am lost!" thought Todd. "I am lost now, I am quite lost! and the only thing I can do is to kill as many of them as possible, and then blow my own brains out." "Do you mean to say, ma," said Julia, "that there's a gentleman asleep in the next room in the bed?" "Lor!" said Ben, "you don't mean to say that, Mrs. Hardman?" "He may be in bed, but if he is asleep," said Sir Richard, "he is a remarkable man; of course if we had had the least idea of such a thing, we should not have come up here; but here we were shown by the servant." "Oh, yes, it's all that frightful Martha's fault. I'llI'll killnoI'll discharge that odious hussy without a character, and leave her to drown herself! For Heaven's sake go down stairs all of you, and I'll go and speak to the old gentleman, and apologise to him." "Let me go," said Ben, "and roll on him on the bed, and if that don't settle him I don't know what will." "Shall I apologise to him?" said Sir Richard. Todd nearly fainted when he heard this proposition; but when Mrs. Hardman rejected it, and insisted upon going herself, he felt quite a gush of gratitude towards her, and breathed a little more freely once again. CHAPTER CLVIII. TODD'S FEARFUL ADVENTURES ON THE RIVER. "Shall I lay hold of her," thought Todd, "and choke her the moment she comes into the room, or shall I answer her, and let her go again? Which will be the safest course? I suppose I must let her go, for she might possibly make a noise. Ah! how I should like to have my hand upon all their throats!" Mrs. Hardman came into the room on tiptoe, leaving the foldingdoor just a little ajar. "My dear sir," she said, "are you awake?" "Oh, go to the deuce," said Todd. "What did you remark, my dear sir?" "Go alonggo alongEugh!eugh! Oh, dear, how bad my cough is. I dreamt that no end of people were talking and talking away in the next room; but that can't be, as I have paid for it. Oh, dear!oh!" Mrs. Hardman took her cue from this; and she was at once resolved to pass off the disturbance in the next room as merely a dream of her new lodger. "Dear me, sir," she said in the blandest possible accents; "have you indeed had a dream? What a singular thing!" "Eugh! Is it? I don't think so." "Well, sir, when I say singular, of course I mean that it's very natural. I always dream when I sleep in a strange bed, do you know, sir, and sometimes the most horrid dreams." "Oh, go along." "Yes, sir, directly. Would you like anything got for you, sir? A nice mutton chop for instance, oror" "Nono! Good God, why don't you go?" "I am going, sir. Thank you. There will be a very quiet house here, I assure you, sir." With these words, Mrs. Hardman was about to leave the room, flattering herself that it was all passing off quite comfortably as a mere dream, when Ben, thinking it incumbent upon him to do something civil, suddenly popped his head into the room, and in a voice that sounded like the growl of some bear for his food, he said "Take it easy, old gentleman. You'll find that easy does it all the world over; and if so be as you ever comes near the Tower, just you ask for Ben, and I'll show you the beasteses, all gratis, and for nothing. Feeding time at four o'clock." "Oh, you great ugly wretch!" cried Mrs. Hardman, dealing Ben a sound box on the ear. "How dared you interfere, I should like to know, you monster in inhuman shape?" "Oh, lor!" said Ben, "I only hope another of the family ain't so handy with her front paws." "Ohoh!" said Todd. "No peace!no peace!" Mrs. Hardman at once closed the door of communication between the two rooms; for she quite despaired now of being able to make any apology to her lodger, and she seemed much inclined to execute further vengeance upon Ben, but Sir Richard Blunt interfered, saying "Comecome, Mrs. Hardman, you should recollect that what Ben said was with the very best of motives, and any one, you know, may go wrong a little in trying to do good. Let us all adjourn down stairs, and be no further disturbance to this old gentleman, who, taking everything into consideration, has, I think, shown quite an exemplary amount of patience." Todd heard those words. They seemed to him quite like a reprieve from death. "I will come down stairs, of course," said Mrs. Hardman, in an under tone; "but for all that, this great monster of a Ben ought to be put in one of his own cages, at the Tower, and there kept as a warning to all people." "A warning o' what, mum?" said Ben. Mrs. Hardman was not very clear about what he would be a warning of, so she got out of the difficulty by saying"What's that to you, stupid?"and as Ben was rather slow in explaining that it did rather concern him, she walked down stairs with a look of triumph that was highly amusing to Sir Richard Blunt, as well as to Mr. Hardman, the officer. How Todd listened to the footsteps as they went down the stairs! How his heart beat responsive to every one of them! and when he felt for certain that that immediate and awful danger had passed away, he peeped out from amid the mass of bedclothes, with his eyes almost starting from his head. "Gone! gone!" he gasped. "He has really gone. My mortal enemythe only man who can make me tremble, that terrible Sir Richard Blunt! That he should be within halfadozen paces of me; that he should hear me speak; that he should only have to stretch out his hand to lay it upon my shoulder, and yet that I should escape him! Oh, it cannot be real!" Todd heard some accidental noise in the house, and he immediately dived his head under the bedclothes again. "They are coming again!they are coming again!" he gasped. The noise led to nothing, and after a few moments, Todd became convinced that it had nothing to do with him, so he ventured, halfsuffocated, to look up again. "I must listenI must listen," he said, in a low anxious tone. "I must listen until he has gone. When I hear the streetdoor of the house shut, I shall think that they have let him go and then I shall be able to breathe again; but not before. Oh, nono, not beforehushhush! What is that?" Every little accidental sound in the house now set the heart of Todd wildly beating. If one had come into the room, and said"You are my prisoner,"the probability was, that he would have fainted; but if he did not, it is quite certain that he could not have offered any resistance. A child might have captured him then, during the accession of terror that had come over him in that house, whither he had slunk purposely for safety and for secrecy. At length he heard a noise of voices in the passage, and then the streetdoor was opened. As he lay, he could feel a rush of cold air in consequence. Then it was closed again, and the house was very still. "He has gone! He has gone!" said Todd. The manner in which Todd pronounced these few words it would be impossible to describe. No shivering wretch reprieved upon the scaffold, with the rope round his neck, could feel a greater relief than did Todd, when he found that the door of that house was really closed upon Sir Richard Blunt. And then he began to felicitate himself upon the fact that, after all, he had come to that place; "for now," he thought, "I know that, although I have been in great danger, it has passed away; and as Sir Richard Blunt has transacted all his business in this house, he is not likely to come to it again." That was a pleasant thought, and as Todd dashed from his brow the heavy drops that intense fear had caused to assemble there, he almost smiled. A very profound stillness now reigned in the house, for Mrs. Hardman was resolved to make up to her lodgeras well as she couldfor the noise and disturbance that had been so unwittingly caused in her front room. She had made Ben go away, and as her husband had likewise gone, in pursuance of the orders of Sir Richard Blunt, to take measures lest Todd should make an escape by the Thames, the place remained as calm and still as if no one were in it but herself. Todd closed his eyes, and wearied nature sought relief in sleep. Even Sweeney Todd, with more than twenty mortal murders on his conscience, slept calmly for no less than six hours of that, to him, most eventful day. Twice during this long sleep of her lodger's had Mrs. Hardman stolen into the frontroom to listen, and been quite satisfied by the regular breathing, that, at all events, her lodger was not dead; and she kept herself upon the alert to attend to him whenever he should awake from that deep sleep. The long shadows of the houses on the other side of the street had fallen upon the windows of the Hardmans' abode, and a slight fog began to make itself perceptible in London, when Todd awoke. "Helphelp! Oh, God, where am I?" he cried. He sprang half out of the bed, and then the full tide of recollection came back to him, and he fully comprehended his situation in a moment. "Hush!hush!hush!" he said; and he listened most intently to hear if his sudden exclamation had attracted any attention. He heard a footstep on the stairs. "Hush!hush!" he said again, "hushwho is it? I must be very careful now!Oh, very!" The footstep paused at his door, and then he heard it in the next room, and Mrs. Hardman advancing to the folding doors, said, in the blandest of accents "Are you awake, sir, if you please?" Todd at once assumed the tone in which he had formerly addressed her, and replied "Yes, madam, yes. I am awake!" "And how do you feel now, sir, if you please?" "Oh, a great deal better, ma'am, a great deal better. Indeed, I feel quite refreshed. I will come out directly, my dear madam. Pray have the goodness to take this guinea. I shall want a cup of tea at times, and I think I could take a cup now, my dear madam. You can get it out of that, and keep the change, you know, till I want something else." "Oh, really, sir," said Mrs. Hardman, as she put her hand through a small opening of one of the folding doors and took the guinea. "It is quite delightful to have so pleasant a lodger as yourselfoh, quite.I will get the tea directly, my dear sir, and pray make yourself quite at home, if you please." "Yes, ma'am, I willI will." "Do, sir. I should be really unhappy now, if I did not think you were comfortable." "Oh it's all right, ma'am. Eugh! Oh, dear! I do think my cough has been better since I have been here." "How delightful to hear you say that!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardman, speaking in quite a tremulous voice of sympathetic emotion. "I will get the tea, directly, sir." She left the room, and as she went down the stairs, she said to herself "What a pearl of a lodger, to be sure! He pays for everything over and over again. I should not, now, in the least wonder but the dear old gentleman will quite forget the change out of this guinea; if he does, it is not for me to vex him by putting him in mind of it. I know well, that old people never like it to be supposed that their memory fails them; so if he says nothing about it, I am sure I shall not. Oh, dear, no!" "Wretch!" muttered Todd, as he crept out of the back room into the front. "Wretch, I find that money will purchase anything in this house; but am I surprised at that? Oh, nono. Will not money purchase anything in this great world? Of course it will. Why, then, should this house be an exception to the rule so general? Nono. It is no exception; and I may be very safe for a few guineas well spent; and they are well spent, indeed. Oh, so well!" Todd then, as he flung himself into the depths of an easy chair, that was really easy for a wonder, considering that it was in a lodginghouse, began to arrange in his own mind his course of proceeding for the night. "Let me thinklet me think," he muttered. "I am now very much refreshed indeed, and feel quite strong and well, and equal to any emergency. That sleep has done me a world of good, and it is strange, too, that it has been the calmest and the quietest sleep I have enjoyed for many a month. I hope it is not prophetic of some coming evil." He shuddered at the thought. Todd was each dayay, each hour, becoming more and more superstitious. "Nono. I will not think that. I will not be so mad as to disarm myself of my courage, by thinking that for a moment. I will take my tea here, and then I will sally forth, telling this woman that I will soon return, and then, after a dose of brandy, I will hire a boat and take to the river. What is that?" The wind with a sudden gust came dashing against the windows, giving them such a shake, that it seemed as if it were intent upon getting into the room to buffet Todd. He immediately rose, and going to the window, he placed his hideous face close to one of the panes, and looked out. The sky was getting very black, and huge clouds were careering about it. The wind was evidently rising, and there was every appearance of its being most squally and tempestuous. Todd bit his lips with vexation. "Always something!" he said. "Always something to annoy me, and to cross me. Alwaysalways!" "The tea, sir, if you please." Todd turned round so suddenly, that he almost upset the servant with the tea equipage. "Oh, very well. That will dothat will do. You are the servant of the house?" "If you please, sir." "Ah, you will then have to attend upon me while I am here, my dear, I presume?" "Yes, sir, if you please." "Very goodvery good. You are a very nice young woman, and there's halfaguinea for you. Eugh! I shall give you that sum every week while I stay here, you know." "Lor, sir, will you?" "Yes, yes. You can go now. Is the tea all right?" "Oh, dear, yes, sir. You are very good indeed. Misses said as you was a very good lodger, which I knowed to mean as you didn't be petikler about your money, and now I sees you ain't. Thank you, sir, for me. I'll get up in the night if you want anythink." CHAPTER CLIX. TODD MAKES A VIGOROUS ATTEMPT TO REACH GRAVESEND. The servant was so profuse in her acknowledgments for the halfguinea, that she seemed as if she would never get out of the room, and Todd had to say "Therethere, that will do. Now leave me, my good girlthat will do," before she, with a curtsey at every step, withdrew. "Well," she said, as she went down stairs. "If I tell misses of this, I'm a Prussian. Oh, dear, I keeps it to myself and says nothing to nobody, excepting to my Thomas as is in the horseguards. Ah, he is a nice fellow, and out o' this I'll make him a present of a most elegant watchribbon, that he can put a bullet at the end of, and let it hang out of his fob all as if he had a real watch in his pocket." "Humph!" said Todd. "I have bought her good opinion cheap. It was well worth tenandsixpence not to have the servant watching me, with, for all I know to the contrary, eyes of suspicionwell worth it." It was not very often that Todd indulged himself with a cup of tea. Something stronger was commonly more congenial to his appetite; but upon this occasion, after his long sleep, the tea had upon him a most refreshing effect, and he took it with real pleasure. Mrs. Hardman, in consideration of the guinea she had received beforehand, had done him justice, as far as the quality of the tea was concerned, and he had it good. "Well," he said, after his third cup, "I did not think that there was so much virtue in a cup of tea, after all; but of a surety, I feel wonderfully refreshed at it. How the wind blows." The wind did, indeed, blow, for all the while that Todd was taking his tea it banged and buffeted against the window at such a rate, that it was really quite a fearful thing to listen to it. A couple of candles had been lighted and brought into the room, but the gale without soon laid hold of their little flames, and tossed them about so, that they gave but a dim and sepulchral kind of light. Todd rose again, and went to the windowagain he placed his face close to the pane of glass, and shading his eyes with his hands, he looked out. A dashing rain was falling. "They say that when the rain comes the wind moderates," he muttered; "but I see no signs of that, yet, it is almost a gale already." At that moment there came such a gust of wind howling down the street, that Todd mechanically withdrew his head, as though it were some tangible enemy come to seek him. "Always something to foil me here," he said; "always something; but out I must go. Let it look as strange as it may, I cannot stay a night in this house, for if I were to do so, that would involve the staying a day likewise; and it would be this time tomorrow before I dared venture abroad; and who knows what awful things might happen in that space of time? No, I must go tonight. I must go tonight." He could not help feeling that his going out while the weather was in such a state would excite a great amount of wonder in the house; but that was a minor event in comparison to what might possibly ensue from remaining, so he put on his hat. Taptap! came against the panel of his door. Todd muttered an awful oath, and then said, "Come in." Mrs. Hardman entered the room. "I hope I don't intrude upon you, sir, but I was so very anxious to know if the tea was just as you like it, sir?" "Oh, yesyes. I am going out a little way, my good madam. Only a little way." "Out, sir?" "Yes, and why not?why not? Oh, dear me! How bad my cough is to be sure, tonight. Eugh!eugh!" "Goodness gracious! my dear sir, you will not think of venturing out tonight? Oh, sir!" "Why not, madam?" "The wind, sirthe rain, sirand the wind and the rain together, sir. Oh, dear! It isn't a night to turn out a dog in, not that I like dogs, but I beg, sir, you won't think of it. Only listen, sir. How it does blow, to be sure!" "Madam!" said Todd, putting on a solemn look, "I must go. It is my duty to go." "Your duty, sir?" "Yes. Whenever the wind blows and the rain comes down, I put a quantity of small change in my pocket, and I go out to see what objects of distress in the streets I can relieve. It is then that I feel myself called upon in the sacred name of heavenly charity to see to the wants of my poorer fellowcreatures. It is then that I can find many a one whom I can make happy and comfortable for a brief space, at all events; and that's the way that I am always, you see, madam, with a bad cold." "Generous man!" said Mrs. Hardman, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron. "Not at all, madam, not at all. It is one's duty, and nothing else. I feel bound to do it. But I shall want a little something for supper. A nice boiled chicken, if you please, and you will be so good as to get it for me, madam. Take this guinea, if you please, and we can talk about the change, you know, when I want anything else, my good madam." "My word!" thought Mrs. Hardman. "He is a wonderful lodger, for he forgets all about his change. I feel that it would only vex the poor old gentleman to remind him of it, and that I do not feel justified in doing. Ahem! yes, sir. Oh, certainly, I will get the finest chicken, sir, that can be had." "Do so, madam, do so. Now I'm going." "Oh, Lord! there's a gust of wind!" "I like itI like it." "And there's a dash of rain!" "So much the better. Delightful, delightful, my dear madam, I shall find plenty of poor objects to relieve tonight. Under gateways, I shall find them, crouching upon doorsteps, and shivering on spots where a little shelter can be found from the inclemency of the weather. This is my time to try and do a little good with that superfluous wealth which Providence has given me." Mrs. Hardman made no further opposition to the benevolent intentions of a lodger who continually forgot his change, and Todd fairly left the house. Little did the landlady think, while she was grasping at the guineas, that there was a reward of a thousand pounds for the apprehension of her lodger, and that it would every pennypiece of it have been duly paid to her at the Treasury, if she could but have managed to lock him in a room until the officers of justice could be sent for, to pounce upon him and load him with irons, and take him off to prison. But poor Mrs. Hardman had really no idea of how near she was to fortune; and when the streetdoor closed upon Todd, she little suspected that she shut out such a sum as one thousand pounds sterling along with him. "That is managed so far," said Todd, as he shrank and cowed before the stormladen gale that dashed in his face the rain, as he reached the corner of the street. There Todd paused, for a new fear came across him. It was that no waterman would venture upon the river with him on such a night; and yet after reasoning with himself a little time, he said "Watermen are human, and they love gold as much as any one else. After all, it only resolves itself into a question of how much I will pay." Full of this idea, which, in its way, was a tolerably just one, he sneaked down the Strand until he got right to Charing Cross. He had thought of going down one of the quiet streets near that place, and taking a boat there; but now he considered that he would have a much better chance by going as far as Westminster Bridge; and, accordingly, despite the rain and the wind, he made his way along Whitehall, and reached the bridge. A few watermen were lounging about at the head of the stairs. They had little enough expectation of getting a fare at such a time, and upon such a day. One of them, however, seeing Todd pause, went up to him, and spoke "You didn't want a boat, did you, sir?" "Why, yes," said Todd, "I did; but, I suppose, you are all afraid to earn a couple of guineas?" "A couple of guineas?" "Yes, or three, for the matter of that; one more or less don't matter to me; but it may to you." "Indeed, it does, sir. You are right enough there. But where do you want to go to sir? Up or down?" "To Greenwich." Todd thought if he mentioned Gravesend, he might frighten the man at once. "Greenwich? Whew!" The waterman perpetrated a long whistle; and then, shaking his head, he said"I'm very much afraid, sir, that it isn't a question of guineas that will settle that; but I will speak to my mate. Halloa Jack!Jack! I say, old boy, where are you?" "Here you are," said an old weatherbeaten man coming up the steps. "I've only been making the little craft fast. What is the row now, Harryeh?" "No row, old mate; but this here gentleman offers a matter of three guineas for a cruise to Greenwich." "Ay, and why not, Harry?" "Why not? Don't you hear how it's blowing?" "Yes, I do, Harry; but it won't blow long. I've seen more gales than you have, lad, and I tell you that this one is all but over. The rain, in another quarter of an hour, will beat it all down. It's fast going now. It will be a wet night, and a dark night; but it won't blow, nor it won't be cold." "If you say as much as that, Jack," said the younger waterman, "I will swear to it." The old man smiled, as he added "Ah, dear me, yes, and so you may, Harry. I haven't been so long out of doors that I don't know the fancies of the weather. I can tell you a'most what it's a going to do beforehand, better than it knows itself. There, don't you hear how it's coming in puffs, now, the wind, and each one is a bit fainter nor the one as comed afore it? Lord bless you, it's nothing! We shall get a wet jacket, that's all; and if so be, sir, as you really do want a cruise down to Greenwich, come on, and Harry and me will soon manage it for you." These words were very satisfactory to Todd. He had no objection in the world to its being rather a bad night on the river; but he certainly had a great objection to risking his life. Discomfort was a thing that gave him no concern. He knew well that that would pass away. "If you are willing," he said, "let us, then, start at once, and I will not hold you to your bargain if the weather should happen to turn very bad. We can, in such a case, easily, I dare say, put in at some of the numerous stairs on one side or other of the river." "There will be no need of that, sir," said the old waterman. "If you go, and if you choose to go all the way, we will put you on shore at Greenwich." "How about London Bridge?" said the younger man, in a tone of some anxiety. "Better than usual," said Jack. "It is just the time to shoot it nicely, for the tide will be at a point, and won't know exactly whether to go one way or the other." "It's all right, then?" "It is." Todd himself had had his suspicions that the passage of old London Bridge would be one of no ordinary difficulty on such a night as that, but he knew that if the tide was at that point which the old man mentioned, that it might be passed with the most perfect safety, and it was a matter of no small gratification to him to hear from such a competent authority that such was the fact just then. "Let us go at once," he said. "All's right, sir. Our wherry is just at the foot of the stairs, here. I will pull her in, Harry." The old man ran down the slippery stairs with the activity of a boy, and as Todd and Harry followed him, the latter said, in quite a confidential tone of voice Todd Encounters Great Perils On The River Thames. Todd Encounters Great Perils On The River Thames. "Ah, sir, you may trust to his judgment on anything that has anything to do with the river." "I am glad to hear it." "Yes, sir, and so am I. Now I thought I knew something, and I shouldn't have ventured to take you, or if I had, it would have been with rather a faint heart; but now that the old man, sir, says it's all right, I feel as comfortable as needs be in the matter." By this time they had reached the foot of the steps, which was being laved by the tide, and there the old man had the boat safely in hand. "Now for it, sir," he said. "Jump in." Todd did so, and the younger waterman followed him. He and his aged companion immediately took their places, and Todd stretched himself in the stern of the little craft. The rain now came down in absolute torrents as the boat was pushed off by the two watermen into the middle of the stream. CHAPTER CLX. THE POLICEGALLEY ON THE THAMES. What an anxious and protracted glance Todd cast around him when he found that he was fairly upon the river. How his eyes, with foxlike cunning, glistening like two leadcoloured stars, were here, and there, and everywhere, in the course of a few moments. Then he contrived to speak, as he thought, craftily enough. "There are but few boats on the river." "No, sir," said the young waterman. "It isn't everybody that cares to come on the water in such weather as this." "Nono. But I have business." "Exactly so, sir. That's it." "Yes," added Todd, in quite a contemplative tone of voice, "the fact is, that I have just heard that at Gravesend there resides a family, with whom I was once intimate, but had lost sight of. They have, as I hear, dropped into poverty, amounting to destitution, and I could not rest until I had gone after them to relieve them." "Did you say Gravesend?" said the old man. "Why, yes; but I don't ask you to go so far. I will try and find a conveyance on land at Greenwich; butifyou like to pull all the way to Gravesend, I don't mind paying, for I prefer the water." "Couldn't do it," said the old man.
"Certainly not," said the young one. Todd felt mortified that his plan of getting to Gravesend, by the aid of the boat, was thus put an end to; but he could not help feeling how very impolitic it would be to show any amount of chagrin upon such a subject, so he spoke as cheerfully as he could, merely saying "Well, of course, I don't want you to do it; I merely offer you the job, as I am so fond of a little boating, that I would not mind a few guineas more upon such an account." "No use trying it," said the old man, sententiously. "There's several turns in the river, and we should be down one at this time before we could get there. Gravesend is quite another thing." "So it is," said Todd. He felt perfectly certain by the tone and the manner of the old man, that it would be of no use urging the matter any further; and the great dread he had of exciting suspicion that he was a fugitive, had the effect of making him as cautious as possible regarding what he said. In stern and moody silence, then, he reclined in the stern of the boat, while it cleaved through the black water; and, as the old boatman prophesied, the wind each moment went down until it left nothing but a freshness upon the surface of the water, which, although it was bitterly cold, in no way effected the progress of the boat. But a slight rain now began to fall, and every moment the night got darker and darker still, until the lights upon the banks of the river looked like little stars afar off; and it was only when they got quite close to it, that they became aware of the proximity of Blackfriars Bridge. It was Todd that saw it first appearing like some gigantic object rising up out of the water to destroy them. He could not resist uttering an exclamation of terror, and then he added "What is it? Oh, what is it?" "Whatwhat?" said the young waterman, shipping his oars and looking rather terrified. The old man gave his head a slight jerk as he said "I fancy it's Blackfriars." "Oh, yes, yes," said Todd, with a feeling of great relief. "It's the bridge, of courseit's the bridge; but in the darkness of the night, it looked awful and strange; and as we approached it, it had all the effect as if it were something big enough to crush the world rising up out of the water. "Ayay," said the old man. "I have seen it on all sorts of nights, and was looking out for it. It's all right. Easy with your larboard over there. That will dothere we go." The boat shot under one of the arches of the old bridge, and for a moment, the effect was like going into some deep and horrible cavern, the lower part of which was a sea of ink. Todd shuddered, but he did not say anything. He thought that after his affected raptures at sailing, that if he made any sort of remark indicative of his terrors at the passage of the bridge, they would sound rather inconsistent. It was quite a relief when they had shot through the dim and dusky arch, and emerged again upon the broad open water; and owing to the terrible darkness that was beneath that arch, the night upon the river, after they had passed through it, did not seem to be nearly so black as it had been before, thus showing that, after all, most of our sensations are those of comparison, even including those dependant upon the physical changes of nature. "This is cheering," said Todd. "It is lighter now upon the river. Don't you think it is?" "Why," said the old man, "perhaps it is just a cloud or two lighter; but it's after coming through the arch that it makes the principal difference, I take it." "Yes," said the other, "that's it; and the rain, to my thinking, will be a lasting one, for it comes down straight, and with a good will to continue. Don't you think so?" The question was addressed to the old man, who answered it slowly and sententiously, keeping time with his words to the oars as they made a slight noise jerking in the rollocks. "If it don't rain till sunrise, just ask me to eat the old boat, and I'll do it!" "That's settled," said the young waterman. The weather, in so far as rain or not rain was concerned, was not to Todd a matter of much concern. So long as there was no stormy aspect of the elements to prevent him from speeding upon his journey, he, upon the whole, rather liked the darkness and the rain, as it probably acted as a better shield for his escape, and he rather chuckled than not on the idea that the rain would last. Besides, it was evident that as it fell, it smoothed the surface of the river, so that the oars dipped clear into the stream, and the boat shot on the better. "Wellwell," he said, "we can but get wet." "That's all," said the old man, "and I hold it to be quite a folly to make a fuss about that. If you sit still, the rain will, of course, soak into your clothes; but if you go on sitting still, it will in time give you up as a bad job, and begin to run out again. So you have nothing, you see, to do, but take it easy, and think of something else all the while." "That is very true, my friend," said Todd, in a kind and conciliatory tone; "but you get wet through in the process." "Just so. Pull away." The younger man, for the last five minutes, had glanced several times through one of his hands along the line of the surface of the river, and the injunction to pull away was probably on account of his having been a little amiss in that particular. The old man had spoken the words rather sharply than otherwise. "Yesyes," said the other. "I'll pull away; but there's another craft upon the river, in spite of the rain, and they are pulling away with a vengeance rather. Look, they're in our wake." "It's no use me looking. You know that well enough. I ain't quite so good with my eyes as I was a matter of twenty years ago. I suppose it's the policecraft. Of late, you know, they have taken to cutting along at all times." "Yes, it's them!" Todd stooped in the boat, until his eyes went right along the line of the water's edge, and there he saw coming on swiftly a biggish bulky object, and as the oars broke the water, he could see that there were five or six of them on each side. It looked altogether like some great fish striking through the water with a number of strangelooking fins. The coward heart of Todd smote him, as well it might, when he saw this sight. For a moment or two he sat bewildered, and he thought that he should faint in the stern of the boat, and then that nothing in the world could save him from capture, if that were in reality the policeboat. It was, perhaps, only the rain falling upon his face that revived him, as it came upon him with its cold, refreshed splash. To be sure he was well armed for one individual, but what could he do against some dozen of men? Suppose that he did shoot two or three of them, that would be but a poor recompense for his capture by the others. He was bewildered to know what to do. He spoke in a low, anxious tone, "Are you, from your knowledge of the river, quite sure that that is a policeboat?" "Ah, to be sure." "Do you, then, think likewise that that is upon our track? Answer me that. Answer it fairly." "Our track!" said the old man, as he almost ceased rowing. "Hilloa! There's something more in this affair than meets the eye. It won't exactly pay us to be overhauled by the police, after a chase. Who and what are you, my friend? If you are afraid of the policeboat, we are not, and you ain't quite the sort of customer to suit us exactly, I should say." "I have both their lives," thought Todd, as in the dark he felt for his pistols. "I have both their lives, and if they show any disposition to give me up, they shall not live another five minutes. I will shoot them bothcast their bodies into the river, and land myself at the first stairs I come to." "Listen to me," he said, in a mild tone of voice. "It would only tire you, and, besides, it would take too long to tell why I have a fear of the police. But I have such a fear. I assure you, that I am quite innocent of what they accuse me. But until I can get from Hamburgh the only witness who can prove my innocence, I do not want to fall into the hands of my enemies. I implore you not to sacrifice me!" "Humph!" said the old man, "What have you done?" "Nothingnothing! as Heaven is my witness!" "But what do they say you have done?" said the young waterman. "Ay!" said the other, "that's the question!" "Why, they say that I was wrong in helping a poor lad, who certainly had done some wrong thing, to escape from the country; but then it would have broken his poor mother's heart if they had hanged him. It was for forgery only, and it was all owing to bad company he did it. Alas! I did not think it a crime to aid the poor boy to get away. What good would his death have done to any one?" "Was that all?" "Yes; that was all. But it appears in law, you see, a very serious offence to aid and abet, as they call it, a felon. Poor boy!poor mother!" "Oh, hang it, we won't give you up to the bloodhounds of the law for that," said the old man; "but, hark you, sir, it's out of the question that we two should be able to hold our way against the policegalley, with six young fresh rowers; so all we can do is to put you ashore somewhere, and then you can shift for yourself the best way you may. I don't see what else we can do for you." "Nor I," said the young waterman; "and in a few moments it will be best to do that. Is there a stairs close at hand?" "Not one," said the old man. "It's a done thing. We can't land you, except in the water, if that can be called landing you at all. I don't know what to be at." "Oh, save me!" said Todd. "But how can we?" "Yes," said the young waterman, "there's one way of managing that, I think, will do it, and do it well, too." "Oh, how can I thank you?" "Don't mention it. Suppose we put him on to the first craft we come alongside of in the river, that is moored, and has got no one on board? It won't be noticed, like our putting into a landing would, you know. They would be sure to say we had put some one on shore. But if we just ease the boat for a moment as we pass some craft, our fare can scramble on board, and we can go right on, and let the police overtake us, and overhaul us in due course. I'll be bound that by this light there's not a man on board of yonder craft can take upon himself to say whether there's one, two, or three people in our wherry." "Yes," said the old man, "that will do if anything will, and if that don't do, nothing will." "It will do," said Todd; "it will do. I thank you from my heart for the suggestion. It will do well. All you have to do is to let me board the craft in the river, upon the side furthest removed from the police boat. Oh! you will have the prayers of the widow and the fatherless, for this kind act." "Never mind about that. Pull away." "Andand when the policeboat is past, will you then come and take me off again?" "That's awkward," said the old man. "We will, if we can," said the young one; "but don't depend upon us. We don't know, as yet, what the police may say to us. For all we know, they know more than we would wish them, of your being in our boat; and all we can say, then, is, that we put you ashore; but they may keep a watch upon us after that, and if they do, it will be only to give you up to them that we could push off to you." "Yesyes, I understand," said Todd. "I thank you, and will take my chance of all that may happen." "You must." "There's something ahead," said the old man. "What is it?" "It's the piledriving barge. They are mending up the bank of the river. I know that the men leave that all night, as there is nothing to take from it that any one can lift. Will you go on board that, sir?" "Yes, yes," said Todd, "That will do." "Be quick, then, about it," said the old man, "for they gain upon us." "Boat ahoi!" cried a voice over the river. CHAPTER CLXI. THE POLICEGALLEY'S FATE. Todd, when he heard that voice, quite sank down into the bottom of the boat, and felt as though his last hour were come. "Don't answer," said the old man. "Pull away for the piledriving barge as hard as you can." "Oh, yes, pullpull!" cried Todd. "Save me!" "If you make that noise," added the old man, "we may as well be off at once, for the river, when it is as smooth as it is now, carries voices well." "Boat ahoi!" cried the voice again. "We must answer them now," said the old waterman. "Ay, ay! Is it here? Boat ahoi!" "Ay, ay!" came the voice from the policegalley. At that moment the two watermen succeeded in reaching the broad stern of the barge, in which was centred the piledriving machinery, and the young man said to Todd "Now clamber in, and good luck attend you. If we don't come to you in the course of an hour, don't expect us, that's all." Todd was not very young and supple in his joints, but the sense of present and serious danger has an effect upon every one, and in a moment he seized the side of the piledriving barge, and drew himself in. "All right," said the old man. "Oh, yesyes," said Todd, as he crouched down with his chin touching the side of the barge. "Goodnight, then." "Goodnight! You will come for me if you can?" "Yes, but don't expect us. Pull, now, as hard as you can, and get out into the stream. Pull! pull!" By the strenuous united exertions of the two men, the boat shot along at good speed, and soon got to a considerable distance from the barge in which Todd had taken refuge. It was then that the policegalley hoisted a strong light that shed a bright glare through the rain, and over the surface of the river. "Am I saved?" said Todd. "Am I saved, or am I not?" He sank quite down into the body of the barge. There was a sort of platform over onehalf of it, and upon that platform he felt the mass of iron, weighing about a couple of hundredweight, or more, which was used for driving piles into the bed of the river, and which, when liberated from a height, and allowed to fall upon the end of the pile, comes with a most tremendous force. That piece of metal so used is called "the monkey." "They comethey come!" said Todd. "Oh, if they only chanced to see the boat place me here, I am lost. Quite lost! What will become of me, then, with nothing but the cold, cold river all round me? Death, indeed, now stares me in the face!" Truly, the situation of Todd now was rather a critical one. There was no saying how far the men on board the policegalley might not think themselves justified in boarding any craft that was moored upon the river; and, indeed, if they were searching for him, and had really any idea that he was trying an escape by the Thames, it was highly improbable that they would omit to have a good look in the barge where he was. There was another great danger, too, that suddenly flashed across his mind, and drove him nearly mad. "If the police, when they overtake the wherry," he thought, "should mention who it is they are in pursuit of, may not the two watermen at once, upon finding that their sympathy has been excited for me, declare where I am, and even aid in my apprehension?" This idea, either because it was the last one that came into his head, or because it really was the one that seemed most full of real dangers, clung to him with desperation; and more than once the thought of ending all his miseries by a plunge into the river, crossed his mind. But it is not such men as Sweeney Todd who commit suicide. "They comethey come!" was all he could now say. The light from the police was, by the aid of a revolving reflector, capable of being cast pretty strongly in any direction that those who had the care and control of it chose; and for a moment it rested upon the barge where Todd was. He felt as if, at that moment, he could have crept right through the bottom of the barge, and taken refuge in the Thames. The broad beam of light was then shifted off the barge on to the little wherry, which was at rest upon the water waiting for the approach of the policegalley. And now, with vigorous sweeps of its six oars, that galley made its way right past the barge. Oh! what a relief it was that it went past! It did not follow that all danger was gone because the policebarge had gone past; but it was a sufficient proof that the glare of light they had sent in that direction, by the aid of the reflector, had not had the effect of discovering him to them. "That is something," muttered Todd. He then slowly permitted his eyes to peer over the side of the barge in order, as far as he could, to watch the interview that was about to take place between the police and the two watermen in the wherry where he had been so lately a passenger. Upon that interview, now, he thought that his fate depended. "Hilloa!" cried one of the police. "Why did you not wait for us when we first called to you?" "We did," said the old man, "as soon as we saw your light, and knew what you were; but there are so many jokes played off upon the river, that if we were to restoars to everybody who call'Boat ahoi,' we should have enough to do." "Who are you?" "A couple of regestered watermen. Here we are. You can overhaul us at once, if you like." "You have no passenger?" "No. I only wish we had. Times are very bad." "Well, it's all right. But we are placed here by the orders of Sir Richard Blunt the magistrate, who suspects that the notorious murderer, Sweeney Todd, may try to escape by the Thames." "Sweeney Todd!" cried the young waterman in a tone of horror. "What, the fellow that killed all the people in Fleet Street, and made them into pies?" "The same." "It's coming now," thought Todd. "It's coming now. They will tell him where I am." The next words that were spoken, were uttered in a tone of voice that did not reach his ears. It was the old man who had spoken, and he did not utter his words so clearly as his younger companion; and although he tried his utmost to hear what he said, he could not possibly make it out, and he remained in a perfect agony of apprehension. "Very well," said the officer in the policebarge, who had conducted the brief conversation. "It is a miserable night. Give way, my men. Steady there. Put the light out." In an instant the light was lowered and extinguished, and the darkness that reigned upon the surface of the Thames was like a darkness that could be felt. It was difficult to conceive that it was not really tangible. "Are they coming back?" That was the question that Todd asked of himself, as he grasped, to steady himself, the heavy piece of iron that belonged to the piledriving machine. He listened most intently, until it was positively painful to do so, and he began to fancy all sorts of strange noises in the air and from the water. In a few moments, though, an actual splashing sound put to route all imaginary noises, and he felt convinced that the boat with the police was slowly returning towards the barge in which he was concealed. There was, to be sure, still a hope that they would pass it; but it was only a hope. Oh, how awfully full of apprehension was each passing moment now. It might be that the policegalley was only going quietly back to its proper station, after overtaking the wherry; but then it might be quite otherwise, and the doubt was terrific. While that doubt lasted, it was worse than the reality of danger. And now it was quite evident to the perception of Todd that the policeboat was close to the barge, and he heard a voice say "Is that the piledriving barge?" "Yes, sir," replied some one. "And they leave it, I suppose, as usual?" "No doubt, sir." "Well, pull alongside, and a couple of you jump in and see if all is right. People leave their property exposed to all sorts of depredations, and then blame us for not looking after it. Mind how you go, my men. Don't run foul of the barge." "No, sir. All's right." From the moment that this conversation had begun, Todd had remained crouching down in the barge, like a man changed to stone. He heard every wordthose words upon which hung, or seemed to hang, his life, and his grasp upon the massive piece of iron tightened. The policeboat gradually advanced, and finally just grated against the side of the barge. A sudden thought took possession of Todd. With a yell, like that of a madman, he, with preternatural strength, moved the heavy mass of iron, and in one moment toppled it over the edge of the barge. Crash it went into the policegalley. There was then a shriek, and the men were struggling in the water. The piece of iron had gone right through the boat, staving to pieces. It filled and sank. Todd And The Police Galley. Todd And The Police Galley. "Helphelp!" cried a voice, and then all was still as the grave for a few moments. "It is done," said Todd. "Help! mercy!" said a voice again, and a dark figure rose up by the side of the barge, clinging to it. Todd drew one of his pistols. He levelled it at the head of the figure. He was upon the point of pulling the trigger, when it struck him that the flash and the report might be seen and heard from the shore. The pistol was heavily mounted with brass at the buttend of it. "Down!" said Todd. "Down!" He struck the clambering, halfdrowned man upon the head, and with a shriek he fell backwards into the water and disappeared. In another moment Todd felt a pair of arms twining round him, and a voice cried "Murderer, I have you now! You cannot shake me off!" Todd made an effort, but, in truth, those wet and clinging arms held to him like fate. "Fool," he said. "You will find drowning the easiest death for you to meet." The Murder On The ThamesTodd's Narrow Escape. The Murder On The ThamesTodd's Narrow Escape. "Helphelp! murder!" shouted his assailant. The pistol was still in Todd's grasp. With a devilish ingenuity, he thrust the barrel of it under his arm and felt that it touched his assailant. He pulled the trigger, and then he and the man who held him fell to the bottom of the barge together. Todd kicked and plunged until he got uppermost, and then he felt for the throat of the other, and when he got a clutch of it he held it with a gripe of iron. "Fool," he said. "Did you think that one driven to such desperation as I am, would be conquered so easily?" There was no reply. Todd lifted up the head of the man, and it hung limply and flaccidly from the neck. He was quite dead. The pistolbullet had gone through his heart, and death was instantaneous. "Another one," said Todd, as he sprang to his feet and stood upon the dead body. "Another one sacrificed to my vengeance. Let those only interfere with me who are tired of life." He placed his hand to his ear now, to listen if there were any indications of others of the boat's crew stirring; but all was still. No sound, save the lazy ripple of the tide past the old barge on which he was, met his ears. "It is over," he said. "It is quite over now. That one great danger is past now." The rain began to fall quicker, and splashed upon the half deck of the barge. Todd felt that he was thoroughly wet through; but all minor ills he could now laugh at, that he had escaped the one great peril of capture. He felt that his life had hung upon a thread, and that only the recent accident had saved him; for to be captured, was to him equivalent to death. "All gone!" he whispered. "They are all gone! Wellwell! They would have dragged me to a prison, and then to a scaffold! Selfdefence is a sound principle, and for that I have fought!" A sudden gust of wind got up at that moment, and came howling past Todd, and ruffling upon the surface of the river; but all was still around the barge. There was now no cry for mercyno shout for helpno bubbling shriek of some swimmer, who was yet sinking to death, as the waters closed over him. "Yes," said Todd, as his long hair blew out like snakes in the wind, "I am alone here now. They are all dead, and I could do it again if it had to be done." CHAPTER CLXII. ANOTHER BOAT. It seemed now as though the lull in the weather was over; for after that one gust of wind, there came others; and in the course of a very short time, indeed, the surface of the water was much agitated, and such a howling noise was kept up by the wind, that Todd thought every moment that he heard the voices of his foes. "What am I to do now?" he said. "Oh, what am I to do? I dare not wait here until daylight. That would be destruction. What is to become of me?" He came round the sides of the barge with the hope that some wherry had been moored to it, but he found that that hope was a fallacious one indeed. There was the gloomylooking vessel moored far out in the stream, with him as its only passenger. Any one without Todd's load of guilt upon his soul, and upon better terms with human nature, could soon have got assistance, for the distance from the shore was by no means so great but that his voice must have been heard had he chosen to exert it; but that would not do for him. He dreaded that his presence upon the barge should be known, and yet he alike dreaded that the morning's light should come shiningly upon him, without any boat coming to take him off. To be sure, the two men who had brought him there had made a halfpromise to come to his aid, but he felt certain he could not depend upon their doing so. The look with which they had regarded him upon the doubt, even, that he might be so frightful a criminal as he really was, was sufficient to convince him that while that doubt remained they would not return. "And what," he said, "is to dissipate the doubt? Nothingnothing! But anything may confirm it. Accidents always tell for the truthnever to its prevention, and so I am lostlostquite lost." The bitterness of death seemed almost to be upon the point of assailing Todd. He could fancy that spirits of the murdered shrieked and wailed around him, as the wind whistled by his trembling frame. In this wretched state an hour passed, and then Todd thought he heard a voice. "What is that?" he said. "Oh, what is that?" He inclined his head as low down to the edge of the water as he could get it, and heard distinctly some one singing to the stroke of a pair of oars, as they were deliberately dipped into the stream. The voice sounded like that of some young lad, and a hope of succour sprung up in the breast of Todd. In the course of a few moments he became perfectly convinced that the boat was approaching the barge, and he shrunk down so that by being prematurely seen he might not alarm the boy who was rowing down the stream. The song continued, and it was quite evident from the manner in which the boy sung it, that he was quite delighted with his own powers in that line. "I must speak to him," thought Todd. "If I let him pass there may not be another chance, now. I must speak to this boy, and speak to him freely too. He comeshe comes." It was not so dark but that Todd could see pretty well the surface of the river, and presently in dusky outline he was conscious of the approach of a wherry in which was a boy, and he could see how the boy moved his head to and fro to the tune that he was amusing himself with. "Hilloa!" cried Todd. Now Todd in this "Hilloa!" had for once in a way tuned his voice to such a gentle pleasant sound, that it was quite a wonder to hear it, and he was rather himself surprised at the manner in which he managed it so as not to be at all alarming. The boy stopped rowing and looked about him. It was evident at the moment that he could not tell where the sound came from. "Hilloa!" said Todd, again. "Ayay!" said the boy; "where are you?" "Here, my dear," said Todd, "on board of the barge, bless you. How are you, my fine felloweh?" "Oh, I'm pretty well. Who are you?" "Why, don't you know me? I'm Mr. Smith. How is your father, my ladeh?" "Oh, father's all right enough; but I didn't know as he knowed a Mr. Smith at all." "Oh, yes, he does. Everybody knows a Mr. Smith. Come on, you can give me a lift to shore off the barge here. This way. Just step up to the side and I'll step into your pretty little wherry. And so your father is quite welleh, my fine lad? Do you know I was afraid he had caught a little cold, and really have been quite uneasy about him." "Have you?" said the boy, as he pulled up to the side of the barge. "Where do you want to go to?" "Oh, anywhere you happen to be going, that's all, my fine lad. How you do grow, to be sure!" "But how came you here, out in the river on the dredgingbarge? Do you belong to her?" "To be sure I do. I am Mr. Deputy Inspector Dredger Smith, and am forced to come and superintend the barge, you see; but my boat that I sent to shore for something, has not come back, and I am getting cold, for I am not so young as you are, you know." "Why, I don't suppose you is, sir," said the boy; "but I'll put you ashore, if you like." "Thank you, I should like." "Get in, then, sir. All's right. I'll hold on to the barge. Easyeasy with you, sir. That will do. Which side of the river, sir, would you like to be put ashore at, if you please?" The boy was evidently deeply impressed with the importance of the title of Deputy Inspector Dredger, and was quite deferential to Todd. How delighted was Todd to get off the barge! It seemed to him like a reprieve from death. "Which way is the tide, boy?" he said. "Running down, sir, but not fast." "That will do. I will trouble you, then, to row with it as comfortably and as fast as you can. "But I'm going, sir, to Westminster, to meet father. I can't go down the river, please sir. I would if I could. I said I would put you on shore on either side you like, and that's a waste of time, for the tide is getting fuller every minute, and it will be a hard pull against it, as it is. I can't go down the river, so don't ask me, sir; indeed I can't." "Indeed?" "No, sir. If I put you ashore, you will find lots of watermen who will be glad enough of the job." "What's your name?" "Bill White, sir." Todd Compels Bill White To Assist His Escape From The Thames Police. Todd Compels Bill White To Assist His Escape From The Thames Police. "Very well, Bill White. I dare say you have ears at your age, and guess that to have one's brains blown out is not one of the most agreeable things in the world, and perhaps you know a pistol when you see one. This that I take from my pocket and hold at your head is carefully loaded, and if you don't pull away at once with the tide down the river, I will scatter your brains into the river, and throw your lifeless carcass after them. Do you understand that, Mr. Bill White?" Todd uttered these words in such a tone of fiendish malignity, and glared into the eyes of the poor boy so, that he nearly drove him out of his wits, and it was as much as his trembling hands could do to hold the oars. For the space of about half a minute he could only glare at Todd with his eyes and mouth as wide open as they could be. "Speak, devil's whelp!" cried Todd. "Why do you not answer me?" "Murder!" cried the boy. Todd caught him by the throat, and if the oars had not been well up in the rollocks, they must have gone overboard. "Another such cry," said Todd, "and it is the last you shall have the opportunity of making in this world." "Oh, nono" "But I say yes. Listen to me! If you row me as I direct you, I will not only do you no harm, but I will pay you well. If you still obstinately refuse, I will murder you, and murder your father likewise, upon the first opportunity." "I will row you down the river, sir. Oh, yes, I will do it. Indeed I will, sir." "Very well. Take your oars, and pull away." The boy was in such a state of trembling, that although it was quite evident he did his best to obey Todd, it was with the greatest difficulty that he could pull a stroke, and it took him some minutes to get the boat's head round to the tide. "Be careful," said Todd. "If I see you willing, I make any allowance for you; but if I fancy, for a moment, that there is any idea of not obeying me, I will kill you!" "I am obeying you, sir." "Very well. Now, listen attentively to what I am about further to say to you, Bill White. You can pull away while you listen.
We are going now very well with the stream." "Yes, sir." "We shall, no doubt, pass many wherries, and you may think it a very good thing to call out for help, and to say that I threatened to murder you, and all that sort of thing; but so soon as you do, you die. I will hold this pistol in my hand, and whenever we come near a wherry, my finger will be upon the trigger, and the muzzle at your head. You understand all that, I hope, Bill White?" "Of course I do, sir." "Go on then." Todd reclined back in the stern of the boat, and kept his eyes fixed upon the boy, down whose cheeks the tears rolled in abundance, as he pulled down the stream. Having the tide fully in its favour, the wherry, with very little labour, made great way; and Todd, as he saw the dawn slowly creeping on, began to congratulate himself upon the cleverness with which he had escaped from the barge. The river began to widenthe pool was left behind, and the dull melancholy shore of Essex soon began to show itself, as the tide, by each moment increasing in strength, carried the light boat swiftly along its undulating surface, with its frightfully wicked load. Todd thought it would be as well now to say something of a cheering character to the boy. Modulating his voice, he said "Now, you see, my lad, that by obeying me you have done the very best thing you possibly could, and when I think proper to land, I will give you a guinea for yourself." "I don't want it," said the boy. "You don't want it?" "No; and I won't have it." "What do you mean by that, you idiot of a boy? How dare you tell me to my face that you won't have what I offer you?" "I don't see," said Bill White, "how that ought to put you in a passion. All you want is to make me row you down the river. Well, you have made me, cos I don't want to be shot down like a mad dog, of course; but I won't be paid for doing what I don't likenot I." "Well, it don't matter to me. You may please yourself about that; I am just as well pleased at being rowed for nothing as if I paid for it. You can please yourself in that particular; but it would have been better for you to have taken what I chose to give you than to have refused it." The boy made no answer to this speech, but rowed on in sullen silence. He no longer wept now, and it was evident to Todd that indignation was rapidly taking the place of fear in his heart. Todd even began to debate with himself whether it would not be better to throw him into the river and take the oars himself, and trust to his own skill to conduct the boat with the stream to Gravesend, than was the risk of any sudden act of the boy's that might bring danger upon him. It would have been but a poor satisfaction to Todd to have shot the boy at the moment possibly of his calling for help, when the sight of such an act would be sufficient to insure his capture, without people troubling themselves about what he had done or not done before. These were considerations that began to make Todd very unhappy indeed. "Well, Bill White," he said; "as your father, no doubt, expects you by this time, and I daresay you will be glad enough to go back and forget all about the little disagreement that we have had, I will get you to land me at once at those stairs yonder, and then we will shake hands and part." "No we won't." "Ah?" "I say we won't shake hands. I'm willing enough that we should part, but as for the shaking hands, I won't do it; and I'm quite willing to pull in to the stairs." As he spoke he inclined the head of the boat to a little landingplace, where a few wherries were moored. CHAPTER CLXIII. ANOTHER POLICEGALLEY. "Bill White," said Todd. "Well, what now?" said the boy, in a sulky tone. Todd pointed to the pistol, and merely uttered the one word"Remember!" and then, with a horrible misgiving at his heart, he let the lad pull into the landingplace. Some halfdozen lazylooking fellows were smoking their pipes upon the dirty beach, and Todd, concealing the pistol within his capacious cuff, sprang on the shore. He turned and looked at the boy, who slowly pushed off, and gained the deep water again. "He is afraid," thought Todd, "he is afraid, and will be too glad to get away and say nothing." Bill White's actions were now not a little curious, and they soon attracted the observation of all the idlers on the beach, and put Todd in a perfect agony of apprehension. When the boy was about half a dozen boats' length from the shore, he shipped one of his oars, and then, with his disengaged hand, he lifted from the bottom of the boat an old saucepan, which he held up in an odd, dodging kind of way before his face, with an evident idea that if Todd fired the pistol at him, he could interrupt the bullet in that way. Then, in a loud clear voice, he cried "Hilloa! Don't have anything to do with that Mr. Smith. He has been threatening to shoot me, and he has got a pistol in his hand. He's a bad 'un, he is. Take him up! That's the best thing you can do. He's wellnigh as bad as old Todd the murderer of Fleet Street, that they can't catch. Take him up. I advises you. Blaze away, old curmudgeon." Todd's rage was excessive, but he thought that the best plan would be to try to laugh the thing over, and with a hideous affectation of mirth, he cried out "Goodby, Billgoodby. Remember me to your father, and tell him all the joke." "It wasn't a joke," said Bill White. "Ha! ha!" laughed Todd. "Wellwell, I forgive you, BillI forgive you. Mind you take my message to your aunt, and tell her I shall be at the chapel on Wednesday." "Oh, go to the deuce with you," said Bill, as he put down the saucepan upon finding that his late fare was not disposed to carry his threat of shooting him into effect. "You are an old rogue, that you are, and I daresay you have done something that it would be well worth while to take you up for." With this, Bill began vigorously to pull away against the stream, puffing and blowing, and looking as indignant as he possibly could. Todd turned with a sigh to the men at the little landing, and affecting to wipe a tear from his left eye, he said "You would not believe, gentlemen, that that boy could say such things to his poor old uncle, and yet you wouldn't believe if I were to tell you the pounds and pounds that boy has cost me and his poor aunt. He don't behave well to either of us; but we are as fond of him as possible. It's in our natures to love him, and we can't help it." "Lor!" said one of the men. "You looks tenderhearted," said another. The others all laughed at this, and Todd thought it was as well to seem as if he thought that some very capital joke was going on, so he laughed too. "I was thinking," he said, when the merriment had a little subsided, "I was thinking of going right on to Gravesend. What do you say to taking me now, a couple of you? There's the tide nicely with you all the way, and I am always a liberal enough paymaster." "What will you give?" said one with a voice like a cracked trumpet with a bad cold. "Why, name your price, and I shall not say no to it." "What shall we take the gemman for, Bill?" said this man to another, who was smoking a short pipe. "A rum 'un," was the reply of Bill. "Don't be a hass. I didn't go for to ask you what sort of indiwiddle he was, but what we'd take him to Gravesend for." "Oh, that's the caper, is it?" "Yes it is, idiot." "Wellfifteen bob and a tanner." "Will that do, sir?" said the other to Todd, who thought that it would look bad to acquiesce too readily in the amount, so he said "I will give the fifteen shillings." "Very good. We won't go to loggerheads about the tanner; so come along, sir, and we'll soon get you to Gravesend, with this tide arunning all the way there, as comfortably as it can, all of a purpose." Todd was well enough pleased to find that these two men owned the longest and strongestlooking wherry that was at the landingplace. He ensconced himself snugly enough in the stern of the boat and they put aside their pipes, and soon pushed off into the middle of the stream. "Once more," thought Todd, "once more I am on the road to escape; and all may yet be well." The two men now set to work with the oars in earnest. They felt, that as they were paid by the job, the best way was to get it over as quickly as possible; and, aided by the tide, it was perfectly astonishing what progress they made down the river. Todd every now and then cast a long and anxious glance behind him; and presently he saw a boat shooting along, by the aid of six rowers, at great speed, and evidently turning into the little landingplace from where he had just come. His eyesight was either sharpened by the morning light, or fancy deceived him, for he thought he saw the boy, Bill White, seated in the stern of the boat. Todd was in an agony. He knew not whether to attract the attention of the two watermen to the large boat with all its rowers, so that he might get an opinion from them concerning it or not; and then again, he thought that at the moment, there would be a good chance of working upon the cupidity of the men, if any real danger should befall him of capture. "I say, Bill," said one. "Well, say it." "There's one of the police officer's gone into the Old Stairs. There's something afloat this here morning." "Ah! They are always at some manoeuvre or another. Pull away. It ain't no business of our'n." Todd could almost have hugged the man for the sentiment he uttered; and how he longed to echo those two words, "pull away;" but he was afraid to do so, lest, by any seemingly undue anxiety just then for speed upon his part, he should provoke the idea that the policeboat was as interesting to him as it really was. Poor, wretched, guilty Todd surely suffered a hundred times the pangs of death during his progress down the river; and now he sat in the stern of the boat, looking as pale as death itself. "You don't seem very well," said one of the men. "Oh, yesyes, I am quite well, I thank you." "Well, I'm glad to hear it; for you look just as if you had been buried a month, and then dug up again." "Ha! ha!" laughed Todd,what a hideous attempt at a laugh it was!"that is very good." "Oh, lor! do you laugh that way when you are at home? 'cos if you do, I should expect the roof to tumble in with fright, I should." "How funny you are," said Todd. "Pull away." He did venture to say, "pull away!" and the men did pull with right goodwill, so that the landingplace, and the long policeboat that was at it, looked just like two specks by the riverside; and, indeed it would have been a long pull and a strong one to catch Todd's wherry. The murderer breathed a little more freely. "How far have we got to go now?" he said. "Oh, a matter of nine miles yet." "And how long will it take you?" "About one hour and a quarter, with the tide running at such a pace as it is. There's some wind, too, and what there is, is all with us, so we cut along favourably. What are they doing away yonder, Bill?" "Where?" said Bill. "Right in our wake, there. Oh, they are getting up a sail. I'll be hanged if they ain't, and pulling away besides! Why, what a hurry they must be in, to be sure, to get down the river. I never knew them do that before." Todd looked along the surface of the water, and he saw the policeboat coming along at such a rate, that the spray was tossed up in the air before her prow in millions of white particles. A puff of smoke came from her side, and a slight sharp report rung upon the morning air. A musket or a pistol had been discharged on board of her. "What's the meaning of that, Bill?" "I can tell you," said Todd, sharply, before Bill had done moving his head from side to side, which was a habit of his preparatory to replying to any very intricate question. "I can tell you easily." The PoliceGalley Chasing Todd To Gravesend. The PoliceGalley Chasing Todd To Gravesend. "What is it then?" "You pull away, and I'll tell you. You see that boat with the sail and the six rowers there?" "Yes, yes!" "And you heard them fire a gun?" "To be sure." "Well, pull away. It's enough to make a cat laugh; but it was Mr. Anthony Strong that fired that gun." "How very droll? But what did he do it for?" "Well, pull away, and I'll tell you. You must know that Mr. Anthony Strong, who is in command of that policeboat, is my brotherinlaw, and he laid a wager with me, that he would start from the pier at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, at daybreak this morning, and get to Gravesend before me, if I started from Blackfriars, and did the best I possibly could to get on that money and men could do for me. I allowed that he was to take all his six rowers with him, and hoist his sail if he liked, and I was to take no more than two watermen at a time. When he saw me, he was to fire a gun, you see; and the wager is for twenty pounds and a dinner. I should like to win it, and so, if you can fairly beat him, with the start you have, which is above a mile" "It's above two," said Bill, "Water's deceiving." "Well, I'm glad to hear it; and I was going to say, I would stand five guineas!" "You will, old fellow?" "I will; and to convince you of it, here they are, and I will place them in your hands at once; so now, I do hope that you will pull away like devils!" "Won't we! If Mr. Anthony Strong, with all his sail and his six hands, catches us on this side of Gravesend, I'll give him leave to skin me and eat me at the dinner that he would win. No, no! if we don't know the currents, and the shortcuts of the river a little bit better than ever a captain of policeboat that ever lived, or that ever will live, why you may set me down for a frog or a Frenchman, which, I take it, are much of a muchness." "They is," said the other. Todd shouted with delight, and it was real now the wild laughter that shook his frame, for he began to think he was safe. The confident tone in which the waterman spoke, had quite convinced him that he could do what he said. With a perfect confidence in the power of his two watermen, he looked at the police wherry without any alarm, and the foam that it dashed up as it came bounding on, did not seem to fall coldly upon his breast, as it had seemed to do before. "Two miles," he said. "That's a long start." "In a stern chase," said Bill, "it's half of the blessed world to get over is them two miles." "Yes, yesexactly; and I shall beat Mr. Anthony Strong, I feel now. You see, my little nephew, Bill White, gave me the first start from Blackfriars; but I knew I could not depend upon him all the way, so IThere's another gun. Hal ha! Mr. Strong, it won't do." "Well," said Bill, with a look of what he, no doubt, thought was great cleverness, "if I didn't know as this was a bit of fun between Mr. Anthony Strong and you, sir, I should have said that them guns was for us to lieto." "That's just what he wants," cried Todd. "Does he?" "Yes. He thinks that he will frighten whoever is rowing into a dead stop, when they find a policegalley firing guns; but I think he is mistaken in this matter, my friends." "Rather!" said Dick, as he bent his back to the oars, and pulled away like a giant. How the boat shot through the water! and yet to Todd's apprehension, the policegalley gained upon him. Of course, he told himself that it must gain with its sail and six rowers; but the question was, how much it would gain in the seven or eight miles they had got to go? With what a feverish action Todd licked his lips. CHAPTER CLXIV. TODD GOES BACK ON LAND. "Oh, quickerquicker!" cried Todd. "That would be difficult," said Bill. "But I rather think as we is a doing of it something out of the common way." Bang! went another gun from the pursuing boat, and this time there certainly was the greatest possible hint given by the policegalley that it was in earnest, for a bullet struck the water not above a couple of boats' length from Todd's wherry. "Well," said Bill, "that may be firing, but I'll be hanged if it is at all pleasant." "Oh, heed it not," said Todd; "heed it not. They would have such a laugh at both me and you, if by any means they could frighten you into stopping, and so giving me upno, no, I mean giving up the wager. What am I saying?" "I tell you what it is," said Bill, "to my mind this is a very odd sort of wager, and if you have no sort of objection to it, sir, we will just pull to the next stairs, and put you ashore. If you don't like that, why, I rather think you must be content to lose your wager." "You will desert me? Oh, nono. Surely you will not, and cannot. You have but to name your price, and you shall have it." "No. That won't do. You must land now." Todd looked nervously along the bank of the river, and he saw a little miserable landingplace, towards which the men now began to urge the boat. He thought then that if he could get anything like a start of his pursuers on the shore, all might yet be well. "I could get across the country to Gravesend, and if once there, I might find some vessel to take me off." "Pull to shore, then," he said; "I will take my chance. Pull to shore at once, as swiftly as you possibly can." When the boat's head was turned towards the shore, it was pretty evident that the policegalley was much more intent upon getting to Todd than to Gravesend, for the rowers in it on the instant turned the boat's head in the same direction, and it became then, truly, a case of life and death to Todd. Vigorously as the boatmen worked, the little wherry was quickly so close to the shore, that Todd saw he could land by a scramble through the water. "There is your money," he cried, to the men; "and for what you have done, I thank you with all my heart. Goodby to you." He sprang over the side of the boat, although by so doing he was up to his knees in the river; but that he heeded not, and in the course of half a minute he had scrambled to the shore, and going at a great rate up the little steps at the landingplace, he gained the road and began to run at great speed. The two boatmen were not a little amazed at this proceeding, and Bill said, "I say, I rather think that this is another queer sort of a piece of work than a wager; but if we don't wish to get ourselves into trouble, we must stick to it tooth and nail, that that was what we believed it to be." "Ay," said the other. "I believe you, we must, or else we shall get into limbo for our share of the affair, and no mistake. Here they come, hand over hand, and they don't look very well pleased, either." The rowers in the policegalley had made such strenuous exertions to reach the landingplace quickly, that they were really not far behind the wherry that had conducted Todd there, and the first thing that was done was to lay hold of the wherry with a boathook, and drag it alongside of them. Then the officer in command of the policeboat called out in a voice hoarse with rage "What do you mean, you infernal rascals, by running off in this way, when you know by our flag that we were the police? But you will have leisure to repent of it in jail. Clap handcuffs upon them both, my men." "Why, what have we done?" said Bill. "You will win your wager yet, I should say, if you look sharp about it." "Wager? What wager? What do you mean?" "Why, the gentleman told us that he had a wager with you about who was to get to Gravesend first, and he was to take what means he could, and you were to cut along in the galley, and there was to be quite a grand dinner on the strength of it." "Oh, nonsensenonsense." "Well, that's what he told me, and that's why we pulled away so for; but if so be as it ain't, we are sorry enough, for why should we get into trouble about a man we never saw before, and ain't likely to see again?" "This excuse won't serve you." "But who is he, and what's he done?" "For all we know to the contrary, he is the infamous Todd, the murderer." "What? The fellow that made the people into pies! Oh, if we had only had half a quarter of an idea of that! But, holdI saw the way he went. It was along that chalky bit of road. If you really want to nab him, why do you waste time here talking to us? Come on shore, and I will go with you, and we will soon have him now, if that will do any good." The officer saw at once that this was the only mode of proceeding that promised him the least chance of capturing the fugitive, whether he were Todd or not; for, after all, the persons in the policegalley had nothing like positive evidence that it was Todd of whom they were in pursuit. A couple of officers were left in the charge of the boats, and the whole of the remainder of them landed along with Bill, and ran up the steps to the road along which Todd had been seen to run. They did not know, however, what a wily, cunning personage they had to deal with. When Todd found himself in such comparatively close quarters with the enemy, he felt perfectly sure that to continue scampering along the high road was not the most likely way to escape. If he were to succeed in eluding his foes, he felt that it must be by finesse, and not by speed. With this idea, he did not go along the road for a greater distance than sufficed to bring him to a hedge, across which he then instantly made his way, and then turning, he crouched down and crept back towards the other direction. On the side of the hedge where he was now, there was not a very pleasant kind of fielddrain, but Todd's circumstances did not permit of his being very particular, and getting right down into the drain, he crept along, stooping so low that only a portion of his head and back were visible above it. This was certainly the most likely way to baffle his pursuers, who were not very likely to think that he had so rapidly doubled upon them. Knowing now that his destination was Gravesend, they would in all probability run along the road after him, or if they took to the fields it would still be with the idea that he was ahead of them. After proceeding for some distance, Todd thought it would be just as well if he were to reconnoitre the foe a little, and, accordingly, he raised his head sufficiently to enable him just to peep through the hedge, and when he did so, he found that he was on sufficiently high ground to command a view of the road, and the landingplace, and the river. To his immense consternation, he saw the police advancing rapidly towards him. "Lost! lost!" said Todd, as he sunk down into the ditch, with a conviction that he was all but taken. He felt in his pocket for a pistol, and getting one out, he placed it to his ear, and there held it, for he had made up his mind now, to shoot himself, rather than be dragged back to prison, from where another escape would be quite out of the question. "They shall not take me. I will dieI will die," he murmured; and then he concentrated all his attention to the act of listening to the proceedings of the police. They came on in a straggling kind of way from the landingplace, and the principal officer cried out "You, Jenkins, get up the first tree you come to, and take a long look about you. The country is flat enough, and he will find it no easy matter to hide from us, I should say." "Oh, it's all right, sir," said another voice. "We have him as safe as if he were lying at the bottom of our boat with the darbies on him; and as far as I can judge of him, sir, I should say it is Todd." "I hope so," said the officer. "It will not be a bad morning's work for you all, my lads, if it is." Not very far off from where Todd lay concealed in the ditch, only, fortunately for him, on the other side of the road, was a stunted tree, rising about twenty feet from the barren soil, and upon this the man, who was named Jenkins, made his way carefully, and took a long look all round him, and particularly in advance. "Do you see him?" said the officer commanding the party. "No, sir, I don't." "Then he is hiding somewhere, and the only plan is to go right on, and hunt him up if he is among the hedges. Come on, now, at once. We must have him. He cannot possibly escape us now." Todd, upon this, again gave himself up for lost; but, as luck would have it, although two of the men got over the hedge, and began looking about, and dashing their cutlasses into the hedge, the officer called to them "Oh, he never came so far up the road. You don't suppose he was goose enough to come back again? If he is hiding, it will be more likely by the time he lost breath, I should say. Come now; I saw him myself get past yonder little chestnut trees, and the white cottage." Upon this the men ran on, and Todd felt, for the present, at all events, he was saved. "The idiots!" said Todd, as he looked up and listened. "The idiots!So they think that I am as far gone in stupidity as they are, and that I have nothing to do, but to run on until they, younger and more fleet of foot, overtake me." He crawled out of the ditch, and a most pitiable figure he was when he did so. In his anxiety to hide himself completely, he had, in fact, lain himself down comfortably enough, as far as regarded the softness of the place, right at the bottom of the ditch, and had only, in the midst of a thick growth of rank weeds, kept his face above the water. "This is horrible," he said; "and they will be back soon, too. What on earth am I to do?" He heard a loud shout at this moment, and he raised his head sufficiently to see along the road to observe the actions of the officers. He found that they had paused, and were talking to a man on horseback, who was pointing in the very direction where he (Todd) stood, or rather crouched. The idea that this man had from some eminence, he being mounted, too, seen him (Todd) hide in the ditch, at once crossed his mind, and from that moment he felt that he was not in the safety that he had fondly hoped he was. To remain where he was, with such an idea prevailing in his mind, would have been madness and, accordingly, crawling down close to the hedge, he ran along, splashing, like some gigantic waterfowl, in the ditch, until he came to a thicklyplanted fence, at right angles with the hedge that bordered the road. There he was forced to come to a standstill. The fence was composed of the common privet, so that there would have been neither difficulty nor danger in forcing his way through it; but what he might encounter upon the other side was a subject of consideration well worth his attention. Through the interstices of the foliage he could see that there was a pretty and wellkept mixed garden on the other side. Roses and other flowers grew in quite loving companionship with all kinds of culinary vegetables, and the little plot of ground was well shadowed by some halfdozen fruit trees. A part of the ground was made into a kind of lawn, and upon that lawn was a child about one year old crawling about, and amusing itself by making weak efforts to pull up the grass. While Todd was observing these things, a woman came out of a little whitewashed cottage that was at the farther end of the garden, with some clothes to hang up to dry. The woman spoke to the child, and from the tone in which she did so, it was quite evident she was the mother of it. Todd waited until she had hung the clothes up that she had brought out into the garden, and then when she went into the house for more, he burst his way through the hedge, and with a resolution and firmness that nothing but the exigencies of his situation could possibly have endowed him with, he took the child up in his arms and walked slowly across the lawn towards the cottage. The woman, with another heap of wet clothes in her arms, met him, and uttered a loud scream. "Peace," said Todd. "Peace, I say. There is no danger unless you make some. Listen to me, and I will tell you how you can do a service to me, and spare your child." "Help! help! Murder! Thieves!" cried the woman. Todd took one of his pistols from his pocket, and held it to the head of the child. "Another word," he said, "and I fire!" Todd Resorts To A Frightful Stratagem With A Mother And Child. Todd Resorts To A Frightful Stratagem With A Mother And Child. The woman fell upon her knees, and holding up her hands in the attitude of prayer, she said "Oh, have mercy! Kill me, if you must take a life, but spare the child!" "The child's life," said Todd, "is in your own hands. Why do you seek to destroy me?" "I do notI do not, indeed." "Then, peace, and do not cry out for help. Do not shout that dreadful word 'Murder!' for that will destroy me. I am hunted by my fellowmen. I am a poor proscribed wretch, and all I ask of you is that you will not betray me." "You will spare my child?" "I will. Why should I harm the little innocent? I was once myself a little child, and considered to be rather a beauty." As Todd said this, he made one of his most hideous faces, so that the woman cried out with terror, and tried to snatch the child from him, but he held it with a firm grasp. CHAPTER CLXV. TODD HIDES IN A CUPBOARD. "It is in vain," said Todd; "my safety is wound up now with the safety of this little one. If you would save it, you will save me." "Oh, no, no. Why should it be so? I cannot save you." "You can, I think. At all events, I will be satisfied if you make the effort to do so. I tell you I am pursued by the officers of the law. It does not matter to you what I am, or who I am, or what crime it is that they lay to my charge; your child's life is as dear to you in any case. Hide me in the cottage, and deny my being seen here, and the child shall live. Betray me, and as sure as the sun gives light, it dies." "Oh, no, no, no!" "But, I say, yes. Your course is easy. It is all but certain that my prosecutors will come to this cottage, as it is the only habitation on the route that I have taken. They will ask you if you have seen such a man as I am, and they will tell you that you may earn a large reward by giving such information as may deliver me into the hands of justice; but what rewardwhat sum of money would pay you for your child's life?" "Oh, not all the world's worth!" "So I thought; and so you will deny seeing me, or knowing ought of me, for your child's sake? Is it agreed?" "It isit is! God knows who you are, or what you have done that the hands of your fellow creatures should be raised against you; but I will not betray you. You may depend upon my word. If you are found in this place, it shall not be by any information of mine." "Can you hide me?" "I will try to do so. Come into the cottage. Ah! what noise is that? I hear the tread of feet, and the shouts of men!" Todd paused to listen. He shook for a moment or two; and then, with a bitter tone, he said "My pursuers come! They begin to suspect the trick that I have played them!they now knowor think they know, that I have turned upon my route. They comethey come!" "Oh, give me the child! I swear to you that I will hide you to the utmost of my means; but give me the child!" "Not yet." The woman looked at him in an agony of tears. "Listen to me," she said. "If they discover you it will not be my fault, nor the fault of this little innocentyou feel that! Ah! then tell me upon what principle of justice can you take its life?" "I will be just," said Todd. "All I ask of you is, to hide me to the best of your ability, and to keep secret the fact of my presence here. If, after you have done all that, you still find that I am taken, it will be no fault of yours. I do not ask impossibilities of any one, nor do I threaten punishment against you for not performing improbable feats. Come income in at once! They comethey come! Do you not hear them now?" It was quite evident now that a number of persons were approaching, and beating the bushes as they came on. The tread of a horse's feet, too, upon the road convinced Todd that among his foes, now, was the mounted man whom he had seen, and whom he thought he saw point to him as he lay crouching down behind the hedge, half hidden in the ditch. With the little child still in his arms, he rushed into the cottage, and the woman followed him, wringing her hands with terror.
And yet Todd was gentle with the child. He knew that from the mother he had everything to hope, and everything to dread, and he did not wish to drive her to despair by any display of harshness to the little one. "This way," she cried, "this way," as she led the way into an innerroom. "There is a cupboard here in which you can conceal yourself. If they do not search the house, they will not find you, and I will do all that I can to prevent them." "That will do," said Todd; "but, remember, I will have the child near me, so that upon the least symptom of treachery from you, I can put it to death; and I shall not, under any circumstances, at all scruple so to do. Where is this cupboard that you speak of?" "It is hereit is here!" "Ah! that will do." Todd now cast his eyes around the room, and perceived a little cot, that, at night, was devoted to the slumbers of the child. "Take that," he said, pointing to it, "and place it against the door of the cupboard with the child in it. It will seem then not likely that I am hidden here." "I will do so." Todd did not feel any apprehension of treachery from the mother of the child. He was not slow to perceive that every other feeling was in her breast weak in comparison with the allabsorbing one of love for the infant; and so he calculated that, rather than run the shadow of a risk of injury to it, she would do all that he required. The cupboard was a deep one; but it was not high enough for Todd quite to stand upright in. That, however, was a trifling inconvenience, and he got into it at once. The child's cot was placed against the door; and the young mother, with a thousand fears tugging at her heart, pretended to busy herself about her household affairs. The little interval that now ensued, before Todd's pursuers reached the spot, was certainly to him rather a fearful one; and he felt that his fate hung upon the proceedings of the next few moments. He called to the woman in an earnest tone "Couragecourageall will be well." "Oh, peacepeace!" she said. "They come!" Todd quite held his breath now in the painful effort that he made to listen, so that not the slightest sound that might be indicative of the approach of his enemies might escape him; and he gave such a start, that he nearly threw open the cupboarddoor, and upset the cot, as he heard a hoarse man's voice suddenly call out from the garden "Hilloa!House herehouseHilloa!" "Nownow," he gasped. "Now I live or die! Upon the next few moments hangs my fate!" The cold dew of intense fear stood upon his brow, and his sense of hearing appeared to be getting preternaturally acute. Not a word that was said escaped him, although it was right away in the garden that this, to him, fearfully interesting conversation took place. "What is the matter?" he heard the woman say, and then the rough voice replied to her "We are the police, my good woman, and we are in search of a man who is hidden somewhere about this neighbourhood. Has any one come into your place, or have you seen a tall man pass the cottage?" "No," said the woman. Todd breathed a little more freely. "It's very odd," said another voice; "for he must be about this spot, that is quite clear, as he was dodging about the field at the back of here, and hiding in the hedge. We must have passed him." "Well, he can't get away," said a third; "but after all, he may be lying down somewhere in the garden, for all we know to the contrary." "I don't think it," said the woman. At this moment, the child began to cry violently. "Oh, confound you for a brat!" said Todd, "I wish it was only safe to throttle you." "Is that your child?" said one of the officers. "Oh, yesyes," said the young mother, and hastening into the cottage, she placed a chair by the side of the cot, and began to rock it to and fro, singing while she did so, to lull the child to sleep. "She will keep her word," thought Todd. "I feel confident that she will keep her word, now, with me." "You look all round the garden, while I take a peep about the house," said the principal officer. "Oh, I am lost!" moaned Todd. "I am surely lost now! If the house should be searched well, so obvious a place of concealment as a cupboard will not escape them. All is lost now, indeed." He almost gave up all thought, now, of keeping life or liberty, and he waited only for the fatal moment when the officers should approach and place their hands upon that cupboard door to open it. The child still cried, and the mother sang to it. "'Sleep, sleep, little baby Oh, sleep all the day; The sunshine is hiding, The birds fly away. Away, awayfar away. The sunshine is hiding, The birds fly away'" "Hilloa! What cupboard is that behind the child's cot?" "'And when they return You may open your eyes.' "Oh, it's where we keep our best crockery. Don't disturb the childI do think it is sickening with the measles. "'And see how the sunset Is gilding the skies, Away, awayfar away. And see how the sunset Is gilding the skies.' "Have you found him in the garden? I shall be almost out of my wits, now, till my husband comes home. Who is it that you are looking for, and pray what has he done? He would need to be clever, indeed, to come in here without my knowing it; and as for the garden, why, I was hanging out the clothes there for the last half hour, I tell you." "Oh, he's not here," said the officer. "It would be no bad thing, marm, for any one who could lend a helping hand to find him." "Ah, indeed?" "Yes. You have heard of Todd, the murderer? Well, that's the man we are after, and we have every reason to think that he is somewhere about here, and it is a large reward that is offered for him, I can tell you." "Ah! I should like to get it." "Not a doubt of it. Goodday, marm. If you should see any suspiciouslooking fellow about the fields, just give notice of it in some sort of a way, if you can, for you may depend upon it, it will be Todd." "Oh, yes, I will. How very fractious this little thing is today, to be sure. I hardly ever knew it to be so before." "Ah, well, they will be so, at times. But I'm off. Mind, now, you get the reward if you see anything of Todd." "Oh, yes. Trust me for that." The man left the room. What a reprieve from death that was for Todd! He thought that during all the perils that he had passed through, he had surely never been quite so near to destruction as then; and when he found that he was saved, temporarily, he could hardly hold himself up in the cupboard, and a sensation of faintness came over him. It was not safe for him yet, by any means, to think of emerging from his place of concealment. Indeed, he felt that the young mother would be the best judge upon that hand, so he did not stir nor speak, and at last he heard the cot with the now sleeping child in it, being gently moved from before the cupboarddoor. Then it was opened, and Todd, with his face pale and haggard, stepped out into the room. The young woman only pointed to the door of the little apartment steadily and significantly. "What do you mean?" said Todd. "Go," she said. "I have done that which you require of me. Now go." "To death?" "No. Your enemies are no longer here. At the sacrifice of truth and of feeling I saved you. It was all you asked of me, and now I tell you to go, and no longer pollute this place by your presence. I know who and what you are, now. You are Sweeney Todd, the murderer." "Well, and if I am, what then?" "Nothingnothing! I ask nothing of you, but that you should leave this house; I have kept my word. I will let the memory of this hour's work sink deeply into my heart, and there remain untold to any one. Not even to my husband will I breathe it. I only ask you to go." "I am goingI am going." Todd felt awed by her manner. He cowered before the look that, full of horror, she bent upon him, and he crept towards the cottage door. But the dread that some of his enemies might be lurking about the spot detained him. "Tell me," he said, "oh! tell me trulyare they gone?" "Wait," she said, "and I will see again." She took the child in her arms, and left the cottage. Todd found, now that the child was no longer in his power as a kind of hostage for the faith of the mother, that he had trusted her too far; but it was too late, now, for him to recede from the position in which he had placed himself, and with all his terror, he had no resource but to calmlycalmly as he couldwait her return. She came back again in a few moments. "You can go with safety. They are all away." "I will trust you, and take your word for it," said Todd. "I thank you for the service you have rendered to me, and I am not ungrateful. Accept of this in remembrance of me, and of this day's adventure." He took from his pocket a splendid gold watch and laid it upon the table, in the outer room, but with vehemence, the woman cried "Nono! Take it up, I will not have it. Take it up, or even now I will dare everything and call for help. I will take nothing from your bloodstained hands. Take up the watch, or I will destroy it." "As you please," said Todd, as he placed the watch in his pocket again. "I wish not to force it upon you. I am gone." He went out into the little garden, but he looked about him very nervously indeed, before he trusted himself to walk towards the little white gate that opened upon the high road. Each moment, however, that passed without any one springing upon and attacking him, was a moment of confidence gained. He carried a pistol in his hand, and keeping his eyes keenly around him, he reached the road. "All is safe," he said. "I do, indeed, think she is right, and that they have given up the chase for me. She has not deceived me, and I may yet escape." He kept close to the roadside, so that he was very much covered by the hedge, and then, at as fast a pace as he thought he could keep up for any length of time, he ran on. He had not gone far when he heard the sound of wheels behind him, and he got over a hedge and hid behind it until he could see what sort of vehicle it was that approached. It turned out to be a cart driven by a couple of countrymen, who were talking upon their own affairs in rather loud tones; as they came on, Todd listened intently, and was satisfied that his supposed escape into that neighbourhood was not the subject of their discourse. CHAPTER CLXVI. THE SHIP BOUND FOR HAVRE TAKES A PASSENGER. "Hilloa!" cried Todd, as he came out into the middle of the road and confronted the cart with the two men in it. "Hilloa! Which way are you going?" "One would think you might see that," said one of the men, "by the way the horse's nose points." "What do you want?" said the other, rather sharply. "Not to intrude upon you at all, if you don't like it," replied Todd; "but I am going to Gravesend, and if you will help me on a part of the way, I will pay you well for it. I thought it would be good for my constitution to walk, but I find I am older than I thought I was." "What will you give?" said one of the men, in a dubious tone of voice. "Name your price," said Todd, "and I will give it. I know you will not be unreasonable with me." "Will you give half a guinea?" said the other. "Yes, for I am footweary." "Jump up, then, and we will soon take you to Gravesend. You ain't many miles off from it now by the near cuts that we know. Come on." Todd managed to scramble into the cart, and the man who was driving gave the horse an impulse forward, and away they went at a good pace. Todd began to feel a little easier in his mind now, for the quick motion of the cart in the direction that he wished to go in was most satisfactory to him. He felt quite delighted in a little time, when one of the men pointing ahead, cried out "There's the first houses in Gravesend, if you really want to go there." "Really," said Todd. "Indeed I do. Can you tell me what vessels are off the Port?" "Perhaps we can, and perhaps we can't, old fellow; but we will have some talk about that soon. Ha! ha!" There was something so peculiar in the laugh of the man, that Todd began to wonder into what hands he had fallen. They, every now and then, too, gave to each other a very significant look, as though there was some secret between them which they would not converse of before him. All this began to make Todd very uneasy, indeed, and the little amount of felicitation which he had been giving to himself so short a time before, rapidly subsided. "Am I a prisoner?" These were the words that occurred to him, but he had no ready means of answering the question. All he could do was to keep upon his guard, and, to tell the truth, well armed and desperate as he was, Todd was no very despicable match for any two men. Suddenly the man who was driving turned the horse's head down a deep declivity that led towards the river, to the right of the road. The country they were in was all of chalk, and this narrow road, or rather lane, at right angles with the high road, was evidently a cutting through the chalk foundation for the sake of a ready passage from the side of the Thames to the high road. A more picturesque spot could not well have been conceived. The small amount of loam upon the surface of the chalk, bore a brilliant vegetation; and upon the tall rugged sides of the deep cutting, wherever a small portion of earth had lodged, tall weeds had grown up, while on each side of the lane, close to the base of the chalky heights, there was a mass of weeds and tall creeping plants, and here and there a young tree, which lent a beautifully verdant aspect to the place. Every step that the horse now went, conducted the cart and its occupants deeper and deeper into the cutting, until, at last, the sky overhead looked only like a thin streak of light, and the gloom of a premature twilight was about the place. "Halt!" cried the man who was not driving, and the horse was stopped in the gloomiest portion of the lane. Todd turned ghastly pale, and kept his hand plunged in his breast upon one of his pistols. "What have you come down here for?" he said. "Why do you come to a stop in such a place as this?" "We will soon let you know," said the man who had not been driving, knitting his brows. "No doubt, you thought you had nailed us nicely, my fine fellow." "Nailed you?" "Yes. You need not put on such an innocent look, I can tell you. We are pretty good judges in these matters, and it's quite sufficient for me to tell you that we know you." "Know me?" "Yes, to be sure. Did you think we were taken in by any such nonsense as your being tired, and so on?No. We know you, I say, and this hour is your last. You have placed yourself in our power, and we will take good care of you now. There is a well in this lane which keeps secrets capitally." Todd drew his pistol, and held it against the breast of this man. "Attempt any violence," he said, "and I fire!" "Oh, indeed! You are well prepared, are you? I must say that, for an exciseman, you are a bold fellow." "A what?" "An exciseman. You know well you have been on the lookout for us for the last week; so it is of no use denying it. You thought you nabbed us, when you got into our cart." Todd's Adventure With The Smugglers. Todd's Adventure With The Smugglers. Todd lowered his pistol. "This is a foolish enough mistake," he said, "I am no more an exciseman than I am Commanderinchief of the forces. What could have put such a thing into your heads?" "Say you so?" cried the other. "But how will you make us believe it? That's the question." "Well," said Todd, putting on a very candid look, "I don't know how a man is to set about proving that he is not an exciseman. I only know that I am not. The real truth is, that I am in debt, and being pressed by my creditors, have thought proper to get out of their way; and so I want to make the best of my way to Gravesend, that is all. I fancy, by your anger at the idea of my being an exciseman, that you are smugglers; and if so, I can only say that, with all my heart, you may go on smuggling with the greatest success until the day of judgment, before I would interfere with you in the matter." "Dare we believe him?" said one of the men to the other. "I hardly know," replied the other; "and yet it would be rather a sad thing to take a man's life, when it might turn out that he was not what we took him for." "How on earth am I to convince you?" said Todd. "Where do you want to go to?" "I want to get on board some vessel, I don't care what, so that it is bound to some continental port. My object, I tell you, is to get away, and that is all." "Would the Port of Havre in France suit you?" "Perfectly well." The two men now whispered together for a few moments, and then, one of them, turning to Todd, said "The fact is that we are somewhat connected with a vessel bound for Havre, and it will sail tonight. If you are really what you pretend, and truly want to leave England, you can come with us, and we will give you a passage; but we expect to be paid for it." "Nothing can be more reasonable," said Todd; "I will pay you a liberal price, and as I wish to go on board as soon as I can, you may feel yourself perfectly easy regarding your suspicions of my being an exciseman, by keeping me in your company, and placing me on board your own vessel as quickly as you can." "Hang it, that's fair enough," cried one of them. "Come on, then, and let us get to the Lively William as soon as we can. It's rather a mercy we did not knock you on the head, though, at once." "I am very much obliged," said Todd. "Oh, don't mention it. I always myself, mind, defer anything of that sort till the last. It's a very rough and ugly way of settling matters, at the best; but when you can't reasonably, you know, do anything else, why, you must, and there's an end of it." "Exactly," said Todd. "I perceive that you are quite a philosopher in such transactions. So now that we have a better understanding together, the sooner we get on board this Lively William you talk of, the better." "Not a doubt of that. Come up." The horse's head was turned up the lane again, and in a very few moments the high road was gained, and they went on at a rapid trot for Gravesend. The town was soon reachedthat town what is all dirt in winter, and chalkdust in summerand the two men, by the manner in which they kept their eyes upon Todd while they passed several throngs of people, showed that it was a very difficult thing indeed to get rid of suspicion when once it took possession of them. After, however, getting right through the town, and finding that Todd did not attempt to give the least alarm, but, on the contrary, shrunk from observation as much as he could, their confidence in him was complete, and they really believed him to be what he pretended to be. Whether, if those men had really known who and what he was, they would have altered their views with regard to him, is a matter difficult to give an opinion upon; but as it was, they had no scruples whatever, provided he would pay them a good price for his passage to Havre. "Now," said one of them, "we know that you have not deceived us, and that it is all right, we don't mind telling you that we are the captain and owner of the Lively William, and that we are in the regular smuggling trade, between the French Ports and this country. We don't make a bad thing of it, one way and another." "I am glad to hear it," said Todd. "Ah, you view this sort of thing in a christianlike spirit, we see; and if you have no objection to a drop of as pure champagne brandy as ever you tasted, provided you have tasted some of the best, you can have a drop." "I should like it much," said Todd. "Just look out ahead, then, and fix your eyes on that old tree yonder, while we get it." Todd did not care to know what mode of hiding spirits the two men had in their cart; so he did as they required of him, and fixed his eyes upon the old tree. After he had kept his eyes upon that object for some few minutes, they called out to him "All's right." Todd looked round, and found one of the men with a small bladder of spirits, and a little horn drinkingcup. "Here," he said, "you can give us your opinion of this." Todd tossed off the contents of the cup. "Excellent!" he cried. "Excellent! That, indeed, is brandy. I do not think that such is to be got in London." "Scarcely," said the man, as he helped himself, and then handed the bladder and the cup to his companion; "but we are going to put up our horse and cart now, and if you will be so good as to look at the old tree again, we will send the brandy away." "Certainly," said Todd. The brandy was soon, in some mysterious manner, disposed of, and then the cart was stopped at the door of a little countrylooking inn, the landlord of which seemed to have a perfect understanding with the two men belonging to the Lively William. "Now," said one of them to Todd, "as you have no objection to go on board at once, we will put you there." "Objection?" cried Todd. "My objection is to remain on land. I beg that you will let me feel that I am on the deck of your vessel, as quickly as possible." "That will do. This way." They led him down a narrow lane with tall hedges upon each side, and then across a straggling mangylooking field or two, such as are to be found on the banks of the Thames, and on the northern coasts of some portions of England, the Isle of Wight in particular, and then they came at once to the bank of the river. A boatman hailed them, and upon their making signs to him that his services were required, he pulled in to the shore; and Todd, with his two new friends, were in a few moments going through the water to the vessel. The Lively William did not look particularly lively. It was a slatternlylooking craft, and its black, dingy hull presented anything but an inviting appearance. The genius of dirt and neglect seemed to have taken possession of the vessel, and the nearer Todd got to it, the less he liked it; but still it was a means of his escaping, and had it been ten times a more uncomfortablelooking abode than it was, he would have gladly gone on board it. "Here we are!" cried one of the men. The boat touched the side of the ship, and in another moment, Todd was upon her deck. CHAPTER CLXVII. TODD MEETS WITH A LITTLE ROUGH WEATHER IN THE CHANNEL. Todd almost thought that he was saved, when he felt himself fairly upon the deck of the Lively William. It seemed to him such a miracle to get so far, that his faith in completely getting the better of his enemies increased wonderfully. "Oh, this is a relief," he said. "This is, indeed, a vast relief." "What do you mean?" said one of the men of the cart to him, as he eyed him keenly. Todd was very anxious not to excite any suspicion that he was other than what he had represented himself to be; so he answered quickly "I mean that it is a relief to get out of the small boat into the ship. Ever so little a distance in a boat disagrees with me." "Oh, that's it, is it?" "Yes; and if you have no particular objection, I will go below at once. I daresay the cabin accommodation is very good on board the Lively William." "Oh, quite wonderful!" said the captain. "If you will come with me Mr.aawhat's your name?" "Wilkins," said Todd. "Oh, Mr. Wilkins. Well, if you will come with me, I shall have the very great pleasure of showing you what a capital berth we can give you." "Thank you," said Todd, and then, rather timidly, for the staircase down which the captain dived seemed to Todd better adapted for poultry than for human beings, he carefully followed his new friend. The cabin of the Lively William was a woful place. Any industrious housewife would have sneered at it as a linencupboard; and if it had been mentioned as a storeroom in any establishment of pretentions, it would have excited universal reprobation. It had a roof which nobbed Todd's head if he attempted to stand upright; and the walls sloped to the shape of the sides of the Lively William. The window was a square hole, with a sliding shutter; and the furniture would have made the dingiest broker's shop in London blush to own it. "This is the state cabin," said the captain. "Really?" said Todd. "Why, don't you see it is by its size and looks? You won't often see in a craft of this size a handsomer cabin than that of the Lively William." "I dare say not," said Todd. "It will do very well for me, my friend. When a man is travelling, he must not be very particular, as it is soon over." "That true; but now I want to say something to you, if you please, that's rather particular. It's quite clear to me and my mate, that you want to get out of England as quickly as possible. What you have done, or what you haven't is not much matter to us, except, so far as that, we daresay you have swindled the public to a tolerable tune. We don't mean to take you for nothing." "Nor do I wish you," said Todd. "Nothing can possibly be further from my thoughts." "Very good; then, in a word, we don't intend to do the thing unhandsome; and you shall have all the capital accommodation that the Lively William can give you to the Port of Havre for twenty pounds." "Twenty pounds?" "Yes. If you think it is too much, you may go on shore again, and there is no harm done, you know." "Oh, nono. That is, I cannot help thinking it is a large price; and if I were to say I thought otherwise, you would not believe me; but as I really wish to go, and you say you will not take less, I must give it." "Very good. That's settled, then. We shall be off at ebbtide, and I only hope we shall have good luck, for if we do, we ought to make Havre, at all events, this time tomorrow." "I hope we shall." "Keep up your heart, and make yourself comfortable. Here's lots of the most amusing books on this shelf. Let me see. Here is the 'Navy List' for about ten years ago, and here's a 'Readyreckoner,' and here is 'The Exciseman's Vade Mecum,' and here is a 'Chart of the Soundings of Baffin's Bay,' so you can't say you are out of books." "Oh, how kind," said Todd. "And you can order whatever you like to eat and drink, provided you don't think of anything but boiled beef, biscuits, and brandy." "Oh, I shall do well enough. Rest is now what I want, and a quick voyage." "Very good," said the captain. "You will not be at all interrupted here, so you can lie down in this magnificent berth." "What, on that shelf?" "Shelf? Do you call the state berth of the 'Lively William,' a shelf!" "Wellwell, I dare say it is very comfortable, though the roof, I see, is only eight inches or so from one's nose. I am very much obliged. Oh, very!" The captain now left Todd to himself and to his own thoughts, and as he really felt fatigued, he got into the state berth of the Lively William, which, to tell the truth, would have been very comfortable if it had only been a little wider and a little longer, and the roof higher, and not quite so damp and hard as it was. But, after all, what where all these little disagreeables, provided he, Todd, fairly escaped? If he once set his foot upon the shores of France, he felt that, with the great continent before him, he should be free, and he did not doubt for a moment getting in any capital a ready enough market among the Jews for the watches and jewellery that he had about him. The ship as the tide washed slowly by it, moved to and fro with a sluggish motion that rocked Todd to sleep, and he dropped off from a perception of the world and all its cares. How long he slept he knew not, but when he awoke all was darkness around him, and the first attempt he made to move brought his head into violent contact with the partition of his berth. Then Todd felt that the ship was tossing upon the water, and he could hear the dash and ripple of the sea pass her sides, while every now and then a loud splash against the closed shutter of the cabinwindow warned him that that sea was not in one of its quietest moods. "We are off!" cried Todd, in the exultation of his spirits at that fact. "We are off, and I am all but free." He attempted to get out of the berth, and he was materially assisted by a roll of the sea that sent him to the other side of the cabin, accompanied by a couple of stools and several articles that happened to be lying loose upon the floor. "Murder!" cried Todd. "Hilloa!" cried a gruff voice from the companionway. "Hilloa! What now?" "Oh, nothing," said Todd. "Nothing. Where are we now? Oh, dear, what a thing it is to live in a cupboard that won't stand still." The gleam of a lantern flashed in Todd's eyes, and the captain came below with it swinging in his hand. He steadied himself against the table, which was firmly screwed to the floor, and hung the lantern to a short chain dependent from the cabinroof. "There," said the captain. "The chandelier is alight now, and you will be able to see about you. Hilloa! Where are you now?" "Why, I rather think I fell off the shelf," said Todd. "I beg your pardon, the state berth, I mean." "Then you had better turn in again, for we shall have, I think, a squally sort of night rather. There are symptoms of a sou wester, and if so, you will know a little of what weather is in the Channel." "Where are we now?" said Todd, mournfully. "About fifteen miles off the North Foreland, so we are tolerably quiet just yet; but when we turn the head of the land, it's likely enough we may find out what the wind means to say to us." While the captain spoke, he tugged on a complete suit of waterproof apparel, that seemed as thick and inflexible as so much armour covered with tar, and then up he went upon deck again, leaving Todd to the society of his own reflections and the chandelier. The Lively William was going on just then with a flowing sheet, so that she was carrying a tolerably even keel, and Todd was able to get up and reach his berth; but at the moment that he laid hold of the side of it to clamber in, the ship was tacked, and away went Todd to the opposite side of the statecabin with the rug in his grasp that did duty as a counterpane in the berth. "This will kill me," he groaned. "Oh, this will kill me. But yetyet I am escaping, and that is something. There will be a storm, but all ships are not lost that encounter storms." Todd made up his mind to remain where he was, jammed up against the cabin partition, until the ship should right itself sufficiently for him to make another effort to reach his berth. After a few minutes he thought he would make the attempt. "Now," he said. "Now, surely, I can do it. I will try. How the wind howls, to be sure, and how the waves dash against the ship's sides, as though they would stave in her timbers; but all is well, no doubt. I will try again." Very cautiously now Todd crept to his berth, and this time the winds and the waves were kind enough only to move the ship so that he knocked his head right and left a little, and managed then to scramble on to the little inconvenient shelf, with its damp mattress that served for a bed. "Ah," said Todd, "and there are people who might, if they liked, stay on land all their lives, and yet they pretend to prefer the sea. There's no accounting for tastes." By dint of jerking it a little from under him, Todd propped the mattress against the outer edge of the berth; so that provided the vessel did lurch in that direction, it was not so likely to tumble him out, and there he lay listening to the winds and the waves. "A storm in the Channel!" he muttered. "From what that beast of a captain said, it appears we are to have one. Well, well, I have weathered many a storm on land, and now I must put up with one at sea." At this moment, there was a tremendous bustle upon deck, and some orders were issued that were quite unintelligible to Todd. There was, however, a great flapping of canvas, and a rattling of chains. The Lively William was weathering the South Foreland, and just going to do battle with half a gale of wind in the Channel.
Up to this point, Todd had, with something approaching to resignation, put up with the disagreeables about him; and upon the principle of the song which states that "When a man travels, he mustn't look queer, If he meets a few rubs that he does not meet here," he regarded his position with philosophy; but now there came over him a dreadful sensation. A cold clammy dew burst out upon his faceall strength fled from his limbs, and with a deep groan, Todd began to feel the real horror of sea sickness. Nothing can be like sea sickness but death, and nothing can be like death but sea sickness. Todd had never suffered from that calamity before; and now that it came upon him, in all its aggravated horrors, he could not believe that it was a mere passing indisposition, but concluded that he must have been poisoned by the captain of the ship, and that his last hour was come. And now Todd would fain have made a noise, and called for help. He would have liked to fire one of his pistols in the face of that captain, provided he could but have got him to the side of his berth; but he had not strength left to utter a word above a whisper; and as for moving his hand to his pockets to get out his firearms, he could not so much as lift a finger. All Todd could do was to go on, and to get each moment worse and worse with that awful sensation of sickness, which resembles the sickness of the soul at parting from its mortal house, to which it had clung so long. The wind howled upon the deck and through the cordage of the vesselthe spray dashed over her bulwarks, and each moment the storm increased in fury. CHAPTER CLXVIII. TODD GETS A WORLD OF MARITIME EXPERIENCE. The idea that he was poisoned grew upon Todd each moment, and to such a man, it was truly terrific to think that he should come to so fearful an end. "Help! Help!" he groaned; but after all, it was only a groan and not a crynot that that mattered; for if he had had the lungs of ten men all concentrated in his own person, and had so been able to cry out with a superhuman voice, it would have been most completely lost amid the roar of the wind, and the wild dashing of the waves. The storm was certainly increasing. "Oh, this sickness!" groaned Todd. "Oh, dearoh, dear!" At the moment that he was so bad that, in his want of experience of what sea sickness really was, he thought every moment would be his last, he heard some one coming down into the cabin, and one of the crew rolled rather than walked into it. "Help!" said Todd; "oh, help!" "You go to the dl!" said the man. "The captain is washed overboard, and we are all going to the bottom, so I am one who likes to take a little spirits with him to qualify the water that one may be obliged to swallow. That's it. Steady, craft, steady." Practised as this man no doubt was in the art of keeping his footing upon an undulating surface, the pitching of the ship was so tremendous, that even he was thrown to the cabin floor with considerable violence, and had no easy task to rise again. "No!" cried Todd, finding that positive fright lent him strength, "you do not mean that?" "Mean what, you old sinner?" "That we shall be lost?" The man nodded, and having opened a little cupboard, he brought out a little bladder of spirits, and placing it to his lips, he drank a large quantity, while he held by the cupboard door to keep himself from falling. "That will do," he said, as he dropped the bladder to the floor, and then, after several unsuccessful efforts to do so, he scrambled upon deck again. "I, too, will drink," said Todd; "oh, yes, I will drink. I feel that if anything will give me strength to bear the horrors of the night, it will be my old and welltried friend, brandy." He cast his eyes upon the bladder of spirits that the sailor had thrown to the floor. The spirit was slowly weltering out of the bladder, and running in a stream across the cabin. As the odour of it saluted the nose of Todd, he exclaimed, "It is brandy! I must and will have some!" It was all very well for Todd to say that he must and would have some of the brandy, but the difficulty of getting at it was one by no means easy to surmount. He recollected what a job he had to get into his berth again upon the occasion that he had got out of it before, and he dreaded to place himself in a similar predicament; yet he found the vessel was more steady, although the wind had not at all abated. Yes, it certainly was more steady. "I will try," said Todd. "I must have some." With a determination, then, to get at the choice liquor, which was wasting what Todd considered its sweetness upon the cabin floor, he slid out of his little bedplace, and the ship giving a sudden roll in a trough of the sea, he fell sprawling to the floor. "Oh, I shall be killed!" he yelled. "This frightful voyage will be the death of me! It is too terrible! Oh, Heaven! It is much too terrible! Help!mercy!" Todd lay upon his back on the cabin floor, with his arms and legs stretched out like a gigantic St. Andrew's cross. Something touched his hand; it was the bladder of brandy, that, as the ship rolled, had moved towards him. He clutched it with a feeling of despair, and brought it to his lips. With the exception of about half a pint, the brandy had made its way on to the cabin floor; but it was strong, pure spiritsuch brandy, in fact, as smugglers might well reserve for their own private drinking; so that the half pint was a very tolerable dose to take at once, and Todd drained it to the last drop. "Better!" he said; "oh, yes, I am better, now." The fumes of the strong spirit mounted to his brain, and got the better, for the time, of that frightful feeling of sickness which had been so like death, that Todd had mistaken it for the last pangs that he was likely to feel in this world. "Oh, yes, I am better. How the wind howls now, and how the waves dash the ship hither and thither. The deck, yes, the deck will be the place for me. Oh, gracious! what was that?" A loud crash, and a scream from some drowning wretches who had gone overboard along with a mast, had broken upon his ears. Terror sat at his very heart, and unable any longer to endure the frightful suspense of being below, he tried, upon his hands and knees, to crawl upon the deck. By no other mode could Todd have had the slightest hope or expectation of reaching the deck of that fated vessel, but as he tried it, he did, after a time, succeed in dragging himself up from the cabin. The sea was washing over the deck, and for a few moments he could see no one. He watched for a lull in the wind, and then he cried "Help! help! Oh, help!" "Who's that?" shouted a voice. "I!" said Todd. "Go to blazes, then!" "Oh, how kind!" groaned Todd. "How very considerate at such a time as this, too." The wind that had lulled for a few moments, now came with a frightful gush, and Todd was glad to find the fragments of a quantity of cordage, belonging to some of the top parts of the mast that had gone overboard, to cling to till the gust had passed over the ship. Then there came some tons of salt water over him, and he was nearly bereft of the power of breathing. "Oh, this is dreadful!" he said. "This is truly dreadful!" "Hands off!" growled a voice. "Everybody for himself here. Hands off, I say." "What do you mean?" said Todd. "Do you speak to me?" The voice had sounded close to him; and now again, with an angry tone, it cried "Some one has got hold of my leg!" "Oh, I dare say I have," said Todd, "but I didn't know. There, I have left go. Who are you, sir, eh?" "Oh! don't bother!" "Well, but is there any danger?" "Danger! I rather think there is. I suppose you are the love of a passenger that the captain brought on board?" "Yes, I am the passenger," said Todd. Why he should be called a love of a passenger he did not exactly know; but he repeated his question concerning the condition of the ship; and at the next lull of wind, for it came now very strangely in gusts, he got a not very consolatory reply. "Why, as to danger," said the man, "that's rather past, I reckon; but, perhaps, you are a landsman, and have not yet thoroughly made up your mind." "To what?" "To be drowned, some day or night, as I have." "Oh, nono! Don't say that. Drowning is a very dreadful death, indeed. I am sure it is." "It may, or it may not be so," said the man, "but whether it is or not, you and I are very likely soon to find out, for the old craft is going at last." "Going?" "Yes. It's all up with her, and it will soon be all down with her, likewise." "But the ship goes easier through the sea." "Oh, ah, she's filling, you see, and settling lower down in the water, so you can't have quite so much pitching and tossing as you had an hour ago, hardly." "You can't mean that? You do not mean to tell me that there is no hope? Oh, say not so!" "Well, you can please yourself. I can tell you that the rudder has gone.We have not a mast standing. There is already five feet of water in the hold, and we are drifting as hard as we can upon a leeshore, so if you can make anything satisfactory out of that, I leave you to do it." "Did you say we were drifting to shore?" "A leeshore." "Oh, dear. I'm glad to hear it. Any shore will do for me, if I can but get out of this confounded ship. What is that afar off? Is it a light? Oh, yes, it is a light." "It is. We are on the Sussex coast, somewhere, but I can't take upon myself to say where; but it don't matter a bit, for we shall go to pieces long before we reach the surf, and then in such a sea as this you might as well try to swallow the Channel at a few draughts as to swim." "But I can't swim at all." "It don't matter a bit." "But, my dear friend" "Hold your rowI am not your dear friend nor anybody else's, just now. I tell you we shall be all drowned, and the best thing you can do, is to take it as easy as possible. What can be the good of making a fuss about it?" This information was to Todd of so deplorable a characterfor to none is death so terrible as to the guiltythat he wept aloud and screamed with terror as the spray of the sea struck him on the face, and the wind roared and whistled over him. "Oh, nono!" he cried. "I cannot die yetI must not. Spare mespare me! I am afraid to die!" "Oh, you stupid," said the sailors. "That comes now of not having had a proper sort of education. I make no doubt but your howling will pretty soon be put an end to." The situation of the ship was undoubtedly one of the greatest possible peril. Having by the violence of the tempest lost all her masts, and having had her rudder torn away, she was quite at the mercy of the winds and the waves; and the set of the sea, as well as the direction of the wind, carried her sometimes stern foremost and at other times head foremost, and at times broadside, on to the coast of Sussex, upon which the lights were at intervals dimly visible through the thick haze of the storm. It was truly a dreadful night, and such as fully merited the worst apprehensions of the sailor, who had spoken so coolly to Todd of his coming fate. There was but one chance for those on board of the vessel, and that was that the wind might abate sufficiently to enable some boats to put off from the Sussex coast, provided they happened to be off a part of it where such accommodation was to be had, and rescue those upon the wreck. The lights that at intervals were visible, rather favoured the supposition that it was a populous part of the coast that the illstarred struggling ship was driving fast upon. Todd, however, did not know of that slender hope, and he gave himself up to despair. To a landsman nothing could exceed the real horrors of the scene on board the ship, and, indeed, to one well accustomed to the sea, there was quite enough to produce much terror. All but three persons connected with the working of the ship had been washed overboard during the gale. Both of the men with whom Todd had had the meeting in the cart were at the bottom of the sea, and all their struggles and smugglings were over. Todd did not know that, though. It was quite evident to practical observers that the gale was abating, for it no longer was so steady and so continuous a wind that blew with fury over the fated ship; and although the sea still ran high, it did not break over the vessel with such thundering impetuosity. A very faint glow of daylight, too, began to come over the sea. If Todd had had mind enough left to look about him now, he would have seen that there was some food for hope, although not much; but the fact was, that he had so thoroughly made up his mind that all was lost, that he did not look for consolation. How poor and how miserable appeared to him, at this moment, all his struggles for wealththat wealth, for the attainment of which he had struggled through such gigantic crimes! How much happier, he could not help thinking, it would have been for him to have gone on all his life in plodding industry, than to endeavour as he had done to find a short road to fortune, and only to end in finding a short one to death. One of the seamen cried out in a loud voice "Save themselves who can! We shall be on shore, now, in less than five minutes! We are all going now as safe as nuts!" CHAPTER CLXIX. TAKES A PEEP AT SOME FRIENDS OF THE READER. For a brief space, now, in order to connect more closely the events of this narrative, we will leave Sweeney Todd to the perils and chances of the disabled ship, and the storm in the Channel, while we conduct the reader to the society of other persons, in whom it is to be presumed we are largely interested. In the most cheerful room of one of the prettiest houses at Brighton, facing the beach upon the Esplanade, which is unrivalled, was a rather select party. That party consisted of old and welltried friends of the reader, and when we announce of whom it was composed, it will be seen that their society is decidedly good. First of all, there was Ben the beefeater. Poor Ben had never before been at a seacoast town, and everything was consequently to him new and strange. Yet he felt amazingly happy, because he was surrounded by those whom he loved with all his heart; and if he had now and then a wandering thought, it was to the animals in the Tower, to whom he was accustomed, and who, no doubt, missed Ben quite as much, if not more, than he missed them. Then there was Tobias. Yes, Tobias was there, looking so fresh and so well, notwithstanding that he knew Sweeney Todd was at large, that it was quite a congratulation for those who felt that they were his friends to see him. The rest of the party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Ingestrie, and Colonel Jeffrey and his young bride, and Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, so that there was really quite an assemblage in that room. The colonel holds a letter in his hands, and is speaking, while all eyes are turned upon him. "Yes," said the colonel, "this letter is from Sir Richard Blunt, and I will read it to you, if you will be so good as to listen to it." "Oh, yesyes," said everybody. "Very well. Here it is, then." Upon this, the colonel read as follows "Craven Street, London. "My Dear Colonel,No news of Todd. We are sparing neither pains nor expense in tracking him; and it is an absolute impossibility that he should escape us long. Accident, I am convinced, much more than any design or luck upon his part, has had the effect as yet of keeping him out of our hands. But I do not think that it would be very difficult to count the time, in hours, between this and the period when he must be dead or a prisoner. "I hope that all our dear friends with you are quite well, and that they will banish from their minds all fear of the revenge of Todd. Nothing is more improbable than that he should dream of finding his way to the obscure little village where you are. I hope all of you are benefiting much by the healthgiving breezes of the ocean. "With kind regard to all, I am, my dear colonel, "Yours very truly, "Richard Blunt." "Still at large!" said Mark Ingestrie, upon the conclusion of the letter. "So the rascal is still at large?" "Yes," said the colonel; "but you hear what the magistrate says, that he will soon have him." "Yes, but that is rather a hope than a certainty." Tobias changed colour, and Johanna turned to him, saying, in a kind tone "Nay, now, Tobias, you have nothing to fear from Todd. Did you not hear what the letter said upon that point?" "Yes oh, yes!" replied Tobias. "I will fear nothing while you are all so good to me." "I tell's you what it is," said Ben. "That 'ere fellow is for all the world just like one of the wild beastesses as declines being tamed. We had one once as got away one night, and he swam over the river, you see." "And did you catch him?" said Tobias. "After a time, yes. Easy did it." "Who did it, sir?" "EasyIt ain't a who. It's a way of doing things. You take it easy, you know." "Oh, yes, I understand now." "Well, I went arter the fellow, and traced him up and down the streets on the Surrey side, till I got him into a court where there was no thoroughfare, and then I nabbed him." "And he did no mischief?" "None to signify. He settled a couple of old women and five or six children, that was all." Tobias shuddered, and the colonel said "I cannot but be surprised that Sir Richard has not yet found out the retreat of Todd, and my own opinion is that he is dead." "It is more than probable," said Ingestrie; "I have thought so several times. When he found that there was no hope for him, and that he was in a state of destitution, or something near it, which must be the fact, it is likely enough that he has laid violent hands upon himself, and his body may not be found for a long time." "Well," said the colonel "let us get out for a stroll upon the beach. It will be dark in another half hour, and as there is no moon tonight, we shall not like to remain out." They all rose upon this suggestion, but the evening dropped so rapidly, and several black clouds piled themselves up in the sky, that Ingestrie, after stepping out upon the balcony and looking at the weather, came back again, and said "You had better remain in, all of you. I have seen enough of the sea, and heard enough of the wind, to prophesy that this will be a rough night in the Channel." "Will there be a storm, Mark?" said Johanna. "There will be a very good imitation of one, you may depend, if not a real one." "If there should be," said the colonel, "you will be rather surprised, for, I can tell you, that a gale off this coast is no joke. You would be truly amazed at the violence with which a regular southwestern sets upon this shore." "I can easily imagine it," said Mark Ingestrie. "See, it darkens every minute, and what an angry look that small cloud right away in the horizon has." "It has, indeed," said Johanna, as she clung to the arm of her husband. "Do you think, Mark, that any poor souls will be wrecked tonight?" "Probably enough; but the coast of Suffolk and the Irish Channel will be the worst. It will be child's play here in comparison." A strange booming noise came across the sea at this moment, and the colonel cried out "Is that a gun, or is it thunder?" "Thunder!" said Ingestrie; "hark! there it is again! There is a storm some forty or fifty miles off. It's right away in the German Ocean, most likely; but only look now even, dark as it is getting, how the sea is rising, and what an odd seething condition it is getting into." They all stood on the balcony and looked out towards the sea. The surface of it was to the eye only undulating quite gently, and yet, strange to say, it was rapidly covering with white foam, and that from no perceptible cause, for as yet the wind was a mere trifle. "How is that?" said Johanna. "The sea is not very rough, and yet it is all white." "It is the worst sign of bad weather," said Ingestrie. "The commotion has begun below the surface in some mysterious way, and that white foam which you see each moment rapidly increasing is cast up; but soon the whole surface will begin to heave, and then you will find out what a storm is." "We may hear it," said the colonel; "but if this darkness continues, I doubt very much if we shall be able to bring any other of our senses into requisition upon the occasion." "Hush!" said Tobias, "what is that?" He held up his hand as he spoke, and as they were then all profoundly still, a strange, low, wailing sound came over the water. "What can it be?" said Johanna. "Only the gale," smiled Ingestrie. "It's coming, now. That's the sigh of the wind over the water. You will soon hear it, I can tell you. Now, only notice how still everything is. There, look how that bird flies in a terrified manner close to the ground. It knows that the gale is coming. The sound you heard with intense listening, you will be able now to hear without listening at all. It will force itself upon your notice. Hilloa! There it comes! Look at the sea!" A few miles out from the shore the sea seemed to rise like a wall of water, tipped with a ridge of foam, and then down it came with such a splash and a roar, that it was plainly heard on the shore, and then, in a moment or two, the impulse so given communicated itself to the whole of the sea, and it was fearfully agitated. With a roar and a shriek, the gale swept on, and from that moment conversation was almost out of the question. The ladies of the party were glad to get into the house again, and in a little time the colonel and Ingestrie found it anything but comfortable to remain in the balcony; and as the night had fairly set in, they likewise retreated. The gale lasted the whole of the evening, and when our friends retired to rest it seemed to be rather increasing than otherwise. It was still dark when Ingestrie was awakened from his sleep by a knocking at the door of his room. "Hilloa!" he said; "who's there?" "It is I," said Colonel Jeffrey. "Will you get up, Mr. Ingestrie? It is nearly morning, and they say a ship is going down about a couple of miles off the coast." "I'm coming!" cried Ingestrie, as he sprang out of bed and dressed himself with amazing rapidity. "If it does go down, it will not be the only one that finds the bottom of the Channel tonight." When he reached the lower part of the house, he found the colonel and Ben waiting for him. "This has been an awful night," said the colonel. "Well, I don't know," said Ingestrie; "for I have been fast asleep." "Asleep!" cried Ben; "I couldn't get a wink of sleep but once, and then I dreamt I was a mermaid. Why, what with the howling of the wind, which is a great deal worse than our lioness when she wants her knuckle of beef, and the washing of the water, I couldn't rest at all." "The voice of the wind," said Ingestrie, "always has the effect of sending me fast asleep. But you said something of a ship in distress, did you not?" "Yes. They say that in the offing there is a large ship, and that she is evidently waterlogged, and must go down, unless she drives ashore." "The deuce she must! Let us run down to the beach at once, and see what we can do." With this, they all three left the house, and made the best of their way to the beach along the execrable shingle of the Brighton coast. It was far from being an easy task to proceed, for the wind was terrific, and now and then, when they did reach the beach, there came a sea washing in, that drenched them with spray. A crowd of people had collected upon the coast; some were holding up lanterns on the end of poles, and many were prepared with ropes to cast to the aid of any of the crew of the vessel that might swim to the shore. "There she is," said Ingestrie; "I see her! It's a small craft, and she is a wreck already." "She must go down, then?" said the colonel. "I don't know. She is drifting in shore, but evidently quite unmanageable. She is a sheer hulk. If they had the least control over her, they could run her in in ten minutes on to the beach; but she is going about like a log." "Then, she may go down in deep water yet?" "In truth, she may." "Here are plenty of boats?" "Boats? My dear friend, there never was a boat yet that could live in such a sea as this. It is out of the question. You find no one makes the attempt, and I am quite sure that among the hardy fishermen of this place, there are many would do so if it were at all practicable; but it is most certain that death in the surf would be the result." "I fear it would, indeed." "There she goes!" cried a voice. "Eh?" said Ben, turning round and round, "I don't see anybody in the female line." "The ship!" cried Ingestrie. "They mean the ship. But she is not gone yet. There she is, still. Do you see her, colonel, like a tub upon the water? There, right away, by yon lightcoloured cloud." "I doI do!" The ship had not gone down. She had only settled for a moment or two in the trough of the sea; and it was now quite evident that the wreck was rapidly drifting towards the shore, so that there was an expectation that it might strike in shallow water, and so give the crew a chance of escape from death. CHAPTER CLXX. MARK INGESTRIE RESCUES A SHIPWRECKED MAN. The scene now upon the beach at Brighton was one of the most exciting that can well be imagined. No one who has not stood upon a beach under such circumstances, and seen a brave ship battling with the waters, can have any real idea of it. Language is too weak to paint the feelings of such a conjunction of circumstances. It is so hopeless a thing to stand upon the shore, and listen to the wind roaring in its fury, and to see the waves dashing in mad gyrations hither and thither, while a few frail and creaking timbers only keep some poor mortals from sinking into the sea, which, like a seething cauldron, seems ready to devour them, that it is enough to unman the stoutest heart. No wonder that persons with kindly sympathies and gentle feelings towards human nature, such as Colonel Jeffrey and Mark Ingestrie undoubtedly had, should suffer acutely to see others so suffer. If there had been any likelihood of a boat reaching the illfated ship, Ingestrie would have been the first to propose such a measure, and the first, with hand and heart, to carry it out; but there was no such likelihood. Our friend had seen too much of service afloat, and was by far too good a sailor to suppose for an instant that any boat could live for a cable's length from the shore in such a sea as that! "Is it quite impossible to aid them?" said the colonel. "Quite," said Ingestrie, "unless they strike close in shore. Then, something may, perhaps, be done." "Ay, sir," said a weatherbeaten boatman who stood close to Ingestrie, "you are right there. If they only drift a little further in, and are still afloat, when the keel touches ground they may get ashore some of them." "No boat," said the colonel, "could reach her?" "Boat, sir! My little bit of a craft will do now and then things that one ought not to expect, from anything in the shape of a boat; but that surf would toss it up like a piece of cork, and it would only be making bad worse to draw a few brave fellows from land here, because others are going down at sea." "You are right," said Ingestrie. "Do you happen to know the craft out yonder?" "No, sir. She is so swept clear, that it would be hard to know her if she were one's own; but I don't think she belongs to this port at all." "The gale is going down a bit." "It is, sir. Don't you see it's coming in puffs likeIt won't last much longer." "Gone!" cried a hundred voices at once. "Nono!" cried Ingestrie. "Don't say that." A wild shriek came across the surface of the water, and the ship that had been doing battle with the winds and the waves, disappeared. "Oh, this is, indeed, terrible," said Colonel Jeffrey. "It is too horrible!" "It is, indeed!" cried Ingestrie. "There is but one chance now of doing any good, and that is in case any poor fellow should get washed on shore through the surf with a few sparks of life in him. Hilloa, my men! Get out your tackle, and let us look out for the survivors. Some one may try to fight for it yet." The sailors and boatmen upon the beach were charmed with the idea that they might be able to do some good in this way; and as they soon found that Ingestrie knew perfectly well what he was about, they listened to his orders, in the course they should take, and obeyed them with alacrity and skill. He had some of the long line connected with the fishingnets, and to which corks were attached, cast out into the sea by the aid of little kedge anchors, so that the waves did not bring them back again, and as the other ends of the lines were held firmly on the shore, any one might be struggling for life amid the surf, would have had a good chance of preservation by laying hold of one of those lines. "We may do some good," said Ingestrie, as he tied one end of one of the ropes round his waist. "What are you about?" said the colonel. "Oh, nothing. Do not fancy I am going to throw myself into the waves. But if I should chance to see any poor soul struggling for life, it would take something to prevent me from going after him." "But think of yourself." "Oh, I cannot come to any sort of harm, you know. They will easily be able to haul me on shore, you perceive, by the other end of the rope, and I have been rather used to fighting my way through the waves." "Heaven speed you, if the occasion for your doing so again should arise, my gallant friend. Far be it from me to dissuade you against such an attempt; and I am sure that even she who loves you best of all, would be the first to encourage you." "Of course she would." "All lost, sir," said a sailor. "No, don't say that!" cried Ingestrie. "Where is that night glass that some one had here a little while ago?" "Here, sir." Ingestrie placed the telescope to his eye, and looked fixedly in the direction of the wreck. He then handed it to the sailor, and said "Who has a good hold of the end of this rope that is about me?" "All's right, sir. There will be no lack of hands with that. But you don't mean to go through the surf, sir?" "I see a human being struggling with the foam, and from his actions he is no swimmer. I cannot stand here and see him die, while there is a chance of saving him. Hark you! Don't wait for me to sing out, but use your own eyes, and begin to pull in the moment you see me close with him. The dawn is coming rapidly, and you will see better each moment. Now, I'm off." "For the love of Heaven be careful!" cried the colonel. Ingestrie smiled, and then dashed into the roaring, bubbling surf of the sea, with the rope round his waist. Mark Ingestrie Risks His Own Life To Save Todd. Mark Ingestrie Risks His Own Life To Save Todd. A loud cheer burst from the throats of all present, as the heroic action was witnessed. If anything had been wanting, which it was not, to urge the gallant Mark Ingestrie on his brave and noble adventure, that cheer would have done it; but amid the roar and din of the water about his ears, it is doubtful if he could have heard it at all, or any noise of ten times the intensity. The figure in the sea, that had attracted the attention of Ingestrie, was now plainly perceived by the colonel, and by all who were upon the beach. To the practised eyes of the sailors then present, it was evident that the body must be lashed to some very buoyant substance, which enabled it to keep afloat, notwithstanding the roll of the sea, and the breaking of the waves over it. The person was evidently not swimming, although, by the wash of the tide, and the set of the wind, he was being driven into shore. Mark Ingestrie felt that his only chance of getting through the surf was to dive under it, and that manoeuvre he executed with a skill that few could have commanded and to the admiration and delight of all the spectators of his heroic conduct, he appeared outside the roaring edge of the sea, quite able to swim gallantly towards the shipwrecked man.
As he had said, the dawn was coming fast now, so that there was no great difficulty in seeing him, and in watching, with some degree of accuracy, his movements. "He will do it!" said the colonel. "Do it?" said the sailor who had the first hold of the rope that was round the body of Mark Ingestrie. "Do it? Of course he will. The man who has the heart and hand to try these sort of things, always does them." "I believe you are right, my friend," said the colonel. "I know I am, sir. I have seen too much of this sort of thing, and if I had not been a little out of sorts in my larboard leg, I should have gone; but I'm not all right, you see, sir, so it won't do. Ah, there he has him! It's all right enoughI told you so." The progress of Ingestrie was watched by many eyes with the most intense interest. Under no circumstances was distance so deceiving as at sea; and although the black object in the water, which the practised eye of Ingestrie had shown him, was a man, appeared to be only just without the line of the surf, he (Ingestrie) knew that the distance was, in reality, much greater, and that he would have a good swim through those troubled waters before he could get within arm'slength of the shipwrecked person. To be sure, as the body was drifting to the shore, he made better progress, and the distance between him and it was diminished much more rapidly than as if it had been stationary. Colonel Jeffrey distinctly saw Ingestrie reach the body, at length, and the sailor who had hold of the rope, likewise saw him, and he sung out "Now, pull away; but easy, my ladsa steady pull, and no jerking, or you will hinder him instead of helping. That's iteasy now, easy." "Ah!" said Ben, who had come down to the beach to see what was going on. "Easy does everything, as I always said. Pray, Colonel Jeffrey, what unfortunate animal is that you are dragging out of the water?" "Don't you know, Ben?" "Not I. But I suppose it is some poor halfdrowned fellow from the ship." "It is that, as well, I hope; but the person who is with him, and who is being hauled to the shore, is no other than our friend, Mr. Ingestrie." "What, Johanna's husband?" "The same." "Oh, lor! oh, lor! I'm afraid easy won't do it then, and that my little girl will be a widow. Give me hold of the rope. If pulling will do it, I'll soon have him on shore again all right. The idea, now, of a man, with the nicest young creature of a wife in the world, going into the sea at the end of a rope, and covering himself all over with froth and seaweed! Oh, dear! oh, dear! It's truly dreadful, it is; and easy certainly don't do it." Ben would have lent his aid to pull the rope, but the colonel kept him back, as it was not strength but skill and tact that in the process was required, and the rope was in the hands of men who had both. It was clear that Ingestrie had got hold of the floating object, whatever it was, and that, as he was pulled into shore, he brought it with him. When he reached the edge of the surf again, a quick pull brought him at once through it, and a couple of the sailors, dashing into the waters, got a hold of him, and drew him right up on to the beach between them. Half a dozen more brought to the shore the body of a man, tied to a plank of wood. Poor Mark was nearly exhausted. He was just able only to smile faintly in answer to the colonel's anxious inquiries. "He must be carried home," said the colonel. "Lend me some assistance, my brave fellows, to do so." "Nono!" Ingestrie managed just to say faintly. "Take himtake him!" He pointed to the man whom he had rescued, and the colonel immediately said, "Make yourself easy about him, my dear friend. The sailors will carry him to the house, and if the vital spark has not quite fled, you shall have the pleasure of knowing that you have saved him. But it is yourself that I wish to have got home." "Can you walk?" said Ben. "Idon't thinkI will try." Poor Ingestrie did try, but he was really so completely exhausted by the efforts he had made, that it was quite evident that he was unequal to the task of walking along the shingle. "Give it up," said Ben. "You can't do it." "He must be carried," said the colonel. "To be sure he must," said Ben; "and this is the way to do it." With these words, Ben did not hesitate another moment, but taking Mark Ingestrie in his arms as though he had been an infant, he walked over the pebbly beach with him as easily as though he had been only a very ordinary kind of bundle to carry. As he went on, it occurred to Ben that Johanna might see him carrying her husband home, and might imagine that some fearful accident had happened to him, so, by way of putting an end to that idea, he kept crying out as he got near the house "Here we are! All alive and kicking! It's only a joke. All alivealive O! Here we are! it's only a joke! All alive! alive! and ready for feeding time!" CHAPTER CLXXI. A RATHER IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IS MADE. The man, who appeared to be the only one at alldead or alivewho was preserved from the wreck of the ship off the coast of Sussex, was carried to the house where all our friends were staying, and being taken into the kitchen, was there placed in the care of a couple of medical men, who were hastily sent for, and who quickly restored animation to the seemingly drowned person. It was reported to Ingestrie that the stranger was all right, and as he himself had by that time thoroughly recovered, and had changed his saturated apparel for a dry suit, the news gave him the liveliest satisfaction. "Well," he said, "it is something that I have not gone through that tremendous surf in vain." "Yes, Mark," said Johanna, with the tears starting to her eyes, "but we must, indeed, get away from the seacoast, and then you cannot be tempted to expose your life in such adventures. Only think of what might be the consequences!" "Yes," said the colonel. "It is hardly fair, although, at the moment, one cannot help admiring the heroism of the act." "I don't know how it can be avoided," said Ingestrie. "If you see a poor fellow struggling for his life, and you feel that you may save him at a little risk to yourself, it seems a strange thing not to do it." "It does," said old Mr. Oakley, "and I should be the last to say no to the noble impulse; only if there are to be many storms off his coast, I shall second the resolution of Johanna that you ought to live somewhere else." "And so shall I," said Arabella. "And I," said Tobias. "He's better, they say," cried Ben, popping his head into the room. "The doctors say he is better, and that, after he has had a sleep, he will be all right." "The sailor belonging to the ship you mean?" said the colonel, "What sort of a person is he, Ben?" "Haven't seen him yet, so can't tell; but they have made up a good fire in the back kitchen, and he is lying on a sofa there, and going to sleep, and the doctor says it will do him no good to disturb him, or bother him by talking." "It certainly will not," said Ingestrie. "It matters very little to us who he is, poor fellow. He is savedthat is the principal thing." "Yes," said Johanna, "that is everything; and, at all events, Mark, there is one human being who through life, let his position and prospects be what they may, must look upon you as his friend and preserver." "Ah!" said poor Tobias, "We should all be very happy if Sweeney Todd were but in the hands of justice. It is very strange why I tremble so today at the thought of him; and I did not tremble yesterday." "You have no occasion to tremble today, nor yesterday either, Tobias," said Arabella. "Remember how surrounded you are by your best friends, and remember, likewise, that, after all, Todd is but a man, and by this time he must be but a poor, weak, dispirited one, and much more intent upon devising means for his own safety, than in carrying out his revenges." "If, indeed, he lives," said the colonel. "Just so," said Ingestrie. "My opinion will very much incline to the idea that he is dead, if Sir Richard Blunt does not very shortly get some news of him." "That will be a pity," said Tobias, "unless it can be proved past all dispute, for while it continues only a likely thing, the dread of him will still cling to my heart, and I shall never be happy." "Nay, Tobias," said the colonel, "you must pluck up a spirit. The probability is now, that Sweeney Todd, let him be where he may, is much more afraid of meeting you than you can possibly be of meeting him." "I wish I thought so," said Tobias. "But only look now how sweetly the sun is peeping out on the water after the storm there. This is very beautiful." Tobias walked to the window; and his praise of the beauty of the morning caused the breakfasttable to be, in a very few minutes, completely deserted. To be sure, the praise that the imaginative boy had lavished upon the young day, was by no means misapplied; for a more lovely day than that which broke over Brighton, after that terrific gale in the Channel, could not be conceived. It seemed as if the good genii of earth, sea, and sky, were striving to banish from the minds of all the inhabitants of that place the recollections of the frightful storm that had made the world dismal and terrific. "Indeed, it is lovely," said Johanna, "Who, now, to look at that placid sheet of water, with scarce a ripple upon its surface to reflect the sunbeams, would think that only a few hours ago, it presented a scene of such fury that it was a shuddering terror to look upon it?" "And yet," said Ingestrie, "it is these varieties that make the great world beautiful." "Not a doubt of it; but they require more stern minds than mine, Mark, to stand them." The party now, finding that the day was so delightful, sallied out to the beach to make some inquiry among the sailors and boatmen, concerning the damage that the gale had done. The moment Mark Ingestrie appeared with his friends, he was recognised as the person who had performed the gallant exploit of going through the surf to the rescue of the shipwrecked man, and he became immediately the observed of all observers. This sort of homage was at once flattering and embarrassing to Johanna. She felt proud that it was her husband who was entitled to so much popular consideration and respect, and yet, with her natural timidity of disposition, she shrank from sharing it with him. Some eager inquiries were made of Ingestrie now, regarding the man he had saved, and it was a great gratification to him to be enabled to state that he was doing well, although he had not himself seen him since he grappled with him in the water, and brought him to the beach. A few fragments only of the wreck had been washed to the shore, but nothing that could in any way enable them to identify the vessel; so that that was a species of information that must come from the man who had been saved, whenever he should be able to go through the fatigue of an interview with his friend and his deliverer. After an hour's stroll upon the beach, the party, at a slow pace, returned to the house they had hired during their stay at Brighton. The moment they got to the door, the colonel's servant appeared with his horse, which he had ordered to be ready for him at twelve o'clock. "Just walk him up and down," said the colonel, to the man; "I shall be ready in a few minutes. Hilloa! my friend, Hector, are you here?" The dog was with the horse, and the man said, touching his hat "We were half a mind, sir, to let Hector loose last night during the storm, for he is a famous fellow in the water; but knowing how much you valued him, we were afraid to do so." "I am glad you didn't," said the colonel. "You were quite right to keep him shut up. I would not have him come to any mischief for any money." The colonel entered the house, and when he and all his friends had got into the drawingroom, they sent for a servant to inquire how the poor wrecked man was getting on; and after a little time, one of the domestics of the house came to say that he was up and sitting, dressed, in the front kitchen, and would be happy to see, and to thank those who had saved him from death in the raging sea. "Shall we have him up here?" said the colonel. "Yes, if you please," said Ingestrie; "and, I daresay, a glass of wine won't hurt him, while he tells us the name of his ship, poor fellow, and who and what he is." "Certainly not," said Mr. Oakley. "I will get out the decanter." "Allow me, my dear," said Mrs. Oakley. "You know you always break every glass that you interfere with." "Oh, stuff!" "But I say, Mr. Oakley, that you do." "Easy does it," said Ben, in his deepest bass voice. "Easy does it, I sayEasy!" "How cold I am," said Tobias. "Cold, Tobias!" said Ingestrie. "My good fellow, we will have a fire if you are cold." "Oh, nono. Not on my account, Mr. Ingestrie, I shall be better soon; but I feel as if something were going to happen. My heart beats so fearfully, and at the same time, I shake as ifas ifI know not what." "Give him a glass of wine," said Ingestrie to Johanna. Tobias took the glass of wine, and it evidently did him some good; but yet he looked ill and uneasy. Orders were given that the shipwrecked man should be shown up to the drawingroom, for they were all curious to know to what ship he had belonged, and how many had fallen victims to the frightful gale that had made the vessel such a complete wreck. "He is coming, poor fellow," said the colonel. "I hear his footsteps on the stairs. He comes slowly. No doubt he is weak yet." "Poor fellow!" sighed Johanna. "Have the wine ready to give him at once, mother. It will put some heart into him. What must be his feelings towards you, Mark?" "Come now," said Ingestrie; "don't plague him, any of you, about his being saved by me, and all that sort of thing. Just say nothing about it. Sailors are no great orators, at the best of times, and if he begins to make a speech about his gratitude, you may depend he will never get to the end of it." "Yes; but he ought to know," said Mrs. Oakley, "who he owes his life to, under providence." "Hem!" said Ben. He never liked to hear Mrs. Oakley begin to use religious phrases, as they had a tendency to remind him of the late Mr. Lupin. The door of the drawingroom opened, and all eyes were eagerly bent in that direction. A servant came in, and said "The poor man is here, if you please. Is he to come in, now? He seems rather timid." "Oh, yes," said Ingestrie, "let him come in, by all manner of means, poor fellow. He and I made acquaintance in the sea, and we ought to be good friends, now." A tall, gigantic figure marched three paces into the room. "Todd!" shouted Tobias. "It is Todd!" It was Sweeney Todd! With one glance round the room, he recognised an enemy in every face. With a perfect yell of fear and rage, he turned, and dashed down the staircase. The servant who had conducted him up to the drawingroom, and whom he met in his way, he knocked down with one blow, and in another moment he was in the street. The colonel's horse was close to the door. Todd felled the man who held it by a blow on the top of the head, that took him so suddenly, he could not guard against it, and then springing upon the horse, the murderer raised another wild unearthly kind of shout, and set off at a gallop. Todd Seizes The Colonel's Horse, Mounts, And Makes Another Escape. Todd Seizes The Colonel's Horse, Mounts, And Makes Another Escape. So suddenso totally unexpected, and so appalling had been the presence of Todd in the drawingroom, that if a spectre had appeared among the people there assembled, and they had had no possible means of escaping from the belief that it was a spectre, they could not have been more confounded than they were upon this occasion. Poor Tobias, after uttering the exclamation that we have recorded, fell flat upon the floor. Ben swung backwards in his chair, and went with a tremendous crash right away into a corner. Ingestrie and the colonel rose together, and impeded each other in their efforts to follow Todd. Johanna, shrieking, clung to Ingestrie, and Arabella made a vain attempt to delay the colonel. "By Heaven he is off!" cried the colonel, as he heard the clatter of the horse's feet. "No!" shouted Ingestrie; "it cannot be!" "Easy does it," said Ben, from the corner into which he had fallen. "EasyEasy!" "Johanna, unhand me, I implore you," cried Mark Ingestrie. "Do you wish the murderer to be lost sight of? Come on, colonelyou and I must engage in this pursuit. God of Heaven! the idea of me saving Todd from the waves!" The colonel and Ingestrie seized their hats, and rushed down the stairs, tumbling over the servant in the hall. The next object they came across was the groom who had had charge of the horse. They found him sitting on the pavement, looking as confused as possible. "Which way has he gone?" cried the colonel. "Thethe man. Round that corner, and Hector has gone after him, like mad, sir. Oh, dear!" "Hector? Then he will be taken, for I will back Hector to hang upon him like grim death. Come with me to the nearest stable, Ingestrie, and let us get horses! Comecome!" CHAPTER CLXXII. THE PURSUIT OF TODD ON THE LONDON ROAD. The whole of these proceedings had really come with such a rush upon the senses of Mark Ingestrie, that he might well have been excused had he not been able to act with the energy that he did; but the strong desire to capture Sweeney Todd, and so to put an end to all the doubts and fears that were felt concerning him, upon the parts of those to whom he was fondly attached, roused the young man to action. Colonel Jeffrey was cooler than Ingestrie in the affair; but he was not a whit the less determined upon that account. In the course of seven or eight minutes at the outside, they were both mounted, and as there were plenty of people who could tell them in which direction Todd had gone, they were soon upon his track. Todd Pursued By The Colonel And Mark. Todd Pursued By The Colonel And Mark. Todd had taken the London Road, and had really got a considerable distance onward, and if he had been, which he was far from being, a good horseman, there is very little doubt but that he would either have led his pursuers a long distance, or possibly escaped them altogether, for the animal that he rode was one that in skilful hands would have done wonders. It was no small aggravation to Colonel Jeffrey to be pursuing his own horse, while he himself was mounted upon a hack that was by no means equal to it. Skill, however, will get more work out of an indifferent steed than absolute ignorance will achieve from a firstrate one, so that after getting to the top of a rising ground about three miles out of Brighton, our friends saw Todd not three quarters of a mile in advance, coasting a little watercourse to find a safe place to cross at. Notwithstanding the distance was great, the colonel knew his own horse in a moment. "Come on, Ingestrie," he said. "There he is!" "Are you sure?" "Quite. That's the rascal. Ah, there he goes through the water! The horse will carry him well across it, but he did not know that, so it is a bold step. Onon!" They had let their horses come rather easy up the ascent, for the colonel was too good a horseman to break down his steed, merely with an useless burst, when there might be a chase before it of some twenty or thirty miles yet, for all he knew to the contrary; and so, as the country, from the hilltop, sloped very gently right away to the north, they got on wonderfully, and without giving the cattle too much to do. To keep Todd in sight was everything now, for in that case they felt certain that they must eventually have him. From his actions, it did not seem that he was at all aware of his being so closely pursued, but suddenly they saw him pull up on an eminence and turn his horse's head in the direction of Brighton. They saw him shade his eyes with his hands, and take a long look, and then by the sudden start that he gave, and which caused the horse to plunge in alarm, they knew that he had seen them, and that from that moment he would strain every nerve to escape. The slight pause that Todd had made in order to look back and see if he were pursued or not, had given his foes the advantage of about one hundred yards, for they had pushed on during that pause with renewed vigour; but now bending low in the saddle, it was evident that he was doing his best to urge the colonel's horse onwards, and it went like the wind. "There he goes, colonel!" cried Ingestrie. "That pace will do for us pretty quickly. He is leaving us behind fast enough." "He is, by Heaven, and if he gets to a turn of the road, there is no knowing what foxlike trick he may play us. Onon, Ingestrie! There is no help for it, but to do our very best." For another minute and a half, now, not a word was exchanged between the friends. The road did take a turn, and for some time they were out of all sight of Todd, but the moment they themselves got round the elbow of the road, the colonel raised a shout of gratification, and then cried "There he is! He has had a fall. Onon!" Todd was in the middle of the roadway trying to mount the horse, from which it would appear as though he had been thrown, for the creature was rearing in evident alarm, and swerving every time that Todd put his foot in the stirrup. Maddened, then, at the idea that each moment his foes were gaining upon him, Todd made such a vigorous effort to mount, that he succeeded in doing so, although both his feet were out of the stirrups. He clung to the horse with desperation, and kicked it violently with his heels, striking it at the same time on the head violently with his clenched fist. The animal was driven half crazy by such unusual treatment, and after plunging and rearing for a few seconds, set off at such a gallop as no one could have believed any mortal horse could have achieved. "Off again!" cried the colonel. "I could have shot him, I think, Ingestrie, just now." "Then, why, in the name of all that's tantalising, did you not do so?" "Why, to tell the truth, I was afraid of hitting the horse. If it had kept still for a moment, it would have been all right; but I could not be certain of my aim as it was. Now, mind, we must have him, and I think he begins to find that fact out." Certainly, if any judgment could be come to, by the desperate manner in which Todd rode, it would appear as though he considered his career as all but at an end. Oh, how at that time he roared and raved that he had no firearms, by the aid of which he might turn and cope with his foes! If he had only had but a pair of pistols, he thought that not only would he have escaped, but escaped likewise with the intense gratification of destroying two of his enemies; but, then, he was totally unarmed, and if they should succeed in coming up with him, he had not even the means of selfdestruction about him. Indifferent horseman, however, as Todd was, even he could not help seeing that he was far better mounted than those who were pursuing him and so, from that circumstance, he gathered just a faint hope that he might distance them by knocking up their steeds. From what he had already experienced of the mettle of the horse he had got hold of so providentially for him, he felt certain that if his pursuers were obliged to come to a pause only for a quarter of an hour, he should be able to place such a distance between him and them, that he might consider himself to be in comparative, if not absolute safety. To accomplish such a result, then, he felt that his plan was to keep right on within their sight, and let them sooner be tired out by the unwonted exertions that they would compel their inefficient cattle to make, with the vain hope of overtaking him. But Todd had to do with a man, in Colonel Jeffrey, who was quite equal to such an emergency. A stern chace is a long chace, but an escape even at considerable speed is a weary affair, with a foe directly behind; and the colonel calculated that allowing Todd all the difference in speed between the horses, it would be yet a long distance before he could throw them back so far that they would not be in a position to take advantage of any accident that might occur to him. "Cool and easy, Ingestrie," he said; "it's a question of time, now. The longer we can keep our horses on their legs, the better for us. Don't urge your horse too much." Todd had now reached a very wild and romantic part of the road. It wound through a cutting in a mass of chalk, which, as it would be impossible to surmount, and a tedious thing to go round, had been very roughly levelled to the width of a road, and the sides were covered with rank vegetation, for successive rains had washed down upon the face of the chalk a facing of loam, from which had sprung up gigantic weeds, and innumerable wild flowers. Todd had got about half way through this place, when, from the other end of it, there came a party of five horsemen. One man rode at the head of the party upon a black horse, which had evidently gone far that day. Todd and this man met face to face, and they simultaneously pronounced each other's names. "Sir Richard Blunt!" shrieked Todd. "Sweeney Todd!" said the magistrate. "Stop him!" shouted Ingestrie, as he and the colonel just got a sight of the horsemen beyond Todd. "Stop him!" With a yell, like that which might be supposed to come from a fiend, Todd swerved from the grasp of Sir Richard Blunt, who made a dart at his throat, and then, drawing up his knees, he gave his horse the rein, and darting past Sir Richard, he dashed right into the midst of the party of officers, who were behind, and fairly broke his way through them. "Not yetnot yet!" he shouted. "Ha!ha! not yet!" "Fire!" cried Sir Richard Blunt. The sharp report of four holsterpistols sounded in the narrow roadway. Todd fell from his horse, and, terrified by the shots, the steed went off without him at a mad gallop. Twice Todd rolled over, and grasped handfuls of chalk and dust from the road; and then he lay upon his back profoundly still. In an instant, Sir Richard Blunt dismounted; and then Colonel Jeffrey and Mark Ingestrie rode up to the spot. "You havehave" cried Ingestrie. "Yes, at last, Mr. Ingestrie," said Sir Richard. "I had some information that he was hovering about the coast, and came here to see you all. I am sorry to defraud the gallows of its due but there lies Todd!" A couple of the officers now dismounted, while the others held their horses, and they dragged the wretched man to the side of the road. "Is he dead?" said Ingestrie. "No," said Todd, opening his eyes. "He still lives to curse you all! I" It was evident that he wished to say more; but he was bleeding internally, and he began to struggle with the volumes of blood that rose to his throat. With a horrible shriek, he rolled over on to his face, and then, after one sharp convulsion of his limbs, he lay perfectly still. One of the officers turned him round again. One glance at the face was sufficient. The guilty spirit of Sweeney Todd had fled at last to its account! "Dead," said Sir Richard Blunt. "Let the body lie here, and we will all ride on to Brighton, and from there send some conveyance for it. Mr. Ingestrie and you, Colonel Jeffrey, are witnesses of his end, and I can only say that I feel now as if a heavy weight were lifted off my breast. The good, and the kind, and true, need no longer live in fear of the wild vengeance of this man. Let us hope that Heaven will have more mercy upon his guilty soul than ever he had consideration for the sufferings of others." The Death Of Sweeney Todd. The Death Of Sweeney Todd. CHAPTER CLXXIII. THE CONCLUSION. We have little to say in conclusion, now that the chief actor in the fearful Domestic Drama it has been our fate to record, is no more. Todd was buried in the old churchyard at Brighton, but no record of the spot where the murderer's bones decayed was preserved. Sir Richard Blunt lived long to enjoy the respect and the admiration of all who knew him, and died full of years and honours. The sunshine of the existence of Johanna and Mark was perfectly unclouded, and the colonel and Arabella, likewise, presented a true picture of connubial felicity. In due time Tobias was married to her whom he loved so well; and as he got older and more used to the world, that timidity of disposition that Todd by his cruelties had induced, entirely left him. Ben did not marry after all, and he never ceased to congratulate himself upon his escape. Mr. and Mrs. Oakley were happy in the happiness of Johanna. The madhouse at Peckham was completely pulled down, and in the well at the back of it was found the skeleton of the wretched victim of Fogg's villany. It was by his own hand that Fogg really died. Often as Johanna would sit on a winter's evening, with her children climbing upon her knee, she would, with a faltering voice, tell them what their dear father had suffered to procure for her and for them The String of Pearls. PUBLISHED BY E. LLOYD, SALISBURYSQUARE, FLEETSTREET. Transcriber's Note Archaic and colloquial spelling and punctuation was retained. Chapter numbers were retained, even when misnumbered. Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected. Typographical errors were silently corrected. Three unpaired double quotation marks could not be corrected with confidence. END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STRING OF PEARLS; OR, THE BARBER OF FLEET STREET. A DOMESTIC ROMANCE. Updated editions will replace the previous onethe old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG concept and trademark. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Seven Who Were Hanged This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title The Seven Who Were Hanged Author Leonid Andreyev Translator Herman Bernstein Release date October 1, 2004 [eBook 6722] Most recently updated June 27, 2020 Language English Credits Produced by Eric Eldred, and David Widger START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED The Seven who were Hanged A STORY by Leonid Andreyev Authorized Translation From The Russian By Herman Bernstein. Contents FOREWORD INTRODUCTION THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED CHAPTER I AT ONE OCLOCK, YOUR EXCELLENCY! CHAPTER II CONDEMNED TO BE HANGED CHAPTER III WHY SHOULD I BE HANGED? CHAPTER IV WE COME FROM ORYOL CHAPTER V KISSAND SAY NOTHING CHAPTER VI THE HOURS ARE RUSHING CHAPTER VII THERE IS NO DEATH CHAPTER VIII THERE IS DEATH AS WELL AS LIFE CHAPTER IX DREADFUL SOLITUDE CHAPTER X THE WALLS ARE FALLING CHAPTER XI ON THE WAY TO THE SCAFFOLD CHAPTER XII THEY ARE HANGED Andreyev Leonid Andreyev DEDICATION To Count Leo N. Tolstoy This Book is Dedicated by Leonid Andreyev The Translation of this Story Is Also Respectfully Inscribed to Count Leo N. Tolstoy by Herman Bernstein FOREWORD Leonid Andreyev, who was born in Oryol, in 1871, is the most popular, and next to Tolstoy, the most gifted writer in Russia today. Andreyev has written many important stories and dramas, the best known among which are Red Laughter, Life of Man, To the Stars, The Life of Vasily Fiveisky, Eliazar, Black Masks, and The Story of the Seven Who Were Hanged. In Red Laughter he depicted the horrors of war as few men had ever before done it. He dipped his pen into the blood of Russia and wrote the tragedy of the Manchurian war. In his Life of Man Andreyev produced a great, imaginative morality play which has been ranked by European critics with some of the greatest dramatic masterpieces. The story of The Seven Who Were Hanged is thus far his most important achievement. The keen psychological insight and the masterly simplicity with which Andreyev has penetrated and depicted each of the tragedies of the seven who were hanged place him in the same class as an artist with Russias greatest masters of fiction, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy. I consider myself fortunate to be able to present to the Englishreading public this remarkable work, which has already produced a profound impression in Europe and which, I believe, is destined for a long time to come to play an important part in opening the eyes of the world to the horrors perpetrated in Russia and to the violence and iniquity of the destruction of human life, whatever the error or the crime. New York. HERMAN BERNSTEIN. INTRODUCTION [Translation of the Foregoing Letter in Russian] I am very glad that The Story of the Seven Who Were Hanged will be read in English. The misfortune of us all is that we know so little, even nothing, about one anotherneither about the soul, nor the life, the sufferings, the habits, the inclinations, the aspirations of one another. Literature, which I have the honor to serve, is dear to me just because the noblest task it sets before itself is that of wiping out boundaries and distances. As in a hard shell, every human being is enclosed in a cover of body, dress, and life. Who is man? We may only conjecture. What constitutes his joy or his sorrow? We may guess only by his acts, which are ofttimes enigmatic; by his laughter and by his tears, which are often entirely incomprehensible to us. And if we, Russians, who live so closely together in constant misery, understand one another so poorly that we mercilessly put to death those who should be pitied or even rewarded, and reward those who should be punished by contempt and angerhow much more difficult is it for you Americans, to understand distant Russia? But then, it is just as difficult for us Russians to understand distant America, of which we dream in our youth and over which we ponder so deeply in our years of maturity. The Jewish massacres and famine; a Parliament and executions; pillage and the greatest heroism; The Black Hundred, and Leo Tolstoywhat a mixture of figures and conceptions, what a fruitful source for all kinds of misunderstandings! The truth of life stands aghast in silence, and its brazen falsehood is loudly shouting, uttering pressing, painful questions With whom shall I sympathize? Whom shall I trust? Whom shall I love? In the story of The Seven Who Were Hanged I attempted to give a sincere and unprejudiced answer to some of these questions. That I have treated ruling and slaughtering Russia with restraint and mildness may best be gathered from the fact that the Russian censor has permitted my book to circulate. This is sufficient evidence when we recall how many books, brochures and newspapers have found eternal rest in the peaceful shade of the police stations, where they have risen to the patient sky in the smoke and flame of bonfires. But I did not attempt to condemn the Government, the fame of whose wisdom and virtues has already spread far beyond the boundaries of our unfortunate fatherland. Modest and bashful far beyond all measure of her virtues, Russia would sincerely wish to forego this honor, but unfortunately the free press of America and Europe has not spared her modesty, and has given a sufficiently clear picture of her glorious activities. Perhaps I am wrong in this it is possible that many honest people in America believe in the purity of the Russian Governments intentionsbut this question is of such importance that it requires a special treatment, for which it is necessary to have both time and calm of soul. But there is no calm soul in Russia. My task was to point out the horror and the iniquity of capital punishment under any circumstances. The horror of capital punishment is great when it falls to the lot of courageous and honest people whose only guilt is their excess of love and the sense of righteousnessin such instances, conscience revolts. But the rope is still more horrible when it forms the noose around the necks of weak and ignorant people. And however strange it may appear, I look with a lesser grief and suffering upon the execution of the revolutionists, such as Werner and Musya, than upon the strangling of ignorant murderers, miserable in mind and heart, like Yanson and Tsiganok. Even the last mad horror of inevitably approaching execution Werner can offset by his enlightened mind and his iron will, and Musya, by her purity and her innocence. But how are the weak and the sinful to face it if not in madness, with the most violent shock to the very foundation of their souls? And these people, now that the Government has steadied its hands through its experience with the revolutionists, are being hanged throughout Russiain some places one at a time, in others, ten at once. Children at play come upon badly buried bodies, and the crowds which gather look with horror upon the peasants boots that are sticking out of the ground; prosecutors who have witnessed these executions are becoming insane and are taken away to hospitalswhile the people are being hangedbeing hanged. I am deeply grateful to you for the task you have undertaken in translating this sad story. Knowing the sensitiveness of the American people, who at one time sent across the ocean, steamers full of bread for faminestricken Russia, I am convinced that in this case our people in their misery and bitterness will also find understanding and sympathy. And if my truthful story about seven of the thousands who were hanged will help toward destroying at least one of the barriers which separate one nation from another, one human being from another, one soul from another soul, I shall consider myself happy. Respectfully yours, LEONID ANDREYEV. THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED CHAPTER I AT ONE OCLOCK, YOUR EXCELLENCY! As the Minister was a very stout man, inclined to apoplexy, they feared to arouse in him any dangerous excitement, and it was with every possible precaution that they informed him that a very serious attempt upon his life had been planned. When they saw that he received the news calmly, even with a smile, they gave him, also, the details. The attempt was to be made on the following day at the time that he was to start out with his official report; several men, terrorists, whose plans had already been betrayed by a provocateur, and who were now under the vigilant surveillance of detectives, were to meet at one oclock in the afternoon in front of his house, and, armed with bombs and revolvers, were to wait till he came out. There the terrorists were to be trapped. Wait! muttered the Minister, perplexed. How did they know that I was to leave the house at one oclock in the afternoon with my report, when I myself learned of it only the day before yesterday? The Chief of the Guards stretched out his arms with a shrug. Exactly at one oclock in the afternoon, your Excellency, he said. Half surprised, half commending the work of the police, who had managed everything skilfully, the Minister shook his head, a morose smile upon his thick, dark lips, and still smiling obediently, and not desiring to interfere with the plans of the police, he hastily made ready, and went out to pass the night in some one elses hospitable palace. His wife and his two children were also removed from the dangerous house, before which the bombthrowers were to gather upon the following day. While the lights were burning in the palace, and courteous, familiar faces were bowing to him, smiling and expressing their concern, the dignitary experienced a sensation of pleasant excitementhe felt as if he had already received, or was soon to receive, some great and unexpected reward. But the people went away, the lights were extinguished, and through the mirrors, the lacelike and fantastic reflection of the electric lamps on the street, quivered across the ceiling and over the walls. A stranger in the house, with its paintings, its statues and its silence, the lightitself silent and indefiniteawakened painful thoughts in him as to the vanity of bolts and guards and walls. And then, in the dead of night, in the silence and solitude of a strange bedroom, a sensation of unbearable fear swept over the dignitary. He had some kidney trouble, and whenever he grew strongly agitated, his face, his hands and his feet became swollen. Now, rising like a mountain of bloated flesh above the taut springs of the bed, he felt, with the anguish of a sick man, his swollen face, which seemed to him to belong to some one else. Unceasingly he kept thinking of the cruel fate which people were preparing for him. He recalled, one after another, all the recent horrible instances of bombs that had been thrown at men of even greater eminence than himself; he recalled how the bombs had torn bodies to pieces, had spattered brains over dirty brick walls, had knocked teeth from their roots. And influenced by these meditations, it seemed to him that his own stout, sickly body, outspread on the bed, was already experiencing the fiery shock of the explosion. He seemed to be able to feel his arms being severed from the shoulders, his teeth knocked out, his brains scattered into particles, his feet growing numb, lying quietly, their toes upward, like those of a dead man. He stirred with an effort, breathed loudly and coughed in order not to seem to himself to resemble a corpse in any way. He encouraged himself with the live noise of the grating springs, of the rustling blanket; and to assure himself that he was actually alive and not dead, he uttered in a bass voice, loudly and abruptly, in the silence and solitude of the bedroom Molodtsi! Molodtsi! Molodtsi! (Good boys)! He was praising the detectives, the police, and the soldiersall those who guarded his life, and who so opportunely and so cleverly had averted the assassination. But even though he stirred, even though he praised his protectors, even though he forced an unnatural smile, in order to express his contempt for the foolish, unsuccessful terrorists, he nevertheless did not believe in his safety, he was not sure that his life would not leave him suddenly, at once. Death, which people had devised for him, and which was only in their minds, in their intention, seemed to him to be already standing there in the room. It seemed to him that Death would remain standing there, and would not go away until those people had been captured, until the bombs had been taken from them, until they had been placed in a strong prison. There Death was standing in the corner, and would not go awayit could not go away, even as an obedient sentinel stationed on guard by a superiors will and order. At one oclock in the afternoon, your Excellency! this phrase kept ringing, changing its tone continually now it was cheerfully mocking, now angry, now dull and obstinate. It sounded as if a hundred woundup gramophones had been placed in his room, and all of them, one after another, were shouting with idiotic repetition the words they had been made to shout At one oclock in the afternoon, your Excellency! And suddenly, this one oclock in the afternoon tomorrow, which but a short while ago was not in any way different from other hours, which was only a quiet movement of the hand along the dial of his gold watch, assumed an ominous finality, sprang out of the dial, began to live separately, stretched itself into an enormously huge black pole which cut all life in two. It seemed as if no other hours had existed before it and no other hours would exist after itas if this hour alone, insolent and presumptuous, had a right to a certain peculiar existence. Well, what do you want? asked the Minister angrily, muttering between his teeth. The gramophone shouted At one oclock in the afternoon, your Excellency! and the black pole smiled and bowed. Gnashing his teeth, the Minister rose in his bed to a sitting posture, leaning his face on the palms of his handshe positively could not sleep on that dreadful night. Clasping his face in his swollen, perfumed palms, he pictured to himself with horrifying clearness how on the following morning, not knowing anything of the plot against his life, he would have risen, would have drunk his coffee, not knowing anything, and then would have put on his coat in the hallway. And neither he, nor the doorkeeper who would have handed him his fur coat, nor the lackey who would have brought him the coffee, would have known that it was utterly useless to drink coffee, and to put on the coat, since a few instants later, everythingthe fur coat and his body and the coffee within itwould be destroyed by an explosion, would be seized by death. The doorkeeper would have opened the glass door.... He, the amiable, kind, gentle doorkeeper, with the blue, typical eyes of a soldier, and with medals across his breasthe himself with his own hands would have opened the terrible door, opened it because he knew nothing. Everybody would have smiled because they did not know anything. Oho! he suddenly said aloud, and slowly removed his hands from his face. Peering into the darkness, far ahead of him, with a fixed, strained look, he outstretched his hand just as slowly, felt the button on the wall and pressed it. Then he arose, and without putting on his slippers, walked in his bare feet over the rug in the strange, unfamiliar bedroom, found the button of another lamp upon the wall and pressed it. It became light and pleasant, and only the disarranged bed with the blanket, which had slipped off to the floor, spoke of the horror, not altogether past. In his nightclothes, with his beard disheveled by his restless movements, with his angry eyes, the dignitary resembled any other angry old man who suffered with insomnia and shortness of breath. It was as if the death which people were preparing for him, had made him bare, had torn away from him the magnificence and splendor which had surrounded himand it was hard to believe that it was he who had so much power, that his body was but an ordinary plain human body that must have perished terribly in the flame and roar of a monstrous explosion. Without dressing himself and not feeling the cold, he sat down in the first armchair he found, stroking his disheveled beard, and fixed his eyes in deep, calm thoughtfulness upon the unfamiliar plaster figures of the ceiling. So that was the trouble! That was why he had trembled in fear and had become so agitated! That was why Death seemed to stand in the corner and would not go away, could not go away! Fools! he said emphatically, with contempt. Fools! he repeated more loudly, and turned his head slightly toward the door that those to whom he was referring might hear it. He was referring to those whom he had praised but a moment before, who in the excess of their zeal had told him of the plot against his life. Of course, he thought deeply, an easy, convincing idea arising in his mind. Now that they have told me, I know, and feel terrified, but if I had not been told, I would not have known anything and would have drunk my coffee calmly. After that Death would have comebut then, am I so afraid of Death? Here have I been suffering with kidney trouble, and I must surely die from it some day, and yet I am not afraidbecause I do not know anything. And those fools told me At one oclock in the afternoon, your Excellency! and they thought I would be glad. But instead of that Death stationed itself in the corner and would not go away. It would not go away because it was my thought. It is not death that is terrible, but the knowledge of it it would be utterly impossible to live if a man could know exactly and definitely the day and hour of his death. And the fools cautioned me At one oclock in the afternoon, your Excellency! He began to feel lighthearted and cheerful, as if some one had told him that he was immortal, that he would never die. And, feeling himself again strong and wise amidst the herd of fools who had so stupidly and impudently broken into the mystery of the future, he began to think of the bliss of ignorance, and his thoughts were the painful thoughts of an old, sick man who had gone through endless experience. It was not given to any living beingman or beastto know the day and hour of death. Here had he been ill not long ago and the physicians told him that he must expect the end, that he should make his final arrangementsbut he had not believed them and he remained alive. In his youth he had become entangled in an affair and had resolved to end his life; he had even loaded the revolver, had written his letters, and had fixed upon the hour for suicidebut before the very end he had suddenly changed his mind. It would always be thusat the very last moment something would change, an unexpected accident would befallno one could tell when he would die. At one oclock in the afternoon, your Excellency! those kind asses had said to him, and although they had told him of it only that death might be averted, the mere knowledge of its possibility at a certain hour again filled him with horror. It was probable that some day he should be assassinated, but it would not happen tomorrowit would not happen tomorrowand he could sleep undisturbed, as if he were really immortal. Foolsthey did not know what a great law they had dislodged, what an abyss they had opened, when they said in their idiotic kindness At one oclock in the afternoon, your Excellency! No, not at one oclock in the afternoon, your Excellency, but no one knows when. No one knows when! What? Nothing, answered Silence, nothing. But you did say something. Nothing, nonsense. I say tomorrow, at one oclock in the afternoon! There was a sudden, acute pain in his heartand he understood that he would have neither sleep, nor peace, nor joy until that accursed black hour standing out of the dial should have passed. Only the shadow of the knowledge of something which no living being could know stood there in the corner, and that was enough to darken the world and envelop him with the impenetrable gloom of horror. The once disturbed fear of death diffused through his body, penetrated into his bones. He no longer feared the murderers of the next daythey had vanished, they had been forgotten, they had mingled with the crowd of hostile faces and incidents which surrounded his life. He now feared something sudden and inevitablean apoplectic stroke, heart failure, some foolish thin little vessel which might suddenly fail to withstand the pressure of the blood and might burst like a tight glove upon swollen fingers. His short, thick neck seemed terrible to him. It became unbearable for him to look upon his short, swollen fingersto feel how short they were and how they were filled with the moisture of death. And if before, when it was dark, he had had to stir in order not to resemble a corpse, now in the bright, cold, inimical, dreadful light he was so filled with horror that he could not move in order to get a cigarette or to ring for some one. His nerves were giving way. Each one of them seemed as if it were a bent wire, at the top of which there was a small head with mad, wideopen frightened eyes and a convulsively gaping, speechless mouth. He could not draw his breath. Suddenly in the darkness, amidst the dust and cobwebs somewhere upon the ceiling, an electric bell came to life. The small, metallic tongue, agitatedly, in terror, kept striking the edge of the ringing cap, became silentand again quivered in an unceasing, frightened din. His Excellency was ringing his bell in his own room. People began to run. Here and there, in the shadows upon the walls, lamps flared upthere were not enough of them to give light, but there were enough to cast shadows. The shadows appeared everywhere; they rose in the corners, they stretched across the ceiling; tremulously clinging to each and every elevation, they covered the walls. And it was hard to understand where all these innumerable, deformed silent shadowsvoiceless souls of voiceless objectshad been before. A deep, trembling voice said something loudly. Then the doctor was hastily summoned by telephone; the dignitary was collapsing. The wife of his Excellency was also called. CHAPTER II CONDEMNED TO BE HANGED Everything befell as the police had foretold. Four terrorists, three men and a woman, armed with bombs, infernal machines and revolvers, were seized at the very entrance of the house, and another woman was later found and arrested in the house where the conspiracy had been hatched. She was its mistress. At the same time a great deal of dynamite and half finished bomb explosives were seized. All those arrested were very young; the eldest of the men was twentyeight years old, the younger of the women was only nineteen. They were tried in the same fortress in which they were imprisoned after the arrest; they were tried swiftly and secretly, as was done during that unmerciful time. At the trial all of them were calm, but very serious and thoughtful. Their contempt for the judges was so intense that none of them wished to emphasize his daring by even a superfluous smile or by a feigned expression of cheerfulness. Each was simply as calm as was necessary to hedge in his soul, from curious, evil and inimical eyes, the great gloom that precedes death. Sometimes they refused to answer questions; sometimes they answered, briefly, simply and precisely, as though they were answering not the judge, but statisticians, for the purpose of supplying information for particular special tables. Three of them, one woman and two men, gave their real names, while two others refused and thus remained unknown to the judges. They manifested for all that was going on at the trial a certain curiosity, softened, as though through a haze, such as is peculiar to persons who are very ill or are carried away by some great, allabsorbing idea. They glanced up occasionally, caught some word in the air more interesting than the others, and then resumed the thought from which their attention had been distracted. The man who was nearest to the judges called himself Sergey Golovin, the son of a retired colonel, himself an exofficer. He was still a very young, lighthaired, broadshouldered man, so strong that neither the prison nor the expectation of inevitable death could remove the color from his cheeks and the expression of youthful, happy frankness from his blue eyes. He kept energetically tugging at his bushy, small beard, to which he had not become accustomed, and continually blinking, kept looking out of the window. It was toward the end of winter, when amidst the snowstorms and the gloomy, frosty days, the approaching spring sent as a forerunner a clear, warm, sunny day, or but an hour, yet so full of spring, so eagerly young and beaming that sparrows on the streets lost their wits for joy, and people seemed almost as intoxicated. And now the strange and beautiful sky could be seen through an upper window which was dustcovered and unwashed since the last summer. At first sight the sky seemed to be milkygraysmokecoloredbut when you looked longer the dark blue color began to penetrate through the shade, grew into an ever deeper blueever brighter, ever more intense. And the fact that it did not reveal itself all at once, but hid itself chastely in the smoke of transparent clouds, made it as charming as the girl you love. And Sergey Golovin looked at the sky, tugged at his beard, blinked now one eye, now the other, with its long, curved lashes, earnestly pondering over something. Once he began to move his fingers rapidly and thoughtlessly, knitted his brow in some joy, but then he glanced about and his joy died out like a spark which is stepped upon. Almost instantly an earthen, deathly blue, without first changing into pallor, showed through the color of his cheeks. He clutched his downy hair, tore their roots painfully with his fingers, whose tips had turned white. But the joy of life and spring was stronger, and a few minutes later his frank young face was again yearning toward the spring sky. The young, pale girl, known only by the name of Musya, was also looking in the same direction, at the sky. She was younger than Golovin, but she seemed older in her gravity and in the darkness of her open, proud eyes. Only her very thin, slender neck, and her delicate girlish hands spoke of her youth; but in addition there was that ineffable something, which is youth itself, and which sounded so distinctly in her clear, melodious voice, tuned irreproachably like a precious instrument, every simple word, every exclamation giving evidence of its musical timbre. She was very pale, but it was not a deathly pallor, but that peculiar warm whiteness of a person within whom, as it were, a great, strong fire is burning, whose body glows transparently like fine Svres porcelain. She sat almost motionless, and only at times she touched with an imperceptible movement of her fingers the circular mark on the middle finger of her right hand, the mark of a ring which had been recently removed. She gazed at the sky without caressing kindness or joyous recollectionsshe looked at it simply because in all the filthy, official hall the blue bit of sky was the most beautiful, the purest, the most truthful object, and the only one that did not try to search hidden depths in her eyes. The judges pitied Sergey Golovin; her they despised. Her neighbor, known only by the name of Werner, sat also motionless, in a somewhat affected pose, his hands folded between his knees. If a face may be said to look like a false door, this unknown man closed his face like an iron door and bolted it with an iron lock. He stared motionlessly at the dirty wooden floor, and it was impossible to tell whether he was calm or whether he was intensely agitated, whether he was thinking of something, or whether he was listening to the testimony of the detectives as presented to the court. He was not tall in stature. His features were refined and delicate. Tender and handsome, so that he reminded you of a moonlit night in the South near the seashore, where the cypress trees throw their dark shadows, he at the same time gave the impression of tremendous, calm power, of invincible firmness, of cold and audacious courage. The very politeness with which he gave brief and precise answers seemed dangerous, on his lips, in his half bow. And if the prison garb looked upon the others like the ridiculous costume of a buffoon, upon him it was not noticeable, so foreign was it to his personality. And although the other terrorists had been seized with bombs and infernal machines upon them, and Werner had had but a black revolver, the judges for some reason regarded him as the leader of the others and treated him with a certain deference, although succinctly and in a businesslike manner. The next man, Vasily Kashirin, was torn between a terrible, dominating fear of death and a desperate desire to restrain the fear and not betray it to the judges. From early morning, from the time they had been led into court, he had been suffocating from an intolerable palpitation of his heart. Perspiration came out in drops all along his forehead; his hands were also perspiring and cold, and his cold, sweatcovered shirt clung to his body, interfering with the freedom of his movements. With a supernatural effort of willpower he forced his fingers not to tremble, his voice to be firm and distinct, his eyes to be calm. He saw nothing about him; the voices came to him as through a mist, and it was to this mist that he made his desperate efforts to answer firmly, to answer loudly. But having answered, he immediately forgot question as well as answer, and was again struggling with himself silently and terribly. Death was disclosed in him so clearly that the judges avoided looking at him. It was hard to define his age, as is the case with a corpse which has begun to decompose. According to his passport, he was only twentythree years old. Once or twice Werner quietly touched his knee with his hand, and each time Kashirin spoke shortly Never mind! The most terrible sensation was when he was suddenly seized with an insufferable desire to cry out, without words, the desperate cry of a beast. He touched Werner quickly, and Werner, without lifting his eyes, said softly Never mind, Vasya. It will soon be over. And embracing them all with a motherly, anxious look, the fifth terrorist, Tanya Kovalchuk, was faint with alarm. She had never had any children; she was still young and redcheeked, just as Sergey Golovin, but she seemed as a mother to all of them so full of anxiety, of boundless love were her looks, her smiles, her sighs. She paid not the slightest attention to the trial, regarding it as though it were something entirely irrelevant, and she listened only to the manner in which the others were answering the questions, to hear whether the voice was trembling, whether there was fear, whether it was necessary to give water to any one. She could not look at Vasya in her anguish and only wrung her fingers silently. At Musya and Werner she gazed proudly and respectfully, and she assumed a serious and concentrated expression, and then tried to transfer her smile to Sergey Golovin. The dear boy is looking at the sky. Look, look, my darling! she thought about Golovin. And Vasya! What is it? My God, my God! What am I to do with him? If I should speak to him I might make it still worse. He might suddenly start to cry.
So like a calm pond at dawn, reflecting every hastening, passing cloud, she reflected upon her full, gentle, kind face every swift sensation, every thought of the other four. She did not give a single thought to the fact that she, too, was upon trial, that she, too, would be hanged; she was entirely indifferent to it. It was in her house that the bombs and the dynamite had been discovered, and, strange though it may seem, it was she who had met the police with pistolshots and had wounded one of the detectives in the head. The trial ended at about eight oclock, when it had become dark. Before Musyas and Golovins eyes the sky, which had been turning ever bluer, was gradually losing its tint, but it did not turn rosy, did not smile softly as in summer evenings, but became muddy, gray, and suddenly grew cold, wintry. Golovin heaved a sigh, stretched himself, glanced again twice at the window, but the cold darkness of the night alone was there; then continuing to tug at his short beard, he began to examine with childish curiosity the judges, the soldiers with their muskets, and he smiled at Tanya Kovalchuk. When the sky had darkened Musya calmly, without lowering her eyes to the ground, turned them to the corner where a small cobweb was quivering from the imperceptible radiations of the steam heat, and thus she remained until the sentence was pronounced. After the verdict, having bidden goodby to their frockcoated lawyers, and evading each others helplessly confused, pitying and guilty eyes, the convicted terrorists crowded in the doorway for a moment and exchanged brief words. Never mind, Vasya. Everything will be over soon, said Werner. I am all right, brother, Kashirin replied loudly, calmly and even somewhat cheerfully. And indeed, his face had turned slightly rosy, and no longer looked like that of a decomposing corpse. The devil take them; theyve hanged us, Golovin cursed quaintly. That was to be expected, replied Werner calmly. Tomorrow the sentence will be pronounced in its final form and we shall all be placed together, said Tanya Kovalchuk consolingly. Until the execution we shall all be together. Musya was silent. Then she resolutely moved forward. CHAPTER III WHY SHOULD I BE HANGED? Two weeks before the terrorists had been tried the same military district court, with a different set of judges, had tried and condemned to death by hanging Ivan Yanson, a peasant. Ivan Yanson was a workman for a welltodo farmer, in no way different from other workmen. He was an Esthonian by birth, from Vezenberg, and in the course of several years, passing from one farm to another, he had come close to the capital. He spoke Russian very poorly, and as his master was a Russian, by name Lazarev, and as there were no Esthonians in the neighborhood, Yanson had practically remained silent for almost two years. In general, he was apparently not inclined to talk, and was silent not only with human beings, but even with animals. He would water the horse in silence, harness it in silence, moving about it, slowly and lazily, with short, irresolute steps, and when the horse, annoyed by his manner, would begin to frolic, to become capricious, he would beat it in silence with a heavy whip. He would beat it cruelly, with stolid, angry persistency, and when this happened at a time when he was suffering from the aftereffects of a carouse, he would work himself into a frenzy. At such times the crack of the whip could be heard in the house, with the frightened, painful pounding of the horses hoofs upon the board floor of the barn. For beating the horse his master would beat Yanson, but then, finding that he could not be reformed, paid no more attention to him. Once or twice a month Yanson became intoxicated, usually on those days when he took his master to the large railroad station, where there was a refreshment bar. After leaving his master at the station, he would drive off about half a verst away, and there, stalling the sled and the horse in the snow on the side of the road, he would wait until the train had gone. The sled would stand sideways, almost overturned, the horse standing with widely spread legs up to his belly in a snowbank, from time to time lowering his head to lick the soft, downy snow, while Yanson would recline in an awkward position in the sled as if dozing away. The unfastened earlappets of his worn fur cap would hang down like the ears of a setter, and the moist sweat would stand under his little reddish nose. Soon he would return to the station, and would quickly become intoxicated. On his way back to the farm, the whole ten versts, he would drive at a fast gallop. The little horse, driven to madness by the whip, would rear, as if possessed by a demon; the sled would sway, almost overturn, striking against poles, and Yanson, letting the reins go, would half sing, half exclaim abrupt, meaningless phrases in Esthonian. But more often he would not sing, but with his teeth gritted together in an onrush of unspeakable rage, suffering and delight, he would drive silently on as though blind. He would not notice those who passed him, he would not call to them to look out, he would not slacken his mad pace, either at the turns of the road or on the long slopes of the mountain roads. How it happened at such times that he crushed no one, how he himself was never dashed to death in one of these mad rides, was inexplicable. He would have been driven from this place, as he had been driven from other places, but he was cheap and other workmen were not better, and thus he remained there two years. His life was uneventful. One day he received a letter, written in Esthonian, but as he himself was illiterate, and as the others did not understand Esthonian, the letter remained unread; and as if not understanding that the letter might bring him tidings from his native home, he flung it into the manure with a certain savage, grim indifference. At one time Yanson tried to make love to the cook, but he was not successful, and was rudely rejected and ridiculed. He was short in stature, his face was freckled, and his small, sleepy eyes were somewhat of an indefinite color. Yanson took his failure indifferently, and never again bothered the cook. But while Yanson spoke but little, he was listening to something all the time. He heard the sounds of the dismal, snowcovered fields, with their heaps of frozen manure resembling rows of small, snowcovered graves, the sounds of the blue, tender distance, of the buzzing telegraph wires, and the conversation of other people. What the fields and telegraph wires spoke to him he alone knew, and the conversation of the people were disquieting, full of rumors about murders and robberies and arson. And one night he heard in the neighboring village the little church bell ringing faintly and helplessly, and the crackling of the flames of a fire. Some vagabonds had plundered a rich farm, had killed the master and his wife, and had set fire to the house. And on their farm, too, they lived in fear; the dogs were loose, not only at night, but also during the day, and the master slept with a gun by his side. He wished to give such a gun to Yanson, only it was an old one with one barrel. But Yanson turned the gun about in his hand, shook his head and declined it. His master did not understand the reason and scolded him, but the reason was that Yanson had more faith in the power of his Finnish knife than in the rusty gun. It would kill me, he said, looking at his master sleepily with his glassy eyes, and the master waved his hand in despair. You fool! Think of having to live with such workmen! And this same Ivan Yanson, who distrusted a gun, one winter evening, when the other workmen had been sent away to the station, committed a very complicated attempt at robbery, murder and rape. He did it in a surprisingly simple manner. He locked the cook in the kitchen, lazily, with the air of a man who is longing to sleep, walked over to his master from behind and swiftly stabbed him several times in the back with his knife. The master fell unconscious, and the mistress began to run about, screaming, while Yanson, showing his teeth and brandishing his knife, began to ransack the trunks and the chests of drawers. He found the money he sought, and then, as if noticing the mistress for the first time, and as though unexpectedly even to himself, he rushed upon her in order to violate her. But as he had let his knife drop to the floor, the mistress proved stronger than he, and not only did not allow him to harm her, but almost choked him into unconsciousness. Then the master on the floor turned, the cook thundered upon the door with the ovenfork, breaking it open, and Yanson ran away into the fields. He was caught an hour later, kneeling down behind the corner of the barn, striking one match after another, which would not ignite, in an attempt to set the place on fire. A few days later the master died of blood poisoning, and Yanson, when his turn among other robbers and murderers came, was tried and condemned to death. In court he was the same as always; a little man, freckled, with sleepy, glassy eyes. It seemed as if he did not understand in the least the meaning of what was going on about him; he appeared to be entirely indifferent. He blinked his white eyelashes, stupidly, without curiosity; examined the sombre, unfamiliar courtroom, and picked his nose with his hard, shriveled, unbending finger. Only those who had seen him on Sundays at church would have known that he had made an attempt to adorn himself. He wore on his neck a knitted, muddyred shawl, and in places had dampened the hair of his head. Where the hair was wet it lay dark and smooth, while on the other side it stuck up in light and sparse tufts, like straws upon a hailbeaten, wasted meadow. When the sentence was pronounceddeath by hangingYanson suddenly became agitated. He reddened deeply and began to tie and untie the shawl about his neck as though it were choking him. Then he waved his arms stupidly and said, turning to the judge who had not read the sentence, and pointing with his finger at the judge who read it He said that I should be hanged. Who do you mean? asked the presiding judge, who had pronounced the sentence in a deep, bass voice. Every one smiled; some tried to hide their smiles behind their mustaches and their papers. Yanson pointed his index finger at the presiding judge and answered angrily, looking at him askance You! Well? Yanson again turned his eyes to the judge who had been silent, restraining a smile, whom he felt to be a friend, a man who had nothing to do with the sentence, and repeated He said I should be hanged. Why must I be hanged? Take the prisoner away. But Yanson succeeded in repeating once more, convincingly and weightily Why must I be hanged? He looked so absurd, with his small, angry face, with his outstretched finger, that even the soldier of the convoy, breaking the rule, said to him in an undertone as he led him away from the courtroom You are a fool, young man! Why must I be hanged? repeated Yanson stubbornly. Theyll swing you up so quickly that youll have no time to kick. Keep still! cried the other convoy angrily. But he himself could not refrain from adding A robber, too! Why did you take a human life, you fool? You must hang for that! They might pardon him, said the first soldier, who began to feel sorry for Yanson. Oh, yes! Theyll pardon people like him, will they? Well, weve talked enough. But Yanson had become silent again. He was again placed in the cell in which he had already sat for a month and to which he had grown accustomed, just as he had become accustomed to everything to blows, to vodka, to the dismal, snowcovered fields, with their snowheaps resembling graves. And now he even began to feel cheerful when he saw his bed, the familiar window with the grating, and when he was given something to eathe had not eaten anything since morning. He had an unpleasant recollection of what had taken place in the court, but of that he could not thinkhe was unable to recall it. And death by hanging he could not picture to himself at all. Although Yanson had been condemned to death, there were many others similarly sentenced, and he was not regarded as an important criminal. They spoke to him accordingly, with neither fear nor respect, just as they would speak to prisoners who were not to be executed. The warden, on learning of the verdict, said to him Well, my friend, theyve hanged you! When are they going to hang me? asked Yanson distrustfully. The warden meditated a moment. Well, youll have to waituntil they can get together a whole party. It isnt worth bothering for one man, especially for a man like you. It is necessary to work up the right spirit. And when will that be? persisted Yanson. He was not at all offended that it was not worth while to hang him alone. He did not believe it, but considered it as an excuse for postponing the execution, preparatory to revoking it altogether. And he was seized with joy; the confused, terrible moment, of which it was so painful to think, retreated far into the distance, becoming fictitious and improbable, as death always seems. When? When? cried the warden, a dull, morose old man, growing angry. It isnt like hanging a dog, which you take behind the barnand it is done in no time. I suppose you would like to be hanged like that, you fool! I dont want to be hanged, and suddenly Yanson frowned strangely. He said that I should be hanged, but I dont want it. And perhaps for the first time in his life he laughed, a hoarse, absurd, yet gay and joyous laughter. It sounded like the cackling of a goose, Gagaga! The warden looked at him in astonishment, then knit his brow sternly. This strange gayety of a man who was to be executed was an offence to the prison, as well as to the very executioner; it made them appear absurd. And suddenly, for the briefest instant, it appeared to the old warden, who had passed all his life in the prison, and who looked upon its laws as the laws of nature, that the prison and all the life within it was something like an insane asylum, in which he, the warden, was the chief lunatic. Pshaw! The devil take you! and he spat aside. Why are you giggling here? This is no dramshop! And I dont want to be hangedgagaga! laughed Yanson. Satan! muttered the inspector, feeling the need of making the sign of the cross. This little man, with his small, wizened facehe resembled least of all the devilbut there was that in his silly giggling which destroyed the sanctity and the strength of the prison. If he laughed longer, it seemed to the warden as if the walls might fall asunder, the grating melt and drop out, as if the warden himself might lead the prisoners to the gates, bowing and saying Take a walk in the city, gentlemen; or perhaps some of you would like to go to the village? Satan! But Yanson had stopped laughing, and was now winking cunningly. You had better look out! said the warden, with an indefinite threat, and he walked away, glancing back of him. Yanson was calm and cheerful throughout the evening. He repeated to himself, I shall not be hanged, and it seemed to him so convincing, so wise, so irrefutable, that it was unnecessary to feel uneasy. He had long forgotten about his crime, only sometimes he regretted that he had not been successful in attacking his masters wife. But he soon forgot that, too. Every morning Yanson asked when he was to be hanged, and every morning the warden answered him angrily Take your time, you devil! Wait! and he would walk off quickly before Yanson could begin to laugh. And from these monotonously repeated words, and from the fact that each day came, passed and ended as every ordinary day had passed, Yanson became convinced that there would be no execution. He began to lose all memory of the trial, and would roll about all day long on his cot, vaguely and happily dreaming about the white melancholy fields, with their snowmounds, about the refreshment bar at the railroad station, and about other things still more vague and bright. He was well fed in the prison, and somehow he began to grow stout rapidly and to assume airs. Now she would have liked me, he thought of his masters wife. Now I am stoutnot worselooking than the master. But he longed for a drink of vodka, to drink and to take a ride on horseback, to ride fast, madly. When the terrorists were arrested the news of it reached the prison. And in answer to Yansons usual question, the warden said eagerly and unexpectedly It wont be long now! He looked at Yanson calmly with an air of importance and repeated It wont be long now. I suppose in about a week. Yanson turned pale, and as though falling asleep, so turbid was the look in his glassy eyes, asked Are you joking? First you could not wait, and now you think I am joking. We are not allowed to joke here. You like to joke, but we are not allowed to, said the warden with dignity as he went away. Toward evening of that day Yanson had already grown thinner. His skin, which had stretched out and had become smooth for a time, was suddenly covered with a multitude of small wrinkles, and in places it seemed even to hang down. His eyes became sleepy, and all his motions were now so slow and languid as though each turn of the head, each move of the fingers, each step of the foot were a complicated and cumbersome undertaking which required very careful deliberation. At night he lay on his cot, but did not close his eyes, and thus, heavy with sleep, they remained open until morning. Aha! said the warden with satisfaction, seeing him on the following day. This is no dramshop for you, my dear! With a feeling of pleasant gratification, like a scientist whose experiment had proved successful again, he examined the condemned man closely and carefully from head to foot. Now everything would go along as necessary. Satan was disgraced, the sacredness of the prison and the execution was reestablished, and the old man inquired condescendingly, even with a feeling of sincere pity Do you want to meet somebody or not? What for? Well, to say goodby! Have you no mother, for instance, or a brother? I must not be hanged, said Yanson softly, and looked askance at the warden. I dont want to be hanged. The warden looked at him and waved his hand in silence. Toward evening Yanson grew somewhat calmer. The day had been so ordinary, the cloudy winter sky looked so ordinary, the footsteps of people and their conversation on matters of business sounded so ordinary, the smell of the sour soup of cabbage was so ordinary, customary and natural that he again ceased believing in the execution. But the night became terrible to him. Before this Yanson had felt the night simply as darkness, as an especially dark time, when it was necessary to go to sleep, but now he began to be aware of its mysterious and uncanny nature. In order not to believe in death, it was necessary to hear and see and feel ordinary things about him, footsteps, voices, light, the soup of sour cabbage. But in the dark everything was unnatural; the silence and the darkness were in themselves something like death. And the longer the night dragged the more dreadful it became. With the ignorant innocence of a child or a savage, who believe everything possible, Yanson felt like crying to the sun Shine! He begged, he implored that the sun should shine, but the night drew its long, dark hours remorselessly over the earth, and there was no power that could hasten its course. And this impossibility, arising for the first time before the weak consciousness of Yanson, filled him with terror. Still not daring to realize it clearly, he already felt the inevitability of approaching death, and felt himself making the first step upon the gallows, with benumbed feet. Day quieted him, but night again filled him with fear, and so it was until one night when he realized fully that death was inevitable, that it would come in three days at dawn with the sunrise. He had never thought of what death was, and it had no image to himbut now he realized clearly, he saw, he felt that it had entered his cell and was looking for him, groping about with its hands. And to save himself, he began to run wildly about the room. But the cell was so small that it seemed that its corners were not sharp but dull, and that all of them were pushing him into the center of the room. And there was nothing behind which to hide. And the door was locked. And it was dark. Several times he struck his body against the walls, making no sound, and once he struck against the doorit gave forth a dull, empty sound. He stumbled over something and fell upon his face, and then he felt that IT was going to seize him. Lying on his stomach, holding to the floor, hiding his face in the dark, dirty asphalt, Yanson howled in terror. He lay; and cried at the top of his voice until some one came. And when he was lifted from the floor and seated upon the cot, and cold water was poured over his head, he still did not dare open his tightly closed eyes. He opened one eye, and noticing some ones boot in one of the corners of the room, he commenced crying again. But the cold water began to produce its effect in bringing him to his senses. To help the effect, the warden on duty, the same old man, administered medicine to Yanson in the form of several blows upon the head. And this sensation of life returning to him really drove the fear of death away. Yanson opened his eyes, and then, his mind utterly confused, he slept soundly for the remainder of the night. He lay on his back, with mouth open, and snored loudly, and between his lashes, which were not tightly closed, his flat, dead eyes, which were upturned so that the pupil did not show, could be seen. Later, everything in the worldday and night, footsteps, voices, the soup of sour cabbage, produced in him a continuous terror, plunging him into a state of savage uncomprehending astonishment. His weak mind was unable to combine these two things which so monstrously contradicted each otherthe bright day, the odor and taste of cabbageand the fact that two days later he must die. He did not think of anything. He did not even count the hours, but simply stood in mute stupefaction before this contradiction which tore his brain in two. And he became evenly pale, neither white nor redder in parts, and appeared to be calm. Only he ate nothing and ceased sleeping altogether. He sat all night long on a stool, his legs crossed under him, in fright. Or he walked about in his cell, quietly, stealthily, and sleepily looking about him on all sides. His mouth was halfopen all the time, as though from incessant astonishment, and before taking the most ordinary thing into his hands, he would examine it stupidly for a long time, and would take it distrustfully. When he became thus, the wardens as well as the sentinel who watched him through the little window, ceased paying further attention to him. This was the customary condition of prisoners, and reminded the wardens of cattle being led to slaughter after a staggering blow. Now he is stunned, now he will feel nothing until his very death, said the warden, looking at him with experienced eyes. Ivan! Do you hear? Ivan! I must not be hanged, answered Yanson, in a dull voice, and his lower jaw again drooped. You should not have committed murder. You would not be hanged then, answered the chief warden, a young but very importantlooking man with medals on his chest. You committed murder, yet you do not want to be hanged? He wants to kill human beings without paying for it. Fool! fool! said another. I dont want to be hanged, said Yanson. Well, my friend, you may want it or not, thats your affair, replied the chief warden indifferently. Instead of talking nonsense, you had better arrange your affairs. You still have something. He has nothing. One shirt and a suit of clothes. And a fur cap! A sport! Thus time passed until Thursday. And on Thursday, at midnight a number of people entered Yansons cell, and one man, with shoulderstraps, said Well, get ready. We must go. Yanson, moving slowly and drowsily as before, put on everything he had and tied his muddyred muffler about his neck. The man with shoulderstraps, smoking a cigarette, said to some one while watching Yanson dress What a warm day this will be. Real spring. Yansons small eyes were closing; he seemed to be falling asleep, and he moved so slowly and stiffly that the warden cried to him Hey, there! Quicker! Have you fallen asleep? Suddenly Yanson stopped. I dont want to be hanged, said he. He was taken by the arms and led away, and began to stride obediently, raising his shoulders. Outside he found himself in the moist, spring air, and beads of sweat stood under his little nose. Notwithstanding that it was night, it was thawing very strongly and drops of water were dripping upon the stones. And waiting while the soldiers, clanking their sabres and bending their heads, were stepping into the unlighted black carriage, Yanson lazily moved his finger under his moist nose and adjusted the badly tied muffler about his neck. CHAPTER IV WE COME FROM ORYOL The same councilchamber of the military district court which had condemned Yanson had also condemned to death a peasant of the Government of Oryol, of the District of Yeletzk, Mikhail Golubets, nicknamed Tsiganok, also Tatarin. His latest crime, proven beyond question, had been the murder of three people and armed robbery. Behind that, his dark past disappeared in a depth of mystery. There were vague rumors that he had participated in a series of other murders and robberies, and in his path there was felt to be a dark trail of blood, fire, and drunken debauchery. He called himself murderer with utter frankness and sincerity, and scornfully regarded those who, according to the latest fashion, styled themselves expropriators. Of his last crime, since it was useless for him to deny anything, he spoke freely and in detail, but in answer to questions about his past, he merely gritted his teeth, whistled, and said Search for the wind of the fields! When he was annoyed in crossexamination, Tsiganok assumed a serious and dignified air All of us from Oryol are thoroughbreds, he would say gravely and deliberately. Oryol and Kroma are the homes of firstclass thieves. Karachev and Livna are the breedingplaces of thieves. And Yeletzis the parent of all thieves. Nowwhat else is there to say? He was nicknamed Tsiganok (gypsy) because of his appearance and his thievish manner. He was blackhaired, lean, with yellow spots on his prominent, Tartarlike cheekbones. His glance was swift, brief, but fearfully direct and searching, and the thing upon which he looked for a moment seemed to lose something, seemed to deliver up to him a part of itself, and to become something else. It was just as unpleasant and repugnant to take a cigarette at which he looked, as though it had already been in his mouth. There was a certain constant restlessness in him, now twisting him like a rag, now throwing him about like a body of coiling live wires. And he drank water almost by the bucket. To all questions during the trial he answered shortly, firmly, jumping up quickly, and at times he seemed to answer even with pleasure. Correct! he would say. Sometimes he emphasized it. Corrrect! At one time, suddenly, when they were speaking of something that would hardly have seemed to suggest it, he jumped to his feet and asked the presiding judge Will you allow me to whistle? What for? asked the judge, surprised. They said that I gave the signal to my comrades. I would like to show you how. It is very interesting. The judge consented, somewhat wonderingly. Tsiganok quickly placed four fingers in his mouth, two fingers of each hand, rolled his eyes fiercelyand then the dead air of the courtroom was suddenly rent by a real, wild, murderers whistleat which frightened horses leap and rear on their hind legs and human faces involuntarily blanch. The mortal anguish of him who is to be assassinated, the wild joy of the murderer, the dreadful warning, the call, the gloom and loneliness of a stormy autumn nightall this rang in his piercing shriek, which was neither human nor beastly. The presiding officer shoutedthen waved his arm at Tsiganok, and Tsiganok obediently became silent. And, like an artist who had triumphantly performed a difficult aria, he sat down, wiped his wet fingers upon his coat, and surveyed those present with an air of satisfaction. What a robber! said one of the judges, rubbing his ear. Another one, however, with a wild Russian beard, but with the eyes of a Tartar, like those of Tsiganok, gazed pensively above Tsiganoks head, then smiled and remarked It is indeed interesting. With light hearts, without mercy, without the slightest pangs of conscience, the judges brought out against Tsiganok a verdict of death. Correct! said Tsiganok, when the verdict was pronounced. In the open field and on a crossbeam! Correct! And turning to the convoy, he hurled with bravado Well, are we not going? Come on, you sourcoat. And hold your gunI might take it away from you! The soldier looked at him sternly, with fear, exchanged glances with his comrade, and felt the lock of his gun. The other did the same. And all the way to the prison the soldiers felt that they were not walking but flying through the airas if hypnotized by the prisoner, they felt neither the ground beneath their feet, nor the passage of time, nor themselves. Mishka Tsiganok, like Yanson, had had to spend seventeen days in prison before his execution. And all seventeen days passed as though they were one daythey were bound up in one inextinguishable thought of escape, of freedom, of life. The restlessness of Tsiganok, which was now repressed by the walls and the bars and the dead window through which nothing could be seen, turned all its fury upon himself and burned his soul like coals scattered upon boards. As though he were in a drunken vapor, bright but incomplete images swarmed upon him, failing and then becoming confused, and then again rushing through his mind in an unrestrainable blinding whirlwindand all were bent toward escape, toward liberty, toward life. With his nostrils expanded, like those of a horse, Tsiganok smelt the air for hours longit seemed to him that he could smell the odor of hemp, of the smoke of firethe colorless and biting smell of burning. Now he whirled about in the room like a top, touching the walls, tapping them nervously with his fingers from time to time, taking aim, boring the ceiling with his gaze, filing the prison bars. By his restlessness, he had tired out the soldiers who watched him through the little window, and who, several times, in despair, had threatened to shoot. Tsiganok would retort, coarsely and derisively, and the quarrel would end peacefully because the dispute would soon turn into boorish, unoffending abuse, after which shooting would have seemed absurd and impossible. Tsiganok slept during the nights soundly, without stirring, in unchanging yet live motionlessness, like a wire spring in temporary inactivity. But as soon as he arose, he immediately commenced to walk, to plan, to grope about. His hands were always dry and hot, but his heart at times would suddenly grow cold, as if a cake of unmelting ice had been placed upon his chest, sending a slight, dry shiver through his whole body. At such times, Tsiganok, always dark in complexion, would turn black, assuming the shade of bluish castiron. And he acquired a curious habit; as though he had eaten too much of something sickeningly sweet, he kept licking his lips, smacking them, and would spit on the floor, hissingly, through his teeth. When he spoke, he did not finish his words, so rapidly did his thoughts run that his tongue was unable to compass them. One day the chief warden, accompanied by a soldier, entered his cell.
He looked askance at the floor and said gruffly Look! How dirty he has made it! Tsiganok retorted quickly Youve made the whole world dirty, you fatface, and yet I havent said anything to you. What brings you here? The warden, speaking as gruffly as before, asked him whether he would act as executioner. Tsiganok burst out laughing, showing his teeth. You cant find any one else? Thats good! Go ahead, hang! Ha! ha! ha! The necks are there, the rope is there, but there is nobody to string it up. By God! thats good! Youll save your neck if you do it. Of courseI couldnt hang them if I were dead. Well said, you fool! Well, what do you say? Is it all the same to you? And how do you hang them here? I suppose theyre choked on the sly. No, with music, snarled the warden. Well, what a fool! Of course it can be done with music. This way! and he began to sing, with a bold and daring swing. You have lost your wits, my friend, said the warden. What do you say? Speak sensibly. Tsiganok grinned. How eager you are! Come another time and Ill tell you. After that, into that chaos of bright, yet incomplete images which oppressed Tsiganok by their impetuosity, a new image camehow good it would be to become a hangman in a red shirt. He pictured to himself vividly a square crowded with people, a high scaffold, and he, Tsiganok, in a red shirt walking about upon the scaffold with an ax. The sun shone overhead, gaily flashing from the ax, and everything was so gay and bright that even the man whose head was soon to be chopped off was smiling. And behind the crowd, wagons and the heads of horses could be seenthe peasants had come from the village; and beyond them, further, he could see the village itself. Tsakh! Tsiganok smacked his lips, licking them, and spat. And suddenly he felt as though a fur cap had been pushed over his head to his very mouthit became black and stifling, and his heart again became like a cake of unmelting ice, sending a slight, dry shiver through his whole body. The warden came in twice again, and Tsiganok, showing his teeth, said How eager you are! Come in again! Finally one day the warden shouted through the casement window as he passed rapidly Youve let your chance slip by, you fool! Weve found somebody else. The devil take you! Hang yourself! snarled Tsiganok, and he stopped dreaming of the execution. But toward the end, the nearer he approached the time, the weight of the fragments of his broken images became unbearable. Tsiganok now felt like standing still, like spreading his legs and standingbut a whirling current of thoughts carried him away and there was nothing at which he could clutcheverything about him swam. And his sleep also became uneasy. Dreams even more violent than his thoughts appearednew dreams, solid, heavy, like wooden painted blocks. And it was no longer like a current, but like an endless fall to an endless depth, a whirling flight through the whole visible world of colors. When Tsiganok was free he had worn only a pair of dashing mustaches, but in the prison a short, black, bristly beard grew on his face and it made him look fearsome, insane. At times Tsiganok really lost his senses and whirled absurdly about in the cell, still tapping upon the rough, plastered walls nervously. And he drank water like a horse. At times toward evening when they lit the lamp, Tsiganok would stand on all fours in the middle of his cell and would howl the quivering howl of a wolf. He was peculiarly serious while doing it, and would howl as though he were performing an important and indispensable act. He would fill his chest with air and then exhale it, slowly in a prolonged tremulous howl, and, cocking his eyes, would listen intently as the sound issued forth. And the very quiver in his voice seemed in a manner intentional. He did not scream wildly, but drew out each note carefully in that mournful wail full of untold sorrow and terror. Then he would suddenly break off howling and for several minutes would remain silent, still standing on all fours. Then suddenly he would mutter softly, staring at the ground My darlings, my sweethearts!... My darlings, my sweethearts! have pity.... My darlings!... My sweethearts! And it seemed again as if he were listening intently to his own voice. As he said each word he would listen. Then he would jump up and for a whole hour would curse continually. He cursed picturesquely, shouting and rolling his bloodshot eyes. If you hang mehang me! and he would burst out cursing again. And the sentinel, in the meantime white as chalk, weeping with pain and fright, would knock at the door with the buttend of the gun and cry helplessly Ill fire! Ill kill you as sure as I live! Do you hear? But he dared not shoot. If there was no actual rebellion they never fired at those who had been condemned to death. And Tsiganok would gnash his teeth, would curse and spit. His brain thus racked on a monstrously sharp blade between life and death was falling to pieces like a lump of dry clay. When they entered the cell at midnight to lead Tsiganok to the execution he began to bustle about and seemed to have recovered his spirits. Again he had that sweet taste in his mouth, and his saliva collected abundantly, but his cheeks turned rosy and in his eyes began to glisten his former somewhat savage slyness. Dressing himself he asked the official Who is going to do the hanging? A new man? I suppose he hasnt learned his job yet. You neednt worry about it, answered the official dryly. I cant help worrying, your Honor. I am going to be hanged, not you. At least dont be stingy with the governments soap on the noose. All right, all right! Keep quiet! This man here has eaten all your soap, said Tsiganok, pointing to the warden. See how his face shines. Silence! Dont be stingy! And Tsiganok burst out laughing. But he began to feel that it was getting ever sweeter in his mouth, and suddenly his legs began to feel strangely numb. Still, on coming out into the yard, he managed to exclaim The carriage of the Count of Bengal! CHAPTER V KISSAND SAY NOTHING The verdict concerning the five terrorists was pronounced finally and confirmed upon the same day. The condemned were not told when the execution would take place, but they knew from the usual procedure that they would be hanged the same night, or, at the very latest, upon the following night. And when it was proposed to them that they meet their relatives upon the following Thursday they understood that the execution would take place on Friday at dawn. Tanya Kovalchuk had no near relatives, and those whom she had were somewhere in the wilderness in Little Russia, and it was not likely that they even knew of the trial or of the coming execution. Musya and Werner, as unidentified people, were not supposed to have relatives, and only two, Sergey Golovin and Vasily Kashirin, were to meet their parents. Both of them looked upon that meeting with terror and anguish, yet they dared not refuse the old people the last word, the last kiss. Sergey Golovin was particularly tortured by the thought of the coming meeting. He dearly loved his father and mother; he had seen them but a short while before, and now he was in a state of terror as to what would happen when they came to see him. The execution itself, in all its monstrous horror, in its brainstunning madness, he could imagine more easily, and it seemed less terrible than these other few moments of meeting, brief and unsatisfactory, which seemed to reach beyond time, beyond life itself. How to look, what to think, what to say, his mind could not determine. The most simple and ordinary act, to take his father by the hand, to kiss him, and to say, How do you do, father? seemed to him unspeakably horrible in its monstrous, inhuman, absurd deceitfulness. After the sentence the condemned were not placed together in one cell, as Tanya Kovalchuk had supposed they would be, but each was put in solitary confinement, and all the morning, until eleven oclock, when his parents came, Sergey Golovin paced his cell furiously, tugged at his beard, frowned pitiably and muttered inaudibly. Sometimes he would stop abruptly, would breathe deeply and then exhale like a man who has been too long under water. But he was so healthy, his young life was so strong within him, that even in the moments of most painful suffering his blood played under his skin, reddening his cheeks, and his blue eyes shone brightly and frankly. But everything was far different from what he had anticipated. Nikolay Sergeyevich Golovin, Sergeys father, a retired colonel, was the first to enter the room where the meeting took place. He was all whitehis face, his beard, his hair, and his handsas if he were a snow statue attired in mans clothes. He had on the same old but wellcleaned coat, smelling of benzine, with new shoulderstraps crosswise, that he had always worn, and he entered firmly, with an air of stateliness, with strong and steady steps. He stretched out his white, thin hand and said loudly How do you do, Sergey? Behind him Sergeys mother entered with short steps, smiling strangely. But she also pressed his hands and repeated loudly How do you do, Seryozhenka? She kissed him on the lips and sat down silently. She did not rush over to him; she did not burst into tears; she did not break into a sob; she did not do any of the terrible things which Sergey had feared. She just kissed him and silently sat down. And with her trembling hands she even adjusted her black silk dress. Sergey did not know that the colonel, having locked himself all the previous night in his little study, had deliberated upon this ritual with all his power. We must not aggravate, but ease the last moments of our son, resolved the colonel firmly, and he carefully weighed every possible phase of the conversation, every act and movement that might take place on the following day. But somehow he became confused, forgetting what he had prepared, and he wept bitterly in the corner of the oilclothcovered couch. In the morning he explained to his wife how she should behave at the meeting. The main thing is, kissand say nothing! he taught her. Later you may speakafter a whilebut when you kiss him, be silent. Dont speak right after the kiss, do you understand? Or you will say what you should not say. I understand, Nikolay Sergeyevich, answered the mother, weeping. And you must not weep. For Gods sake, do not weep! You will kill him if you weep, old woman! Why do you weep? With women one cannot help weeping. But you must not weep, do you hear? Very well, Nikolay Sergeyevich. Riding in the drozhky, he had intended to school her in the instructions again, but he forgot. And so they rode in silence, bent, both gray and old, and they were lost in thought, while the city was gay and noisy. It was Shrovetide, and the streets were crowded. They sat down. Then the colonel stood up, assumed a studied pose, placing his right hand upon the border of his coat. Sergey sat for an instant, looked closely upon the wrinkled face of his mother and then jumped up. Be seated, Seryozhenka, begged the mother. Sit down, Sergey, repeated the father. They became silent. The mother smiled. How we have petitioned for you, Seryozhenka! Father You should not have done that, mother The colonel spoke firmly We had to do it, Sergey, so that you should not think your parents had forsaken you. They became silent again. It was terrible for them to utter even a word, as though each word in the language had lost its individual meaning and meant but one thingDeath. Sergey looked at his fathers coat, which smelt of benzine, and thought They have no servant now, consequently he must have cleaned it himself. How is it that I never before noticed when he cleaned his coat? I suppose he does it in the morning. Suddenly he asked And how is sister? Is she well? Ninochka does not know anything, the mother answered hastily. The colonel interrupted her sternly Why should you tell a falsehood? The child read it in the newspapers. Let Sergey know that everybodythat those who are dearest to himwere thinking of himat this timeand He could not say any more and stopped. Suddenly the mothers face contracted, then it spread out, became agitated, wet and wildlooking. Her discolored eyes stared blindly, and her breathing became more frequent, and briefer, louder. SeSeSeSer she repeated without moving her lips. Ser Dear mother! The colonel strode forward, and all quivering in every fold of his coat, in every wrinkle of his face, not understanding how terrible he himself looked in his deathlike whiteness, in his heroic, desperate firmness. He said to his wife Be silent! Dont torture him! Dont torture him! He has to die! Dont torture him! Frightened, she had already become silent, but he still shook his clenched fists before him and repeated Dont torture him! Then he stepped back, placed his trembling hands behind his back, and loudly, with an expression of forced calm, asked with pale lips When? Tomorrow morning, answered Sergey, his lips also pale. The mother looked at the ground, chewing her lips, as if she did not hear anything. And continuing to chew, she uttered these simple words, strangely, as though they dropped like lead Ninochka told me to kiss you, Seryozhenka. Kiss her for me, said Sergey. Very well. The Khvostovs send you their regards. Which Khvostovs? Oh, yes! The colonel interrupted Well, we must go. Get up, mother; we must go. The two men lifted the weakened old woman. Bid him goodby! ordered the colonel. Make the sign of the cross. She did everything as she was told. But as she made the sign of the cross, and kissed her son a brief kiss, she shook her head and murmured weakly No, it isnt the right way! It is not the right way! What will I say? How will I say it? No, it is not the right way! Goodby, Sergey! said the father. They shook hands, and kissed each other quickly but heartily. You began Sergey. Well? asked the father abruptly. No, no! It is not the right way! How shall I say it? repeated the mother weakly, nodding her head. She had sat down again and was rocking herself back and forth. You Sergey began again. Suddenly his face wrinkled pitiably, childishly, and his eyes filled with tears immediately. Through the sparkling gleams of his tears he looked closely into the white face of his father, whose eyes had also filled. You, father, are a noble man! What is that? What are you saying? said the colonel, surprised. And then suddenly, as if broken in two, he fell with his head upon his sons shoulder. He had been taller than Sergey, but now he became short, and his dry, downy head lay like a white ball upon his sons shoulder. And they kissed silently and passionately Sergey kissed the silvery white hair, and the old man kissed the prisoners garb. And I? suddenly said a loud voice. They looked around. Sergeys mother was standing, her head thrown back, looking at them angrily, almost with contempt. What is it, mother? cried the colonel. And I? she said, shaking her head with insane intensity. You kissand I? You men! Yes? And I? And I? Mother! Sergey rushed over to her. What took place then it is unnecessary and impossible to describe... . The last words of the colonel were I give you my blessing for your death, Seryozha. Die bravely, like an officer. And they went away. Somehow they went away. They had been there, they had stood, they had spokenand suddenly they had gone. Here sat his mother, there stood his fatherand suddenly somehow they had gone away. Returning to the cell, Sergey lay down on the cot, his face turned toward the wall, in order to hide it from the soldiers, and he wept for a long time. Then, exhausted by his tears, he slept soundly. To Vasily Kashirin only his mother came. His father, who was a wealthy tradesman, did not want to come. Vasily met the old woman, as he was pacing up and down the room, trembling with cold, although it was warm, even hot. And the conversation was brief, painful. It wasnt worth coming, mother. Youll only torture yourself and me. Why did you do it, Vasya? Why did you do it? Oh, Lord! The old woman burst out weeping, wiping her face with the ends of her black, woolen kerchief. And with the habit which he and his brothers had always had of crying at their mother, who did not understand anything, he stopped, and, shuddering as with cold, spoke angrily There! You see! I knew it! You understand nothing, mother! Nothing! Wellwellall right! Do you feelcold? Cold! Vasily answered bluntly, and again began to pace the room, looking at his mother askance, as if annoyed. Perhaps you have caught cold? Oh, mother what is a cold, when and he waved his hand helplessly. The old woman was about to say And your father ordered wheat cakes beginning with Monday, but she was frightened, and said I told him It is your son, you should go, give him your blessing. No, the old beast persisted Let him go to the devil! What sort of father has he been to me? He has been a scoundrel all his life, and remains a scoundrel! Vasenka! Do you speak of your father like this? said the old woman reproachfully, straightening herself. About my father! About your own father? He is no father to me! It was strange and absurd. Before him was the thought of death, while here something small, empty and trivial arose, and his words cracked like the shells of nuts under foot. And almost crying with sorrowbecause of the eternal misunderstanding which all his life long had stood like a wall between him and those nearest to him, and which even now, in the last hour before death, peered at him stupidly and strangely through small, widely opened eyesVasily exclaimed Dont you understand that I am to be hanged soon? Hanged! Do you understand it? Hanged! You shouldnt have harmed anybody and nobody would cried the old woman. My God! What is this? Even beasts do not act like this! Am I not your son? He began to cry, and seated himself in a corner. The old woman also burst out crying in her corner. Powerless, even for an instant, to blend in a feeling of love and to offset by it the horror of impending death, they wept their cold tears of loneliness which did not warm their hearts. The mother said You ask whether I am a mother to you? You reproach me! And I have grown completely gray during these days. I have become an old woman. And yet you sayyou reproach me! Well, mother, it is all right. Forgive me. It is time for you to go. Kiss my brothers for me. Am I not your mother? Do I not feel sorry? At last she went away. She wept bitterly, wiping her face with the edges of her kerchief, and she did not see the road. And the farther she got from the prison the more bitterly she wept. She retraced her steps to the prison, and then she strangely lost her way in the city in which she had been born, in which she lived to her old age. She strolled into a deserted little garden with a few old, gnarled trees, and she seated herself upon a wet bench, from which the snow had melted. And suddenly she understood. He was to be hanged upon the morrow! The old woman jumped up, about to run, but suddenly her head began to swim terribly and she fell to the ground. The icy path was wet and slippery, and she could not rise. She turned about, lifted herself on her elbows and knelt, then fell back on her side. The black kerchief had slipped down, baring upon the back of her head a bald spot amid her muddygray hair; and then somehow it seemed to her that she was feasting at a wedding, that her son was getting married, and she had been drinking wine and had become intoxicated. I cant! My God! I cant! she cried, as though declining something. Swaying her head, she crawled over the wet, frozen crust, and all the time it seemed to her that they were pouring out more wine for her, more wine! And her heart had already begun to pain her from her intoxicated laughter, from the rejoicing, from the wild dancingand they kept on pouring more wine for herpouring more wine! CHAPTER VI THE HOURS ARE RUSHING On the fortress where the condemned terrorists were imprisoned there was a steeple with an oldfashioned clock upon it. At every hour, at every halfhour, and at every quarterhour the clock rang out in longdrawn, mournful chimes, slowly melting high in the air, like the distant and plaintive call of migrating birds. In the daytime, this strange and sad music was lost in the noise of the city, of the wide and crowded street which passed near the fortress. The cars buzzed along, the hoofs of the horses beat upon the pavements, the rocking automobiles honked in the distance, peasant izvozchiks had come especially from the outskirts of the city for the Shrovetide season and the tinkling of the bells upon the necks of their little horses filled the air. The prattle of voicesan intoxicated, merry Shrovetide prattle of voices arose everywhere. And in the midst of these various noises there was the young thawing spring, the muddy pools on the meadows, the trees of the squares which had suddenly become black. From the sea a warm breeze was blowing in broad, moist gusts. It was almost as if one could have seen the tiny fresh particles of air carried away, merged into the free, endless expanse of the atmospherecould have heard them laughing in their flight. At night the street grew quiet in the lonely light of the large, electric sun. And then, the enormous fortress, within whose walls there was not a single light, passed into darkness and silence, separating itself from the ever living, stirring city by a wall of silence, motionlessness and darkness. Then it was that the strokes of the clock became audible. A strange melody, foreign to earth, was slowly and mournfully born and died out up in the heights. It was born again; deceiving the ear, it rang plaintively and softlyit broke offand rang again. Like large, transparent, glassy drops, hours and minutes descended from an unknown height into a metallic, softly resounding bell. This was the only sound that reached the cells, by day and night, where the condemned remained in solitary confinement. Through the roof, through the thickness of the stone walls, it penetrated, stirring the silenceit passed unnoticed, to return again, also unnoticed. Sometimes they awaited it in despair, living from one sound to the next, trusting the silence no longer. Only important criminals were sent to this prison. There were special rules there, stern, grim and severe, like the corner of the fortress wall, and if there be nobility in cruelty, then the dull, dead, solemnly mute silence, which caught the slightest rustle and breathing, was noble. And in this solemn silence, broken by the mournful tolling of the departing minutes, separated from all that lives, five human beings, two women and three men, waited for the advent of night, of dawn and the execution, and all of them prepared for it, each in his or her own way. CHAPTER VII THERE IS NO DEATH Just as Tanya Kovalchuk had thought all her life only of others and never of herself, so now she suffered and grieved painfully, but only for her comrades. She pictured death, only as awaiting them, as something tormenting only to Sergey Golovin, to Musya, to the othersas for herself, it did not concern her. As a recompense for her firmness and restraint in the courtroom she wept for long hours, as old women who have experienced great misery, or as very sympathetic and kindhearted young people know how to weep. And the fear that perhaps Seryozha was without tobacco or Werner without the strong tea to which he was accustomed, in addition to the fact that they were to die, caused her no less pain than the idea of the execution itself. Death was something inevitable and even unimportant, of which it was not worth while to think; but for a man in prison, before his execution, to be left without tobaccothat was altogether unbearable. She recalled and went over in her mind all the pleasant details of their life together, and then she grew faint with fear when she pictured to herself the meeting between Sergey and his parents. She felt particularly sorry for Musya. It had long seemed to her that Musya loved Werner, and although this was not a fact, she still dreamed of something good and bright for both of them. When she had been free, Musya had worn a silver ring, on which was the design of a skull, bones, and a crown of thorns about them. Tanya Kovalchuk had often looked upon the ring as a symbol of doom, and she would ask Musya, now in jest, now in earnest, to remove the ring. Make me a present of it, she had begged. No, Tanechka, I will not give it to you. But perhaps you will soon have another ring upon your finger. For some reason or other they all in turn had thought that she would doubtless soon marry, and this had offended hershe wanted no husband. And recalling these halfjesting conversations with Musya, and the fact that now Musya was actually condemned to death, she choked with tears in her maternal pity. And each time the clock struck she raised her tearstained face and listenedhow were they in the other cells receiving this drawnout, persistent call of death? But Musya was happy. With her hands folded behind her back, dressed in a prisoners garb which was much too large for her, and which made her look very much like a manlike a stripling dressed in some one elses clothesshe paced her cell evenly and tirelessly. The sleeves of the coat were too long for her, and she turned them up, and her thin, almost childish, emaciated hands peeped out of the wide holes like a beautiful flower out of a coarse earthen jug. The rough material of the coat rubbed her thin white neck, and sometimes Musya would free her throat with both hands and would cautiously feel the spot where the irritated skin was red and smarted. Musya paced the cell, and, blushing in agitation, she imagined that she was justifying herself before the people. She tried to justify herself for the fact that she, who was so young, so insignificant, who had done so little, and who was not at all a heroine, was yet to undergo the same honorable and beautiful death by which real heroes and martyrs had died before her. With unshakable faith in human kindness, in their compassion, in their love, she pictured to herself how people were now agitated on her account, how they suffered, how they pitied her, and she felt so ashamed that she blushed, as if, by dying upon the scaffold, she had committed some tremendous, awkward blunder. At the last meeting with their counsel she had asked him to bring her poison, but suddenly she had changed her mind. What if he and the others, she thought, should consider that she was doing it merely to become conspicuous, or out of cowardice, that instead of dying modestly and unnoticed, she was attempting to glorify herself. And she added hastily No, it isnt necessary. And now she desired but one thingto be able to explain to people, to prove to them so that they should have not the slightest doubt that she was not at all a heroine, that it was not terrible to die, that they should not feel sorry for her, nor trouble themselves about her. She wished to be able to explain to them that she was not at all to blame that she, who was so young and so insignificant, was to undergo such a martyrs death, and that so much trouble should be made on her account. Like a person who is actually accused of a crime, Musya sought justification. She endeavored to find something that would at least make her sacrifice more momentous, which might give it real value. She reasoned Of course, I am young and could have lived for a long time. But And as a candle darkens in the glare of the rising sun, so her youth and her life seemed dull and dark compared to that great and resplendent radiance which would shine above her simple head. There was no justification. But perhaps that peculiar something which she bore in her soulboundless love, boundless eagerness to do great deeds, her boundless contempt for herselfwas a justification in itself. She felt that she was really not to blame that she was hindered from doing the things she could have done, which she had wished to dothat she had been smitten upon the threshold of the temple, at the foot of the altar. But if that were so, if a person is appreciated not only for what he has done, but also for what he had intended to dothenthen she was worthy of the crown of the martyr! Is it possible? thought Musya bashfully. Is it possible that I am worthy of it? That I deserve that people should weep for me, should be agitated over my fate, over such a little and insignificant girl? And she was seized with sudden joy. There were no doubts, no hesitationsshe was received into their midstshe entered justified the ranks of those noble people who always ascend to heaven through fires, tortures and executions. Bright peace and tranquillity and endless, calmly radiant happiness! It was as if she had already departed from earth and was nearing the unknown sun of truth and life, and was incorporeally soaring in its light. And that isDeath? That is not Death! thought Musya blissfully. And if scientists, philosophers and hangmen from the world over should come to her cell, spreading before her books, scalpels, axes and nooses, and were to attempt to prove to her that Death existed, that a human being dies and is killed, that there is no immortality, they would only surprise her. How could there be no deathlessness, since she was already deathless? Of what other deathlessness, of what other death, could there be a question, since she was already dead and immortal, alive in death, as she had been dead in life? And if a coffin were brought into her cell with her own decomposing body in it, and she were told Look! That is you! She would look and would answer No, it is not I. And if they should attempt to convince her, frightening her by the ominous sight of her own decomposed body, that it was sheshe, Musya, would answer with a smile No. You think that it is I, but it isnt. I am the one you are speaking to; how can I be the other one? But you will die and become like that. No, I will not die. You will be executed. Here is the noose. I will be executed, but I will not die. How can I die, when I am alreadynowimmortal? And the scientists and philosophers and hangmen would retreat, speakingwith a shudder Do not touch this place. It is holy. What else was Musya thinking about? She was thinking of many things, for to her the thread of life was not broken by Death, but kept winding along calmly and evenly. She thought of her comrades, of those who were far away, and who in pain and sorrow were living through the execution together with them, and of those near by who were to mount the scaffold with her. She was surprised at Vasilythat he should have been so disturbedhe, who had always been so brave, and who had jested with Death. Thus, only on Tuesday morning, when all together they had attached explosive projectiles to their belts, which several hours later were to tear them into pieces, Tanya Kovalchuks hands had trembled with nervousness, and it had become necessary to put her aside, while Vasily jested, made merry, turned about, and was even so reckless that Werner had said sternly You must not be too familiar with Death. What was he afraid of now? But this incomprehensible fear was so foreign to Musyas soul that she ceased searching for the cause of itand suddenly she was seized with a desperate desire to see Seryozha Golovin, to laugh with him. She meditated a little while, and then an even more desperate desire came over her to see Werner and to convince him of something. And imagining to herself that Werner was in the next cell, driving his heels into the ground with his distinct, measured steps, Musya spoke, as if addressing him No, Werner, my dear; it is all nonsense; it isnt at all important whether or not you are killed.
You are a sensible man, but you seem to be playing chess, and that by taking one figure after another the game is won. The important thing, Werner, is that we ourselves are ready to die. Do you understand? What do those people think? That there is nothing more terrible than death. They themselves have invented Death, they are themselves afraid of it, and they try to frighten us with it. I should like to do thisI should like to go out alone before a whole regiment of soldiers and fire upon them with a revolver. It would not matter that I would be alone, while they would be thousands, or that I might not kill any of them. It is that which is importantthat they are thousands. When thousands kill one, it means that the one has conquered. That is true, Werner, my dear.... But this, too, became so clear to her that she did not feel like arguing furtherWerner must understand it himself. Perhaps her mind simply did not want to stop at one thoughtjust as a bird that soars with ease, which sees endless horizons, and to which all space, all the depth, all the joy of the soft and caressing azure are accessible. The bell of the clock rang unceasingly, disturbing the deep silence. And into this harmonious, remote, beautiful sound the thoughts of the people flowed, and also began to ring for her; and the smoothly gliding images turned into music. It was just as if, on a quiet, dark night, Musya was riding along a broad, even road, while the easy springs of the carriage rocked her and the little bells tinkled. All alarm and agitation had passed, the fatigued body had dissolved in the darkness, and her joyously wearied fancy calmly created bright images, carried away by their color and their peaceful tranquillity. Musya recalled three of her comrades who had been hanged but a short time before, and their faces seemed bright and happy and near to hernearer than those in life. Thus does a man think with joy in the morning of the house of his friends where he is to go in the evening, and a greeting rises to his smiling lips. Musya became very tired from walking. She lay down cautiously on the cot and continued to dream with slightly closed eyes. The clockbell rang unceasingly, stirring the mute silence, and bright, singing images floated calmly before her. Musya thought Is it possible that this is Death? My God! How beautiful it is! Or is it Life? I do not know. I do not know. I will look and listen. Her hearing had long given way to her imaginationfrom the first moment of her imprisonment. Inclined to be very musical, her ear had become keen in the silence, and on this background of silence, out of the meagre bits of reality, the footsteps of the guards in the corridors, the ringing of the clock, the rustling of the wind on the iron roof, the creaking of the lanternit created complete musical pictures. At first Musya was afraid of them, brushed them away from her as if they were the hallucinations of a sickly mind. But later she understood that she herself was well, and that this was no derangement of any kindand she gave herself up to the dreams calmly. And now, suddenly, she seemed to hear clearly and distinctly the sounds of military music. In astonishment, she opened her eyes, lifted her headoutside the window was black night, and the clock was striking. Again, she thought calmly, and closed her eyes. And as soon as she did so the music resounded anew. She could hear distinctly how the soldiers, a whole regiment, were coming from behind the corner of the fortress, on the right, and now they were passing her window. Their feet beat time with measured steps upon the frozen ground Onetwo! Onetwo! She could even hear at times the leather of the boots creaking, how suddenly some ones foot slipped and immediately recovered its steps. And the music came ever nearerit was an entirely unfamiliar but a very loud and spirited holiday march. Evidently there was some sort of celebration in the fortress. Now the band came up alongside of her window and the cell was filled with merry, rhythmic, harmoniously blended sounds. One large brass trumpet brayed harshly out of tune, now too late, now comically running aheadMusya could almost see the little soldier playing it, a great expression of earnestness on his faceand she laughed. Then everything moved away. The footsteps died outOnetwo! Onetwo! At a distance the music sounded still more beautiful and cheerful. The trumpet resounded now and then with its merry, loud brass voice, out of tune,and then everything died away. And the clock on the tower struck again, slowly, mournfully, hardly stirring the silence. They are gone! thought Musya, with a feeling of slight sadness. She felt sorry for the departing sounds, which had been so cheerful and so comical. She was even sorry for the departed little soldiers, because those busy soldiers, with their brass trumpets and their creaking boots, were of an entirely different sort, not at all like those at whom she had felt like firing a revolver. Come again! she begged tenderly. And more came. The figures bent over her, they surrounded her in a transparent cloud and lifted her up, where the migrating birds were soaring and screaming, like heralds. On the right of her, on the left, above and below herthey screamed like heralds. They called, they announced from afar their flight. They flapped their wide wings and the darkness supported them, even as the light had supported them. And on their convex breasts, cleaving the air asunder, the city far below reflected a blue light. Musyas heart beat ever more evenly, her breathing grew ever more calm and quiet. She was falling asleep. Her face looked fatigued and pale. Beneath her eyes were dark circles, her girlish, emaciated hands seemed so thin,but upon her lips was a smile. Tomorrow, with the rise of the sun, this human face would be distorted with an inhuman grimace, her brain would be covered with thick blood, and her eyes would bulge from their sockets and look glassy,but now she slept quietly and smiled in her great immortality. Musya fell asleep. And the life of the prison went on, deaf and sensitive, blind and sharpsighted, like eternal alarm itself. Somewhere people were walking. Somewhere people were whispering. A gun clanked. It seemed as if some one shouted. Perhaps no one shouted at allperhaps it merely seemed so in the silence. The little casement window in the door opened noiselessly. A dark, mustached face appeared in the black hole. For a long time it stared at Musya in astonishmentand then disappeared as noiselessly as it had appeared. The bells rang and sang, for a long time, painfully. It seemed as if the tired Hours were climbing up a high mountain toward midnight, and that it was becoming ever harder and harder to ascend. They fall, they slip, they slide down with a groanand then again, they climb painfully toward the black height. Somewhere people were walking. Somewhere people were whispering. And they were already harnessing the horses to the black carriages without lanterns. CHAPTER VIII THERE IS DEATH AS WELL AS LIFE Sergey Golovin never thought of death, as though it were something not to be considered, something that did not concern him in the least. He was a strong, healthy, cheerful youth, endowed with that calm, clear joy of living which causes every evil thought and feeling that might injure life to disappear from the organism without leaving any trace. Just as all cuts, wounds and stings on his body healed rapidly, so all that weighed upon his soul and wounded it immediately rose to the surface and disappeared. And he brought into every work, even into his enjoyments, the same calm and optimistic seriousness,it mattered not whether he was occupied with photography, with bicycling or with preparations for a terroristic act. Everything in life was joyous, everything in life was important, everything should be done well. And he did everything well he was an excellent sailor, an expert shot with the revolver. He was as faithful in friendship as in love, and a fanatic believer in the word of honor. His comrades laughed at him, saying that if the most notorious spy told him upon his word of honor that he was not a spy, Sergey would believe him and would shake hands with him as with any comrade. He had one fault,he was convinced that he could sing well, whereas in fact he had no ear for music and even sang the revolutionary songs out of tune, and felt offended when his friends laughed at him. Either you are all asses, or I am an ass, he would declare seriously and even angrily. And all his friends as seriously declared You are an ass. We can tell by your voice. But, as is sometimes the case with good people, he was perhaps liked more for this little foible than for his good qualities. He feared death so little and thought of it so little that on the fatal morning, before leaving the house of Tanya Kovalchuk, he was the only one who had breakfasted properly, with an appetite. He drank two glasses of tea with milk, and a whole fivecopeck roll of bread. Then he glanced at Werners untouched bread and said Why dont you eat? Eat. We must brace up. I dont feel like eating. Then Ill eat it. May I? You have a fine appetite, Seryozha. Instead of answering, Sergey, his mouth full, began to sing in a dull voice, out of tune Hostile whirlwinds are blowing over us... After the arrest he at first grew sad; the work had not been done well, they had failed; but then he thought There is something else now that must be done welland that is, to die, and he cheered up again. And however strange it may seem, beginning with the second morning in the fortress, he commenced devoting himself to gymnastics according to the unusually rational system of a certain German named Mller, which absorbed his interest. He undressed himself completely and, to the alarm and astonishment of the guard who watched him, he carefully went through all the prescribed eighteen exercises. The fact that the guard watched him and was apparently astonished, pleased him as a propagandist of the Mller system; and although he knew that he would get no answer he nevertheless spoke to the eye staring in the little window Its a good system, my friend, it braces you up. It should be introduced in your regiment, he shouted convincingly and kindly, so as not to frighten the soldier, not suspecting that the guard considered him a harmless lunatic. The fear of death came over him gradually. It was as if somebody were striking his heart a powerful blow with the fist from below. This sensation was rather painful than terrible. Then the sensation was forgotten, but it returned again a few hours later, and each time it grew more intense and of longer duration, and thus it began to assume vague outlines of some great, even unbearable fear. Is it possible that I am afraid? thought Sergey in astonishment. What nonsense! It was not he who was afraid,it was his young, sound, strong body, which could not be deceived either by the exercises prescribed by the Mller system, or by the cold rubdowns. On the contrary, the stronger and the fresher his body became after the cold water, the keener and the more unbearable became the sensations of his recurrent fear. And just at those moments when, during his freedom, he had felt a special influx of the joy and power of life,in the mornings after he had slept soundly and gone through his physical exercises,now there appeared this deadening fear which was so foreign to his nature. He noticed this and thought It is foolish, Sergey! To die more easily, you should weaken the body and not strengthen it. It is foolish! So he dropped his gymnastics and the rubdowns. To the soldier he shouted, as if to explain and justify himself Never mind that I have stopped. Its a good thing, my friend,but not for those who are to be hanged. But its very good for all others. And, indeed, he began to feel somewhat better. He tried also to eat less, so as to grow still weaker, but notwithstanding the lack of pure air and exercises, his appetite was very good,it was difficult for him to control it, and he ate everything that was brought to him. Then he began to manage differentlybefore starting to eat he would pour out half into the pail, and this seemed to work. A dull drowsiness and faintness came over him. Ill show you what I can do! he threatened his body, and at the same time sadly, yet tenderly he felt his flabby, softened muscles with his hand. Soon, however, his body grew accustomed to this regime as well, and the fear of death appeared againnot so keen, nor so burning, but more disgusting, somewhat akin to a nauseating sensation. Its because they are dragging it out so long, thought Sergey. It would be a good idea to sleep all the time till the day of the execution, and he tried to sleep as much as possible. At first he succeeded, but later, either because he had slept too much, or for some other reason, insomnia appeared. And with it came eager, penetrating thoughts and a longing for life. I am not afraid of this devil! he thought of Death. I simply feel sorry for my life. It is a splendid thing, no matter what the pessimists say about it. What if they were to hang a pessimist? Ah, I feel sorry for life, very sorry! And why does my beard grow now? It didnt grow before, but suddenly it growswhy? He shook his head mournfully, heaving long, painful sighs. Silencethen a sigh; then a brief silence againfollowed by a longer, deeper sigh. Thus it went on until the trial and the terrible meeting with his parents. When he awoke in his cell the next day he realized clearly that everything between him and life was ended, that there were only a few empty hours of waiting and then death would come,and a strange sensation took possession of him. He felt as though he had been stripped, stripped entirely,as if not only his clothes, but the sun, the air, the noise of voices and his ability to do things had been wrested from him. Death was not there as yet, but life was there no longer,there was something new, something astonishing, inexplicable, not entirely reasonable and yet not altogether without meaning,something so deep and mysterious and supernatural that it was impossible to understand. Fie, you devil! wondered Sergey, painfully. What is this? Where am I? Iwho am I? He examined himself attentively, with interest, beginning with his large prison slippers, ending with his stomach where his coat protruded. He paced the cell, spreading out his arms and continuing to survey himself like a woman in a new dress which is too long for her. He tried to turn his head, and it turned. And this strange, terrible, uncouth creature was he, Sergey Golovin, and soon he would be no more! Everything became strange. He tried to walk across the celland it seemed strange to him that he could walk. He tried to sit downand it seemed strange to him that he could sit. He tried to drink some waterand it seemed strange to him that he could drink, that he could swallow, that he could hold the cup, that he had fingers and that those fingers were trembling. He choked, began to cough and while coughing, thought How strange it is that I am coughing. Am I losing my reason? thought Sergey, growing cold. Am I coming to that, too? The devil take them! He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and this also seemed strange to him. And then he remained breathless, motionless, petrified for hours, suppressing every thought, all loud breathing, all motion,for every thought seemed to him but madness, every motionmadness. Time was no more; it appeared transformed into space, airless and transparent, into an enormous square upon which all were therethe earth and life and people. He saw all that at one glance, all to the very end, to the mysterious abyssDeath. And he was tortured not by the fact that Death was visible, but that both Life and Death were visible at the same time. The curtain which through eternity has hidden the mystery of life and the mystery of death was pushed aside by a sacrilegious hand, and the mysteries ceased to be mysteriesyet they remained incomprehensible, like the Truth written in a foreign tongue. There were no conceptions in his human mind, no words in his human language that could define what he saw. And the words I am afraid were uttered by him only because there were no other words, because no other conceptions existed, nor could other conceptions exist which would grasp this new, unhuman condition. Thus would it be with a man if, while remaining within the bounds of human reason, experience and feelings, he were suddenly to see God Himself. He would see Him but would not understand, even though he knew that it was God, and he would tremble with inconceivable sufferings of incomprehension. There is Mller for you! he suddenly uttered loudly, with extreme conviction, and shook his head. And with that unexpected break in his feelings, of which the human soul is so capable, he laughed heartily and cheerfully. Oh, Mller! My dear Mller! Oh, you splendid German! After all you are right, Mller, and I am an ass! He paced the cell quickly several times and to the great astonishment of the soldier who was watching him through the peephole, he quickly undressed himself and cheerfully went through all the eighteen exercises with the greatest care. He stretched and expanded his young, somewhat emaciated body, sat down for a moment, drew deep breaths of air and exhaled it, stood up on tiptoe, stretched his arms and his feet. And after each exercise he announced, with satisfaction Thats it! Thats the real way, Mller! His cheeks flushed; drops of warm, pleasant perspiration came from the pores of his body, and his heart beat soundly and evenly. The fact is, Mller, philosophized Sergey, expanding his chest so that the ribs under his thin, tight skin were outlined clearly,the fact is, that there is a nineteenth exerciseto hang by the neck motionless. That is called execution. Do you understand, Mller? They take a live man, let us say Sergey Golovin, they swaddle him as a doll and they hang him by the neck until he is dead. It is a foolish exercise, Mller, but it cant be helped,we have to do it. He bent over on the right side and repeated We have to do it, Mller. CHAPTER IX DREADFUL SOLITUDE Under the same ringing of the clock, separated from Sergey and Musya by only a few empty cells, but yet so painfully desolate and alone in the whole world as though no other soul existed, poor Vasily Kashirin was passing the last hours of his life in terror and in anguish. Perspiring, his moist shirt clinging to his body, his once curly hair disheveled, he tossed about in the cell convulsively and hopelessly, like a man suffering from an unbearable physical torture. He would sit down for awhile, then start to run again, he would press his forehead against the wall, stop and seek something with his eyesas if looking for some medicine. His expression changed as though he had two different faces. The former, the young face, had disappeared somewhere, and a new one, a terrible face that had seemed to have come out of the darkness, had taken its place. The fear of death had come upon him all at once and taken possession of him completely and forcibly. In the morning, while facing almost certain death, he had been carefree and had scorned it, but toward evening when he was placed in a cell in solitary confinement, he was whirled and carried away by a wave of mad fear. So long as he went of his own free will to face danger and death, so long as he had death, even though it seemed terrible, in his own hands, he felt at ease. He was even cheerful; in the sensation of boundless freedom, of brave and firm conviction of his fearless will, his little, shrunken, womanish fear was drowned, leaving no trace. With an infernal machine at his girdle, he made the cruel force of dynamite his own, also its fiery deathbearing power. And as he walked along the street, amidst the bustling, plain people, who were occupied with their affairs, who were hurriedly avoiding the dangers from the horses of carriages and cars, he seemed to himself as a stranger from another, unknown world, where neither death nor fear was known. And suddenly this harsh, wild, stupefying change. He can no longer go where he pleases, but he is led where others please. He can no longer choose the place he likes, but he is placed in a stone cage, and locked up like a thing. He can no longer choose freely, like all people, between life and death, but he will surely and inevitably be put to death. The incarnation of willpower, life and strength an instant before, he has now become a wretched image of the most pitiful weakness in the world. He has been transformed into an animal waiting to be slaughtered, a deafmute object which may be taken from place to place, burnt and broken. It matters not what he might say, nobody would listen to his words, and if he endeavored to shout, they would stop his mouth with a rag. Whether he can walk alone or not, they will take him away and hang him. And if he should offer resistance, struggle or lie down on the groundthey will overpower him, lift him, bind him and carry him, bound, to the gallows. And the fact that this machinelike work will be performed over him by human beings like himself, lent to them a new, extraordinary and ominous aspectthey seemed to him like ghosts that came to him for this one purpose, or like automatic puppets on springs. They would seize him, take him, carry him, hang him, pull him by the feet. They would cut the rope, take him down, carry him off and bury him. From the first day of his imprisonment the people and life seemed to him to have turned into an incomprehensibly terrible world of phantoms and automatic puppets. Almost maddened with fear, he attempted to picture to himself that human beings had tongues and that they could speak, but he could notthey seemed to him to be mute. He tried to recall their speech, the meaning of the words that people used in their relations with one anotherbut he could not. Their mouths seemed to open, some sounds were heard; then they moved their feet and disappeared. And nothing more. Thus would a man feel if he were at night alone in his house and suddenly all objects were to come to life, start to move and overpower him. And suddenly they would all begin to judge him the cupboard, the chair, the writingtable and the divan. He would cry and toss about, entreating, calling for help, while they would speak among themselves in their own language, and then would lead him to the scaffold,they, the cupboard, the chair, the writingtable and the divan. And the other objects would look on. To Vasily Kashirin, who was condemned to death by hanging, everything now seemed like childrens playthings his cell, the door with the peephole, the strokes of the woundup clock, the carefully molded fortress, and especially that mechanical puppet with the gun who stamped his feet in the corridor, and the others who, frightening him, peeped into his cell through the little window and handed him the food in silence. And that which he was experiencing was not the fear of death; death was now rather welcome to him. Death with all its eternal mysteriousness and incomprehensibility was more acceptable to his reason than this strangely and fantastically changed world. What is more, death seemed to have been destroyed completely in this insane world of phantoms and puppets, having lost its great and enigmatic significance, becoming something mechanical and only for that reason terrible. He would be seized, taken, led, hanged, pulled by the feet, the rope would be cut, he would be taken down, carried off and buried. And the man would have disappeared from the world. At the trial the nearness of his comrades brought Kashirin to himself. For an instant he imagined he saw real people; they were sitting and trying him, speaking like human beings, listening, apparently understanding him. But as he mentally rehearsed the meeting with his mother he clearly felt with the terror of a man who is beginning to lose his reason and who realizes it, that this old woman in the black little kerchief was only an artificial, mechanical puppet, of the kind that can say papa, mama, but somewhat better constructed. He tried to speak to her, while thinking at the same time with a shudder O Lord! That is a puppet. A mother doll. And there is a soldierpuppet, and there, at home, is a fatherpuppet, and this is the puppet of Vasily Kashirin. It seemed to him that in another moment he would hear somewhere the creaking of the mechanism, the screeching of unoiled wheels. When his mother began to cry, something human again flashed for an instant, but at the very first words it disappeared again, and it was interesting and terrible to see that water was flowing from the eyes of the doll. Then, in his cell, when the terror had become unbearable, Vasily Kashirin attempted to pray. Of all that had surrounded his childhood days in his fathers house under the guise of religion only a repulsive, bitter and irritating sediment remained; but faith there was none. But once, perhaps in his earliest childhood, he had heard a few words which had filled him with palpitating emotion and which remained during all his life enwrapped with tender poetry. These words were The joy of all the afflicted... It had happened, during painful periods in his life, that he whispered to himself, not in prayer, without being definitely conscious of it, these words The joy of all the afflictedand suddenly he would feel relieved and a desire would come over him to go to some dear friend and question gently Our lifeis this life? Eh, my dearest, is this life? And then suddenly it would appear laughable to him and he would feel like mussing up his hair, putting forth his knee and thrusting out his chest as though to receive heavy blows; saying Here, strike! He did not tell anybody, not even his nearest comrades, about his joy of all the afflicted and it was as though he himself did not know about it,so deeply was it hidden in his soul. He recalled it but rarely and cautiously. Now when the terror of the insoluble mystery, which appeared so plainly before him, enveloped him completely, even as the water in highflood covers the willow twigs on the shore,a desire came upon him to pray. He felt like kneeling, but he was ashamed of the soldier and, folding his arms on his chest, he whispered softly The joy of all the afflicted! And he repeated tenderly, in anguish Joy of all the afflicted, come to me, help Vaska Kashirin. Long ago, while he was yet in his first term at the university and used to go off on a spree sometimes, before he had made the acquaintance of Werner and before he had entered the organization, he used then to call himself halfboastingly, halfpityingly, Vaska Kashirin,and now for some reason or other he suddenly felt like calling himself by the same name again. But the words had a dead and toneless sound. The joy of all the afflicted! Something stirred. It was as though some ones calm and mournful image had flashed up in the distance and died out quietly, without illuminating the deathly gloom. The woundup clock in the steeple struck. The soldier in the corridor made a noise with his gun or with his saber and he yawned, slowly, at intervals. Joy of all the afflicted! You are silent! Will you not say anything to Vaska Kashirin? He smiled patiently and waited. All was empty within his soul and about him. And the calm, mournful image did not reappear. He recalled, painfully and unnecessarily, wax candles burning; the priest in his vestments; the ikon painted on the wall. He recalled his father, bending and stretching himself, praying and bowing to the ground, while looking sidewise to see whether Vaska was praying, or whether he was planning some mischief. And a feeling of still greater terror came over Vasily than before the prayer. Everything now disappeared. Madness came crawling painfully. His consciousness was dying out like an extinguishing bonfire, growing icy like the corpse of a man who had just died, whose heart is still warm but whose hands and feet had already become stiffened with cold. His dying reason flared up as red as blood again and said that he, Vasily Kashirin, might perhaps become insane here, suffer pains for which there is no name, reach a degree of anguish and suffering that had never been experienced by a single living being; that he might beat his head against the wall, pick his eyes out with his fingers, speak and shout whatever he pleased, that he might plead with tears that he could endure it no longer,and nothing would happen. Nothing could happen. And nothing happened. His feet, which had a consciousness and life of their own, continued to walk and to carry his trembling, moist body. His hands, which had a consciousness of their own, endeavored in vain to fasten the coat which was open at his chest and to warm his trembling, moist body. His body quivered with cold. His eyes stared. And this was calm itself embodied. But there was one more moment of wild terror. That was when people entered his cell. He did not even imagine that this visit meant that it was time to go to the execution; he simply saw the people and was frightened like a child. I will not do it! I will not do it! he whispered inaudibly with his livid lips and silently retreated to the depth of the cell, even as in childhood he shrank when his father lifted his hand. We must start. The people were speaking, walking around him, handing him something. He closed his eyes, he shook a little,and began to dress himself slowly. His consciousness must have returned to him, for he suddenly asked the official for a cigarette. And the official generously opened his silver cigarettecase upon which was a chased figure in the style of the decadents. CHAPTER X THE WALLS ARE FALLING The unidentified man, who called himself Werner, was tired of life and struggle. There was a time when he loved life very dearly, when he enjoyed the theater, literature and social intercourse. Endowed with an excellent memory and a firm will, he had mastered several European languages and could easily pass for a German, a Frenchman or an Englishman. He usually spoke German with a Bavarian accent, but when he felt like it, he could speak like a born Berliner. He was fond of dress, his manners were excellent and he alone, of all the members of the organization, dared attend the balls given in high society, without running the risk of being recognized as an outsider. But for a long time, altogether unnoticed by his comrades, there had ripened in his soul a dark contempt for mankind; contempt mingled with despair and painful, almost deadly fatigue. By nature rather a mathematician than a poet, he had not known until now any inspiration, any ecstasy and at times he felt like a madman, looking for the squaring of a circle in pools of human blood. The enemy against whom he struggled every day could not inspire him with respect. It was a dense net of stupidity, treachery and falsehood, vile insults and base deceptions. The last incident which seemed to have destroyed in him forever the desire to live, was the murder of the provocateur which he had committed by order of the organization. He had killed him in cold blood, but when he saw that dead, deceitful, now calm, and after all pitiful, human face, he suddenly ceased to respect himself and his work. Not that he was seized with a feeling of repentance, but he simply stopped appreciating himself. He became uninteresting to himself, unimportant, a dull stranger. But being a man of strong, unbroken willpower, he did not leave the organization. He remained outwardly the same as before, only there was something cold, yet painful in his eyes. He never spoke to anyone of this. He possessed another rare quality just as there are people who have never known headaches, so Werner had never known fear.
When other people were afraid, he looked upon them without censure but also without any particular compassion, just as upon a rather contagious illness from which, however, he himself had never suffered. He felt sorry for his comrades, especially for Vasya Kashirin; but that was a cold, almost official pity, which even some of the judges may have felt at times. Werner understood that the execution was not merely death, that it was something different,but he resolved to face it calmly, as something not to be considered; to live until the end as if nothing had happened and as if nothing could happen. Only in this way could he express his greatest contempt for capital punishment and preserve his last freedom of the spirit which could not be torn away from him. At the trialand even his comrades who knew well his cold, haughty fearlessness would perhaps not have believed this,he thought neither of death nor of life,but concentrated his attention deeply and coolly upon a difficult chess game which he was playing. A superior chess player, he had started this game on the first day of his imprisonment and continued it uninterruptedly. Even the sentence condemning him to death by hanging did not remove a single figure from his imaginary chessboard. Even the knowledge that he would not be able to finish this game, did not stop him; and the morning of the last day that he was to remain on earth he started by correcting a not altogether successful move he had made on the previous day. Clasping his lowered hands between his knees, he sat for a long time motionless, then he rose and began to walk, meditating. His walk was peculiar he leaned the upper part of his body slightly forward and stamped the ground with his heels firmly and distinctly. His steps usually left deep, plain imprints even on dry ground. He whistled softly, in one breath, a simple Italian melody, which helped his meditation. But this time for some reason or other the thing did not work well. With an unpleasant feeling that he had made some important, even grave blunder, he went back several times and examined the game almost from the beginning. He found no blunder, yet the feeling about a blunder committed not only failed to leave him, but even grew ever more intense and unpleasant. Suddenly an unexpected and offensive thought came into his mind Did the blunder perhaps consist in his playing chess simply because he wanted to distract his attention from the execution and thus shield himself against the fear of death which is apparently inevitable in every person condemned to death? No. What for? he answered coldly and closed calmly his imaginary chessboard. And with the same concentration with which he had played chess, he tried to give himself an account of the horror and the helplessness of his situation. As though he were going through a strict examination, he looked over the cell, trying not to let anything escape. He counted the hours that remained until the execution, made for himself an approximate and quite exact picture of the execution itself and shrugged his shoulders. Well? he said to some one halfquestioningly. Here it is. Where is the fear? Indeed there was no fear. Not only was it not there, but something entirely different, the reverse of fear, developeda sensation of confused, but enormous and savage joy. And the error, which he had not yet discovered, no longer called forth in him vexation or irritation,it seemed to speak loudly of something good and unexpected, as though he had believed a dear friend of his to be dead, and that friend turned out to be alive, safe and sound and laughing. Werner again shrugged his shoulders and felt his pulse,his heart was beating faster than usual, but soundly and evenly, with a specially ringing throb. He looked about once more, attentively, like a novice for the first time in prison,examined the walls, the bolts, the chair which was screwed to the floor, and thought Why do I feel so easy, so joyous and free? Yes, so free? I think of the execution tomorrowand I feel as though it is not there. I look at the wallsand I feel as though they are not here, either. And I feel so free, as though I were not in prison, but had just come out of some prison where I had spent all my life. What does this mean? His hands began to tremble,something Werner had not experienced before. His thoughts fluttered ever more furiously. It was as if tongues of fire had flashed up in his mind, and the fire wanted to burst forth and illumine the distance which was still dark as night. Now the light pierced through and the widely illuminated distance began to shine. The fatigue that had tormented Werner during the last two years had disappeared; the dead, cold, heavy serpent with its closed eyes and mouth clinched in death, had fallen away from his breast. Before the face of death, beautiful Youth came back to him physically. Indeed, it was more than beautiful Youth. With that wonderful clarity of the spirit which in rare moments comes over man and lifts him to the loftiest peaks of meditation, Werner suddenly perceived both life and death, and he was awed by the splendor of the unprecedented spectacle. It seemed to him that he was walking along the highest mountainridge, which was narrow like the blade of a knife, and on one side he saw Life, on the other sideDeath,like two sparkling, deep, beautiful seas, blending in one boundless, broad surface at the horizon. What is this? What a divine spectacle! he said slowly, rising involuntarily and straightening himself, as if in the presence of a supreme being. And destroying the walls, space and time with the impetuosity of his allpenetrating look, he cast a wide glance somewhere into the depth of the life he was to forsake. And life appeared to him in a new light. He did not strive, as before, to clothe in words that which he had seen; nor were there such words in the still poor, meager human language. That small, cynical and evil feeling which had called forth in him a contempt for mankind and at times even an aversion for the sight of a human face, had disappeared completely. Thus, for a man who goes up in an airship, the filth and litter of the narrow streets disappear and that which was ugly becomes beautiful. Unconsciously Werner stepped over to the table and leaned his right hand on it. Proud and commanding by nature, he had never before assumed such a proud, free, commanding pose, had never turned his head and never looked as he did now,for he had never yet been as free and dominant as he was here in the prison, with but a few hours from execution and death. Now men seemed new to him,they appeared amiable and charming to his clarified vision. Soaring over time, he saw clearly how young mankind was, that but yesterday it had been howling like a beast in the forests; and that which had seemed to him terrible in human beings, unpardonable and repulsive, suddenly became very dear to him,like the inability of a child to walk as grown people do, like a childs unconnected lisping, flashing with sparks of genius; like a childs comical blunders, errors and painful bruises. My dear people! Werner suddenly smiled and at once lost all that was imposing in his pose; he again became a prisoner who finds his cell narrow and uncomfortable under lock, and he was tired of the annoying, searching eye staring at him through the peephole in the door. And, strange to say, almost instantly he forgot all that he had seen a little while before so clearly and distinctly; and, what is still stranger, he did not even make an effort to recall it. He simply sat down as comfortably as possible, without the usual stiffness of his body, and surveyed the walls and the bars with a faint and gentle, strange, unWernerlike smile. Still another new thing happened to Werner,something that had never happened to him before he suddenly started to weep. My dear comrades! he whispered, crying bitterly. My dear comrades! By what mysterious ways did he change from the feeling of proud and boundless freedom to this tender and passionate compassion? He did not know, nor did he think of it. Did he pity his dear comrades, or did his tears conceal something else, a still loftier and more passionate feeling?His suddenly revived and rejuvenated heart did not know this either. He wept and whispered My dear comrades! My dear, dear comrades! In this man, who was bitterly weeping and smiling through tears, no one could have recognized the cold and haughty, weary, yet daring Wernerneither the judges, nor the comrades, nor even he himself. CHAPTER XI ON THE WAY TO THE SCAFFOLD Before placing the condemned people in coaches, all five were brought together in a large cold room with a vaulted ceiling, which resembled an office, where people worked no longer, or a deserted waitingroom. They were now permitted to speak to one another. Only Tanya Kovalchuk availed herself at once of the permission. The others firmly and silently shook each others hands, which were as cold as ice and as hot as fire,and silently, trying not to look at each other, they crowded together in an awkward, absentminded group. Now that they were together, they felt somewhat ashamed of what each of them had experienced when alone; and they were afraid to look, so as not to notice or to show that new, peculiar, somewhat shameful sensation that each of them felt or suspected the others of feeling. But after a short silence they glanced at each other, smiled and immediately began to feel at ease and unrestrained, as before. No change seemed to have occurred, and if it had occurred, it had come so gently over all of them that it could not be discerned in any one separately. All spoke and moved about strangely abruptly, by jolts, either too fast or too slowly. Sometimes they seemed to choke with their words and repeated them a number of times; sometimes they did not finish a phrase they had started, or thought they had finishedthey did not notice it. They all blinked their eyes and examined ordinary objects curiously, not recognizing them, like people who had worn eyeglasses and had suddenly taken them off; and all of them frequently turned around abruptly, as though some one behind them was calling them all the time and showing them something. But they did not notice this, either. Musyas and Tanya Kovalchuks cheeks and ears were burning; Sergey was at first somewhat pale, but he soon recovered and looked as he always did. Only Vasily attracted everybodys attention. Even among them, he looked strange and terrible. Werner became agitated and said to Musya in a low voice, with tender anxiety What does this mean, Musyechka? Is it possible that he What? I must go to him. Vasily looked at Werner from the distance, as though not recognizing him, and he lowered his eyes. Vasya, what have you done with your hair? What is the matter with you? Never mind, my dear, never mind, it will soon be over. We must keep up, we must, we must. Vasily was silent. But when it seemed that he would no longer say anything, a dull, belated, terribly remote answer camelike an answer from the grave Im all right. I hold my own. Then he repeated I hold my own. Werner was delighted. Thats the way, thats the way. Good boy. Thats the way. But his eyes met Vasilys dark, wearied glance fixed upon him from the distance and he thought with instant sorrow From where is he looking? From where is he speaking? and with profound tenderness, with which people address a grave, he said Vasya, do you hear? I love you very much. So do I love you very much, answered the tongue, moving with difficulty. Suddenly Musya took Werner by the hand and with an expression of surprise, she said like an actress on the stage, with measured emphasis Werner, what is this? You said, I love? You never before said I love to anybody. And why are you all sotender and serene? Why? Why? And like an actor, also accentuating what he felt, Werner pressed Musyas hand firmly Yes, now I love very much. Dont tell it to the others,it isnt necessary, I feel somewhat ashamed, but I love deeply. Their eyes met and flashed up brightly, and everything about them seemed to have plunged in darkness. It is thus that in the flash of lightning all other lights are instantly darkened and the heavy yellow flame casts a shadow upon earth. Yes, said Musya, yes, Werner. Yes, he answered, yes, Musya, yes. They understood each other and something was firmly settled between them at this moment. And his eyes glistening, Werner again became agitated and quickly stepped over to Sergey. Seryozha! But Tanya Kovalchuk answered. Almost crying with maternal pride, she tugged Sergey frantically by the sleeve. Listen, Werner! I am crying here for him, I am wearing myself to death, and he is occupying himself with gymnastics! According to the Mller system? smiled Werner. Sergey knit his brow confusedly. You neednt laugh, Werner. I have convinced myself conclusively All began to laugh. Drawing strength and courage from one another, they gradually regained their poisebecame the same as they used to be. They did not notice this, however, and thought that they had never changed at all. Suddenly Werner interrupted their laughter and said to Sergey very earnestly You are right, Seryozha. You are perfectly right. No, but you must understand, said Golovin gladly. Of course, we But at this point they were asked to start. And their jailers were so kind as to permit them to ride in pairs, as they pleased. Altogether the jailers were extremely kind; even too kind. It was as if they tried partly to show themselves humane and partly to show that they were not there at all, but that everything was being done as by machinery. But they were all pale. Musya, you go with him. Werner pointed at Vasily, who stood motionless. I understand, Musya nodded. And you? I? Tanya will go with Sergey, you go with Vasya.... I will go alone. That doesnt matter, I can do it, you know. When they went out in the yard, the moist, soft darkness rushed warmly and strongly against their faces, their eyes, taking their breath away, then suddenly it penetrated their bodies tenderly and refreshingly. It was hard to believe that this wonderful effect was produced simply by the spring wind, the warm, moist wind. And the really wonderful spring night was filled with the odor of melting snow, and through the boundless space the noise of drops resounded. Hastily and frequently, as though trying to overtake one another, little drops were falling, striking in unison a ringing tune. Suddenly one of them would strike out of tune and all was mingled in a merry splash in hasty confusion. Then a large, heavy drop would strike firmly and again the fast, spring melody resounded distinctly. And over the city, above the roofs of the fortress, hung a pale redness in the sky reflected by the electric lights. Uach! Sergey Golovin heaved a deep sigh and held his breath, as though he regretted to exhale from his lungs the fine, fresh air. How long have you had such weather? inquired Werner. Its real spring. Its only the second day, was the polite answer. Before that we had mostly frosty weather. The dark carriages rolled over noiselessly one after another, took them in by twos, started off into the darknessthere where the lantern was shaking at the gate. The convoys like gray silhouettes surrounded each carriage; the horseshoes struck noisily against the ground, or plashed upon the melting snow. When Werner bent down, about to climb into the carriage, the gendarme whispered to him There is somebody else going along with you. Werner was surprised. Where? Where is he going? Oh, yes! Another one? Who is he? The gendarme was silent. Indeed, in a dark corner a small, motionless but living figure pressed close to the side of the carriage. By the reflection of the lantern Werner noticed the flash of an open eye. Seating himself, Werner pushed his foot against the other mans knee. Excuse me, comrade. The man made no reply. It was only when the carriage started, that he suddenly asked in broken Russian, speaking with difficulty Who are you? I am Werner, condemned to hanging for the attempt upon N. And you? I am Yanson. They must not hang me. They were riding thus in order to appear two hours later face to face before the inexplicable great mystery, in order to pass from Life to Deathand they were introducing each other. Life and Death moved simultaneously, and until the very end Life remained life, to the most ridiculous and insipid trifles. What have you done, Yanson? I killed my master with a knife. I stole money. It seemed from the tone of his voice that Yanson was falling asleep. Werner found his flabby hand in the darkness and pressed it. Yanson withdrew it drowsily. Are you afraid? asked Werner. I dont want to be hanged. They became silent. Werner again found the Esthonians hand and pressed it firmly between his dry, burning palms. Yansons hand lay motionless, like a board, but he made no longer any effort to withdraw it. It was close and suffocating in the carriage. The air was filled with the smell of soldiers clothes, mustiness, and the leather of wet boots. The young gendarme who sat opposite Werner breathed warmly upon him, and in his breath there was the odor of onions and cheap tobacco. But some brisk, fresh air came in through certain clefts, and because of this, spring was felt even more intensely in this small, stifling, moving box, than outside. The carriage kept turning now to the right, now to the left, now it seemed to turn back. At times it seemed as though they had been turning around on one and the same spot for hours for some reason or other. At first a bluish electric light penetrated through the lowered, heavy window shades; then suddenly, after a certain turn it grew dark, and only by this could they guess that they had turned into deserted streets in the outskirts of the city and that they were nearing the S. railroad station. Sometimes during sharp turns, Werners live, bent knee would strike against the live, bent knee of the gendarme, and it was hard to believe that the execution was approaching. Where are we going? Yanson asked suddenly. He was somewhat dizzy from the continuous turning of the dark box and he felt slightly sick at his stomach. Werner answered and pressed the Esthonians hand more firmly. He felt like saying something especially kind and caressing to this little, sleepy man, and he already loved him as he had never loved anyone in his life. You dont seem to sit comfortably, my dear man. Move over here, to me. Yanson was silent for awhile, then he replied Well, thank you. Im sitting all right. Are they going to hang you too? Yes, answered Werner, almost laughing with unexpected jollity, and he waved his hand easily and freely, as though he were speaking of some absurd and trifling joke which kind but terribly comical people wanted to play on him. Have you a wife? asked Yanson. No. I have no wife. I am single. I am also alone. Alone, said Yanson. Werners head also began to feel dizzy. And at times it seemed that they were going to some festival; strange to say, almost all those who went to the scaffold experienced the same sensation and mingled with sorrow and fear there was a vague joy as they anticipated the extraordinary thing that was soon to befall them. Reality was intoxicated with madness and Death, united with Life, brought forth apparitions. It seemed very possible that flags were waving over the houses. We have arrived! said Werner gayly when the carriage stopped, and he jumped out easily. But with Yanson it was a rather slow affair silently and very drowsily he resisted and would not come out. He seized the knob. The gendarme opened the weak fingers and pulled his hand away. Then Yanson seized the corner of the carriage, the door, the high wheel, but immediately let it go upon the slightest effort on the part of the gendarme. He did not exactly seize these things; he rather cleaved to each object sleepily and silently, and was torn away easily, without any effort. Finally he got up. There were no flags. The railroad station was dark, deserted and lifeless; the passenger trains were not running any longer, and the train which was silently waiting for these passengers on the way needed no bright light, no commotion. Suddenly Werner began to feel weary. It was not fear, nor anguish, but a feeling of enormous, painful, tormenting weariness which makes one feel like going off somewhere, lying down and closing ones eyes very tightly. Werner stretched himself and yawned slowly. Yanson also stretched himself and quickly yawned several times. I wish theyd be quicker about it, said Werner wearily. Yanson was silent, shrinking together. When the condemned moved along the deserted platform which was surrounded by soldiers, to the dimly lighted cars, Werner found himself near Sergey Golovin; Sergey, pointing with his hand somewhere aside, began to say something, but only the word lantern was heard distinctly, and the rest was drowned in slow and weary yawning. What did you say? asked Werner, also yawning. The lantern. The lamp in the lantern is smoking, said Sergey. Werner looked around. Indeed, the lamp in the lantern was smoking very much, and the glass had already turned black on top. Yes, it is smoking. Suddenly he thought What have I to do with the smoking of the lamp, since Sergey apparently thought the same, as he glanced quickly at Werner and turned away. But both stopped yawning. They all went to the cars themselves, only Yanson had to be led by the arms. At first he stamped his feet and his boots seemed to stick to the boards of the platform. Then he bent his knees and fell into the arms of the gendarmes, his feet dangled like those of a very intoxicated man, and the tips of the boots scraped against the wood. It took a long time until he was silently pushed through the door. Vasily Kashirin also moved himself, unconsciously imitating the movements of his comradeshe did everything as they did. But on boarding the platform of the car, he stumbled, and a gendarme took him by the elbow to support him. Vasily shuddered and screamed shrilly, drawing back his arm Ai! What is it, Vasya? Werner rushed over to him. Vasily was silent, trembling in every limb. The confused and even offended gendarme explained I wanted to keep him from falling, and he Come, Vasya, let me hold you, said Werner, about to take him by the arm. But Vasily drew back his arm again and cried more loudly than before Ai! Vasya, it is I, Werner. I know. Dont touch me. Ill go myself. And continuing to tremble he entered the car himself and seated himself in a corner. Bending over to Musya, Werner asked her softly, pointing with his eyes at Vasily How about him? Bad, answered Musya, also in a soft voice. He is dead already. Werner, tell me, is there such a thing as death? I dont know, Musya, but I think that there is no such thing, replied Werner seriously and thoughtfully. Thats what I have thought. But he? I was tortured with him in the carriageit was like riding with a corpse. I dont know, Musya. Perhaps there is such a thing as death for some people. Meanwhile, perhaps, but later there will be no death. For me death also existed before, but now it exists no longer. Musyas somewhat paled cheeks flushed as she asked It did exist, Werner? It did? It did. But not now any longer. Just the same as with you. A noise was heard in the doorway of the car. Mishka Tsiganok entered, stamping noisily with his heels, breathing loudly and spitting. He cast a swift glance and stopped obdurately. No room here, gendarme! he shouted to the tired gendarme who looked at him angrily. You make it so that I am comfortable here, otherwise I wont gohang me here on the lamppost. What a carriage they gave me, dogs! Is that a carriage? Its the devils belly, not a carriage! But suddenly he bent down his head, stretched out his neck and thus went forward to the others. Out of the disheveled frame of hair and beard his black eyes looked wildly and sharply with an almost insane expression. Ah, gentlemen! he drawled out. So thats what it is. Hello, master! He thrust his hand to Werner and sat down opposite him. And bending closely over to him, he winked one eye and quickly passed his hand over his throat. You, too? What? Yes! smiled Werner. Are all of us to be hanged? All. Oho! Tsiganok grinned, showing his teeth, and quickly felt everybody with his eyes, stopping for an instant longer on Musya and Yanson. Then he winked again to Werner. The Minister? Yes, the Minister. And you? I am here for something else, master. People like me dont deal with ministers. I am a murderer, master, thats what I am. An ordinary murderer. Never mind, master, move away a little, I havent come into your company of my own will. There will be room enough for all of us in the other world. He surveyed them all with one swift, suspicious, wild glance from under his disheveled hair. But all looked at him silently and seriously, even with apparent interest. He grinned, showing his teeth, and quickly clapped Werner on the knee several times. Thats the way, master! How does the song run? Dont rustle, O green little mother forest.... Why do you call me master, since we are all going Correct, Tsiganok agreed with satisfaction. What kind of master are you, if you are going to hang right beside me? There is a master for you; and he pointed with his finger at the silent gendarme. Eh, that fellow there is not worse than our kind; he pointed with his eyes at Vasily. Master! Eh there, master! Youre afraid, arent you? No, answered the heavy tongue. Never mind that No. Dont be ashamed; theres nothing to be ashamed of. Only a dog wags his tail and snarls when he is taken to be hanged, but you are a man. Who is that dope? He isnt one of you, is he? He darted his glance rapidly about, and hissing, kept spitting continuously. Yanson, curled up into a motionless bundle, pressed closely into the corner. The flaps of his outworn fur cap stirred, but he maintained silence. Werner answered for him He killed his employer. O Lord! wondered Tsiganok. Why are such people allowed to kill? For some time Tsiganok had been looking sideways at Musya; now turning quickly, he stared at her sharply, straight into her face. Young lady, young lady! What about you? Her cheeks are rosy and she is laughing. Look, she is really laughing, he said, clasping Werners knee with his clutching, ironlike fingers. Look, look! Reddening, smiling confusedly, Musya also gazed straight into his sharp and wildly searching eyes. The wheels rattled fast and noisily. The small cars kept hopping along the narrow rails. Now at a curve or at a crossing the small engine whistled shrilly and carefullythe engineer was afraid lest he might run over somebody. It was strange to think that so much humane painstaking care and exertion was being introduced into the business of hanging people; that the most insane deed on earth was being committed with such an air of simplicity and reasonableness. The cars were running, and human beings sat in them as people always do, and they rode as people usually ride; and then there would be a halt, as usual. The train will stop for five minutes. And there death would be waitingeternitythe great mystery. CHAPTER XII THEY ARE HANGED The little cars ran on carefully. Sergey Golovin at one time had lived for several years with his relatives at their countryhouse, along this very road. He had traveled upon it by day as well as by night, and he knew it well. He closed his eyes, and thought that he might now simply be returning homethat he had stayed out late in the city with acquaintances, and was now coming back on the last train. We will soon he there, he said, opening his eyes and looking out of the grated, mute window. Nobody stirred, nobody answered; only Tsiganok spat quickly several times and his eyes ran over the car, as though feeling the windows, the doors, the soldiers. Its cold, said Vasily Kashirin, his lips closed tightly, as though really frozen; and his words sounded strangely. Tanya Kovalchuk began to bustle about. Heres a handkerchief. Tie it about your neck. Its a very warm one. Around the neck? Sergey asked suddenly, startled by his own question. But as the same thing occurred to all of them, no one seemed to hear him. It was as if nothing had been said, or as if they had all said the same thing at the same time. Never mind, Vasya, tie it about your neck. It will be warmer, Werner advised him. Then he turned to Yanson and asked gently And you, friend, are you cold? Werner, perhaps he wants to smoke. Comrade, perhaps you would like to smoke? asked Musya. We have something to smoke. I do. Give him a cigarette, Seryozha, said Werner delightedly. But Sergey was already getting out a cigarette. All looked on with friendliness, watching how Yansons fingers took the cigarette, how the match flared, and then how the blue smoke issued from Yansons mouth. Thanks, said Yanson; its good. How strange! said Sergey. What is strange? Werner turned around. What is strange? I meanthe cigarette. Yanson held a cigarette, an ordinary cigarette, in his ordinary live hands, and, palefaced, looked at it with surprise, even with terror. And all fixed their eyes upon the little tube, from the end of which smoke was issuing, like a bluish ribbon, wafted aside by the breathing, with the ashes, gathering, turning black. The light went out. The lights out, said Tanya. Yes, the lights out. Let it go, said Werner, frowning, looking uneasily at Yanson, whose hand, holding the cigarette, was hanging loosely, as if dead. Suddenly Tsiganok turned quickly, bent over to Werner, close to him, face to face, and rolling the whites of his eyes, like a horse, whispered Master, how about the convoys? Suppose weeh? Shall we try? No, dont do it, Werner replied, also in a whisper. We shall drink it to the bitter end. Why not? Its livelier in a fight! Eh? I strike him, he strikes me, and you dont even know how the thing is done. Its just as if you dont die at all. No, you shouldnt do it, said Werner, and turned to Yanson. Why dont you smoke, friend? Suddenly Yansons wizened face became wofully wrinkled, as if somebody had pulled strings which set all the wrinkles in motion. And, as in a dream, he began to whimper, without tears, in a dry, strained voice I dont want to smoke. Aha! aha! aha! Why should I be hanged? Aha! aha! aha! They began to bustle about him. Tanya Kovalchuk, weeping freely, petted him on the arm, and adjusted the drooping earlaps of his worn fur cap. My dear, do not cry! My own! my dear! Poor, unfortunate little fellow! Musya looked aside. Tsiganok caught her glance and grinned, showing his teeth. What a queer fellow! He drinks tea, and yet feels cold, he said, with an abrupt laugh. But suddenly his own face became bluishblack, like castiron, and his large yellow teeth flashed. Suddenly the little cars trembled and slackened their speed. All, except Yanson and Kashirin, rose and sat down again quickly. Here is the station, said Sergey. It seemed to them as if all the air had been suddenly pumped out of the car, it became so difficult to breathe. The heart grew larger, making the chest almost burst, beating in the throat, tossing about madlyshouting in horror with its bloodfilled voice. And the eyes looked upon the quivering floor, and the ears heard how the wheels were turning ever more slowlythe wheels slipped and turned again, and then suddenlythey stopped. The train had halted. Then a dream set in. It was not terrible, rather fantastic, unfamiliar to the memory, strange. The dreamer himself seemed to remain aside, only his bodiless apparition moved about, spoke soundlessly, walked noiselessly, suffered without suffering. As in a dream, they walked out of the car, formed into parties of two, inhaled the peculiarly fresh spring air of the forest.
As in a dream, Yanson resisted bluntly, powerlessly, and was dragged out of the car silently. They descended the steps of the station. Are we to walk? asked some one almost cheerily. It isnt far now, answered another, also cheerily. Then they walked in a large, black, silent crowd amid the forest, along a rough, wet and soft spring road. From the forest, from the snow, a fresh, strong breath of air was wafted. The feet slipped, sometimes sinking into the snow, and involuntarily the hands of the comrades clung to each other. And the convoys, breathing with difficulty, walked over the untouched snow on each side of the road. Some one said in an angry voice Why didnt they clear the road? Did they want us to turn somersaults in the snow? Some one else apologized guiltily. We cleaned it, your Honor. But it is thawing and it cant be helped. Consciousness of what they were doing returned to the prisoners, but not completely,in fragments, in strange parts. Now, suddenly, their minds practically admitted It is indeed impossible to clear the road. Then again everything died out, and only their sense of smell remained the unbearably fresh smell of the forest and of the melting snow. And everything became unusually clear to the consciousness the forest, the night, the road and the fact that soon they would be hanged. Their conversation, restrained to whispers, flashed in fragments. It is almost four oclock. I said we started too early. The sun dawns at five. Of course, at five. We should have They stopped in a meadow, in the darkness. A little distance away, beyond the bare trees, two small lanterns moved silently. There were the gallows. I lost one of my rubbers, said Sergey Golovin. Really? asked Werner, not understanding what he said. I lost a rubber. Its cold. Wheres Vasily? I dont know. There he is. Vasily stood, gloomy, motionless. And where is Musya? Here I am. Is that you, Werner? They began to look about, avoiding the direction of the gallows, where the lanterns continued to move about silently with terrible suggestiveness. On the left, the bare forest seemed to be growing thinner, and something large and white and flat was visible. A damp wind issued from it. The sea, said Sergey Golovin, inhaling the air with nose and mouth. The sea is there! Musya answered sonorously My love which is as broad as the sea! What is that, Musya? The banks of life cannot hold my love, which is as broad as the sea. My love which is as broad as the sea, echoed Sergey, thoughtfully, carried away by the sound of her voice and by her words. My love which is as broad as the sea, repeated Werner, and suddenly he spoke wonderingly, cheerfully Musya, how young you are! Suddenly Tsiganok whispered warmly, out of breath, right into Werners ear Master! master! Theres the forest! My God! whats that? Therewhere the lanterns areare those the gallows? What does it mean? Werner looked at him. Tsiganok was writhing in agony before his death. We must bid each other goodby, said Tanya Kovalchuk. Wait, they have yet to read the sentence, answered Werner. Where is Yanson? Yanson was lying on the snow, and about him people were busying themselves. There was a smell of ammonia in the air. Well, what is it, doctor? Will you be through soon? some one asked impatiently. Its nothing. He has simply fainted. Rub his ears with snow! He is coming to himself already! You may read the sentence! The light of the dark lantern flashed upon the paper and on the white, gloveless hands holding it. Both the paper and the hands quivered slightly, and the voice also quivered Gentlemen, perhaps it is not necessary to read the sentence to you. You know it already. What do you say? Dont read it, Werner answered for them all, and the little lantern was soon extinguished. The services of the priest were also declined by them all. Tsiganok said Stop your fooling, fatheryou will forgive me, but they will hang me. Go towhere you came from. And the dark, broad silhouette of the priest moved back silently and quickly and disappeared. Day was breaking the snow turned whiter, the figures of the people became more distinct, and the forestthinner, more melancholy. Gentlemen, you must go in pairs. Take your places in pairs as you wish, but I ask you to hurry up. Werner pointed to Yanson, who was now standing, supported by two gendarmes. I will go with him. And you, Seryozha, take Vasily. Go ahead. Very well. You and I go together, Musechka, shall we not? asked Tanya Kovalchuk. Come, let us kiss each other goodby. They kissed one another quickly. Tsiganok kissed firmly, so that they felt his teeth; Yanson softly, drowsily, with his mouth half openand it seemed that he did not understand what he was doing. When Sergey Golovin and Kashirin had gone a few steps, Kashirin suddenly stopped and said loudly and distinctly Goodby, comrades. Goodby, comrade, they shouted in answer. They went off. It grew quiet. The lanterns beyond the trees became motionless. They awaited an outcry, a voice, some kind of noisebut it was just as quiet there as it was among themand the yellow lanterns were motionless. Oh, my God! some one cried hoarsely and wildly. They looked about. It was Tsiganok, writhing in agony at the thought of death. They are hanging! They turned away from him, and again it became quiet. Tsiganok was writhing, catching at the air with his hands. How is that, gentlemen? Am I to go alone? Its livelier to die together. Gentlemen, what does it mean? He seized Werner by the hand, his fingers clutching and then relaxing. Dear master, at least you come with me? Eh? Do me the favor? Dont refuse. Werner answered painfully I cant, my dear fellow. I am going with him. Oh, my God! Must I go alone, then? My God! How is it to be? Musya stepped forward and said softly You may go with me. Tsiganok stepped back and rolled the whites of his eyes wildly. With you! Yes. Just think of her! What a little girl! And youre not afraid? If you are, I would rather go alone! No, I am not afraid. Tsiganok grinned. Just think of her! But do you know that I am a murderer? Dont you despise me? You had better not do it. I shant be angry at you. Musya was silent, and in the faint light of dawn her face was pale and enigmatic. Then suddenly she walked over to Tsiganok quickly, and, throwing her arms about his neck, kissed him firmly upon his lips. He took her by the shoulders with his fingers, held her away from himself, then shook her, and, with loud smacks, kissed her on the lips, on the nose, on the eyes. Come! Suddenly the soldier standing nearest them staggered forward, and opening his hands, let his gun drop. He did not stoop down to regain it, but stood for an instant motionless, turned abruptly and, like a blind man, walked toward the forest over the untouched snow. Where are you going? called out another soldier in fright. Halt! But the man continued walking through the deep snow silently and with difficulty. Then he must have stumbled over something, for he waved his arms and fell face downward. And there he remained lying on the snow. Pick up the gun, you sourfaced graycoat, or Ill pick it up, said Tsiganok sternly to the other soldier. You dont know your business! The little lanterns began to move about busily again. Now it was the turn of Werner and Yanson. Goodby, master! called Tsiganok loudly. Well meet each other in the other world, youll see! Dont turn away from me. When you see me, bring me some water to drinkit will be hot there for me! Goodby! I dont want to be hanged! said Yanson drowsily. Werner took him by the hand, and then the Esthonian walked a few steps alone. But later they saw him stop and fall down in the snow. Soldiers bent over him, lifted him up and carried him on, and he struggled faintly in their arms. Why did he not cry? He must have forgotten even that he had a voice. And again the little yellow lanterns became motionless. And I, Musechka, said Tanya Kovalchuk mournfully, must I go alone? We lived together, and now Tanechka, dearest But Tsiganok took her part heatedly. Holding her by the hand, as though fearing that some one would take her away from him, he said quickly, in a businesslike manner, to Tanya Ah, young lady, you can go alone! You are a pure soulyou can go alone wherever you please! But II cant! A murderer!... Understand? I cant go alone! Where are you going, you murderer? they will ask me. Why, I even stole horses, by God! But with her it is just as ifjust as if I were with an infant, understand? Do you understand me? I do. Go. Come, let me kiss you once more, Musechka. Kiss! Kiss each other! urged Tsiganok. Thats a womans job! You must bid each other a hearty goodby! Musya and Tsiganok moved forward. Musya walked cautiously, slipping, and by force of habit raising her skirts slightly. And the man led her to death firmly, holding her arm carefully and feeling the ground with his foot. The lights stopped moving. It was quiet and lonely around Tanya Kovalchuk. The soldiers were silent, all gray in the soft, colorless light of daybreak. I am alone, sighed Tanya Kovalchuk suddenly. Seryozha is dead, Werner is deadand Vasya, too. I am alone! Soldiers! soldiers! I am alone, alone The sun was rising over the sea. The bodies were placed in a box. Then they were taken away. With stretched necks, with bulging eyes, with blue, swollen tongues, looking like some unknown, terrible flowers between the lips, which were covered with bloody foamthe bodies were hurried back along the same road by which they had comealive. And the spring snow was just as soft and fresh; the spring air was just as strong and fragrant. And on the snow lay Sergeys black rubbershoe, wet, trampled under foot. Thus did men greet the rising sun. THE END END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED Updated editions will replace the previous onethe old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG concept and trademark. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The GhostSeer; or the Apparitionist; and Sport of Destiny This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title The GhostSeer; or the Apparitionist; and Sport of Destiny Author Friedrich Schiller Release date December 8, 2004 [eBook 6781] Most recently updated January 27, 2021 Language English Credits Produced by David Widger START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GHOSTSEER; OR THE APPARITIONIST; AND SPORT OF DESTINY THE GHOSTSEER; OR, APPARITIONIST. AND SPORT OF DESTINY CONTENTS BOOK I BOOK II. LETTER I. LETTER II. LETTER III. LETTER IV. LETTER V. LETTER VI. LETTER VII. LETTER VIII. LETTER IX. LETTER X. BOOK I. FROM THE PAPERS OF COUNT O I am about to relate an adventure which to many will appear incredible, but of which I was in great part an eyewitness. The few who are acquainted with a certain political event will, if indeed these pages should happen to find them alive, receive a welcome solution thereof. And, even to the rest of my readers, it will be, perhaps, important as a contribution to the history of the deception and aberrations of the human intellect. The boldness of the schemes which malice is able to contemplate and to carry out must excite astonishment, as must also the means of which it can avail itself to accomplish its aims. Clear, unvarnished truth shall guide my pen; for, when these pages come before the public, I shall be no more, and shall therefore never learn their fate. On my return to Courland in the year 17, about the time of the Carnival, I visited the Prince of at Venice. We had been acquainted in the service, and we here renewed an intimacy which, by the restoration of peace, had been interrupted. As I wished to see the curiosities of this city, and as the prince was waiting only for the arrival of remittances to return to his native country, he easily prevailed on me to tarry till his departure. We agreed not to separate during the time of our residence at Venice, and the prince was kind enough to accommodate me at his lodgings at the Moor Hotel. As the prince wished to enjoy himself, and his small revenues did not permit him to maintain the dignity of his rank, he lived at Venice in the strictest incognito. Two noblemen, in whom he had entire confidence, and a few faithful servants, composed all his retinue. He shunned expenditure, more however from inclination than economy. He avoided all kinds of dissipation, and up to the age of thirtyfive years had resisted the numerous allurements of this voluptuous city. To the charms of the fair sex he was wholly indifferent. A settled gravity and an enthusiastic melancholy were the prominent features of his character. His affections were tranquil, but obstinate to excess. He formed his attachments with caution and timidity, but when once formed they were cordial and permanent. In the midst of a tumultuous crowd he walked in solitude. Wrapped in his own visionary ideas, he was often a stranger to the world about him; and, sensible of his own deficiency in the knowledge of mankind, he scarcely ever ventured an opinion of his own, and was apt to pay an unwarrantable deference to the judgment of others. Though far from being weak, no man was more liable to be governed; but, when conviction had once entered his mind, he became firm and decisive; equally courageous to combat an acknowledged prejudice or to die for a new one. As he was the third prince of his house, he had no likely prospect of succeeding to the sovereignty. His ambition had never been awakened; his passions had taken another direction. Contented to find himself independent of the will of others, he never enforced his own as a law; his utmost wishes did not soar beyond the peaceful quietude of a private life, free from care. He read much, but without discrimination. As his education had been neglected, and, as he had early entered the career of arms, his understanding had never been fully matured. Hence the knowledge he afterwards acquired served but to increase the chaos of his ideas, because it was built on an unstable foundation. He was a Protestant, as all his family had been, by birth, but not by investigation, which he had never attempted, although at one period of his life he had been an enthusiast in its cause. He had never, so far as came to my knowledge, been a freemason. One evening we were, as usual, walking by ourselves, well masked in the square of St. Mark. It was growing late, and the crowd was dispersing, when the prince observed a mask which followed us everywhere. This mask was an Armenian, and walked alone. We quickened our steps, and endeavored to baffle him by repeatedly altering our course. It was in vain, the mask was always close behind us. You have had no intrigue here, I hope, said the prince at last, the husbands of Venice are dangerous. I do not know a single lady in the place, was my answer. Let us sit down here, and speak German, said he; I fancy we are mistaken for some other persons. We sat down upon a stone bench, and expected the mask would have passed by. He came directly up to us, and took his seat by the side of the prince. The latter took out his watch, and, rising at the same time, addressed me thus in a loud voice in French, It is past nine. Come, we forget that we are waited for at the Louvre. This speech he only invented in order to deceive the mask as to our route. Nine! repeated the latter in the same language, in a slow and expressive voice, Congratulate yourself, my prince (calling him by his real name); he died at nine. In saying this, he rose and went away. We looked at each other in amazement. Who is dead? said the prince at length, after a long silence. Let us follow him, replied I, and demand an explanation. We searched every corner of the place; the mask was nowhere to be found. We returned to our hotel disappointed. The prince spoke not a word to me the whole way; he walked apart by himself, and appeared to be greatly agitated, which he afterwards confessed to me was the case. Having reached home, he began at length to speak Is it not laughable, said he, that a madman should have the power thus to disturb a mans tranquillity by two or three words? We wished each other a goodnight; and, as soon as I was in my own apartment, I noted down in my pocketbook the day and the hour when this adventure happened. It was on a Thursday. The next evening the prince said to me, Suppose we go to the square of St. Mark, and seek for our mysterious Armenian. I long to see this comedy unravelled. I consented. We walked in the square till eleven. The Armenian was nowhere to be seen. We repeated our walk the four following evenings, and each time with the same bad success. On the sixth evening, as we went out of the hotel, it occurred to me, whether designedly or otherwise I cannot recollect, to tell the servants where we might be found in case we should be inquired for. The prince remarked my precaution, and approved of it with a smile. We found the square of St. Mark very much crowded. Scarcely had we advanced thirty steps when I perceived the Armenian, who was pressing rapidly through the crowd, and seemed to be in search of some one. We were just approaching him, when Baron F, one of the princes retinue, came up to us quite breathless, and delivered to the prince a letter. It is sealed with black, said he, and we supposed from this that it might contain matters of importance. I was struck as with a thunderbolt. The prince went near a torch, and began to read. My cousin is dead! exclaimed he. When? inquired I anxiously, interrupting him. He looked again into the letter. Last Thursday night at nine. We had not recovered from our surprise when the Armenian stood before us. You are known here, my prince! said he. Hasten to your hotel. You will find there the deputies from the Senate. Do not hesitate to accept the honor they intend to offer you. Baron Iforgot to tell you that your remittances are arrived. He disappeared among the crowd. We hastened to our hotel, and found everything as the Armenian had told us. Three noblemen of the republic were waiting to pay their respects to the prince, and to escort him in state to the Assembly, where the first nobility of the city were ready to receive him. He had hardly time enough to give me a hint to sit up for him till his return. About eleven oclock at night he returned. On entering the room he appeared grave and thoughtful. Having dismissed the servants, he took me by the hand, and said, in the words of Hamlet, Count There are more things in heavn and earth, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Gracious prince! replied I, you seem to forget that you are retiring to your pillow greatly enriched in prospect. The deceased was the hereditary prince. Do not remind me of it, said the prince; for should I even have acquired a crown I am now too much engaged to occupy myself with such a trifle. If that Armenian has not merely guessed by chance How can that be, my prince? interrupted I. Then will I resign to you all my hopes of royalty in exchange for a monks cowl. I have mentioned this purposely to show how far every ambitious idea was then distant from his thoughts. The following evening we went earlier than usual to the square of St. Mark. A sudden shower of rain obliged us to take shelter in a coffeehouse, where we found a party engaged at cards. The prince took his place behind the chair of a Spaniard to observe the game. I went into an adjacent chamber to read the newspapers. A short time afterwards I heard a noise in the cardroom. Previously to the entrance of the prince the Spaniard had been constantly losing, but since then he had won upon every card. The fortune of the game was reversed in a striking manner, and the bank was in danger of being challenged by the pointeur, whom this lucky change of fortune had rendered more adventurous. A Venetian, who kept the bank, told the prince in a very rude manner that his presence interrupted the fortune of the game, and desired him to quit the table. The latter looked coldly at him, remained in his place, and preserved the same countenance, when the Venetian repeated his insulting demand in French. He thought the prince understood neither French nor Italian; and, addressing himself with a contemptuous laugh to the company, said Pray, gentlemen, tell me how I must make myself understood to this fool. At the same time he rose and prepared to seize the prince by the arm. His patience forsook the latter; he grasped the Venetian with a strong hand, and threw him violently on the ground. The company rose up in confusion. Hearing the noise, I hastily entered the room, and unguardedly called the prince by his name. Take care, said I, imprudently; we are in Venice. The name of the prince caused a general silence, which ended in a whispering which appeared to me to have a dangerous tendency. All the Italians present divided into parties, and kept aloof. One after the other left the room, so that we soon found ourselves alone with the Spaniard and a few Frenchmen. You are lost, prince, said they, if you do not leave the city immediately. The Venetian whom you have handled so roughly is rich enough to hire a bravo. It costs him but fifty zechins to be revenged by your death. The Spaniard offered, for the security of the prince, to go for the guards, and even to accompany us home himself. The Frenchmen proposed to do the same. We were still deliberating what to do when the doors suddenly opened, and some officers of the Inquisition entered the room. They produced an order of government, which charged us both to follow them immediately. They conducted us under a strong escort to the canal, where a gondola was waiting for us, in which we were ordered to embark. We were blindfolded before we landed. They led us up a large stone staircase, and through a long, winding passage, over vaults, as I judged from the echoes that resounded under our feet. At length we came to another staircase, and, having descended a flight of steps, we entered a hall, where the bandage was removed from our eyes. We found ourselves in a circle of venerable old men, all dressed in black; the hall was hung round with black and dimly lighted. A dead silence reigned in the assembly, which inspired us with a feeling of awe. One of the old men, who appeared to be the principal Inquisitor, approached the prince with a solemn countenance, and said, pointing to the Venetian, who was led forward Do you recognize this man as the same who offended you at the coffeehouse? I do, answered the prince. Then addressing the prisoner Is this the same person whom you meant to have assassinated tonight? The prisoner replied, Yes. In the same instant the circle opened, and we saw with horror the head of the Venetian severed from his body. Are you content with this satisfaction? said the Inquisitor. The prince had fainted in the arms of his attendants. Go, added the Inquisitor, turning to me, with a terrible voice, Go; and in future judge less hastily of the administration of justice in Venice. Who the unknown friend was who had thus saved us from inevitable death, by interposing in our behalf the active arm of justice, we could not conjecture. Filled with terror we reached our hotel. It was past midnight. The chamberlain, Z, was waiting anxiously for us at the door. How fortunate it was that you sent us a message, said he to the prince, as he lighted us up the staircase. The news which Baron F soon after brought us respecting you from the square of St. Mark would otherwise have given us the greatest uneasiness. I sent you a message! said the prince. When? I know nothing of it. This evening, after eight, you sent us word that we must not be alarmed if you should come home later tonight than usual. The prince looked at me. Perhaps you have taken this precaution without mentioning it to me. I knew nothing of it. It must be so, however, replied the chamberlain, since here is your repeatingwatch, which you sent me as a mark of authenticity. The prince put his hand to his watchpocket. It was empty, and he recognized the watch which the chamberlain held as his own. Who brought it? said he, in amazement. An unknown mask, in an Armenian dress, who disappeared immediately. We stood looking at each other. What do you think of this? said the prince at last, after a long silence. I have a secret guardian here in Venice. The frightful transaction of this night threw the prince into a fever, which confined him to his room for a week. During this time our hotel was crowded with Venetians and strangers, who visited the prince from a deference to his newlydiscovered rank. They vied with each other in offers of service, and it was not a little entertaining to observe that the last visitor seldom failed to hint some suspicion derogatory to the character of the preceding one. Billetsdoux and nostrums poured in upon us from all quarters. Every one endeavored to recommend himself in his own way. Our adventure with the Inquisition was no more mentioned. The court of , wishing the prince to delay his departure from Venice for some time, orders were sent to several bankers to pay him considerable sums of money. He was thus, against his will, compelled to protract his residence in Italy; and at his request I also resolved to postpone my departure for some time longer. As soon as the prince had recovered strength enough to quit his chamber he was advised by his physician to take an airing in a gondola upon the Brenta, for the benefit of the air, to which, as the weather was serene, he readily consented. Just as the prince was about to step into the boat he missed the key of a little chest in which some very valuable papers were enclosed.. We immediately turned back to search for it. He very distinctly remembered that he had locked the chest the day before, and he had never left the room in the interval. As our endeavors to find it proved ineffectual, we were obliged to relinquish the search in order to avoid being too late. The prince, whose soul was above suspicion, gave up the key as lost, and desired that it might not be mentioned any more. Our little voyage was exceedingly delightful. A picturesque country, which at every winding of the river seemed to increase in richness and beauty; the serenity of the sky, which formed a May day in the middle of February; the charming gardens and elegant countryseats which adorned the banks of the Brenta; the maestic city of Venice behind us, with its lofty spires, and a forest of masts, rising as it were out of the waves; all this afforded us one of the most splendid prospects in the world. We wholly abandoned ourselves to the enchantment of Natures luxuriant scenery; our minds shared the hilarity of the day; even the prince himself lost his wonted gravity, and vied with us in merry jests and diversions. On landing about two Italian miles from the city we heard the sound of sprightly music; it came from a small village at a little distance from the Brenta, where there was at that time a fair. The place was crowded with company of every description. A troop of young girls and boys, dressed in theatrical habits, welcomed us in a pantomimical dance. The invention was novel; animation and grace attended their every movement. Before the dance was quite concluded the principal actress, who represented a queen, stopped suddenly, as if arrested by an invisible arm. Herself and those around her were motionless. The music ceased. The assembly was silent. Not a breath was to be heard, and the queen stood with her eyes fixed on the ground in deep abstraction. On a sudden she started from her reverie with the fury of one inspired, and looked wildly around her. A king is among us, she exclaimed, taking her crown from her head, and laying it at the feet of the prince. Every one present cast their eyes upon him, and doubted for some time whether there was any meaning in this farce; so much were they deceived by the impressive seriousness of the actress. This silence was at length broken by a general clapping of hands, as a mark of approbation. I looked at the prince. I noticed that he appeared not a little disconcerted, and endeavored to escape the inquisitive glances of the spectators. He threw money to the players, and hastened to extricate himself from the crowd. We had advanced but a few steps when a venerable barefooted friar, pressing through the crowd, placed himself in the princes path. My lord, said he, give the holy Virgin part of your gold. You will want her prayers. He uttered these words in a tone of voice which startled us extremely, and then disappeared in the throng. In the meantime our company had increased. An English lord, whom the prince had seen before at Nice, some merchants of Leghorn, a German prebendary, a French abbe with some ladies, and a Russian officer, attached themselves to our party. The physiognomy of the latter had something so uncommon as to attract our particular attention. Never in my life did I see such various features and so little expression; so much attractive benevolence and such forbidding coldness in the same face. Each passion seemed by turns to have exercised its ravages on it, and to have successively abandoned it. Nothing remained but the calm, piercing look of a person deeply skilled in the knowledge of mankind; but it was a look that abashed every one on whom it was directed. This extraordinary man followed us at a distance, and seemed apparently to take but little interest in what was passing. We came to a booth where there was a lottery. The ladies bought shares. We followed their example, and the prince himself purchased a ticket. He won a snuffbox. As he opened it I saw him turn pale and start back. It contained his lost key. How is this? said he to me, as we were left for a moment alone. A superior power attends me, omniscience surrounds me. An invisible being, whom I cannot escape, watches over my steps. I must seek for the Armenian, and obtain an explanation from him. The sun was setting when we arrived at the pleasurehouse, where a supper had been prepared for us. The princes name had augmented our company to sixteen. Besides the abovementioned persons there was a virtuoso from Rome, several Swiss gentlemen, and an adventurer from Palermo in regimentals, who gave himself out for a captain. We resolved to spend the evening where we were, and to return home by torchlight. The conversation at table was lively. The prince could not forbear relating his adventure of the key, which excited general astonishment. A warm dispute on the subject presently took place. Most of the company positively maintained that the pretended occult sciences were nothing better than juggling tricks. The French abbe, who had drank rather too much wine, challenged the whole tribe of ghosts, the English lord uttered blasphemies, and the musician made a cross to exorcise the devil. Some few of the company, amongst whom was the prince, contended that opinions respecting such matters ought to be kept to oneself. In the meantime the Russian officer discoursed with the ladies, and did not seem to pay attention to any part of conversation. In the heat of the dispute no one observed that the Sicilian had left the room. In less than half an hour he returned wrapped in a cloak, and placed himself behind the chair of the Frenchman. A few moments ago, said he, you had the temerity to challenge the whole tribe of ghosts. Would you wish to make a trial with one of them? I will, answered the abbe, if you will take upon yourself to introduce one. That I am ready to do, replied the Sicilian, turning to us, as soon as these ladies and gentlemen have left us. Why only then? exclaimed the Englishman. A courageous ghost will surely not be afraid of a cheerful company. I would not answer for the consequences, said the Sicilian. For heavens sake, no! cried the ladies, starting affrighted from their chairs. Call your ghost, said the abbe, in a tone of defiance, but warn him beforehand that there are sharppointed weapons here. At the same time he asked one of the company for a sword. If you preserve the same intention in his presence, answered the Sicilian, coolly, you may then act as you please. He then turned towards the prince Your highness, said he, asserts that your key has been in the hands of a stranger; can you conjecture in whose? No Have you no suspicion? It certainly occurred to me that Should you know the person if you saw him? Undoubtedly. The Sicilian, throwing back his cloak, took out a lookingglass and held it before the prince. Is this the man? The prince drew back with affright. Whom have you seen? I inquired. The Armenian. The Sicilian concealed his lookingglass under his cloak. Is it the person whom you thought of? demanded the whole company. The same. A sudden change manifested itself on every face; no more laughter was to be heard. All eyes were fixed with curiosity on the Sicilian. Monsieur lAbbe! The matter grows serious, said the Englishman. I advise you to think of beating a retreat. The fellow is in league with the devil, exclaimed the Frenchman, and rushed out of the house. The ladies ran shrieking from the room. The virtuoso followed them. The German prebendary was snoring in a chair. The Russian officer continued sitting in his place as before, perfectly indifferent to what was passing. Perhaps your attention was only to raise a laugh at the expense of that boaster, said the prince, after they were gone, or would you indeed fulfil your promise to us? It is true, replied the Sicilian; I was but jesting with the abbe. I took him at his word, because I knew very well that the coward would not suffer me to proceed to extremities. The matter itself is, however, too serious to serve merely as a jest. You grant, then, that it is in your power? The sorcerer maintained a long silence, and kept his look fixed steadily on the prince, as if to examine him. It is! answered he at last. The princes curiosity was now raised to the highest pitch. A fondness for the marvellous had ever been his prevailing weakness. His improved understanding and a proper course of reading had for some time dissipated every idea of this kind; but the appearance of the Armenian had revived them. He stepped aside with the Sicilian, and I heard them in very earnest conversation. You see in me, said the prince, a man who burns with impatience to be convinced on this momentous subject. I would embrace as a benefactor, I would cherish as my best friend him who could dissipate my doubts and remove the veil from my eyes. Would you render me this important service? What is your request! inquired the Sicilian, hesitating. For the present I only beg some proof of your art. Let me see an apparition. To what will this lead? After a more intimate acquaintance with me you may be able to judge whether I deserve further instruction. I have the greatest esteem for your highness, gracious prince. A secret power in your countenance, of which you yourself are as yet ignorant, drew me at first sight irresistibly towards you. You are more powerful than you are yourself aware. You may command me to the utmost extent of my power, but Then let me see an apparition. But I must first be certain that you do not require it from mere curiosity. Though the invisible powers are in some degree at my command, it is on the sacred condition that I do not abuse my authority. My intentions are most pure. I want truth. They left their places, and removed to a distant window, where I could no longer hear them. The English lord, who had likewise overheard this conversation, took me aside. Your prince has a noble mind. I am sorry for him. I will pledge my salvation that he has to do with a rascal. Everything depends on the manner in which the sorcerer will extricate himself from this business. Listen to me. The poor devil is now pretending to be scrupulous. He will not show his tricks unless he hears the sound of gold. There are nine of us. Let us make a collection. That will spoil his scheme, and perhaps open the eyes of the prince. I am content. The Englishman threw six guineas upon a plate, and went round gathering subscriptions. Each of us contributed some louisdors. The Russian officer was particularly pleased with our proposal; he laid a banknote of one hundred zechins on the plate, a piece of extravagance which startled the Englishman. We brought the collection to the prince. Be so kind, said the English lord, as to entreat this gentleman in our names to let us see a specimen of his art, and to accept of this small token of our gratitude. The prince added a ring of value, and offered the whole to the Sicilian. He hesitated a few moments. Gentlemen, answered he, I am humbled by this generosity, but I yield to your request. Your wishes shall be gratified. At the same time he rang the bell. As for this money, continued he, to which I have no right myself, permit me to send it to the next monastery to be applied to pious uses. I shall only keep this ring as a precious memorial of the worthiest of princes. Here the landlord entered; and the Sicilian handed him over the money. He is a rascal notwithstanding, whispered the Englishman to me. He refuses the money because at present his designs are chiefly on the prince. Whom do you wish to see? asked the sorcerer. The prince considered for a moment. We may as well have a great man at once, said the Englishman. Ask for Pope Ganganelli. It can make no difference to this gentleman. The Sicilian bit his lips. I dare not call one of the Lords anointed. That is a pity! replied the English lord; perhaps we might have heard from him what disorder he died of. The Marquis de Lanoy, began the prince, was a French brigadier in the late war, and my most intimate friend. Having received a mortal wound in the battle of Hastinbeck, he was carried to my tent, where he soon after died in my arms. In his last agony he made a sign for me to approach. Prince, said he to me, I shall never again behold my native land. I must, therefore, acquaint you with a secret known to none but myself. In a convent on the frontiers of Flanders lives a He expired. Death cut short the thread of his discourse. I wish to see my friend to hear the remainder. You ask much, exclaimed the Englishman, with an oath. I proclaim you the greatest sorcerer on earth if you can solve this problem, continued he, turning to the Sicilian. We admired the wise choice of the prince, and unanimously gave our approval to the proposition. In the meantime the sorcerer paced up and down the room with hasty steps, apparently struggling with himself. This was all that the dying marquis communicated to you? It is all. Did you make no further inquiries about the matter in his native country? I did, but they all proved fruitless. Had the Marquis de Lanoy led an irreproachable life? I dare not call up every shade indiscriminately. He died, repenting the excesses of his youth. Do you carry with you any token of his! I do. (The prince had really a snuffbox with the marquis portrait enamelled in miniature on the lid, which he had placed upon the table near his plate during the time of supper.) I do not want to know what it is. If you will leave me you shall see the deceased. He requested us to wait in the other pavilion until he should call us. At the same time he caused all the furniture to be removed from the room, the windows to be taken out, and the shutters to be bolted. He ordered the innkeeper, with whom he appeared to be intimately connected, to bring a vessel with burning coals, and carefully to extinguish every fire in the house. Previous to our leaving the room he obliged us separately to pledge our honor that we would maintain an everlasting silence respecting everything we should see and hear. All the doors of the pavilion we were in were bolted behind us when we left it. It was past eleven, and a dead silence reigned throughout the whole house. As we were retiring from the saloon the Russian officer asked me whether we had loaded pistols. For what purpose? asked I. They may possibly be of some use, replied he. Wait a moment. I will provide some. He went away. The Baron F and I opened a window opposite the pavilion we had left. We fancied we heard two persons whispering to each other, and a noise like that of a ladder applied to one of the windows. This was, however, a mere conjecture, and I did not dare affirm it as a fact. The Russian officer came back with a brace of pistols, after having been absent about half an hour. We saw him load them with powder and ball. It was almost two oclock in the morning when the sorcerer came and announced that all was prepared. Before we entered the room he desired us to take off our shoes, and to appear in our shirts, stockings, and undergarments. He bolted the doors after us as before. We found in the middle of the room a large, black circle, drawn with charcoal, the space within which was capable of containing us all very easily. The planks of the chamber floor next to the wall were taken up all round the room, so that we stood as it were upon an island. An altar covered with black cloth was placed in the centre upon a carpet of red satin. A Chaldee Bible was laid open, together with a skull; and a silver crucifix was fastened upon the altar. Instead of candles some spirits of wine were burning in a silver vessel. A thick smoke of frankincense darkened the room and almost extinguished the lights.
The sorcerer was undressed like ourselves, but barefooted; about his bare neck he wore an amulet, suspended by a chain of human hair; round his middle was a white apron marked with cabalistic characters and symbolical figures. [Amulet is a charm or preservative against mischief, witchcraft, or diseases. Amulets were made of stone metal, simples, animals, and everything which fancy or caprice suggested; and sometimes they consisted of words, characters, and sentences ranged in a particular order and engraved upon wood, and worn about the neck or some other part of the body. At other times they were neither written nor engraved, but prepared with many superstitious ceremonies, great regard being usually paid to the influence of the stars. The Arabians have given to this species of amulets the name of talismans. All nations have been fond of amulets. The Jews were extremely superstitious in the use of them to drive away diseases; and even amongst the Christians of the early times amulets were made of the wood of the cross or ribbons, with a text of Scripture written on them, as preservatives against diseases.] He desired us to join hands and to observe profound silence; above all he ordered us not to ask the apparition any question. He desired the Englishman and myself, whom he seemed to distrust the most, constantly to hold two naked swords crossways an inch above his head as long as the conjuration should last. We formed a halfmoon round him; the Russian officer placed himself close to the English lord, and was the nearest to the altar. The sorcerer stood upon the satin carpet with his face turned to the east. He sprinkled holy water in the direction of the four cardinal points of the compass, and bowed three times before the Bible. The formula of the conjuration, of which we did not understand a word, lasted for the space of seven or eight minutes, at the end of which he made a sign to those who stood close behind to seize him firmly by the hair. Amid the most violent convulsions he called the deceased three times by his name, and the third time he stretched forth his hand towards the crucifix. On a sudden we all felt at the same instant a stroke as of a flash of lightning, so powerful that it obliged us to quit each others hands; a terrible thunder shook the house; the locks jarred; the doors creaked; the cover of the silver box fell down and extinguished the light; and on the opposite wall over the chimneypiece appeared a human figure in a bloody shirt, with the paleness of death on its countenance. Who calls me? said a hollow, hardly intelligible voice. Thy friend, answered the sorcerer, who respects thy memory, and prays for thy soul. He named the prince. The answers of the apparition were always given at very long intervals. What does he want with me? continued the voice. He wants to hear the remainder of the confession which then had begun to impart to him in thy dying hour, but did not finish. In a convent on the frontiers of Flanders lives a The house again trembled; a dreadful thunder rolled; a flash of lightning illuminated the room; the doors flew open, and another human figure, bloody and pale as the first, but more terrible, appeared on the threshold. The spirit in the box began to burn again by itself, and the hall was light as before. Who is amongst us? exclaimed the sorcerer, terrified, casting a look of horror on the assemblage; I did not want thee. The figure advanced with noiseless and majestic steps directly up to the altar, stood on the satin Carpet over against us, and touched the crucifix. The first apparition was seen no more. Who calls me? demanded the second apparition. The sorcerer began to tremble. Terror and amazement kept us motionless for some time. I seized a pistol. The sorcerer snatched it out of my hand, and fired it at the apparition. The ball rolled slowly upon the altar, and the figure emerged unaltered from the smoke. The Sorcerer fell senseless on the ground. What is this? exclaimed the Englishman, in astonishment, aiming a blow at the ghost with a sword. The figure touched his arm, and the weapon fell to the ground. The perspiration stood on my brow with horror. Baron afterwards confessed to me that he had prayed silently. During all this time the prince stood fearless and tranquil, his eyes riveted on the second apparition. Yes, I know thee, said he at length, with emotion; thou art Lanoy; thou art my friend. Whence comest thou? Eternity is mute. Ask me concerning my past life. Who is it that lives in the convent which thou mentionedst to me in thy last moments? My daughter. How? Hast thou been a father? Woe is me that I was not. Art thou not happy, Lanoy? God has judged. Can I render thee any further service in this world? None but to think of thyself. How must I do that? Thou wilt learn at Rome. The thunder again rolled; a black cloud of smoke filled the room; when it had dispersed the figure was no longer visible. I forced open one of the window shutters. It was daylight. The sorcerer now recovered from his swoon. Where are we? asked he, seeing the daylight. The Russian officer stood close beside him, and looked over his shoulder. Juggler, said he to him, with a terrible countenance, Thou shalt summon no more ghosts. The Sicilian turned round, looked steadfastly in his face, uttered a loud shriek, and threw himself at his feet. We looked all at once at the pretended Russian. The prince instantly recognized the features of the Armenian, and the words he was about to utter expired on his tongue. We were all as it were petrified with fear and amazement. Silent and motionless, our eyes were fixed on this mysterious being, who beheld us with a calm but penetrating look of grandeur and superiority. A minute elapsed in this awful silence; another succeeded; not a breath was to be heard. A violent battering against the door roused us at last from this stupor. The door fell in pieces into the room, and several officers of justice, with a guard, rushed in. Here they are, all together, said the leader to his followers. Then addressing himself to us, In the name of the government, continued he, I arrest you. We had no time to recollect ourselves; in a few moments we were surrounded. The Russian officer, whom I shall again call the Armenian, took the chief officer aside, and, as far as I in my confusion could notice, I observed him whisper a few words to the latter, and show him a written paper. The officer, bowing respectfully, immediately quitted him, turned to us, and taking off his hat, said Gentlemen, I humbly beg your pardon for having confounded you with this impostor. I shall not inquire who you are, as this gentleman assures me you are men of honor. At the same time he gave his companions a sign to leave us at liberty. He ordered the Sicilian to be bound and strictly guarded. The fellow is ripe for punishment, added he; we have been searching for him these seven months. The wretched sorcerer was really an object of pity. The terror caused by the second apparition, and by this unexpected arrest, had together overpowered his senses. Helpless as a child, he suffered himself to be bound without resistance. His eyes were wide open and immovable; his face was pale as death; his lips quivered convulsively, but he was unable to utter a sound. Every moment we expected he would fall into a fit. The prince was moved by the situation in which he saw him. He undertook to procure his discharge from the leader of the police, to whom he discovered his rank. Do you know, gracious prince, said the officer, for whom your highness is so generously interceding? The juggling tricks by which he endeavored to deceive you are the least of his crimes. We have secured his accomplices; they depose terrible facts against him. He may think himself fortunate if he is only punished with the galleys. In the meantime we saw the innkeeper and his family led bound through the yard. This man, too? said the prince; and what is his crime? He was his comrade and accomplice, answered the officer. He assisted him in his deceptions and robberies, and shared the booty with him. Your highness shall be convinced of it presently. Search the house, continued he, turning to his followers, and bring me immediate notice of what you find. The prince looked around for the Armenian, but he had disappeared. In the confusion occasioned by the arrival of the watch he had found means to steal away unperceived. The prince was inconsolable; he declared he would send all his servants, and would himself go in search of this mysterious man; and he wished me to go with him. I hastened to the window; the house was surrounded by a great number of idlers, whom the account of this event had attracted to the spot. It was impossible to get through the crowd. I represented this to the prince. If, said I, it is the Armenians intention to conceal himself from us, he is doubtless better acquainted with the intricacies of the place than we, and all our inquiries would prove fruitless. Let us rather remain here a little longer, gracious prince, added I. This officer, to whom, if I observed right, he discovered himself, may perhaps give us some information respecting him. We now for the first time recollected that we were still undressed. We hastened to the other pavilion and put on our clothes as quickly as possible. When we returned they had finished searching the house. On removing the altar and some of the boards of the floor a spacious vault was discovered. It was high enough, for a man might sit upright in it with ease, and was separated from the cellar by a door and a narrow staircase. In this vault they found an electrical machine, a clock, and a little silver bell, which, as well as the electrical machine, was in communication with the altar and the crucifix that was fastened upon it. A hole had been made in the windowshutter opposite the chimney, which opened and shut with a slide. In this hole, as we learnt afterwards, was fixed a magic lantern, from which the figure of the ghost had been reflected on the opposite wall, over the chimney. From the garret and the cellar they brought several drums, to which large leaden bullets were fastened by strings; these had probably been used to imitate the roaring of thunder which we had heard. On searching the Sicilians clothes they found, in a case, different powders, genuine mercury in vials and boxes, phosphorus in a glass bottle, and a ring, which we immediately knew to be magnetic, because it adhered to a steel button that by accident had been placed near it. In his coatpockets were found a rosary, a Jews beard, a dagger, and a brace of pocketpistols. Let us see whether they are loaded, said one of the watch, and fired up the chimney. Jesus Maria! cried a hollow voice, which we knew to be that of the first apparition, and at the same instant a bleeding person came tumbling down the chimney. What! not yet laid, poor ghost! cried the Englishman, while we started back in affright. Home to thy grave. Thou hast appeared what thou wert not; now thou wilt become what thou didst but seem. Jesus Maria! I am wounded, repeated the man in the chimney. The ball had fractured his right leg. Care was immediately taken to have the wound dressed. But who art thou? said the English lord; and what evil spirit brought thee here? I am a poor mendicant friar, answered the wounded man; a strange gentleman gave me a zechin to Repeat a speech. And why didst thou not withdraw as soon as thy task was finished? I was waiting for a signal which we had agreed on to continue my speech; but as this signal was not given, I was endeavoring to get away, when I found the ladder had been removed And what was the formula he taught thee? The wounded man fainted away; nothing more could be got from him. In the meantime the prince turned towards the principal officer of the watch, giving him at the same time some pieces of gold. You have rescued us, said he, from the hands of an impostor, and done us justice without even knowing who we were; would you increase our gratitude by telling us the name of the stranger who, by speaking only a few words, was able to procure us our liberty. Whom do you mean? inquired the party addressed, with an air which plainly showed that the question was useless. The gentleman in a Russian uniform, who took you aside, showed you a written paper, and whispered a few words, in consequence of which you immediately set us free. Do not you know the gentleman? Was he not one of your company? No, answered the prince; and I have very important reasons for wishing to be more intimately acquainted with him. I know very little of him myself. Even his name is unknown to me, and I saw him today for the first time in my life. How? And was he in so short a time, and by using only a few words, able to convince you both of our innonocence and his own? Undoubtedly, with a single word. And this was? I confess I wish to know it. This stranger, my prince, said the officer, weighing the zechins in his band,you have been too generous for me to make a secret of it any longer,this stranger is an officer of the Inquisition. Of the Inquisition? This man? He is, indeed, gracious prince. I was convinced of it by the paper which he showed to me. This man, did you say? That cannot be. I will tell your highness more. It was upon his information that I have been sent here to arrest the sorcerer. We looked at each other in the utmost astonishment. Now we know, said the English lord at length, why the poor devil of a sorcerer started in such a terror when he looked more closely into his face. He knew him to be a spy, and that is why he uttered that shriek, and fell down before him. No! interrupted the prince. This man is whatever he wishes to be, and whatever the moment requires him to be. No mortal ever knew what he really was. Did you not see the knees of the Sicilian sink under him, when he said, with that terrible voice Thou shalt summon no more ghosts? There is something inexplicable in this matter. No person can persuade me that one man should be thus alarmed at the sight of another. The sorcerer himself will probably explain it the best, said the English lord, if that gentleman, pointing to the officer, will afford us an opportunity of speaking with his prisoner. The officer consented to it, and, having agreed with the Englishman to visit the Sicilian in the morning, we returned to Venice. [The Count O, whose narrative I have thus far literally copied, describes minutely the various effects of this adventure upon the mind of the prince and of his companions, and recounts a variety of tales of apparitions which this event gave occasion to introduce. I shall omit giving them to the reader, on the supposition that he is as curious as myself to know the conclusion of the adventure, and its effect on the conduct of the prince. I shall only add that the prince got no sleep the remainder of the night, and that he waited with impatience for the moment which was to disclose this incomprehensible mystery, Note of the German Editor.] Lord Seymour (this was the name of the Englishman) called upon us very early in the forenoon, and was soon after followed by a confidential person whom the officer had entrusted with the care of conducting us to the prison. I forgot to mention that one of the princes domestics, a native of Bremen, who had served him many years with the strictest fidelity, and had entirely gained his confidence, had been missing for several days. Whether he had met with any accident, whether he had been kidnapped, or had voluntarily absented himself, was a secret to every one. The last supposition was extremely improbable, as his conduct had always been quiet and regular, and nobody had ever found fault with him. All that his companions could recollect was that he had been for some time very melancholy, and that, whenever he had a moments leisure, he used to visit a certain monastery in the Giudecca, where he had formed an acquaintance with some monks. This induced us to suppose that he might have fallen into the hands of the priests and had been persuaded to turn Catholic; and as the prince was very tolerant, or rather indifferent about matters of this kind, and the few inquiries he caused to be made proved unsuccessful, he gave up the search. He, however, regretted the loss of this man, who had constantly attended him in his campaigns, had always been faithfully attached to him, and whom it was therefore difficult to replace in a foreign country. The very same day the princes banker, whom he had commissioned to provide him with another servant, was announced at the moment we were going out. He presented to the prince a middleaged man, welldressed, and of good appearance, who had been for a long time secretary to a procurator, spoke French and a little German, and was besides furnished with the best recommendations. The prince was pleased with the mans physiognomy; and as he declared that he would be satisfied with such wages as his service should be found to merit, the prince engaged him immediately. We found the Sicilian in a private prison where, as the officer assured us, he had been lodged for the present, to accommodate the prince, before being removed to the lead roofs, to which there is no access. These lead roofs are the most terrible prisons in Venice. They are situated on the top of the palace of St. Mark, and the miserable criminals suffer so dreadfully from the heat of the leads occasioned by the heat of the burning rays of the sun descending directly upon them that they frequently become delirious. The Sicilian had recovered from his yesterdays terror, and rose respectfully on seeing the prince enter. He had fetters on one hand and on one leg, but was able to walk about the room at liberty. The sentinel at the door withdrew as soon as we had entered. I come, said the prince, to request an explanation of you on two subjects. You owe me the one, and it shall not be to your disadvantage if you grant me the other. My part is now acted, replied the Sicilian, my destiny is in your hands. Your sincerity alone can mitigate your punishment. Speak, honored prince, I am ready to answer you. I have nothing now to lose. You showed me the face of the Armenian in a lookingglass. How was this effected? What you saw was no lookingglass. A portrait in crayons behind a glass, representing a man in an Armenian dress, deceived you. My quickness, the twilight, and your astonishment favored the deception. The picture itself must have been found among the other things seized at the inn. But how could you read my thoughts so accurately as to hit upon the Armenian? This was not difficult, your highness. You must frequently have mentioned your adventure with the Armenian at table in the presence of your domestics. One of my accomplices accidentally got acquainted with one of your domestics in the Giudecca, and learned from him gradually as much as I wished to know. Where is the man? asked the prince; I have missed him, and doubtless you know of his desertion. I swear to your honor, sir, that I know not a syllable about it. I have never seen him myself, nor had any other concern with him than the one before mentioned. Proceed with your story, said the prince. By this means, also, I received the first information of your residence and of your adventures at Venice; and I resolved immediately to profit by them. You see, prince, I am sincere. I was apprised of your intended excursion on the Brenta. I prepared for it, and a key that dropped by chance from your pocket afforded me the first opportunity of trying my art upon you. How! Have I been mistaken? The adventure of the key was then a trick of yours, and not of the Armenian? You say this key fell from my pocket? You accidentally dropped it in taking out your purse, and I seized an opportunity, when no one noticed me, to cover it with my foot. The person of whom you bought the lotteryticket acted in concert with me. He caused you to draw it from a box where there was no blank, and the key had been in the snuffbox long before it came into your possession. I understand you. And the monk who stopped me in my way and addressed me in a manner so solemn. Was the same who, as I hear, has been wounded in the chimney. He is one of my accomplices, and under that disguise has rendered me many important services. But what purpose was this intended to answer? To render you thoughtful; to inspire you with such a train of ideas as should be favorable to the wonders I intended afterwards to show you. The pantomimical dance, which ended in a manner so extraordinary, was at least none of your contrivance? I had taught the girl who represented the queen. Her performance was the result of my instructions. I supposed your highness would be not a little astonished to find yourself known in this place, and (I entreat your pardon, prince) your adventure with the Armenian gave me reason to hope that you were already disposed to reject natural interpretations, and to attribute so marvellous an occurrence to supernatural agency. Indeed, exclaimed the prince, at once angry and amazed, and casting upon me a significant look; indeed, I did not expect this. [Neither did probably the greater number of my readers. The circumstance of the crown deposited at the feet of the prince, in a manner so solemn and unexpected, and the former prediction of the Armenian, seem so naturally and obviously to aim at the same object that at the first reading of these memoirs I immediately remembered the deceitful speech of the witches in Macbeth Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth! that shall be king hereafter! and probably the same thing has occurred to many of my readers. When a certain conviction has taken hold upon a mans mind in a solemn and extraordinary manner, it is sure to follow that all subsequent ideas which are in any way capable of being associated with this conviction should attach themselves to, and in some degree seem to be consequent upon it. The Sicilian, who seems to have had no other motive for his whole scheme than to astonish the prince by showing him that his rank was discovered, played, without being himself aware of it, the very game which most furthered the view of the Armenian; but however much of its interest this adventure will lose if I take away the higher motive which at first seemed to influence these actions, I must by no means infringe upon historical truth, but must relate the facts exactly as they occurred.Note of the German Editor.] But, continued he, after a long silence, how did you produce the figure which appeared on the wall over the chimney? By means of a magic lantern that was fixed in the opposite windowshutter, in which you have undoubtedly observed an opening. But how did it happen that not one of us perceived the lantern? asked Lord Seymour. You remember, my lord, that on your reentering the room it was darkened by a thick smoke of frankincense. I likewise took the precaution to place the boards which had been taken up from the floor upright against the wall near the window. By these means I prevented the shutter from immediately attracting observation. Moreover, the lantern remained covered by a slide until you had taken your places, and there was no further reason to apprehend that you would institute any examination of the saloon. As I looked out of the window in the other pavilion, said I, I fancied I heard a noise like that of a person placing a ladder against the side of the house. Was I right? Exactly; it was the ladder upon which my assistants stood to direct the magiclantern. The apparition, continued the prince, had really a superficial likeness to my deceased friend, and what was particularly striking, his hair, which was of a very light color, was exactly imitated. Was this mere chance, or how did you come by such a resemblance? Your highness must recollect that you had at table a snuffbox by your plate, with an enamelled portrait of an officer in a uniform. I asked whether you had anything about you as a memento of your friend, and as your highness answered in the affirmative, I conjectured that it might be the box. I had attentively examined the picture during supper, and being very expert in drawing and not less happy in taking likenesses, I had no difficulty in giving to my shade the superficial resemblance you have perceived, the more so as the marquis features are very marked. But the figure seemed to move? It appeared so, yet it was not the figure that moved but the smoke on which the light was reflected. And the man who fell down in the chimney spoke for the apparition? He did. But he could not hear your question distinctly. There was no occasion for it. Your highness will recollect that I cautioned you all very strictly not to propose any question to the apparition yourselves. My inquiries and his answers were preconcerted between us; and that no mistake might happen, I caused him to speak at long intervals, which he counted by the beating of a watch. You ordered the innkeeper carefully to extinguish every fire in the house with water; this was undoubtedly To save the man in the chimney from the danger of being suffocated; because the chimneys in the house communicate with each other, and I did not think myself very secure from your retinue. How did it happen, asked Lord Seymour, that your ghost appeared neither sooner nor later than you wished him? The ghost was in the room for some time before I called him, but while the room was lighted, the shade was too faint to be perceived. When the formula of the conjuration was finished, I caused the cover of the box, in which the spirit was burning, to drop down, the saloon was darkened, and it was not till then that the figure on the wall could be distinctly seen, although it had been reflected there a considerable time before. When the ghost appeared, we all felt an electric shock. How was that managed? You have discovered the machine under the altar. You have also seen that I was standing upon a silk carpet. I directed you to form a halfmoon around me, and to take each others hands. When the crisis approached, I gave a sign to one of you to seize me by the hair. The silver crucifix was the conductor, and you felt the electric shock when I touched it with my hand. You ordered Count O and myself, continued Lord Seymour, to hold two naked swords crossways over your head, during the whole time of the conjuration; for what purpose? For no other than to engage your attention during the operation; because I distrusted you two the most. You remember, that I expressly commanded you to hold the sword one inch above my head; by confining you exactly to this distance, I prevented you from looking where I did not wish you. I had not then perceived my principal enemy. I own, cried Lord Seymour, you acted with due precautionbut why were we obliged to appear undressed? Merely to give a greater solemnity to the scene, and to excite your imaginations by the strangeness of the proceeding. The second apparition prevented your ghost from speaking, said the prince. What should we have learnt from him? Nearly the same as what you heard afterwards. It was not without design that I asked your highness whether you had told me everything that the deceased communicated to you, and whether you had made any further inquiries on this subject in his country. I thought this was necessary, in order to prevent the deposition of the ghost from being contradicted by facts with which you were previously acquainted. Knowing likewise that every man in his youth is liable to error, I inquired whether the life of your friend had been irreproachable, and on your answer I founded that of the ghost. Your explanation of this matter is satisfactory, resumed the prince, after a short silence; but there remains a principal circumstance which I must ask you to clear up. If it be in my power, and No conditions! Justice, in whose hands you now are, might perhaps not interrogate you with so much delicacy. Who was this unknown at whose feet we saw you fall? What do you know of him? How did you get acquainted with him? And in what way was he connected with the appearance of the second apparition? Your highness On looking at him more attentively, you gave a loud scream, and fell at his feet. What are we to understand by that? This man, your highnessHe stopped, grew visibly perplexed, and with an embarrassed countenance looked around him. Yes, prince, by all that is sacred, this unknown is a terrible being. What do you know of him? What connection have you with him? Do not hope to conceal the truth from us. I shall take care not to do so,for who will warrant that he is not among us at this very moment? Where? Who? exclaimed we altogether, halfamused, halfstartled, looking about the room. That is impossible. Oh! to this man, or whatever he may be, things still more incomprehensible are possible. But who is he? Whence comes he? Is he an Armenian or a Russian? Of the characters be assumes, which is his real one? He is nothing of what he appears to be. There are few conditions or countries of which he has not worn the mask. No person knows who he is, whence he comes, or whither he goes. That he has been for a long time in Egypt, as many pretend, and that he has brought from thence, out of a catacomb, his, occult sciences, I will neither affirm nor deny. Here we only know him by the name of the Incomprehensible. How old, for instance, do you suppose he is? To judge from his appearance he can scarcely have passed forty. And of what age do you suppose I am? Not far from fifty. Quite right; and I must tell you that I was but a boy of seventeen when my grandfather spoke to me of this marvellous man whom he had seen at Famagusta; at which time he appeared nearly of the same age as he does at present. This is exaggerated, ridiculous, and incredible. By no means. Were I not prevented by these fetters I could produce vouchers whose dignity and respectability should leave you no room for doubt. There are several credible persons who remember having seen him, each, at the same time, in different parts of the globe. No sword can wound, no poison can hurt, no fire can burn him; no vessel in which he embarks can be wrecked. Time itself seems to lose its power over him. Years do not affect his constitution, nor age whiten his hair. Never was he seen to take any food. Never did he approach a woman. No sleep closes his eyes. Of the twentyfour hours in the day there is only one which he cannot command; during which no person ever saw him, and during which he never was employed in any terrestrial occupation. And this hour is? The twelfth in the night. When the clock strikes twelve at midnight he ceases to belong to the living. In whatever place he is he must immediately be gone; whatever business he is engaged in he must instantly leave it. The terrible sound of the hour of midnight tears him from the arms of friendship, wrests him from the altar, and would drag him away even in the agonies of death. Whither he then goes, or what he is then engaged in, is a secret to every one. No person ventures to interrogate, still less to follow him. His features, at this dread ful hour, assume a sternness of expression so gloomy and terrifying that no person has courage sufficient to look him in the face, or to speak a word to him. However lively the conversation may have been, a dead silence immediately succeeds it, and all around wait for his return in respectful silence without venturing to quit their seats, or to open the door through which he has passed. Does nothing extraordinary appear in his person when he returns? inquired one of our party. Nothing, except that he seems pale and exhausted, like a man who has just suffered a painful operation, or received some disastrous intelligence.
Some pretend to have seen drops of blood on his linen, but with what degree of veracity I cannot affirm. Did no person ever attempt to conceal the approach of this hour from him, or endeavor to preoccupy his mind in such a manner as to make him forget it? Once only, it is said, he missed the appointed time. The company was numerous and remained together late in the night. All the clocks and watches were purposely set wrong, and the warmth of conversation carried him away. When the stated hour arrived he suddenly became silent and motionless; his limbs continued in the position in which this instant had arrested them; his eyes were fixed; his pulse ceased to beat. All the means employed to awake him proved fruitless, and this situation endured till the hour had elapsed. He then revived on a sudden without any assistance, opened his eyes, and resumed his speech at the very syllable which he was pronouncing at the moment of interruption. The general consternation discovered to him what had happened, and he declared, with an awful solemnity, that they ought to think themselves happy in having escaped with the fright alone. The same night he quitted forever the city where this circumstance had occurred. The common opinion is that during this mysterious hour he converses with his genius. Some even suppose him to be one of the departed who is allowed to pass twentythree hours of the day among the living, and that in the twentyfourth his soul is obliged to return to the infernal regions to suffer its punishment. Some believe him to be the famous Apollonius of Tyana; and others the disciple of John, of whom it is said, He shall remain until the last judgment. A character so wonderful, replied the prince, cannot fail to give rise to whimsical conjectures. But all this you profess to know only by hearsay, and yet his behavior to you and yours to him, seemed to indicate a more intimate acquaintance. Is it not founded upon some particular event in which you have yourself been concerned? Conceal nothing from us. The Sicilian looked at us doubtingly and remained silent. If it concerns something, continued the prince, that you do not wish to be made known, I promise you, in the name of these two gentlemen, the most inviolable secrecy. But speak candidly and without reserve. Could I hope, answered the prisoner, after a long silence, that you would not make use of what I am going to relate as evidence against me, I would tell you a remarkable adventure of this Armenian, of which I myself was witness, and which will leave you no doubt of his supernatural powers. But I beg leave to conceal some of the names. Cannot you do it without this condition? No, your highness. There is a family concerned in it whom I have reason to respect. Let us hear your story. It is about five years ago, began the Sicilian, that at Naples, where I was practising my art with tolerable success, I became acquainted with a person of the name of Lorenzo del M, chevalier of the Order of St. Stephen, a young and rich nobleman, of one of the first families in the kingdom, who loaded me with kindnesses, and seemed to have a great esteem for my occult knowledge. He told me that the Marquis del Mnte, his father, was a zealous admirer of the cabala, and would think himself happy in having a philosopher like myself (for such he was pleased to call me) under his roof. The marquis lived in one of his country seats on the seashore, about seven miles from Naples. There, almost entirely secluded from the world, he bewailed, the loss of a beloved son, of whom he had been deprived by a terrible calamity. The chevalier gave me to understand that he and his family might perhaps have occasion to employ me on a matter of the most grave importance, in the hope of gaining through my secret science some information, to procure which all natural means had been tried in vain. He added, with a very significant look, that he himself might, perhaps at some future period, have reason to look upon me as the restorer of his tranquillity, and of all his earthly happiness. The affair was as follows This Lorenzo was the younger son of the marquis, and for that reason had been destined for the church; the family estates were to descend to the eldest. Jeronymo, which was the name of the latter, had spent many years on his travels, and had returned to his country about seven years prior to the event which I am about to relate, in order to celebrate his marriage with the only daughter of the neighboring Count Ctti. This marriage had been determined on by the parents during the infancy of the children, in order to unite the large fortunes of the two houses. But though this agreement was made by the two families, without consulting the hearts of the parties concerned, the latter had mutually pledged their faith to each other in secret. Jeronymo del M and Antonia C had been brought up together, and the little restraint imposed on two children, whom their parents were already accustomed to regard as destined for each other, soon produced between them a connection of the tenderest kind; the congeniality of their tempers cemented this intimacy; and in later years it ripened insensibly into love. An absence of four years, far from cooling this passion, had only served to inflame it; and Jeronymo returned to the arms of his intended bride as faithful and as ardent as if they had never been separated. The raptures occasioned by his return had not yet subsided, and the preparations for the happy day were advancing with the utmost zeal and activity, when the bridegroom disappeared. He used frequently to pass whole afternoons in a summerhouse which commanded a prospect of the sea, and was accustomed to take the diversion of sailing on the water. One day, on an evening spent in this manner, it was observed that he remained absent a much longer time than usual, and his friends began to be very uneasy on his account. Messengers were despatched after him, vessels were sent to sea in quest of him; no person had seen him. None of his servants were missed; he must, therefore, have gone alone. Night came on, and he did not appear. The next morning dawned; the day passed, the evening succeeded, Jeronymo came not. Already they had begun to give themselves up to the most melancholy conjectures when the news arrived that an Algerine pirate had landed the preceeding day on that coast, and carried off several of the inhabitants. Two galleys which were ready for sea were immediately manned; the old marquis himself embarked in one of them, to attempt the deliverance of his son at the peril of his own life. On the third morning they perceived the corsair. They had the advantage of the wind; they were just about to overtake the pirate, and had even approached so near that Lorenzo, who was in one of the galleys, fancied that he saw upon the deck of the adversarys ship a signal made by his brother, when a sudden storm separated the vessels. Hardly could the damaged galleys sustain the fury of the tempest. The pirate in the meantime had disappeared, and the distressed state of the other vessels obliged them to land at Malta. The affliction of the family knew no bounds. The distracted old marquis tore his gray hairs in the utmost violence of grief; and fears were entertained for the life of the young countess. Five years were consumed in fruitless inquiries. Diligent search was made along all the coast of Barbary; immense sums were offered for the ransom of the poor marquis, but no person came forward to claim them. The only probable conjecture which remained for the family to form was, that the same storm which had separated the galleys from the pirate had destroyed the latter, and that the whole ships company had perished in the waves. But, however this supposition might be, it did not by any means amount to a certainty, and could not authorize the family altogether to renounce the hope that the lost Jeronymo might again appear. In case, however, that he was really dead, either the family must become extinct, or the younger son must relinquish the church, and assume the rights of the elder. As justice, on the one hand, seemed to oppose the latter measure, so, on the other hand, the necessity of preserving the family from annihilation required that the scruple should not be carried too far. In the meantime through grief and the infirmities of age, the old marquis was fast sinking to his grave; every unsuccessful attempt diminished the hope of finding his lost son; he saw the danger of his familys becoming extinct, which might be obviated by a trifling injustice on his part, in consenting to favor his younger son at the expense of the elder. The consummation of his alliance with the house of Count Ctti required only that a name should be changed, for the object of the two families was equally accomplished, whether Antonia became the wife of Lorenzo or of Jeronymo. The faint probability of the latters appearing again weighed but little against the certain and pressing danger of the total extinction of the family, and the old marquis, who felt the approach of death every day more and more, ardently wished at least to die free from this inquietude. Lorenzo, however, who was to be principally benefited by this measure, opposed it with the greatest obstinacy. Alike unmoved by the allurements of an immense fortune, and the attractions of the beautiful and accomplished being whom his family were about to deliver into his arms, he refused, on principles the most generous and conscientious, to invade the rights of a brother, who perhaps was still alive, and might some day return to claim his own. Is not the lot of my dear Jeronymo, said he, made sufficiently miserable by the horrors of a long captivity, that I should yet add bitterness to his cup of grief by stealing from him all that he holds most dear? With what conscience could I supplicate heaven for his return when his wife is in my arms? With what countenance could I hasten to meet him should he at last be restored to us by some miracle? And even supposing that he is torn from us forever, how can we better honor his memory than by keeping constantly open the chasm which his death has caused in our circle? Can we better show our respect to him than by sacrificing our dearest hopes upon his tomb, and keeping untouched, as a sacred deposit, what was peculiarly his own? But all the arguments which fraternal delicacy could adduce were insufficient to reconcile the old marquis to the idea of being obliged to witness the extinction of a pedigree which nine centuries had beheld flourishing. All that Lorenzo could obtain was a respite of two years before leading the affianced bride of his brother to the altar. During this period they continued their inquiries with the utmost diligence. Lorenzo himself made several voyages, and exposed his person to many dangers. No trouble, no expense was spared to recover the lost Jeronymo. These two years, however, like those which preceded them, were in vain? And the Countess Antonia? said the prince, You tell us nothing of her. Could she so calmly submit to her fate? I cannot suppose it. Antonia, answered the Sicilian, experienced the most violent struggle between duty and inclination, between hate and admiration. The disinterested generosity of a brothers love affected her; she felt herself forced to esteem a person whom she could never love. Her heart was torn by conflicting sentiments. But her repugnance to the chevalier seemed to increase in the same degree as his claims upon her esteem augmented. Lorenzo perceived with heartfelt sorrow the grief that consumed her youth. A tender compassion insensibly assumed the place of that indifference with which, till then, he had been accustomed to regard her; but this treacherous sentiment quickly deceived him, and an ungovernable passion began by degrees to shake the steadiness of his virtuea virtue which, till then, had been unequalled. He, however, still obeyed the dictates of generosity, though at the expense of his love. By his efforts alone was the unfortunate victim protected against the arbitrary proceedings of the rest of the family. But his endeavors were ineffectual. Every victory he gained over his passion rendered him more worthy of Antonia; and the disinterestedness with which he refused her left her no excuse for resistance. This was the state of affairs when the chevalier engaged me to visit him at his fathers villa. The earnest recommendation of my patron procured me a reception which exceeded my most sanguine hopes. I must not forget to mention that by some remarkable operations I had previously rendered my name famous in different lodges of Freemasons, which circumstance may, perhaps, have contributed to strengthen the old marquis confidence in me, and to heighten his expectations. I beg you will excuse me from describing particularly the lengths I went with him, and the means which I employed; you may judge of them from what I have already confessed to you. Profiting by the mystic books which I found in his very extensive library, I was soon able to converse with him in his own language, and to adorn my system of the invisible world with the most extraordinary inventions. In a short time I could make him believe whatever I pleased, and he would have sworn as readily as upon an article in the canon. Moreover, as he was very devout, and was by nature somewhat credulous, my fables received credence the more readily, and in a short time I had so completely surrounded and hemmed him in with mystery that he cared for nothing that was not supernatural. In short I became the patron saint of the house. The usual subject of my lectures was the exaltation of human nature, and the intercourse of men with superior beings; the infallible Count Gabalis was my oracle. [A mystical work of that title, written in French in 1670 by the Abbe do Villars, and translated into English in 1600. Pope is said to have borrowed from it the machinery of his Rape of the Lock.H. G. B.] The young countess, whose mind since the loss of her lover had been more occupied in the world of spirits than in that of nature, and who had, moreover, a strong shade of melancholy in her composition, caught my hints with a fearful satisfaction. Even the servants contrived to have some business in the room when I was speaking, and seizing now and then one of my expressions, joined the fragments together in their own way. Two months were passed in this manner at the marquis villa, when the chevalier one morning entered my apartment. A deep sorrow was painted on his countenance, his features were convulsed, he threw himself into a chair, with gestures of despair. Captain, said he, it is all over with me, I must begone; I can remain here no longer. What is the matter, chevalier? What ails you? Oh! this fatal passion! said he, starting frantically from his chair. I have combated it like a man; I can resist it no longer. And whose fault is it but yours, my dear chevalier? Are they not all in your favor? Your father, your relations. My father, my relations! What are they to me? I want not a forced union, but one of inclination, Have not I a rival? Alas! and what a rival! Perhaps among the dead! Oh! let me go! Let me go to the end of the world,I must find my brother. What! after so many unsuccessful attempts can you still cherish hope? Hope! replied the chevalier; alas! no. It has long since vanished from my heart, but it has not from hers. Of what consequence are my sentiments? Can I be happy while there remains a gleam of hope in Antonias heart? Two words, my friend, would end my torments. But it is in vain. My destiny must continue to be miserable till eternity shall break its long silence, and the grave shall speak in my behalf. Is it then a state of certainty that would render you happy? Happy! Alas! I doubt whether I can ever again be happy. But uncertainty is of all others the most dreadful pain. After a short interval of silence he suppressed his emotion, and continued mournfully, If he could but see my torments! Surely a constancy which renders his brother miserable cannot add to his happiness. Can it be just that the living should suffer so much for the sake of the dead, who can no longer enjoy earthly felicity? If he knew the pangs I suffer, continued he, hiding his face on my shoulder, while the tears streamed from his eyes, yes, perhaps he himself would conducts her to my arms. But is there no possibility of gratifying your wishes? He started. What do you say, my friend? Less important occasions than the present, said I, have disturbed the repose of the dead for the sake of the living. Is not the whole earthly happiness of a man, of a brother The whole earthly happiness! Ah, my friend, I feel what you say is but too true; my entire felicity. And the tranquillity of a distressed family, are not these sufficient to justify such a measure? Undoubtedly. If any sublunary concern can authorize us to interrupt the peace of the blessed, to make use of a power For Gods sake, my friend, said he, interrupting me, no more of this. Once, I avow it, I had such a thought; I think I mentioned it to you; but I have long since rejected it as horrid and abominable. You will have conjectured already, continued the Sicilian, to what this conversation led us. I endeavored to overcome the scruples of the chevalier, and at last succeeded. We resolved to summon the spirit of the deceased Jeronymo. I only stipulated for the delay of a fortnight, in order, as I pretended, to prepare myself in a suitable manner for so solemn an act. The time being expired, and my machinery in readiness, I took advantage of a very gloomy day, when we were all assembled as usual, to obtain the consent of the family, or rather, gradually to lead them to the subject, so that they themselves requested it of me. The most difficult part of the task was to obtain the approbation of Antonia, whose presence was most essential. My endeavors were, however, greatly assisted by the melancholy turn of her mind, and perhaps still more so by a faint hope that Jeronymo might still be living, and therefore would not appear. A want of confidence in the thing itself, or a doubt of my ability, was the only obstacle which I had not to contend with. Having obtained the consent of the family, the third day was fixed on for the operation. I prepared them for the solemn transaction by mystical instruction, by fasting, solitude, and prayers, which I ordered to be continued till late in the night. Much use was also made of a certain musical instrument, unknown till that time, and which, in such cases, has often been found very powerful. The effect of these artifices was so much beyond my expectation that the enthusiasm to which on this occasion I was obliged to force myself was infinitely heightened by that of my audience. The anxiouslyexpected hour at last arrived. I guess, said the prince, whom you are now going to introduce. But go on, go on. No, your highness. The incantation succeeded according to my wishes. How? Where is the Armenian? Do not fear, your highness. He will appear but too soon. I omit the description of the farce itself, as it would lead me to too great a length. Be it sufficient to say that it answered my utmost expectations. The old marquis, the young countess, her mother, Lorenzo, and a few others of the family, were present. You may imagine that during my long residence in this house I had not wanted opportunities of gathering information respecting everything that concerned the deceased. Several portraits of him enabled me to give the apparition the most striking likeness, and as I suffered the ghost to speak only by signs, the sound of his voice could excite no suspicion. The departed Jeronymo appearedin the dress of a Moorish slave, with a deep wound in his neck. You observe that in this respect I was counteracting the general supposition that he had perished in the waves, for I had reason to hope that the unexpectedness of this circumstance would heighten their belief in the apparition itself, while, on the other hand, nothing appeared to me more dangerous than to keep too strictly to what was natural. I think you judged rightly, said the prince. In whatever respects apparitions the most probable is the least acceptable. If their communications are easily comprehended we undervalue the channel by which they are obtained. Nay, we even suspect the reality of the miracle if the discoveries which it brings to light are such as might easily have been imagined. Why should we disturb the repose of a spirit if it is to inform us of nothing more than the ordinary powers of the intellect are capable of teaching us? But, on the other hand, if the intelligence which we receive is extraordinary and unexpected it confirms in some degree the miracle by which it is obtained; for who can doubt an operation to be supernatural when its effect could not be produced by natural means? I interrupt you, added the prince. Proceed in your narrative. I asked the ghost whether there was anything in this world which he still considered as his own, continued the Sicilian, and whether he had left anything behind that was particularly dear to him? The ghost shook his head three times, and lifted up his hand towards heaven. Previous to his retiring he dropped a ring from his finger, which was found on the floor after he had disappeared. Antonia took it, and, looking at it attentively, she knew it to be the ring she had given her intended husband on their betrothal. The ring! exclaimed the prince, surprised. How did you get it? Who? I? It was not the true one, your highness; I got it. It was only a counterfeit. A counterfeit! repeated the prince. But in order to counterfeit you required the true one. How did you come by it? Surely the deceased never went without it. That is true, replied the Sicilian, with symptoms of confusion. But from a description which was given me of the genuine ring A description which was given you! By whom? Long before that time. It was a plain gold ring, and had, I believe, the name of the young countess engraved on it. But you made me lose the connection. What happened further? said the prince, with a very dissatisfied countenance. The family felt convinced that Jeronymo was no more. From that day forward they publicly announced his death, and went into mourning. The circumstance of the ring left no doubt, even in the mind of Antonia, and added a considerable weight to the addresses of the chevalier. In the meantime the violent shock which the young countess had received from the sight of the apparition brought on her a disorder so dangerous that the hopes of Lorenzo were very near being destroyed forever. On her recovery she insisted upon taking the veil; and it was only at the most serious remonstrances of her confessor, in whom she placed implicit confidence, that she was induced to abandon her project. At length the united solicitations of the family, and of the confessor, forced from her a reluctant consent. The last day of mourning was fixed on for the day of marriage, and the old marquis determined to add to the solemnity of the occasion by making over all his estates to his lawful heir. The day arrived, and Lorenzo received his trembling bride at the altar. In the evening a splendid banquet was prepared for the cheerful guests in a hall superbly illuminated, and the most lively and delightful music contributed to increase the general gladness. The happy old marquis wished all the world to participate in his joy. All the entrances of the palace were thrown open, and every one who sympathized in his happiness was joyfully welcomed. In the midst of the throng The Sicilian paused. A trembling expectation suspended our breath. Inthe midst of the throng, continued the prisoner, appeared a Franciscan monk, to whom my attention was directed by the person who sat next to me at table. He was standing motionless like a marble pillar. His shape was tall and thin; his face pale and ghastly; his eyes were fixed with a grave and mournful expression on the newmarried couple. The joy which beamed on the face of every one present appeared not on his. His countenance never once varied. He seemed like a statue among the living. Such an object, appearing amidst the general joy, struck me more forcibly from its contrast with everything around. It left on my mind so indelible an impression that from it alone I have been enabled (which would otherwise have been impossible) to recollect the features of the Franciscan monk in the Russian officer; for, without doubt, you must have already conceived that the person I have described was no other than your Armenian. I frequently attempted to withdraw my eyes from this terrible figure, but they wandered back involuntarily, and found his countenance unaltered. I pointed him out to the person who sat nearest to me on the other side, and he did the same to the person next to him. In a few minutes a general curiosity and astonishment pervaded the whole company. The conversation languished; a general silence succeeded; the monk did not heed it. He continued motionless as before; his grave and mournful looks constantly fixed upon the newmarried couple; his appearance struck every one with terror. The young countess alone, who found the transcript of her own sorrow in the fact of the stranger, beheld with a melancholy satisfaction the only object that seemed to understand and sympathize in her sufferings. The crowd insensibly diminished. It was past midnight; the music became fainter and more languid; the tapers grew dim, and many of them went out. The conversation, declining by degrees, lost itself at last in secret murmurs, and the faintly illuminated hall was nearly deserted. The monk, in the meantime, continued motionless, with the same grave and mournful look still fixed on the newmarried couple. The company at length rose from the table; the guests dispersed; the family assembled in a separate group, and the monk, though uninvited, continued near them. How it happened that no person spoke to him I cannot conceive. The female friends now surrounded the trembling bride, who cast a supplicating and distressed look on the venerable stranger; he did not answer it. The gentlemen assembled in the same manner around the bridegroom. A solemn and anxious silence prevailed among them. That we should be so happy here together, began at length the old marquis, who alone seemed not to behold the stranger, or at least seemed to behold him without dismay. That we should be so happy here together, and my son Jeronymo cannot be with us! Have you invited him, and has he failed to come? asked the monk. It was the first time he had spoken. We looked at him in alarm. Alas! he is gone to a place from whence there is no return, answered the old man. Reverend father I you misunderstood me. My son Jeronymo is dead. Perhaps he only fears to appear in this company, replied the monk. Who knows how your son Jeronymo may be situated? Let him now hear the voice which he heard the last. Desire your son Lorenzo to call him. What means he? whispered the company to one another. Lorenzo changed color. I will not deny that my own hair began to stand on end. In the meantime the monk approached a sideboard; he took a glass of wine and carried to his lips. To the memory of our dear Jeronymo! said he. Let every one who loved the deceased follow my example. Be you who you may, reverend father! exclaimed the old marquis, you have pronounced a name dear to us all, and you are heartily welcome here; then turning to us, he offered us full glasses. Come, my friends! continued he, let us not be surpassed by a stranger. The memory of my son Jeronymo! Never, I believe, was any toast less heartily received. There is one glass still unemptied, said the marquis. Why does my son Lorenzo refuse to drink this friendly toast? Lorenzo, trembling, received the glass from the hands of the monk; tremblingly he put it to his lips. To my dearlybeloved brother Jeronymo! he stammered out, and replaced the glass with a shudder. That was my murderers voice! exclaimed a terrible figure, which appeared suddenly in the midst of us, covered with blood, and disfigured with horrible wounds. Do not ask me the rest, added the Sicilian, with every symptom of horror in his countenance. I lost my senses the moment I looked at this apparition. The same happened to every one present. When we recovered the monk and the ghost had disappeared; Lorenzo was writhing in the agonies of death. He was carried to bed in the most dreadful convulsions. No person attended him but his confessor and the sorrowful old marquis, in whose presence he expired. The marquis died a few weeks after him. Lorenzos secret is locked in the bosom of the priest who received his last confession; no person ever learnt what it was. Soon after this event a well was cleaned in the farmyard of the marquis villa. It had been disused for many years, and was almost closed up by shrubs and old trees. On digging among the rubbish a human skeleton was found. The house where this happened is now no more; the family del Mnte is extinct, and Antonias tomb may be seen in a convent not far from Salerno. You see, continued the Sicilian, seeing us all stand silent and thoughtful, you see how my acquaintance with this Russian officer, Armenian, or Franciscan friar originated. Judge now whether I had not good cause to tremble at the sight of a being who has twice placed himself in my way in a manner so terrible. I beg you will answer me one question more, said the prince, rising from his seat. Have you been always sincere in your account of everything relating to the chevalier? To the best of my knowledge I have, replied the Sicilian. You really believed him to be an honest man? I did; by heaven! I did, answered he again. Even at the tine he gave you the ring? How! He gave me no ring. I did not say that he gave me the ring. Very well! said the prince, pulling the bell, and preparing to depart. And you believe (going back to the prisoner) that the ghost of the Marquis de Lanoy, which the Russian officer introduced after your apparition, was a true and real ghost? I cannot think otherwise. Let us go! said the prince, addressing himself to us. The gaoler came in. We have done, said the prince to him. You, sir, turning to the prisoner, you shall hear further from me. I am tempted to ask your highness the last question you proposed to the sorcerer, said I to the prince, when we were alone. Do you believe the second ghost to have been a real and true one? I believe it! No, not now, most assuredly. Not now? Then you did once believe it? I confess I was tempted for a moment to believe it something more than the contrivance of a juggler. And I could wish to see the man who under similar circumstances would not have had the same impression. But what reasons have you for retracting your opinion? What the prisoner has related of the Armenian ought to increase rather than diminish your belief in his super natural powers. What this wretch has related of him, said the prince, interrupting me very gravely. I hope, continued he, you have now no doubt but that we have had to do with a villain. No; but must his evidence on that account The evidence of a villain, even supposing I had no other reason for doubt, can have no weight against common sense and established truth.
Does a man who has already deceived me several times, and whose trade it is to deceive, does he deserve to be heard in a cause in which the unsupported testimony of even the most sincere adherent to truth could not be received? Ought we to believe a man who perhaps never once spoke truth for its own sake? Does such a man deserve credit, when he appears as evidence against human reason and the eternal laws of nature? Would it not be as absurd as to admit the accusation of a person notoriously infamous against unblemished and irreproachable innocence? But what motives could he have for giving so great a character to a man whom he has so many reasons to hate? I am not to conclude that he can have no motives for doing this because I am unable to comprehend them. Do I know who has bribed him to deceive me? I confess I cannot penetrate the whole contexture of his plan; but he has certainly done a material injury to the cause he advocates by proving himself to be at least an impostor, and perhaps something worse. The circumstance of the ring, I allow, appears somewhat suspicions. It is more than suspicious, answered the prince; it is decisive. He received this ring from the murderer, and at the moment he received it he must have been certain that it was from the murderer. Who but the assassin, could have taken from the finger of the deceased a ring which he undoubtedly never took off himself? Throughout the whole of his narration the Sicilian has labored to persuade us that while he was endeavoring to deceive Lorenzo, Lorenzo was in reality deceiving him. Would he have had recourse to this subterfuge if he had not been sensible how much he should lose in our estimation by confessing himself an accomplice with the assassin? The whole story is visibly nothing but a series of impostures, invented merely to connect the few truths he has thought proper to give us. Ought I then to hesitate in disbelieving the eleventh assertion of a person who has already deceived me ten times, rather than admit a violation of the fundamental laws of nature, which I have ever found in the most perfect harmony? I have nothing to reply to all this, but the apparition we saw yesterday is to me not the less incomprehensible. It is also incomprehensible to me, although I have been tempted to believe that I have found a key to it. How so? asked I. Do not you recollect that the second apparition, as soon as he entered, walked directly up to the altar, took the crucifix in his hand, and placed himself upon the carpet? It appeared so to me. And this crucifix, according to the Sicilians confession, was a conductor. You see that the apparition hastened to make himself electrical. Thus the blow which Lord Seymour struck him with a sword was of course ineffectual; the electric stroke disabled his arm. This is true with respect to the sword. But the pistol fired by the Sicilian, the ball of which we heard roll slowly upon the altar? Are you convinced that this was the same ball which was fired from the pistol? replied the prince. Not to mention that the puppet, or the man who represented the ghost, may have been so well accoutred as to be invulnerable by sword or bullet; but consider who it was that loaded the pistols. True, said I, and a sudden light broke upon my mind; the Russian. officer had loaded them, but it was in our presence. How could he have deceived us? Why should he not have deceived us? Did you suspect him sufficiently to observe him? Did you examine the ball before it was put into the pistol? May it not have been one of quicksilver or clay? Did you take notice whether the Russian officer really put it into the barrel, or dropped it into his other hand? But supposing that he actually loaded the pistols, what is to convince you that he really took the loaded ones into the room where the ghost appeared, and did not change them for another pair, which he might have done the more easily as nobody ever thought of noticing him, and we were besides occupied in undressing? And could not the figure, at the moment when we were prevented from seeing it by the smoke of the pistol, have dropped another ball, with which it had been beforehand provided, on the the altar? Which of these conjectures is impossible? You are right. But that striking resemblance to your deceased friend! I have often seen him with you, and I immediately recognized him in the apparition. I did the same, and I must confess the illusion was complete. But if the juggler from a few stolen glances at my snuffbox was able to give to his apparition a resemblance, what was to prevent the Russian officer, who had used the box during the whole time of supper, who had had liberty to observe the picture unnoticed, and to whom I had discovered in confidence whom it represented, what was to prevent him from doing the same? Add to this what has been before observed by the Sicilian, that the prominent features of the marquis were so striking as to be easily imitated; what is there so inexplicable in this second ghost? But the words he uttered? The information he gave you about your friend? What? said the prince, Did not the Sicilian assure us, that from the little which he had learnt from me he had composed a similar story? Does not this prove that the invention was obvious and natural? Besides, the answers of the ghost, like those of an oracle, were so obscure that he was in no danger of being detected in a falsehood. If the man who personated the ghost possessed sagacity and presence of mind, and knew eversolittle of the affair on which he was consulted, to what length might not he have carried the deception? Pray consider, your highness, how much preparation such a complicated artifice would have required from the Armenian; how much time it takes to paint a face with sufficient exactness; how much time would have been requisite to instruct the pretended ghost, so as to guard him against gross errors; what a degree of minute attention to regulate every minor attendant or adventitious circumstance, which must be answered in some manner, lest they should prove detrimental! And remember that the Russian officer was absent but half an hour. Was that short space of time sufficient to make even such arrangements as were most indispensable? Surely, my prince, not even a dramatic writer, who has the least desire to preserve the three terrible unities of Aristotle, durst venture to load the interval between one act and another with such a variety of action, or to presume upon such a facility of belief in his audience. What! You think it absolutely impossible that every necessary preparation should have been made in the space of half an hour? Indeed, I look upon it as almost impossible. I do not understand this expression. Does it militate against the physical laws of time and space, or of matter and motion, that a man so ingenious and so expert as this Armenian must undoubtedly be, assisted by agents whose dexterity and acuteness are probably not inferior to his own; favored by the time of night, and watched by no one, provided with such means and instruments as a man of this profession is never without is it impossible that such a man, favored by such circumstances, should be able to effect so much in so short a time? Is it ridiculous or absurd to suppose, that by a very small number of words or signs he can convey to his assistants very extensive commissions, and direct very complex operations? Nothing ought to be admitted that is contrary to the established laws of nature, unless it is something with which these laws are absolutely incompatible. Would you rather give credit to a miracle than admit an improbability? Would you solve a difficulty rather by overturning the powers of nature than by believing an artful and uncommon combination of them? Though the fact will not justify a conclusion such as you have condemned, you must, however, grant that it is far beyond our conception. I am almost tempted to dispute even this, said the prince, with a quiet smile. What would you say, my dear count, if it should be proved, for instance, that the operations of the Armenian were prepared and carried on, not only during the halfhour that he was absent from us, not only in haste and incidentally, but during the whole evening and the whole night? You recollect that the Sicilian employed nearly three hours in preparation. The Sicilian? Yes, my prince. And how will you convince me that this juggler had not as much concern in the second apparition as in the first? How so, your highness? That he was not the principal assistant of the Armenian? In a word, how will you convince me that they did not cooperate? It would be a difficult task to prove that, exclaimed I, with no little surprise. Not so difficult, my dear count, as you imagine. What! Could it have happened by mere chance that these two men should form a design so extraordinary and so complicated upon the same person, at the same time, and in the same place? Could mere chance have produced such an exact harmony between their operations, that one of them should play so exactly the game of the other? Suppose for a moment that the Armenian intended to heighten the effect of his deception, by introducing it after a less refined onethat he created a Hector to make himself his Achilles. Suppose that he has done all this to discover what degree of credulity he could expect to find in me, to examine the readiest way to gain my confidence, to familiarize himself with his subject by an attempt that might have miscarried without any prejudice to his plan; in a word, to tune the instrument on which he intended to play. Suppose he did this with the view of exciting my suspicions on one subject in order to divert my attention from another more important to his design. Lastly, suppose he wishes to have some indirect methods of information, which he had himself occasion to practise, imputed to the sorcerer, in order to divert suspicion from the true channel. How do you mean? said I. Suppose, for instance, that he may have bribed some of my servants to give him secret intelligence, or, perhaps, even some papers which may serve his purpose. I have missed one of my domestics. What reason have I to think that the Armenian is not concerned in his leaving me? Such a connection, however, if it existed, may be accidently discovered; a letter may be intercepted; a servant, who is in the secret, may betray his trust. Now all the consequence of the Armenian is destroyed if I detect the source of his omniscience. He therefore introduces this sorcerer, who must be supposed to have some design upon me. He takes care to give me early notice of him and his intentions, so that whatever I may hereafter discover my suspicions must necessarily rest upon the Sicilian. This is the puppet with which he amuses me, whilst he himself, unobserved and unsuspected, is entangling me in invisible snares. We will allow this. But is it consistent with the Armenians plan that he himself should destroy the illusion which he has created, and disclose the mysteries of his science to the eyes of the uninitiated? What mysteries does he disclose? None, surely, which he intends to practise on me. He therefore loses nothing by the discovery. But, on the other hand, what an advantage will he gain, if this pretended victory over juggling and deception should render me secure and unsuspecting; if he succeeds in diverting my attention from the right quarter, and in fixing my wavering suspicions on an object the most remote from the real one! He could naturally expect that, sooner or later, either from my own doubts, or at the suggestion of another, I should be tempted to seek a key to his mysterious wonders, in the mere art of a juggler; how could he better provide against such an inquiry than by contrasting his prodigies with juggling tricks. By confining the latter within artificial limits, and by delivering, as it were, into my hands a scale by which to appreciate them, he naturally exalts and perplexes my ideas of the former. How many suspicions he precludes by this single contrivance! How many methods of accounting for his miracles, which afterwards have occurred to me, does he refute beforehand! But in exposing such a finished deception he has acted very much against his own interest, both by quickening the penetration of those whom he meant to impose upon, and by staggering their belief in miracles in general. Your highness self is the best proof of the insufficiency of his plan, if indeed he ever had one. Perhaps he has been mistaken in respect to myself, said the prince; but his conclusions have nevertheless been well founded. Could he foresee that I should exactly notice the very circumstance which threatens to become the key to the whole artifice? Was it in his plan that the creature he employed should render himself thus vulnerable? Are we certain that the Sicilian has not far exceeded his commission? He has undoubtedly done so with respect to the ring, and yet it is chiefly this single circumstance which determined my distrust in him. How easily may a plan, whose contexture is most artful and refined, be spoiled in the execution by an awkward instrument. It certainly was not the Armenians intention that the sorcerer should trumpet his fame to us in the style of a mountebank, that he should endeavor to impose upon us such fables as are too gross to bear the least reflection. For instance, with what countenance could this impostor affirm that the miraculous being he spoke of must renounce all commerce with mankind at twelve in the night? Did we not see him among us at that very hour? That is true, cried I. He must have forgotten it. It often happens, to people of this description, that they overact their parts; and, by aiming at too much, mar the effects which a wellmanaged deception is calculated to produce. I cannot, however, yet prevail on myself to look upon the whole as a mere preconcerted scheme. What! the Sicilians terror, his convulsive fits, his swoon, the deplorable situation in which we saw him, and which was even such as to move our pity, were all these nothing more than a studied part? I allow that a skilful performer may carry imitation to a very high pitch, but he certainly has no power over the organs of life. As for that, my friend, replied the prince, I have seen Richard III. performed by Garrick. But were we at that moment sufficiently cool to be capable of observing dispassionately? Could we judge of the emotion of the Sicilian when we were almost overcome by our own? Besides, the decisive crisis even of a deception is so momentous to the deceiver himself that excessive anxiety may produce in him symptoms as violent as those which surprise excites in the deceived. Add to this the unexpected entrance of the watch. I am glad you remind me of that, prince. Would the Armenian have ventured to discover such a dangerous scheme to the eye of justice; to expose the fidelity of his creature to so severe a test? And for what purpose? Leave that matter to him; he is no doubt acquainted with the people he employs. Do we know what secret crimes may have secured him the silence of this man? You have been informed of the office he holds in Venice; what difficulty will he find in saving a man of whom he himself is the only accuser? [This suggestion of the prince was but too well justified by the event. For, some days after, on inquiring after the prisoner, we were told that he had escaped, and had not since been heard of.] You ask what could be his motives for delivering this man into the hands of justice? continued the prince. By what other method, except this violent one, could he have wrested from the Sicilian such an infamous and improbable confession, which, however, was so material to the success of his plan? Who but a man whose case is desperate, and who has nothing to lose, would consent to give so humiliating an account of himself? Under what other circumstances could we have believed such a confession? I grant all this, my prince. That the two apparitions were mere contrivances of art; that the Sicilian has imposed upon us a tale which the Armenian his master, had previously taught him; that the efforts of both have been directed to the same end, and, from this mutual intelligence all the wonderful incidents which have astonished us in this adventure may be easily explained. But the prophecy in the square of St. Mark, that first miracle, which, as it were, opened the door to all the rest, still remains unexplained; and of what use is the key to all his other wonders if we despair of resolving this single one? Rather invert the proposition, my dear count, answered the prince, and say what do all these wonders prove if I can demonstrate that a single one among them is a juggling trick? The prediction, I own, is totally beyond my conception. If it stood alone; if the Armenian had closed the scene with it, instead of beginning it, I confess I do not know how far I might have been carried. But in the base alloy with which it is mixed it is certainly rather suspicious. Time may explain, or not explain it; but believe me, my friend! added the prince, taking my hand, with a grave countenance,a man who can command supernatural powers has no occasion to employ the arts of a juggler; he despises them. Thus, says Count O, ended a conversation which I have related word for word, because it shows the difficulties which were to be overcome before the prince could be effectually imposed upon; and I hope it may free his memory from the imputation of having blindly and inconsiderately thrown himself into a snare, which was spread for his destruction by the most unexampled and diabolical wickedness. Not all, continues Count O, who, at the moment I am writing, smile contemptuously at the princes credulity, and, in the fancied superiority of their own yet untempted understanding, unconditionally condemn him; not all of these, I apprehend, would have stood his first trial so courageously. If afterwards, notwithstanding this providential warning, we witness his downfall; if we see that the black design against which, at the very outset, he was thus cautioned, is finally successful, we shall be less inclined to ridicule his weakness than to be astonished at the infamous ingenuity of a plot which could seduce an understanding so fully prepared. Considerations of worldly interest can have no influence upon my testimony; he, who alone would be thankful for it, is now no more. His dreadful destiny is accomplished; his soul has long since been purified before the throne of truth, where mine will likewise have appeared before these passages meet the eyes of the world. Pardon the involuntary tears which now flow at the remembrance of my dearest friend. But for the sake of justice I must write this. His was a noble character, and would have adorned a throne which, seduced by the most atrocious artifice, he attempted to ascend by the commission of a crime. BOOK II. Not long after these events, continues Count O, in his narrative, I began to observe an extraordinary alteration in the disposition of the prince, which was partly the immediate consequence of the last event and partly produced by the concurrence of many adventitious circumstances. Hitherto he had avoided every severe trial of his faith, and contented himself with purifying the rude and abstract notions of religion, in which he had been educated, by those more rational ideas upon this subject which forced themselves upon his attention, or comparing the many discordant opinions with each other, without inquiring into the foundations of his faith. Religious subjects, he has many times confessed to me, always appeared to him like an enchanted castle, into which one does not set ones foot without horror, and that they act therefore much the wiser part who pass it in respectful silence, without exposing themselves to the danger of being bewildered in its labyrinths. A servile and bigoted education was the source of this dread; this had impressed frightful images upon his tender brain, which, during the remainder of his life, he was never able wholly to obliterate. Religious melancholy was an hereditary disorder in his family. The education which he and his brothers had received was calculated to produce it; and the men to whose care they were entrusted, selected with this object, were also either enthusiasts or hypocrites. To stifle all the sprightliness of the boy, by a gloomy restraint of his mental faculties, was the only method of securing to themselves the highest approbation of his royal parents. The whole of our princes childhood wore a dark and gloomy aspect; mirth was banished even from his amusements. All his ideas of religion were accompanied by some frightful image; and the representations of terror and severity were those which first took hold of his lively imagination, and which the longest retained their empire over it. His God was an object of terror, a being whose occupation is to chastise; and the adoration he paid him was either slavish fear, or a blind submission which stifled all his energies. In all his youthful propensities, which a vigorous growth and a fine constitution naturally excited to break out with the greater violence, religion stood in his way; it opposed everything upon which his young heart was bent; he learned to consider it not as a friend, but as the scourge of his passions; so that a silent indignation was gradually kindled against it in his heart, which, together with a bigoted faith and a blind fear, produced an incongruous mixture of feelings, and an abhorrence of a ruler before whom he trembled. It is no wonder, therefore, that he took the first opportunity of escaping from so galling a yokebut he fled from it as a bondslave who, escaping from his rigorous master, drags along with him a sense of his servitude, even in the midst of freedom; for, as he did not renounce the faith of his earlier years from a deliberate conviction, and did not wait till the maturity and improvement of his reasoning had weaned him from it, but escaped from it like a fugitive, upon whose person the rights of his master are still in force, so was he obliged, even after his widest separation, to return to it at last. He had escaped with his chain, and for that reason must necessarily become the prey of any one who should discover it, and know how to make use of the discovery. That such a one presented himself, the sequel of this history will prove; most likely the reader has already surmised it. The confessions of the Sicilian left a deeper impression upon his mind than they ought, considering the circumstances; and the small victory which his reason had thence gained over this weak imposture, remarkably increased his reliance upon his own powers. The facility with which he had been able to unravel this deception appeared to have surprised him. Truth and error were not yet so accurately distinguished from each other in his mind but that he often mistook the arguments which were in favor of the one for those in favor of the other. Thence it arose that the same blow which destroyed his faith in wonders made the whole edifice of it totter. In this instance, he fell into the same error as an inexperienced man who has been deceived in love or friendship, because he happened to make a bad choice, and who denies the existence of these sensations, because he takes the occasional exceptions for distinguishing features. The unmasking of a deception made even truth suspicious to him, because he had unfortunately discovered truth by false reasoning. This imaginary triumph pleased him in proportion to the magnitude of the oppression from which it seemed to deliver him. From this instant there arose in his mind a scepticism which did not spare even the most sacred objects. Many circumstances concurred to encourage, and still more to confirm, him in this turn of mind. He now quitted the retirement in which he had hitherto lived, and gave way to a more dissipated mode of life. His rank was discovered; attentions which he was obliged to return, etiquettes for which he was indebted to his rank, drew him imperceptibly within the vortex of the great world. His rank, as well as his personal attractions, opened to him the circles of all the beaux esprits in Venice, and he soon found himself on terms of intimacy with the most enlightened persons in the republic, men of learning as well as politicians. This obliged him to en large the monotonous and limited circle to which his understanding had hitherto been confined. He began to perceive the poverty and feebleness of his ideas, and to feel the want of more elevated impressions. The oldfashioned turn of his understanding, in spite of the many advantages with which it was accompanied, formed an unpleasing contrast with the current ideas of society; his ignorance of the commonest things frequently exposed him to ridicule, than which he dreaded nothing more. The unfortunate prejudice which attached to his native country appeared to him a challenge to overcome it in his own person. Besides this, there was a peculiarity in his character; he was offended with every attention that he thought was paid him on account of his rank rather than his personal qualities. He felt this humiliation principally in the company of persons who shone by their abilities, and triumphed, as it were, over their birth by their merit. To perceive himself distinguished as a prince, in such a society, was always a deep humiliation to him, because he unfortunately fancied himself excluded by his rank from all competition. These circumstances convinced him of the necessity of cultivating his mind, in order to raise it to a level with the thinking part of the world, from which he had hitherto been so separated; and for that purpose he chose the most modern books, and applied himself to them with all the ardor with which he was accustomed to pursue every object to which he devoted himself. But the unskilful hand that directed his choice always prompted him to select such as were little calculated to improve either his heart or his reason; besides that, he was influenced by a propensity which rendered everything irresistible which was incomprehensible. He had neither attention nor memory for anything that was not of that character, and both his reason and his heart remained untouched, while he was filling the vacuities of his brain with confused ideas. The dazzling style of some writers captivated his imagination, while the subtlety of others ensnared his reason. Together, they easily took possession of a mind which became the prey of whatever was obtruded upon it with a certain degree of dogmatism. A course of reading, which had been continued with ardor for more than a year, had scarcely enriched him with one benevolent idea, but had filled his head with doubts, which, as a natural consequence with such a character, had almost found an unfortunate road to his heart. In a word, he had entered this labyrinth as a credulous enthusiast, had left it as a sceptic, and at length became a perfect freethinker. Among the circles into which he had been introduced there was a private society called the Bucentauro, which, under the mask of a noble and rational liberality of sentiment, encouraged the most unbridled licentiousness of manners and opinion. As it enumerated many of the clergy among its members, and could even boast of some cardinals at its head, the prince was the more easily induced to join it. He thought that certain dangerous truths, which reason discovers, could be nowhere better preserved than in the hands of such persons, whose rank compelled them to moderation, and who had the advantage of hearing and examining the other side of the question. The prince did not recollect that licentiousness of sentiment and manners takes so much the stronger hold among persons of this rank, inasmuch as they for that reason feel one curb less; and this was the case with the Bucentauro, most of whose members, through an execrable philosophy, and manners worthy of such a guide, were not only a disgrace to their own rank, but even to human nature itself. The society had its secret degrees; and I will believe, for the credit of the prince, that they never thought him worthy of admission into the inmost sanctuary. Every one who entered this society was obliged, at least so long as he continued to be a member of it, to lay aside all distinctions arising from rank, nation, or religion, in short, every general mark or distinction whatever, and to submit himself to the condition of universal equality. To be elected a member was indeed a difficult matter, as superiority of understanding alone paved the way to it. The society boasted of the highest ton and the most cultivated taste, and such indeed was its fame throughout all Venice. This, as well as the appearance of equality which predominated in it, attracted the prince irresistibly. Sensible conversations, set off by the most admirable humor, instructive amusements, and the flower of the learned and political world, which were all attracted to this point as to their common centre, concealed from him for a long time the danger of this connection. As he by degrees discovered through its mask the spirit of the institution, as they grew tired of being any longer on their guard before him, to recede was dangerous, and false shame and anxiety for his safety obliged him to conceal the displeasure he felt. But he already began, merely from familiarity with men of this class and their sentiments, though they did not excite him to imitation, to lose the pure and charming simplicity of his character, and the delicacy of his moral feelings. His understanding, supported by real knowledge, could not without foreign assistance solve the fallacious sophisms with which he had been here ensnared; and this fatal poison had already destroyed all, or nearly all, the basis on which his morality rested. He surrendered the natural and indispensable safeguards of his happiness for sophisms which deserted him at the critical moment, and he was consequently left to the operation of any specious argument which came in his way. Perhaps the hand of a friend might yet have been in time to extricate him from this abyss; but, besides that I did not become acquainted with the real character of the Bucentauro till long after the evil had taken place, an urgent circumstance called me away from Venice just at the beginning of this period. Lord Seymour, too, a valuable acquaintance of the prince, whose cool understanding was proof against every species of deception, and who would have infallibly been a secure support to him, left us at this time in order to return to his native country. Those in whose hands I left the prince were indeed worthy men, but inexperienced, excessively narrow in their religious opinions, deficient in their perception of the evil, and wanting in credit with the prince. They had nothing to oppose to his captious sophisms except the maxims of a blind and uninquiring faith, which either irritated him or excited his ridicule. He saw through them too easily, and his superior reason soon silenced those weak defenders of the good cause, as will be clearly evinced from an instance which I shall introduce in the sequel. Those who, subsequent to this, possessed themselves of his confidence, were much more interested in plunging him deeper into error. When I returned to Venice in the following year how great a change had already taken place in everything! The influence of this new philosophy soon showed itself in the princes conduct. The more openly he pursued pleasure, and acquired new friends, the more did he lose in the estimation of his old ones. He pleased me less and less every day; we saw each other more seldom, and indeed he was seldom accessible. He had launched out into the torrent of the great world.
His threshold was eternally thronged when he was at home. Amusements, banquets, and galas followed each other in rapid succession. He was the idol whom every one courted, the great attraction of every circle. In proportion as he, in his secluded life, had fancied living in society to be difficult, did he to his astonishment find it easy. Everything met his wishes. Whatever he uttered was admirable, and when he remained silent it was like committing a robbery upon the company. They understood the art of drawing his thoughts insensibly from his soul, and then with a little delicate management to surprise him with them. This happiness, which accompanied him everywhere, and this universal success, raised him indeed too much in his own ideas, because it gave him too much confidence and too much reliance upon himself. The heightened opinion which he thus acquired of his own worth made him credit the excessive and almost idolatrous adoration that was paid to his understanding; which but for this increased selfcomplacency, must have necessarily recalled him from his aberrations. For the present, however, this universal voice was only a confirmation of what his complacent vanity whispered in his ear; a tribute which he felt entitled to by right. He would have infallibly disengaged himself from this snare had they allowed him to take breath; had they granted him a moment of uninterrupted leisure to compare his real merit with the picture that was exhibited to him in this seducing mirror; but his existence was a continued state of intoxication, a whirl of excitement. The higher he had been elevated the more difficulty had he to support himself in his elevation. This incessant exertion slowly undermined him; rest had forsaken even his slumbers. His weakness had been discovered, and the passion kindled in his breast turned to good account. His worthy attendants soon found to their cost that their lord had become a wit. That anxious sensibility, those glorious truths which his heart once embraced with the greatest enthusiasm, now began to be the objects of his ridicule. He revenged himself on the great truths of religion for the oppression which he had so long suffered from misconception. But, since from too true a voice his heart combated the intoxication of his head, there was more of acrimony than of humor in his jests. His disposition began to alter, and caprice to exhibit itself. The most beautiful ornament of his character, his modesty, vanished; parasites had poisoned his excellent heart. That tender delicacy of address which frequently made his attendants forget that he was their lord, now gave place to a decisive and despotic tone, which made the more sensible impression, because it was not founded upon distinction of rank, for the want of which they could have consoled themselves, but upon an arrogant estimation of his own superior merit. When at home he was attacked by reflections that seldom made their appearance in the bustle of company; his own people scarcely ever saw him otherwise than gloomy, peevish, and unhappy, whilst elsewhere a forced vivacity made him the soul of every circle. With the sincerest sorrow did we behold him treading this dangerous path, but in the vortex in which he was involved the feeble voice of friendship was no longer heard, and he was too much intoxicated to understand it. Just at the beginning of this epoch an affair of the greatest consequence required my presence in the court of my sovereign, which I dared not postpone even for the dearest interests of friendship. An invisible hand, the agency of which I did not discover till long afterwards, had contrived to derange my affairs, and to spread reports concerning me which I was obliged to contradict by my presence. The parting from the prince was painful to me, but did not affect him. The ties which united us had been severed for some time, but his fate had awakened all my anxiety. I, on that account, prevailed on Baron von F to inform me by letter of every event, which he has done in the most conscientious manner. As I was for a considerable time no longer an eyewitness of these events, it will be allowable for me to introduce the Baron von F in my stead, and to fill up the gap in my narrative by the contents of his letters. Notwithstanding that the representation of my friend F is not always what I should have given, I would not alter any of his expressions, so that the reader will be enabled to discover the truth with very little trouble. LETTER I. BARON VON F TO COUNT VON O. May 17. I thank you, my most honored friend, for the permission you have given me to continue in your absence that confidential intercourse with you, which during your stay here formed my great pleasure. You must be aware that there is no one here with whom I can venture to open my heart on certain private matters. Whatever you may urge to the contrary, I detest the people here. Since the prince has become one of them, and since we have lost your society, I feel solitary in the midst of this populous city. Z takes it less to heart, and the fair ones of Venice manage to make him forget the mortifications he is compelled to share with me at home. And why should he make himself unhappy? He desires nothing more in the prince than a master, whom he could also find elsewhere. But I!you know how deep an interest I feel in our princes weal and woe, and how much cause I have for doing so; I have now lived with him sixteen years, and seem to exist only for his sake. As a boy of nine years old I first entered his service, and since that time we have never been separated. I have grown up under his eyea long intercourse has insensibly attached me more and more to himI have borne a part in all his adventures, great and small. Until this last unhappy year I had been accustomed to look upon him in the light of a friend, or of an elder brotherI have basked in his smile as in the sunshine of a summers dayno cloud hung over my happiness!and all this must now go to ruin in this unlucky Venice! Since your departure several changes have taken place in our establishment. The Prince of d arrived here last week, with a numerous and brilliant retinue, and has caused a new and tumultuous life in our circle. As he is so nearly related to our prince, and as they are moreover at present upon pretty good terms, they will be very little apart during his sojourn, which I hear is to last until after the feast of the Ascension. A good beginning has already been made; for the last ten days our prince has hardly had time to breathe. The Prince of d has all along been living in a very expensive way, which was excusable in him, as he will soon take his departure; but the worst of the business is that he has inoculated our prince with his extravagance, because he could not well withdraw himself from his company, and, in the peculiar relation which exists between the two houses, thought it incumbent upon himself to assert the dignity of his own. We shall, moreover, depart from Venice in a few weeks, which will relieve the prince from the necessity of continuing for any length of time this extraordinary expenditure. The Prince of d, it is reported, is here on business of the Order, in which he imagines that he plays an important part. That he has taken advantage of all the acquaintances of our prince you may readily imagine. He has been introduced with distinguished honor into the society of the Bucentauro, as he is pleased to consider himself a wit, and a man of great genius, and allows himself to be styled in his correspondences, which he keeps up throughout all parts of the world, the prince philosophique. I do not know whether you have ever had the pleasure of meeting him. He displays a promising exterior, piercing eyes, a countenance full of expression, much show of reading, much acquired naturalness (if I may be allowed the expression), joined to a princely condescension towards the human race, a large amount of confidence in himself, and an eloquence which talks down all opposition. Who could refuse to pay homage to such splendid qualities in a Royal Highness? But to what advantage the quiet and sterling worth of our prince will appear, when contrasted with these dazzling accomplishments, the event must show. In the arrangement of our establishment, various and important changes have taken place. We have rented a new and magnificent house opposite the new Procuracy, because the lodging at the Moor Hotel became too confined for the prince. Our suite has been augmented by twelve persons, pages, Moors, guards, etc. During your stay here you complained of unnecessary expenseyou should see us now! Our internal arrangements remain the same as of old, except that the prince, no longer held in check by your presence, is, if possible, more reserved and distant towards us than ever; we see very little of him, except while dressing or undressing him. Under the pretext that we speak the French language very badly, and the Italian not at all, he has found means to exclude us from most of his entertainments, which to me personally is not a very great grievance; but I believe I know the true reason of ithe is ashamed of us; and this hurts me, for we have not deserved it of him. As you wish to know all our minor affairs, I must tell you, that of all his attendants, the prince almost exclusively employs Biondello, whom he took into his service, as you will recollect, on the disappearance of his huntsman, and who, in his new mode of life, has become quite indispensable to him. This man knows Venice thoroughly, and turns everything to some account. It is as though he had a thousand eyes, and could set a thousand hands in motion at once. This he accomplishes, as he says, by the help of the gondoliers. To the prince he renders himself very useful by making him acquainted with all the strange faces that present themselves at his assemblies, and the private information he gives his highness has always proved to be correct. Besides this, he speaks and writes both Italian and French excellently, and has in consequence already risen to be the princes secretary. I must, however, relate to you an instance of fidelity in him which is rarely found among people of his station. The other day a merchant of good standing from Rimini requested an audience of the prince. The object of his visit was an extraordinary complaint concerning Biondello. The procurator, his former master, who must have been rather an odd fellow, had lived in irreconcilable enmity with his relations; this enmity he wished if possible to continue even after his death. Biondello possessed his entire confidence, and was the repository of all his secrets; while on his deathbed he obliged him to swear that he would keep them inviolably, and would never disclose them for the benefit of his relations; a handsome legacy was to be the reward of his silence. When the deceased procurators will was opened and his papers inspected, many blanks and irregularities were found to which Biondello alone could furnish a key. He persisted in denying that he knew anything about it, gave up his very handsome legacy to the heirs, and kept his secrets to himself. Large offers were made to him by the relations, but all in vain; at length, in order to escape from their importunities and their threats of legally prosecuting him he entered the service of the prince. The merchant, who was the chief heir, now applied to the prince, and made larger offers than, before if Biondello would alter his determination. But even the persuasions of the prince were fruitless. He admitted that secrets of consequence had really been confided to him; he did not deny that the deceased had perhaps carried his enmity towards his relations too far; but, added he, he was my dear master and benefactor, and died with a firm belief in my integrity. I was the only friend he had left in the world, and will therefore never prove myself unworthy of his confidence. At the same time he hinted that the avowals they wished him to make would not tend to the honor of the deceased. Was not that acting nobly and delicately? You may easily imagine that the prince did not renew his endeavors to shake so praiseworthy a determination. The extraordinary fidelity which he has shown towards his deceased master has procured him the unlimited confidence of his present one! Farewell, my dear friend. How I sigh for the quiet life we led when first you came amongst us, for the stillness of which your society so agreeably indemnified us. I fear my happy days in Venice are over, and shall be glad if the same remark does not also apply to the prince. The element in which he now lives is not calculated to render him permanently happy, or my sixteen years experience has deceived me. LETTER II. BARON VON F TO COUNT VON O June 4. I should never have thought that our stay at Venice would have been productive of any good consequences. It has been the means of saving a mans life, and I am reconciled to it. Some few evenings ago the prince was being carried home late at night from the Bucentauro; two domestics, of whom Biondello was one, accompanied him. By some accident it happened that the sedan, which had been hired in haste, broke down, and the prince was obliged to proceed the remainder of the wayon foot. Biondello walked in front; their course lay through several dark, retired streets, and, as daybreak was at hand, the lamps were either burning dimly or had gone out altogether. They had proceeded about a quarter of an hour when Biondello discovered that he had lost his way. The similarity of the bridges had deceived him, and, instead of crossing that of St. Mark, they found themselves in Sestiere di Castello. It was in a bystreet, and not a soul was stirring; they were obliged to turn back in order to gain a main street by which to set themselves right. They had proceeded but a few paces when they heard cries of murder in a neighboring street. With his usual determined courage, the prince, unarmed as he was, snatched a stick from one of his attendants, and rushed forward in the direction whence the sound came. Three ruffianlylooking fellows were just about to assassinate a man, who with his companion was feebly defending himself; the prince appeared just in time to arrest the fatal blow. The voices of the prince and his followers alarmed the murderers, who did not expect any interruption in so lonely a place; after inflicting a few slight wounds with their daggers, they abandoned their victim and took to their heels. Exhausted with the unequal combat, the wounded man sunk half fainting into the arms of the prince; his companion informed my master that the man whose life he had saved was the Marquis Civitella, a nephew of the Cardinal A. As the marquis wounds bled freely, Biondello acted as surgeon to the best of his ability, and the prince took care to have him conveyed to the palace of his uncle, which was near at hand, and whither he himself accompanied him. This done, he left the house without revealing his name. This, however, was discovered by a servant who had recognized Biondello. Already on the following morning the cardinal, an old acquaintance from the Bucentauro, waited upon the prince. The interview lasted an hour; the cardinal was much moved; tears stood in his eyes when they parted; the prince, too, was affected. The same evening a visit was paid to the sick man, of whose case the surgeon gives a very favorable report; the mantle in which he was wrapped had rendered the thrusts unsteady, and weakened their force. Since this event not a day has passed without the princes paying a visit at the cardinals, or receiving one from him, and a close intimacy has begun to exist between him and the cardinals family. The cardinal is a venerable man of sixty, with a majestic aspect, but full of gayety and good health. He is said to be the richest prelate throughout all the dominions of the republic. He is reported to manage his immense fortune in a very liberal manner, and, although prudently economical, to despise none of the joys of this life. This nephew, who is his sole heir, is not always on the best of terms with his uncle. For, although the cardinal is anything but an enemy to youthful pleasures, the conduct of the nephew must exhaust the utmost tolerance. His loose principles and dissipated manner of living, aided unhappily by all the attractions which can make vice tempting and excite sensuality, have rendered him the terror of all fathers and the bane of all husbands; this last attack also was said to have been caused by an intrigue he had begun with the wife of the ambassador, without speaking of other serious broils from which the power and the money of the cardinal could scarcely extricate him. But for this the cardinal would be the happiest man in Italy, for he possesses everything that can make life agreeable; but by this one domestic misfortune all the gifts of fortune are annulled, and the enjoyment of his wealth is embittered to the cardinal by the continual fear of finding nobody to inherit it. The whole of this information I have obtained from Biondello. The prince has found in this man a real treasure. Every day he becomes more indispensable, and we are continually discovering in him some new talent. Some days ago the prince felt feverish and could not sleep; the nightlamp was extinguished, and all his ringing failed to arouse the valetdechambre, who had gone to sleep out of the house with an operadancer. At length the prince determined to rise himself, and to rouse one of his people. He had not proceeded far when a strain of delicious melody met his ear. Like one enchanted, he followed the sound, and found Biondello in his room playing upon the flute, with his fellowservants assembled around him. The prince could hardly believe his senses, and commanded him to proceed. With a surprising degree of facility he began to vary a touching adagio air with some fine extempore variations, which he executed with all the taste of a virtuoso. The prince, who, as you know, is a judge of music, says that he might play with confidence in the finest choir in Italy. I must dismiss this man, said he to me next morning, for I am unable to reward him according to his merits. Biondello, who had overheard these words, came forward, If you dismiss me, gracious prince, said he, you deprive me of my best reward. You are born to something better than to serve, answered my master. I must not stand in the way of your fortune. Do not press upon me any better fortune, gracious sir, than that which I have chosen for myself. To neglect talent like yoursNo! I can never permit it. Then permit me, gracious sir, sometimes to exercise it in your presence. Preparations were immediately made for carrying this proposition into effect. Biondello had a room assigned to him next the apartment of the prince, so that he can lull him to sleep with his strains, and wake him in the same manner. The prince wished to double his salary, but Biondello declined, requesting that this intended boon should be retained in his masters hands as a capital of which he might some day wish to avail himself. The prince expects that he will soon come to ask a favor at his hands; and whatever it may be it is granted beforehand. Farewell, dearest friend. I am waiting with impatience for tidings from Kn. LETTER III. BARON VON F TO COUNT VON O June 4. The Marquis of Civitella, who is now entirely recovered from his wounds, was last week introduced to the prince by his uncle, the cardinal, and since then he has followed him like his shadow. Biondello cannot have told me the truth respecting this marquis, or at any rate his account must be greatly exaggerated. His mien is highly engaging, and his manners irresistibly winning. It is impossible to be out of humor with him; the first sight of him has disarmed me. Imagine a man of the most enchanting figure, with corresponding grace and dignity, a countenance full of thought and genius, an expression frank and inviting; a persuasive tone of voice, the most flowing eloquence, and a glow of youthful beauty, joined to all the advantages of a most liberal education. He has none of that contemptuous pride, none of that solemn starchness, which we disliked so much in all the other nobles. His whole being is redolent of youthful joyousness, benevolence, and warmth of feeling. His excesses must have been much exaggerated; I never saw a more perfect picture of health. If he is really so wholly abandoned as Biondello represents him he is a syren whom none can resist. Towards me he behaved with much frankness. He confessed with the most pleasing sincerity that he was by no means on the best of terms with his uncle, the cardinal, and that it was his own fault. But he was seriously resolved to amend his life, and the merit would be entirely the princes. At the same time he hoped through his instrumentality to be reconciled to his uncle, as the princes influence with the cardinal was unbounded. The only thing he had wanted till now was a friend and a guide, and he trusted he should find both in the person of the prince. The prince has now assumed the authority of a preceptor towards him, and treats him with all the watchfulness fulness and strictness of a Mentor. But this intimacy also gives the marquis a certain degree of influence, of which he well knows how to avail himself. He hardly stirs from his side; he is present at all parties where the prince is one of the guests; for the Bucentauro alone he is fortunately as yet too young. Wherever be appears in public with the prince he manages to draw him away from the rest of the company by the pleasing manner in which he engages him in conversation and arrests his attention. Nobody, they say, has yet been able to reclaim him, and the prince will deserve to be immortalized in an epic should he accomplish such an Herculean task. I am much afraid, however, that the tables may be turned, and the guide be led away by the pupil, of which, in fact, there seems to be every prospect. The Prince of d has taken his departure, much to the satisfaction of us all, my master not excepted. What I predicted, my dear O, has come to pass. Two characters so widely opposed must inevitably clash together, and cannot maintain a good understanding for any length of time. The Prince of d had not been long in Venice before a terrible schism took place in the intellectual world, which threatened to deprive our prince of onehalf of his admirers. Wherever he went he was crossed by this rival, who possessed exactly the requisite amount of small cunning to avail himself of every little advantage he gained. As he besides never scrupled to make use of any petty manoeuvres to increase his consequence, he in a short time drew all the weakminded of the community on his side, and shone at the head of a company of parasites worthy of such a leader. [The harsh judgment which Baron F (both here and in some passages of his first letter) pronounces upon this talented prince will be found exaggerated by every one who has the good fortune to be acquainted with him, and must be attributed to the prejudiced views of the young observer.Note of the Count von O.] The wiser course would certainly have been not to enter into competition at all with an adversary of this description, and a few months back this is the part which the prince would have taken. But now he has launched too far into the stream easily to regain the shore. These trifles have, perhaps by the circumstances in which he is placed, acquired a certain degree of importance in his eyes, and had he even despised them his pride would not have allowed him to retire at a moment when his yielding would have been looked upon less as a voluntary act than as a confession of inferiority. Added to this, an unlucky revival of forgotten satirical speeches had taken place, and the spirit of rivalry which took possession of his followers had affected the prince himself. In order, therefore, to maintain that position in society which public opinion had now assigned him, he deemed it advisable to seize every possible opportunity of display, and of increasing the number of his admirers; but this could only be effected by the most princely expenditure; he was therefore eternally giving feasts, entertainments, and expensive concerts, making costly presents, and playing high. As this strange madness, moreover, had also infected the princes retinue, who are generally much more punctilious in respect to what they deem the honor of the family than their masters, the prince was obliged to assist the zeal of his followers by his liberality. Here, then, is a whole catalogue of ills, all irremediable consequences of a sufficiently excusable weakness to which the prince in an unguarded moment gave way. We have, it is true, got rid of our rival, but the harm he has done will not so soon be remedied. The finances of the prince are exhausted; all that he had saved by the wise economy of years is spent; and he must hasten from Venice if he would escape plunging into debt, which till now he has most scrupulously avoided. It is decisively settled that we leave as soon as fresh remittances arrive. I should not have minded all this splendor if the prince had but reaped the least real satisfaction from it. But he was never less happy than at present. He feels that he is not what he formerly was; he seeks to regain his selfrespect; he is dissatisfied with himself, and launches into fresh dissipation in order to drown the recollection of the last. One new acquaintance follows another, and each involves him more deeply. I know not where this will end. We must awaythere is no other chance of safetywe must away from Venice. But, my dear friend, I have not yet received a single line from you. How am I to interpret this long and obstinate silence? LETTER IV. BARON VON F TO COUNT VON O. June 12. I thank you, my dear friend, for the token of your remembrance which young Bhl brought me. But what is it you say about letters I ought to have received? I have received no letter from you; not a single one. What a circuitous route must they have taken. In future, dear O, when you honor me with an epistle despatch it via Trent, under cover to the prince, my master. We have at length been compelled, my dear friend, to resort to a measure which till now we had so happily avoided. Our remittances have failed to arrivefailed, for the first time, in this pressing emergency, and we have been obliged to have recourse to a usurer, as the prince is willing to pay handsomely to keep the affair secret. The worst of this disagreeable occurrence is, that it retards our departure. On this affair the prince and I have had an explanation. The whole transaction had been arranged by Biondello, and the son of Israel was there before I had any suspicion of the fact. It grieved me to the heart to see the prince reduced to such an extremity, and revived all my recollections of the past, and fears for the future; and I suppose I may have looked rather sorrowful and gloomy when the usurer left the room. The prince, whom the foregoing scene had left in not the happiest frame of mind, was pacing angrily up and down the room; the rouleaus of gold were still lying on the table; I stood at the window, counting the panes of glass in the procurators house opposite. There was a long pause. At length the prince broke silence. F! he began, I cannot bear to see dismal faces about me. I remained silent. Why do you not answer me? Do I not perceive that your heart is almost bursting to vent some of its vexation? I insist on your speaking, otherwise you will begin to fancy that you are keeping some terribly momentous secret. If I am gloomy, gracious sir, replied I, it is only because I do not see you cheerful. I know, continued he, that you have been dissatisfied with me for some time pastthat you disapprove of every step I takethatwhat does Count O say in his letters? Count O has not written to me. Not written? Why do you deny it? You keep up a confidential correspondence together, you and the count; I am quite aware of that. Come, you may confess it, for I have no wish to pry into your secrets. Count O, replied I, has not yet answered any of the three letters which I have written to him. I have done wrong, continued he; dont you think so? (taking up one of the rouleaus) I should not have done this? I see that it was necessary. I ought not to have reduced myself to such a necessity? I did not answer. Oh, of course! I ought never to have indulged my wishes, but have grown gray in the same dull manner in which I was brought up! Because I once venture a step beyond the drear monotony of my past life, and look around me to see whether there be not some new source of enjoyment in store for mebecause I If it was but a trial, gracious sir, I have no more to say; for the experience you have gained would not be dearly bought at three times the price it has cost. It grieves me, I confess, to think that the opinion of the world should be concerned in determining the questionhow are you to choose your own happiness. It is well for you that you can afford to despise the worlds opinion, replied he, I am its creature, I must be its slave. What are we princes but opinion? With us it is everything. Public opinion is our nurse and preceptor in infancy, our oracle and idol in riper years, our staff in old age. Take from us what we derive from the opinion of the world, and the poorest of the humblest class is in a better position than we, for his fate has taught him a lesson of philosophy which enables him to bear it. But a prince who laughs at the worlds opinion destroys himself, like the priest who denies the existence of a God. And yet, gracious prince I see what you would say; I can break through the circle which my birth has drawn around me. But can I also eradicate from my memory all the false impressions which education and early habit have implanted, and which a hundred thousand fools have been continually laboring to impress more and more firmly? Everybody naturally wishes to be what he is in perfection; in short, the whole aim of a princes existence is to appear happy. If we cannot be happy after your fashion, is that any reason why we should discard all other means of happiness, and not be happy at all? If we cannot drink of joy pure from the fountainhead, can there be any reason why we should not beguile ourselves with artificial pleasure nay, even be content to accept a sorry substitute from the very hand that robs us of the higher boon? You were wont to look for this compensation in your own heart. But if I no longer find it there? Oh, how came we to fall on this subject? Why did you revive these recollections in me? I had recourse to this tumult of the senses in order to stifle an inward voice which embitters my whole life; in order to lull to rest this inquisitive reason, which, like a sharp sickle, moves to and fro in my brain, at each new research lopping off another branch of my happiness. My dearest princeHe had risen, and was pacing up and down the room in unusual agitation. [I have endeavored, dearest O, to relate to you this remarkable conversation exactly as it occurred; but this I found impossible, although I sat down to write it the evening of the day it took place. In order to assist my memory I was obliged to transpose the observation of the prince, and thus this compound of a conversation and a philosophical lecture, which is in some respects better and in others worse than the source from which I took it, arose; but I assure you that I have rather omitted some of the princes words than ascribed to him any of my own; all that is mine is the arrangement, and a few observations, whose ownership you will easily recognize by their stupidity.
Note of the Baron von F] When everything gives way before me and behind me; when the past lies in the distance in dreary monotony, like a city of the dead; when the future offers me naught; when I see my whole being enclosed within the narrow circle of the present, who can blame me if I clasp this niggardly present of time in my arms with fiery eagerness, as though it were a friend whom I was embracing for the last time? Oh, I have learnt to value the present moment. The present moment is our mother; let us love it as such. Gracious sir, you were wont to believe in a more lasting good. Do but make the enchantment last and fervently will I embrace it. But what pleasure can it give to me to render beings happy who tomorrow will have passed away like myself? Is not everything passing away around me? Each one bustles and pushes his neighbor aside hastily to catch a few drops from the fountain of life, and then departs thirsting. At this very moment, while I am rejoicing in lily strength, some being is waiting to start into life at my dissolution. Show me one being who will endure, and I will become a virtuous man. But what, then, has become of those benevolent sentiments which used to be the joy and the rule of your life? To sow seeds for the future, to assist in carrying out the designs of a high and eternal Providence Future! Eternal Providence! If you take away from man all that he derives from his own heart, all that he associates with the idea of a godhead, and all that belongs to the law of nature, what, then, do you leave him? What has already happened to me, and what may still follow, I look upon as two black, impenetrable curtains hanging over the two extremities of human life, and which no mortal has ever yet drawn aside. Many hundred generations have stood before the second of these curtains, casting the light of their torches upon its folds, speculating and guessing as to what it may conceal. Many have beheld themselves, in the magnified image of their passions, reflected upon the curtain which hides futurity from their gaze, and have turned away shuddering from their own shadows. Poets, philosophers, and statesmen have painted their fancies on the curtain in brighter or more sombre colors, according as their own prospects were bright or gloomy. Many a juggler has also taken advantage of the universal curiosity, and by wellmanaged deceptions led astray the excited imagination. A deep silence reigns behind this curtain; no one who passes beyond it answers any questions; all the reply is an empty echo, like the sound yielded by a vault. Sooner or later all must go behind this curtain, and they approach it with fear and trembling, in doubt who may be waiting there behind to receive them; quid sit id, quod tanturn morituri vident. There have been infidels who asserted that this curtain only deluded mankind, and that we saw nothing behind it, because there was nothing there to see; but, to convince them, they were quickly sent behind it themselves. It was indeed a rash conclusion, said I, if they had no better ground for it than that they saw nothing themselves. You see, my dear friend, I am modest enough not to wish to look behind this curtain, and the wisest course will doubtless be to abstain from all curiosity. But while I draw this impassable circle around me, and confine myself within the bounds of present existence, this small point of time, which I was in danger of neglecting in useless researches, becomes the more important to me. What you call the chief end and aim of my existence concerns me no longer. I cannot escape my destiny; I cannot promote its consummation; but I know, and firmly believe, that I am here to accomplish some end, and that I do accomplish it. But the means which nature has chosen to fulfil my destiny are so much the more sacred to me; to me it is everything; my morality, my happiness. All the rest I shall never learn. I am like a messenger who carries a sealed letter to its place of destination. What the letter contains is indifferent to him; his business is only to earn his fee for carrying it. Alas! said I, how poor a thing you would leave me! But in what a labyrinth have we lost ourselves! exclaimed the prince, looking with a smile at the table on which the rouleaus lay. After all perhaps not far from the mark, continued he; you will now no doubt understand my reasons for this new mode of life. I could not so suddenly tear myself away from my fancied wealth, could not so readily separate the props of my morality and happiness from the pleasing dream with which everything within me was so closely bound up. I longed for the frivolity which seems to render the existence of most of those about me endurable to themselves. Everything which precluded reflection was welcome to me. Shall I confess it to you? I wished to lower myself, in order to destroy this source of my griefs, by deadening the power of reflection. Here we were interrupted by a visit. In my next I shall have to communicate to you a piece of news, which, from the tenor of a conversation like the one of today, you would scarcely have anticipated. LETTER V. BARON VON F TO COUNT VON O. As the time of our departure from Venice is now approaching with rapid steps, this week was to be devoted to seeing everything worthy of notice in pictures and public edifices; a task which, when one intends making a long stay in a place, is always delayed till the last moment. The Marriage at Cana, by Paul Veronese, which is to be seen in a Benedictine convent in the Island of St. George, was in particular mentioned to us in high terms. Do not expect me to give you a description of this extraordinary work of art, which, on the whole, made a very surprising, but not equally pleasing, impression on me. We should have required as many hours as we had minutes to study a composition of one hundred and twenty figures, upon a ground thirty feet broad. What human eye is capable of grasping so complicated a whole, or at once to enjoy all the beauty which the artist has everywhere lavished, upon it! It is, however, to be lamented, that a work of so much merit, which if exhibited in some public place, would command the admiration of every one, should be destined merely to ornament the refectory of a few monks. The church of the monastery is no less worthy of admiration, being one of the finest in the whole city. Towards evening we went in a gondola to the Guidecca, in order to spend the pleasant hours of evening in its charming garden. Our party, which was not very numerous, soon dispersed in various directions; and Civitella, who had been waiting all day for an opportunity of speaking to me privately, took me aside into an arbor. You are a friend to the prince, he began, from whom he is accustomed to keep no secrets, as I know from very good authority. As I entered his hotel today I met a man coming out whose occupation is well known to me, and when I entered the room the princes brow was clouded. I wished to interrupt him,You cannot deny it, continued he; I knew the man, I looked at him well. And is it possible that the prince should have a friend in Venicea friend who owes his life to him, and yet be reduced on an emergency to make use of such creatures? Tell me frankly, Baron! Is the prince in difficulties? It is in vain you strive to conceal it from me. What! you refuse to tell me! I can easily learn from one who would sell any secret for gold. My good Marquis! Pardon me! I must appear intrusive in order not to be ungrateful. To the prince I am indebted for life, and what is still more, for a reasonable use of it. Shall I stand idly by and see him take steps which, besides being inconvenient to him, are beneath his dignity? Shall I feel it in my power to assist him, and hesitate for a moment to step forward? The prince, replied I, is not in difficulties. Some remittances which we expected via Trent have not yet arrived, most likely either by accident, or because not feeling certain whether he had not already left Venice, they waited for a communication from him. This has now been done, and until their arrival Civitella shook his head. Do not mistake my motive, said he; in this there can be no question as to diminishing the extent of my obligations towards the prince, which all my uncles wealth would be insufficient to cancel. My object is simply to spare him a few unpleasant moments. My uncle possesses a large fortune which I can command as freely as though it were my own. A fortunate circumstance occurs, which enables me to avail myself of the only means by which I can possibly be of the slightest use to your master. I know, continued he, how much delicacy the prince possesses, but the feeling is mutual, and it would be noble on his part to afford me this slight gratification, were it only to make me appear to feel less heavily the load of obligation under which I labor. He continued to urge his request, until I had pledged my word to assist him to the utmost of my ability. I knew the princes character, and had but small hopes of success. The marquis promised to agree to any conditions the prince might impose, but added, that it would deeply wound him to be regarded in the light of a stranger. In the heat of our conversation we had strayed far away from the rest of the company, and were returning, when Z came to meet us. I am in search of the prince, he cried; is he not with you? We were just going to him, was our reply. We thought to find him with the rest of the party. The company is all together, but he is nowhere to be found. I cannot imagine how we lost sight of him. It now occurred to Civitella that he might have gone to look at the adjoining church, which had a short time before attracted his attention. We immediately went to look for him there. As we approached, we found Biondello waiting in the porch. On coming nearer, we saw the prince emerge hastily from a side door; his countenance was flushed, and he looked anxiously round for Biondello, whom he called. He seemed to be giving him very particular instructions for the execution of some commission, while his eyes continued constantly fixed on the church door, which had remained open. Biondello hastened into the church. The prince, without perceiving us, passed through the crowd, and went back to his party, which he reached before us. We resolved to sup in an open pavilion of the garden, where the marquis had, without our knowledge, arranged a little concert, which was quite firstrate. There was a young singer in particular, whose delicious voice and charming figure excited general admiration. Nothing, however, seemed to make an impression on the prince; he spoke little, and gave confused answers to our questions; his eyes were anxiously fixed in the direction whence he expected Biondello; and he seemed much agitated. Civitella asked him what he thought of the church; he was unable to give any description of it. Some beautiful pictures, which rendered the church remarkable, were spoken of; the prince had not noticed them. We perceived that our questions annoyed him, and therefore discontinued them. Hour after hour rolled on and still Biondello returned not. The prince could no longer conceal his impatience; he rose from the table, and paced alone, with rapid strides, up and down a retired walk. Nobody could imagine what had happened to him. I did not venture to ask him the reason of so remarkable a change in his demeanor; I have for some time past resigned my former place in his confidence. It was, therefore, with the utmost impatience that I awaited the return of Biondello to explain this riddle to me. It was past ten oclock when he made his appearance. The tidings he brought did not make the prince more communicative. He returned in an illhumor to the company, the gondola was ordered, and we returned. home. During the remainder of that evening I could find no opportunity of speaking to Biondello, and was, therefore, obliged to retire to my pillow with my curiosity unsatisfied. The prince had dismissed us early, but a thousand reflections flitted across my brain, and kept me awake. For a long time I could hear him pacing up and down his room; at length sleep overcame me. Late at midnight I was awakened by a voice, and I felt a hand passed across my face; I opened my eyes, and saw the prince standing at my bedside, with a lamp in his hand. He told me he was unable to sleep, and begged me to keep him company through the night. I was going to dress myself, but he told me to stay where I was, and seated himself at my bedside. Something has happened to me today, he began, the impression of which will never be effaced from my soul. I left you, as you know, to see the church, respecting which Civitella had raised my curiosity, and which had already attracted my attention. As neither you nor he were at hand, I walked the short distance alone, and ordered Biondello to wait for me at the door. The church was quite empty; a dim and solemn light surrounded me as I entered from the blazing sultry day without. I stood alone in the spacious building, throughout which there reigned the stillness of the grave. I placed myself in the centre of the church, and gave myself up to the feelings which the sight was calculated to produce; by degrees the grand proportions of this majestic building expanded to my gaze, and I stood wrapt in deep and pleasing contemplation. Above me the evening bell was tolling; its tones died softly away in the aisles, and found an echo in my heart. Some altarpieces at a distance attracted my attention. I approached to look at them; unconsciously I had wandered through one side of the church, and was now standing at the opposite end. Here a few steps, raised round a pillar, led into a little chapel, containing several small altars, with statues of saints in the niches above them. On entering the chapel on the right I heard a whispering, as though some one near was speaking in a low voice. I turned towards the spot whence the sound proceeded, and saw before me a female form. No! I cannot describe to you the beauty of this form. My first feeling was one of awe, which, however, soon gave place to ravishing surprise. But this figure, your highness? Are you certain that it was something living, something real, and not perhaps a picture, or an illusion of your fancy? Hear me further. It was a lady. Surely, till that moment, I have never seen her sex in its full perfection! All around was sombre; the setting sun shone through a single window into the chapel, and its rays rested upon her figure. With inexpressible grace, half kneeling, half lying, she was stretched before an altar; one of the most striking, most lovely, and picturesque objects in all nature. Her dress was of black moreen, fitting tightly to her slender waist and beautifullyformed arms, the skirts spreading around her like a Spanish robe; her long lightcolored hair was divided into two broad plaits, which, apparently from their own weight, had escaped from under her veil, and flowed in charming disorder down her back. One of her hands grasped the crucifix, and her head rested gracefully upon the other. But, where shall I find words to describe to you the angelic beauty of her countenance, in which the charms of a seraph seemed displayed. The setting sun shone full upon her face, and its golden beams seemed to surround it as with a glory. Can you recall to your mind the Madonna of our Florentine painter? She was here personified, even to those few deviations from the studied costume which so powerfully, so irresistibly attracted me in the picture. With regard to the Madonna, of whom the prince spoke, the case is this Shortly after your departure he made the acquaintance of a Florentine painter, who had been summoned to Venice to paint an altarpiece for some church, the name of which I do not recollect. He had brought with him three paintings, which had been intended for the gallery in the Cornari palace. They consisted of a Madonna, a Heloise, and a Venus, very lightly apparelled. All three were of great beauty; and, although the subjects were quite different, they were so intrinsically equal that it seemed almost impossible to determine which to prefer. The prince alone did not hesitate for a moment. As soon as the pictures were placed before him the Madonna absorbed his whole attention; in the two others he admired the painters genius; but in this he forgot the artist and his art, his whole soul being absorbed in the contemplation of the work. He was quite moved, and could scarcely tear himself away from it. We could easily see by the artists countenance that in his heart he coincided with the princes judgment; he obstinately refused to separate the pictures, and demanded fifteen hundred zechins for the three. The prince offered him half that sum for the Madonna alone, but in vain. The artist insisted on his first demand, and who knows what might have been the result if a ready purchaser had not stepped forward. Two hours afterwards all three pictures were sold, and we never saw them again. It was this Madonna which now recurred to the princes mind. I stood, continued he, gazing at her in silent admiration. She did not observe me; my arrival did not disturb her, so completely was she absorbed in her devotion. She prayed to her Deity, and I prayed to her yes, I adored her! All the pictures of saints, all the altars and the burning tapers around me had failed to remind me of what now for the first time burst upon me, that I was in a sacred place. Shall I confess it to you? In that moment I believed firmly in Him whose image was clasped in her beautiful hand. I read in her eyes that he answered her prayers. Thanks be to her charming devotion, it had revealed him to me. I wandered with her through all the paradise of prayer. She rose, and I recollected myself. I stepped aside confused; but the noise I made in moving discovered me. I thought that the unexpected presence of a man might alarm, that my boldness would offend her; but neither of these feelings were expressed in the look with which she regarded me. Peace, benign peace, was portrayed in her countenance, and a cheerful smile played upon her lips. She was descending from her heaven; and I was the first happy mortal who met her benevolent look. Her mind was still wrapt in her concluding prayer; she had not yet come in contact with earth. I now heard something stir in the opposite corner of the chapel. It was an elderly lady, who rose from a cushion close behind me. Till now I had not observed her. She had been distant only a few steps from me. and must have seen my every motion. This confused me. I cast my eyes to the earth, and both the ladies passed by me. On this last point I thought myself able to console the prince. Strange, continued he, after a long silence, that there should be something which one has never knownnever missed; and that yet on a sudden one should seem to live and breathe for that alone. Can one single moment so completely metamorphose a human being? It would now be as impossible for me to indulge in the wishes or enjoy the pleasures of yesterday as it would be to return to the toys of my childhood, and all this since I have seen this object which lives and rules in the inmost recesses of my soul. It seems to say that I can love nothing else, and that nothing else in this world can produce an impression on me. But consider, gracious prince, said I, the excitable mood you were in when this apparition surprised you, and how all the circumstances conspired to inflame your imagination. Quitting the dazzling light of day and the busy throng of men, you were suddenly surrounded by twilight and repose. You confess that you had quite given yourself up to those solemn emotions which the majesty of the place was calculated to awaken; the contemplation of fine works of art had rendered you more susceptible to the impressions of beauty in any form. You supposed yourself alone when you saw a maiden who, I will readily allow, may have been very beautiful, and whose charms were heightened by a favorable illumination of the setting sun, a graceful attitude, and an expression of fervent devotionwhat is more natural than that your vivid fancy should look upon such a form as something supernaturally perfect? Can the imagination give what it never received? replied he. In the whole range of my fancy there is nothing which I can compare with that image. It is impressed on my mind distinctly and vividly as in the moment when I beheld it. I can think of nothing but that picture; but you might offer me whole worlds for it in vain. My gracious prince, this is love. Must the sensation which makes me happy necessarily have a name? Love! Do not degrade my feeling by giving it a name which is so often misapplied by the weakminded. Who ever felt before what I do now? Such a being never before existed; how then can the name be admitted before the emotion which it is meant to express? Mine is a novel and peculiar feeling, connected only with this being, and capable of being applied to her alone. Love! From love I am secure! You sent away Biondello, no doubt, to follow in the steps of these strangers, and to make inquiries concerning them. What news did he bring you? Biondello discovered nothing; or, at least, as good as nothing. An aged, respectably dressed man, who looked more like a citizen than a servant, came to conduct them to their gondola. A number of poor people placed themselves in a row, and quitted her, apparently well satisfied. Biondello said he saw one of her hands, which was ornamented with several precious stones. She spoke a few words, which Biondello could not comprehend, to her companion; he says it was Greek. As she had some distance to walk to the canal, the people began to throng together, attracted by the strangeness of her appearance. Nobody knew herbut beauty seems born to rule. All made way for her in a respectful manner. She let fall a black veil, that covered half of her person, over her face, and hastened into the gondola. Along the whole Giudecca Biondello managed to keep the boat in view, but the crowd prevented his following it further. But surely he took notice of the gondolier so as to be able to recognize him again. He has undertaken to find out the gondolier, but he is not one of those with whom he associates. The mendicants, whom he questioned, could give him no further information than that the signora had come to the church for the last few Saturdays, and had each time divided a goldpiece among them. It was a Dutch ducat, which Biondello changed for them, and brought to me. It appears, then, that she is a Greekmost likely of rank; at any rate, rich and charitable. That is as much as we dare venture to conclude at present, gracious sir; perhaps too much. But a Greek lady in a Catholic church? Why not? She may have changed her religion. But there is certainly some mystery in the affair. Why should she go only once a week? Why always on Saturday, on which day, as Biondello tells me, the church is generally deserted. Next Saturday, at the latest, must decide this question. Till then, dearest friend, you must help me to while away the hours. But it is in vain. They will go their lingering pace, though my soul is burning with expectation! And when this day at length arriveswhat, then, gracious prince? What do you purpose doing? What do I purpose doing? I shall see her. I will discover where she lives and who she is. But to what does all this tend? I hear you ask. What I saw made me happy; I therefore now know wherein my happiness consists! And our departure from Venice, which is fixed for next Monday? How could I know that Venice still contained such a treasure for me? You ask me questions of my past life. I tell you that from this day forward I will begin a new existence. I thought that now was the opportunity to keep my word to the marquis. I explained to the prince that a protracted stay in Venice was altogether incompatible with the exhausted state of his finances, and that, if he extended his sojourn here beyond the appointed time, he could not reckon on receiving funds from his court. On this occasion, I learned what had hitherto been a secret to me, namely, that the prince had, without the knowledge of his other brothers, received from his sister, the reigning of , considerable loans, which she would gladly double if his court left him in the lurch. This sister, who, as you know, is a pious enthusiast, thinks that the large savings which she makes at a very economical court cannot be deposited in better hands than in those of a brother whose wise benevolence she well knows, and whose character she warmly honors. I have, indeed, known for some time that a very close intercourse has been kept up between the two, and that many letters have been exchanged; but, as the princes own resources have hitherto always been sufficient to cover his expenditure, I had never guessed at this hidden channel. It is clear, therefore, that the prince must have had some expenses which have been and still are unknown to me; but if I can judge of them by his general character, they will certainly not be of such a description as to tend to his disgrace. And yet I thought I understood him thoroughly. After this disclosure, I of course did not hesitate to make known to him the marquis offer, which, to my no small surprise, he immediately accepted. He gave me the authority to transact the business with the marquis in whatever way I thought most advisable, and then immediately to settle the account with the usurer. To his sister he proposed to write without delay. It was morning when we separated. However disagreeable this affair is to me for more than one reason, the worst of it is that it seems to threaten a longer residence in Venice. From the princes passion I rather augur good than evil. It is, perhaps, the most powerful method of withdrawing him from his metaphysical dreams to the concerns and feelings of real life. It will have its crisis, and, like an illness produced by artificial means, will eradicate the natural disorder. Farewell, my dear friend. I have written down these incidents immediately upon their occurrence. The post starts immediately; you will receive this letter on the same day as my last. LETTER VI. BARON F TO COUNT O. June 20. This Civitella is certainly one of the most obliging personages in the world. The prince had scarcely left me the other day before I received a note from the marquis enforcing his former offers with renewed earnestness. I instantly forwarded, in the princes name, a bond for six thousand zechins; in less than half an hour it was returned, with double the sum required, in notes and gold. The prince at length assented to this increase, but insisted that the bond, which was drawn only for six weeks, should be accepted. The whole of the present week has been consumed in inquiries after the mysterious Greek. Biondello set all his engines to work, but until now in vain. He certainly discovered the gondolier; but from him he could learn nothing, save that the ladies had disembarked on the island of Murano, where they entered two sedan chairs which were waiting for them. He supposed them to be English because they spoke a foreign language, and had paid him in gold. He did not even know their guide, but believed him to be a glass manufacturer from Murano. We were now, at least, certain that we must not look for her in the Giudecca, and that in all probability she lived in the island of Murano; but, unluckily, the description the prince gave of her was not such as to make her recognizable by a third party. The passionate interest with which he had regarded her had hindered him from observing her minutely; for all the minor details, which other people would not have failed to notice, had escaped his observation; from his description one would have sooner expected to find her prototype in the works of Ariosto or Tasso than on a Venetian island. Besides, our inquiries had to be conducted with the utmost caution, in order not to become prejudicial to the lady, or to excite undue attention. As Biondello was the only man besides the prince who had seen her, even through her veil, and could therefore recognize her, he strove to be as much as possible in all the places where she was likely to appear; the life of the poor man, during the whole week, was a continual race through all the streets of Venice. In the Greek church, particularly, every inquiry was made, but always with the same illsuccess; and the prince, whose impatience increased with every successive failure, was at last obliged to wait till Saturday, with what patience he might. His restlessness was excessive. Nothing interested him, nothing could fix his attention. He was in constant feverish excitement; he fled from society, but the evil increased in solitude. He had never been so much besieged by visitors as in this week. His approaching departure had been announced, and everybody crowded to see him. It was necessary to occupy the attention of the people in order to lull their suspicions, and to amuse the prince with the view of diverting his mind from its allengrossing object. In this emergency Civitella hit upon play; and, for the purpose of driving away most of the visitors, proposed that the stakes should be high. He hoped by awakening in the prince a transient liking for play, from which it would afterwards be easy to wean him, to destroy the romantic bent of his passion. The cards, said Civitella, have saved me from many a folly which I had intended to commit, and repaired many which I had already perpetrated. At the faro table I have often recovered my tranquillity of mind, of which a pair of bright eyes had robbed me, and women never had more power over me than when I had not money enough to play. I will not enter into a discussion as to how far Civitella was right; but the remedy we had hit upon soon began to be worse than the disease it was intended to cure. The prince, who could only make the game at all interesting to himself by staking extremely high, soon overstepped all bounds. He was quite out of his element. Everything he did seemed to be done in a passion; all his actions betrayed the uneasiness of his mind. You know his general indifference to money; he seemed now to have become totally insensible to its value. Gold flowed through his hands like water. As he played without the slightest caution he lost almost invariably. He lost immense sums, for he staked like a desperate gamester. Dearest O , with an aching heart I write it, in four days he had lost above twelve thousand zechins. Do not reproach me. I blame myself sufficiently. But how could I prevent it? Could I do more than warn him? I did all that was in my power, and cannot find myself guilty. Civitella, too, lost not a little; I won about six hundred zechins. The unprecedented illluck of the prince excited general attention, and therefore he would not leave off playing. Civitella, who is always ready to oblige him, immediately advanced him the required sum. The deficit is made up; but the prince owes the marquis twentyfour thousand zechins. Oh, how I long for the savings of his pious sister. Are all sovereigns so, my dear friend? The prince behaves as though he had done the marquis a great honor, and he, at any rate, plays his part well. Civitella sought to quiet me by saying that this recklessness, this extraordinary illluck, would be most effectual in bringing the prince to his senses. The money, he said, was of no consequence. He himself would not feel the loss in the least, and would be happy to serve the prince, at any moment, with three times the amount. The cardinal also assured me that his nephews intentions were honest, and that he should be ready to assist him in carrying them out.
The most unfortunate thing was that these tremendous sacrifices did not even effect their object. One would have thought that the prince would at least feel some interest in his play. But such was not the case. His thoughts were wandering far away, and the passion which we wished to stifle by his illluck in play seemed, on the contrary, only to gather strength. When, for instance, a decisive stroke was about to be played, and every ones eyes were fixed, full of expectation, on the board, his were searching for Biondello, in order to catch the news he might have brought him, from the expression of his countenance. Biondello brought no tidings, and his masters losses continued. The gains, however, fell into very needy hands. A few your excellencies, whom scandal reports to be in the habit of carrying home their frugal dinner from the market in their senatorial caps, entered our house as beggars, and left it with welllined purses. Civitella pointed them out to me. Look, said he, how many poor devils make their fortunes by one great man taking a whim into his head. This is what I like to see. It is princely and royal. A great man must, even by his failings, make some one happy, like a river which by its overflowing fertilizes the neighboring fields. Civitella has a noble and generous way of thinking, but the prince owes him twentyfour thousand zechins. At length the longwishedfor Saturday arrived, and my master insisted upon going, directly after dinner, to the church. He stationed himself in the chapel where he had first seen the unknown, but in such a way as not to be immediately observed. Biondello had orders to keep watch at the church door, and to enter into conversation with the attendant of the ladies. I had taken upon myself to enter, like a chance passenger, into the same gondola with them on their return, in order to follow their track if the other schemes should fail. At the spot where the gondolier said he had landed them the last time two sedans were stationed; the chamberlain, Z, was ordered to follow in a separate gondola, in order to trace the retreat of the unknown, if all else should fail. The prince wished to give himself wholly up to the pleasure of seeing her, and, if possible, try to make her acquaintance in the church. Civitella was to keep out of the way altogether, as his reputation among the women of Venice was so bad that his presence could not have failed to excite the suspicions of the lady. You see, dear count, it was not through any want of precaution on our part that the fair unknown escaped us. Never, perhaps, was there offered up in any church such ardent prayers for success, and never were hopes so cruelly disappointed. The prince waited till after sunset, starting in expectation at every sound which approached the chapel, and at every creaking of the church door. Seven full hours passed, and no Greek lady. I need not describe his state of mind. You know what hope deferred is, hope which one has nourished unceasingly for seven days and nights. LETTER VII. BARON VON F TO COUNT VON O July. The mysterious unknown of the prince reminded Marquis Civitella of a romantic incident which happened to himself a short time since, and, to divert the prince, he offered to relate it. I will give it you in his own words; but the lively spirit which he infuses into all he tells will be lost in my narration. (Here follows the subjoined fragment, which appeared in the eighth part of the Thalia, and was originally intended for the second volume of the GhostSeer. It found a place here after Schiller had given up the idea of completing the GhostSeer.) In the spring of last year, began Civitella, I had the misfortune to embroil myself with the Spanish ambassador, a gentleman who, in his seventieth year, had been guilty of the folly of wishing to marry a Roman girl of eighteen. His vengeance pursued me, and my friends advised me to secure my safety by a timely flight, and to keep out of the way until the hand of nature, or an adjustment of differences, had secured me from the wrath of this formidable enemy. As I felt it too severe a punishment to quit Venice altogether, I took up my abode in a distant quarter of the town, where I lived in a lonely house, under a feigned name, keeping myself concealed by day, and devoting the night to the society of my friends and of pleasure. My windows looked upon a garden, the west side of which was bounded by the walls of a convent, while towards the east it jutted out into the Laguna in the form of a little peninsula. The garden was charmingly situated, but little frequented. It was my custom every morning, after my friends had left me, to spend a few moments at the window before retiring to rest, to see the sun rise over the Adriatic, and then to bid him goodnight. If you, my dear prince, have not yet enjoyed this pleasure, I recommend exactly this station, the only eligible one perhaps in all Venice to enjoy so splendid a prospect in perfection. A purple twilight hangs over the deep, and a golden mist on the Laguna announces the suns approach. The heavens and the sea are wrapped in expectant silence. In two seconds the orb of day appears, casting a flood of fiery light on the waves. It is an enchanting sight. One morning, when I was, according to custom, enjoying the beauty of this prospect, I suddenly discovered that I was not the only spectator of the scene. I fancied I heard voices in the garden, and turning to the quarter whence the sound proceeded, I perceived a gondola steering for the land. In a few moments I saw figures walking at a slow pace up the avenue. They were a man and a woman, accompanied by a little negro. The female was clothed in white, and had a brilliant on her finger. It was not light enough to perceive more. My curiosity was raised. Doubtless a rendezvous of a pair of lovers but in such a place, and at so unusual an hour! It was scarcely three oclock, and everything was still veiled in dusky twilight. The incident seemed to me novel and proper for a romance, and I waited to see the end. I soon lost sight of them among the foliage of the garden, and some time elapsed before they again emerged to view. Meanwhile a delightful song was heard. It proceeded from the gondolier, who was in this manner shortening the time, and was answered by a comrade a short way off. They sang stanzas from Tasso; time and place were in unison, and the melody sounded sweetly, in the profound silence around. Day in the meantime had dawned, and objects were discerned more plainly. I sought my people, whom I found walking handinhand up a broad walk, often standing still, but always with their backs turned towards me, and proceeding further from my residence. Their noble, easy carriage convinced me at once that they were people of rank, and the splendid figure of the lady made me augur as much of her beauty. They appeared to converse but little; the lady, however, more than her companion. In the spectacle of the rising sun, which now burst out in all its splendor, they seemed to take not the slightest interest. While I was employed in adjusting my glass, in order to bring them into view as closely as possible, they suddenly disappeared down a side path, and some time elapsed before I regained sight of them. The sun had now fully risen; they were approaching straight towards me, with their eyes fixed upon where I stood. What a heavenly form did I behold! Was it illusion, or the magic effect of the beautiful light? I thought I beheld a supernatural being, for my eyes quailed before the angelic brightness of her look. So much loveliness combined with so much dignity!so much mind, and so much blooming youth! It is in vain I attempt to describe it. I had never seen true beauty till that moment. In the heat of conversation they lingered near me, and I had full opportunity to contemplate her. Scarcely, however, had I cast my eyes upon her companion, but even her beauty was not powerful enough to fix my attention. He appeared to be a man still in the prime of life, rather slight, and of a tall, noble figure. Never have I beheld so much mind, so much noble expression, in a human countenance. Though perfectly secured from observation, I was unable to meet the lightning glance that shot from beneath his dark eyebrows. There was a moving expression of sorrow about his eyes, but an expression of benevolence about the mouth which relieved the settled gravity spread over his whole countenance. A certain cast of features, not quite European, together with his dress, which appeared to have been chosen with inimitable good taste from the most varied costumes, gave him a peculiar air, which not a little heightened the impression produced by his appearance. A degree of wildness in his looks warranted the supposition that he was an enthusiast, but his deportment and carriage showed that his character had been formed by mixing in society. Z, who you know must always give utterance to what he thinks, could contain himself no longer. Our Armenian! cried he. Our very Armenian, and nobody else. What Armenian, if one may ask? inquired Civitella. Has no one told you of the farce? replied the prince. But no interruption! I begin to feel interested in your hero. Pray continue your narrative. There was something inexplicable in his whole demeanor, continued Civitella. His eyes were fixed upon his companion with an expression of anxiety and passion, but the moment they met hers he looked down abashed. Is the man beside himself! thought I. I could stand for ages and gaze at nothing else but her. The foliage again concealed them from my sight. Long, long did I look for their reappearance, but in vain. At length I caught sight of them from another window. They were standing before the basin of a fountain at some distance apart, and both wrapped in deep silence. They had, probably, remained some time in the same position. Her clear and intelligent eyes were resting inquiringly on his, and seemed as if they would imbibe every thought from him as it revealed itself in his countenance. He, as if he wanted courage to look directly into her face, furtively sought its reflection in the watery mirror before him, or gazed steadfastly at the dolphin which bore the water to the basin. Who knows how long this silent scene might have continued could the lady have endured it? With the most bewitching grace the lovely girl advanced towards him, and passing her arm round his neck, raised his hand to her lips. Calmly and unmoved the strange being suffered her caresses, but did not return them. This scene moved me strangely. It was the man that chiefly excited my sympathy and interest. Some violent emotion seemed to struggle in his breast; it was as if some irresistible force drew him towards her, while an unseen arm held him back. Silent, but agonizing, was the struggle, and beautiful the temptation. No, I thought, he attempts too much; he will, he must yield. At his silent intimation the young negro disappeared. I now expected some touching scenea prayer on bended knees, and a reconciliation sealed with glowing kisses. But no! nothing of the kind occurred. The incomprehensible being took from his pocketbook a sealed packet, and placed it in the hands of the lady. Sadness overcast her face as she she looked at it, and a tear bedewed her eye. After a short silence they separated. At this moment an elderly lady advanced from one of the sidewalks, who had remained at a distance, and whom I now first discovered. She and the fair girl slowly advanced along the path, and, while they were earnestly engaged in conversation, the stranger took the opportunity of remaining behind. With his eyes turned towards her, he stood irresolute, at one instant making a rapid step forward, and in the next retreating. In another moment he had disappeared in the copse. The women at length look round, seem uneasy at not finding him, and pause as if to await his coming. He comes not. Anxious glances are cast around, and steps are redoubled. My eyes aid in searching through the garden; he comes not, he is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly I see a plash in the canal, and see a gondola moving from the shore. It is he, and I scarcely can refrain from calling to him. Now the whole thing is clearit was a parting. She appears to have a presentiment of what has happened. With a speed that her companion cannot use she hastens to the shore. Too late! Quick as the arrow in its flight the gondola bounds forward, and soon nothing is visible but a white handkerchief fluttering in the air from afar. Soon after this I saw the fair incognita and her companion cross the water. When I awoke from a short sleep I could not help smiling at my delusion. My fancy had incorporated these events in my dreams until truth itself seemed a dream. A maiden, fair as an houri, wandering beneath my windows at break of day with her loverand a lover who did not know how to make a better use of such an hour. Surely these supplied materials for the composition of a picture which might well occupy the fancy of a dreamer! But the dream had been too lovely for me not to desire its renewal again and again; nay, even the garden had become more charming in my sight since my imagination had peopled it with such attractive forms. Several cheerless days that succeeded this eventful morning drove me from the window, but the first fine evening involuntarily drew me back to my post of observation. Judge of my surprise when after a short search I caught sight of the white dress of my incognita! Yes, it was she herself. I had not dreamed! Her former companion was with her, and led by the hand a little boy; but the fair girl herself walked apart, and seemed absorbed in thought. All spots were visited that had been rendered memorable by the presence of her friend. She paused for a long time before the basin, and her fixed gaze seemed to seek on its crystal mirror the reflection of one beloved form. Although her noble beauty had attracted me when I first saw her the impression produced was even stronger on this occasion, although perhaps at the same time more conducive to gentler emotions. I had now ample opportunity of considering this divine form; the surprise of the first impression gradually gave place to softer feelings. The glory that seemed to invest her had departed, and I saw before me the loveliest of women, and felt my senses inflamed. In a moment the resolution was formed that she must be mine. While I was deliberating whether I should descend and approach her, or whether before I ventured on such a step it would not be better to obtain information regarding her, a door opened in the convent wall, through which there advanced a Carmelite monk. The sound of his approach roused the lady, and I saw her advance with hurried steps towards him. He drew from his bosom a paper, which she eagerly grasped, while a vivid color instantaneously suffused her countenance. At this moment I was called from the window by the arrival of my usual evening visitor. I carefully avoided approaching the spot again as I had no desire to share my conquest with another. For a whole hour I was obliged to endure this painful constraint before I could succeed in freeing myself from my importunate guest, and when I hastened to the window all had disappeared. The garden was empty when I entered it; no vessel of any kind was visible in the canal; no trace of people on any side; I neither knew whence she had come nor whither she bad gone. While I was looking round me in all directions I observed something white upon the ground. On drawing near I found it was a piece of paper folded in the shape of a note. What could it be but the letter which the Carmelite had brought? Happy discovery! I exclaimed; this will reveal the whole secret, and make me master of her fate. The letter was sealed with a sphinx, had no superscription, and was written in cyphers; this, however, did not discourage me, for I have some knowledge of this mode of writing. I copied it hastily, as there was every reason to expect that she would soon miss it and return in search of it. If she should not find it she would regard its loss as an evidence that the garden was resorted to by different persons, and such a discovery might easily deter her from visiting it again. And what worse fortune could attend my hopes. That which I had conjectured actually took place, and I had scarcely ended my copy when she reappeared with her former companion, anxiously intent on the search. I attached the note to a tile which I had detached from the roof, and dropped it at a spot which she would pass. Her gracefully expressed joy at finding it rewarded me for my generosity. She examined it in every part with keen, searching glances, as if she were seeking to detect the unhallowed hands that might have touched it; but the contented look with which she hid it in her bosom showed that she was free from all suspicion. She went, and the parting glance she threw on the garden seemed expressive of gratitude to the guardian deities of the spot, who had so faithfully watched over the secret of her heart. I now hastened to decipher the letter. After trying several languages, I at length succeeded by the use of English. Its contents were so remarkable that my memory still retains a perfect recollection of them. I am interrupted, and must give you the conclusion on a future occasion. LETTER VIII. BARON F TO COUNT O August. In truth, my dearest friend, you do the good Biondello injustice. The suspicion you entertain against him is unfounded, and while I allow you full liberty to condemn all Italians generally, I must maintain that this one at least is an honest man. You think it singular that a person of such brilliant endowments and such exemplary conduct should debase himself to enter the service of another if he were not actuated by secret motives; and these, you further conclude, must necessarily be of a suspicious character. But where is the novelty of a man of talent and of merit endeavoring to win favor with a prince who has the power of establishing his fortune? Is there anything derogatory in serving the prince? and has not Biondello clearly shown that his devotion is purely personal by confessing that he earnestly desired to make a certain request of the prince? The whole mystery will, therefore, no doubt be revealed when he acquaints him of his wishes. He may certainly be actuated by secret motives, but why may these not be innocent in their nature? You think it strange that this Biondello should have kept all his great talents concealed, and in no way have attracted attention during the early months of our acquaintance with him, when you were still with us. This I grant; but what opportunity had he then of distinguishing himself? The prince had not yet called his powers into requisition, and chance, therefore, could alone aid us in discovering his talents. He very recently gave a proof of his devotion and honesty of purpose which must at once annihilate all your doubts. The prince was watched; measures were being taken to gain information regarding his mode of life, associates, and general habits. I know not with whom this inquisitiveness originated. Let me beg your attention, however, to what I am about to relate There is a house in St. Georges which Biondello is in the habit of frequenting. He probably finds some peculiar attractions there, but of this I know nothing. It happened a few days ago that he there met assembled together a party of civil and military officers in the service of the government, old acquaintances and jovial comrades of his own. Surprise and pleasure were expressed on all sides at this meeting. Their former goodfellowship was reestablished; and after each in turn had related his own history up to the present time, Biondello was called upon to give an account of his life; this he did in a few words. He was congratulated on his new position; his companions had heard accounts of the splendid footing on which the Prince of s establishment was maintained; of his liberality, especially to persons who showed discretion in keeping secrets; the princes connection with the Cardinal Ai was well known, he was said to be addicted to play, etc. Biondellos surprise at this is observed, and jokes are passed upon the mystery which he tries to keep up, although it is well known that he is the emissary of the Prince of . The two lawyers of the party make him sit down between them; their glasses are repeatedly emptied, he is urged to drink, but excuses himself on the grounds of inability to bear wine; at last, however, he yields to their wishes, in order that he may the better pretend intoxication. Yes! cried one of the lawyers, Biondello understands his business, but he has not yet learned all the tricks of the trade; he is but a novice. What have I still to learn? ask Biondello. You understand the art of keeping a secret, remarked the other; but you have still to learn that of parting with it to advantage. Am I likely to find a purchaser for any that I may have to dispose of? asked Biondello. On this the other guests withdrew from the apartment, and left him alone with his two neighbors, who continued the conversation in the same strain. The substance of the whole was, however, briefly as follows Biondello was to procure them certain information regarding the intercourse of the prince with the cardinal and his nephew, acquaint them with the source from whence the prince derived his money, and to intercept all letters written to Count O. Biondello put them off to a future occasion, but he was unsuccessful in his attempts to draw from them the name of the person by whom they were employed. From the splendid nature of the proposals made to him it was evident, however, that they emanated from some influential and extremely wealthy party. Last night he related the whole occurrence to the prince, whose first impulse was without further ceremony to secure the maneuverers at once, but to this Biondello strongly objected. He urged that he would be obliged to set them at liberty again, and that, in this case, he should endanger not only his credit among this class of men, but even his life. All these men were connected together, and bound by one common interest, each one making the cause of the others his own; in fact, he would rather make enemies of the senate of Venice than be regarded by these men as a traitorand, besides, he could no longer be useful to the prince if he lost the confidence of this class of people. We have pondered and conjectured much as to the source of all this. Who is there in Venice that can care to know what money my master receives or pays out, what passess between Cardinal Ai and himself, and what I write to you? Can it be some scheme of the Prince of d, or is the Armenian again on the alert? LETTER IX. BARON F TO COUNT O. August. The prince is revelling in love and bliss. He has recovered his fair Greek. I must relate to you how this happened. A traveller, who had crossed from Chiozza, gave the prince so animated an account of the beauty of this place, which is charmingly situated on the shores of the gulf, that he became very anxious to see it. Yesterday was fixed upon for the excursion; and, in order to avoid all restraint and display, no one was to accompany him but Z and myself, together with Biondello, as my master wished to remain unknown. We found a vessel ready to start, and engaged our passage at once. The company was very mixed but not numerous, and the passage was made without the occurrence of any circumstance worthy of notice. Chiozza is built, like Venice, on a foundation of wooden piles, and is said to contain about forty thousand inhabitants. There are but few of the higher classes resident there, but one meets sailors and fishermen at every step. Whoever appears in a peruke, or a cloak, is regarded as an aristocrata rich man; the cap and overcoat are here the insignia of the poor. The situation is certainly very lovely, but it will not bear a comparison with Venice. We did not remain long, for the captain, who had more passengers for the return voyage, was obliged to be in Venice at an early hour, and there was nothing at Chiozza to make the prince desirous of remaining. All the passengers were on board when we reached the vessel. As we had found it so difficult to place ourselves on a social footing with the company on the outward passage, we determined on this occasion to secure a cabin to ourselves. The prince inquired who the newcomers were, and was informed that they were a Dominican and some ladies, who were returning to Venice. My master evincing no curiosity to see them, we immediately betook ourselves to our cabin. The Greek was the subject of our conversation throughout the whole passage, as she had been during our former transit. The prince dwelt with ardor on her appearance in the church; and whilst numerous plans were in turn devised and rejected, hours passed like a moment of time, and we were already in sight of Venice. Some of the passengers now disembarked, the Dominican amongst the number. The captain went to the ladies, who, as we now first learned, had been separated from us by only a thin wooden partition, and asked them where they wished to land. The island of Murano was named in reply to his inquiry, and the house indicated . The island of Murano! exclaimed the prince, who seemed suddenly struck by a startling presentiment. Before I could reply to his exclamation, Biondello rushed into the cabin. Do you know, asked he eagerly, who is on board with us? The prince started to his feet, as Biondello continued, She is here! she herself! I have just spoken to her companion! The prince hurried out. He felt as if he could not breathe in our narrow cabin, and I believe at that moment as if the whole world would have been too narrow for him. A thousand conflicting feelings struggled for the mastery in his heart; his knees trembled, and his countenance was alternately flushed and pallid. I sympathized and participated in his emotion, but I cannot by words convey to your mind any idea of the state in which he was. When we stopped at Murano, the prince sprang on shore. She advanced from her cabin. I read in the face of the prince that it was indeed the Greek. One glance was sufficient to dispel all doubt on that point. A more lovely creature I have never seen. Even the princes glowing descriptions fell far short of the reality. A radiant blush suffused her face when she saw my master. She must have heard all we said, and could not fail to know that she herself had been the subject of our conversation. She exchanged a significant glance with her companion, which seemed to say, That is he; and then cast her eyes to the ground with diffident confusion. On placing her foot on the narrow plank, which had been thrown from the vessel to the shore, she seemed anxiously to hesitate, less, as it seemed to me, from the fear of falling than from her inability to cross the board without assistance, which was proffered her by the outstretched arm of the prince. Necessity overcame her reluctance, and, accepting the aid of his hand, she stepped on shore. Excessive mental agitation had rendered the prince uncourteous, and he wholly forgot to offer his services to the other ladybut what was there that he would not have forgotten at this moment? My attention in atoning for the remissness of the prince prevented my hearing the commencement of a conversation which had begun between him and the young Greek, while I had been helping the other lady on shore. He was still holding her hand in his, probably from absence of mind, and without being conscious of the fact. This is not the first time, Signora, thatthathe stopped short, unable to finish the sentence. I think I remember she faltered. We met in the church of , said he, quickly. Yes, it was in the church of , she rejoined. And could I have supposed that this day would have brought me Here she gently withdrew her hand from hishe was evidently embarrassed; but Biondello, who had in the meantime been speaking to the servant, now came to his aid. Sinor, said he, the ladies had ordered sedans to be in readiness for them; they have not yet come, for we are here before the expected time. But there is a garden close by in which you may remain until the crowd has dispersed. The proposal was accepted; you may conceive with what alacrity on the part of the prince! We remained in the garden till late in the evening; and, fortunately, Z and myself so effectually succeeded in occupying the attention of the elder lady that the prince was enabled, undisturbed, to carry on his conversation with the fair Greek. You will easily believe that he made good use of his time, when I tell you that he obtained permission to visit her. At the very moment that I am now writing he is with her; on his return I shall be able to give you further particulars regarding her. When we got home yesterday we found that the longexpected remittances had arrived from our court; but at the same time the prince received a letter which excited his indignation to the highest pitch. He has been recalled, and that in a tone and manner to which he is wholly unaccustomed. He immediately wrote a reply in a similar spirit, and intends remaining. The remittances are only just sufficient to pay the interest on the capital which he owes. We are looking with impatience for a reply from his sister. LETTER X. BARON F TO COUNT O September. The prince has fallen out with his court, and all resources have consequently been cut off from home. The term of six weeks, at the end of which my master was to pay the marquis, has already elapsed several days; but still no remittances have been forwarded, either from his cousin, of whom he had earnestly requested an additional allowance in advance, or from his sister. You may readily suppose that Civitella has not reminded him of his debt; the princes memory is, however, all the more faithful. Yesterday morning at length brought an answer from the seat of government. We had shortly before concluded a new arrangement with the master of our hotel, and the prince had publicly announced his intention to remain here sometime longer. Without uttering a word my master put the letter into my hand. His eyes sparkled, and I could read the contents in his face. Can you believe it, dear O; all my masters proceedings here are known at and have been most calumniously misrepresented by an abominable tissue of lies? Information has been received, says the letter, amongst other things, to the effect that the prince has for some time past belied his former character, and adopted a node of conduct totally at variance with his former exemplary manner of acting and thinking. It is known, the writer says, that he has addicted himself with the greatest excess to women and play; that he is overwhelmed with debts; puts his confidence in visionaries and charlatans, who pretend to have power over spirits; maintains suspicious relations with Roman Catholic prelates, and keeps up a degree of state which exceeds both his rank and his means. Nay, it is even said, that he is about to bring this highly offensive conduct to a climax by apostacy to the Church of Rome! and in order to clear himself from this last charge he is required to return immediately. A banker at Venice, to whom he must make known the true amount of his debts, has received instructions to satisfy his creditors immediately after his departure; for, under existing circumstances, it does not appear expedient to remit the money directly into his hands. What accusations, and what a mode of preferring them. I read the letter again and again, in the hope of discovering some expression that admitted of a milder construction, but in vain; it was wholly incomprehensible.
Z now reminded me of the secret inquiries which had been made some time before of Biondello. The true nature of the inquiries and circumstances all coincided. He had falsely ascribed them to the Armenian; but now the source from whence the came was very evident. Apostacy! But who can have any interest in calumniating my master so scandalously? I should fear it was some machination of the Prince of d, who is determined on driving him from Venice. In the meantime the prince remained absorbed in thought, with his eyes fixed on the ground. His continued silence alarmed me. I threw myself at his feet. For Gods sake, your highness, I cried, moderate your feelingsyou willnay, you shall have satisfaction. Leave the whole affair to me. Let me be your emissary. It is beneath your dignity to reply to such accusations; but you will not, I know, refuse me the privilege of doing so for you. The name of your calumniator must be given up, and s eyes must be opened. At this moment we were interrupted by the entrance of Civitella, who inquired with surprise into the cause of our agitation. Z and I did not answer; but the prince, who had long ceased to make any distinction between him and us, and who, besides, was too much excited to listen to the dictates of prudence, desired me to communicate the contents of the letter to him. On my hesitating to obey him, he snatched the letter from my hand and gave it to the marquis. I am in your debt, marquis, said he, as Civitella gave him back the letter, after perusing it, with evident astonishment, but do not let that circumstance occasion you any uneasiness; grant me but a respite of twenty days, and you shall be fully satisfied. Do I deserve this at your hands, gracious prince? exclaimed Civitella, with extreme emotion. You have refrained from pressing me, and I gratefully appreciate your delicacy. In twenty days, as I before said, you shall be fully satisfied. But how is this? asked Civitella, with agitation and surprise. What means all this? I cannot comprehend it. We explained to him all that we knew, and his indignation was unbounded. The prince, he asserted, must insist upon full satisfaction; the insult was unparalleled. In the meanwhile he implored him to make unlimited use of his fortune and his credit. When the marquis left us the prince still continued silent. He paced the apartment with quick and determined steps, as if some strange and unusual emotion were agitating his frame. At length he paused, muttering between his teeth, Congratulate yourself; he died at ten oclock. We looked at him in terror. Congratulate yourself, he repeated. Did he not say that I should congratulate myself? What could he have meant? What has reminded you of those words? I asked; and what have they to do with the present business? I did not then understand what the man meant, but now I do. Oh, it is intolerable to be subject to a master. Gracious prince! Who can make us feel our dependence. Ha! it must be sweet, indeed. He again paused. His looks alarmed me, for I had never before seen him thus agitated. Whether a man be poorest of the poor, he continued, or the next heir to the throne, it is all one and the same thing. There is but one difference between mento obey or to command. He again glanced over the letter. You know the man, he continued, who has dared to write these words to me. Would you salute him in the street if fate had not made him your master? By Heaven, there is something great in a crown. He went on in this strain, giving expression to many things which I dare not trust to paper. On this occasion the prince confided a circumstance to me which alike surprised and terrified me, and which may be followed by the most alarming consequences. We have hitherto been entirely deceived regarding the family relations of the court of . He answered the letter on the spot, notwithstanding my earnest entreaty that he should postpone doing so; and the strain in which he wrote leaves no ground to hope for a favorable settlement of those differences. You are no doubt impatient, dear O, to hear something definite with respect to the Greek; but in truth I have very little to tell you. From the prince I can learn nothing, as he has been admitted into her confidence, and is, I believe, bound to secrecy. The fact has, however, transpired that she is not a Greek, as we supposed, but a German of the highest descent. From a certain report that has reached me, it would appear that her mother is of the most exalted rank, and that she is the fruit of an unfortunate amour which was once talked of all over Europe. A course of secret persecution to which she had been exposed, in consequence of her origin, compelled her to seek protection in Venice, and to adopt that concealment which had rendered it impossible for the prince to discover her retreat. The respect with which the prince speaks of her, and a certain deferential deportment which he maintains towards her, appear to corroborate the truth of this report. He is devoted to her with a fearful intensity of passion which increases day by day. In the earliest stage of their acquaintance but few interviews were granted; but after the first week the separations were of shorter duration, and now there is scarce a day on which the prince is not with her. Whole evenings pass without our even seeing him, and when he is not with her she appears to form the sole object of his thoughts. His whole being seems metamorphosed. He goes about as if wrapped in a dream, and nothing that formerly interested him has now power to arrest his attention even for a moment. How will this end, my dear friend? I tremble for the future. The rupture with his court has placed my master in a state of humiliating dependence on one sole personthe Marquis Civitella. This man is now master of our secretsof our whole fate. Will he always conduct himself as nobly as he does now? Are his good intentions to be relied upon; and is it expedient to confide so much weight and power to one personeven were he the best of men? The princes sister has again been written tothe result of this fresh appeal you shall learn in my next letter. COUNT O IN CONTINUATION. This letter never reached me. Three months passed without my receiving any tidings from Venice,an interruption to our correspondence which the sequel but too clearly explained. All my friends letters to me had been kept back and suppressed. My emotion may be conceived when, in the December of the same year, the following letter reached me by mere accident (as it afterwards appeared), owing to the sudden illness of Biondello, into whose hands it had been committed. You do not write; you do not answer me. Come, I entreat you, come on the wings of friendship! Our hopes are fled! Read the enclosed,all our hopes are at an end! The wounds of the marquis are reported mortal. The cardinal vows vengeance, and his bravos are in pursuit of the prince. My masteroh! my unhappy master! Has it come to this! Wretched, horrible fate! We are compelled to hide ourselves, like malefactors, from assassins and creditors. I am writing to you from the convent of , where the prince has found an asylum. At this moment he is resting on his hard couch by my side, and is sleepingbut, alas! it is only the sleep of deadly exhaustion, that will but give him new strength for new trials. During the ten days that she was ill no sleep closed his eyes. I was present when the body was opened. Traces of poison were detected. Today she is to be buried. Alas! dearest O, my heart is rent. I have lived through scenes that can never be effaced from my memory. I stood beside her deathbed. She departed like a saint, and her last strength was spent in trying with persuasive eloquence to lead her lover into the path that she was treading in her way to heaven. Our firmness was completely gonethe prince alone maintained his fortitude, and although he suffered a triple agony of death with her, he yet retained strength of mind sufficient to refuse the last prayer of the pious enthusiast. This letter contained the following enclosure TO THE PRINCE OF , FROM HIS SISTER. The one sole redeeming church which has made so glorious a conquest of the Prince of will surely not refuse to supply him with means to pursue the mode of life to which she owes this conquest. I have tears and prayers for one that has gone astray, but nothing further to bestow on one so worthless! HENRIETTE. I instantly threw myself into a carriagetravelled night and day, and in the third week I was in Venice. My speed availed nothing. I had come to bring comfort and help to an unhappy one, but I found a happy one who needed not my weak aid. F was ill when I arrived, and unable to see me, but the following note was brought to me from him. Return, dearest O, to whence you came. The prince no longer needs you or me. His debts have been paid; the cardinal is reconciled to him, and the marquis has recovered. Do you remember the Armenian who perplexed us so much last year? In his arms you will find the prince, who five days since attended mass for the first time. Notwithstanding all this I earnestly sought an interview with the prince, but was refused. By the bedside of my friend I learnt the particulars of this strange story. THE SPORT OF DESTINY ALOYSIUS VON G was the son of a citizen of distinction, in the service of , and the germs of his fertile genius had been early developed by a liberal education. While yet very young, but already well grounded in the principles of knowledge, he entered the military service of his sovereign, to whom he soon made himself known as a young man of great merit and still greater promise. G was now in the full glow of youth, so also was the prince. G was ardent and enterprising; the prince, of a similar disposition, loved such characters. Endued with brilliant wit and a rich fund of information, G possessed the art of ingratiating himself with all around him; he enlivened every circle in which he moved by his felicitous humor, and infused life and spirit into every subject that came before him. The prince had discernment enough to appreciate in another those virtues which he himself possessed in an eminent degree. Everything which G undertook, even to his very sports, had an air of grandeur; no difficulties could daunt him, no failures vanquish his perseverance. The value of these qualities was increased by an attractive person, the perfect image of blooming health and herculean strength, and heightened by the eloquent expression natural to an active mind; to these was added a certain native and unaffected dignity, chastened and subdued by a noble modesty. If the prince was charmed with the intellectual attractions of his young companion, his fascinating exterior irresistibly captivated his senses. Similarity of age, of tastes, and of character soon produced an intimacy between them, which possessed all the strength of friendship and all the warmth and fervor of the most passionate love. G rose with rapidity from one promotion to another; but whatever the extent of favors conferred they still seemed in the estimation of the prince to fall short of his deserts. His fortune advanced with gigantic strides, for the author of his greatness was his devoted admirer and his warmest friend. Not yet twentytwo years of age, he already saw himself placed on an eminence hitherto attained only by the most fortunate at the close of their career. But his active spirit was incapable of reposing long in the lap of indolent vanity, or of contenting itself with the glittering pomp of an elevated office, to perform the behests of which he was conscious of possessing both the requisite courage and the abilities. Whilst the prince was engaged in rounds of pleasure, his young favorite buried himself among archives and books, and devoted himself with laborious assiduity to affairs of state, in which he at length became so expert that every matter of importance passed through his hands. From the companion of his pleasures he soon became first councillor and minister, and finally the ruler of his sovereign. In a short time there was no road to the princes favor but through him. He disposed of all offices and dignities; all rewards were received from his hands. G had attained this vast influence at too early an age, and had risen by too rapid strides to enjoy his power with moderation. The eminence on which he beheld himself made his ambition dizzy, and no sooner was the final object of his wishes attained than his modesty forsook him. The respectful deference shown him by the first nobles of the land, by all who, in birth, fortune, and reputation, so far surpassed him, and which was even paid to him, youth as he was, by the oldest senators, intoxicated his pride, while his unlimited power served to develop a certain harshness which had been latent in his character, and which, throughout all the vicissitudes of his fortune, remained. There was no service, however considerable or toilsome, which his friends might not safely ask at his hands; but his enemies might well tremble! for, in proportion as he was extravagant in rewards, so was he implacable in revenge. He made less use of his influence to enrich himself than to render happy a number of beings who should pay homage to him as the author of their prosperity; but caprice alone, and not justice, dictated the choice of his subjects. By a haughty, imperious demeanor he alienated the hearts even of those whom he had most benefited; while at the same time he converted his rivals and secret enviers into deadly enemies. Amongst those who watched all his movements with jealousy and envy, and who were silently preparing instruments for his destruction, was Joseph Martinengo, a Piedmontese count belonging to the princes suite, whom G himself had formerly promoted, as an inoffensive creature, devoted to his interests, for the purpose of supplying his own place in attending upon the pleasures of the princean office which he began to find irksome, and which he willingly exchanged for more useful employment. Viewing this man merely as the work of his own hands, whom he might at any period consign to his former insignificance, he felt assured of the fidelity of his creature from motives of fear no less than of gratitude. He fell thus into the error committed by Richelieu, when he made over to Louis XII., as a sort of plaything, the young Le Grand. Without Richelieus sagacity, however, to repair his error, he had to deal with a far more wily enemy than fell to the lot of the French minister. Instead of boasting of his good fortune, or allowing his benefactor to feel that he could now dispense with his patronage, Martinengo was, on the contrary, the more cautious to maintain a show of dependence, and with studied humility affected to attach himself more and more closely to the author of his prosperity. Meanwhile, he did not omit to avail himself, to its fullest extent, of the opportunities afforded him by his office, of being continually about the princes person, to make himself daily more useful, and eventually indispensable to him. In a short time he had fathomed the princes sentiments thoroughly, had discovered all the avenues to his confidence, and imperceptibly stolen himself into his favor. All those arts which a noble pride, and a natural elevation of character, had taught the minister to disdain, were brought into play by the Italian, who scrupled not to avail himself of the most despicable means for attaining his object. Well aware that man never stands so much in need of a guide and assistant as in the paths of vice, and that nothing gives a stronger title to bold familiarity than a participation in secret indiscretions, he took measures for exciting passions in the prince which had hitherto lain dormant, and then obtruded himself upon him as a confidant and an accomplice. He plunged him especially into those excesses which least of all endure witnesses, and imperceptibly accustomed the prince to make him the depository of secrets to which no third person was admitted. Upon the degradation of the princes character he now began to found his infamous schemes of aggrandizement, and, as he had made secrecy a means of success, he had obtained entire possession of his masters heart before G even allowed himself to suspect that he shared it with another. It may appear singular that so important a change should escape the ministers notice; but G was too well assured of his own worth ever to think of a man like Martinengo in the light of a competitor; while the latter was far too wily, and too much on his guard, to commit the least error which might tend to rouse his enemy from his fatal security. That which has caused thousands of his predecessors to stumble on the slippery path of royal favor was also the cause of Gs fall, immoderate selfconfidence. The secret intimacy between his creature, Martinengo, and his royal master gave him no uneasiness; he readily resigned a privilege which he despised and which had never been the object of his ambition. It was only because it smoothed his way to power that he had ever valued the princes friendship, and he inconsiderately threw down the ladder by which he had risen as soon as he had attained the wishedfor eminence. Martinengo was not the man to rest satisfied with so subordinate a part. At each step which he advanced in the princes favor his hopes rose higher, and his ambition began to grasp at a more substantial gratification. The deceitful humility which he had hitherto found it necessary to maintain towards his benefactor became daily more irksome to him, in proportion as the growth of his reputation awakened his pride. On the other hand, the ministers deportment toward him by no means improved with his marked progress in the princes favor, but was often too visibly directed to rebuke his growing pride by reminding him of his humble origin. This forced and unnatural position having become quite insupportable, he at length formed the determination of putting an end to it by the destruction of his rival. Under an impenetrable veil of dissimulation he brought his plan to maturity. He dared not venture as yet to come into open conflict with his rival; for, although the first glow of the ministers favor was at an end, it had commenced too early, and struck root too deeply in the bosom of the prince, to be torn from it abruptly. The slightest circumstance might restore it to all its former vigor; and therefore Martinengo well understood that the blow which he was about to strike must be a mortal one. Whatever ground G might have lost in the princes affections he had gained in his respect. The more the prince withdrew himself from the affairs of state, the less could he dispense with the services of a man, who with the most conscientious devotion and fidelity had consulted his masters interests, even at the expense of the country,and G was now as indispensable to him as a minister as he had formerly been dear to him as a friend. By what means the Italian accomplished his purpose has remained a secret between those on whom the blow fell and those who directed it. It was reported that he laid before the prince the original draughts of a secret and very suspicious correspondence which G is said to have carried on with a neighboring court; but opinions differ as to whether the letters were authentic or spurious. Whatever degree of truth there may have been in the accusation it is but too certain that it fearfully accomplished the end in view. In the eyes of the prince G appeared the most ungrateful and vilest of traitors, whose treasonable practices were so thoroughly proved as to warrant the severest measures without further investigation. The whole affair was arranged with the most profound secrecy between Martinengo and his master, so that G had not the most distant presentiment of the impending storm. He continued wrapped in this fatal security until the dreadful moment in which he was destined, from being the object of universal homage and envy, to become that of the deepest commiseration. When the decisive day arrived, G appeared, according to custom, upon the parade. He had risen in a few years from the rank of ensign to that of colonel; and even this was only a modest name for that of prime minister, which he virtually filled, and which placed him above the foremost of the land. The parade was the place where his pride was greeted with universal homage, and where he enjoyed for one short hour the dignity for which he endured a whole day of toil and privation. Those of the highest rank approached him with reverential deference, and those who were not assured of his favor with fear and trembling. Even the prince, whenever he visited the parade, saw himself neglected by the side of his vizier, inasmuch as it was far more dangerous to incur the displeasure of the latter than profitable to gain the friendship of the former. This very place, where he was wont to be adored as a god, had been selected for the dreadful theatre of his humiliation. With a careless step he entered the wellknown circle of courtiers, who, as unsuspicious as himself of what was to follow, paid their usual homage, awaiting his commands. After a short interval appeared Martinengo, accompanied by two adjutants, no longer the supple, cringing, smiling courtier, but overbearing and insolent, like a lackey suddenly raised to the rank of a gentleman. With insolence and effrontery he strutted up to the prime minister, and, confronting him with his head covered, demanded his sword in the princes name. This was handed to him with a look of silent consternation; Martinengo, resting the naked point on the ground, snapped it in two with his foot, and threw the fragments at Gs feet. At this signal the two adjutants seized him; one tore the Order of the Cross from his breast; the other pulled off his epaulettes, the facings of his uniform, and even the badge and plume of feathers from his hat. During the whole of the appalling operation, which was conducted with incredible speed, not a sound nor a respiration was heard from more than five hundred persons who were present; but all, with blanched faces and palpitating hearts, stood in deathlike silence around the victim, who in his strange disarraya rare spectacle of the melancholy and the ridiculous underwent a moment of agony which could only be equalled by feelings engendered on the scaffold. Thousands there are who in his situation would have been stretched senseless on the ground by the first shock; but his firm nerves and unflinching spirit sustained him through this bitter trial, and enabled him to drain the cup of bitterness to its dregs. When this procedure was ended he was conducted through rows of thronging spectators to the extremity of the parade, where a covered carriage was in waiting. He was motioned to ascend, an escort of hussars being readymounted to attend to him. Meanwhile the report of this event had spread through the whole city; every window was flung open, every street lined with throngs of curious spectators, who pursued the carriage, shouting his name, amid cries of scorn and malicious exultation, or of commiseration more bitter to bear than either. At length he cleared the town, but here a no less fearful trial awaited him. The carriage turned out of the high road into a narrow, unfrequented patha path which led to the gibbet, and alongside which, by command of the prince, he was borne at a slow pace. After he had suffered all the torture of anticipated execution the carriage turned off into the public road. Exposed to the sultry summerheat, without refreshment or human consolation, he passed seven dreadful hours in journeying to the place of destinationa prison fortress. It was nightfall before he arrived; when, bereft of all consciousness, more dead than alive, his giant strength having at length yielded to twelve hours fast and consuming thirst, he was dragged from the carriage; and, on regaining his senses, found himself in a horrible subterraneous vault. The first object that presented itself to his gaze was a horrible dungeonwall, feebly illuminated by a few rays of the moon, which forced their way through narrow crevices to a depth of nineteen fathoms. At his side he found a coarse loaf, a jug of water, and a bundle of straw for his couch. He endured this situation until noon the ensuing day, when an iron wicket in the centre of the tower was opened, and two hands were seen lowering a basket, containing food like that he had found the preceding night. For the first time since the terrible change in his fortunes did pain and suspense extort from him a question or two. Why was he brought hither? What offence had he committed? But he received no answer; the hands disappeared; and the sash was closed. Here, without beholding the face, or hearing the voice of a fellowcreature; without the least clue to his terrible destiny; fearful doubts and misgivings overhanging alike the past and the future; cheered by no rays of the sun, and soothed by no refreshing breeze; remote alike from human aid and human compassion; here, in this frightful abode of misery, he numbered four hundred and ninety long and mournful days, which he counted by the wretched loaves that, day after day, with dreary monotony, were let down into his dungeon. But a discovery which he one day made early in his confinement filled up the measure of his affliction. He recognized the place. It was the same which he himself, in a fit of unworthy vengeance against a deserving officer, who had the misfortune to displease him, had ordered to be constructed only a few months before. With inventive cruelty he had even suggested the means by which the horrors of captivity might be aggravated; and it was but recently that he had made a journey hither in order personally to inspect the place and hasten its completion. What added the last bitter sting to his punishment was that the same officer for whom he had prepared the dungeon, an aged and meritorious colonel, had just succeeded the late commandant of the fortress, recently deceased, and, from having been the victim of his vengeance, had become the master of his fate. He was thus deprived of the last melancholy solace, the right of compassionating himself, and of accusing destiny, hardly as it might use him, of injustice. To the acuteness of his other suffering was now added a bitter selfcontempt, contempt, and the pain which to a sensitive mind is the severestdependence upon the generosity of a foe to whom he had shown none. But that upright man was too nobleminded to take a mean revenge. It pained him deeply to enforce the severities which his instructions enjoined; but as an old soldier, accustomed to fulfil his orders to the letter with blind fidelity, he could do no more than pity, compassionate. The unhappy man found a more active assistant in the chaplain of the garrison, who, touched by the sufferings of the prisoner, which had just reached his ears, and then only through vague and confused reports, instantly took a firm resolution to do something to alleviate them. This excellent man, whose name I unwillingly suppress, believed he could in no way better fulfil his holy vocation than by bestowing his spiritual support and consolation upon a wretched being deprived of all other hopes of mercy. As he could not obtain permission from the commandant himself to visit him he repaired in person to the capital, in order to urge his suit personally with the prince. He fell at his feet, and implored mercy for the unhappy man, who, shut out from the consolations of Christianity, a privilege from which even the greatest crime ought not to debar him, was pining in solitude, and perhaps on the brink of despair. With all the intrepidity and dignity which the conscious discharge of duty inspires, he entreated, nay demanded, free access to the prisoner, whom he claimed as a penitent for whose soul he was responsible to heaven. The good cause in which he spoke made him eloquent, and time had already somewhat softened the princes anger. He granted him permission to visit the prisoner, and administer to his spiritual wants. After a lapse of sixteen months, the first human face which the unhappy G beheld was that of his new benefactor. The only friend he had in the world he owed to his misfortunes, all his prosperity had gained him none. The good pastors visit was like the appearance of an angel it would be impossible to describe his feelings, but from that day forth his tears flowed more kindly, for he had found one human being who sympathized with and compassionated him. The pastor was filled with horror on entering the frightful vault. His eyes sought a human form, but beheld, creeping towards him from a corner opposite, which resembled rather the lair of a wild beast than the abode of anything human, a monster, the sight of which made his blood run cold. A ghastly deathlike skeleton, all the hue of life perished from a face on which grief and despair had traced deep furrowshis beard and nails, from long neglect, grown to a frightful lengthhis clothes rotten and hanging about him in tatters; and the air he breathed, for want of ventilation and cleansing, foul, fetid, and infectious. In this state be found the favorite of fortune;his iron frame had stood proof against it all! Seized with horror at the sight, the pastor hurried back to the governor, in order to solicit a second indulgence for the poor wretch, without which the first would prove of no avail. As the governor again excused himself by pleading the imperative nature of his instructions, the pastor nobly resolved on a second journey to the capital, again to supplicate the princes mercy. There he protested solemnly that, without violating the sacred character of the sacrament, he could not administer it to the prisoner until some resemblance of the human form was restored to him. This prayer was also granted; and from that day forward the unfortunate man might be said to begin a new existence. Several long years were spent by him in the fortress, but in a much more supportable condition, after the short summer of the new favorites reign had passed, and others succeeded in his place, who either possessed more humanity or no motive for revenge. At length, after ten years of captivity, the hour of his delivery arrived, but without any judicial investigation or formal acquittal. He was presented with his freedom as a boon of mercy, and was, at the same time, ordered to quit his native country forever. Here the oral traditions which I have been able to collect respecting his history begin to fail; and I find myself compelled to pass in silence over a period of about twenty years. During the interval G entered anew upon his military career, in a foreign service, which eventually brought him to a pitch of greatness quite equal to that from which he had, in his native country, been so awfully precipitated. At length time, that friend of the unfortunate, who works a slow but inevitable retribution, took into his hands the winding up of this affair. The princes days of passion were over; humanity gradually resumed its sway over him as his hair whitened with age. At the brink of the grave he felt a yearning towards the friend of his early youth. In order to repay, as far as possible, the grayheaded old man, for the injuries which had been heaped upon the youth, the prince, with friendly expressions, invited the exile to revisit his native land, towards which for some time past Gs heart had secretly yearned. The meeting was extremely trying, though apparently warm and cordial, as if they had only separated a few days before. The prince looked earnestly at his favorite, as if trying to recall features so well known to him, and yet so strange; he appeared as if numbering the deep furrows which he had himself so cruelly traced there.
He looked searchingly in the old mans face for the beloved features of the youth, but found not what he sought. The welcome and the look of mutual confidence were evidently forced on both sides; shame on one side and dread on the other had forever separated their hearts. A sight which brought back to the princes soul the full sense of his guilty precipitancy could not be gratifying to him, while G felt that he could no longer love the author of his misfortunes. Comforted, nevertheless, and in tranquillity, he looked back upon the past as the remembrance of a fearful dream. In a short time G was reinstated in all his former dignities, and the prince smothered his feelings of secret repugnance by showering upon him the most splendid favors as some indemnification for the past. But could he also restore to him the heart which he had forever untuned for the enjoyment of life? Could he restore his years of hope? or make even a shadow of reparation to the stricken old man for what he had stolen from him in the days of his youth? For nineteen years G continued to enjoy this clear, unruffled evening of his days. Neither misfortune nor age had been able to quench in him the fire of passion, nor wholly to obscure the genial humor of his character. In his seventieth year he was still in pursuit of the shadow of a happiness which he had actually possessed in his twentieth. He at length died governor of the fortress where state prisoners are confined. One would naturally have expected that towards these he would have exercised a humanity, the value of which he had been so thoroughly taught to appreciate in his own person; but he treated them with harshness and caprice; and a paroxysm of rage, in which he broke out against one of his prisoners, laid him in his coffin, in his eightieth year. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Phantom Lover This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title A Phantom Lover Author Vernon Lee Release date May 1, 2005 [eBook 8180] Most recently updated September 18, 2014 Language English Credits Produced by Katherine Delany, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHANTOM LOVER Produced by Katherine Delany, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team A PHANTOM LOVER By VERNON LEE 1890 To COUNT PETER BOUTOURLINE, AT TAGANTCHA, GOVERNMENT OF KIEW, RUSSIA. MY DEAR BOUTOURLINE, Do you remember my telling you, one afternoon that you sat upon the hearthstool at Florence, the story of Mrs. Oke of Okehurst? You thought it a fantastic tale, you lover of fantastic things, and urged me to write it out at once, although I protested that, in such matters, to write is to exorcise, to dispel the charm; and that printers' ink chases away the ghosts that may pleasantly haunt us, as efficaciously as gallons of holy water. But if, as I suspect, you will now put down any charm that story may have possessed to the way in which we had been working ourselves up, that firelight evening, with all manner of fantastic stuffif, as I fear, the story of Mrs. Oke of Okehurst will strike you as stale and unprofitablethe sight of this little book will serve at least to remind you, in the middle of your Russian summer, that there is such a season as winter, such a place as Florence, and such a person as your friend, VERNON LEE Kensington, July 1886. 1 That sketch up there with the boy's cap? Yes; that's the same woman. I wonder whether you could guess who she was. A singular being, is she not? The most marvellous creature, quite, that I have ever met a wonderful elegance, exotic, farfetched, poignant; an artificial perverse sort of grace and research in every outline and movement and arrangement of head and neck, and hands and fingers. Here are a lot of pencil sketches I made while I was preparing to paint her portrait. Yes; there's nothing but her in the whole sketchbook. Mere scratches, but they may give some idea of her marvellous, fantastic kind of grace. Here she is leaning over the staircase, and here sitting in the swing. Here she is walking quickly out of the room. That's her head. You see she isn't really handsome; her forehead is too big, and her nose too short. This gives no idea of her. It was altogether a question of movement. Look at the strange cheeks, hollow and rather flat; well, when she smiled she had the most marvellous dimples here. There was something exquisite and uncanny about it. Yes; I began the picture, but it was never finished. I did the husband first. I wonder who has his likeness now? Help me to move these pictures away from the wall. Thanks. This is her portrait; a huge wreck. I don't suppose you can make much of it; it is merely blocked in, and seems quite mad. You see my idea was to make her leaning against a wallthere was one hung with yellow that seemed almost brownso as to bring out the silhouette. It was very singular I should have chosen that particular wall. It does look rather insane in this condition, but I like it; it has something of her. I would frame it and hang it up, only people would ask questions. Yes; you have guessed quite rightit is Mrs. Oke of Okehurst. I forgot you had relations in that part of the country; besides, I suppose the newspapers were full of it at the time. You didn't know that it all took place under my eyes? I can scarcely believe now that it did it all seems so distant, vivid but unreal, like a thing of my own invention. It really was much stranger than any one guessed. People could no more understand it than they could understand her. I doubt whether any one ever understood Alice Oke besides myself. You mustn't think me unfeeling. She was a marvellous, weird, exquisite creature, but one couldn't feel sorry for her. I felt much sorrier for the wretched creature of a husband. It seemed such an appropriate end for her; I fancy she would have liked it could she have known. Ah! I shall never have another chance of painting such a portrait as I wanted. She seemed sent me from heaven or the other place. You have never heard the story in detail? Well, I don't usually mention it, because people are so brutally stupid or sentimental; but I'll tell it you. Let me see. It's too dark to paint any more today, so I can tell it you now. Wait; I must turn her face to the wall. Ah, she was a marvellous creature! 2 You remember, three years ago, my telling you I had let myself in for painting a couple of Kentish squireen? I really could not understand what had possessed me to say yes to that man. A friend of mine had brought him one day to my studioMr. Oke of Okehurst, that was the name on his card. He was a very tall, very wellmade, very goodlooking young man, with a beautiful fair complexion, beautiful fair moustache, and beautifully fitting clothes; absolutely like a hundred other young men you can see any day in the Park, and absolutely uninteresting from the crown of his head to the tip of his boots. Mr. Oke, who had been a lieutenant in the Blues before his marriage, was evidently extremely uncomfortable on finding himself in a studio. He felt misgivings about a man who could wear a velvet coat in town, but at the same time he was nervously anxious not to treat me in the very least like a tradesman. He walked round my place, looked at everything with the most scrupulous attention, stammered out a few complimentary phrases, and then, looking at his friend for assistance, tried to come to the point, but failed. The point, which the friend kindly explained, was that Mr. Oke was desirous to know whether my engagements would allow of my painting him and his wife, and what my terms would be. The poor man blushed perfectly crimson during this explanation, as if he had come with the most improper proposal; and I noticedthe only interesting thing about hima very odd nervous frown between his eyebrows, a perfect double gash,a thing which usually means something abnormal a maddoctor of my acquaintance calls it the maniacfrown. When I had answered, he suddenly burst out into rather confused explanations his wifeMrs. Okehad seen some of mypicturespaintingsportraitsat thethewhat d'you call it?Academy. She hadin short, they had made a very great impression upon her. Mrs. Oke had a great taste for art; she was, in short, extremely desirous of having her portrait and his painted by me, etcetera. "My wife," he suddenly added, "is a remarkable woman. I don't know whether you will think her handsome,she isn't exactly, you know. But she's awfully strange," and Mr. Oke of Okehurst gave a little sigh and frowned that curious frown, as if so long a speech and so decided an expression of opinion had cost him a great deal. It was a rather unfortunate moment in my career. A very influential sitter of mineyou remember the fat lady with the crimson curtain behind her?had come to the conclusion or been persuaded that I had painted her old and vulgar, which, in fact, she was. Her whole clique had turned against me, the newspapers had taken up the matter, and for the moment I was considered as a painter to whose brushes no woman would trust her reputation. Things were going badly. So I snapped but too gladly at Mr. Oke's offer, and settled to go down to Okehurst at the end of a fortnight. But the door had scarcely closed upon my future sitter when I began to regret my rashness; and my disgust at the thought of wasting a whole summer upon the portrait of a totally uninteresting Kentish squire, and his doubtless equally uninteresting wife, grew greater and greater as the time for execution approached. I remember so well the frightful temper in which I got into the train for Kent, and the even more frightful temper in which I got out of it at the little station nearest to Okehurst. It was pouring floods. I felt a comfortable fury at the thought that my canvases would get nicely wetted before Mr. Oke's coachman had packed them on the top of the waggonette. It was just what served me right for coming to this confounded place to paint these confounded people. We drove off in the steady downpour. The roads were a mass of yellow mud; the endless flat grazinggrounds under the oaktrees, after having been burnt to cinders in a long drought, were turned into a hideous brown sop; the country seemed intolerably monotonous. My spirits sank lower and lower. I began to meditate upon the modern Gothic countryhouse, with the usual amount of Morris furniture, Liberty rugs, and Mudie novels, to which I was doubtless being taken. My fancy pictured very vividly the five or six little Okesthat man certainly must have at least five childrenthe aunts, and sistersinlaw, and cousins; the eternal routine of afternoon tea and lawntennis; above all, it pictured Mrs. Oke, the bouncing, wellinformed, model housekeeper, electioneering, charityorganising young lady, whom such an individual as Mr. Oke would regard in the light of a remarkable woman. And my spirit sank within me, and I cursed my avarice in accepting the commission, my spiritlessness in not throwing it over while yet there was time. We had meanwhile driven into a large park, or rather a long succession of grazinggrounds, dotted about with large oaks, under which the sheep were huddled together for shelter from the rain. In the distance, blurred by the sheets of rain, was a line of low hills, with a jagged fringe of bluish firs and a solitary windmill. It must be a good mile and a half since we had passed a house, and there was none to be seen in the distancenothing but the undulation of sere grass, sopped brown beneath the huge blackish oaktrees, and whence arose, from all sides, a vague disconsolate bleating. At last the road made a sudden bend, and disclosed what was evidently the home of my sitter. It was not what I had expected. In a dip in the ground a large redbrick house, with the rounded gables and high chimneystacks of the time of James I.,a forlorn, vast place, set in the midst of the pastureland, with no trace of garden before it, and only a few large trees indicating the possibility of one to the back; no lawn either, but on the other side of the sandy dip, which suggested a filledup moat, a huge oak, short, hollow, with wreathing, blasted, black branches, upon which only a handful of leaves shook in the rain. It was not at all what I had pictured to myself the home of Mr. Oke of Okehurst. My host received me in the hall, a large place, panelled and carved, hung round with portraits up to its curious ceilingvaulted and ribbed like the inside of a ship's hull. He looked even more blond and pink and white, more absolutely mediocre in his tweed suit; and also, I thought, even more goodnatured and duller. He took me into his study, a room hung round with whips and fishingtackle in place of books, while my things were being carried upstairs. It was very damp, and a fire was smouldering. He gave the embers a nervous kick with his foot, and said, as he offered me a cigar "You must excuse my not introducing you at once to Mrs. Oke. My wifein short, I believe my wife is asleep." "Is Mrs. Oke unwell?" I asked, a sudden hope flashing across me that I might be off the whole matter. "Oh no! Alice is quite well; at least, quite as well as she usually is. My wife," he added, after a minute, and in a very decided tone, "does not enjoy very good healtha nervous constitution. Oh no! not at all ill, nothing at all serious, you know. Only nervous, the doctors say; mustn't be worried or excited, the doctors say; requires lots of repose,that sort of thing." There was a dead pause. This man depressed me, I knew not why. He had a listless, puzzled look, very much out of keeping with his evident admirable health and strength. "I suppose you are a great sportsman?" I asked from sheer despair, nodding in the direction of the whips and guns and fishingrods. "Oh no! not now. I was once. I have given up all that," he answered, standing with his back to the fire, and staring at the polar bear beneath his feet. "II have no time for all that now," he added, as if an explanation were due. "A married manyou know. Would you like to come up to your rooms?" he suddenly interrupted himself. "I have had one arranged for you to paint in. My wife said you would prefer a north light. If that one doesn't suit, you can have your choice of any other." I followed him out of the study, through the vast entrancehall. In less than a minute I was no longer thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Oke and the boredom of doing their likeness; I was simply overcome by the beauty of this house, which I had pictured modern and philistine. It was, without exception, the most perfect example of an old English manorhouse that I had ever seen; the most magnificent intrinsically, and the most admirably preserved. Out of the huge hall, with its immense fireplace of delicately carved and inlaid grey and black stone, and its rows of family portraits, reaching from the wainscoting to the oaken ceiling, vaulted and ribbed like a ship's hull, opened the wide, flatstepped staircase, the parapet surmounted at intervals by heraldic monsters, the wall covered with oak carvings of coatsofarms, leafage, and little mythological scenes, painted a faded red and blue, and picked out with tarnished gold, which harmonised with the tarnished blue and gold of the stamped leather that reached to the oak cornice, again delicately tinted and gilded. The beautifully damascened suits of court armour looked, without being at all rusty, as if no modern hand had ever touched them; the very rugs under foot were of sixteenthcentury Persian make; the only things of today were the big bunches of flowers and ferns, arranged in majolica dishes upon the landings. Everything was perfectly silent; only from below came the chimes, silvery like an Italian palace fountain, of an oldfashioned clock. It seemed to me that I was being led through the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. "What a magnificent house!" I exclaimed as I followed my host through a long corridor, also hung with leather, wainscoted with carvings, and furnished with big wedding coffers, and chairs that looked as if they came out of some Vandyck portrait. In my mind was the strong impression that all this was natural, spontaneousthat it had about it nothing of the picturesqueness which swell studios have taught to rich and aesthetic houses. Mr. Oke misunderstood me. "It is a nice old place," he said, "but it's too large for us. You see, my wife's health does not allow of our having many guests; and there are no children." I thought I noticed a vague complaint in his voice; and he evidently was afraid there might have seemed something of the kind, for he added immediately "I don't care for children one jackstraw, you know, myself; can't understand how any one can, for my part." If ever a man went out of his way to tell a lie, I said to myself, Mr. Oke of Okehurst was doing so at the present moment. When he had left me in one of the two enormous rooms that were allotted to me, I threw myself into an armchair and tried to focus the extraordinary imaginative impression which this house had given me. I am very susceptible to such impressions; and besides the sort of spasm of imaginative interest sometimes given to me by certain rare and eccentric personalities, I know nothing more subduing than the charm, quieter and less analytic, of any sort of complete and outofthecommonrun sort of house. To sit in a room like the one I was sitting in, with the figures of the tapestry glimmering grey and lilac and purple in the twilight, the great bed, columned and curtained, looming in the middle, and the embers reddening beneath the overhanging mantelpiece of inlaid Italian stonework, a vague scent of roseleaves and spices, put into the china bowls by the hands of ladies long since dead, while the clock downstairs sent up, every now and then, its faint silvery tune of forgotten days, filled the room;to do this is a special kind of voluptuousness, peculiar and complex and indescribable, like the halfdrunkenness of opium or haschisch, and which, to be conveyed to others in any sense as I feel it, would require a genius, subtle and heady, like that of Baudelaire. After I had dressed for dinner I resumed my place in the armchair, and resumed also my reverie, letting all these impressions of the pastwhich seemed faded like the figures in the arras, but still warm like the embers in the fireplace, still sweet and subtle like the perfume of the dead roseleaves and broken spices in the china bowlspermeate me and go to my head. Of Oke and Oke's wife I did not think; I seemed quite alone, isolated from the world, separated from it in this exotic enjoyment. Gradually the embers grew paler; the figures in the tapestry more shadowy; the columned and curtained bed loomed out vaguer; the room seemed to fill with greyness; and my eyes wandered to the mullioned bowwindow, beyond whose panes, between whose heavy stonework, stretched a greyishbrown expanse of sore and sodden park grass, dotted with big oaks; while far off, behind a jagged fringe of dark Scotch firs, the wet sky was suffused with the bloodred of the sunset. Between the falling of the raindrops from the ivy outside, there came, fainter or sharper, the recurring bleating of the lambs separated from their mothers, a forlorn, quavering, eerie little cry. I started up at a sudden rap at my door. "Haven't you heard the gong for dinner?" asked Mr. Oke's voice. I had completely forgotten his existence. 3 I feel that I cannot possibly reconstruct my earliest impressions of Mrs. Oke. My recollection of them would be entirely coloured by my subsequent knowledge of her; whence I conclude that I could not at first have experienced the strange interest and admiration which that extraordinary woman very soon excited in me. Interest and admiration, be it well understood, of a very unusual kind, as she was herself a very unusual kind of woman; and I, if you choose, am a rather unusual kind of man. But I can explain that better anon. This much is certain, that I must have been immeasurably surprised at finding my hostess and future sitter so completely unlike everything I had anticipated. Or nonow I come to think of it, I scarcely felt surprised at all; or if I did, that shock of surprise could have lasted but an infinitesimal part of a minute. The fact is, that, having once seen Alice Oke in the reality, it was quite impossible to remember that one could have fancied her at all different there was something so complete, so completely unlike every one else, in her personality, that she seemed always to have been present in one's consciousness, although present, perhaps, as an enigma. Let me try and give you some notion of her not that first impression, whatever it may have been, but the absolute reality of her as I gradually learned to see it. To begin with, I must repeat and reiterate over and over again, that she was, beyond all comparison, the most graceful and exquisite woman I have ever seen, but with a grace and an exquisiteness that had nothing to do with any preconceived notion or previous experience of what goes by these names grace and exquisiteness recognised at once as perfect, but which were seen in her for the first, and probably, I do believe, for the last time. It is conceivable, is it not, that once in a thousand years there may arise a combination of lines, a system of movements, an outline, a gesture, which is new, unprecedented, and yet hits off exactly our desires for beauty and rareness? She was very tall; and I suppose people would have called her thin. I don't know, for I never thought about her as a bodybones, flesh, that sort of thing; but merely as a wonderful series of lines, and a wonderful strangeness of personality. Tall and slender, certainly, and with not one item of what makes up our notion of a wellbuilt woman. She was as straightI mean she had as little of what people call figureas a bamboo; her shoulders were a trifle high, and she had a decided stoop; her arms and her shoulders she never once wore uncovered. But this bamboo figure of hers had a suppleness and a stateliness, a play of outline with every step she took, that I can't compare to anything else; there was in it something of the peacock and something also of the stag; but, above all, it was her own. I wish I could describe her. I wish, alas!I wish, I wish, I have wished a hundred thousand timesI could paint her, as I see her now, if I shut my eyeseven if it were only a silhouette. There! I see her so plainly, walking slowly up and down a room, the slight highness of her shoulders; just completing the exquisite arrangement of lines made by the straight supple back, the long exquisite neck, the head, with the hair cropped in short pale curls, always drooping a little, except when she would suddenly throw it back, and smile, not at me, nor at any one, nor at anything that had been said, but as if she alone had suddenly seen or heard something, with the strange dimple in her thin, pale cheeks, and the strange whiteness in her full, wideopened eyes the moment when she had something of the stag in her movement. But where is the use of talking about her? I don't believe, you know, that even the greatest painter can show what is the real beauty of a very beautiful woman in the ordinary sense Titian's and Tintoretto's women must have been miles handsomer than they have made them. Somethingand that the very essencealways escapes, perhaps because real beauty is as much a thing in timea thing like music, a succession, a seriesas in space. Mind you, I am speaking of a woman beautiful in the conventional sense. Imagine, then, how much more so in the case of a woman like Alice Oke; and if the pencil and brush, imitating each line and tint, can't succeed, how is it possible to give even the vaguest notion with mere wretched wordswords possessing only a wretched abstract meaning, an impotent conventional association? To make a long story short, Mrs. Oke of Okehurst was, in my opinion, to the highest degree exquisite and strange,an exotic creature, whose charm you can no more describe than you could bring home the perfume of some newly discovered tropical flower by comparing it with the scent of a cabbagerose or a lily. That first dinner was gloomy enough. Mr. OkeOke of Okehurst, as the people down there called himwas horribly shy, consumed with a fear of making a fool of himself before me and his wife, I then thought. But that sort of shyness did not wear off; and I soon discovered that, although it was doubtless increased by the presence of a total stranger, it was inspired in Oke, not by me, but by his wife. He would look every now and then as if he were going to make a remark, and then evidently restrain himself, and remain silent. It was very curious to see this big, handsome, manly young fellow, who ought to have had any amount of success with women, suddenly stammer and grow crimson in the presence of his own wife. Nor was it the consciousness of stupidity; for when you got him alone, Oke, although always slow and timid, had a certain amount of ideas, and very defined political and social views, and a certain childlike earnestness and desire to attain certainty and truth which was rather touching. On the other hand, Oke's singular shyness was not, so far as I could see, the result of any kind of bullying on his wife's part. You can always detect, if you have any observation, the husband or the wife who is accustomed to be snubbed, to be corrected, by his or her betterhalf there is a selfconsciousness in both parties, a habit of watching and faultfinding, of being watched and found fault with. This was clearly not the case at Okehurst. Mrs. Oke evidently did not trouble herself about her husband in the very least; he might say or do any amount of silly things without rebuke or even notice; and he might have done so, had he chosen, ever since his weddingday. You felt that at once. Mrs. Oke simply passed over his existence. I cannot say she paid much attention to any one's, even to mine. At first I thought it an affectation on her partfor there was something farfetched in her whole appearance, something suggesting study, which might lead one to tax her with affectation at first; she was dressed in a strange way, not according to any established aesthetic eccentricity, but individually, strangely, as if in the clothes of an ancestress of the seventeenth century. Well, at first I thought it a kind of pose on her part, this mixture of extreme graciousness and utter indifference which she manifested towards me. She always seemed to be thinking of something else; and although she talked quite sufficiently, and with every sign of superior intelligence, she left the impression of having been as taciturn as her husband. In the beginning, in the first few days of my stay at Okehurst, I imagined that Mrs. Oke was a highly superior sort of flirt; and that her absent manner, her look, while speaking to you, into an invisible distance, her curious irrelevant smile, were so many means of attracting and baffling adoration. I mistook it for the somewhat similar manners of certain foreign womenit is beyond English oneswhich mean, to those who can understand, "pay court to me." But I soon found I was mistaken. Mrs. Oke had not the faintest desire that I should pay court to her; indeed she did not honour me with sufficient thought for that; and I, on my part, began to be too much interested in her from another point of view to dream of such a thing. I became aware, not merely that I had before me the most marvellously rare and exquisite and baffling subject for a portrait, but also one of the most peculiar and enigmatic of characters. Now that I look back upon it, I am tempted to think that the psychological peculiarity of that woman might be summed up in an exorbitant and absorbing interest in herselfa Narcissus attitudecuriously complicated with a fantastic imagination, a sort of morbid daydreaming, all turned inwards, and with no outer characteristic save a certain restlessness, a perverse desire to surprise and shock, to surprise and shock more particularly her husband, and thus be revenged for the intense boredom which his want of appreciation inflicted upon her. I got to understand this much little by little, yet I did not seem to have really penetrated the something mysterious about Mrs. Oke. There was a waywardness, a strangeness, which I felt but could not explaina something as difficult to define as the peculiarity of her outward appearance, and perhaps very closely connected therewith. I became interested in Mrs. Oke as if I had been in love with her; and I was not in the least in love. I neither dreaded parting from her, nor felt any pleasure in her presence. I had not the smallest wish to please or to gain her notice. But I had her on the brain. I pursued her, her physical image, her psychological explanation, with a kind of passion which filled my days, and prevented my ever feeling dull. The Okes lived a remarkably solitary life. There were but few neighbours, of whom they saw but little; and they rarely had a guest in the house. Oke himself seemed every now and then seized with a sense of responsibility towards me. He would remark vaguely, during our walks and afterdinner chats, that I must find life at Okehurst horribly dull; his wife's health had accustomed him to solitude, and then also his wife thought the neighbours a bore. He never questioned his wife's judgment in these matters. He merely stated the case as if resignation were quite simple and inevitable; yet it seemed to me, sometimes, that this monotonous life of solitude, by the side of a woman who took no more heed of him than of a table or chair, was producing a vague depression and irritation in this young man, so evidently cut out for a cheerful, commonplace life. I often wondered how he could endure it at all, not having, as I had, the interest of a strange psychological riddle to solve, and of a great portrait to paint. He was, I found, extremely good,the type of the perfectly conscientious young Englishman, the sort of man who ought to have been the Christian soldier kind of thing; devout, pureminded, brave, incapable of any baseness, a little intellectually dense, and puzzled by all manner of moral scruples. The condition of his tenants and of his political partyhe was a regular Kentish Torylay heavy on his mind. He spent hours every day in his study, doing the work of a land agent and a political whip, reading piles of reports and newspapers and agricultural treatises; and emerging for lunch with piles of letters in his hand, and that odd puzzled look in his good healthy face, that deep gash between his eyebrows, which my friend the maddoctor calls the maniacfrown. It was with this expression of face that I should have liked to paint him; but I felt that he would not have liked it, that it was more fair to him to represent him in his mere wholesome pink and white and blond conventionality. I was perhaps rather unconscientious about the likeness of Mr. Oke; I felt satisfied to paint it no matter how, I mean as regards character, for my whole mind was swallowed up in thinking how I should paint Mrs. Oke, how I could best transport on to canvas that singular and enigmatic personality. I began with her husband, and told her frankly that I must have much longer to study her. Mr. Oke couldn't understand why it should be necessary to make a hundred and one pencilsketches of his wife before even determining in what attitude to paint her; but I think he was rather pleased to have an opportunity of keeping me at Okehurst; my presence evidently broke the monotony of his life. Mrs. Oke seemed perfectly indifferent to my staying, as she was perfectly indifferent to my presence. Without being rude, I never saw a woman pay so little attention to a guest; she would talk with me sometimes by the hour, or rather let me talk to her, but she never seemed to be listening. She would lie back in a big seventeenthcentury armchair while I played the piano, with that strange smile every now and then in her thin cheeks, that strange whiteness in her eyes; but it seemed a matter of indifference whether my music stopped or went on. In my portrait of her husband she did not take, or pretend to take, the very faintest interest; but that was nothing to me. I did not want Mrs. Oke to think me interesting; I merely wished to go on studying her. The first time that Mrs. Oke seemed to become at all aware of my presence as distinguished from that of the chairs and tables, the dogs that lay in the porch, or the clergyman or lawyer or stray neighbour who was occasionally asked to dinner, was one dayI might have been there a weekwhen I chanced to remark to her upon the very singular resemblance that existed between herself and the portrait of a lady that hung in the hall with the ceiling like a ship's hull. The picture in question was a full length, neither very good nor very bad, probably done by some stray Italian of the early seventeenth century. It hung in a rather dark corner, facing the portrait, evidently painted to be its companion, of a dark man, with a somewhat unpleasant expression of resolution and efficiency, in a black Vandyck dress.
The two were evidently man and wife; and in the corner of the woman's portrait were the words, "Alice Oke, daughter of Virgil Pomfret, Esq., and wife to Nicholas Oke of Okehurst," and the date 1626"Nicholas Oke" being the name painted in the corner of the small portrait. The lady was really wonderfully like the present Mrs. Oke, at least so far as an indifferently painted portrait of the early days of Charles I, can be like a living woman of the nineteenth century. There were the same strange lines of figure and face, the same dimples in the thin cheeks, the same wideopened eyes, the same vague eccentricity of expression, not destroyed even by the feeble painting and conventional manner of the time. One could fancy that this woman had the same walk, the same beautiful line of nape of the neck and stooping head as her descendant; for I found that Mr. and Mrs. Oke, who were first cousins, were both descended from that Nicholas Oke and that Alice, daughter of Virgil Pomfret. But the resemblance was heightened by the fact that, as I soon saw, the present Mrs. Oke distinctly made herself up to look like her ancestress, dressing in garments that had a seventeenthcentury look; nay, that were sometimes absolutely copied from this portrait. "You think I am like her," answered Mrs. Oke dreamily to my remark, and her eyes wandered off to that unseen something, and the faint smile dimpled her thin cheeks. "You are like her, and you know it. I may even say you wish to be like her, Mrs. Oke," I answered, laughing. "Perhaps I do." And she looked in the direction of her husband. I noticed that he had an expression of distinct annoyance besides that frown of his. "Isn't it true that Mrs. Oke tries to look like that portrait?" I asked, with a perverse curiosity. "Oh, fudge!" he exclaimed, rising from his chair and walking nervously to the window. "It's all nonsense, mere nonsense. I wish you wouldn't, Alice." "Wouldn't what?" asked Mrs. Oke, with a sort of contemptuous indifference. "If I am like that Alice Oke, why I am; and I am very pleased any one should think so. She and her husband are just about the only two members of our familyour most flat, stale, and unprofitable familythat ever were in the least degree interesting." Oke grew crimson, and frowned as if in pain. "I don't see why you should abuse our family, Alice," he said. "Thank God, our people have always been honourable and upright men and women!" "Excepting always Nicholas Oke and Alice his wife, daughter of Virgil Pomfret, Esq.," she answered, laughing, as he strode out into the park. "How childish he is!" she exclaimed when we were alone. "He really minds, really feels disgraced by what our ancestors did two centuries and a half ago. I do believe William would have those two portraits taken down and burned if he weren't afraid of me and ashamed of the neighbours. And as it is, these two people really are the only two members of our family that ever were in the least interesting. I will tell you the story some day." As it was, the story was told to me by Oke himself. The next day, as we were taking our morning walk, he suddenly broke a long silence, laying about him all the time at the sere grasses with the hooked stick that he carried, like the conscientious Kentishman he was, for the purpose of cutting down his and other folk's thistles. "I fear you must have thought me very illmannered towards my wife yesterday," he said shyly; "and indeed I know I was." Oke was one of those chivalrous beings to whom every woman, every wifeand his own most of allappeared in the light of something holy. "ButbutI have a prejudice which my wife does not enter into, about raking up ugly things in one's own family. I suppose Alice thinks that it is so long ago that it has really got no connection with us; she thinks of it merely as a picturesque story. I daresay many people feel like that; in short, I am sure they do, otherwise there wouldn't be such lots of discreditable family traditions afloat. But I feel as if it were all one whether it was long ago or not; when it's a question of one's own people, I would rather have it forgotten. I can't understand how people can talk about murders in their families, and ghosts, and so forth." "Have you any ghosts at Okehurst, by the way?" I asked. The place seemed as if it required some to complete it. "I hope not," answered Oke gravely. His gravity made me smile. "Why, would you dislike it if there were?" I asked. "If there are such things as ghosts," he replied, "I don't think they should be taken lightly. God would not permit them to be, except as a warning or a punishment." We walked on some time in silence, I wondering at the strange type of this commonplace young man, and half wishing I could put something into my portrait that should be the equivalent of this curious unimaginative earnestness. Then Oke told me the story of those two picturestold it me about as badly and hesitatingly as was possible for mortal man. He and his wife were, as I have said, cousins, and therefore descended from the same old Kentish stock. The Okes of Okehurst could trace back to Norman, almost to Saxon times, far longer than any of the titled or betterknown families of the neighbourhood. I saw that William Oke, in his heart, thoroughly looked down upon all his neighbours. "We have never done anything particular, or been anything particularnever held any office," he said; "but we have always been here, and apparently always done our duty. An ancestor of ours was killed in the Scotch wars, another at Agincourtmere honest captains." Well, early in the seventeenth century, the family had dwindled to a single member, Nicholas Oke, the same who had rebuilt Okehurst in its present shape. This Nicholas appears to have been somewhat different from the usual run of the family. He had, in his youth, sought adventures in America, and seems, generally speaking, to have been less of a nonentity than his ancestors. He married, when no longer very young, Alice, daughter of Virgil Pomfret, a beautiful young heiress from a neighbouring county. "It was the first time an Oke married a Pomfret," my host informed me, "and the last time. The Pomfrets were quite different sort of peoplerestless, selfseeking; one of them had been a favourite of Henry VIII." It was clear that William Oke had no feeling of having any Pomfret blood in his veins; he spoke of these people with an evident family dislikethe dislike of an Oke, one of the old, honourable, modest stock, which had quietly done its duty, for a family of fortuneseekers and Court minions. Well, there had come to live near Okehurst, in a little house recently inherited from an uncle, a certain Christopher Lovelock, a young gallant and poet, who was in momentary disgrace at Court for some love affair. This Lovelock had struck up a great friendship with his neighbours of Okehursttoo great a friendship, apparently, with the wife, either for her husband's taste or her own. Anyhow, one evening as he was riding home alone, Lovelock had been attacked and murdered, ostensibly by highwaymen, but as was afterwards rumoured, by Nicholas Oke, accompanied by his wife dressed as a groom. No legal evidence had been got, but the tradition had remained. "They used to tell it us when we were children," said my host, in a hoarse voice, "and to frighten my cousinI mean my wifeand me with stories about Lovelock. It is merely a tradition, which I hope may die out, as I sincerely pray to heaven that it may be false." "AliceMrs. Okeyou see," he went on after some time, "doesn't feel about it as I do. Perhaps I am morbid. But I do dislike having the old story raked up." And we said no more on the subject. 4 From that moment I began to assume a certain interest in the eyes of Mrs. Oke; or rather, I began to perceive that I had a means of securing her attention. Perhaps it was wrong of me to do so; and I have often reproached myself very seriously later on. But after all, how was I to guess that I was making mischief merely by chiming in, for the sake of the portrait I had undertaken, and of a very harmless psychological mania, with what was merely the fad, the little romantic affectation or eccentricity, of a scatterbrained and eccentric young woman? How in the world should I have dreamed that I was handling explosive substances? A man is surely not responsible if the people with whom he is forced to deal, and whom he deals with as with all the rest of the world, are quite different from all other human creatures. So, if indeed I did at all conduce to mischief, I really cannot blame myself. I had met in Mrs. Oke an almost unique subject for a portraitpainter of my particular sort, and a most singular, bizarre personality. I could not possibly do my subject justice so long as I was kept at a distance, prevented from studying the real character of the woman. I required to put her into play. And I ask you whether any more innocent way of doing so could be found than talking to a woman, and letting her talk, about an absurd fancy she had for a couple of ancestors of hers of the time of Charles I., and a poet whom they had murdered?particularly as I studiously respected the prejudices of my host, and refrained from mentioning the matter, and tried to restrain Mrs. Oke from doing so, in the presence of William Oke himself. I had certainly guessed correctly. To resemble the Alice Oke of the year 1626 was the caprice, the mania, the pose, the whatever you may call it, of the Alice Oke of 1880; and to perceive this resemblance was the sure way of gaining her good graces. It was the most extraordinary craze, of all the extraordinary crazes of childless and idle women, that I had ever met; but it was more than that, it was admirably characteristic. It finished off the strange figure of Mrs. Oke, as I saw it in my imaginationthis bizarre creature of enigmatic, farfetched exquisitenessthat she should have no interest in the present, but only an eccentric passion in the past. It seemed to give the meaning to the absent look in her eyes, to her irrelevant and faroff smile. It was like the words to a weird piece of gipsy music, this that she, who was so different, so distant from all women of her own time, should try and identify herself with a woman of the pastthat she should have a kind of flirtationBut of this anon. I told Mrs. Oke that I had learnt from her husband the outline of the tragedy, or mystery, whichever it was, of Alice Oke, daughter of Virgil Pomfret, and the poet Christopher Lovelock. That look of vague contempt, of a desire to shock, which I had noticed before, came into her beautiful, pale, diaphanous face. "I suppose my husband was very shocked at the whole matter," she said"told it you with as little detail as possible, and assured you very solemnly that he hoped the whole story might be a mere dreadful calumny? Poor Willie! I remember already when we were children, and I used to come with my mother to spend Christmas at Okehurst, and my cousin was down here for his holidays, how I used to horrify him by insisting upon dressing up in shawls and waterproofs, and playing the story of the wicked Mrs. Oke; and he always piously refused to do the part of Nicholas, when I wanted to have the scene on Cotes Common. I didn't know then that I was like the original Alice Oke; I found it out only after our marriage. You really think that I am?" She certainly was, particularly at that moment, as she stood in a white Vandyck dress, with the green of the parkland rising up behind her, and the low sun catching her short locks and surrounding her head, her exquisitely bowed head, with a paleyellow halo. But I confess I thought the original Alice Oke, siren and murderess though she might be, very uninteresting compared with this wayward and exquisite creature whom I had rashly promised myself to send down to posterity in all her unlikely wayward exquisiteness. One morning while Mr. Oke was despatching his Saturday heap of Conservative manifestoes and rural decisionshe was justice of the peace in a most literal sense, penetrating into cottages and huts, defending the weak and admonishing the illconductedone morning while I was making one of my many pencilsketches (alas, they are all that remain to me now!) of my future sitter, Mrs. Oke gave me her version of the story of Alice Oke and Christopher Lovelock. "Do you suppose there was anything between them?" I asked"that she was ever in love with him? How do you explain the part which tradition ascribes to her in the supposed murder? One has heard of women and their lovers who have killed the husband; but a woman who combines with her husband to kill her lover, or at least the man who is in love with herthat is surely very singular." I was absorbed in my drawing, and really thinking very little of what I was saying. "I don't know," she answered pensively, with that distant look in her eyes. "Alice Oke was very proud, I am sure. She may have loved the poet very much, and yet been indignant with him, hated having to love him. She may have felt that she had a right to rid herself of him, and to call upon her husband to help her to do so." "Good heavens! what a fearful idea!" I exclaimed, half laughing. "Don't you think, after all, that Mr. Oke may be right in saying that it is easier and more comfortable to take the whole story as a pure invention?" "I cannot take it as an invention," answered Mrs. Oke contemptuously, "because I happen to know that it is true." "Indeed!" I answered, working away at my sketch, and enjoying putting this strange creature, as I said to myself, through her paces; "how is that?" "How does one know that anything is true in this world?" she replied evasively; "because one does, because one feels it to be true, I suppose." And, with that faroff look in her light eyes, she relapsed into silence. "Have you ever read any of Lovelock's poetry?" she asked me suddenly the next day. "Lovelock?" I answered, for I had forgotten the name. "Lovelock, who"But I stopped, remembering the prejudices of my host, who was seated next to me at table. "Lovelock who was killed by Mr. Oke's and my ancestors." And she looked full at her husband, as if in perverse enjoyment of the evident annoyance which it caused him. "Alice," he entreated in a low voice, his whole face crimson, "for mercy's sake, don't talk about such things before the servants." Mrs. Oke burst into a high, light, rather hysterical laugh, the laugh of a naughty child. "The servants! Gracious heavens! do you suppose they haven't heard the story? Why, it's as well known as Okehurst itself in the neighbourhood. Don't they believe that Lovelock has been seen about the house? Haven't they all heard his footsteps in the big corridor? Haven't they, my dear Willie, noticed a thousand times that you never will stay a minute alone in the yellow drawingroomthat you run out of it, like a child, if I happen to leave you there for a minute?" True! How was it I had not noticed that? or rather, that I only now remembered having noticed it? The yellow drawingroom was one of the most charming rooms in the house a large, bright room, hung with yellow damask and panelled with carvings, that opened straight out on to the lawn, far superior to the room in which we habitually sat, which was comparatively gloomy. This time Mr. Oke struck me as really too childish. I felt an intense desire to badger him. "The yellow drawingroom!" I exclaimed. "Does this interesting literary character haunt the yellow drawingroom? Do tell me about it. What happened there?" Mr. Oke made a painful effort to laugh. "Nothing ever happened there, so far as I know," he said, and rose from the table. "Really?" I asked incredulously. "Nothing did happen there," answered Mrs. Oke slowly, playing mechanically with a fork, and picking out the pattern of the tablecloth. "That is just the extraordinary circumstance, that, so far as any one knows, nothing ever did happen there; and yet that room has an evil reputation. No member of our family, they say, can bear to sit there alone for more than a minute. You see, William evidently cannot." "Have you ever seen or heard anything strange there?" I asked of my host. He shook his head. "Nothing," he answered curtly, and lit his cigar. "I presume you have not," I asked, half laughing, of Mrs. Oke, "since you don't mind sitting in that room for hours alone? How do you explain this uncanny reputation, since nothing ever happened there?" "Perhaps something is destined to happen there in the future," she answered, in her absent voice. And then she suddenly added, "Suppose you paint my portrait in that room?" Mr. Oke suddenly turned round. He was very white, and looked as if he were going to say something, but desisted. "Why do you worry Mr. Oke like that?" I asked, when he had gone into his smokingroom with his usual bundle of papers. "It is very cruel of you, Mrs. Oke. You ought to have more consideration for people who believe in such things, although you may not be able to put yourself in their frame of mind." "Who tells you that I don't believe in such things, as you call them?" she answered abruptly. "Come," she said, after a minute, "I want to show you why I believe in Christopher Lovelock. Come with me into the yellow room." 5 What Mrs. Oke showed me in the yellow room was a large bundle of papers, some printed and some manuscript, but all of them brown with age, which she took out of an old Italian ebony inlaid cabinet. It took her some time to get them, as a complicated arrangement of double locks and false drawers had to be put in play; and while she was doing so, I looked round the room, in which I had been only three or four times before. It was certainly the most beautiful room in this beautiful house, and, as it seemed to me now, the most strange. It was long and low, with something that made you think of the cabin of a ship, with a great mullioned window that let in, as it were, a perspective of the brownish green parkland, dotted with oaks, and sloping upwards to the distant line of bluish firs against the horizon. The walls were hung with flowered damask, whose yellow, faded to brown, united with the reddish colour of the carved wainscoting and the carved oaken beams. For the rest, it reminded me more of an Italian room than an English one. The furniture was Tuscan of the early seventeenth century, inlaid and carved; there were a couple of faded allegorical pictures, by some Bolognese master, on the walls; and in a corner, among a stack of dwarf orangetrees, a little Italian harpsichord of exquisite curve and slenderness, with flowers and landscapes painted upon its cover. In a recess was a shelf of old books, mainly English and Italian poets of the Elizabethan time; and close by it, placed upon a carved weddingchest, a large and beautiful melonshaped lute. The panes of the mullioned window were open, and yet the air seemed heavy, with an indescribable heady perfume, not that of any growing flower, but like that of old stuff that should have lain for years among spices. "It is a beautiful room!" I exclaimed. "I should awfully like to paint you in it"; but I had scarcely spoken the words when I felt I had done wrong. This woman's husband could not bear the room, and it seemed to me vaguely as if he were right in detesting it. Mrs. Oke took no notice of my exclamation, but beckoned me to the table where she was standing sorting the papers. "Look!" she said, "these are all poems by Christopher Lovelock"; and touching the yellow papers with delicate and reverent fingers, she commenced reading some of them out loud in a slow, halfaudible voice. They were songs in the style of those of Herrick, Waller, and Drayton, complaining for the most part of the cruelty of a lady called Dryope, in whose name was evidently concealed a reference to that of the mistress of Okehurst. The songs were graceful, and not without a certain faded passion but I was thinking not of them, but of the woman who was reading them to me. Mrs. Oke was standing with the brownish yellow wall as a background to her white brocade dress, which, in its stiff seventeenthcentury make, seemed but to bring out more clearly the slightness, the exquisite suppleness, of her tall figure. She held the papers in one hand, and leaned the other, as if for support, on the inlaid cabinet by her side. Her voice, which was delicate, shadowy, like her person, had a curious throbbing cadence, as if she were reading the words of a melody, and restraining herself with difficulty from singing it; and as she read, her long slender throat throbbed slightly, and a faint redness came into her thin face. She evidently knew the verses by heart, and her eyes were mostly fixed with that distant smile in them, with which harmonised a constant tremulous little smile in her lips. "That is how I would wish to paint her!" I exclaimed within myself; and scarcely noticed, what struck me on thinking over the scene, that this strange being read these verses as one might fancy a woman would read loveverses addressed to herself. "Those are all written for Alice OkeAlice the daughter of Virgil Pomfret," she said slowly, folding up the papers. "I found them at the bottom of this cabinet. Can you doubt of the reality of Christopher Lovelock now?" The question was an illogical one, for to doubt of the existence of Christopher Lovelock was one thing, and to doubt of the mode of his death was another; but somehow I did feel convinced. "Look!" she said, when she had replaced the poems, "I will show you something else." Among the flowers that stood on the upper storey of her writingtablefor I found that Mrs. Oke had a writingtable in the yellow roomstood, as on an altar, a small black carved frame, with a silk curtain drawn over it the sort of thing behind which you would have expected to find a head of Christ or of the Virgin Mary. She drew the curtain and displayed a largesized miniature, representing a young man, with auburn curls and a peaked auburn beard, dressed in black, but with lace about his neck, and large pearshaped pearls in his ears a wistful, melancholy face. Mrs. Oke took the miniature religiously off its stand, and showed me, written in faded characters upon the back, the name "Christopher Lovelock," and the date 1626. "I found this in the secret drawer of that cabinet, together with the heap of poems," she said, taking the miniature out of my hand. I was silent for a minute. "Doesdoes Mr. Oke know that you have got it here?" I asked; and then wondered what in the world had impelled me to put such a question. Mrs. Oke smiled that smile of contemptuous indifference. "I have never hidden it from any one. If my husband disliked my having it, he might have taken it away, I suppose. It belongs to him, since it was found in his house." I did not answer, but walked mechanically towards the door. There was something heady and oppressive in this beautiful room; something, I thought, almost repulsive in this exquisite woman. She seemed to me, suddenly, perverse and dangerous. I scarcely know why, but I neglected Mrs. Oke that afternoon. I went to Mr. Oke's study, and sat opposite to him smoking while he was engrossed in his accounts, his reports, and electioneering papers. On the table, above the heap of paperbound volumes and pigeonholed documents, was, as sole ornament of his den, a little photograph of his wife, done some years before. I don't know why, but as I sat and watched him, with his florid, honest, manly beauty, working away conscientiously, with that little perplexed frown of his, I felt intensely sorry for this man. But this feeling did not last. There was no help for it Oke was not as interesting as Mrs. Oke; and it required too great an effort to pump up sympathy for this normal, excellent, exemplary young squire, in the presence of so wonderful a creature as his wife. So I let myself go to the habit of allowing Mrs. Oke daily to talk over her strange craze, or rather of drawing her out about it. I confess that I derived a morbid and exquisite pleasure in doing so it was so characteristic in her, so appropriate to the house! It completed her personality so perfectly, and made it so much easier to conceive a way of painting her. I made up my mind little by little, while working at William Oke's portrait (he proved a less easy subject than I had anticipated, and, despite his conscientious efforts, was a nervous, uncomfortable sitter, silent and brooding)I made up my mind that I would paint Mrs. Oke standing by the cabinet in the yellow room, in the white Vandyck dress copied from the portrait of her ancestress. Mr. Oke might resent it, Mrs. Oke even might resent it; they might refuse to take the picture, to pay for it, to allow me to exhibit; they might force me to run my umbrella through the picture. No matter. That picture should be painted, if merely for the sake of having painted it; for I felt it was the only thing I could do, and that it would be far away my best work. I told neither of my resolution, but prepared sketch after sketch of Mrs. Oke, while continuing to paint her husband. Mrs. Oke was a silent person, more silent even than her husband, for she did not feel bound, as he did, to attempt to entertain a guest or to show any interest in him. She seemed to spend her lifea curious, inactive, halfinvalidish life, broken by sudden fits of childish cheerfulnessin an eternal daydream, strolling about the house and grounds, arranging the quantities of flowers that always filled all the rooms, beginning to read and then throwing aside novels and books of poetry, of which she always had a large number; and, I believe, lying for hours, doing nothing, on a couch in that yellow drawingroom, which, with her sole exception, no member of the Oke family had ever been known to stay in alone. Little by little I began to suspect and to verify another eccentricity of this eccentric being, and to understand why there were stringent orders never to disturb her in that yellow room. It had been a habit at Okehurst, as at one or two other English manorhouses, to keep a certain amount of the clothes of each generation, more particularly wedding dresses. A certain carved oaken press, of which Mr. Oke once displayed the contents to me, was a perfect museum of costumes, male and female, from the early years of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth centurya thing to take away the breath of a bricabrac collector, an antiquary, or a genre painter. Mr. Oke was none of these, and therefore took but little interest in the collection, save in so far as it interested his family feeling. Still he seemed well acquainted with the contents of that press. He was turning over the clothes for my benefit, when suddenly I noticed that he frowned. I know not what impelled me to say, "By the way, have you any dresses of that Mrs. Oke whom your wife resembles so much? Have you got that particular white dress she was painted in, perhaps?" Oke of Okehurst flushed very red. "We have it," he answered hesitatingly, "butit isn't here at presentI can't find it. I suppose," he blurted out with an effort, "that Alice has got it. Mrs. Oke sometimes has the fancy of having some of these old things down. I suppose she takes ideas from them." A sudden light dawned in my mind. The white dress in which I had seen Mrs. Oke in the yellow room, the day that she showed me Lovelock's verses, was not, as I had thought, a modern copy; it was the original dress of Alice Oke, the daughter of Virgil Pomfretthe dress in which, perhaps, Christopher Lovelock had seen her in that very room. The idea gave me a delightful picturesque shudder. I said nothing. But I pictured to myself Mrs. Oke sitting in that yellow roomthat room which no Oke of Okehurst save herself ventured to remain in alone, in the dress of her ancestress, confronting, as it were, that vague, haunting something that seemed to fill the placethat vague presence, it seemed to me, of the murdered cavalier poet. Mrs. Oke, as I have said, was extremely silent, as a result of being extremely indifferent. She really did not care in the least about anything except her own ideas and daydreams, except when, every now and then, she was seized with a sudden desire to shock the prejudices or superstitions of her husband. Very soon she got into the way of never talking to me at all, save about Alice and Nicholas Oke and Christopher Lovelock; and then, when the fit seized her, she would go on by the hour, never asking herself whether I was or was not equally interested in the strange craze that fascinated her. It so happened that I was. I loved to listen to her, going on discussing by the hour the merits of Lovelock's poems, and analysing her feelings and those of her two ancestors. It was quite wonderful to watch the exquisite, exotic creature in one of these moods, with the distant look in her grey eyes and the absentlooking smile in her thin cheeks, talking as if she had intimately known these people of the seventeenth century, discussing every minute mood of theirs, detailing every scene between them and their victim, talking of Alice, and Nicholas, and Lovelock as she might of her most intimate friends. Of Alice particularly, and of Lovelock. She seemed to know every word that Alice had spoken, every idea that had crossed her mind. It sometimes struck me as if she were telling me, speaking of herself in the third person, of her own feelingsas if I were listening to a woman's confidences, the recital of her doubts, scruples, and agonies about a living lover. For Mrs. Oke, who seemed the most selfabsorbed of creatures in all other matters, and utterly incapable of understanding or sympathising with the feelings of other persons, entered completely and passionately into the feelings of this woman, this Alice, who, at some moments, seemed to be not another woman, but herself. "But how could she do ithow could she kill the man she cared for?" I once asked her. "Because she loved him more than the whole world!" she exclaimed, and rising suddenly from her chair, walked towards the window, covering her face with her hands. I could see, from the movement of her neck, that she was sobbing. She did not turn round, but motioned me to go away. "Don't let us talk any more about it," she said. "I am ill today, and silly." I closed the door gently behind me. What mystery was there in this woman's life? This listlessness, this strange selfengrossment and stranger mania about people long dead, this indifference and desire to annoy towards her husbanddid it all mean that Alice Oke had loved or still loved some one who was not the master of Okehurst? And his melancholy, his preoccupation, the something about him that told of a broken youthdid it mean that he knew it? 6 The following days Mrs. Oke was in a condition of quite unusual good spirits. Some visitorsdistant relativeswere expected, and although she had expressed the utmost annoyance at the idea of their coming, she was now seized with a fit of housekeeping activity, and was perpetually about arranging things and giving orders, although all arrangements, as usual, had been made, and all orders given, by her husband. William Oke was quite radiant. "If only Alice were always well like this!" he exclaimed; "if only she would take, or could take, an interest in life, how different things would be! But," he added, as if fearful lest he should be supposed to accuse her in any way, "how can she, usually, with her wretched health? Still, it does make me awfully happy to see her like this." I nodded. But I cannot say that I really acquiesced in his views. It seemed to me, particularly with the recollection of yesterday's extraordinary scene, that Mrs. Oke's high spirits were anything but normal.
There was something in her unusual activity and still more unusual cheerfulness that was merely nervous and feverish; and I had, the whole day, the impression of dealing with a woman who was ill and who would very speedily collapse. Mrs. Oke spent her day wandering from one room to another, and from the garden to the greenhouse, seeing whether all was in order, when, as a matter of fact, all was always in order at Okehurst. She did not give me any sitting, and not a word was spoken about Alice Oke or Christopher Lovelock. Indeed, to a casual observer, it might have seemed as if all that craze about Lovelock had completely departed, or never existed. About five o'clock, as I was strolling among the redbrick roundgabled outhouseseach with its armorial oakand the oldfashioned spalliered kitchen and fruit garden, I saw Mrs. Oke standing, her hands full of York and Lancaster roses, upon the steps facing the stables. A groom was currycombing a horse, and outside the coachhouse was Mr. Oke's little highwheeled cart. "Let us have a drive!" suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Oke, on seeing me. "Look what a beautiful eveningand look at that dear little cart! It is so long since I have driven, and I feel as if I must drive again. Come with me. And you, harness Jim at once and come round to the door." I was quite amazed; and still more so when the cart drove up before the door, and Mrs. Oke called to me to accompany her. She sent away the groom, and in a minute we were rolling along, at a tremendous pace, along the yellowsand road, with the sere pasturelands, the big oaks, on either side. I could scarcely believe my senses. This woman, in her mannish little coat and hat, driving a powerful young horse with the utmost skill, and chattering like a schoolgirl of sixteen, could not be the delicate, morbid, exotic, hothouse creature, unable to walk or to do anything, who spent her days lying about on couches in the heavy atmosphere, redolent with strange scents and associations, of the yellow drawingroom. The movement of the light carriage, the cool draught, the very grind of the wheels upon the gravel, seemed to go to her head like wine. "It is so long since I have done this sort of thing," she kept repeating; "so long, so long. Oh, don't you think it delightful, going at this pace, with the idea that any moment the horse may come down and we two be killed?" and she laughed her childish laugh, and turned her face, no longer pale, but flushed with the movement and the excitement, towards me. The cart rolled on quicker and quicker, one gate after another swinging to behind us, as we flew up and down the little hills, across the pasture lands, through the little redbrick gabled villages, where the people came out to see us pass, past the rows of willows along the streams, and the darkgreen compact hopfields, with the blue and hazy treetops of the horizon getting bluer and more hazy as the yellow light began to graze the ground. At last we got to an open space, a highlying piece of commonland, such as is rare in that ruthlessly utilised country of grazinggrounds and hopgardens. Among the low hills of the Weald, it seemed quite preternaturally high up, giving a sense that its extent of flat heather and gorse, bound by distant firs, was really on the top of the world. The sun was setting just opposite, and its lights lay flat on the ground, staining it with the red and black of the heather, or rather turning it into the surface of a purple sea, canopied over by a bank of darkpurple cloudsthe jetlike sparkle of the dry ling and gorse tipping the purple like sunlit wavelets. A cold wind swept in our faces. "What is the name of this place?" I asked. It was the only bit of impressive scenery that I had met in the neighbourhood of Okehurst. "It is called Cotes Common," answered Mrs. Oke, who had slackened the pace of the horse, and let the reins hang loose about his neck. "It was here that Christopher Lovelock was killed." There was a moment's pause; and then she proceeded, tickling the flies from the horse's ears with the end of her whip, and looking straight into the sunset, which now rolled, a deep purple stream, across the heath to our feet "Lovelock was riding home one summer evening from Appledore, when, as he had got halfway across Cotes Common, somewhere about herefor I have always heard them mention the pond in the old gravelpits as about the placehe saw two men riding towards him, in whom he presently recognised Nicholas Oke of Okehurst accompanied by a groom. Oke of Okehurst hailed him; and Lovelock rode up to meet him. 'I am glad to have met you, Mr. Lovelock,' said Nicholas, 'because I have some important news for you'; and so saying, he brought his horse close to the one that Lovelock was riding, and suddenly turning round, fired off a pistol at his head. Lovelock had time to move, and the bullet, instead of striking him, went straight into the head of his horse, which fell beneath him. Lovelock, however, had fallen in such a way as to be able to extricate himself easily from his horse; and drawing his sword, he rushed upon Oke, and seized his horse by the bridle. Oke quickly jumped off and drew his sword; and in a minute, Lovelock, who was much the better swordsman of the two, was having the better of him. Lovelock had completely disarmed him, and got his sword at Oke's throat, crying out to him that if he would ask forgiveness he should be spared for the sake of their old friendship, when the groom suddenly rode up from behind and shot Lovelock through the back. Lovelock fell, and Oke immediately tried to finish him with his sword, while the groom drew up and held the bridle of Oke's horse. At that moment the sunlight fell upon the groom's face, and Lovelock recognised Mrs. Oke. He cried out, 'Alice, Alice! it is you who have murdered me!' and died. Then Nicholas Oke sprang into his saddle and rode off with his wife, leaving Lovelock dead by the side of his fallen horse. Nicholas Oke had taken the precaution of removing Lovelock's purse and throwing it into the pond, so the murder was put down to certain highwaymen who were about in that part of the country. Alice Oke died many years afterwards, quite an old woman, in the reign of Charles II.; but Nicholas did not live very long, and shortly before his death got into a very strange condition, always brooding, and sometimes threatening to kill his wife. They say that in one of these fits, just shortly before his death, he told the whole story of the murder, and made a prophecy that when the head of his house and master of Okehurst should marry another Alice Oke descended from himself and his wife, there should be an end of the Okes of Okehurst. You see, it seems to be coming true. We have no children, and I don't suppose we shall ever have any. I, at least, have never wished for them." Mrs. Oke paused, and turned her face towards me with the absent smile in her thin cheeks her eyes no longer had that distant look; they were strangely eager and fixed. I did not know what to answer; this woman positively frightened me. We remained for a moment in that same place, with the sunlight dying away in crimson ripples on the heather, gilding the yellow banks, the black waters of the pond, surrounded by thin rushes, and the yellow gravelpits; while the wind blew in our faces and bent the ragged warped bluish tops of the firs. Then Mrs. Oke touched the horse, and off we went at a furious pace. We did not exchange a single word, I think, on the way home. Mrs. Oke sat with her eyes fixed on the reins, breaking the silence now and then only by a word to the horse, urging him to an even more furious pace. The people we met along the roads must have thought that the horse was running away, unless they noticed Mrs. Oke's calm manner and the look of excited enjoyment in her face. To me it seemed that I was in the hands of a madwoman, and I quietly prepared myself for being upset or dashed against a cart. It had turned cold, and the draught was icy in our faces when we got within sight of the red gables and high chimneystacks of Okehurst. Mr. Oke was standing before the door. On our approach I saw a look of relieved suspense, of keen pleasure come into his face. He lifted his wife out of the cart in his strong arms with a kind of chivalrous tenderness. "I am so glad to have you back, darling," he exclaimed"so glad! I was delighted to hear you had gone out with the cart, but as you have not driven for so long, I was beginning to be frightfully anxious, dearest. Where have you been all this time?" Mrs. Oke had quickly extricated herself from her husband, who had remained holding her, as one might hold a delicate child who has been causing anxiety. The gentleness and affection of the poor fellow had evidently not touched hershe seemed almost to recoil from it. "I have taken him to Cotes Common," she said, with that perverse look which I had noticed before, as she pulled off her drivinggloves. "It is such a splendid old place." Mr. Oke flushed as if he had bitten upon a sore tooth, and the double gash painted itself scarlet between his eyebrows. Outside, the mists were beginning to rise, veiling the parkland dotted with big black oaks, and from which, in the watery moonlight, rose on all sides the eerie little cry of the lambs separated from their mothers. It was damp and cold, and I shivered. 7 The next day Okehurst was full of people, and Mrs. Oke, to my amazement, was doing the honours of it as if a house full of commonplace, noisy young creatures, bent upon flirting and tennis, were her usual idea of felicity. The afternoon of the third daythey had come for an electioneering ball, and stayed three nightsthe weather changed; it turned suddenly very cold and began to pour. Every one was sent indoors, and there was a general gloom suddenly over the company. Mrs. Oke seemed to have got sick of her guests, and was listlessly lying back on a couch, paying not the slightest attention to the chattering and pianostrumming in the room, when one of the guests suddenly proposed that they should play charades. He was a distant cousin of the Okes, a sort of fashionable artistic Bohemian, swelled out to intolerable conceit by the amateuractor vogue of a season. "It would be lovely in this marvellous old place," he cried, "just to dress up, and parade about, and feel as if we belonged to the past. I have heard you have a marvellous collection of old costumes, more or less ever since the days of Noah, somewhere, Cousin Bill." The whole party exclaimed in joy at this proposal. William Oke looked puzzled for a moment, and glanced at his wife, who continued to lie listless on her sofa. "There is a press full of clothes belonging to the family," he answered dubiously, apparently overwhelmed by the desire to please his guests; "butbutI don't know whether it's quite respectful to dress up in the clothes of dead people." "Oh, fiddlestick!" cried the cousin. "What do the dead people know about it? Besides," he added, with mock seriousness, "I assure you we shall behave in the most reverent way and feel quite solemn about it all, if only you will give us the key, old man." Again Mr. Oke looked towards his wife, and again met only her vague, absent glance. "Very well," he said, and led his guests upstairs. An hour later the house was filled with the strangest crew and the strangest noises. I had entered, to a certain extent, into William Oke's feeling of unwillingness to let his ancestors' clothes and personality be taken in vain; but when the masquerade was complete, I must say that the effect was quite magnificent. A dozen youngish men and womenthose who were staying in the house and some neighbours who had come for lawntennis and dinnerwere rigged out, under the direction of the theatrical cousin, in the contents of that oaken press and I have never seen a more beautiful sight than the panelled corridors, the carved and escutcheoned staircase, the dim drawingrooms with their faded tapestries, the great hall with its vaulted and ribbed ceiling, dotted about with groups or single figures that seemed to have come straight from the past. Even William Oke, who, besides myself and a few elderly people, was the only man not masqueraded, seemed delighted and fired by the sight. A certain schoolboy character suddenly came out in him; and finding that there was no costume left for him, he rushed upstairs and presently returned in the uniform he had worn before his marriage. I thought I had really never seen so magnificent a specimen of the handsome Englishman; he looked, despite all the modern associations of his costume, more genuinely oldworld than all the rest, a knight for the Black Prince or Sidney, with his admirably regular features and beautiful fair hair and complexion. After a minute, even the elderly people had got costumes of some sortdominoes arranged at the moment, and hoods and all manner of disguises made out of pieces of old embroidery and Oriental stuffs and furs; and very soon this rabble of masquers had become, so to speak, completely drunk with its own amusementwith the childishness, and, if I may say so, the barbarism, the vulgarity underlying the majority even of wellbred English men and womenMr. Oke himself doing the mountebank like a schoolboy at Christmas. "Where is Mrs. Oke? Where is Alice?" some one suddenly asked. Mrs. Oke had vanished. I could fully understand that to this eccentric being, with her fantastic, imaginative, morbid passion for the past, such a carnival as this must be positively revolting; and, absolutely indifferent as she was to giving offence, I could imagine how she would have retired, disgusted and outraged, to dream her strange daydreams in the yellow room. But a moment later, as we were all noisily preparing to go in to dinner, the door opened and a strange figure entered, stranger than any of these others who were profaning the clothes of the dead a boy, slight and tall, in a brown ridingcoat, leathern belt, and big buff boots, a little grey cloak over one shoulder, a large grey hat slouched over the eyes, a dagger and pistol at the waist. It was Mrs. Oke, her eyes preternaturally bright, and her whole face lit up with a bold, perverse smile. Every one exclaimed, and stood aside. Then there was a moment's silence, broken by faint applause. Even to a crew of noisy boys and girls playing the fool in the garments of men and women long dead and buried, there is something questionable in the sudden appearance of a young married woman, the mistress of the house, in a ridingcoat and jackboots; and Mrs. Oke's expression did not make the jest seem any the less questionable. "What is that costume?" asked the theatrical cousin, who, after a second, had come to the conclusion that Mrs. Oke was merely a woman of marvellous talent whom he must try and secure for his amateur troop next season. "It is the dress in which an ancestress of ours, my namesake Alice Oke, used to go out riding with her husband in the days of Charles I.," she answered, and took her seat at the head of the table. Involuntarily my eyes sought those of Oke of Okehurst. He, who blushed as easily as a girl of sixteen, was now as white as ashes, and I noticed that he pressed his hand almost convulsively to his mouth. "Don't you recognise my dress, William?" asked Mrs. Oke, fixing her eyes upon him with a cruel smile. He did not answer, and there was a moment's silence, which the theatrical cousin had the happy thought of breaking by jumping upon his seat and emptying off his glass with the exclamation "To the health of the two Alice Okes, of the past and the present!" Mrs. Oke nodded, and with an expression I had never seen in her face before, answered in a loud and aggressive tone "To the health of the poet, Mr. Christopher Lovelock, if his ghost be honouring this house with its presence!" I felt suddenly as if I were in a madhouse. Across the table, in the midst of this room full of noisy wretches, tricked out red, blue, purple, and particoloured, as men and women of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, as improvised Turks and Eskimos, and dominoes, and clowns, with faces painted and corked and floured over, I seemed to see that sanguine sunset, washing like a sea of blood over the heather, to where, by the black pond and the windwarped firs, there lay the body of Christopher Lovelock, with his dead horse near him, the yellow gravel and lilac ling soaked crimson all around; and above emerged, as out of the redness, the pale blond head covered with the grey hat, the absent eyes, and strange smile of Mrs. Oke. It seemed to me horrible, vulgar, abominable, as if I had got inside a madhouse. 8 From that moment I noticed a change in William Oke; or rather, a change that had probably been coming on for some time got to the stage of being noticeable. I don't know whether he had any words with his wife about her masquerade of that unlucky evening. On the whole I decidedly think not. Oke was with every one a diffident and reserved man, and most of all so with his wife; besides, I can fancy that he would experience a positive impossibility of putting into words any strong feeling of disapprobation towards her, that his disgust would necessarily be silent. But be this as it may, I perceived very soon that the relations between my host and hostess had become exceedingly strained. Mrs. Oke, indeed, had never paid much attention to her husband, and seemed merely a trifle more indifferent to his presence than she had been before. But Oke himself, although he affected to address her at meals from a desire to conceal his feeling, and a fear of making the position disagreeable to me, very clearly could scarcely bear to speak to or even see his wife. The poor fellow's honest soul was quite brimful of pain, which he was determined not to allow to overflow, and which seemed to filter into his whole nature and poison it. This woman had shocked and pained him more than was possible to say, and yet it was evident that he could neither cease loving her nor commence comprehending her real nature. I sometimes felt, as we took our long walks through the monotonous country, across the oakdotted grazinggrounds, and by the brink of the dullgreen, serried hoprows, talking at rare intervals about the value of the crops, the drainage of the estate, the village schools, the Primrose League, and the iniquities of Mr. Gladstone, while Oke of Okehurst carefully cut down every tall thistle that caught his eyeI sometimes felt, I say, an intense and impotent desire to enlighten this man about his wife's character. I seemed to understand it so well, and to understand it well seemed to imply such a comfortable acquiescence; and it seemed so unfair that just he should be condemned to puzzle for ever over this enigma, and wear out his soul trying to comprehend what now seemed so plain to me. But how would it ever be possible to get this serious, conscientious, slowbrained representative of English simplicity and honesty and thoroughness to understand the mixture of selfengrossed vanity, of shallowness, of poetic vision, of love of morbid excitement, that walked this earth under the name of Alice Oke? So Oke of Okehurst was condemned never to understand; but he was condemned also to suffer from his inability to do so. The poor fellow was constantly straining after an explanation of his wife's peculiarities; and although the effort was probably unconscious, it caused him a great deal of pain. The gashthe maniacfrown, as my friend calls itbetween his eyebrows, seemed to have grown a permanent feature of his face. Mrs. Oke, on her side, was making the very worst of the situation. Perhaps she resented her husband's tacit reproval of that masquerade night's freak, and determined to make him swallow more of the same stuff, for she clearly thought that one of William's peculiarities, and one for which she despised him, was that he could never be goaded into an outspoken expression of disapprobation; that from her he would swallow any amount of bitterness without complaining. At any rate she now adopted a perfect policy of teasing and shocking her husband about the murder of Lovelock. She was perpetually alluding to it in her conversation, discussing in his presence what had or had not been the feelings of the various actors in the tragedy of 1626, and insisting upon her resemblance and almost identity with the original Alice Oke. Something had suggested to her eccentric mind that it would be delightful to perform in the garden at Okehurst, under the huge ilexes and elms, a little masque which she had discovered among Christopher Lovelock's works; and she began to scour the country and enter into vast correspondence for the purpose of effectuating this scheme. Letters arrived every other day from the theatrical cousin, whose only objection was that Okehurst was too remote a locality for an entertainment in which he foresaw great glory to himself. And every now and then there would arrive some young gentleman or lady, whom Alice Oke had sent for to see whether they would do. I saw very plainly that the performance would never take place, and that Mrs. Oke herself had no intention that it ever should. She was one of those creatures to whom realisation of a project is nothing, and who enjoy planmaking almost the more for knowing that all will stop short at the plan. Meanwhile, this perpetual talk about the pastoral, about Lovelock, this continual attitudinising as the wife of Nicholas Oke, had the further attraction to Mrs. Oke of putting her husband into a condition of frightful though suppressed irritation, which she enjoyed with the enjoyment of a perverse child. You must not think that I looked on indifferent, although I admit that this was a perfect treat to an amateur student of character like myself. I really did feel most sorry for poor Oke, and frequently quite indignant with his wife. I was several times on the point of begging her to have more consideration for him, even of suggesting that this kind of behavior, particularly before a comparative stranger like me, was very poor taste. But there was something elusive about Mrs. Oke, which made it next to impossible to speak seriously with her; and besides, I was by no means sure that any interference on my part would not merely animate her perversity. One evening a curious incident took place. We had just sat down to dinner, the Okes, the theatrical cousin, who was down for a couple of days, and three or four neighbours. It was dusk, and the yellow light of the candles mingled charmingly with the greyness of the evening. Mrs. Oke was not well, and had been remarkably quiet all day, more diaphanous, strange, and faraway than ever; and her husband seemed to have felt a sudden return of tenderness, almost of compassion, for this delicate, fragile creature. We had been talking of quite indifferent matters, when I saw Mr. Oke suddenly turn very white, and look fixedly for a moment at the window opposite to his seat. "Who's that fellow looking in at the window, and making signs to you, Alice? Damn his impudence!" he cried, and jumping up, ran to the window, opened it, and passed out into the twilight. We all looked at each other in surprise; some of the party remarked upon the carelessness of servants in letting nastylooking fellows hang about the kitchen, others told stories of tramps and burglars. Mrs. Oke did not speak; but I noticed the curious, distantlooking smile in her thin cheeks. After a minute William Oke came in, his napkin in his hand. He shut the window behind him and silently resumed his place. "Well, who was it?" we all asked. "Nobody. II must have made a mistake," he answered, and turned crimson, while he busily peeled a pear. "It was probably Lovelock," remarked Mrs. Oke, just as she might have said, "It was probably the gardener," but with that faint smile of pleasure still in her face. Except the theatrical cousin, who burst into a loud laugh, none of the company had ever heard Lovelock's name, and, doubtless imagining him to be some natural appanage of the Oke family, groom or farmer, said nothing, so the subject dropped. From that evening onwards things began to assume a different aspect. That incident was the beginning of a perfect systema system of what? I scarcely know how to call it. A system of grim jokes on the part of Mrs. Oke, of superstitious fancies on the part of her husbanda system of mysterious persecutions on the part of some less earthly tenant of Okehurst. Well, yes, after all, why not? We have all heard of ghosts, had uncles, cousins, grandmothers, nurses, who have seen them; we are all a bit afraid of them at the bottom of our soul; so why shouldn't they be? I am too sceptical to believe in the impossibility of anything, for my part! Besides, when a man has lived throughout a summer in the same house with a woman like Mrs. Oke of Okehurst, he gets to believe in the possibility of a great many improbable things, I assure you, as a mere result of believing in her. And when you come to think of it, why not? That a weird creature, visibly not of this earth, a reincarnation of a woman who murdered her lover two centuries and a half ago, that such a creature should have the power of attracting about her (being altogether superior to earthly lovers) the man who loved her in that previous existence, whose love for her was his deathwhat is there astonishing in that? Mrs. Oke herself, I feel quite persuaded, believed or half believed it; indeed she very seriously admitted the possibility thereof, one day that I made the suggestion half in jest. At all events, it rather pleased me to think so; it fitted in so well with the woman's whole personality; it explained those hours and hours spent all alone in the yellow room, where the very air, with its scent of heady flowers and old perfumed stuffs, seemed redolent of ghosts. It explained that strange smile which was not for any of us, and yet was not merely for herselfthat strange, faroff look in the wide pale eyes. I liked the idea, and I liked to tease, or rather to delight her with it. How should I know that the wretched husband would take such matters seriously? He became day by day more silent and perplexedlooking; and, as a result, worked harder, and probably with less effect, at his landimproving schemes and political canvassing. It seemed to me that he was perpetually listening, watching, waiting for something to happen a word spoken suddenly, the sharp opening of a door, would make him start, turn crimson, and almost tremble; the mention of Lovelock brought a helpless look, half a convulsion, like that of a man overcome by great heat, into his face. And his wife, so far from taking any interest in his altered looks, went on irritating him more and more. Every time that the poor fellow gave one of those starts of his, or turned crimson at the sudden sound of a footstep, Mrs. Oke would ask him, with her contemptuous indifference, whether he had seen Lovelock. I soon began to perceive that my host was getting perfectly ill. He would sit at meals never saying a word, with his eyes fixed scrutinisingly on his wife, as if vainly trying to solve some dreadful mystery; while his wife, ethereal, exquisite, went on talking in her listless way about the masque, about Lovelock, always about Lovelock. During our walks and rides, which we continued pretty regularly, he would start whenever in the roads or lanes surrounding Okehurst, or in its grounds, we perceived a figure in the distance. I have seen him tremble at what, on nearer approach, I could scarcely restrain my laughter on discovering to be some wellknown farmer or neighbour or servant. Once, as we were returning home at dusk, he suddenly caught my arm and pointed across the oakdotted pastures in the direction of the garden, then started off almost at a run, with his dog behind him, as if in pursuit of some intruder. "Who was it?" I asked. And Mr. Oke merely shook his head mournfully. Sometimes in the early autumn twilights, when the white mists rose from the parkland, and the rooks formed long black lines on the palings, I almost fancied I saw him start at the very trees and bushes, the outlines of the distant oasthouses, with their conical roofs and projecting vanes, like gibing fingers in the half light. "Your husband is ill," I once ventured to remark to Mrs. Oke, as she sat for the hundredandthirtieth of my preparatory sketches (I somehow could never get beyond preparatory sketches with her). She raised her beautiful, wide, pale eyes, making as she did so that exquisite curve of shoulders and neck and delicate pale head that I so vainly longed to reproduce. "I don't see it," she answered quietly. "If he is, why doesn't he go up to town and see the doctor? It's merely one of his glum fits." "You should not tease him about Lovelock," I added, very seriously. "He will get to believe in him." "Why not? If he sees him, why he sees him. He would not be the only person that has done so"; and she smiled faintly and half perversely, as her eyes sought that usual distant indefinable something. But Oke got worse. He was growing perfectly unstrung, like a hysterical woman. One evening that we were sitting alone in the smokingroom, he began unexpectedly a rambling discourse about his wife; how he had first known her when they were children, and they had gone to the same dancingschool near Portland Place; how her mother, his auntinlaw, had brought her for Christmas to Okehurst while he was on his holidays; how finally, thirteen years ago, when he was twentythree and she was eighteen, they had been married; how terribly he had suffered when they had been disappointed of their baby, and she had nearly died of the illness. "I did not mind about the child, you know," he said in an excited voice; "although there will be an end of us now, and Okehurst will go to the Curtises. I minded only about Alice." It was next to inconceivable that this poor excited creature, speaking almost with tears in his voice and in his eyes, was the quiet, wellgotup, irreproachable young exGuardsman who had walked into my studio a couple of months before. Oke was silent for a moment, looking fixedly at the rug at his feet, when he suddenly burst out in a scarce audible voice "If you knew how I cared for Alicehow I still care for her. I could kiss the ground she walks upon. I would give anythingmy life any dayif only she would look for two minutes as if she liked me a littleas if she didn't utterly despise me"; and the poor fellow burst into a hysterical laugh, which was almost a sob. Then he suddenly began to laugh outright, exclaiming, with a sort of vulgarity of intonation which was extremely foreign to him "Damn it, old fellow, this is a queer world we live in!" and rang for more brandy and soda, which he was beginning, I noticed, to take pretty freely now, although he had been almost a blueribbon manas much so as is possible for a hospitable country gentlemanwhen I first arrived. 9 It became clear to me now that, incredible as it might seem, the thing that ailed William Oke was jealousy. He was simply madly in love with his wife, and madly jealous of her. Jealousbut of whom? He himself would probably have been quite unable to say. In the first placeto clear off any possible suspicioncertainly not of me. Besides the fact that Mrs. Oke took only just a very little more interest in me than in the butler or the upperhousemaid, I think that Oke himself was the sort of man whose imagination would recoil from realising any definite object of jealousy, even though jealously might be killing him inch by inch.
It remained a vague, permeating, continuous feelingthe feeling that he loved her, and she did not care a jackstraw about him, and that everything with which she came into contact was receiving some of that notice which was refused to himevery person, or thing, or tree, or stone it was the recognition of that strange faroff look in Mrs. Oke's eyes, of that strange absent smile on Mrs. Oke's lipseyes and lips that had no look and no smile for him. Gradually his nervousness, his watchfulness, suspiciousness, tendency to start, took a definite shape. Mr. Oke was for ever alluding to steps or voices he had heard, to figures he had seen sneaking round the house. The sudden bark of one of the dogs would make him jump up. He cleaned and loaded very carefully all the guns and revolvers in his study, and even some of the old fowlingpieces and holsterpistols in the hall. The servants and tenants thought that Oke of Okehurst had been seized with a terror of tramps and burglars. Mrs. Oke smiled contemptuously at all these doings. "My dear William," she said one day, "the persons who worry you have just as good a right to walk up and down the passages and staircase, and to hang about the house, as you or I. They were there, in all probability, long before either of us was born, and are greatly amused by your preposterous notions of privacy." Mr. Oke laughed angrily. "I suppose you will tell me it is Lovelockyour eternal Lovelockwhose steps I hear on the gravel every night. I suppose he has as good a right to be here as you or I." And he strode out of the room. "LovelockLovelock! Why will she always go on like that about Lovelock?" Mr. Oke asked me that evening, suddenly staring me in the face. I merely laughed. "It's only because she has that play of his on the brain," I answered; "and because she thinks you superstitious, and likes to tease you." "I don't understand," sighed Oke. How could he? And if I had tried to make him do so, he would merely have thought I was insulting his wife, and have perhaps kicked me out of the room. So I made no attempt to explain psychological problems to him, and he asked me no more questions until onceBut I must first mention a curious incident that happened. The incident was simply this. Returning one afternoon from our usual walk, Mr. Oke suddenly asked the servant whether any one had come. The answer was in the negative; but Oke did not seem satisfied. We had hardly sat down to dinner when he turned to his wife and asked, in a strange voice which I scarcely recognised as his own, who had called that afternoon. "No one," answered Mrs. Oke; "at least to the best of my knowledge." William Oke looked at her fixedly. "No one?" he repeated, in a scrutinising tone; "no one, Alice?" Mrs. Oke shook her head. "No one," she replied. There was a pause. "Who was it, then, that was walking with you near the pond, about five o'clock?" asked Oke slowly. His wife lifted her eyes straight to his and answered contemptuously "No one was walking with me near the pond, at five o'clock or any other hour." Mr. Oke turned purple, and made a curious hoarse noise like a man choking. "II thought I saw you walking with a man this afternoon, Alice," he brought out with an effort; adding, for the sake of appearances before me, "I thought it might have been the curate come with that report for me." Mrs. Oke smiled. "I can only repeat that no living creature has been near me this afternoon," she said slowly. "If you saw any one with me, it must have been Lovelock, for there certainly was no one else." And she gave a little sigh, like a person trying to reproduce in her mind some delightful but too evanescent impression. I looked at my host; from crimson his face had turned perfectly livid, and he breathed as if some one were squeezing his windpipe. No more was said about the matter. I vaguely felt that a great danger was threatening. To Oke or to Mrs. Oke? I could not tell which; but I was aware of an imperious inner call to avert some dreadful evil, to exert myself, to explain, to interpose. I determined to speak to Oke the following day, for I trusted him to give me a quiet hearing, and I did not trust Mrs. Oke. That woman would slip through my fingers like a snake if I attempted to grasp her elusive character. I asked Oke whether he would take a walk with me the next afternoon, and he accepted to do so with a curious eagerness. We started about three o'clock. It was a stormy, chilly afternoon, with great balls of white clouds rolling rapidly in the cold blue sky, and occasional lurid gleams of sunlight, broad and yellow, which made the black ridge of the storm, gathered on the horizon, look blueblack like ink. We walked quickly across the sere and sodden grass of the park, and on to the highroad that led over the low hills, I don't know why, in the direction of Cotes Common. Both of us were silent, for both of us had something to say, and did not know how to begin. For my part, I recognised the impossibility of starting the subject an uncalledfor interference from me would merely indispose Mr. Oke, and make him doubly dense of comprehension. So, if Oke had something to say, which he evidently had, it was better to wait for him. Oke, however, broke the silence only by pointing out to me the condition of the hops, as we passed one of his many hopgardens. "It will be a poor year," he said, stopping short and looking intently before him"no hops at all. No hops this autumn." I looked at him. It was clear that he had no notion what he was saying. The darkgreen bines were covered with fruit; and only yesterday he himself had informed me that he had not seen such a profusion of hops for many years. I did not answer, and we walked on. A cart met us in a dip of the road, and the carter touched his hat and greeted Mr. Oke. But Oke took no heed; he did not seem to be aware of the man's presence. The clouds were collecting all round; black domes, among which coursed the round grey masses of fleecy stuff. "I think we shall be caught in a tremendous storm," I said; "hadn't we better be turning?" He nodded, and turned sharp round. The sunlight lay in yellow patches under the oaks of the pasturelands, and burnished the green hedges. The air was heavy and yet cold, and everything seemed preparing for a great storm. The rooks whirled in black clouds round the trees and the conical red caps of the oasthouses which give that country the look of being studded with turreted castles; then they descendeda black lineupon the fields, with what seemed an unearthly loudness of caw. And all round there arose a shrill quavering bleating of lambs and calling of sheep, while the wind began to catch the topmost branches of the trees. Suddenly Mr. Oke broke the silence. "I don't know you very well," he began hurriedly, and without turning his face towards me; "but I think you are honest, and you have seen a good deal of the worldmuch more than I. I want you to tell mebut truly, pleasewhat do you think a man should do if"and he stopped for some minutes. "Imagine," he went on quickly, "that a man cares a great deala very great deal for his wife, and that he finds out that shewell, thatthat she is deceiving him. Nodon't misunderstand me; I meanthat she is constantly surrounded by some one else and will not admit itsome one whom she hides away. Do you understand? Perhaps she does not know all the risk she is running, you know, but she will not draw backshe will not avow it to her husband" "My dear Oke," I interrupted, attempting to take the matter lightly, "these are questions that can't be solved in the abstract, or by people to whom the thing has not happened. And it certainly has not happened to you or me." Oke took no notice of my interruption. "You see," he went on, "the man doesn't expect his wife to care much about him. It's not that; he isn't merely jealous, you know. But he feels that she is on the brink of dishonouring herselfbecause I don't think a woman can really dishonour her husband; dishonour is in our own hands, and depends only on our own acts. He ought to save her, do you see? He must, must save her, in one way or another. But if she will not listen to him, what can he do? Must he seek out the other one, and try and get him out of the way? You see it's all the fault of the othernot hers, not hers. If only she would trust in her husband, she would be safe. But that other one won't let her." "Look here, Oke," I said boldly, but feeling rather frightened; "I know quite well what you are talking about. And I see you don't understand the matter in the very least. I do. I have watched you and watched Mrs. Oke these six weeks, and I see what is the matter. Will you listen to me?" And taking his arm, I tried to explain to him my view of the situationthat his wife was merely eccentric, and a little theatrical and imaginative, and that she took a pleasure in teasing him. That he, on the other hand, was letting himself get into a morbid state; that he was ill, and ought to see a good doctor. I even offered to take him to town with me. I poured out volumes of psychological explanations. I dissected Mrs. Oke's character twenty times over, and tried to show him that there was absolutely nothing at the bottom of his suspicions beyond an imaginative pose and a gardenplay on the brain. I adduced twenty instances, mostly invented for the nonce, of ladies of my acquaintance who had suffered from similar fads. I pointed out to him that his wife ought to have an outlet for her imaginative and theatrical overenergy. I advised him to take her to London and plunge her into some set where every one should be more or less in a similar condition. I laughed at the notion of there being any hidden individual about the house. I explained to Oke that he was suffering from delusions, and called upon so conscientious and religious a man to take every step to rid himself of them, adding innumerable examples of people who had cured themselves of seeing visions and of brooding over morbid fancies. I struggled and wrestled, like Jacob with the angel, and I really hoped I had made some impression. At first, indeed, I felt that not one of my words went into the man's brainthat, though silent, he was not listening. It seemed almost hopeless to present my views in such a light that he could grasp them. I felt as if I were expounding and arguing at a rock. But when I got on to the tack of his duty towards his wife and himself, and appealed to his moral and religious notions, I felt that I was making an impression. "I daresay you are right," he said, taking my hand as we came in sight of the red gables of Okehurst, and speaking in a weak, tired, humble voice. "I don't understand you quite, but I am sure what you say is true. I daresay it is all that I'm seedy. I feel sometimes as if I were mad, and just fit to be locked up. But don't think I don't struggle against it. I do, I do continually, only sometimes it seems too strong for me. I pray God night and morning to give me the strength to overcome my suspicions, or to remove these dreadful thoughts from me. God knows, I know what a wretched creature I am, and how unfit to take care of that poor girl." And Oke again pressed my hand. As we entered the garden, he turned to me once more. "I am very, very grateful to you," he said, "and, indeed, I will do my best to try and be stronger. If only," he added, with a sigh, "if only Alice would give me a moment's breathingtime, and not go on day after day mocking me with her Lovelock." 10 I had begun Mrs. Oke's portrait, and she was giving me a sitting. She was unusually quiet that morning; but, it seemed to me, with the quietness of a woman who is expecting something, and she gave me the impression of being extremely happy. She had been reading, at my suggestion, the "Vita Nuova," which she did not know before, and the conversation came to roll upon that, and upon the question whether love so abstract and so enduring was a possibility. Such a discussion, which might have savoured of flirtation in the case of almost any other young and beautiful woman, became in the case of Mrs. Oke something quite different; it seemed distant, intangible, not of this earth, like her smile and the look in her eyes. "Such love as that," she said, looking into the far distance of the oakdotted parkland, "is very rare, but it can exist. It becomes a person's whole existence, his whole soul; and it can survive the death, not merely of the beloved, but of the lover. It is unextinguishable, and goes on in the spiritual world until it meet a reincarnation of the beloved; and when this happens, it jets out and draws to it all that may remain of that lover's soul, and takes shape and surrounds the beloved one once more." Mrs. Oke was speaking slowly, almost to herself, and I had never, I think, seen her look so strange and so beautiful, the stiff white dress bringing out but the more the exotic exquisiteness and incorporealness of her person. I did not know what to answer, so I said half in jest "I fear you have been reading too much Buddhist literature, Mrs. Oke. There is something dreadfully esoteric in all you say." She smiled contemptuously. "I know people can't understand such matters," she replied, and was silent for some time. But, through her quietness and silence, I felt, as it were, the throb of a strange excitement in this woman, almost as if I had been holding her pulse. Still, I was in hopes that things might be beginning to go better in consequence of my interference. Mrs. Oke had scarcely once alluded to Lovelock in the last two or three days; and Oke had been much more cheerful and natural since our conversation. He no longer seemed so worried; and once or twice I had caught in him a look of great gentleness and lovingkindness, almost of pity, as towards some young and very frail thing, as he sat opposite his wife. But the end had come. After that sitting Mrs. Oke had complained of fatigue and retired to her room, and Oke had driven off on some business to the nearest town. I felt all alone in the big house, and after having worked a little at a sketch I was making in the park, I amused myself rambling about the house. It was a warm, enervating, autumn afternoon the kind of weather that brings the perfume out of everything, the damp ground and fallen leaves, the flowers in the jars, the old woodwork and stuffs; that seems to bring on to the surface of one's consciousness all manner of vague recollections and expectations, a something half pleasurable, half painful, that makes it impossible to do or to think. I was the prey of this particular, not at all unpleasurable, restlessness. I wandered up and down the corridors, stopping to look at the pictures, which I knew already in every detail, to follow the pattern of the carvings and old stuffs, to stare at the autumn flowers, arranged in magnificent masses of colour in the big china bowls and jars. I took up one book after another and threw it aside; then I sat down to the piano and began to play irrelevant fragments. I felt quite alone, although I had heard the grind of the wheels on the gravel, which meant that my host had returned. I was lazily turning over a book of versesI remember it perfectly well, it was Morris's "Love is Enough"in a corner of the drawingroom, when the door suddenly opened and William Oke showed himself. He did not enter, but beckoned to me to come out to him. There was something in his face that made me start up and follow him at once. He was extremely quiet, even stiff, not a muscle of his face moving, but very pale. "I have something to show you," he said, leading me through the vaulted hall, hung round with ancestral pictures, into the gravelled space that looked like a filledup moat, where stood the big blasted oak, with its twisted, pointing branches. I followed him on to the lawn, or rather the piece of parkland that ran up to the house. We walked quickly, he in front, without exchanging a word. Suddenly he stopped, just where there jutted out the bowwindow of the yellow drawingroom, and I felt Oke's hand tight upon my arm. "I have brought you here to see something," he whispered hoarsely; and he led me to the window. I looked in. The room, compared with the out door, was rather dark; but against the yellow wall I saw Mrs. Oke sitting alone on a couch in her white dress, her head slightly thrown back, a large red rose in her hand. "Do you believe now?" whispered Oke's voice hot at my ear. "Do you believe now? Was it all my fancy? But I will have him this time. I have locked the door inside, and, by God! he shan't escape." The words were not out of Oke's mouth. I felt myself struggling with him silently outside that window. But he broke loose, pulled open the window, and leapt into the room, and I after him. As I crossed the threshold, something flashed in my eyes; there was a loud report, a sharp cry, and the thud of a body on the ground. Oke was standing in the middle of the room, with a faint smoke about him; and at his feet, sunk down from the sofa, with her blond head resting on its seat, lay Mrs. Oke, a pool of red forming in her white dress. Her mouth was convulsed, as if in that automatic shriek, but her wideopen white eyes seemed to smile vaguely and distantly. I know nothing of time. It all seemed to be one second, but a second that lasted hours. Oke stared, then turned round and laughed. "The damned rascal has given me the slip again!" he cried; and quickly unlocking the door, rushed out of the house with dreadful cries. That is the end of the story. Oke tried to shoot himself that evening, but merely fractured his jaw, and died a few days later, raving. There were all sorts of legal inquiries, through which I went as through a dream; and whence it resulted that Mr. Oke had killed his wife in a fit of momentary madness. That was the end of Alice Oke. By the way, her maid brought me a locket which was found round her neck, all stained with blood. It contained some very dark auburn hair, not at all the colour of William Oke's. I am quite sure it was Lovelock's. END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PHANTOM LOVER Updated editions will replace the previous onethe old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG concept and trademark. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The King in Yellow This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or reuse it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title The King in Yellow Author Robert W. Chambers Release date July 1, 2005 [eBook 8492] Most recently updated August 23, 2017 Language English Credits Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beth Trapaga, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Chuck Greif. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KING IN YELLOW THE KING IN YELLOW BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS Original publication date 1895 THE KING IN YELLOW IS DEDICATED TO MY BROTHER Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink behind the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa. Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies But stranger still is Lost Carcosa. Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa. Song of my soul, my voice is dead; Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa. Cassilda's Song in "The King in Yellow," Act i, Scene 2. CONTENTS THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS THE MASK IN THE COURT OF THE DRAGON THE YELLOW SIGN THE DEMOISELLE D'YS THE PROPHETS' PARADISE THE STREET OF THE FOUR WINDS THE STREET OF THE FIRST SHELL THE STREET OF OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS RUE BARRE THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS I "Ne raillons pas les fous; leur folie dure plus longtemps que la ntre.... Voila toute la diffrence." Toward the end of the year 1920 the Government of the United States had practically completed the programme, adopted during the last months of President Winthrop's administration. The country was apparently tranquil. Everybody knows how the Tariff and Labour questions were settled. The war with Germany, incident on that country's seizure of the Samoan Islands, had left no visible scars upon the republic, and the temporary occupation of Norfolk by the invading army had been forgotten in the joy over repeated naval victories, and the subsequent ridiculous plight of General Von Gartenlaube's forces in the State of New Jersey. The Cuban and Hawaiian investments had paid one hundred per cent and the territory of Samoa was well worth its cost as a coaling station. The country was in a superb state of defence. Every coast city had been well supplied with land fortifications; the army under the parental eye of the General Staff, organized according to the Prussian system, had been increased to 300,000 men, with a territorial reserve of a million; and six magnificent squadrons of cruisers and battleships patrolled the six stations of the navigable seas, leaving a steam reserve amply fitted to control home waters. The gentlemen from the West had at last been constrained to acknowledge that a college for the training of diplomats was as necessary as law schools are for the training of barristers; consequently we were no longer represented abroad by incompetent patriots. The nation was prosperous; Chicago, for a moment paralyzed after a second great fire, had risen from its ruins, white and imperial, and more beautiful than the white city which had been built for its plaything in 1893. Everywhere good architecture was replacing bad, and even in New York, a sudden craving for decency had swept away a great portion of the existing horrors. Streets had been widened, properly paved and lighted, trees had been planted, squares laid out, elevated structures demolished and underground roads built to replace them. The new government buildings and barracks were fine bits of architecture, and the long system of stone quays which completely surrounded the island had been turned into parks which proved a godsend to the population. The subsidizing of the state theatre and state opera brought its own reward. The United States National Academy of Design was much like European institutions of the same kind. Nobody envied the Secretary of Fine Arts, either his cabinet position or his portfolio. The Secretary of Forestry and Game Preservation had a much easier time, thanks to the new system of National Mounted Police. We had profited well by the latest treaties with France and England; the exclusion of foreignborn Jews as a measure of selfpreservation, the settlement of the new independent negro state of Suanee, the checking of immigration, the new laws concerning naturalization, and the gradual centralization of power in the executive all contributed to national calm and prosperity. When the Government solved the Indian problem and squadrons of Indian cavalry scouts in native costume were substituted for the pitiable organizations tacked on to the tail of skeletonized regiments by a former Secretary of War, the nation drew a long sigh of relief. When, after the colossal Congress of Religions, bigotry and intolerance were laid in their graves and kindness and charity began to draw warring sects together, many thought the millennium had arrived, at least in the new world which after all is a world by itself. But selfpreservation is the first law, and the United States had to look on in helpless sorrow as Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium writhed in the throes of Anarchy, while Russia, watching from the Caucasus, stooped and bound them one by one. In the city of New York the summer of 1899 was signalized by the dismantling of the Elevated Railroads. The summer of 1900 will live in the memories of New York people for many a cycle; the Dodge Statue was removed in that year. In the following winter began that agitation for the repeal of the laws prohibiting suicide which bore its final fruit in the month of April, 1920, when the first Government Lethal Chamber was opened on Washington Square. I had walked down that day from Dr. Archer's house on Madison Avenue, where I had been as a mere formality. Ever since that fall from my horse, four years before, I had been troubled at times with pains in the back of my head and neck, but now for months they had been absent, and the doctor sent me away that day saying there was nothing more to be cured in me. It was hardly worth his fee to be told that; I knew it myself. Still I did not grudge him the money. What I minded was the mistake which he made at first. When they picked me up from the pavement where I lay unconscious, and somebody had mercifully sent a bullet through my horse's head, I was carried to Dr. Archer, and he, pronouncing my brain affected, placed me in his private asylum where I was obliged to endure treatment for insanity. At last he decided that I was well, and I, knowing that my mind had always been as sound as his, if not sounder, "paid my tuition" as he jokingly called it, and left. I told him, smiling, that I would get even with him for his mistake, and he laughed heartily, and asked me to call once in a while. I did so, hoping for a chance to even up accounts, but he gave me none, and I told him I would wait. The fall from my horse had fortunately left no evil results; on the contrary it had changed my whole character for the better. From a lazy young man about town, I had become active, energetic, temperate, and above alloh, above all elseambitious. There was only one thing which troubled me, I laughed at my own uneasiness, and yet it troubled me. During my convalescence I had bought and read for the first time, The King in Yellow. I remember after finishing the first act that it occurred to me that I had better stop. I started up and flung the book into the fireplace; the volume struck the barred grate and fell open on the hearth in the firelight. If I had not caught a glimpse of the opening words in the second act I should never have finished it, but as I stooped to pick it up, my eyes became riveted to the open page, and with a cry of terror, or perhaps it was of joy so poignant that I suffered in every nerve, I snatched the thing out of the coals and crept shaking to my bedroom, where I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembled with a horror which at times assails me yet. This is the thing that troubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear for ever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its trutha world which now trembles before the King in Yellow. When the French Government seized the translated copies which had just arrived in Paris, London, of course, became eager to read it. It is well known how the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by Press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. No definite principles had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged by any known standard, yet, although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of art had been struck in The King in Yellow, all felt that human nature could not bear the strain, nor thrive on words in which the essence of purest poison lurked. The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterward with more awful effect. It was, I remember, the 13th day of April, 1920, that the first Government Lethal Chamber was established on the south side of Washington Square, between Wooster Street and South Fifth Avenue. The block which had formerly consisted of a lot of shabby old buildings, used as cafs and restaurants for foreigners, had been acquired by the Government in the winter of 1898. The French and Italian cafs and restaurants were torn down; the whole block was enclosed by a gilded iron railing, and converted into a lovely garden with lawns, flowers and fountains. In the centre of the garden stood a small, white building, severely classical in architecture, and surrounded by thickets of flowers. Six Ionic columns supported the roof, and the single door was of bronze. A splendid marble group of the "Fates" stood before the door, the work of a young American sculptor, Boris Yvain, who had died in Paris when only twentythree years old. The inauguration ceremonies were in progress as I crossed University Place and entered the square. I threaded my way through the silent throng of spectators, but was stopped at Fourth Street by a cordon of police. A regiment of United States lancers were drawn up in a hollow square round the Lethal Chamber. On a raised tribune facing Washington Park stood the Governor of New York, and behind him were grouped the Mayor of New York and Brooklyn, the InspectorGeneral of Police, the Commandant of the state troops, Colonel Livingston, military aid to the President of the United States, General Blount, commanding at Governor's Island, MajorGeneral Hamilton, commanding the garrison of New York and Brooklyn, Admiral Buffby of the fleet in the North River, SurgeonGeneral Lanceford, the staff of the National Free Hospital, Senators Wyse and Franklin of New York, and the Commissioner of Public Works. The tribune was surrounded by a squadron of hussars of the National Guard. The Governor was finishing his reply to the short speech of the SurgeonGeneral. I heard him say "The laws prohibiting suicide and providing punishment for any attempt at selfdestruction have been repealed. The Government has seen fit to acknowledge the right of man to end an existence which may have become intolerable to him, through physical suffering or mental despair. It is believed that the community will be benefited by the removal of such people from their midst. Since the passage of this law, the number of suicides in the United States has not increased. Now the Government has determined to establish a Lethal Chamber in every city, town and village in the country, it remains to be seen whether or not that class of human creatures from whose desponding ranks new victims of selfdestruction fall daily will accept the relief thus provided." He paused, and turned to the white Lethal Chamber. The silence in the street was absolute. "There a painless death awaits him who can no longer bear the sorrows of this life. If death is welcome let him seek it there." Then quickly turning to the military aid of the President's household, he said, "I declare the Lethal Chamber open," and again facing the vast crowd he cried in a clear voice "Citizens of New York and of the United States of America, through me the Government declares the Lethal Chamber to be open." The solemn hush was broken by a sharp cry of command, the squadron of hussars filed after the Governor's carriage, the lancers wheeled and formed along Fifth Avenue to wait for the commandant of the garrison, and the mounted police followed them. I left the crowd to gape and stare at the white marble Death Chamber, and, crossing South Fifth Avenue, walked along the western side of that thoroughfare to Bleecker Street. Then I turned to the right and stopped before a dingy shop which bore the sign HAWBERK, ARMOURER. I glanced in at the doorway and saw Hawberk busy in his little shop at the end of the hall. He looked up, and catching sight of me cried in his deep, hearty voice, "Come in, Mr. Castaigne!" Constance, his daughter, rose to meet me as I crossed the threshold, and held out her pretty hand, but I saw the blush of disappointment on her cheeks, and knew that it was another Castaigne she had expected, my cousin Louis. I smiled at her confusion and complimented her on the banner she was embroidering from a coloured plate. Old Hawberk sat riveting the worn greaves of some ancient suit of armour, and the ting! ting! ting! of his little hammer sounded pleasantly in the quaint shop. Presently he dropped his hammer, and fussed about for a moment with a tiny wrench. The soft clash of the mail sent a thrill of pleasure through me. I loved to hear the music of steel brushing against steel, the mellow shock of the mallet on thigh pieces, and the jingle of chain armour. That was the only reason I went to see Hawberk. He had never interested me personally, nor did Constance, except for the fact of her being in love with Louis. This did occupy my attention, and sometimes even kept me awake at night. But I knew in my heart that all would come right, and that I should arrange their future as I expected to arrange that of my kind doctor, John Archer. However, I should never have troubled myself about visiting them just then, had it not been, as I say, that the music of the tinkling hammer had for me this strong fascination. I would sit for hours, listening and listening, and when a stray sunbeam struck the inlaid steel, the sensation it gave me was almost too keen to endure. My eyes would become fixed, dilating with a pleasure that stretched every nerve almost to breaking, until some movement of the old armourer cut off the ray of sunlight, then, still thrilling secretly, I leaned back and listened again to the sound of the polishing rag, swish! swish! rubbing rust from the rivets. Constance worked with the embroidery over her knees, now and then pausing to examine more closely the pattern in the coloured plate from the Metropolitan Museum. "Who is this for?" I asked. Hawberk explained, that in addition to the treasures of armour in the Metropolitan Museum of which he had been appointed armourer, he also had charge of several collections belonging to rich amateurs. This was the missing greave of a famous suit which a client of his had traced to a little shop in Paris on the Quai d'Orsay. He, Hawberk, had negotiated for and secured the greave, and now the suit was complete. He laid down his hammer and read me the history of the suit, traced since 1450 from owner to owner until it was acquired by Thomas Stainbridge. When his superb collection was sold, this client of Hawberk's bought the suit, and since then the search for the missing greave had been pushed until it was, almost by accident, located in Paris. "Did you continue the search so persistently without any certainty of the greave being still in existence?" I demanded. "Of course," he replied coolly. Then for the first time I took a personal interest in Hawberk. "It was worth something to you," I ventured. "No," he replied, laughing, "my pleasure in finding it was my reward." "Have you no ambition to be rich?" I asked, smiling. "My one ambition is to be the best armourer in the world," he answered gravely. Constance asked me if I had seen the ceremonies at the Lethal Chamber. She herself had noticed cavalry passing up Broadway that morning, and had wished to see the inauguration, but her father wanted the banner finished, and she had stayed at his request. "Did you see your cousin, Mr. Castaigne, there?" she asked, with the slightest tremor of her soft eyelashes. "No," I replied carelessly. "Louis' regiment is manuvring out in Westchester County." I rose and picked up my hat and cane. "Are you going upstairs to see the lunatic again?" laughed old Hawberk. If Hawberk knew how I loathe that word "lunatic," he would never use it in my presence. It rouses certain feelings within me which I do not care to explain. However, I answered him quietly "I think I shall drop in and see Mr. Wilde for a moment or two." "Poor fellow," said Constance, with a shake of the head, "it must be hard to live alone year after year poor, crippled and almost demented. It is very good of you, Mr. Castaigne, to visit him as often as you do." "I think he is vicious," observed Hawberk, beginning again with his hammer. I listened to the golden tinkle on the greave plates; when he had finished I replied "No, he is not vicious, nor is he in the least demented. His mind is a wonder chamber, from which he can extract treasures that you and I would give years of our life to acquire."' Hawberk laughed. I continued a little impatiently "He knows history as no one else could know it. Nothing, however trivial, escapes his search, and his memory is so absolute, so precise in details, that were it known in New York that such a man existed, the people could not honour him enough." "Nonsense," muttered Hawberk, searching on the floor for a fallen rivet. "Is it nonsense," I asked, managing to suppress what I felt, "is it nonsense when he says that the tassets and cuissards of the enamelled suit of armour commonly known as the 'Prince's Emblazoned' can be found among a mass of rusty theatrical properties, broken stoves and ragpicker's refuse in a garret in Pell Street?" Hawberk's hammer fell to the ground, but he picked it up and asked, with a great deal of calm, how I knew that the tassets and left cuissard were missing from the "Prince's Emblazoned." "I did not know until Mr. Wilde mentioned it to me the other day. He said they were in the garret of 998 Pell Street." "Nonsense," he cried, but I noticed his hand trembling under his leathern apron. "Is this nonsense too?" I asked pleasantly, "is it nonsense when Mr. Wilde continually speaks of you as the Marquis of Avonshire and of Miss Constance" I did not finish, for Constance had started to her feet with terror written on every feature. Hawberk looked at me and slowly smoothed his leathern apron. "That is impossible," he observed, "Mr. Wilde may know a great many things" "About armour, for instance, and the 'Prince's Emblazoned,'" I interposed, smiling. "Yes," he continued, slowly, "about armour alsomay bebut he is wrong in regard to the Marquis of Avonshire, who, as you know, killed his wife's traducer years ago, and went to Australia where he did not long survive his wife." "Mr. Wilde is wrong," murmured Constance. Her lips were blanched, but her voice was sweet and calm. "Let us agree, if you please, that in this one circumstance Mr. Wilde is wrong," I said. II I climbed the three dilapidated flights of stairs, which I had so often climbed before, and knocked at a small door at the end of the corridor. Mr. Wilde opened the door and I walked in. When he had doublelocked the door and pushed a heavy chest against it, he came and sat down beside me, peering up into my face with his little lightcoloured eyes. Half a dozen new scratches covered his nose and cheeks, and the silver wires which supported his artificial ears had become displaced. I thought I had never seen him so hideously fascinating. He had no ears. The artificial ones, which now stood out at an angle from the fine wire, were his one weakness. They were made of wax and painted a shell pink, but the rest of his face was yellow. He might better have revelled in the luxury of some artificial fingers for his left hand, which was absolutely fingerless, but it seemed to cause him no inconvenience, and he was satisfied with his wax ears. He was very small, scarcely higher than a child of ten, but his arms were magnificently developed, and his thighs as thick as any athlete's. Still, the most remarkable thing about Mr. Wilde was that a man of his marvellous intelligence and knowledge should have such a head. It was flat and pointed, like the heads of many of those unfortunates whom people imprison in asylums for the weakminded. Many called him insane, but I knew him to be as sane as I was. I do not deny that he was eccentric; the mania he had for keeping that cat and teasing her until she flew at his face like a demon, was certainly eccentric. I never could understand why he kept the creature, nor what pleasure he found in shutting himself up in his room with this surly, vicious beast. I remember once, glancing up from the manuscript I was studying by the light of some tallow dips, and seeing Mr. Wilde squatting motionless on his high chair, his eyes fairly blazing with excitement, while the cat, which had risen from her place before the stove, came creeping across the floor right at him. Before I could move she flattened her belly to the ground, crouched, trembled, and sprang into his face. Howling and foaming they rolled over and over on the floor, scratching and clawing, until the cat screamed and fled under the cabinet, and Mr. Wilde turned over on his back, his limbs contracting and curling up like the legs of a dying spider. He was eccentric. Mr. Wilde had climbed into his high chair, and, after studying my face, picked up a dog'seared ledger and opened it. "Henry B. Matthews," he read, "bookkeeper with Whysot Whysot and Company, dealers in church ornaments. Called April 3rd. Reputation damaged on the racetrack. Known as a welcher. Reputation to be repaired by August 1st. Retainer Five Dollars." He turned the page and ran his fingerless knuckles down the closelywritten columns. "P. Greene Dusenberry, Minister of the Gospel, Fairbeach, New Jersey. Reputation damaged in the Bowery. To be repaired as soon as possible. Retainer 100." He coughed and added, "Called, April 6th." "Then you are not in need of money, Mr. Wilde," I inquired. "Listen," he coughed again. "Mrs. C. Hamilton Chester, of Chester Park, New York City. Called April 7th. Reputation damaged at Dieppe, France. To be repaired by October 1st Retainer 500. "Note.C. Hamilton Chester, Captain U.S.S. 'Avalanche', ordered home from South Sea Squadron October 1st." "Well," I said, "the profession of a Repairer of Reputations is lucrative." His colourless eyes sought mine, "I only wanted to demonstrate that I was correct. You said it was impossible to succeed as a Repairer of Reputations; that even if I did succeed in certain cases it would cost me more than I would gain by it. Today I have five hundred men in my employ, who are poorly paid, but who pursue the work with an enthusiasm which possibly may be born of fear. These men enter every shade and grade of society; some even are pillars of the most exclusive social temples; others are the prop and pride of the financial world; still others, hold undisputed sway among the 'Fancy and the Talent.' I choose them at my leisure from those who reply to my advertisements. It is easy enough, they are all cowards. I could treble the number in twenty days if I wished. So you see, those who have in their keeping the reputations of their fellowcitizens, I have in my pay." "They may turn on you," I suggested. He rubbed his thumb over his cropped ears, and adjusted the wax substitutes. "I think not," he murmured thoughtfully, "I seldom have to apply the whip, and then only once. Besides they like their wages." "How do you apply the whip?" I demanded. His face for a moment was awful to look upon. His eyes dwindled to a pair of green sparks. "I invite them to come and have a little chat with me," he said in a soft voice. A knock at the door interrupted him, and his face resumed its amiable expression. "Who is it?" he inquired. "Mr. Steylette," was the answer. "Come tomorrow," replied Mr. Wilde. "Impossible," began the other, but was silenced by a sort of bark from Mr. Wilde. "Come tomorrow," he repeated. We heard somebody move away from the door and turn the corner by the stairway. "Who is that?" I asked. "Arnold Steylette, Owner and Editor in Chief of the great New York daily." He drummed on the ledger with his fingerless hand adding "I pay him very badly, but he thinks it a good bargain." "Arnold Steylette!" I repeated amazed. "Yes," said Mr. Wilde, with a selfsatisfied cough. The cat, which had entered the room as he spoke, hesitated, looked up at him and snarled. He climbed down from the chair and squatting on the floor, took the creature into his arms and caressed her. The cat ceased snarling and presently began a loud purring which seemed to increase in timbre as he stroked her. "Where are the notes?" I asked. He pointed to the table, and for the hundredth time I picked up the bundle of manuscript entitled "THE IMPERIAL DYNASTY OF AMERICA." One by one I studied the wellworn pages, worn only by my own handling, and although I knew all by heart, from the beginning, "When from Carcosa, the Hyades, Hastur, and Aldebaran," to "Castaigne, Louis de Calvados, born December 19th, 1877," I read it with an eager, rapt attention, pausing to repeat parts of it aloud, and dwelling especially on "Hildred de Calvados, only son of Hildred Castaigne and Edythe Landes Castaigne, first in succession," etc., etc. When I finished, Mr. Wilde nodded and coughed. "Speaking of your legitimate ambition," he said, "how do Constance and Louis get along?" "She loves him," I replied simply. The cat on his knee suddenly turned and struck at his eyes, and he flung her off and climbed on to the chair opposite me. "And Dr. Archer! But that's a matter you can settle any time you wish," he added. "Yes," I replied, "Dr. Archer can wait, but it is time I saw my cousin Louis." "It is time," he repeated. Then he took another ledger from the table and ran over the leaves rapidly. "We are now in communication with ten thousand men," he muttered. "We can count on one hundred thousand within the first twentyeight hours, and in fortyeight hours the state will rise en masse. The country follows the state, and the portion that will not, I mean California and the Northwest, might better never have been inhabited. I shall not send them the Yellow Sign." The blood rushed to my head, but I only answered, "A new broom sweeps clean." "The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts," said Mr. Wilde. "You are speaking of the King in Yellow," I groaned, with a shudder. "He is a king whom emperors have served." "I am content to serve him," I replied. Mr. Wilde sat rubbing his ears with his crippled hand. "Perhaps Constance does not love him," he suggested. I started to reply, but a sudden burst of military music from the street below drowned my voice. The twentieth dragoon regiment, formerly in garrison at Mount St. Vincent, was returning from the manuvres in Westchester County, to its new barracks on East Washington Square. It was my cousin's regiment. They were a fine lot of fellows, in their pale blue, tightfitting jackets, jaunty busbys and white riding breeches with the double yellow stripe, into which their limbs seemed moulded. Every other squadron was armed with lances, from the metal points of which fluttered yellow and white pennons. The band passed, playing the regimental march, then came the colonel and staff, the horses crowding and trampling, while their heads bobbed in unison, and the pennons fluttered from their lance points. The troopers, who rode with the beautiful English seat, looked brown as berries from their bloodless campaign among the farms of Westchester, and the music of their sabres against the stirrups, and the jingle of spurs and carbines was delightful to me. I saw Louis riding with his squadron. He was as handsome an officer as I have ever seen. Mr. Wilde, who had mounted a chair by the window, saw him too, but said nothing. Louis turned and looked straight at Hawberk's shop as he passed, and I could see the flush on his brown cheeks. I think Constance must have been at the window. When the last troopers had clattered by, and the last pennons vanished into South Fifth Avenue, Mr. Wilde clambered out of his chair and dragged the chest away from the door. "Yes," he said, "it is time that you saw your cousin Louis." He unlocked the door and I picked up my hat and stick and stepped into the corridor. The stairs were dark. Groping about, I set my foot on something soft, which snarled and spit, and I aimed a murderous blow at the cat, but my cane shivered to splinters against the balustrade, and the beast scurried back into Mr. Wilde's room. Passing Hawberk's door again I saw him still at work on the armour, but I did not stop, and stepping out into Bleecker Street, I followed it to Wooster, skirted the grounds of the Lethal Chamber, and crossing Washington Park went straight to my rooms in the Benedick. Here I lunched comfortably, read the Herald and the Meteor, and finally went to the steel safe in my bedroom and set the time combination. The three and threequarter minutes which it is necessary to wait, while the time lock is opening, are to me golden moments. From the instant I set the combination to the moment when I grasp the knobs and swing back the solid steel doors, I live in an ecstasy of expectation. Those moments must be like moments passed in Paradise. I know what I am to find at the end of the time limit. I know what the massive safe holds secure for me, for me alone, and the exquisite pleasure of waiting is hardly enhanced when the safe opens and I lift, from its velvet crown, a diadem of purest gold, blazing with diamonds. I do this every day, and yet the joy of waiting and at last touching again the diadem, only seems to increase as the days pass. It is a diadem fit for a King among kings, an Emperor among emperors. The King in Yellow might scorn it, but it shall be worn by his royal servant. I held it in my arms until the alarm in the safe rang harshly, and then tenderly, proudly, I replaced it and shut the steel doors. I walked slowly back into my study, which faces Washington Square, and leaned on the window sill. The afternoon sun poured into my windows, and a gentle breeze stirred the branches of the elms and maples in the park, now covered with buds and tender foliage. A flock of pigeons circled about the tower of the Memorial Church; sometimes alighting on the purple tiled roof, sometimes wheeling downward to the lotos fountain in front of the marble arch.
The gardeners were busy with the flower beds around the fountain, and the freshly turned earth smelled sweet and spicy. A lawn mower, drawn by a fat white horse, clinked across the green sward, and wateringcarts poured showers of spray over the asphalt drives. Around the statue of Peter Stuyvesant, which in 1897 had replaced the monstrosity supposed to represent Garibaldi, children played in the spring sunshine, and nurse girls wheeled elaborate baby carriages with a reckless disregard for the pastyfaced occupants, which could probably be explained by the presence of half a dozen trim dragoon troopers languidly lolling on the benches. Through the trees, the Washington Memorial Arch glistened like silver in the sunshine, and beyond, on the eastern extremity of the square the grey stone barracks of the dragoons, and the white granite artillery stables were alive with colour and motion. I looked at the Lethal Chamber on the corner of the square opposite. A few curious people still lingered about the gilded iron railing, but inside the grounds the paths were deserted. I watched the fountains ripple and sparkle; the sparrows had already found this new bathing nook, and the basins were covered with the dustyfeathered little things. Two or three white peacocks picked their way across the lawns, and a drab coloured pigeon sat so motionless on the arm of one of the "Fates," that it seemed to be a part of the sculptured stone. As I was turning carelessly away, a slight commotion in the group of curious loiterers around the gates attracted my attention. A young man had entered, and was advancing with nervous strides along the gravel path which leads to the bronze doors of the Lethal Chamber. He paused a moment before the "Fates," and as he raised his head to those three mysterious faces, the pigeon rose from its sculptured perch, circled about for a moment and wheeled to the east. The young man pressed his hand to his face, and then with an undefinable gesture sprang up the marble steps, the bronze doors closed behind him, and half an hour later the loiterers slouched away, and the frightened pigeon returned to its perch in the arms of Fate. I put on my hat and went out into the park for a little walk before dinner. As I crossed the central driveway a group of officers passed, and one of them called out, "Hello, Hildred," and came back to shake hands with me. It was my cousin Louis, who stood smiling and tapping his spurred heels with his ridingwhip. "Just back from Westchester," he said; "been doing the bucolic; milk and curds, you know, dairymaids in sunbonnets, who say 'haeow' and 'I don't think' when you tell them they are pretty. I'm nearly dead for a square meal at Delmonico's. What's the news?" "There is none," I replied pleasantly. "I saw your regiment coming in this morning." "Did you? I didn't see you. Where were you?" "In Mr. Wilde's window." "Oh, hell!" he began impatiently, "that man is stark mad! I don't understand why you" He saw how annoyed I felt by this outburst, and begged my pardon. "Really, old chap," he said, "I don't mean to run down a man you like, but for the life of me I can't see what the deuce you find in common with Mr. Wilde. He's not well bred, to put it generously; he is hideously deformed; his head is the head of a criminally insane person. You know yourself he's been in an asylum" "So have I," I interrupted calmly. Louis looked startled and confused for a moment, but recovered and slapped me heartily on the shoulder. "You were completely cured," he began; but I stopped him again. "I suppose you mean that I was simply acknowledged never to have been insane." "Of course thatthat's what I meant," he laughed. I disliked his laugh because I knew it was forced, but I nodded gaily and asked him where he was going. Louis looked after his brother officers who had now almost reached Broadway. "We had intended to sample a Brunswick cocktail, but to tell you the truth I was anxious for an excuse to go and see Hawberk instead. Come along, I'll make you my excuse." We found old Hawberk, neatly attired in a fresh spring suit, standing at the door of his shop and sniffing the air. "I had just decided to take Constance for a little stroll before dinner," he replied to the impetuous volley of questions from Louis. "We thought of walking on the park terrace along the North River." At that moment Constance appeared and grew pale and rosy by turns as Louis bent over her small gloved fingers. I tried to excuse myself, alleging an engagement uptown, but Louis and Constance would not listen, and I saw I was expected to remain and engage old Hawberk's attention. After all it would be just as well if I kept my eye on Louis, I thought, and when they hailed a Spring Street horsecar, I got in after them and took my seat beside the armourer. The beautiful line of parks and granite terraces overlooking the wharves along the North River, which were built in 1910 and finished in the autumn of 1917, had become one of the most popular promenades in the metropolis. They extended from the battery to 190th Street, overlooking the noble river and affording a fine view of the Jersey shore and the Highlands opposite. Cafs and restaurants were scattered here and there among the trees, and twice a week military bands from the garrison played in the kiosques on the parapets. We sat down in the sunshine on the bench at the foot of the equestrian statue of General Sheridan. Constance tipped her sunshade to shield her eyes, and she and Louis began a murmuring conversation which was impossible to catch. Old Hawberk, leaning on his ivory headed cane, lighted an excellent cigar, the mate to which I politely refused, and smiled at vacancy. The sun hung low above the Staten Island woods, and the bay was dyed with golden hues reflected from the sunwarmed sails of the shipping in the harbour. Brigs, schooners, yachts, clumsy ferryboats, their decks swarming with people, railroad transports carrying lines of brown, blue and white freight cars, stately sound steamers, dclass tramp steamers, coasters, dredgers, scows, and everywhere pervading the entire bay impudent little tugs puffing and whistling officiously;these were the craft which churned the sunlight waters as far as the eye could reach. In calm contrast to the hurry of sailing vessel and steamer a silent fleet of white warships lay motionless in midstream. Constance's merry laugh aroused me from my reverie. "What are you staring at?" she inquired. "Nothingthe fleet," I smiled. Then Louis told us what the vessels were, pointing out each by its relative position to the old Red Fort on Governor's Island. "That little cigar shaped thing is a torpedo boat," he explained; "there are four more lying close together. They are the Tarpon, the Falcon, the Sea Fox, and the Octopus. The gunboats just above are the Princeton, the Champlain, the Still Water and the Erie. Next to them lie the cruisers Faragut and Los Angeles, and above them the battle ships California, and Dakota, and the Washington which is the flag ship. Those two squatty looking chunks of metal which are anchored there off Castle William are the double turreted monitors Terrible and Magnificent; behind them lies the ram, Osceola." Constance looked at him with deep approval in her beautiful eyes. "What loads of things you know for a soldier," she said, and we all joined in the laugh which followed. Presently Louis rose with a nod to us and offered his arm to Constance, and they strolled away along the river wall. Hawberk watched them for a moment and then turned to me. "Mr. Wilde was right," he said. "I have found the missing tassets and left cuissard of the 'Prince's Emblazoned,' in a vile old junk garret in Pell Street." "998?" I inquired, with a smile. "Yes." "Mr. Wilde is a very intelligent man," I observed. "I want to give him the credit of this most important discovery," continued Hawberk. "And I intend it shall be known that he is entitled to the fame of it." "He won't thank you for that," I answered sharply; "please say nothing about it." "Do you know what it is worth?" said Hawberk. "No, fifty dollars, perhaps." "It is valued at five hundred, but the owner of the 'Prince's Emblazoned' will give two thousand dollars to the person who completes his suit; that reward also belongs to Mr. Wilde." "He doesn't want it! He refuses it!" I answered angrily. "What do you know about Mr. Wilde? He doesn't need the money. He is richor will bericher than any living man except myself. What will we care for money thenwhat will we care, he and I, whenwhen" "When what?" demanded Hawberk, astonished. "You will see," I replied, on my guard again. He looked at me narrowly, much as Doctor Archer used to, and I knew he thought I was mentally unsound. Perhaps it was fortunate for him that he did not use the word lunatic just then. "No," I replied to his unspoken thought, "I am not mentally weak; my mind is as healthy as Mr. Wilde's. I do not care to explain just yet what I have on hand, but it is an investment which will pay more than mere gold, silver and precious stones. It will secure the happiness and prosperity of a continentyes, a hemisphere!" "Oh," said Hawberk. "And eventually," I continued more quietly, "it will secure the happiness of the whole world." "And incidentally your own happiness and prosperity as well as Mr. Wilde's?" "Exactly," I smiled. But I could have throttled him for taking that tone. He looked at me in silence for a while and then said very gently, "Why don't you give up your books and studies, Mr. Castaigne, and take a tramp among the mountains somewhere or other? You used to be fond of fishing. Take a cast or two at the trout in the Rangelys." "I don't care for fishing any more," I answered, without a shade of annoyance in my voice. "You used to be fond of everything," he continued; "athletics, yachting, shooting, riding" "I have never cared to ride since my fall," I said quietly. "Ah, yes, your fall," he repeated, looking away from me. I thought this nonsense had gone far enough, so I brought the conversation back to Mr. Wilde; but he was scanning my face again in a manner highly offensive to me. "Mr. Wilde," he repeated, "do you know what he did this afternoon? He came downstairs and nailed a sign over the hall door next to mine; it read MR. WILDE, REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS. Third Bell. "Do you know what a Repairer of Reputations can be?" "I do," I replied, suppressing the rage within. "Oh," he said again. Louis and Constance came strolling by and stopped to ask if we would join them. Hawberk looked at his watch. At the same moment a puff of smoke shot from the casemates of Castle William, and the boom of the sunset gun rolled across the water and was reechoed from the Highlands opposite. The flag came running down from the flagpole, the bugles sounded on the white decks of the warships, and the first electric light sparkled out from the Jersey shore. As I turned into the city with Hawberk I heard Constance murmur something to Louis which I did not understand; but Louis whispered "My darling," in reply; and again, walking ahead with Hawberk through the square I heard a murmur of "sweetheart," and "my own Constance," and I knew the time had nearly arrived when I should speak of important matters with my cousin Louis. III One morning early in May I stood before the steel safe in my bedroom, trying on the golden jewelled crown. The diamonds flashed fire as I turned to the mirror, and the heavy beaten gold burned like a halo about my head. I remembered Camilla's agonized scream and the awful words echoing through the dim streets of Carcosa. They were the last lines in the first act, and I dared not think of what followeddared not, even in the spring sunshine, there in my own room, surrounded with familiar objects, reassured by the bustle from the street and the voices of the servants in the hallway outside. For those poisoned words had dropped slowly into my heart, as deathsweat drops upon a bedsheet and is absorbed. Trembling, I put the diadem from my head and wiped my forehead, but I thought of Hastur and of my own rightful ambition, and I remembered Mr. Wilde as I had last left him, his face all torn and bloody from the claws of that devil's creature, and what he saidah, what he said. The alarm bell in the safe began to whirr harshly, and I knew my time was up; but I would not heed it, and replacing the flashing circlet upon my head I turned defiantly to the mirror. I stood for a long time absorbed in the changing expression of my own eyes. The mirror reflected a face which was like my own, but whiter, and so thin that I hardly recognized it. And all the time I kept repeating between my clenched teeth, "The day has come! the day has come!" while the alarm in the safe whirred and clamoured, and the diamonds sparkled and flamed above my brow. I heard a door open but did not heed it. It was only when I saw two faces in the mirrorit was only when another face rose over my shoulder, and two other eyes met mine. I wheeled like a flash and seized a long knife from my dressingtable, and my cousin sprang back very pale, crying "Hildred! for God's sake!" then as my hand fell, he said "It is I, Louis, don't you know me?" I stood silent. I could not have spoken for my life. He walked up to me and took the knife from my hand. "What is all this?" he inquired, in a gentle voice. "Are you ill?" "No," I replied. But I doubt if he heard me. "Come, come, old fellow," he cried, "take off that brass crown and toddle into the study. Are you going to a masquerade? What's all this theatrical tinsel anyway?" I was glad he thought the crown was made of brass and paste, yet I didn't like him any the better for thinking so. I let him take it from my hand, knowing it was best to humour him. He tossed the splendid diadem in the air, and catching it, turned to me smiling. "It's dear at fifty cents," he said. "What's it for?" I did not answer, but took the circlet from his hands, and placing it in the safe shut the massive steel door. The alarm ceased its infernal din at once. He watched me curiously, but did not seem to notice the sudden ceasing of the alarm. He did, however, speak of the safe as a biscuit box. Fearing lest he might examine the combination I led the way into my study. Louis threw himself on the sofa and flicked at flies with his eternal ridingwhip. He wore his fatigue uniform with the braided jacket and jaunty cap, and I noticed that his ridingboots were all splashed with red mud. "Where have you been?" I inquired. "Jumping mud creeks in Jersey," he said. "I haven't had time to change yet; I was rather in a hurry to see you. Haven't you got a glass of something? I'm dead tired; been in the saddle twentyfour hours." I gave him some brandy from my medicinal store, which he drank with a grimace. "Damned bad stuff," he observed. "I'll give you an address where they sell brandy that is brandy." "It's good enough for my needs," I said indifferently. "I use it to rub my chest with." He stared and flicked at another fly. "See here, old fellow," he began, "I've got something to suggest to you. It's four years now that you've shut yourself up here like an owl, never going anywhere, never taking any healthy exercise, never doing a damn thing but poring over those books up there on the mantelpiece." He glanced along the row of shelves. "Napoleon, Napoleon, Napoleon!" he read. "For heaven's sake, have you nothing but Napoleons there?" "I wish they were bound in gold," I said. "But wait, yes, there is another book, The King in Yellow." I looked him steadily in the eye. "Have you never read it?" I asked. "I? No, thank God! I don't want to be driven crazy." I saw he regretted his speech as soon as he had uttered it. There is only one word which I loathe more than I do lunatic and that word is crazy. But I controlled myself and asked him why he thought The King in Yellow dangerous. "Oh, I don't know," he said, hastily. "I only remember the excitement it created and the denunciations from pulpit and Press. I believe the author shot himself after bringing forth this monstrosity, didn't he?" "I understand he is still alive," I answered. "That's probably true," he muttered; "bullets couldn't kill a fiend like that." "It is a book of great truths," I said. "Yes," he replied, "of 'truths' which send men frantic and blast their lives. I don't care if the thing is, as they say, the very supreme essence of art. It's a crime to have written it, and I for one shall never open its pages." "Is that what you have come to tell me?" I asked. "No," he said, "I came to tell you that I am going to be married." I believe for a moment my heart ceased to beat, but I kept my eyes on his face. "Yes," he continued, smiling happily, "married to the sweetest girl on earth." "Constance Hawberk," I said mechanically. "How did you know?" he cried, astonished. "I didn't know it myself until that evening last April, when we strolled down to the embankment before dinner." "When is it to be?" I asked. "It was to have been next September, but an hour ago a despatch came ordering our regiment to the Presidio, San Francisco. We leave at noon tomorrow. Tomorrow," he repeated. "Just think, Hildred, tomorrow I shall be the happiest fellow that ever drew breath in this jolly world, for Constance will go with me." I offered him my hand in congratulation, and he seized and shook it like the goodnatured fool he wasor pretended to be. "I am going to get my squadron as a wedding present," he rattled on. "Captain and Mrs. Louis Castaigne, eh, Hildred?" Then he told me where it was to be and who were to be there, and made me promise to come and be best man. I set my teeth and listened to his boyish chatter without showing what I felt, but I was getting to the limit of my endurance, and when he jumped up, and, switching his spurs till they jingled, said he must go, I did not detain him. "There's one thing I want to ask of you," I said quietly. "Out with it, it's promised," he laughed. "I want you to meet me for a quarter of an hour's talk tonight." "Of course, if you wish," he said, somewhat puzzled. "Where?" "Anywhere, in the park there." "What time, Hildred?" "Midnight." "What in the name of" he began, but checked himself and laughingly assented. I watched him go down the stairs and hurry away, his sabre banging at every stride. He turned into Bleecker Street, and I knew he was going to see Constance. I gave him ten minutes to disappear and then followed in his footsteps, taking with me the jewelled crown and the silken robe embroidered with the Yellow Sign. When I turned into Bleecker Street, and entered the doorway which bore the sign MR. WILDE, REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS. Third Bell. I saw old Hawberk moving about in his shop, and imagined I heard Constance's voice in the parlour; but I avoided them both and hurried up the trembling stairways to Mr. Wilde's apartment. I knocked and entered without ceremony. Mr. Wilde lay groaning on the floor, his face covered with blood, his clothes torn to shreds. Drops of blood were scattered about over the carpet, which had also been ripped and frayed in the evidently recent struggle. "It's that cursed cat," he said, ceasing his groans, and turning his colourless eyes to me; "she attacked me while I was asleep. I believe she will kill me yet." This was too much, so I went into the kitchen, and, seizing a hatchet from the pantry, started to find the infernal beast and settle her then and there. My search was fruitless, and after a while I gave it up and came back to find Mr. Wilde squatting on his high chair by the table. He had washed his face and changed his clothes. The great furrows which the cat's claws had ploughed up in his face he had filled with collodion, and a rag hid the wound in his throat. I told him I should kill the cat when I came across her, but he only shook his head and turned to the open ledger before him. He read name after name of the people who had come to him in regard to their reputation, and the sums he had amassed were startling. "I put on the screws now and then," he explained. "One day or other some of these people will assassinate you," I insisted. "Do you think so?" he said, rubbing his mutilated ears. It was useless to argue with him, so I took down the manuscript entitled Imperial Dynasty of America, for the last time I should ever take it down in Mr. Wilde's study. I read it through, thrilling and trembling with pleasure. When I had finished Mr. Wilde took the manuscript and, turning to the dark passage which leads from his study to his bedchamber, called out in a loud voice, "Vance." Then for the first time, I noticed a man crouching there in the shadow. How I had overlooked him during my search for the cat, I cannot imagine. "Vance, come in," cried Mr. Wilde. The figure rose and crept towards us, and I shall never forget the face that he raised to mine, as the light from the window illuminated it. "Vance, this is Mr. Castaigne," said Mr. Wilde. Before he had finished speaking, the man threw himself on the ground before the table, crying and grasping, "Oh, God! Oh, my God! Help me! Forgive me! Oh, Mr. Castaigne, keep that man away. You cannot, you cannot mean it! You are differentsave me! I am broken downI was in a madhouse and nowwhen all was coming rightwhen I had forgotten the Kingthe King in Yellow andbut I shall go mad againI shall go mad" His voice died into a choking rattle, for Mr. Wilde had leapt on him and his right hand encircled the man's throat. When Vance fell in a heap on the floor, Mr. Wilde clambered nimbly into his chair again, and rubbing his mangled ears with the stump of his hand, turned to me and asked me for the ledger. I reached it down from the shelf and he opened it. After a moment's searching among the beautifully written pages, he coughed complacently, and pointed to the name Vance. "Vance," he read aloud, "Osgood Oswald Vance." At the sound of his name, the man on the floor raised his head and turned a convulsed face to Mr. Wilde. His eyes were injected with blood, his lips tumefied. "Called April 28th," continued Mr. Wilde. "Occupation, cashier in the Seaforth National Bank; has served a term of forgery at Sing Sing, from whence he was transferred to the Asylum for the Criminal Insane. Pardoned by the Governor of New York, and discharged from the Asylum, January 19, 1918. Reputation damaged at Sheepshead Bay. Rumours that he lives beyond his income. Reputation to be repaired at once. Retainer 1,500. "Note.Has embezzled sums amounting to 30,000 since March 20, 1919, excellent family, and secured present position through uncle's influence. Father, President of Seaforth Bank." I looked at the man on the floor. "Get up, Vance," said Mr. Wilde in a gentle voice. Vance rose as if hypnotized. "He will do as we suggest now," observed Mr. Wilde, and opening the manuscript, he read the entire history of the Imperial Dynasty of America. Then in a kind and soothing murmur he ran over the important points with Vance, who stood like one stunned. His eyes were so blank and vacant that I imagined he had become halfwitted, and remarked it to Mr. Wilde who replied that it was of no consequence anyway. Very patiently we pointed out to Vance what his share in the affair would be, and he seemed to understand after a while. Mr. Wilde explained the manuscript, using several volumes on Heraldry, to substantiate the result of his researches. He mentioned the establishment of the Dynasty in Carcosa, the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades. He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali. "The scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever," he muttered, but I do not believe Vance heard him. Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications of the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones, and then tossing aside his manuscript and notes, he began the wonderful story of the Last King. Fascinated and thrilled I watched him. He threw up his head, his long arms were stretched out in a magnificent gesture of pride and power, and his eyes blazed deep in their sockets like two emeralds. Vance listened stupefied. As for me, when at last Mr. Wilde had finished, and pointing to me, cried, "The cousin of the King!" my head swam with excitement. Controlling myself with a superhuman effort, I explained to Vance why I alone was worthy of the crown and why my cousin must be exiled or die. I made him understand that my cousin must never marry, even after renouncing all his claims, and how that least of all he should marry the daughter of the Marquis of Avonshire and bring England into the question. I showed him a list of thousands of names which Mr. Wilde had drawn up; every man whose name was there had received the Yellow Sign which no living human being dared disregard. The city, the state, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask. The time had come, the people should know the son of Hastur, and the whole world bow to the black stars which hang in the sky over Carcosa. Vance leaned on the table, his head buried in his hands. Mr. Wilde drew a rough sketch on the margin of yesterday's Herald with a bit of lead pencil. It was a plan of Hawberk's rooms. Then he wrote out the order and affixed the seal, and shaking like a palsied man I signed my first writ of execution with my name HildredRex. Mr. Wilde clambered to the floor and unlocking the cabinet, took a long square box from the first shelf. This he brought to the table and opened. A new knife lay in the tissue paper inside and I picked it up and handed it to Vance, along with the order and the plan of Hawberk's apartment. Then Mr. Wilde told Vance he could go; and he went, shambling like an outcast of the slums. I sat for a while watching the daylight fade behind the square tower of the Judson Memorial Church, and finally, gathering up the manuscript and notes, took my hat and started for the door. Mr. Wilde watched me in silence. When I had stepped into the hall I looked back. Mr. Wilde's small eyes were still fixed on me. Behind him, the shadows gathered in the fading light. Then I closed the door behind me and went out into the darkening streets. I had eaten nothing since breakfast, but I was not hungry. A wretched, halfstarved creature, who stood looking across the street at the Lethal Chamber, noticed me and came up to tell me a tale of misery. I gave him money, I don't know why, and he went away without thanking me. An hour later another outcast approached and whined his story. I had a blank bit of paper in my pocket, on which was traced the Yellow Sign, and I handed it to him. He looked at it stupidly for a moment, and then with an uncertain glance at me, folded it with what seemed to me exaggerated care and placed it in his bosom. The electric lights were sparkling among the trees, and the new moon shone in the sky above the Lethal Chamber. It was tiresome waiting in the square; I wandered from the Marble Arch to the artillery stables and back again to the lotos fountain. The flowers and grass exhaled a fragrance which troubled me. The jet of the fountain played in the moonlight, and the musical splash of falling drops reminded me of the tinkle of chained mail in Hawberk's shop. But it was not so fascinating, and the dull sparkle of the moonlight on the water brought no such sensations of exquisite pleasure, as when the sunshine played over the polished steel of a corselet on Hawberk's knee. I watched the bats darting and turning above the water plants in the fountain basin, but their rapid, jerky flight set my nerves on edge, and I went away again to walk aimlessly to and fro among the trees. The artillery stables were dark, but in the cavalry barracks the officers' windows were brilliantly lighted, and the sallyport was constantly filled with troopers in fatigue, carrying straw and harness and baskets filled with tin dishes. Twice the mounted sentry at the gates was changed while I wandered up and down the asphalt walk. I looked at my watch. It was nearly time. The lights in the barracks went out one by one, the barred gate was closed, and every minute or two an officer passed in through the side wicket, leaving a rattle of accoutrements and a jingle of spurs on the night air. The square had become very silent. The last homeless loiterer had been driven away by the greycoated park policeman, the car tracks along Wooster Street were deserted, and the only sound which broke the stillness was the stamping of the sentry's horse and the ring of his sabre against the saddle pommel. In the barracks, the officers' quarters were still lighted, and military servants passed and repassed before the bay windows. Twelve o'clock sounded from the new spire of St. Francis Xavier, and at the last stroke of the sadtoned bell a figure passed through the wicket beside the portcullis, returned the salute of the sentry, and crossing the street entered the square and advanced toward the Benedick apartment house. "Louis," I called. The man pivoted on his spurred heels and came straight toward me. "Is that you, Hildred?" "Yes, you are on time." I took his offered hand, and we strolled toward the Lethal Chamber. He rattled on about his wedding and the graces of Constance, and their future prospects, calling my attention to his captain's shoulderstraps, and the triple gold arabesque on his sleeve and fatigue cap. I believe I listened as much to the music of his spurs and sabre as I did to his boyish babble, and at last we stood under the elms on the Fourth Street corner of the square opposite the Lethal Chamber. Then he laughed and asked me what I wanted with him. I motioned him to a seat on a bench under the electric light, and sat down beside him. He looked at me curiously, with that same searching glance which I hate and fear so in doctors. I felt the insult of his look, but he did not know it, and I carefully concealed my feelings. "Well, old chap," he inquired, "what can I do for you?" I drew from my pocket the manuscript and notes of the Imperial Dynasty of America, and looking him in the eye said "I will tell you. On your word as a soldier, promise me to read this manuscript from beginning to end, without asking me a question. Promise me to read these notes in the same way, and promise me to listen to what I have to tell later." "I promise, if you wish it," he said pleasantly. "Give me the paper, Hildred." He began to read, raising his eyebrows with a puzzled, whimsical air, which made me tremble with suppressed anger. As he advanced his, eyebrows contracted, and his lips seemed to form the word "rubbish." Then he looked slightly bored, but apparently for my sake read, with an attempt at interest, which presently ceased to be an effort. He started when in the closely written pages he came to his own name, and when he came to mine he lowered the paper, and looked sharply at me for a moment. But he kept his word, and resumed his reading, and I let the halfformed question die on his lips unanswered. When he came to the end and read the signature of Mr. Wilde, he folded the paper carefully and returned it to me. I handed him the notes, and he settled back, pushing his fatigue cap up to his forehead, with a boyish gesture, which I remembered so well in school. I watched his face as he read, and when he finished I took the notes with the manuscript, and placed them in my pocket. Then I unfolded a scroll marked with the Yellow Sign. He saw the sign, but he did not seem to recognize it, and I called his attention to it somewhat sharply. "Well," he said, "I see it. What is it?" "It is the Yellow Sign," I said angrily. "Oh, that's it, is it?" said Louis, in that flattering voice, which Doctor Archer used to employ with me, and would probably have employed again, had I not settled his affair for him.
I kept my rage down and answered as steadily as possible, "Listen, you have engaged your word?" "I am listening, old chap," he replied soothingly. I began to speak very calmly. "Dr. Archer, having by some means become possessed of the secret of the Imperial Succession, attempted to deprive me of my right, alleging that because of a fall from my horse four years ago, I had become mentally deficient. He presumed to place me under restraint in his own house in hopes of either driving me insane or poisoning me. I have not forgotten it. I visited him last night and the interview was final." Louis turned quite pale, but did not move. I resumed triumphantly, "There are yet three people to be interviewed in the interests of Mr. Wilde and myself. They are my cousin Louis, Mr. Hawberk, and his daughter Constance." Louis sprang to his feet and I arose also, and flung the paper marked with the Yellow Sign to the ground. "Oh, I don't need that to tell you what I have to say," I cried, with a laugh of triumph. "You must renounce the crown to me, do you hear, to me." Louis looked at me with a startled air, but recovering himself said kindly, "Of course I renounce thewhat is it I must renounce?" "The crown," I said angrily. "Of course," he answered, "I renounce it. Come, old chap, I'll walk back to your rooms with you." "Don't try any of your doctor's tricks on me," I cried, trembling with fury. "Don't act as if you think I am insane." "What nonsense," he replied. "Come, it's getting late, Hildred." "No," I shouted, "you must listen. You cannot marry, I forbid it. Do you hear? I forbid it. You shall renounce the crown, and in reward I grant you exile, but if you refuse you shall die." He tried to calm me, but I was roused at last, and drawing my long knife barred his way. Then I told him how they would find Dr. Archer in the cellar with his throat open, and I laughed in his face when I thought of Vance and his knife, and the order signed by me. "Ah, you are the King," I cried, "but I shall be King. Who are you to keep me from Empire over all the habitable earth! I was born the cousin of a king, but I shall be King!" Louis stood white and rigid before me. Suddenly a man came running up Fourth Street, entered the gate of the Lethal Temple, traversed the path to the bronze doors at full speed, and plunged into the death chamber with the cry of one demented, and I laughed until I wept tears, for I had recognized Vance, and knew that Hawberk and his daughter were no longer in my way. "Go," I cried to Louis, "you have ceased to be a menace. You will never marry Constance now, and if you marry any one else in your exile, I will visit you as I did my doctor last night. Mr. Wilde takes charge of you tomorrow." Then I turned and darted into South Fifth Avenue, and with a cry of terror Louis dropped his belt and sabre and followed me like the wind. I heard him close behind me at the corner of Bleecker Street, and I dashed into the doorway under Hawberk's sign. He cried, "Halt, or I fire!" but when he saw that I flew up the stairs leaving Hawberk's shop below, he left me, and I heard him hammering and shouting at their door as though it were possible to arouse the dead. Mr. Wilde's door was open, and I entered crying, "It is done, it is done! Let the nations rise and look upon their King!" but I could not find Mr. Wilde, so I went to the cabinet and took the splendid diadem from its case. Then I drew on the white silk robe, embroidered with the Yellow Sign, and placed the crown upon my head. At last I was King, King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and my mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King! The first grey pencillings of dawn would raise a tempest which would shake two hemispheres. Then as I stood, my every nerve pitched to the highest tension, faint with the joy and splendour of my thought, without, in the dark passage, a man groaned. I seized the tallow dip and sprang to the door. The cat passed me like a demon, and the tallow dip went out, but my long knife flew swifter than she, and I heard her screech, and I knew that my knife had found her. For a moment I listened to her tumbling and thumping about in the darkness, and then when her frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised it over my head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open. At first I thought he was dead, but as I looked, a green sparkle came into his sunken eyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm stretched his mouth from ear to ear. For a moment my terror and despair gave place to hope, but as I bent over him his eyeballs rolled clean around in his head, and he died. Then while I stood, transfixed with rage and despair, seeing my crown, my empire, every hope and every ambition, my very life, lying prostrate there with the dead master, they came, seized me from behind, and bound me until my veins stood out like cords, and my voice failed with the paroxysms of my frenzied screams. But I still raged, bleeding and infuriated among them, and more than one policeman felt my sharp teeth. Then when I could no longer move they came nearer; I saw old Hawberk, and behind him my cousin Louis' ghastly face, and farther away, in the corner, a woman, Constance, weeping softly. "Ah! I see it now!" I shrieked. "You have seized the throne and the empire. Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown of the King in Yellow!" [EDITOR'S NOTE.Mr. Castaigne died yesterday in the Asylum for Criminal Insane.] THE MASK Camilla You, sir, should unmask. Stranger Indeed? Cassilda Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you. Stranger I wear no mask. Camilla (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask! The King in Yellow, Act I, Scene 2. I Although I knew nothing of chemistry, I listened fascinated. He picked up an Easter lily which Genevive had brought that morning from Notre Dame, and dropped it into the basin. Instantly the liquid lost its crystalline clearness. For a second the lily was enveloped in a milkwhite foam, which disappeared, leaving the fluid opalescent. Changing tints of orange and crimson played over the surface, and then what seemed to be a ray of pure sunlight struck through from the bottom where the lily was resting. At the same instant he plunged his hand into the basin and drew out the flower. "There is no danger," he explained, "if you choose the right moment. That golden ray is the signal." He held the lily toward me, and I took it in my hand. It had turned to stone, to the purest marble. "You see," he said, "it is without a flaw. What sculptor could reproduce it?" The marble was white as snow, but in its depths the veins of the lily were tinged with palest azure, and a faint flush lingered deep in its heart. "Don't ask me the reason of that," he smiled, noticing my wonder. "I have no idea why the veins and heart are tinted, but they always are. Yesterday I tried one of Genevive's goldfish,there it is." The fish looked as if sculptured in marble. But if you held it to the light the stone was beautifully veined with a faint blue, and from somewhere within came a rosy light like the tint which slumbers in an opal. I looked into the basin. Once more it seemed filled with clearest crystal. "If I should touch it now?" I demanded. "I don't know," he replied, "but you had better not try." "There is one thing I'm curious about," I said, "and that is where the ray of sunlight came from." "It looked like a sunbeam true enough," he said. "I don't know, it always comes when I immerse any living thing. Perhaps," he continued, smiling, "perhaps it is the vital spark of the creature escaping to the source from whence it came." I saw he was mocking, and threatened him with a mahlstick, but he only laughed and changed the subject. "Stay to lunch. Genevive will be here directly." "I saw her going to early mass," I said, "and she looked as fresh and sweet as that lilybefore you destroyed it." "Do you think I destroyed it?" said Boris gravely. "Destroyed, preserved, how can we tell?" We sat in the corner of a studio near his unfinished group of the "Fates." He leaned back on the sofa, twirling a sculptor's chisel and squinting at his work. "By the way," he said, "I have finished pointing up that old academic Ariadne, and I suppose it will have to go to the Salon. It's all I have ready this year, but after the success the 'Madonna' brought me I feel ashamed to send a thing like that." The "Madonna," an exquisite marble for which Genevive had sat, had been the sensation of last year's Salon. I looked at the Ariadne. It was a magnificent piece of technical work, but I agreed with Boris that the world would expect something better of him than that. Still, it was impossible now to think of finishing in time for the Salon that splendid terrible group half shrouded in the marble behind me. The "Fates" would have to wait. We were proud of Boris Yvain. We claimed him and he claimed us on the strength of his having been born in America, although his father was French and his mother was a Russian. Every one in the Beaux Arts called him Boris. And yet there were only two of us whom he addressed in the same familiar wayJack Scott and myself. Perhaps my being in love with Genevive had something to do with his affection for me. Not that it had ever been acknowledged between us. But after all was settled, and she had told me with tears in her eyes that it was Boris whom she loved, I went over to his house and congratulated him. The perfect cordiality of that interview did not deceive either of us, I always believed, although to one at least it was a great comfort. I do not think he and Genevive ever spoke of the matter together, but Boris knew. Genevive was lovely. The Madonnalike purity of her face might have been inspired by the Sanctus in Gounod's Mass. But I was always glad when she changed that mood for what we called her "April Manuvres." She was often as variable as an April day. In the morning grave, dignified and sweet, at noon laughing, capricious, at evening whatever one least expected. I preferred her so rather than in that Madonnalike tranquillity which stirred the depths of my heart. I was dreaming of Genevive when he spoke again. "What do you think of my discovery, Alec?" "I think it wonderful." "I shall make no use of it, you know, beyond satisfying my own curiosity so far as may be, and the secret will die with me." "It would be rather a blow to sculpture, would it not? We painters lose more than we ever gain by photography." Boris nodded, playing with the edge of the chisel. "This new vicious discovery would corrupt the world of art. No, I shall never confide the secret to any one," he said slowly. It would be hard to find any one less informed about such phenomena than myself; but of course I had heard of mineral springs so saturated with silica that the leaves and twigs which fell into them were turned to stone after a time. I dimly comprehended the process, how the silica replaced the vegetable matter, atom by atom, and the result was a duplicate of the object in stone. This, I confess, had never interested me greatly, and as for the ancient fossils thus produced, they disgusted me. Boris, it appeared, feeling curiosity instead of repugnance, had investigated the subject, and had accidentally stumbled on a solution which, attacking the immersed object with a ferocity unheard of, in a second did the work of years. This was all I could make out of the strange story he had just been telling me. He spoke again after a long silence. "I am almost frightened when I think what I have found. Scientists would go mad over the discovery. It was so simple too; it discovered itself. When I think of that formula, and that new element precipitated in metallic scales" "What new element?" "Oh, I haven't thought of naming it, and I don't believe I ever shall. There are enough precious metals now in the world to cut throats over." I pricked up my ears. "Have you struck gold, Boris?" "No, better;but see here, Alec!" he laughed, starting up. "You and I have all we need in this world. Ah! how sinister and covetous you look already!" I laughed too, and told him I was devoured by the desire for gold, and we had better talk of something else; so when Genevive came in shortly after, we had turned our backs on alchemy. Genevive was dressed in silvery grey from head to foot. The light glinted along the soft curves of her fair hair as she turned her cheek to Boris; then she saw me and returned my greeting. She had never before failed to blow me a kiss from the tips of her white fingers, and I promptly complained of the omission. She smiled and held out her hand, which dropped almost before it had touched mine; then she said, looking at Boris "You must ask Alec to stay for luncheon." This also was something new. She had always asked me herself until today. "I did," said Boris shortly. "And you said yes, I hope?" She turned to me with a charming conventional smile. I might have been an acquaintance of the day before yesterday. I made her a low bow. "J'avais bien l'honneur, madame," but refusing to take up our usual bantering tone, she murmured a hospitable commonplace and disappeared. Boris and I looked at one another. "I had better go home, don't you think?" I asked. "Hanged if I know," he replied frankly. While we were discussing the advisability of my departure Genevive reappeared in the doorway without her bonnet. She was wonderfully beautiful, but her colour was too deep and her lovely eyes were too bright. She came straight up to me and took my arm. "Luncheon is ready. Was I cross, Alec? I thought I had a headache, but I haven't. Come here, Boris;" and she slipped her other arm through his. "Alec knows that after you there is no one in the world whom I like as well as I like him, so if he sometimes feels snubbed it won't hurt him." " la bonheur!" I cried, "who says there are no thunderstorms in April?" "Are you ready?" chanted Boris. "Aye ready;" and arminarm we raced into the diningroom, scandalizing the servants. After all we were not so much to blame; Genevive was eighteen, Boris was twentythree, and I not quite twentyone. II Some work that I was doing about this time on the decorations for Genevive's boudoir kept me constantly at the quaint little hotel in the Rue SainteCcile. Boris and I in those days laboured hard but as we pleased, which was fitfully, and we all three, with Jack Scott, idled a great deal together. One quiet afternoon I had been wandering alone over the house examining curios, prying into odd corners, bringing out sweetmeats and cigars from strange hidingplaces, and at last I stopped in the bathingroom. Boris, all over clay, stood there washing his hands. The room was built of rosecoloured marble excepting the floor, which was tessellated in rose and grey. In the centre was a square pool sunken below the surface of the floor; steps led down into it, sculptured pillars supported a frescoed ceiling. A delicious marble Cupid appeared to have just alighted on his pedestal at the upper end of the room. The whole interior was Boris' work and mine. Boris, in his workingclothes of white canvas, scraped the traces of clay and red modelling wax from his handsome hands, and coquetted over his shoulder with the Cupid. "I see you," he insisted, "don't try to look the other way and pretend not to see me. You know who made you, little humbug!" It was always my rle to interpret Cupid's sentiments in these conversations, and when my turn came I responded in such a manner, that Boris seized my arm and dragged me toward the pool, declaring he would duck me. Next instant he dropped my arm and turned pale. "Good God!" he said, "I forgot the pool is full of the solution!" I shivered a little, and dryly advised him to remember better where he had stored the precious liquid. "In Heaven's name, why do you keep a small lake of that gruesome stuff here of all places?" I asked. "I want to experiment on something large," he replied. "On me, for instance?" "Ah! that came too close for jesting; but I do want to watch the action of that solution on a more highly organized living body; there is that big white rabbit," he said, following me into the studio. Jack Scott, wearing a paintstained jacket, came wandering in, appropriated all the Oriental sweetmeats he could lay his hands on, looted the cigarette case, and finally he and Boris disappeared together to visit the Luxembourg Gallery, where a new silver bronze by Rodin and a landscape of Monet's were claiming the exclusive attention of artistic France. I went back to the studio, and resumed my work. It was a Renaissance screen, which Boris wanted me to paint for Genevive's boudoir. But the small boy who was unwillingly dawdling through a series of poses for it, today refused all bribes to be good. He never rested an instant in the same position, and inside of five minutes I had as many different outlines of the little beggar. "Are you posing, or are you executing a song and dance, my friend?" I inquired. "Whichever monsieur pleases," he replied, with an angelic smile. Of course I dismissed him for the day, and of course I paid him for the full time, that being the way we spoil our models. After the young imp had gone, I made a few perfunctory daubs at my work, but was so thoroughly out of humour, that it took me the rest of the afternoon to undo the damage I had done, so at last I scraped my palette, stuck my brushes in a bowl of black soap, and strolled into the smokingroom. I really believe that, excepting Genevive's apartments, no room in the house was so free from the perfume of tobacco as this one. It was a queer chaos of odds and ends, hung with threadbare tapestry. A sweettoned old spinet in good repair stood by the window. There were stands of weapons, some old and dull, others bright and modern, festoons of Indian and Turkish armour over the mantel, two or three good pictures, and a piperack. It was here that we used to come for new sensations in smoking. I doubt if any type of pipe ever existed which was not represented in that rack. When we had selected one, we immediately carried it somewhere else and smoked it; for the place was, on the whole, more gloomy and less inviting than any in the house. But this afternoon, the twilight was very soothing, the rugs and skins on the floor looked brown and soft and drowsy; the big couch was piled with cushionsI found my pipe and curled up there for an unaccustomed smoke in the smokingroom. I had chosen one with a long flexible stem, and lighting it fell to dreaming. After a while it went out, but I did not stir. I dreamed on and presently fell asleep. I awoke to the saddest music I had ever heard. The room was quite dark, I had no idea what time it was. A ray of moonlight silvered one edge of the old spinet, and the polished wood seemed to exhale the sounds as perfume floats above a box of sandalwood. Some one rose in the darkness, and came away weeping quietly, and I was fool enough to cry out "Genevive!" She dropped at my voice, and, I had time to curse myself while I made a light and tried to raise her from the floor. She shrank away with a murmur of pain. She was very quiet, and asked for Boris. I carried her to the divan, and went to look for him, but he was not in the house, and the servants were gone to bed. Perplexed and anxious, I hurried back to Genevive. She lay where I had left her, looking very white. "I can't find Boris nor any of the servants," I said. "I know," she answered faintly, "Boris has gone to Ept with Mr. Scott. I did not remember when I sent you for him just now." "But he can't get back in that case before tomorrow afternoon, andare you hurt? Did I frighten you into falling? What an awful fool I am, but I was only half awake." "Boris thought you had gone home before dinner. Do please excuse us for letting you stay here all this time." "I have had a long nap," I laughed, "so sound that I did not know whether I was still asleep or not when I found myself staring at a figure that was moving toward me, and called out your name. Have you been trying the old spinet? You must have played very softly." I would tell a thousand more lies worse than that one to see the look of relief that came into her face. She smiled adorably, and said in her natural voice "Alec, I tripped on that wolf's head, and I think my ankle is sprained. Please call Marie, and then go home." I did as she bade me, and left her there when the maid came in. III At noon next day when I called, I found Boris walking restlessly about his studio. "Genevive is asleep just now," he told me, "the sprain is nothing, but why should she have such a high fever? The doctor can't account for it; or else he will not," he muttered. "Genevive has a fever?" I asked. "I should say so, and has actually been a little lightheaded at intervals all night. The idea!gay little Genevive, without a care in the world,and she keeps saying her heart's broken, and she wants to die!" My own heart stood still. Boris leaned against the door of his studio, looking down, his hands in his pockets, his kind, keen eyes clouded, a new line of trouble drawn "over the mouth's good mark, that made the smile." The maid had orders to summon him the instant Genevive opened her eyes. We waited and waited, and Boris, growing restless, wandered about, fussing with modelling wax and red clay. Suddenly he started for the next room. "Come and see my rosecoloured bath full of death!" he cried. "Is it death?" I asked, to humour his mood. "You are not prepared to call it life, I suppose," he answered. As he spoke he plucked a solitary goldfish squirming and twisting out of its globe. "We'll send this one after the otherwherever that is," he said. There was feverish excitement in his voice. A dull weight of fever lay on my limbs and on my brain as I followed him to the fair crystal pool with its pinktinted sides; and he dropped the creature in. Falling, its scales flashed with a hot orange gleam in its angry twistings and contortions; the moment it struck the liquid it became rigid and sank heavily to the bottom. Then came the milky foam, the splendid hues radiating on the surface and then the shaft of pure serene light broke through from seemingly infinite depths. Boris plunged in his hand and drew out an exquisite marble thing, blueveined, rosetinted, and glistening with opalescent drops. "Child's play," he muttered, and looked wearily, longingly at me,as if I could answer such questions! But Jack Scott came in and entered into the "game," as he called it, with ardour. Nothing would do but to try the experiment on the white rabbit then and there. I was willing that Boris should find distraction from his cares, but I hated to see the life go out of a warm, living creature and I declined to be present. Picking up a book at random, I sat down in the studio to read. Alas! I had found The King in Yellow. After a few moments, which seemed ages, I was putting it away with a nervous shudder, when Boris and Jack came in bringing their marble rabbit. At the same time the bell rang above, and a cry came from the sickroom. Boris was gone like a flash, and the next moment he called, "Jack, run for the doctor; bring him back with you. Alec, come here." I went and stood at her door. A frightened maid came out in haste and ran away to fetch some remedy. Genevive, sitting bolt upright, with crimson cheeks and glittering eyes, babbled incessantly and resisted Boris' gentle restraint. He called me to help. At my first touch she sighed and sank back, closing her eyes, and thenthenas we still bent above her, she opened them again, looked straight into Boris' facepoor fevercrazed girl!and told her secret. At the same instant our three lives turned into new channels; the bond that held us so long together snapped for ever and a new bond was forged in its place, for she had spoken my name, and as the fever tortured her, her heart poured out its load of hidden sorrow. Amazed and dumb I bowed my head, while my face burned like a live coal, and the blood surged in my ears, stupefying me with its clamour. Incapable of movement, incapable of speech, I listened to her feverish words in an agony of shame and sorrow. I could not silence her, I could not look at Boris. Then I felt an arm upon my shoulder, and Boris turned a bloodless face to mine. "It is not your fault, Alec; don't grieve so if she loves you" but he could not finish; and as the doctor stepped swiftly into the room, saying"Ah, the fever!" I seized Jack Scott and hurried him to the street, saying, "Boris would rather be alone." We crossed the street to our own apartments, and that night, seeing I was going to be ill too, he went for the doctor again. The last thing I recollect with any distinctness was hearing Jack say, "For Heaven's sake, doctor, what ails him, to wear a face like that?" and I thought of The King in Yellow and the Pallid Mask. I was very ill, for the strain of two years which I had endured since that fatal May morning when Genevive murmured, "I love you, but I think I love Boris best," told on me at last. I had never imagined that it could become more than I could endure. Outwardly tranquil, I had deceived myself. Although the inward battle raged night after night, and I, lying alone in my room, cursed myself for rebellious thoughts unloyal to Boris and unworthy of Genevive, the morning always brought relief, and I returned to Genevive and to my dear Boris with a heart washed clean by the tempests of the night. Never in word or deed or thought while with them had I betrayed my sorrow even to myself. The mask of selfdeception was no longer a mask for me, it was a part of me. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there was no one to see except myself, and when the day broke the mask fell back again of its own accord. These thoughts passed through my troubled mind as I lay sick, but they were hopelessly entangled with visions of white creatures, heavy as stone, crawling about in Boris' basin,of the wolf's head on the rug, foaming and snapping at Genevive, who lay smiling beside it. I thought, too, of the King in Yellow wrapped in the fantastic colours of his tattered mantle, and that bitter cry of Cassilda, "Not upon us, oh King, not upon us!" Feverishly I struggled to put it from me, but I saw the lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it, and I saw the towers of Carcosa behind the moon. Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloudrifts which fluttered and flapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow. Among all these, one sane thought persisted. It never wavered, no matter what else was going on in my disordered mind, that my chief reason for existing was to meet some requirement of Boris and Genevive. What this obligation was, its nature, was never clear; sometimes it seemed to be protection, sometimes support, through a great crisis. Whatever it seemed to be for the time, its weight rested only on me, and I was never so ill or so weak that I did not respond with my whole soul. There were always crowds of faces about me, mostly strange, but a few I recognized, Boris among them. Afterward they told me that this could not have been, but I know that once at least he bent over me. It was only a touch, a faint echo of his voice, then the clouds settled back on my senses, and I lost him, but he did stand there and bend over me once at least. At last, one morning I awoke to find the sunlight falling across my bed, and Jack Scott reading beside me. I had not strength enough to speak aloud, neither could I think, much less remember, but I could smile feebly, as Jack's eye met mine, and when he jumped up and asked eagerly if I wanted anything, I could whisper, "YesBoris." Jack moved to the head of my bed, and leaned down to arrange my pillow I did not see his face, but he answered heartily, "You must wait, Alec; you are too weak to see even Boris." I waited and I grew strong; in a few days I was able to see whom I would, but meanwhile I had thought and remembered. From the moment when all the past grew clear again in my mind, I never doubted what I should do when the time came, and I felt sure that Boris would have resolved upon the same course so far as he was concerned; as for what pertained to me alone, I knew he would see that also as I did. I no longer asked for any one. I never inquired why no message came from them; why during the week I lay there, waiting and growing stronger, I never heard their name spoken. Preoccupied with my own searchings for the right way, and with my feeble but determined fight against despair, I simply acquiesced in Jack's reticence, taking for granted that he was afraid to speak of them, lest I should turn unruly and insist on seeing them. Meanwhile I said over and over to myself, how would it be when life began again for us all? We would take up our relations exactly as they were before Genevive fell ill. Boris and I would look into each other's eyes, and there would be neither rancour nor cowardice nor mistrust in that glance. I would be with them again for a little while in the dear intimacy of their home, and then, without pretext or explanation, I would disappear from their lives for ever. Boris would know; Genevivethe only comfort was that she would never know. It seemed, as I thought it over, that I had found the meaning of that sense of obligation which had persisted all through my delirium, and the only possible answer to it. So, when I was quite ready, I beckoned Jack to me one day, and said "Jack, I want Boris at once; and take my dearest greeting to Genevive...." When at last he made me understand that they were both dead, I fell into a wild rage that tore all my little convalescent strength to atoms. I raved and cursed myself into a relapse, from which I crawled forth some weeks afterward a boy of twentyone who believed that his youth was gone for ever. I seemed to be past the capability of further suffering, and one day when Jack handed me a letter and the keys to Boris' house, I took them without a tremor and asked him to tell me all. It was cruel of me to ask him, but there was no help for it, and he leaned wearily on his thin hands, to reopen the wound which could never entirely heal. He began very quietly "Alec, unless you have a clue that I know nothing about, you will not be able to explain any more than I what has happened. I suspect that you would rather not hear these details, but you must learn them, else I would spare you the relation. God knows I wish I could be spared the telling. I shall use few words. "That day when I left you in the doctor's care and came back to Boris, I found him working on the 'Fates.' Genevive, he said, was sleeping under the influence of drugs. She had been quite out of her mind, he said. He kept on working, not talking any more, and I watched him. Before long, I saw that the third figure of the groupthe one looking straight ahead, out over the worldbore his face; not as you ever saw it, but as it looked then and to the end. This is one thing for which I should like to find an explanation, but I never shall. "Well, he worked and I watched him in silence, and we went on that way until nearly midnight. Then we heard the door open and shut sharply, and a swift rush in the next room. Boris sprang through the doorway and I followed; but we were too late. She lay at the bottom of the pool, her hands across her breast. Then Boris shot himself through the heart." Jack stopped speaking, drops of sweat stood under his eyes, and his thin cheeks twitched. "I carried Boris to his room. Then I went back and let that hellish fluid out of the pool, and turning on all the water, washed the marble clean of every drop. When at length I dared descend the steps, I found her lying there as white as snow.
At last, when I had decided what was best to do, I went into the laboratory, and first emptied the solution in the basin into the wastepipe; then I poured the contents of every jar and bottle after it. There was wood in the fireplace, so I built a fire, and breaking the locks of Boris' cabinet I burnt every paper, notebook and letter that I found there. With a mallet from the studio I smashed to pieces all the empty bottles, then loading them into a coalscuttle, I carried them to the cellar and threw them over the redhot bed of the furnace. Six times I made the journey, and at last, not a vestige remained of anything which might again aid in seeking for the formula which Boris had found. Then at last I dared call the doctor. He is a good man, and together we struggled to keep it from the public. Without him I never could have succeeded. At last we got the servants paid and sent away into the country, where old Rosier keeps them quiet with stories of Boris' and Genevive's travels in distant lands, from whence they will not return for years. We buried Boris in the little cemetery of Svres. The doctor is a good creature, and knows when to pity a man who can bear no more. He gave his certificate of heart disease and asked no questions of me." Then, lifting his head from his hands, he said, "Open the letter, Alec; it is for us both." I tore it open. It was Boris' will dated a year before. He left everything to Genevive, and in case of her dying childless, I was to take control of the house in the Rue SainteCcile, and Jack Scott the management at Ept. On our deaths the property reverted to his mother's family in Russia, with the exception of the sculptured marbles executed by himself. These he left to me. The page blurred under our eyes, and Jack got up and walked to the window. Presently he returned and sat down again. I dreaded to hear what he was going to say, but he spoke with the same simplicity and gentleness. "Genevive lies before the Madonna in the marble room. The Madonna bends tenderly above her, and Genevive smiles back into that calm face that never would have been except for her." His voice broke, but he grasped my hand, saying, "Courage, Alec." Next morning he left for Ept to fulfil his trust. IV The same evening I took the keys and went into the house I had known so well. Everything was in order, but the silence was terrible. Though I went twice to the door of the marble room, I could not force myself to enter. It was beyond my strength. I went into the smokingroom and sat down before the spinet. A small lace handkerchief lay on the keys, and I turned away, choking. It was plain I could not stay, so I locked every door, every window, and the three front and back gates, and went away. Next morning Alcide packed my valise, and leaving him in charge of my apartments I took the Orient express for Constantinople. During the two years that I wandered through the East, at first, in our letters, we never mentioned Genevive and Boris, but gradually their names crept in. I recollect particularly a passage in one of Jack's letters replying to one of mine "What you tell me of seeing Boris bending over you while you lay ill, and feeling his touch on your face, and hearing his voice, of course troubles me. This that you describe must have happened a fortnight after he died. I say to myself that you were dreaming, that it was part of your delirium, but the explanation does not satisfy me, nor would it you." Toward the end of the second year a letter came from Jack to me in India so unlike anything that I had ever known of him that I decided to return at once to Paris. He wrote "I am well, and sell all my pictures as artists do who have no need of money. I have not a care of my own, but I am more restless than if I had. I am unable to shake off a strange anxiety about you. It is not apprehension, it is rather a breathless expectancyof what, God knows! I can only say it is wearing me out. Nights I dream always of you and Boris. I can never recall anything afterward, but I wake in the morning with my heart beating, and all day the excitement increases until I fall asleep at night to recall the same experience. I am quite exhausted by it, and have determined to break up this morbid condition. I must see you. Shall I go to Bombay, or will you come to Paris?" I telegraphed him to expect me by the next steamer. When we met I thought he had changed very little; I, he insisted, looked in splendid health. It was good to hear his voice again, and as we sat and chatted about what life still held for us, we felt that it was pleasant to be alive in the bright spring weather. We stayed in Paris together a week, and then I went for a week to Ept with him, but first of all we went to the cemetery at Svres, where Boris lay. "Shall we place the 'Fates' in the little grove above him?" Jack asked, and I answered "I think only the 'Madonna' should watch over Boris' grave." But Jack was none the better for my homecoming. The dreams of which he could not retain even the least definite outline continued, and he said that at times the sense of breathless expectancy was suffocating. "You see I do you harm and not good," I said. "Try a change without me." So he started alone for a ramble among the Channel Islands, and I went back to Paris. I had not yet entered Boris' house, now mine, since my return, but I knew it must be done. It had been kept in order by Jack; there were servants there, so I gave up my own apartment and went there to live. Instead of the agitation I had feared, I found myself able to paint there tranquilly. I visited all the roomsall but one. I could not bring myself to enter the marble room where Genevive lay, and yet I felt the longing growing daily to look upon her face, to kneel beside her. One April afternoon, I lay dreaming in the smokingroom, just as I had lain two years before, and mechanically I looked among the tawny Eastern rugs for the wolfskin. At last I distinguished the pointed ears and flat cruel head, and I thought of my dream where I saw Genevive lying beside it. The helmets still hung against the threadbare tapestry, among them the old Spanish morion which I remembered Genevive had once put on when we were amusing ourselves with the ancient bits of mail. I turned my eyes to the spinet; every yellow key seemed eloquent of her caressing hand, and I rose, drawn by the strength of my life's passion to the sealed door of the marble room. The heavy doors swung inward under my trembling hands. Sunlight poured through the window, tipping with gold the wings of Cupid, and lingered like a nimbus over the brows of the Madonna. Her tender face bent in compassion over a marble form so exquisitely pure that I knelt and signed myself. Genevive lay in the shadow under the Madonna, and yet, through her white arms, I saw the pale azure vein, and beneath her softly clasped hands the folds of her dress were tinged with rose, as if from some faint warm light within her breast. Bending, with a breaking heart, I touched the marble drapery with my lips, then crept back into the silent house. A maid came and brought me a letter, and I sat down in the little conservatory to read it; but as I was about to break the seal, seeing the girl lingering, I asked her what she wanted. She stammered something about a white rabbit that had been caught in the house, and asked what should be done with it. I told her to let it loose in the walled garden behind the house, and opened my letter. It was from Jack, but so incoherent that I thought he must have lost his reason. It was nothing but a series of prayers to me not to leave the house until he could get back; he could not tell me why, there were the dreams, he saidhe could explain nothing, but he was sure that I must not leave the house in the Rue SainteCcile. As I finished reading I raised my eyes and saw the same maidservant standing in the doorway holding a glass dish in which two goldfish were swimming "Put them back into the tank and tell me what you mean by interrupting me," I said. With a halfsuppressed whimper she emptied water and fish into an aquarium at the end of the conservatory, and turning to me asked my permission to leave my service. She said people were playing tricks on her, evidently with a design of getting her into trouble; the marble rabbit had been stolen and a live one had been brought into the house; the two beautiful marble fish were gone, and she had just found those common live things flopping on the diningroom floor. I reassured her and sent her away, saying I would look about myself. I went into the studio; there was nothing there but my canvases and some casts, except the marble of the Easter lily. I saw it on a table across the room. Then I strode angrily over to it. But the flower I lifted from the table was fresh and fragile and filled the air with perfume. Then suddenly I comprehended, and sprang through the hallway to the marble room. The doors flew open, the sunlight streamed into my face, and through it, in a heavenly glory, the Madonna smiled, as Genevive lifted her flushed face from her marble couch and opened her sleepy eyes. IN THE COURT OF THE DRAGON "Oh, thou who burn'st in heart for those who burn In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn; How long be crying'Mercy on them.' God! Why, who art thou to teach and He to learn?" In the Church of St. Barnab vespers were over; the clergy left the altar; the little choirboys flocked across the chancel and settled in the stalls. A Suisse in rich uniform marched down the south aisle, sounding his staff at every fourth step on the stone pavement; behind him came that eloquent preacher and good man, Monseigneur C. My chair was near the chancel rail, I now turned toward the west end of the church. The other people between the altar and the pulpit turned too. There was a little scraping and rustling while the congregation seated itself again; the preacher mounted the pulpit stairs, and the organ voluntary ceased. I had always found the organplaying at St. Barnab highly interesting. Learned and scientific it was, too much so for my small knowledge, but expressing a vivid if cold intelligence. Moreover, it possessed the French quality of taste taste reigned supreme, selfcontrolled, dignified and reticent. Today, however, from the first chord I had felt a change for the worse, a sinister change. During vespers it had been chiefly the chancel organ which supported the beautiful choir, but now and again, quite wantonly as it seemed, from the west gallery where the great organ stands, a heavy hand had struck across the church at the serene peace of those clear voices. It was something more than harsh and dissonant, and it betrayed no lack of skill. As it recurred again and again, it set me thinking of what my architect's books say about the custom in early times to consecrate the choir as soon as it was built, and that the nave, being finished sometimes half a century later, often did not get any blessing at all I wondered idly if that had been the case at St. Barnab, and whether something not usually supposed to be at home in a Christian church might have entered undetected and taken possession of the west gallery. I had read of such things happening, too, but not in works on architecture. Then I remembered that St. Barnab was not much more than a hundred years old, and smiled at the incongruous association of mediaeval superstitions with that cheerful little piece of eighteenthcentury rococo. But now vespers were over, and there should have followed a few quiet chords, fit to accompany meditation, while we waited for the sermon. Instead of that, the discord at the lower end of the church broke out with the departure of the clergy, as if now nothing could control it. I belong to those children of an older and simpler generation who do not love to seek for psychological subtleties in art; and I have ever refused to find in music anything more than melody and harmony, but I felt that in the labyrinth of sounds now issuing from that instrument there was something being hunted. Up and down the pedals chased him, while the manuals blared approval. Poor devil! whoever he was, there seemed small hope of escape! My nervous annoyance changed to anger. Who was doing this? How dare he play like that in the midst of divine service? I glanced at the people near me not one appeared to be in the least disturbed. The placid brows of the kneeling nuns, still turned towards the altar, lost none of their devout abstraction under the pale shadow of their white headdress. The fashionable lady beside me was looking expectantly at Monseigneur C. For all her face betrayed, the organ might have been singing an Ave Maria. But now, at last, the preacher had made the sign of the cross, and commanded silence. I turned to him gladly. Thus far I had not found the rest I had counted on when I entered St. Barnab that afternoon. I was worn out by three nights of physical suffering and mental trouble the last had been the worst, and it was an exhausted body, and a mind benumbed and yet acutely sensitive, which I had brought to my favourite church for healing. For I had been reading The King in Yellow. "The sun ariseth; they gather themselves together and lay them down in their dens." Monseigneur C delivered his text in a calm voice, glancing quietly over the congregation. My eyes turned, I knew not why, toward the lower end of the church. The organist was coming from behind his pipes, and passing along the gallery on his way out, I saw him disappear by a small door that leads to some stairs which descend directly to the street. He was a slender man, and his face was as white as his coat was black. "Good riddance!" I thought, "with your wicked music! I hope your assistant will play the closing voluntary." With a feeling of reliefwith a deep, calm feeling of relief, I turned back to the mild face in the pulpit and settled myself to listen. Here, at last, was the ease of mind I longed for. "My children," said the preacher, "one truth the human soul finds hardest of all to learn that it has nothing to fear. It can never be made to see that nothing can really harm it." "Curious doctrine!" I thought, "for a Catholic priest. Let us see how he will reconcile that with the Fathers." "Nothing can really harm the soul," he went on, in, his coolest, clearest tones, "because" But I never heard the rest; my eye left his face, I knew not for what reason, and sought the lower end of the church. The same man was coming out from behind the organ, and was passing along the gallery the same way. But there had not been time for him to return, and if he had returned, I must have seen him. I felt a faint chill, and my heart sank; and yet, his going and coming were no affair of mine. I looked at him I could not look away from his black figure and his white face. When he was exactly opposite to me, he turned and sent across the church straight into my eyes, a look of hate, intense and deadly I have never seen any other like it; would to God I might never see it again! Then he disappeared by the same door through which I had watched him depart less than sixty seconds before. I sat and tried to collect my thoughts. My first sensation was like that of a very young child badly hurt, when it catches its breath before crying out. To suddenly find myself the object of such hatred was exquisitely painful and this man was an utter stranger. Why should he hate me so?me, whom he had never seen before? For the moment all other sensation was merged in this one pang even fear was subordinate to grief, and for that moment I never doubted; but in the next I began to reason, and a sense of the incongruous came to my aid. As I have said, St. Barnab is a modern church. It is small and well lighted; one sees all over it almost at a glance. The organ gallery gets a strong white light from a row of long windows in the clerestory, which have not even coloured glass. The pulpit being in the middle of the church, it followed that, when I was turned toward it, whatever moved at the west end could not fail to attract my eye. When the organist passed it was no wonder that I saw him I had simply miscalculated the interval between his first and his second passing. He had come in that last time by the other sidedoor. As for the look which had so upset me, there had been no such thing, and I was a nervous fool. I looked about. This was a likely place to harbour supernatural horrors! That clearcut, reasonable face of Monseigneur C, his collected manner and easy, graceful gestures, were they not just a little discouraging to the notion of a gruesome mystery? I glanced above his head, and almost laughed. That flyaway lady supporting one corner of the pulpit canopy, which looked like a fringed damask tablecloth in a high wind, at the first attempt of a basilisk to pose up there in the organ loft, she would point her gold trumpet at him, and puff him out of existence! I laughed to myself over this conceit, which, at the time, I thought very amusing, and sat and chaffed myself and everything else, from the old harpy outside the railing, who had made me pay ten centimes for my chair, before she would let me in (she was more like a basilisk, I told myself, than was my organist with the anaemic complexion) from that grim old dame, to, yes, alas! Monseigneur C himself. For all devoutness had fled. I had never yet done such a thing in my life, but now I felt a desire to mock. As for the sermon, I could not hear a word of it for the jingle in my ears of "The skirts of St. Paul has reached. Having preached us those six Lent lectures, More unctuous than ever he preached," keeping time to the most fantastic and irreverent thoughts. It was no use to sit there any longer I must get out of doors and shake myself free from this hateful mood. I knew the rudeness I was committing, but still I rose and left the church. A spring sun was shining on the Rue St. Honor, as I ran down the church steps. On one corner stood a barrow full of yellow jonquils, pale violets from the Riviera, dark Russian violets, and white Roman hyacinths in a golden cloud of mimosa. The street was full of Sunday pleasureseekers. I swung my cane and laughed with the rest. Some one overtook and passed me. He never turned, but there was the same deadly malignity in his white profile that there had been in his eyes. I watched him as long as I could see him. His lithe back expressed the same menace; every step that carried him away from me seemed to bear him on some errand connected with my destruction. I was creeping along, my feet almost refusing to move. There began to dawn in me a sense of responsibility for something long forgotten. It began to seem as if I deserved that which he threatened it reached a long way backa long, long way back. It had lain dormant all these years it was there, though, and presently it would rise and confront me. But I would try to escape; and I stumbled as best I could into the Rue de Rivoli, across the Place de la Concorde and on to the Quai. I looked with sick eyes upon the sun, shining through the white foam of the fountain, pouring over the backs of the dusky bronze rivergods, on the faraway Arc, a structure of amethyst mist, on the countless vistas of grey stems and bare branches faintly green. Then I saw him again coming down one of the chestnut alleys of the Cours la Reine. I left the riverside, plunged blindly across to the Champs Elyses and turned toward the Arc. The setting sun was sending its rays along the green sward of the Rondpoint in the full glow he sat on a bench, children and young mothers all about him. He was nothing but a Sunday lounger, like the others, like myself. I said the words almost aloud, and all the while I gazed on the malignant hatred of his face. But he was not looking at me. I crept past and dragged my leaden feet up the Avenue. I knew that every time I met him brought him nearer to the accomplishment of his purpose and my fate. And still I tried to save myself. The last rays of sunset were pouring through the great Arc. I passed under it, and met him face to face. I had left him far down the Champs Elyses, and yet he came in with a stream of people who were returning from the Bois de Boulogne. He came so close that he brushed me. His slender frame felt like iron inside its loose black covering. He showed no signs of haste, nor of fatigue, nor of any human feeling. His whole being expressed one thing the will, and the power to work me evil. In anguish I watched him where he went down the broad crowded Avenue, that was all flashing with wheels and the trappings of horses and the helmets of the Garde Republicaine. He was soon lost to sight; then I turned and fled. Into the Bois, and far out beyond itI know not where I went, but after a long while as it seemed to me, night had fallen, and I found myself sitting at a table before a small caf. I had wandered back into the Bois. It was hours now since I had seen him. Physical fatigue and mental suffering had left me no power to think or feel. I was tired, so tired! I longed to hide away in my own den. I resolved to go home. But that was a long way off. I live in the Court of the Dragon, a narrow passage that leads from the Rue de Rennes to the Rue du Dragon. It is an "impasse"; traversable only for foot passengers. Over the entrance on the Rue de Rennes is a balcony, supported by an iron dragon. Within the court tall old houses rise on either side, and close the ends that give on the two streets. Huge gates, swung back during the day into the walls of the deep archways, close this court, after midnight, and one must enter then by ringing at certain small doors on the side. The sunken pavement collects unsavoury pools. Steep stairways pitch down to doors that open on the court. The ground floors are occupied by shops of secondhand dealers, and by iron workers. All day long the place rings with the clink of hammers and the clang of metal bars. Unsavoury as it is below, there is cheerfulness, and comfort, and hard, honest work above. Five flights up are the ateliers of architects and painters, and the hidingplaces of middleaged students like myself who want to live alone. When I first came here to live I was young, and not alone. I had to walk a while before any conveyance appeared, but at last, when I had almost reached the Arc de Triomphe again, an empty cab came along and I took it. From the Arc to the Rue de Rennes is a drive of more than half an hour, especially when one is conveyed by a tired cab horse that has been at the mercy of Sunday ftemakers. There had been time before I passed under the Dragon's wings to meet my enemy over and over again, but I never saw him once, and now refuge was close at hand. Before the wide gateway a small mob of children were playing. Our concierge and his wife walked among them, with their black poodle, keeping order; some couples were waltzing on the sidewalk. I returned their greetings and hurried in. All the inhabitants of the court had trooped out into the street. The place was quite deserted, lighted by a few lanterns hung high up, in which the gas burned dimly. My apartment was at the top of a house, halfway down the court, reached by a staircase that descended almost into the street, with only a bit of passageway intervening, I set my foot on the threshold of the open door, the friendly old ruinous stairs rose before me, leading up to rest and shelter. Looking back over my right shoulder, I saw him, ten paces off. He must have entered the court with me. He was coming straight on, neither slowly, nor swiftly, but straight on to me. And now he was looking at me. For the first time since our eyes encountered across the church they met now again, and I knew that the time had come. Retreating backward, down the court, I faced him. I meant to escape by the entrance on the Rue du Dragon. His eyes told me that I never should escape. It seemed ages while we were going, I retreating, he advancing, down the court in perfect silence; but at last I felt the shadow of the archway, and the next step brought me within it. I had meant to turn here and spring through into the street. But the shadow was not that of an archway; it was that of a vault. The great doors on the Rue du Dragon were closed. I felt this by the blackness which surrounded me, and at the same instant I read it in his face. How his face gleamed in the darkness, drawing swiftly nearer! The deep vaults, the huge closed doors, their cold iron clamps were all on his side. The thing which he had threatened had arrived it gathered and bore down on me from the fathomless shadows; the point from which it would strike was his infernal eyes. Hopeless, I set my back against the barred doors and defied him. There was a scraping of chairs on the stone floor, and a rustling as the congregation rose. I could hear the Suisse's staff in the south aisle, preceding Monseigneur C to the sacristy. The kneeling nuns, roused from their devout abstraction, made their reverence and went away. The fashionable lady, my neighbour, rose also, with graceful reserve. As she departed her glance just flitted over my face in disapproval. Half dead, or so it seemed to me, yet intensely alive to every trifle, I sat among the leisurely moving crowd, then rose too and went toward the door. I had slept through the sermon. Had I slept through the sermon? I looked up and saw him passing along the gallery to his place. Only his side I saw; the thin bent arm in its black covering looked like one of those devilish, nameless instruments which lie in the disused torturechambers of mediaeval castles. But I had escaped him, though his eyes had said I should not. Had I escaped him? That which gave him the power over me came back out of oblivion, where I had hoped to keep it. For I knew him now. Death and the awful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago had sent himthey had changed him for every other eye, but not for mine. I had recognized him almost from the first; I had never doubted what he was come to do; and now I knew while my body sat safe in the cheerful little church, he had been hunting my soul in the Court of the Dragon. I crept to the door the organ broke out overhead with a blare. A dazzling light filled the church, blotting the altar from my eyes. The people faded away, the arches, the vaulted roof vanished. I raised my seared eyes to the fathomless glare, and I saw the black stars hanging in the heavens and the wet winds from the lake of Hali chilled my face. And now, far away, over leagues of tossing cloudwaves, I saw the moon dripping with spray; and beyond, the towers of Carcosa rose behind the moon. Death and the awful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago had sent him, had changed him for every other eye but mine. And now I heard his voice, rising, swelling, thundering through the flaring light, and as I fell, the radiance increasing, increasing, poured over me in waves of flame. Then I sank into the depths, and I heard the King in Yellow whispering to my soul "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!" THE YELLOW SIGN "Let the red dawn surmise What we shall do, When this blue starlight dies And all is through." I There are so many things which are impossible to explain! Why should certain chords in music make me think of the brown and golden tints of autumn foliage? Why should the Mass of Sainte Ccile bend my thoughts wandering among caverns whose walls blaze with ragged masses of virgin silver? What was it in the roar and turmoil of Broadway at six o'clock that flashed before my eyes the picture of a still Breton forest where sunlight filtered through spring foliage and Sylvia bent, half curiously, half tenderly, over a small green lizard, murmuring "To think that this also is a little ward of God!" When I first saw the watchman his back was toward me. I looked at him indifferently until he went into the church. I paid no more attention to him than I had to any other man who lounged through Washington Square that morning, and when I shut my window and turned back into my studio I had forgotten him. Late in the afternoon, the day being warm, I raised the window again and leaned out to get a sniff of air. A man was standing in the courtyard of the church, and I noticed him again with as little interest as I had that morning. I looked across the square to where the fountain was playing and then, with my mind filled with vague impressions of trees, asphalt drives, and the moving groups of nursemaids and holidaymakers, I started to walk back to my easel. As I turned, my listless glance included the man below in the churchyard. His face was toward me now, and with a perfectly involuntary movement I bent to see it. At the same moment he raised his head and looked at me. Instantly I thought of a coffinworm. Whatever it was about the man that repelled me I did not know, but the impression of a plump white graveworm was so intense and nauseating that I must have shown it in my expression, for he turned his puffy face away with a movement which made me think of a disturbed grub in a chestnut. I went back to my easel and motioned the model to resume her pose. After working a while I was satisfied that I was spoiling what I had done as rapidly as possible, and I took up a palette knife and scraped the colour out again. The flesh tones were sallow and unhealthy, and I did not understand how I could have painted such sickly colour into a study which before that had glowed with healthy tones. I looked at Tessie. She had not changed, and the clear flush of health dyed her neck and cheeks as I frowned. "Is it something I've done?" she said. "No,I've made a mess of this arm, and for the life of me I can't see how I came to paint such mud as that into the canvas," I replied. "Don't I pose well?" she insisted. "Of course, perfectly." "Then it's not my fault?" "No. It's my own." "I am very sorry," she said. I told her she could rest while I applied rag and turpentine to the plague spot on my canvas, and she went off to smoke a cigarette and look over the illustrations in the Courrier Franais. I did not know whether it was something in the turpentine or a defect in the canvas, but the more I scrubbed the more that gangrene seemed to spread. I worked like a beaver to get it out, and yet the disease appeared to creep from limb to limb of the study before me. Alarmed, I strove to arrest it, but now the colour on the breast changed and the whole figure seemed to absorb the infection as a sponge soaks up water. Vigorously I plied paletteknife, turpentine, and scraper, thinking all the time what a sance I should hold with Duval who had sold me the canvas; but soon I noticed that it was not the canvas which was defective nor yet the colours of Edward. "It must be the turpentine," I thought angrily, "or else my eyes have become so blurred and confused by the afternoon light that I can't see straight." I called Tessie, the model. She came and leaned over my chair blowing rings of smoke into the air. "What have you been doing to it?" she exclaimed "Nothing," I growled, "it must be this turpentine!" "What a horrible colour it is now," she continued. "Do you think my flesh resembles green cheese?" "No, I don't," I said angrily; "did you ever know me to paint like that before?" "No, indeed!" "Well, then!" "It must be the turpentine, or something," she admitted. She slipped on a Japanese robe and walked to the window. I scraped and rubbed until I was tired, and finally picked up my brushes and hurled them through the canvas with a forcible expression, the tone alone of which reached Tessie's ears.
Nevertheless she promptly began "That's it! Swear and act silly and ruin your brushes! You have been three weeks on that study, and now look! What's the good of ripping the canvas? What creatures artists are!" I felt about as much ashamed as I usually did after such an outbreak, and I turned the ruined canvas to the wall. Tessie helped me clean my brushes, and then danced away to dress. From the screen she regaled me with bits of advice concerning whole or partial loss of temper, until, thinking, perhaps, I had been tormented sufficiently, she came out to implore me to button her waist where she could not reach it on the shoulder. "Everything went wrong from the time you came back from the window and talked about that horridlooking man you saw in the churchyard," she announced. "Yes, he probably bewitched the picture," I said, yawning. I looked at my watch. "It's after six, I know," said Tessie, adjusting her hat before the mirror. "Yes," I replied, "I didn't mean to keep you so long." I leaned out of the window but recoiled with disgust, for the young man with the pasty face stood below in the churchyard. Tessie saw my gesture of disapproval and leaned from the window. "Is that the man you don't like?" she whispered. I nodded. "I can't see his face, but he does look fat and soft. Someway or other," she continued, turning to look at me, "he reminds me of a dream,an awful dream I once had. Or," she mused, looking down at her shapely shoes, "was it a dream after all?" "How should I know?" I smiled. Tessie smiled in reply. "You were in it," she said, "so perhaps you might know something about it." "Tessie! Tessie!" I protested, "don't you dare flatter by saying that you dream about me!" "But I did," she insisted; "shall I tell you about it?" "Go ahead," I replied, lighting a cigarette. Tessie leaned back on the open windowsill and began very seriously. "One night last winter I was lying in bed thinking about nothing at all in particular. I had been posing for you and I was tired out, yet it seemed impossible for me to sleep. I heard the bells in the city ring ten, eleven, and midnight. I must have fallen asleep about midnight because I don't remember hearing the bells after that. It seemed to me that I had scarcely closed my eyes when I dreamed that something impelled me to go to the window. I rose, and raising the sash leaned out. Twentyfifth Street was deserted as far as I could see. I began to be afraid; everything outside seemed soso black and uncomfortable. Then the sound of wheels in the distance came to my ears, and it seemed to me as though that was what I must wait for. Very slowly the wheels approached, and, finally, I could make out a vehicle moving along the street. It came nearer and nearer, and when it passed beneath my window I saw it was a hearse. Then, as I trembled with fear, the driver turned and looked straight at me. When I awoke I was standing by the open window shivering with cold, but the blackplumed hearse and the driver were gone. I dreamed this dream again in March last, and again awoke beside the open window. Last night the dream came again. You remember how it was raining; when I awoke, standing at the open window, my nightdress was soaked." "But where did I come into the dream?" I asked. "Youyou were in the coffin; but you were not dead." "In the coffin?" "Yes." "How did you know? Could you see me?" "No; I only knew you were there." "Had you been eating Welsh rarebits, or lobster salad?" I began, laughing, but the girl interrupted me with a frightened cry. "Hello! What's up?" I said, as she shrank into the embrasure by the window. "Thethe man below in the churchyard;he drove the hearse." "Nonsense," I said, but Tessie's eyes were wide with terror. I went to the window and looked out. The man was gone. "Come, Tessie," I urged, "don't be foolish. You have posed too long; you are nervous." "Do you think I could forget that face?" she murmured. "Three times I saw the hearse pass below my window, and every time the driver turned and looked up at me. Oh, his face was so white andand soft? It looked deadit looked as if it had been dead a long time." I induced the girl to sit down and swallow a glass of Marsala. Then I sat down beside her, and tried to give her some advice. "Look here, Tessie," I said, "you go to the country for a week or two, and you'll have no more dreams about hearses. You pose all day, and when night comes your nerves are upset. You can't keep this up. Then again, instead of going to bed when your day's work is done, you run off to picnics at Sulzer's Park, or go to the Eldorado or Coney Island, and when you come down here next morning you are fagged out. There was no real hearse. There was a softshell crab dream." She smiled faintly. "What about the man in the churchyard?" "Oh, he's only an ordinary unhealthy, everyday creature." "As true as my name is Tessie Reardon, I swear to you, Mr. Scott, that the face of the man below in the churchyard is the face of the man who drove the hearse!" "What of it?" I said. "It's an honest trade." "Then you think I did see the hearse?" "Oh," I said diplomatically, "if you really did, it might not be unlikely that the man below drove it. There is nothing in that." Tessie rose, unrolled her scented handkerchief, and taking a bit of gum from a knot in the hem, placed it in her mouth. Then drawing on her gloves she offered me her hand, with a frank, "Goodnight, Mr. Scott," and walked out. II The next morning, Thomas, the bellboy, brought me the Herald and a bit of news. The church next door had been sold. I thanked Heaven for it, not that being a Catholic I had any repugnance for the congregation next door, but because my nerves were shattered by a blatant exhorter, whose every word echoed through the aisle of the church as if it had been my own rooms, and who insisted on his r's with a nasal persistence which revolted my every instinct. Then, too, there was a fiend in human shape, an organist, who reeled off some of the grand old hymns with an interpretation of his own, and I longed for the blood of a creature who could play the doxology with an amendment of minor chords which one hears only in a quartet of very young undergraduates. I believe the minister was a good man, but when he bellowed "And the Lorrrrd said unto Moses, the Lorrrd is a man of war; the Lorrrd is his name. My wrath shall wax hot and I will kill you with the sworrrrd!" I wondered how many centuries of purgatory it would take to atone for such a sin. "Who bought the property?" I asked Thomas. "Nobody that I knows, sir. They do say the gent wot owns this 'ere 'Amilton flats was lookin' at it. 'E might be a bildin' more studios." I walked to the window. The young man with the unhealthy face stood by the churchyard gate, and at the mere sight of him the same overwhelming repugnance took possession of me. "By the way, Thomas," I said, "who is that fellow down there?" Thomas sniffed. "That there worm, sir? 'Es nightwatchman of the church, sir. 'E maikes me tired asittin' out all night on them steps and lookin' at you insultin' like. I'd a punched 'is 'ed, sirbeg pardon, sir" "Go on, Thomas." "One night a comin' 'ome with 'Arry, the other English boy, I sees 'im a sittin' there on them steps. We 'ad Molly and Jen with us, sir, the two girls on the tray service, an' 'e looks so insultin' at us that I up and sez 'Wat you looking hat, you fat slug?'beg pardon, sir, but that's 'ow I sez, sir. Then 'e don't say nothin' and I sez 'Come out and I'll punch that puddin' 'ed.' Then I hopens the gate an' goes in, but 'e don't say nothin', only looks insultin' like. Then I 'its 'im one, but, ugh! 'is 'ed was that cold and mushy it ud sicken you to touch 'im." "What did he do then?" I asked curiously. "'Im? Nawthin'." "And you, Thomas?" The young fellow flushed with embarrassment and smiled uneasily. "Mr. Scott, sir, I ain't no coward, an' I can't make it out at all why I run. I was in the 5th Lawncers, sir, bugler at TelelKebir, an' was shot by the wells." "You don't mean to say you ran away?" "Yes, sir; I run." "Why?" "That's just what I want to know, sir. I grabbed Molly an' run, an' the rest was as frightened as I." "But what were they frightened at?" Thomas refused to answer for a while, but now my curiosity was aroused about the repulsive young man below and I pressed him. Three years' sojourn in America had not only modified Thomas' cockney dialect but had given him the American's fear of ridicule. "You won't believe me, Mr. Scott, sir?" "Yes, I will." "You will lawf at me, sir?" "Nonsense!" He hesitated. "Well, sir, it's Gawd's truth that when I 'it 'im 'e grabbed me wrists, sir, and when I twisted 'is soft, mushy fist one of 'is fingers come off in me 'and." The utter loathing and horror of Thomas' face must have been reflected in my own, for he added "It's orful, an' now when I see 'im I just go away. 'E maikes me hill." When Thomas had gone I went to the window. The man stood beside the churchrailing with both hands on the gate, but I hastily retreated to my easel again, sickened and horrified, for I saw that the middle finger of his right hand was missing. At nine o'clock Tessie appeared and vanished behind the screen with a merry "Good morning, Mr. Scott." When she had reappeared and taken her pose upon the modelstand I started a new canvas, much to her delight. She remained silent as long as I was on the drawing, but as soon as the scrape of the charcoal ceased and I took up my fixative she began to chatter. "Oh, I had such a lovely time last night. We went to Tony Pastor's." "Who are 'we'?" I demanded. "Oh, Maggie, you know, Mr. Whyte's model, and Pinkie McCormickwe call her Pinkie because she's got that beautiful red hair you artists like so muchand Lizzie Burke." I sent a shower of spray from the fixative over the canvas, and said "Well, go on." "We saw Kelly and Baby Barnes the skirtdancer andand all the rest. I made a mash." "Then you have gone back on me, Tessie?" She laughed and shook her head. "He's Lizzie Burke's brother, Ed. He's a perfect gen'l'man." I felt constrained to give her some parental advice concerning mashing, which she took with a bright smile. "Oh, I can take care of a strange mash," she said, examining her chewing gum, "but Ed is different. Lizzie is my best friend." Then she related how Ed had come back from the stocking mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, to find her and Lizzie grown up, and what an accomplished young man he was, and how he thought nothing of squandering halfadollar for icecream and oysters to celebrate his entry as clerk into the woollen department of Macy's. Before she finished I began to paint, and she resumed the pose, smiling and chattering like a sparrow. By noon I had the study fairly well rubbed in and Tessie came to look at it. "That's better," she said. I thought so too, and ate my lunch with a satisfied feeling that all was going well. Tessie spread her lunch on a drawing table opposite me and we drank our claret from the same bottle and lighted our cigarettes from the same match. I was very much attached to Tessie. I had watched her shoot up into a slender but exquisitely formed woman from a frail, awkward child. She had posed for me during the last three years, and among all my models she was my favourite. It would have troubled me very much indeed had she become "tough" or "fly," as the phrase goes, but I never noticed any deterioration of her manner, and felt at heart that she was all right. She and I never discussed morals at all, and I had no intention of doing so, partly because I had none myself, and partly because I knew she would do what she liked in spite of me. Still I did hope she would steer clear of complications, because I wished her well, and then also I had a selfish desire to retain the best model I had. I knew that mashing, as she termed it, had no significance with girls like Tessie, and that such things in America did not resemble in the least the same things in Paris. Yet, having lived with my eyes open, I also knew that somebody would take Tessie away some day, in one manner or another, and though I professed to myself that marriage was nonsense, I sincerely hoped that, in this case, there would be a priest at the end of the vista. I am a Catholic. When I listen to high mass, when I sign myself, I feel that everything, including myself, is more cheerful, and when I confess, it does me good. A man who lives as much alone as I do, must confess to somebody. Then, again, Sylvia was Catholic, and it was reason enough for me. But I was speaking of Tessie, which is very different. Tessie also was Catholic and much more devout than I, so, taking it all in all, I had little fear for my pretty model until she should fall in love. But then I knew that fate alone would decide her future for her, and I prayed inwardly that fate would keep her away from men like me and throw into her path nothing but Ed Burkes and Jimmy McCormicks, bless her sweet face! Tessie sat blowing rings of smoke up to the ceiling and tinkling the ice in her tumbler. "Do you know that I also had a dream last night?" I observed. "Not about that man," she laughed. "Exactly. A dream similar to yours, only much worse." It was foolish and thoughtless of me to say this, but you know how little tact the average painter has. "I must have fallen asleep about ten o'clock," I continued, "and after a while I dreamt that I awoke. So plainly did I hear the midnight bells, the wind in the treebranches, and the whistle of steamers from the bay, that even now I can scarcely believe I was not awake. I seemed to be lying in a box which had a glass cover. Dimly I saw the street lamps as I passed, for I must tell you, Tessie, the box in which I reclined appeared to lie in a cushioned wagon which jolted me over a stony pavement. After a while I became impatient and tried to move, but the box was too narrow. My hands were crossed on my breast, so I could not raise them to help myself. I listened and then tried to call. My voice was gone. I could hear the trample of the horses attached to the wagon, and even the breathing of the driver. Then another sound broke upon my ears like the raising of a window sash. I managed to turn my head a little, and found I could look, not only through the glass cover of my box, but also through the glass panes in the side of the covered vehicle. I saw houses, empty and silent, with neither light nor life about any of them excepting one. In that house a window was open on the first floor, and a figure all in white stood looking down into the street. It was you." Tessie had turned her face away from me and leaned on the table with her elbow. "I could see your face," I resumed, "and it seemed to me to be very sorrowful. Then we passed on and turned into a narrow black lane. Presently the horses stopped. I waited and waited, closing my eyes with fear and impatience, but all was silent as the grave. After what seemed to me hours, I began to feel uncomfortable. A sense that somebody was close to me made me unclose my eyes. Then I saw the white face of the hearsedriver looking at me through the coffinlid" A sob from Tessie interrupted me. She was trembling like a leaf. I saw I had made an ass of myself and attempted to repair the damage. "Why, Tess," I said, "I only told you this to show you what influence your story might have on another person's dreams. You don't suppose I really lay in a coffin, do you? What are you trembling for? Don't you see that your dream and my unreasonable dislike for that inoffensive watchman of the church simply set my brain working as soon as I fell asleep?" She laid her head between her arms, and sobbed as if her heart would break. What a precious triple donkey I had made of myself! But I was about to break my record. I went over and put my arm about her. "Tessie dear, forgive me," I said; "I had no business to frighten you with such nonsense. You are too sensible a girl, too good a Catholic to believe in dreams." Her hand tightened on mine and her head fell back upon my shoulder, but she still trembled and I petted her and comforted her. "Come, Tess, open your eyes and smile." Her eyes opened with a slow languid movement and met mine, but their expression was so queer that I hastened to reassure her again. "It's all humbug, Tessie; you surely are not afraid that any harm will come to you because of that." "No," she said, but her scarlet lips quivered. "Then, what's the matter? Are you afraid?" "Yes. Not for myself." "For me, then?" I demanded gaily. "For you," she murmured in a voice almost inaudible. "II care for you." At first I started to laugh, but when I understood her, a shock passed through me, and I sat like one turned to stone. This was the crowning bit of idiocy I had committed. During the moment which elapsed between her reply and my answer I thought of a thousand responses to that innocent confession. I could pass it by with a laugh, I could misunderstand her and assure her as to my health, I could simply point out that it was impossible she could love me. But my reply was quicker than my thoughts, and I might think and think now when it was too late, for I had kissed her on the mouth. That evening I took my usual walk in Washington Park, pondering over the occurrences of the day. I was thoroughly committed. There was no back out now, and I stared the future straight in the face. I was not good, not even scrupulous, but I had no idea of deceiving either myself or Tessie. The one passion of my life lay buried in the sunlit forests of Brittany. Was it buried for ever? Hope cried "No!" For three years I had been listening to the voice of Hope, and for three years I had waited for a footstep on my threshold. Had Sylvia forgotten? "No!" cried Hope. I said that I was no good. That is true, but still I was not exactly a comic opera villain. I had led an easygoing reckless life, taking what invited me of pleasure, deploring and sometimes bitterly regretting consequences. In one thing alone, except my painting, was I serious, and that was something which lay hidden if not lost in the Breton forests. It was too late for me to regret what had occurred during the day. Whatever it had been, pity, a sudden tenderness for sorrow, or the more brutal instinct of gratified vanity, it was all the same now, and unless I wished to bruise an innocent heart, my path lay marked before me. The fire and strength, the depth of passion of a love which I had never even suspected, with all my imagined experience in the world, left me no alternative but to respond or send her away. Whether because I am so cowardly about giving pain to others, or whether it was that I have little of the gloomy Puritan in me, I do not know, but I shrank from disclaiming responsibility for that thoughtless kiss, and in fact had no time to do so before the gates of her heart opened and the flood poured forth. Others who habitually do their duty and find a sullen satisfaction in making themselves and everybody else unhappy, might have withstood it. I did not. I dared not. After the storm had abated I did tell her that she might better have loved Ed Burke and worn a plain gold ring, but she would not hear of it, and I thought perhaps as long as she had decided to love somebody she could not marry, it had better be me. I, at least, could treat her with an intelligent affection, and whenever she became tired of her infatuation she could go none the worse for it. For I was decided on that point although I knew how hard it would be. I remembered the usual termination of Platonic liaisons, and thought how disgusted I had been whenever I heard of one. I knew I was undertaking a great deal for so unscrupulous a man as I was, and I dreamed the future, but never for one moment did I doubt that she was safe with me. Had it been anybody but Tessie I should not have bothered my head about scruples. For it did not occur to me to sacrifice Tessie as I would have sacrificed a woman of the world. I looked the future squarely in the face and saw the several probable endings to the affair. She would either tire of the whole thing, or become so unhappy that I should have either to marry her or go away. If I married her we would be unhappy. I with a wife unsuited to me, and she with a husband unsuitable for any woman. For my past life could scarcely entitle me to marry. If I went away she might either fall ill, recover, and marry some Eddie Burke, or she might recklessly or deliberately go and do something foolish. On the other hand, if she tired of me, then her whole life would be before her with beautiful vistas of Eddie Burkes and marriage rings and twins and Harlem flats and Heaven knows what. As I strolled along through the trees by the Washington Arch, I decided that she should find a substantial friend in me, anyway, and the future could take care of itself. Then I went into the house and put on my evening dress, for the little faintlyperfumed note on my dresser said, "Have a cab at the stage door at eleven," and the note was signed "Edith Carmichel, Metropolitan Theatre." I took supper that night, or rather we took supper, Miss Carmichel and I, at Solari's, and the dawn was just beginning to gild the cross on the Memorial Church as I entered Washington Square after leaving Edith at the Brunswick. There was not a soul in the park as I passed along the trees and took the walk which leads from the Garibaldi statue to the Hamilton Apartment House, but as I passed the churchyard I saw a figure sitting on the stone steps. In spite of myself a chill crept over me at the sight of the white puffy face, and I hastened to pass. Then he said something which might have been addressed to me or might merely have been a mutter to himself, but a sudden furious anger flamed up within me that such a creature should address me. For an instant I felt like wheeling about and smashing my stick over his head, but I walked on, and entering the Hamilton went to my apartment. For some time I tossed about the bed trying to get the sound of his voice out of my ears, but could not. It filled my head, that muttering sound, like thick oily smoke from a fatrendering vat or an odour of noisome decay. And as I lay and tossed about, the voice in my ears seemed more distinct, and I began to understand the words he had muttered. They came to me slowly as if I had forgotten them, and at last I could make some sense out of the sounds. It was this "Have you found the Yellow Sign?" "Have you found the Yellow Sign?" "Have you found the Yellow Sign?" I was furious. What did he mean by that? Then with a curse upon him and his I rolled over and went to sleep, but when I awoke later I looked pale and haggard, for I had dreamed the dream of the night before, and it troubled me more than I cared to think. I dressed and went down into my studio. Tessie sat by the window, but as I came in she rose and put both arms around my neck for an innocent kiss. She looked so sweet and dainty that I kissed her again and then sat down before the easel. "Hello! Where's the study I began yesterday?" I asked. Tessie looked conscious, but did not answer. I began to hunt among the piles of canvases, saying, "Hurry up, Tess, and get ready; we must take advantage of the morning light." When at last I gave up the search among the other canvases and turned to look around the room for the missing study I noticed Tessie standing by the screen with her clothes still on. "What's the matter," I asked, "don't you feel well?" "Yes." "Then hurry." "Do you want me to pose asas I have always posed?" Then I understood. Here was a new complication. I had lost, of course, the best nude model I had ever seen. I looked at Tessie. Her face was scarlet. Alas! Alas! We had eaten of the tree of knowledge, and Eden and native innocence were dreams of the pastI mean for her. I suppose she noticed the disappointment on my face, for she said "I will pose if you wish. The study is behind the screen here where I put it." "No," I said, "we will begin something new;" and I went into my wardrobe and picked out a Moorish costume which fairly blazed with tinsel. It was a genuine costume, and Tessie retired to the screen with it enchanted. When she came forth again I was astonished. Her long black hair was bound above her forehead with a circlet of turquoises, and the ends, curled about her glittering girdle. Her feet were encased in the embroidered pointed slippers and the skirt of her costume, curiously wrought with arabesques in silver, fell to her ankles. The deep metallic blue vest embroidered with silver and the short Mauresque jacket spangled and sewn with turquoises became her wonderfully. She came up to me and held up her face smiling. I slipped my hand into my pocket, and drawing out a gold chain with a cross attached, dropped it over her head. "It's yours, Tessie." "Mine?" she faltered. "Yours. Now go and pose," Then with a radiant smile she ran behind the screen and presently reappeared with a little box on which was written my name. "I had intended to give it to you when I went home tonight," she said, "but I can't wait now." I opened the box. On the pink cotton inside lay a clasp of black onyx, on which was inlaid a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neither Arabic nor Chinese, nor, as I found afterwards, did it belong to any human script. "It's all I had to give you for a keepsake," she said timidly. I was annoyed, but I told her how much I should prize it, and promised to wear it always. She fastened it on my coat beneath the lapel. "How foolish, Tess, to go and buy me such a beautiful thing as this," I said. "I did not buy it," she laughed. "Where did you get it?" Then she told me how she had found it one day while coming from the Aquarium in the Battery, how she had advertised it and watched the papers, but at last gave up all hopes of finding the owner. "That was last winter," she said, "the very day I had the first horrid dream about the hearse." I remembered my dream of the previous night but said nothing, and presently my charcoal was flying over a new canvas, and Tessie stood motionless on the modelstand. III The day following was a disastrous one for me. While moving a framed canvas from one easel to another my foot slipped on the polished floor, and I fell heavily on both wrists. They were so badly sprained that it was useless to attempt to hold a brush, and I was obliged to wander about the studio, glaring at unfinished drawings and sketches, until despair seized me and I sat down to smoke and twiddle my thumbs with rage. The rain blew against the windows and rattled on the roof of the church, driving me into a nervous fit with its interminable patter. Tessie sat sewing by the window, and every now and then raised her head and looked at me with such innocent compassion that I began to feel ashamed of my irritation and looked about for something to occupy me. I had read all the papers and all the books in the library, but for the sake of something to do I went to the bookcases and shoved them open with my elbow. I knew every volume by its colour and examined them all, passing slowly around the library and whistling to keep up my spirits. I was turning to go into the diningroom when my eye fell upon a book bound in serpent skin, standing in a corner of the top shelf of the last bookcase. I did not remember it, and from the floor could not decipher the pale lettering on the back, so I went to the smokingroom and called Tessie. She came in from the studio and climbed up to reach the book. "What is it?" I asked. "The King in Yellow." I was dumfounded. Who had placed it there? How came it in my rooms? I had long ago decided that I should never open that book, and nothing on earth could have persuaded me to buy it. Fearful lest curiosity might tempt me to open it, I had never even looked at it in bookstores. If I ever had had any curiosity to read it, the awful tragedy of young Castaigne, whom I knew, prevented me from exploring its wicked pages. I had always refused to listen to any description of it, and indeed, nobody ever ventured to discuss the second part aloud, so I had absolutely no knowledge of what those leaves might reveal. I stared at the poisonous mottled binding as I would at a snake. "Don't touch it, Tessie," I said; "come down." Of course my admonition was enough to arouse her curiosity, and before I could prevent it she took the book and, laughing, danced off into the studio with it. I called to her, but she slipped away with a tormenting smile at my helpless hands, and I followed her with some impatience. "Tessie!" I cried, entering the library, "listen, I am serious. Put that book away. I do not wish you to open it!" The library was empty. I went into both drawingrooms, then into the bedrooms, laundry, kitchen, and finally returned to the library and began a systematic search. She had hidden herself so well that it was halfanhour later when I discovered her crouching white and silent by the latticed window in the storeroom above. At the first glance I saw she had been punished for her foolishness. The King in Yellow lay at her feet, but the book was open at the second part. I looked at Tessie and saw it was too late. She had opened The King in Yellow. Then I took her by the hand and led her into the studio. She seemed dazed, and when I told her to lie down on the sofa she obeyed me without a word. After a while she closed her eyes and her breathing became regular and deep, but I could not determine whether or not she slept. For a long while I sat silently beside her, but she neither stirred nor spoke, and at last I rose, and, entering the unused storeroom, took the book in my least injured hand. It seemed heavy as lead, but I carried it into the studio again, and sitting down on the rug beside the sofa, opened it and read it through from beginning to end. When, faint with excess of my emotions, I dropped the volume and leaned wearily back against the sofa, Tessie opened her eyes and looked at me.... We had been speaking for some time in a dull monotonous strain before I realized that we were discussing The King in Yellow. Oh the sin of writing such words,words which are clear as crystal, limpid and musical as bubbling springs, words which sparkle and glow like the poisoned diamonds of the Medicis! Oh the wickedness, the hopeless damnation of a soul who could fascinate and paralyze human creatures with such words,words understood by the ignorant and wise alike, words which are more precious than jewels, more soothing than music, more awful than death! We talked on, unmindful of the gathering shadows, and she was begging me to throw away the clasp of black onyx quaintly inlaid with what we now knew to be the Yellow Sign. I never shall know why I refused, though even at this hour, here in my bedroom as I write this confession, I should be glad to know what it was that prevented me from tearing the Yellow Sign from my breast and casting it into the fire. I am sure I wished to do so, and yet Tessie pleaded with me in vain. Night fell and the hours dragged on, but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask, and midnight sounded from the misty spires in the fogwrapped city. We spoke of Hastur and of Cassilda, while outside the fog rolled against the blank windowpanes as the cloud waves roll and break on the shores of Hali. The house was very silent now, and not a sound came up from the misty streets. Tessie lay among the cushions, her face a grey blot in the gloom, but her hands were clasped in mine, and I knew that she knew and read my thoughts as I read hers, for we had understood the mystery of the Hyades and the Phantom of Truth was laid. Then as we answered each other, swiftly, silently, thought on thought, the shadows stirred in the gloom about us, and far in the distant streets we heard a sound.
Nearer and nearer it came, the dull crunching of wheels, nearer and yet nearer, and now, outside before the door it ceased, and I dragged myself to the window and saw a blackplumed hearse. The gate below opened and shut, and I crept shaking to my door and bolted it, but I knew no bolts, no locks, could keep that creature out who was coming for the Yellow Sign. And now I heard him moving very softly along the hall. Now he was at the door, and the bolts rotted at his touch. Now he had entered. With eyes starting from my head I peered into the darkness, but when he came into the room I did not see him. It was only when I felt him envelope me in his cold soft grasp that I cried out and struggled with deadly fury, but my hands were useless and he tore the onyx clasp from my coat and struck me full in the face. Then, as I fell, I heard Tessie's soft cry and her spirit fled and even while falling I longed to follow her, for I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now. I could tell more, but I cannot see what help it will be to the world. As for me, I am past human help or hope. As I lie here, writing, careless even whether or not I die before I finish, I can see the doctor gathering up his powders and phials with a vague gesture to the good priest beside me, which I understand. They will be very curious to know the tragedythey of the outside world who write books and print millions of newspapers, but I shall write no more, and the father confessor will seal my last words with the seal of sanctity when his holy office is done. They of the outside world may send their creatures into wrecked homes and deathsmitten firesides, and their newspapers will batten on blood and tears, but with me their spies must halt before the confessional. They know that Tessie is dead and that I am dying. They know how the people in the house, aroused by an infernal scream, rushed into my room and found one living and two dead, but they do not know what I shall tell them now; they do not know that the doctor said as he pointed to a horrible decomposed heap on the floorthe livid corpse of the watchman from the church "I have no theory, no explanation. That man must have been dead for months!" I think I am dying. I wish the priest would THE DEMOISELLE D'YS "Mais je croy que je Suis descendu on puiz Tnbreux onquel disoit Heraclytus estre Veret cache." "There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not "The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid." I The utter desolation of the scene began to have its effect; I sat down to face the situation and, if possible, recall to mind some landmark which might aid me in extricating myself from my present position. If I could only find the ocean again all would be clear, for I knew one could see the island of Groix from the cliffs. I laid down my gun, and kneeling behind a rock lighted a pipe. Then I looked at my watch. It was nearly four o'clock. I might have wandered far from Kerselec since daybreak. Standing the day before on the cliffs below Kerselec with Goulven, looking out over the sombre moors among which I had now lost my way, these downs had appeared to me level as a meadow, stretching to the horizon, and although I knew how deceptive is distance, I could not realize that what from Kerselec seemed to be mere grassy hollows were great valleys covered with gorse and heather, and what looked like scattered boulders were in reality enormous cliffs of granite. "It's a bad place for a stranger," old Goulven had said "you'd better take a guide;" and I had replied, "I shall not lose myself." Now I knew that I had lost myself, as I sat there smoking, with the seawind blowing in my face. On every side stretched the moorland, covered with flowering gorse and heath and granite boulders. There was not a tree in sight, much less a house. After a while, I picked up the gun, and turning my back on the sun tramped on again. There was little use in following any of the brawling streams which every now and then crossed my path, for, instead of flowing into the sea, they ran inland to reedy pools in the hollows of the moors. I had followed several, but they all led me to swamps or silent little ponds from which the snipe rose peeping and wheeled away in an ecstasy of fright. I began to feel fatigued, and the gun galled my shoulder in spite of the double pads. The sun sank lower and lower, shining level across yellow gorse and the moorland pools. As I walked my own gigantic shadow led me on, seeming to lengthen at every step. The gorse scraped against my leggings, crackled beneath my feet, showering the brown earth with blossoms, and the brake bowed and billowed along my path. From tufts of heath rabbits scurried away through the bracken, and among the swamp grass I heard the wild duck's drowsy quack. Once a fox stole across my path, and again, as I stooped to drink at a hurrying rill, a heron flapped heavily from the reeds beside me. I turned to look at the sun. It seemed to touch the edges of the plain. When at last I decided that it was useless to go on, and that I must make up my mind to spend at least one night on the moors, I threw myself down thoroughly fagged out. The evening sunlight slanted warm across my body, but the seawinds began to rise, and I felt a chill strike through me from my wet shootingboots. High overhead gulls were wheeling and tossing like bits of white paper; from some distant marsh a solitary curlew called. Little by little the sun sank into the plain, and the zenith flushed with the afterglow. I watched the sky change from palest gold to pink and then to smouldering fire. Clouds of midges danced above me, and high in the calm air a bat dipped and soared. My eyelids began to droop. Then as I shook off the drowsiness a sudden crash among the bracken roused me. I raised my eyes. A great bird hung quivering in the air above my face. For an instant I stared, incapable of motion; then something leaped past me in the ferns and the bird rose, wheeled, and pitched headlong into the brake. I was on my feet in an instant peering through the gorse. There came the sound of a struggle from a bunch of heather close by, and then all was quiet. I stepped forward, my gun poised, but when I came to the heather the gun fell under my arm again, and I stood motionless in silent astonishment. A dead hare lay on the ground, and on the hare stood a magnificent falcon, one talon buried in the creature's neck, the other planted firmly on its limp flank. But what astonished me, was not the mere sight of a falcon sitting upon its prey. I had seen that more than once. It was that the falcon was fitted with a sort of leash about both talons, and from the leash hung a round bit of metal like a sleighbell. The bird turned its fierce yellow eyes on me, and then stooped and struck its curved beak into the quarry. At the same instant hurried steps sounded among the heather, and a girl sprang into the covert in front. Without a glance at me she walked up to the falcon, and passing her gloved hand under its breast, raised it from the quarry. Then she deftly slipped a small hood over the bird's head, and holding it out on her gauntlet, stooped and picked up the hare. She passed a cord about the animal's legs and fastened the end of the thong to her girdle. Then she started to retrace her steps through the covert. As she passed me I raised my cap and she acknowledged my presence with a scarcely perceptible inclination. I had been so astonished, so lost in admiration of the scene before my eyes, that it had not occurred to me that here was my salvation. But as she moved away I recollected that unless I wanted to sleep on a windy moor that night I had better recover my speech without delay. At my first word she hesitated, and as I stepped before her I thought a look of fear came into her beautiful eyes. But as I humbly explained my unpleasant plight, her face flushed and she looked at me in wonder. "Surely you did not come from Kerselec!" she repeated. Her sweet voice had no trace of the Breton accent nor of any accent which I knew, and yet there was something in it I seemed to have heard before, something quaint and indefinable, like the theme of an old song. I explained that I was an American, unacquainted with Finistre, shooting there for my own amusement. "An American," she repeated in the same quaint musical tones. "I have never before seen an American." For a moment she stood silent, then looking at me she said. "If you should walk all night you could not reach Kerselec now, even if you had a guide." This was pleasant news. "But," I began, "if I could only find a peasant's hut where I might get something to eat, and shelter." The falcon on her wrist fluttered and shook its head. The girl smoothed its glossy back and glanced at me. "Look around," she said gently. "Can you see the end of these moors? Look, north, south, east, west. Can you see anything but moorland and bracken?" "No," I said. "The moor is wild and desolate. It is easy to enter, but sometimes they who enter never leave it. There are no peasants' huts here." "Well," I said, "if you will tell me in which direction Kerselec lies, tomorrow it will take me no longer to go back than it has to come." She looked at me again with an expression almost like pity. "Ah," she said, "to come is easy and takes hours; to go is differentand may take centuries." I stared at her in amazement but decided that I had misunderstood her. Then before I had time to speak she drew a whistle from her belt and sounded it. "Sit down and rest," she said to me; "you have come a long distance and are tired." She gathered up her pleated skirts and motioning me to follow picked her dainty way through the gorse to a flat rock among the ferns. "They will be here directly," she said, and taking a seat at one end of the rock invited me to sit down on the other edge. The afterglow was beginning to fade in the sky and a single star twinkled faintly through the rosy haze. A long wavering triangle of waterfowl drifted southward over our heads, and from the swamps around plover were calling. "They are very beautifulthese moors," she said quietly. "Beautiful, but cruel to strangers," I answered. "Beautiful and cruel," she repeated dreamily, "beautiful and cruel." "Like a woman," I said stupidly. "Oh," she cried with a little catch in her breath, and looked at me. Her dark eyes met mine, and I thought she seemed angry or frightened. "Like a woman," she repeated under her breath, "How cruel to say so!" Then after a pause, as though speaking aloud to herself, "How cruel for him to say that!" I don't know what sort of an apology I offered for my inane, though harmless speech, but I know that she seemed so troubled about it that I began to think I had said something very dreadful without knowing it, and remembered with horror the pitfalls and snares which the French language sets for foreigners. While I was trying to imagine what I might have said, a sound of voices came across the moor, and the girl rose to her feet. "No," she said, with a trace of a smile on her pale face, "I will not accept your apologies, monsieur, but I must prove you wrong, and that shall be my revenge. Look. Here come Hastur and Raoul." Two men loomed up in the twilight. One had a sack across his shoulders and the other carried a hoop before him as a waiter carries a tray. The hoop was fastened with straps to his shoulders, and around the edge of the circlet sat three hooded falcons fitted with tinkling bells. The girl stepped up to the falconer, and with a quick turn of her wrist transferred her falcon to the hoop, where it quickly sidled off and nestled among its mates, who shook their hooded heads and ruffled their feathers till the belled jesses tinkled again. The other man stepped forward and bowing respectfully took up the hare and dropped it into the gamesack. "These are my piqueurs," said the girl, turning to me with a gentle dignity. "Raoul is a good fauconnier, and I shall some day make him grand veneur. Hastur is incomparable." The two silent men saluted me respectfully. "Did I not tell you, monsieur, that I should prove you wrong?" she continued. "This, then, is my revenge, that you do me the courtesy of accepting food and shelter at my own house." Before I could answer she spoke to the falconers, who started instantly across the heath, and with a gracious gesture to me she followed. I don't know whether I made her understand how profoundly grateful I felt, but she seemed pleased to listen, as we walked over the dewy heather. "Are you not very tired?" she asked. I had clean forgotten my fatigue in her presence, and I told her so. "Don't you think your gallantry is a little oldfashioned?" she said; and when I looked confused and humbled, she added quietly, "Oh, I like it, I like everything oldfashioned, and it is delightful to hear you say such pretty things." The moorland around us was very still now under its ghostly sheet of mist. The plovers had ceased their calling; the crickets and all the little creatures of the fields were silent as we passed, yet it seemed to me as if I could hear them beginning again far behind us. Well in advance, the two tall falconers strode across the heather, and the faint jingling of the hawks' bells came to our ears in distant murmuring chimes. Suddenly a splendid hound dashed out of the mist in front, followed by another and another until halfadozen or more were bounding and leaping around the girl beside me. She caressed and quieted them with her gloved hand, speaking to them in quaint terms which I remembered to have seen in old French manuscripts. Then the falcons on the circlet borne by the falconer ahead began to beat their wings and scream, and from somewhere out of sight the notes of a huntinghorn floated across the moor. The hounds sprang away before us and vanished in the twilight, the falcons flapped and squealed upon their perch, and the girl, taking up the song of the horn, began to hum. Clear and mellow her voice sounded in the night air. "Chasseur, chasseur, chassez encore, Quittez Rosette et Jeanneton, Tonton, tonton, tontaine, tonton, Ou, pour, rabattre, ds l'aurore, Que les Amours soient de planton, Tonton, tontaine, tonton." As I listened to her lovely voice a grey mass which rapidly grew more distinct loomed up in front, and the horn rang out joyously through the tumult of the hounds and falcons. A torch glimmered at a gate, a light streamed through an opening door, and we stepped upon a wooden bridge which trembled under our feet and rose creaking and straining behind us as we passed over the moat and into a small stone court, walled on every side. From an open doorway a man came and, bending in salutation, presented a cup to the girl beside me. She took the cup and touched it with her lips, then lowering it turned to me and said in a low voice, "I bid you welcome." At that moment one of the falconers came with another cup, but before handing it to me, presented it to the girl, who tasted it. The falconer made a gesture to receive it, but she hesitated a moment, and then, stepping forward, offered me the cup with her own hands. I felt this to be an act of extraordinary graciousness, but hardly knew what was expected of me, and did not raise it to my lips at once. The girl flushed crimson. I saw that I must act quickly. "Mademoiselle," I faltered, "a stranger whom you have saved from dangers he may never realize empties this cup to the gentlest and loveliest hostess of France." "In His name," she murmured, crossing herself as I drained the cup. Then stepping into the doorway she turned to me with a pretty gesture and, taking my hand in hers, led me into the house, saying again and again "You are very welcome, indeed you are welcome to the Chteau d'Ys." II I awoke next morning with the music of the horn in my ears, and leaping out of the ancient bed, went to a curtained window where the sunlight filtered through little deepset panes. The horn ceased as I looked into the court below. A man who might have been brother to the two falconers of the night before stood in the midst of a pack of hounds. A curved horn was strapped over his back, and in his hand he held a longlashed whip. The dogs whined and yelped, dancing around him in anticipation; there was the stamp of horses, too, in the walled yard. "Mount!" cried a voice in Breton, and with a clatter of hoofs the two falconers, with falcons upon their wrists, rode into the courtyard among the hounds. Then I heard another voice which sent the blood throbbing through my heart "Piriou Louis, hunt the hounds well and spare neither spur nor whip. Thou Raoul and thou Gaston, see that the epervier does not prove himself niais, and if it be best in your judgment, faites courtoisie l'oiseau. Jardiner un oiseau, like the mu there on Hastur's wrist, is not difficult, but thou, Raoul, mayest not find it so simple to govern that hagard. Twice last week he foamed au vif and lost the beccade although he is used to the leurre. The bird acts like a stupid branchier. Patre un hagard n'est pas si facile." Was I dreaming? The old language of falconry which I had read in yellow manuscriptsthe old forgotten French of the middle ages was sounding in my ears while the hounds bayed and the hawks' bells tinkled accompaniment to the stamping horses. She spoke again in the sweet forgotten language "If you would rather attach the longe and leave thy hagard au bloc, Raoul, I shall say nothing; for it were a pity to spoil so fair a day's sport with an illtrained sors. Essimer abaisser,it is possibly the best way. a lui donnera des reins. I was perhaps hasty with the bird. It takes time to pass la filire and the exercises d'escap." Then the falconer Raoul bowed in his stirrups and replied "If it be the pleasure of Mademoiselle, I shall keep the hawk." "It is my wish," she answered. "Falconry I know, but you have yet to give me many a lesson in Autourserie, my poor Raoul. Sieur Piriou Louis mount!" The huntsman sprang into an archway and in an instant returned, mounted upon a strong black horse, followed by a piqueur also mounted. "Ah!" she cried joyously, "speed Glemarec Ren! speed! speed all! Sound thy horn, Sieur Piriou!" The silvery music of the huntinghorn filled the courtyard, the hounds sprang through the gateway and galloping hoofbeats plunged out of the paved court; loud on the drawbridge, suddenly muffled, then lost in the heather and bracken of the moors. Distant and more distant sounded the horn, until it became so faint that the sudden carol of a soaring lark drowned it in my ears. I heard the voice below responding to some call from within the house. "I do not regret the chase, I will go another time. Courtesy to the stranger, Pelagie, remember!" And a feeble voice came quavering from within the house, "Courtoisie" I stripped, and rubbed myself from head to foot in the huge earthen basin of icy water which stood upon the stone floor at the foot of my bed. Then I looked about for my clothes. They were gone, but on a settle near the door lay a heap of garments which I inspected with astonishment. As my clothes had vanished, I was compelled to attire myself in the costume which had evidently been placed there for me to wear while my own clothes dried. Everything was there, cap, shoes, and hunting doublet of silvery grey homespun; but the closefitting costume and seamless shoes belonged to another century, and I remembered the strange costumes of the three falconers in the courtyard. I was sure that it was not the modern dress of any portion of France or Brittany; but not until I was dressed and stood before a mirror between the windows did I realize that I was clothed much more like a young huntsman of the middle ages than like a Breton of that day. I hesitated and picked up the cap. Should I go down and present myself in that strange guise? There seemed to be no help for it, my own clothes were gone and there was no bell in the ancient chamber to call a servant; so I contented myself with removing a short hawk's feather from the cap, and, opening the door, went downstairs. By the fireplace in the large room at the foot of the stairs an old Breton woman sat spinning with a distaff. She looked up at me when I appeared, and, smiling frankly, wished me health in the Breton language, to which I laughingly replied in French. At the same moment my hostess appeared and returned my salutation with a grace and dignity that sent a thrill to my heart. Her lovely head with its dark curly hair was crowned with a headdress which set all doubts as to the epoch of my own costume at rest. Her slender figure was exquisitely set off in the homespun huntinggown edged with silver, and on her gauntletcovered wrist she bore one of her petted hawks. With perfect simplicity she took my hand and led me into the garden in the court, and seating herself before a table invited me very sweetly to sit beside her. Then she asked me in her soft quaint accent how I had passed the night, and whether I was very much inconvenienced by wearing the clothes which old Pelagie had put there for me while I slept. I looked at my own clothes and shoes, drying in the sun by the gardenwall, and hated them. What horrors they were compared with the graceful costume which I now wore! I told her this laughing, but she agreed with me very seriously. "We will throw them away," she said in a quiet voice. In my astonishment I attempted to explain that I not only could not think of accepting clothes from anybody, although for all I knew it might be the custom of hospitality in that part of the country, but that I should cut an impossible figure if I returned to France clothed as I was then. She laughed and tossed her pretty head, saying something in old French which I did not understand, and then Pelagie trotted out with a tray on which stood two bowls of milk, a loaf of white bread, fruit, a platter of honeycomb, and a flagon of deep red wine. "You see I have not yet broken my fast because I wished you to eat with me. But I am very hungry," she smiled. "I would rather die than forget one word of what you have said!" I blurted out, while my cheeks burned. "She will think me mad," I added to myself, but she turned to me with sparkling eyes. "Ah!" she murmured. "Then Monsieur knows all that there is of chivalry" She crossed herself and broke bread. I sat and watched her white hands, not daring to raise my eyes to hers. "Will you not eat?" she asked. "Why do you look so troubled?" Ah, why? I knew it now. I knew I would give my life to touch with my lips those rosy palmsI understood now that from the moment when I looked into her dark eyes there on the moor last night I had loved her. My great and sudden passion held me speechless. "Are you ill at ease?" she asked again. Then, like a man who pronounces his own doom, I answered in a low voice "Yes, I am ill at ease for love of you." And as she did not stir nor answer, the same power moved my lips in spite of me and I said, "I, who am unworthy of the lightest of your thoughts, I who abuse hospitality and repay your gentle courtesy with bold presumption, I love you." She leaned her head upon her hands, and answered softly, "I love you. Your words are very dear to me. I love you." "Then I shall win you." "Win me," she replied. But all the time I had been sitting silent, my face turned toward her. She, also silent, her sweet face resting on her upturned palm, sat facing me, and as her eyes looked into mine I knew that neither she nor I had spoken human speech; but I knew that her soul had answered mine, and I drew myself up feeling youth and joyous love coursing through every vein. She, with a bright colour in her lovely face, seemed as one awakened from a dream, and her eyes sought mine with a questioning glance which made me tremble with delight. We broke our fast, speaking of ourselves. I told her my name and she told me hers, the Demoiselle Jeanne d'Ys. She spoke of her father and mother's death, and how the nineteen of her years had been passed in the little fortified farm alone with her nurse Pelagie, Glemarec Ren the piqueur, and the four falconers, Raoul, Gaston, Hastur, and the Sieur Piriou Louis, who had served her father. She had never been outside the moorlandnever even had seen a human soul before, except the falconers and Pelagie. She did not know how she had heard of Kerselec; perhaps the falconers had spoken of it. She knew the legends of Loup Garou and Jeanne la Flamme from her nurse Pelagie. She embroidered and spun flax. Her hawks and hounds were her only distraction. When she had met me there on the moor she had been so frightened that she almost dropped at the sound of my voice. She had, it was true, seen ships at sea from the cliffs, but as far as the eye could reach the moors over which she galloped were destitute of any sign of human life. There was a legend which old Pelagie told, how anybody once lost in the unexplored moorland might never return, because the moors were enchanted. She did not know whether it was true, she never had thought about it until she met me. She did not know whether the falconers had even been outside, or whether they could go if they would. The books in the house which Pelagie, the nurse, had taught her to read were hundreds of years old. All this she told me with a sweet seriousness seldom seen in any one but children. My own name she found easy to pronounce, and insisted, because my first name was Philip, I must have French blood in me. She did not seem curious to learn anything about the outside world, and I thought perhaps she considered it had forfeited her interest and respect from the stories of her nurse. We were still sitting at the table, and she was throwing grapes to the small field birds which came fearlessly to our very feet. I began to speak in a vague way of going, but she would not hear of it, and before I knew it I had promised to stay a week and hunt with hawk and hound in their company. I also obtained permission to come again from Kerselec and visit her after my return. "Why," she said innocently, "I do not know what I should do if you never came back;" and I, knowing that I had no right to awaken her with the sudden shock which the avowal of my own love would bring to her, sat silent, hardly daring to breathe. "You will come very often?" she asked. "Very often," I said. "Every day?" "Every day." "Oh," she sighed, "I am very happy. Come and see my hawks." She rose and took my hand again with a childlike innocence of possession, and we walked through the garden and fruit trees to a grassy lawn which was bordered by a brook. Over the lawn were scattered fifteen or twenty stumps of treespartially imbedded in the grassand upon all of these except two sat falcons. They were attached to the stumps by thongs which were in turn fastened with steel rivets to their legs just above the talons. A little stream of pure spring water flowed in a winding course within easy distance of each perch. The birds set up a clamour when the girl appeared, but she went from one to another, caressing some, taking others for an instant upon her wrist, or stooping to adjust their jesses. "Are they not pretty?" she said. "See, here is a falcongentil. We call it 'ignoble,' because it takes the quarry in direct chase. This is a blue falcon. In falconry we call it 'noble' because it rises over the quarry, and wheeling, drops upon it from above. This white bird is a gerfalcon from the north. It is also 'noble!' Here is a merlin, and this tiercelet is a falconheroner." I asked her how she had learned the old language of falconry. She did not remember, but thought her father must have taught it to her when she was very young. Then she led me away and showed me the young falcons still in the nest. "They are termed niais in falconry," she explained. "A branchier is the young bird which is just able to leave the nest and hop from branch to branch. A young bird which has not yet moulted is called a sors, and a mu is a hawk which has moulted in captivity. When we catch a wild falcon which has changed its plumage we term it a hagard. Raoul first taught me to dress a falcon. Shall I teach you how it is done?" She seated herself on the bank of the stream among the falcons and I threw myself at her feet to listen. Then the Demoiselle d'Ys held up one rosytipped finger and began very gravely. "First one must catch the falcon." "I am caught," I answered. She laughed very prettily and told me my dressage would perhaps be difficult, as I was noble. "I am already tamed," I replied; "jessed and belled." She laughed, delighted. "Oh, my brave falcon; then you will return at my call?" "I am yours," I answered gravely. She sat silent for a moment. Then the colour heightened in her cheeks and she held up her finger again, saying, "Listen; I wish to speak of falconry" "I listen, Countess Jeanne d'Ys." But again she fell into the reverie, and her eyes seemed fixed on something beyond the summer clouds. "Philip," she said at last. "Jeanne," I whispered. "That is all,that is what I wished," she sighed,"Philip and Jeanne." She held her hand toward me and I touched it with my lips. "Win me," she said, but this time it was the body and soul which spoke in unison. After a while she began again "Let us speak of falconry." "Begin," I replied; "we have caught the falcon." Then Jeanne d'Ys took my hand in both of hers and told me how with infinite patience the young falcon was taught to perch upon the wrist, how little by little it became used to the belled jesses and the chaperon cornette. "They must first have a good appetite," she said; "then little by little I reduce their nourishment; which in falconry we call pt. When, after many nights passed au bloc as these birds are now, I prevail upon the hagard to stay quietly on the wrist, then the bird is ready to be taught to come for its food. I fix the pt to the end of a thong, or leurre, and teach the bird to come to me as soon as I begin to whirl the cord in circles about my head. At first I drop the pt when the falcon comes, and he eats the food on the ground. After a little he will learn to seize the leurre in motion as I whirl it around my head or drag it over the ground. After this it is easy to teach the falcon to strike at game, always remembering to 'faire courtoisie l'oiseau', that is, to allow the bird to taste the quarry." A squeal from one of the falcons interrupted her, and she arose to adjust the longe which had become whipped about the bloc, but the bird still flapped its wings and screamed. "What is the matter?" she said. "Philip, can you see?" I looked around and at first saw nothing to cause the commotion, which was now heightened by the screams and flapping of all the birds. Then my eye fell upon the flat rock beside the stream from which the girl had risen. A grey serpent was moving slowly across the surface of the boulder, and the eyes in its flat triangular head sparkled like jet. "A couleuvre," she said quietly. "It is harmless, is it not?" I asked. She pointed to the black Vshaped figure on the neck. "It is certain death," she said; "it is a viper." We watched the reptile moving slowly over the smooth rock to where the sunlight fell in a broad warm patch. I started forward to examine it, but she clung to my arm crying, "Don't, Philip, I am afraid." "For me?" "For you, Philip,I love you." Then I took her in my arms and kissed her on the lips, but all I could say was "Jeanne, Jeanne, Jeanne." And as she lay trembling on my breast, something struck my foot in the grass below, but I did not heed it. Then again something struck my ankle, and a sharp pain shot through me.
I looked into the sweet face of Jeanne d'Ys and kissed her, and with all my strength lifted her in my arms and flung her from me. Then bending, I tore the viper from my ankle and set my heel upon its head. I remember feeling weak and numb,I remember falling to the ground. Through my slowly glazing eyes I saw Jeanne's white face bending close to mine, and when the light in my eyes went out I still felt her arms about my neck, and her soft cheek against my drawn lips. When I opened my eyes, I looked around in terror. Jeanne was gone. I saw the stream and the flat rock; I saw the crushed viper in the grass beside me, but the hawks and blocs had disappeared. I sprang to my feet. The garden, the fruit trees, the drawbridge and the walled court were gone. I stared stupidly at a heap of crumbling ruins, ivycovered and grey, through which great trees had pushed their way. I crept forward, dragging my numbed foot, and as I moved, a falcon sailed from the treetops among the ruins, and soaring, mounting in narrowing circles, faded and vanished in the clouds above. "Jeanne, Jeanne," I cried, but my voice died on my lips, and I fell on my knees among the weeds. And as God willed it, I, not knowing, had fallen kneeling before a crumbling shrine carved in stone for our Mother of Sorrows. I saw the sad face of the Virgin wrought in the cold stone. I saw the cross and thorns at her feet, and beneath it I read "PRAY FOR THE SOUL OF THE DEMOISELLE JEANNE D'Ys, WHO DIED IN HER YOUTH FOR LOVE OF PHILIP, A STRANGER. A.D. 1573." But upon the icy slab lay a woman's glove still warm and fragrant. THE PROPHETS' PARADISE "If but the Vine and Love Abjuring Band Are in the Prophets' Paradise to stand, Alack, I doubt the Prophets' Paradise, Were empty as the hollow of one's hand." THE STUDIO He smiled, saying, "Seek her throughout the world." I said, "Why tell me of the world? My world is here, between these walls and the sheet of glass above; here among gilded flagons and dull jewelled arms, tarnished frames and canvasses, black chests and highbacked chairs, quaintly carved and stained in blue and gold." "For whom do you wait?" he said, and I answered, "When she comes I shall know her." On my hearth a tongue of flame whispered secrets to the whitening ashes. In the street below I heard footsteps, a voice, and a song. "For whom then do you wait?" he said, and I answered, "I shall know her." Footsteps, a voice, and a song in the street below, and I knew the song but neither the steps nor the voice. "Fool!" he cried, "the song is the same, the voice and steps have but changed with years!" On the hearth a tongue of flame whispered above the whitening ashes "Wait no more; they have passed, the steps and the voice in the street below." Then he smiled, saying, "For whom do you wait? Seek her throughout the world!" I answered, "My world is here, between these walls and the sheet of glass above; here among gilded flagons and dull jewelled arms, tarnished frames and canvasses, black chests and highbacked chairs, quaintly carved and stained in blue and gold." THE PHANTOM The Phantom of the Past would go no further. "If it is true," she sighed, "that you find in me a friend, let us turn back together. You will forget, here, under the summer sky." I held her close, pleading, caressing; I seized her, white with anger, but she resisted. "If it is true," she sighed, "that you find in me a friend, let us turn back together." The Phantom of the Past would go no further. THE SACRIFICE I went into a field of flowers, whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold. Far afield a woman cried, "I have killed him I loved!" and from a jar she poured blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold. Far afield I followed, and on the jar I read a thousand names, while from within the fresh blood bubbled to the brim. "I have killed him I loved!" she cried. "The world's athirst; now let it drink!" She passed, and far afield I watched her pouring blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold. DESTINY I came to the bridge which few may pass. "Pass!" cried the keeper, but I laughed, saying, "There is time;" and he smiled and shut the gates. To the bridge which few may pass came young and old. All were refused. Idly I stood and counted them, until, wearied of their noise and lamentations, I came again to the bridge which few may pass. Those in the throng about the gates shrieked out, "He comes too late!" But I laughed, saying, "There is time." "Pass!" cried the keeper as I entered; then smiled and shut the gates. THE THRONG There, where the throng was thickest in the street, I stood with Pierrot. All eyes were turned on me. "What are they laughing at?" I asked, but he grinned, dusting the chalk from my black cloak. "I cannot see; it must be something droll, perhaps an honest thief!" All eyes were turned on me. "He has robbed you of your purse!" they laughed. "My purse!" I cried; "Pierrothelp! it is a thief!" They laughed "He has robbed you of your purse!" Then Truth stepped out, holding a mirror. "If he is an honest thief," cried Truth, "Pierrot shall find him with this mirror!" but he only grinned, dusting the chalk from my black cloak. "You see," he said, "Truth is an honest thief, she brings you back your mirror." All eyes were turned on me. "Arrest Truth!" I cried, forgetting it was not a mirror but a purse I lost, standing with Pierrot, there, where the throng was thickest in the street. THE JESTER "Was she fair?" I asked, but he only chuckled, listening to the bells jingling on his cap. "Stabbed," he tittered. "Think of the long journey, the days of peril, the dreadful nights! Think how he wandered, for her sake, year after year, through hostile lands, yearning for kith and kin, yearning for her!" "Stabbed," he tittered, listening to the bells jingling on his cap. "Was she fair?" I asked, but he only snarled, muttering to the bells jingling on his cap. "She kissed him at the gate," he tittered, "but in the hall his brother's welcome touched his heart." "Was she fair?" I asked. "Stabbed," he chuckled. "Think of the long journey, the days of peril, the dreadful nights! Think how he wandered, for her sake, year after year through hostile lands, yearning for kith and kin, yearning for her!" "She kissed him at the gate, but in the hall his brother's welcome touched his heart." "Was she fair?" I asked; but he only snarled, listening to the bells jingling in his cap. THE GREEN ROOM The Clown turned his powdered face to the mirror. "If to be fair is to be beautiful," he said, "who can compare with me in my white mask?" "Who can compare with him in his white mask?" I asked of Death beside me. "Who can compare with me?" said Death, "for I am paler still." "You are very beautiful," sighed the Clown, turning his powdered face from the mirror. THE LOVE TEST "If it is true that you love," said Love, "then wait no longer. Give her these jewels which would dishonour her and so dishonour you in loving one dishonoured. If it is true that you love," said Love, "then wait no longer." I took the jewels and went to her, but she trod upon them, sobbing "Teach me to waitI love you!" "Then wait, if it is true," said Love. THE STREET OF THE FOUR WINDS "Ferme tes yeux demi, Croise tes bras sur ton sein, Et de ton cur endormi Chasse jamais tout dessein." "Je chante la nature, Les toiles du soir, les larmes du matin, Les couchers de soleil l'horizon lointain, Le ciel qui parle au cur d'existence future!" I The animal paused on the threshold, interrogative alert, ready for flight if necessary. Severn laid down his palette, and held out a hand of welcome. The cat remained motionless, her yellow eyes fastened upon Severn. "Puss," he said, in his low, pleasant voice, "come in." The tip of her thin tail twitched uncertainly. "Come in," he said again. Apparently she found his voice reassuring, for she slowly settled upon all fours, her eyes still fastened upon him, her tail tucked under her gaunt flanks. He rose from his easel smiling. She eyed him quietly, and when he walked toward her she watched him bend above her without a wince; her eyes followed his hand until it touched her head. Then she uttered a ragged mew. It had long been Severn's custom to converse with animals, probably because he lived so much alone; and now he said, "What's the matter, puss?" Her timid eyes sought his. "I understand," he said gently, "you shall have it at once." Then moving quietly about he busied himself with the duties of a host, rinsed a saucer, filled it with the rest of the milk from the bottle on the windowsill, and kneeling down, crumbled a roll into the hollow of his hand. The creature rose and crept toward the saucer. With the handle of a paletteknife he stirred the crumbs and milk together and stepped back as she thrust her nose into the mess. He watched her in silence. From time to time the saucer clinked upon the tiled floor as she reached for a morsel on the rim; and at last the bread was all gone, and her purple tongue travelled over every unlicked spot until the saucer shone like polished marble. Then she sat up, and coolly turning her back to him, began her ablutions. "Keep it up," said Severn, much interested, "you need it." She flattened one ear, but neither turned nor interrupted her toilet. As the grime was slowly removed Severn observed that nature had intended her for a white cat. Her fur had disappeared in patches, from disease or the chances of war, her tail was bony and her spine sharp. But what charms she had were becoming apparent under vigorous licking, and he waited until she had finished before reopening the conversation. When at last she closed her eyes and folded her forepaws under her breast, he began again very gently "Puss, tell me your troubles." At the sound of his voice she broke into a harsh rumbling which he recognized as an attempt to purr. He bent over to rub her cheek and she mewed again, an amiable inquiring little mew, to which he replied, "Certainly, you are greatly improved, and when you recover your plumage you will be a gorgeous bird." Much flattered, she stood up and marched around and around his legs, pushing her head between them and making pleased remarks, to which he responded with grave politeness. "Now, what sent you here," he said"here into the Street of the Four Winds, and up five flights to the very door where you would be welcome? What was it that prevented your meditated flight when I turned from my canvas to encounter your yellow eyes? Are you a Latin Quarter cat as I am a Latin Quarter man? And why do you wear a rosecoloured flowered garter buckled about your neck?" The cat had climbed into his lap, and now sat purring as he passed his hand over her thin coat. "Excuse me," he continued in lazy soothing tones, harmonizing with her purring, "if I seem indelicate, but I cannot help musing on this rosecoloured garter, flowered so quaintly and fastened with a silver clasp. For the clasp is silver; I can see the mint mark on the edge, as is prescribed by the law of the French Republic. Now, why is this garter woven of rose silk and delicately embroidered,why is this silken garter with its silver clasp about your famished throat? Am I indiscreet when I inquire if its owner is your owner? Is she some aged dame living in memory of youthful vanities, fond, doting on you, decorating you with her intimate personal attire? The circumference of the garter would suggest this, for your neck is thin, and the garter fits you. But then again I noticeI notice most thingsthat the garter is capable of being much enlarged. These small silverrimmed eyelets, of which I count five, are proof of that. And now I observe that the fifth eyelet is worn out, as though the tongue of the clasp were accustomed to lie there. That seems to argue a wellrounded form." The cat curled her toes in contentment. The street was very still outside. He murmured on "Why should your mistress decorate you with an article most necessary to her at all times? Anyway, at most times. How did she come to slip this bit of silk and silver about your neck? Was it the caprice of a moment,when you, before you had lost your pristine plumpness, marched singing into her bedroom to bid her goodmorning? Of course, and she sat up among the pillows, her coiled hair tumbling to her shoulders, as you sprang upon the bed purring 'Goodday, my lady.' Oh, it is very easy to understand," he yawned, resting his head on the back of the chair. The cat still purred, tightening and relaxing her padded claws over his knee. "Shall I tell you all about her, cat? She is very beautifulyour mistress," he murmured drowsily, "and her hair is heavy as burnished gold. I could paint her,not on canvasfor I should need shades and tones and hues and dyes more splendid than the iris of a splendid rainbow. I could only paint her with closed eyes, for in dreams alone can such colours as I need be found. For her eyes, I must have azure from skies untroubled by a cloudthe skies of dreamland. For her lips, roses from the palaces of slumberland, and for her brow, snowdrifts from mountains which tower in fantastic pinnacles to the moons;oh, much higher than our moon here,the crystal moons of dreamland. She isverybeautiful, your mistress." The words died on his lips and his eyelids drooped. The cat, too, was asleep, her cheek turned up upon her wasted flank, her paws relaxed and limp. II "It is fortunate," said Severn, sitting up and stretching, "that we have tided over the dinner hour, for I have nothing to offer you for supper but what may be purchased with one silver franc." The cat on his knee rose, arched her back, yawned, and looked up at him. "What shall it be? A roast chicken with salad? No? Possibly you prefer beef? Of course,and I shall try an egg and some white bread. Now for the wines. Milk for you? Good. I shall take a little water, fresh from the wood," with a motion toward the bucket in the sink. He put on his hat and left the room. The cat followed to the door, and after he had closed it behind him, she settled down, smelling at the cracks, and cocking one ear at every creak from the crazy old building. The door below opened and shut. The cat looked serious, for a moment doubtful, and her ears flattened in nervous expectation. Presently she rose with a jerk of her tail and started on a noiseless tour of the studio. She sneezed at a pot of turpentine, hastily retreating to the table, which she presently mounted, and having satisfied her curiosity concerning a roll of red modelling wax, returned to the door and sat down with her eyes on the crack over the threshold. Then she lifted her voice in a thin plaint. When Severn returned he looked grave, but the cat, joyous and demonstrative, marched around him, rubbing her gaunt body against his legs, driving her head enthusiastically into his hand, and purring until her voice mounted to a squeal. He placed a bit of meat, wrapped in brown paper, upon the table, and with a penknife cut it into shreds. The milk he took from a bottle which had served for medicine, and poured it into the saucer on the hearth. The cat crouched before it, purring and lapping at the same time. He cooked his egg and ate it with a slice of bread, watching her busy with the shredded meat, and when he had finished, and had filled and emptied a cup of water from the bucket in the sink, he sat down, taking her into his lap, where she at once curled up and began her toilet. He began to speak again, touching her caressingly at times by way of emphasis. "Cat, I have found out where your mistress lives. It is not very far away;it is here, under this same leaky roof, but in the north wing which I had supposed was uninhabited. My janitor tells me this. By chance, he is almost sober this evening. The butcher on the rue de Seine, where I bought your meat, knows you, and old Cabane the baker identified you with needless sarcasm. They tell me hard tales of your mistress which I shall not believe. They say she is idle and vain and pleasureloving; they say she is harebrained and reckless. The little sculptor on the ground floor, who was buying rolls from old Cabane, spoke to me tonight for the first time, although we have always bowed to each other. He said she was very good and very beautiful. He has only seen her once, and does not know her name. I thanked him;I don't know why I thanked him so warmly. Cabane said, 'Into this cursed Street of the Four Winds, the four winds blow all things evil.' The sculptor looked confused, but when he went out with his rolls, he said to me, 'I am sure, Monsieur, that she is as good as she is beautiful.'" The cat had finished her toilet, and now, springing softly to the floor, went to the door and sniffed. He knelt beside her, and unclasping the garter held it for a moment in his hands. After a while he said "There is a name engraved upon the silver clasp beneath the buckle. It is a pretty name, Sylvia Elven. Sylvia is a woman's name, Elven is the name of a town. In Paris, in this quarter, above all, in this Street of the Four Winds, names are worn and put away as the fashions change with the seasons. I know the little town of Elven, for there I met Fate face to face and Fate was unkind. But do you know that in Elven Fate had another name, and that name was Sylvia?" He replaced the garter and stood up looking down at the cat crouched before the closed door. "The name of Elven has a charm for me. It tells me of meadows and clear rivers. The name of Sylvia troubles me like perfume from dead flowers." The cat mewed. "Yes, yes," he said soothingly, "I will take you back. Your Sylvia is not my Sylvia; the world is wide and Elven is not unknown. Yet in the darkness and filth of poorer Paris, in the sad shadows of this ancient house, these names are very pleasant to me." He lifted her in his arms and strode through the silent corridors to the stairs. Down five flights and into the moonlit court, past the little sculptor's den, and then again in at the gate of the north wing and up the wormeaten stairs he passed, until he came to a closed door. When he had stood knocking for a long time, something moved behind the door; it opened and he went in. The room was dark. As he crossed the threshold, the cat sprang from his arms into the shadows. He listened but heard nothing. The silence was oppressive and he struck a match. At his elbow stood a table and on the table a candle in a gilded candlestick. This he lighted, then looked around. The chamber was vast, the hangings heavy with embroidery. Over the fireplace towered a carved mantel, grey with the ashes of dead fires. In a recess by the deepset windows stood a bed, from which the bedclothes, soft and fine as lace, trailed to the polished floor. He lifted the candle above his head. A handkerchief lay at his feet. It was faintly perfumed. He turned toward the windows. In front of them was a canap and over it were flung, pellmell, a gown of silk, a heap of lacelike garments, white and delicate as spiders' meshes, long, crumpled gloves, and, on the floor beneath, the stockings, the little pointed shoes, and one garter of rosy silk, quaintly flowered and fitted with a silver clasp. Wondering, he stepped forward and drew the heavy curtains from the bed. For a moment the candle flared in his hand; then his eyes met two other eyes, wide open, smiling, and the candleflame flashed over hair heavy as gold. She was pale, but not as white as he; her eyes were untroubled as a child's; but he stared, trembling from head to foot, while the candle flickered in his hand. At last he whispered "Sylvia, it is I." Again he said, "It is I." Then, knowing that she was dead, he kissed her on the mouth. And through the long watches of the night the cat purred on his knee, tightening and relaxing her padded claws, until the sky paled above the Street of the Four Winds. THE STREET OF THE FIRST SHELL "Be of Good Cheer, the Sullen Month will die, And a young Moon requite us by and by Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan With age and Fast, is fainting from the sky." The room was already dark. The high roofs opposite cut off what little remained of the December daylight. The girl drew her chair nearer the window, and choosing a large needle, threaded it, knotting the thread over her fingers. Then she smoothed the baby garment across her knees, and bending, bit off the thread and drew the smaller needle from where it rested in the hem. When she had brushed away the stray threads and bits of lace, she laid it again over her knees caressingly. Then she slipped the threaded needle from her corsage and passed it through a button, but as the button spun down the thread, her hand faltered, the thread snapped, and the button rolled across the floor. She raised her head. Her eyes were fixed on a strip of waning light above the chimneys. From somewhere in the city came sounds like the distant beating of drums, and beyond, far beyond, a vague muttering, now growing, swelling, rumbling in the distance like the pounding of surf upon the rocks, now like the surf again, receding, growling, menacing. The cold had become intense, a bitter piercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned the slush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound broke sharp and metallicthe clatter of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the rare sound of a human voice. The air was heavy, weighted with the black cold as with a pall. To breathe was painful, to move an effort. In the desolate sky there was something that wearied, in the brooding clouds, something that saddened. It penetrated the freezing city cut by the freezing river, the splendid city with its towers and domes, its quays and bridges and its thousand spires. It entered the squares, it seized the avenues and the palaces, stole across bridges and crept among the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter, grey under the grey of the December sky. Sadness, utter sadness. A fine icy sleet was falling, powdering the pavement with a tiny crystalline dust. It sifted against the windowpanes and drifted in heaps along the sill. The light at the window had nearly failed, and the girl bent low over her work. Presently she raised her head, brushing the curls from her eyes. "Jack?" "Dearest?" "Don't forget to clean your palette." He said, "All right," and picking up the palette, sat down upon the floor in front of the stove. His head and shoulders were in the shadow, but the firelight fell across his knees and glimmered red on the blade of the paletteknife. Full in the firelight beside him stood a colourbox. On the lid was carved, J. TRENT. cole des Beaux Arts. 1870. This inscription was ornamented with an American and a French flag. The sleet blew against the windowpanes, covering them with stars and diamonds, then, melting from the warmer air within, ran down and froze again in fernlike traceries. A dog whined and the patter of small paws sounded on the zinc behind the stove. "Jack, dear, do you think Hercules is hungry?" The patter of paws was redoubled behind the stove. "He's whining," she continued nervously, "and if it isn't because he's hungry it is because" Her voice faltered. A loud humming filled the air, the windows vibrated. "Oh, Jack," she cried, "another" but her voice was drowned in the scream of a shell tearing through the clouds overhead. "That is the nearest yet," she murmured. "Oh, no," he answered cheerfully, "it probably fell way over by Montmartre," and as she did not answer, he said again with exaggerated unconcern, "They wouldn't take the trouble to fire at the Latin Quarter; anyway they haven't a battery that can hurt it." After a while she spoke up brightly "Jack, dear, when are you going to take me to see Monsieur West's statues?" "I will bet," he said, throwing down his palette and walking over to the window beside her, "that Colette has been here today." "Why?" she asked, opening her eyes very wide. Then, "Oh, it's too bad!really, men are tiresome when they think they know everything! And I warn you that if Monsieur West is vain enough to imagine that Colette" From the north another shell came whistling and quavering through the sky, passing above them with longdrawn screech which left the windows singing. "That," he blurted out, "was too near for comfort." They were silent for a while, then he spoke again gaily "Go on, Sylvia, and wither poor West;" but she only sighed, "Oh, dear, I can never seem to get used to the shells." He sat down on the arm of the chair beside her. Her scissors fell jingling to the floor; she tossed the unfinished frock after them, and putting both arms about his neck drew him down into her lap. "Don't go out tonight, Jack." He kissed her uplifted face; "You know I must; don't make it hard for me." "But when I hear the shells andand know you are out in the city" "But they all fall in Montmartre" "They may all fall in the Beaux Arts; you said yourself that two struck the Quai d'Orsay" "Mere accident" "Jack, have pity on me! Take me with you!" "And who will there be to get dinner?" She rose and flung herself on the bed. "Oh, I can't get used to it, and I know you must go, but I beg you not to be late to dinner. If you knew what I suffer! IIcannot help it, and you must be patient with me, dear." He said, "It is as safe there as it is in our own house." She watched him fill for her the alcohol lamp, and when he had lighted it and had taken his hat to go, she jumped up and clung to him in silence. After a moment he said "Now, Sylvia, remember my courage is sustained by yours. Come, I must go!" She did not move, and he repeated "I must go." Then she stepped back and he thought she was going to speak and waited, but she only looked at him, and, a little impatiently, he kissed her again, saying "Don't worry, dearest." When he had reached the last flight of stairs on his way to the street a woman hobbled out of the housekeeper's lodge waving a letter and calling "Monsieur Jack! Monsieur Jack! this was left by Monsieur Fallowby!" He took the letter, and leaning on the threshold of the lodge, read it "Dear Jack, "I believe Braith is dead broke and I'm sure Fallowby is. Braith swears he isn't, and Fallowby swears he is, so you can draw your own conclusions. I've got a scheme for a dinner, and if it works, I will let you fellows in. "Yours faithfully, "WEST. "P.S.Fallowby has shaken Hartman and his gang, thank the Lord! There is something rotten there,or it may be he's only a miser. "P.P.S.I'm more desperately in love than ever, but I'm sure she does not care a straw for me." "All right," said Trent, with a smile, to the concierge; "but tell me, how is Papa Cottard?" The old woman shook her head and pointed to the curtained bed in the lodge. "Pre Cottard!" he cried cheerily, "how goes the wound today?" He walked over to the bed and drew the curtains. An old man was lying among the tumbled sheets. "Better?" smiled Trent. "Better," repeated the man wearily; and, after a pause, "Have you any news, Monsieur Jack?" "I haven't been out today. I will bring you any rumour I may hear, though goodness knows I've got enough of rumours," he muttered to himself. Then aloud "Cheer up; you're looking better." "And the sortie?" "Oh, the sortie, that's for this week. General Trochu sent orders last night." "It will be terrible." "It will be sickening," thought Trent as he went out into the street and turned the corner toward the rue de Seine; "slaughter, slaughter, phew! I'm glad I'm not going." The street was almost deserted. A few women muffled in tattered military capes crept along the frozen pavement, and a wretchedly clad gamin hovered over the sewerhole on the corner of the Boulevard. A rope around his waist held his rags together. From the rope hung a rat, still warm and bleeding. "There's another in there," he yelled at Trent; "I hit him but he got away." Trent crossed the street and asked "How much?" "Two francs for a quarter of a fat one; that's what they give at the St. Germain Market." A violent fit of coughing interrupted him, but he wiped his face with the palm of his hand and looked cunningly at Trent. "Last week you could buy a rat for six francs, but," and here he swore vilely, "the rats have quit the rue de Seine and they kill them now over by the new hospital. I'll let you have this for seven francs; I can sell it for ten in the Isle St. Louis." "You lie," said Trent, "and let me tell you that if you try to swindle anybody in this quarter the people will make short work of you and your rats." He stood a moment eyeing the gamin, who pretended to snivel. Then he tossed him a franc, laughing. The child caught it, and thrusting it into his mouth wheeled about to the sewerhole. For a second he crouched, motionless, alert, his eyes on the bars of the drain, then leaping forward he hurled a stone into the gutter, and Trent left him to finish a fierce grey rat that writhed squealing at the mouth of the sewer. "Suppose Braith should come to that," he thought; "poor little chap;" and hurrying, he turned in the dirty passage des Beaux Arts and entered the third house to the left. "Monsieur is at home," quavered the old concierge. Home? A garret absolutely bare, save for the iron bedstead in the corner and the iron basin and pitcher on the floor. West appeared at the door, winking with much mystery, and motioned Trent to enter. Braith, who was painting in bed to keep warm, looked up, laughed, and shook hands. "Any news?" The perfunctory question was answered as usual by "Nothing but the cannon." Trent sat down on the bed. "Where on earth did you get that?" he demanded, pointing to a halffinished chicken nestling in a washbasin. West grinned. "Are you millionaires, you two? Out with it." Braith, looking a little ashamed, began, "Oh, it's one of West's exploits," but was cut short by West, who said he would tell the story himself. "You see, before the siege, I had a letter of introduction to a 'type' here, a fat banker, GermanAmerican variety. You know the species, I see. Well, of course I forgot to present the letter, but this morning, judging it to be a favourable opportunity, I called on him. "The villain lives in comfort;fires, my boy!fires in the anterooms! The Buttons finally condescends to carry my letter and card up, leaving me standing in the hallway, which I did not like, so I entered the first room I saw and nearly fainted at the sight of a banquet on a table by the fire. Down comes Buttons, very insolent. No, oh, no, his master, 'is not at home, and in fact is too busy to receive letters of introduction just now; the siege, and many business difficulties' "I deliver a kick to Buttons, pick up this chicken from the table, toss my card on to the empty plate, and addressing Buttons as a species of Prussian pig, march out with the honours of war." Trent shook his head. "I forgot to say that Hartman often dines there, and I draw my own conclusions," continued West. "Now about this chicken, half of it is for Braith and myself, and half for Colette, but of course you will help me eat my part because I'm not hungry." "Neither am I," began Braith, but Trent, with a smile at the pinched faces before him, shook his head saying, "What nonsense! You know I'm never hungry!" West hesitated, reddened, and then slicing off Braith's portion, but not eating any himself, said goodnight, and hurried away to number 470 rue Serpente, where lived a pretty girl named Colette, orphan after Sedan, and Heaven alone knew where she got the roses in her cheeks, for the siege came hard on the poor. "That chicken will delight her, but I really believe she's in love with West," said Trent. Then walking over to the bed "See here, old man, no dodging, you know, how much have you left?" The other hesitated and flushed. "Come, old chap," insisted Trent.
Braith drew a purse from beneath his bolster, and handed it to his friend with a simplicity that touched him. "Seven sons," he counted; "you make me tired! Why on earth don't you come to me? I take it dd ill, Braith! How many times must I go over the same thing and explain to you that because I have money it is my duty to share it, and your duty and the duty of every American to share it with me? You can't get a cent, the city's blockaded, and the American Minister has his hands full with all the German riffraff and deuce knows what! Why don't you act sensibly?" "II will, Trent, but it's an obligation that perhaps I can never even in part repay, I'm poor and" "Of course you'll pay me! If I were a usurer I would take your talent for security. When you are rich and famous" "Don't, Trent" "All right, only no more monkey business." He slipped a dozen gold pieces into the purse, and tucking it again under the mattress smiled at Braith. "How old are you?" he demanded. "Sixteen." Trent laid his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder. "I'm twentytwo, and I have the rights of a grandfather as far as you are concerned. You'll do as I say until you're twentyone." "The sige will be over then, I hope," said Braith, trying to laugh, but the prayer in their hearts "How long, O Lord, how long!" was answered by the swift scream of a shell soaring among the stormclouds of that December night. II West, standing in the doorway of a house in the rue Serpentine, was speaking angrily. He said he didn't care whether Hartman liked it or not; he was telling him, not arguing with him. "You call yourself an American!" he sneered; "Berlin and hell are full of that kind of American. You come loafing about Colette with your pockets stuffed with white bread and beef, and a bottle of wine at thirty francs and you can't really afford to give a dollar to the American Ambulance and Public Assistance, which Braith does, and he's half starved!" Hartman retreated to the curbstone, but West followed him, his face like a thundercloud. "Don't you dare to call yourself a countryman of mine," he growled,"no,nor an artist either! Artists don't worm themselves into the service of the Public Defence where they do nothing but feed like rats on the people's food! And I'll tell you now," he continued dropping his voice, for Hartman had started as though stung, "you might better keep away from that Alsatian Brasserie and the smugfaced thieves who haunt it. You know what they do with suspects!" "You lie, you hound!" screamed Hartman, and flung the bottle in his hand straight at West's face. West had him by the throat in a second, and forcing him against the dead wall shook him wickedly. "Now you listen to me," he muttered, through his clenched teeth. "You are already a suspect andI swearI believe you are a paid spy! It isn't my business to detect such vermin, and I don't intend to denounce you, but understand this! Colette don't like you and I can't stand you, and if I catch you in this street again I'll make it somewhat unpleasant. Get out, you sleek Prussian!" Hartman had managed to drag a knife from his pocket, but West tore it from him and hurled him into the gutter. A gamin who had seen this burst into a peal of laughter, which rattled harshly in the silent street. Then everywhere windows were raised and rows of haggard faces appeared demanding to know why people should laugh in the starving city. "Is it a victory?" murmured one. "Look at that," cried West as Hartman picked himself up from the pavement, "look! you miser! look at those faces!" But Hartman gave him a look which he never forgot, and walked away without a word. Trent, who suddenly appeared at the corner, glanced curiously at West, who merely nodded toward his door saying, "Come in; Fallowby's upstairs." "What are you doing with that knife?" demanded Fallowby, as he and Trent entered the studio. West looked at his wounded hand, which still clutched the knife, but saying, "Cut myself by accident," tossed it into a corner and washed the blood from his fingers. Fallowby, fat and lazy, watched him without comment, but Trent, half divining how things had turned, walked over to Fallowby smiling. "I've a bone to pick with you!" he said. "Where is it? I'm hungry," replied Fallowby with affected eagerness, but Trent, frowning, told him to listen. "How much did I advance you a week ago?" "Three hundred and eighty francs," replied the other, with a squirm of contrition. "Where is it?" Fallowby began a series of intricate explanations, which were soon cut short by Trent. "I know; you blew it in;you always blow it in. I don't care a rap what you did before the siege I know you are rich and have a right to dispose of your money as you wish to, and I also know that, generally speaking, it is none of my business. But now it is my business, as I have to supply the funds until you get some more, which you won't until the siege is ended one way or another. I wish to share what I have, but I won't see it thrown out of the window. Oh, yes, of course I know you will reimburse me, but that isn't the question; and, anyway, it's the opinion of your friends, old man, that you will not be worse off for a little abstinence from fleshly pleasures. You are positively a freak in this faminecursed city of skeletons!" "I am rather stout," he admitted. "Is it true you are out of money?" demanded Trent. "Yes, I am," sighed the other. "That roast sucking pig on the rue St. Honor,is it there yet?" continued Trent. "What?" stammered the feeble one. "AhI thought so! I caught you in ecstasy before that sucking pig at least a dozen times!" Then laughing, he presented Fallowby with a roll of twenty franc pieces saying "If these go for luxuries you must live on your own flesh," and went over to aid West, who sat beside the washbasin binding up his hand. West suffered him to tie the knot, and then said "You remember, yesterday, when I left you and Braith to take the chicken to Colette." "Chicken! Good heavens!" moaned Fallowby. "Chicken," repeated West, enjoying Fallowby's grief;"Ithat is, I must explain that things are changed. Colette and Iare to be married" "Whatwhat about the chicken?" groaned Fallowby. "Shut up!" laughed Trent, and slipping his arm through West's, walked to the stairway. "The poor little thing," said West, "just think, not a splinter of firewood for a week and wouldn't tell me because she thought I needed it for my clay figure. Whew! When I heard it I smashed that smirking clay nymph to pieces, and the rest can freeze and be hanged!" After a moment he added timidly "Won't you call on your way down and say bon soir? It's No. 17." "Yes," said Trent, and he went out softly closing the door behind. He stopped on the third landing, lighted a match, scanned the numbers over the row of dingy doors, and knocked at No. 17. "C'est toi Georges?" The door opened. "Oh, pardon, Monsieur Jack, I thought it was Monsieur West," then blushing furiously, "Oh, I see you have heard! Oh, thank you so much for your wishes, and I'm sure we love each other very much,and I'm dying to see Sylvia and tell her and" "And what?" laughed Trent. "I am very happy," she sighed. "He's pure gold," returned Trent, and then gaily "I want you and George to come and dine with us tonight. It's a little treat,you see tomorrow is Sylvia's fte. She will be nineteen. I have written to Thorne, and the Guernalecs will come with their cousin Odile. Fallowby has engaged not to bring anybody but himself." The girl accepted shyly, charging him with loads of loving messages to Sylvia, and he said goodnight. He started up the street, walking swiftly, for it was bitter cold, and cutting across the rue de la Lune he entered the rue de Seine. The early winter night had fallen, almost without warning, but the sky was clear and myriads of stars glittered in the heavens. The bombardment had become furiousa steady rolling thunder from the Prussian cannon punctuated by the heavy shocks from Mont Valrien. The shells streamed across the sky leaving trails like shooting stars, and now, as he turned to look back, rockets blue and red flared above the horizon from the Fort of Issy, and the Fortress of the North flamed like a bonfire. "Good news!" a man shouted over by the Boulevard St. Germain. As if by magic the streets were filled with people,shivering, chattering people with shrunken eyes. "Jacques!" cried one. "The Army of the Loire!" "Eh! mon vieux, it has come then at last! I told thee! I told thee! Tomorrowtonightwho knows?" "Is it true? Is it a sortie?" Some one said "Oh, Goda sortieand my son?" Another cried "To the Seine? They say one can see the signals of the Army of the Loire from the Pont Neuf." There was a child standing near Trent who kept repeating "Mamma, Mamma, then tomorrow we may eat white bread?" and beside him, an old man swaying, stumbling, his shrivelled hands crushed to his breast, muttering as if insane. "Could it be true? Who has heard the news? The shoemaker on the rue de Buci had it from a Mobile who had heard a Franctireur repeat it to a captain of the National Guard." Trent followed the throng surging through the rue de Seine to the river. Rocket after rocket clove the sky, and now, from Montmartre, the cannon clanged, and the batteries on Montparnasse joined in with a crash. The bridge was packed with people. Trent asked "Who has seen the signals of the Army of the Loire?" "We are waiting for them," was the reply. He looked toward the north. Suddenly the huge silhouette of the Arc de Triomphe sprang into black relief against the flash of a cannon. The boom of the gun rolled along the quay and the old bridge vibrated. Again over by the Point du Jour a flash and heavy explosion shook the bridge, and then the whole eastern bastion of the fortifications blazed and crackled, sending a red flame into the sky. "Has any one seen the signals yet?" he asked again. "We are waiting," was the reply. "Yes, waiting," murmured a man behind him, "waiting, sick, starved, freezing, but waiting. Is it a sortie? They go gladly. Is it to starve? They starve. They have no time to think of surrender. Are they heroes,these Parisians? Answer me, Trent!" The American Ambulance surgeon turned about and scanned the parapets of the bridge. "Any news, Doctor," asked Trent mechanically. "News?" said the doctor; "I don't know any;I haven't time to know any. What are these people after?" "They say that the Army of the Loire has signalled Mont Valrien." "Poor devils." The doctor glanced about him for an instant, and then "I'm so harried and worried that I don't know what to do. After the last sortie we had the work of fifty ambulances on our poor little corps. Tomorrow there's another sortie, and I wish you fellows could come over to headquarters. We may need volunteers. How is madame?" he added abruptly. "Well," replied Trent, "but she seems to grow more nervous every day. I ought to be with her now." "Take care of her," said the doctor, then with a sharp look at the people "I can't stop nowgoodnight!" and he hurried away muttering, "Poor devils!" Trent leaned over the parapet and blinked at the black river surging through the arches. Dark objects, carried swiftly on the breast of the current, struck with a grinding tearing noise against the stone piers, spun around for an instant, and hurried away into the darkness. The ice from the Marne. As he stood staring into the water, a hand was laid on his shoulder. "Hello, Southwark!" he cried, turning around; "this is a queer place for you!" "Trent, I have something to tell you. Don't stay here,don't believe in the Army of the Loire" and the attach of the American Legation slipped his arm through Trent's and drew him toward the Louvre. "Then it's another lie!" said Trent bitterly. "Worsewe know at the LegationI can't speak of it. But that's not what I have to say. Something happened this afternoon. The Alsatian Brasserie was visited and an American named Hartman has been arrested. Do you know him?" "I know a German who calls himself an American;his name is Hartman." "Well, he was arrested about two hours ago. They mean to shoot him." "What!" "Of course we at the Legation can't allow them to shoot him offhand, but the evidence seems conclusive." "Is he a spy?" "Well, the papers seized in his rooms are pretty damning proofs, and besides he was caught, they say, swindling the Public Food Committee. He drew rations for fifty, how, I don't know. He claims to be an American artist here, and we have been obliged to take notice of it at the Legation. It's a nasty affair." "To cheat the people at such a time is worse than robbing the poorbox," cried Trent angrily. "Let them shoot him!" "He's an American citizen." "Yes, oh yes," said the other with bitterness. "American citizenship is a precious privilege when every goggleeyed German" His anger choked him. Southwark shook hands with him warmly. "It can't be helped, we must own the carrion. I am afraid you may be called upon to identify him as an American artist," he said with a ghost of a smile on his deeplined face; and walked away through the Cours la Reine. Trent swore silently for a moment and then drew out his watch. Seven o'clock. "Sylvia will be anxious," he thought, and hurried back to the river. The crowd still huddled shivering on the bridge, a sombre pitiful congregation, peering out into the night for the signals of the Army of the Loire and their hearts beat time to the pounding of the guns, their eyes lighted with each flash from the bastions, and hope rose with the drifting rockets. A black cloud hung over the fortifications. From horizon to horizon the cannon smoke stretched in wavering bands, now capping the spires and domes with cloud, now blowing in streamers and shreds along the streets, now descending from the housetops, enveloping quays, bridges, and river, in a sulphurous mist. And through the smoke pall the lightning of the cannon played, while from time to time a rift above showed a fathomless black vault set with stars. He turned again into the rue de Seine, that sad abandoned street, with its rows of closed shutters and desolate ranks of unlighted lamps. He was a little nervous and wished once or twice for a revolver, but the slinking forms which passed him in the darkness were too weak with hunger to be dangerous, he thought, and he passed on unmolested to his doorway. But there somebody sprang at his throat. Over and over the icy pavement he rolled with his assailant, tearing at the noose about his neck, and then with a wrench sprang to his feet. "Get up," he cried to the other. Slowly and with great deliberation, a small gamin picked himself out of the gutter and surveyed Trent with disgust. "That's a nice clean trick," said Trent; "a whelp of your age! You'll finish against a dead wall! Give me that cord!" The urchin handed him the noose without a word. Trent struck a match and looked at his assailant. It was the ratkiller of the day before. "H'm! I thought so," he muttered. "Tiens, c'est toi?" said the gamin tranquilly. The impudence, the overpowering audacity of the ragamuffin took Trent's breath away. "Do you know, you young strangler," he gasped, "that they shoot thieves of your age?" The child turned a passionless face to Trent. "Shoot, then." That was too much, and he turned on his heel and entered his hotel. Groping up the unlighted stairway, he at last reached his own landing and felt about in the darkness for the door. From his studio came the sound of voices, West's hearty laugh and Fallowby's chuckle, and at last he found the knob and, pushing back the door, stood a moment confused by the light. "Hello, Jack!" cried West, "you're a pleasant creature, inviting people to dine and letting them wait. Here's Fallowby weeping with hunger" "Shut up," observed the latter, "perhaps he's been out to buy a turkey." "He's been out garroting, look at his noose!" laughed Guernalec. "So now we know where you get your cash!" added West; "vive le coup du Pre Franois!" Trent shook hands with everybody and laughed at Sylvia's pale face. "I didn't mean to be late; I stopped on the bridge a moment to watch the bombardment. Were you anxious, Sylvia?" She smiled and murmured, "Oh, no!" but her hand dropped into his and tightened convulsively. "To the table!" shouted Fallowby, and uttered a joyous whoop. "Take it easy," observed Thorne, with a remnant of manners; "you are not the host, you know." Marie Guernalec, who had been chattering with Colette, jumped up and took Thorne's arm and Monsieur Guernalec drew Odile's arm through his. Trent, bowing gravely, offered his own arm to Colette, West took in Sylvia, and Fallowby hovered anxiously in the rear. "You march around the table three times singing the Marseillaise," explained Sylvia, "and Monsieur Fallowby pounds on the table and beats time." Fallowby suggested that they could sing after dinner, but his protest was drowned in the ringing chorus "Aux armes! Formez vos bataillons!" Around the room they marched singing, "Marchons! Marchons!" with all their might, while Fallowby with very bad grace, hammered on the table, consoling himself a little with the hope that the exercise would increase his appetite. Hercules, the black and tan, fled under the bed, from which retreat he yapped and whined until dragged out by Guernalec and placed in Odile's lap. "And now," said Trent gravely, when everybody was seated, "listen!" and he read the menu. Beef Soup la Sige de Paris. Fish. Sardines la pre Lachaise. (White Wine). Rti (Red Wine). Fresh Beef la sortie. Vegetables. Canned Beans la chassepot, Canned Peas Gravelotte, Potatoes Irlandaises, Miscellaneous. Cold Corned Beef la Thieis, Stewed Prunes la Garibaldi. Dessert. Dried prunesWhite bread, Currant Jelly, TeaCaf, Liqueurs, Pipes and Cigarettes. Fallowby applauded frantically, and Sylvia served the soup. "Isn't it delicious?" sighed Odile. Marie Guernalec sipped her soup in rapture. "Not at all like horse, and I don't care what they say, horse doesn't taste like beef," whispered Colette to West. Fallowby, who had finished, began to caress his chin and eye the tureen. "Have some more, old chap?" inquired Trent. "Monsieur Fallowby cannot have any more," announced Sylvia; "I am saving this for the concierge." Fallowby transferred his eyes to the fish. The sardines, hot from the grille, were a great success. While the others were eating Sylvia ran downstairs with the soup for the old concierge and her husband, and when she hurried back, flushed and breathless, and had slipped into her chair with a happy smile at Trent, that young man arose, and silence fell over the table. For an instant he looked at Sylvia and thought he had never seen her so beautiful. "You all know," he began, "that today is my wife's nineteenth birthday" Fallowby, bubbling with enthusiasm, waved his glass in circles about his head to the terror of Odile and Colette, his neighbours, and Thorne, West and Guernalec refilled their glasses three times before the storm of applause which the toast of Sylvia had provoked, subsided. Three times the glasses were filled and emptied to Sylvia, and again to Trent, who protested. "This is irregular," he cried, "the next toast is to the twin Republics, France and America?" "To the Republics! To the Republics!" they cried, and the toast was drunk amid shouts of "Vive la France! Vive l'Amrique! Vive la Nation!" Then Trent, with a smile at West, offered the toast, "To a Happy Pair!" and everybody understood, and Sylvia leaned over and kissed Colette, while Trent bowed to West. The beef was eaten in comparative calm, but when it was finished and a portion of it set aside for the old people below, Trent cried "Drink to Paris! May she rise from her ruins and crush the invader!" and the cheers rang out, drowning for a moment the monotonous thunder of the Prussian guns. Pipes and cigarettes were lighted, and Trent listened an instant to the animated chatter around him, broken by ripples of laughter from the girls or the mellow chuckle of Fallowby. Then he turned to West. "There is going to be a sortie tonight," he said. "I saw the American Ambulance surgeon just before I came in and he asked me to speak to you fellows. Any aid we can give him will not come amiss." Then dropping his voice and speaking in English, "As for me, I shall go out with the ambulance tomorrow morning. There is of course no danger, but it's just as well to keep it from Sylvia." West nodded. Thorne and Guernalec, who had heard, broke in and offered assistance, and Fallowby volunteered with a groan. "All right," said Trent rapidly,"no more now, but meet me at Ambulance headquarters tomorrow morning at eight." Sylvia and Colette, who were becoming uneasy at the conversation in English, now demanded to know what they were talking about. "What does a sculptor usually talk about?" cried West, with a laugh. Odile glanced reproachfully at Thorne, her fianc. "You are not French, you know, and it is none of your business, this war," said Odile with much dignity. Thorne looked meek, but West assumed an air of outraged virtue. "It seems," he said to Fallowby, "that a fellow cannot discuss the beauties of Greek sculpture in his mother tongue, without being openly suspected." Colette placed her hand over his mouth and turning to Sylvia, murmured, "They are horridly untruthful, these men." "I believe the word for ambulance is the same in both languages," said Marie Guernalec saucily; "Sylvia, don't trust Monsieur Trent." "Jack," whispered Sylvia, "promise me" A knock at the studio door interrupted her. "Come in!" cried Fallowby, but Trent sprang up, and opening the door, looked out. Then with a hasty excuse to the rest, he stepped into the hallway and closed the door. When he returned he was grumbling. "What is it, Jack?" cried West. "What is it?" repeated Trent savagely; "I'll tell you what it is. I have received a dispatch from the American Minister to go at once and identify and claim, as a fellowcountryman and a brother artist, a rascally thief and a German spy!" "Don't go," suggested Fallowby. "If I don't they'll shoot him at once." "Let them," growled Thorne. "Do you fellows know who it is?" "Hartman!" shouted West, inspired. Sylvia sprang up deathly white, but Odile slipped her arm around her and supported her to a chair, saying calmly, "Sylvia has fainted,it's the hot room,bring some water." Trent brought it at once. Sylvia opened her eyes, and after a moment rose, and supported by Marie Guernalec and Trent, passed into the bedroom. It was the signal for breaking up, and everybody came and shook hands with Trent, saying they hoped Sylvia would sleep it off and that it would be nothing. When Marie Guernalec took leave of him, she avoided his eyes, but he spoke to her cordially and thanked her for her aid. "Anything I can do, Jack?" inquired West, lingering, and then hurried downstairs to catch up with the rest. Trent leaned over the banisters, listening to their footsteps and chatter, and then the lower door banged and the house was silent. He lingered, staring down into the blackness, biting his lips; then with an impatient movement, "I am crazy!" he muttered, and lighting a candle, went into the bedroom. Sylvia was lying on the bed. He bent over her, smoothing the curly hair on her forehead. "Are you better, dear Sylvia?" She did not answer, but raised her eyes to his. For an instant he met her gaze, but what he read there sent a chill to his heart and he sat down covering his face with his hands. At last she spoke in a voice, changed and strained,a voice which he had never heard, and he dropped his hands and listened, bolt upright in his chair. "Jack, it has come at last. I have feared it and trembled,ah! how often have I lain awake at night with this on my heart and prayed that I might die before you should ever know of it! For I love you, Jack, and if you go away I cannot live. I have deceived you;it happened before I knew you, but since that first day when you found me weeping in the Luxembourg and spoke to me, Jack, I have been faithful to you in every thought and deed. I loved you from the first, and did not dare to tell you thisfearing that you would go away; and since then my love has growngrownand oh! I suffered!but I dared not tell you. And now you know, but you do not know the worst. For himnowwhat do I care? He was crueloh, so cruel!" She hid her face in her arms. "Must I go on? Must I tell youcan you not imagine, oh! Jack" He did not stir; his eyes seemed dead. "II was so young, I knew nothing, and he saidsaid that he loved me" Trent rose and struck the candle with his clenched fist, and the room was dark. The bells of St. Sulpice tolled the hour, and she started up, speaking with feverish haste,"I must finish! When you told me you loved meyouyou asked me nothing; but then, even then, it was too late, and that other life which binds me to him, must stand for ever between you and me! For there is another whom he has claimed, and is good to. He must not die,they cannot shoot him, for that other's sake!" Trent sat motionless, but his thoughts ran on in an interminable whirl. Sylvia, little Sylvia, who shared with him his student life,who bore with him the dreary desolation of the siege without complaint,this slender blueeyed girl whom he was so quietly fond of, whom he teased or caressed as the whim suited, who sometimes made him the least bit impatient with her passionate devotion to him,could this be the same Sylvia who lay weeping there in the darkness? Then he clinched his teeth. "Let him die! Let him die!"but then,for Sylvia's sake, and,for that other's sake,Yes, he would go,he must go,his duty was plain before him. But Sylvia,he could not be what he had been to her, and yet a vague terror seized him, now all was said. Trembling, he struck a light. She lay there, her curly hair tumbled about her face, her small white hands pressed to her breast. He could not leave her, and he could not stay. He never knew before that he loved her. She had been a mere comrade, this girl wife of his. Ah! he loved her now with all his heart and soul, and he knew it, only when it was too late. Too late? Why? Then he thought of that other one, binding her, linking her forever to the creature, who stood in danger of his life. With an oath he sprang to the door, but the door would not open,or was it that he pressed it back,locked it,and flung himself on his knees beside the bed, knowing that he dared not for his life's sake leave what was his all in life. III It was four in the morning when he came out of the Prison of the Condemned with the Secretary of the American Legation. A knot of people had gathered around the American Minister's carriage, which stood in front of the prison, the horses stamping and pawing in the icy street, the coachman huddled on the box, wrapped in furs. Southwark helped the Secretary into the carriage, and shook hands with Trent, thanking him for coming. "How the scoundrel did stare," he said; "your evidence was worse than a kick, but it saved his skin for the moment at least,and prevented complications." The Secretary sighed. "We have done our part. Now let them prove him a spy and we wash our hands of him. Jump in, Captain! Come along, Trent!" "I have a word to say to Captain Southwark, I won't detain him," said Trent hastily, and dropping his voice, "Southwark, help me now. You know the story from the blackguard. You know thethe child is at his rooms. Get it, and take it to my own apartment, and if he is shot, I will provide a home for it." "I understand," said the Captain gravely. "Will you do this at once?" "At once," he replied. Their hands met in a warm clasp, and then Captain Southwark climbed into the carriage, motioning Trent to follow; but he shook his head saying, "Goodbye!" and the carriage rolled away. He watched the carriage to the end of the street, then started toward his own quarter, but after a step or two hesitated, stopped, and finally turned away in the opposite direction. Somethingperhaps it was the sight of the prisoner he had so recently confronted nauseated him. He felt the need of solitude and quiet to collect his thoughts. The events of the evening had shaken him terribly, but he would walk it off, forget, bury everything, and then go back to Sylvia. He started on swiftly, and for a time the bitter thoughts seemed to fade, but when he paused at last, breathless, under the Arc de Triomphe, the bitterness and the wretchedness of the whole thingyes, of his whole misspent life came back with a pang. Then the face of the prisoner, stamped with the horrible grimace of fear, grew in the shadows before his eyes. Sick at heart he wandered up and down under the great Arc, striving to occupy his mind, peering up at the sculptured cornices to read the names of the heroes and battles which he knew were engraved there, but always the ashen face of Hartman followed him, grinning with terror!or was it terror?was it not triumph?At the thought he leaped like a man who feels a knife at his throat, but after a savage tramp around the square, came back again and sat down to battle with his misery. The air was cold, but his cheeks were burning with angry shame. Shame? Why? Was it because he had married a girl whom chance had made a mother? Did he love her? Was this miserable bohemian existence, then, his end and aim in life? He turned his eyes upon the secrets of his heart, and read an evil story,the story of the past, and he covered his face for shame, while, keeping time to the dull pain throbbing in his head, his heart beat out the story for the future. Shame and disgrace. Roused at last from a lethargy which had begun to numb the bitterness of his thoughts, he raised his head and looked about. A sudden fog had settled in the streets; the arches of the Arc were choked with it. He would go home. A great horror of being alone seized him. But he was not alone. The fog was peopled with phantoms. All around him in the mist they moved, drifting through the arches in lengthening lines, and vanished, while from the fog others rose up, swept past and were engulfed. He was not alone, for even at his side they crowded, touched him, swarmed before him, beside him, behind him, pressed him back, seized, and bore him with them through the mist. Down a dim avenue, through lanes and alleys white with fog, they moved, and if they spoke their voices were dull as the vapour which shrouded them. At last in front, a bank of masonry and earth cut by a massive iron barred gate towered up in the fog. Slowly and more slowly they glided, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh. Then all movement ceased. A sudden breeze stirred the fog. It wavered and eddied. Objects became more distinct. A pallor crept above the horizon, touching the edges of the watery clouds, and drew dull sparks from a thousand bayonets. Bayonetsthey were everywhere, cleaving the fog or flowing beneath it in rivers of steel. High on the wall of masonry and earth a great gun loomed, and around it figures moved in silhouettes. Below, a broad torrent of bayonets swept through the iron barred gateway, out into the shadowy plain. It became lighter. Faces grew more distinct among the marching masses and he recognized one. "You, Philippe!" The figure turned its head. Trent cried, "Is there room for me?" but the other only waved his arm in a vague adieu and was gone with the rest. Presently the cavalry began to pass, squadron on squadron, crowding out into the darkness; then many cannon, then an ambulance, then again the endless lines of bayonets. Beside him a cuirassier sat on his steaming horse, and in front, among a group of mounted officers he saw a general, with the astrakan collar of his dolman turned up about his bloodless face. Some women were weeping near him and one was struggling to force a loaf of black bread into a soldier's haversack.
The soldier tried to aid her, but the sack was fastened, and his rifle bothered him, so Trent held it, while the woman unbuttoned the sack and forced in the bread, now all wet with her tears. The rifle was not heavy. Trent found it wonderfully manageable. Was the bayonet sharp? He tried it. Then a sudden longing, a fierce, imperative desire took possession of him. "Chouette!" cried a gamin, clinging to the barred gate, "encore toi mon vieux?" Trent looked up, and the ratkiller laughed in his face. But when the soldier had taken the rifle again, and thanking him, ran hard to catch his battalion, he plunged into the throng about the gateway. "Are you going?" he cried to a marine who sat in the gutter bandaging his foot. "Yes." Then a girla mere childcaught him by the hand and led him into the caf which faced the gate. The room was crowded with soldiers, some, white and silent, sitting on the floor, others groaning on the leathercovered settees. The air was sour and suffocating. "Choose!" said the girl with a little gesture of pity; "they can't go!" In a heap of clothing on the floor he found a capote and kpi. She helped him buckle his knapsack, cartridgebox, and belt, and showed him how to load the chassepot rifle, holding it on her knees. When he thanked her she started to her feet. "You are a foreigner!" "American," he said, moving toward the door, but the child barred his way. "I am a Bretonne. My father is up there with the cannon of the marine. He will shoot you if you are a spy." They faced each other for a moment. Then sighing, he bent over and kissed the child. "Pray for France, little one," he murmured, and she repeated with a pale smile "For France and you, beau Monsieur." He ran across the street and through the gateway. Once outside, he edged into line and shouldered his way along the road. A corporal passed, looked at him, repassed, and finally called an officer. "You belong to the 60th," growled the corporal looking at the number on his kpi. "We have no use for Franctireurs," added the officer, catching sight of his black trousers. "I wish to volunteer in place of a comrade," said Trent, and the officer shrugged his shoulders and passed on. Nobody paid much attention to him, one or two merely glancing at his trousers. The road was deep with slush and mudploughed and torn by wheels and hoofs. A soldier in front of him wrenched his foot in an icy rut and dragged himself to the edge of the embankment groaning. The plain on either side of them was grey with melting snow. Here and there behind dismantled hedgerows stood wagons, bearing white flags with red crosses. Sometimes the driver was a priest in rusty hat and gown, sometimes a crippled Mobile. Once they passed a wagon driven by a Sister of Charity. Silent empty houses with great rents in their walls, and every window blank, huddled along the road. Further on, within the zone of danger, nothing of human habitation remained except here and there a pile of frozen bricks or a blackened cellar choked with snow. For some time Trent had been annoyed by the man behind him, who kept treading on his heels. Convinced at last that it was intentional, he turned to remonstrate and found himself face to face with a fellowstudent from the Beaux Arts. Trent stared. "I thought you were in the hospital!" The other shook his head, pointing to his bandaged jaw. "I see, you can't speak. Can I do anything?" The wounded man rummaged in his haversack and produced a crust of black bread. "He can't eat it, his jaw is smashed, and he wants you to chew it for him," said the soldier next to him. Trent took the crust, and grinding it in his teeth morsel by morsel, passed it back to the starving man. From time to time mounted orderlies sped to the front, covering them with slush. It was a chilly, silent march through sodden meadows wreathed in fog. Along the railroad embankment across the ditch, another column moved parallel to their own. Trent watched it, a sombre mass, now distinct, now vague, now blotted out in a puff of fog. Once for halfanhour he lost it, but when again it came into view, he noticed a thin line detach itself from the flank, and, bellying in the middle, swing rapidly to the west. At the same moment a prolonged crackling broke out in the fog in front. Other lines began to slough off from the column, swinging east and west, and the crackling became continuous. A battery passed at full gallop, and he drew back with his comrades to give it way. It went into action a little to the right of his battalion, and as the shot from the first rifled piece boomed through the mist, the cannon from the fortifications opened with a mighty roar. An officer galloped by shouting something which Trent did not catch, but he saw the ranks in front suddenly part company with his own, and disappear in the twilight. More officers rode up and stood beside him peering into the fog. Away in front the crackling had become one prolonged crash. It was dreary waiting. Trent chewed some bread for the man behind, who tried to swallow it, and after a while shook his head, motioning Trent to eat the rest himself. A corporal offered him a little brandy and he drank it, but when he turned around to return the flask, the corporal was lying on the ground. Alarmed, he looked at the soldier next to him, who shrugged his shoulders and opened his mouth to speak, but something struck him and he rolled over and over into the ditch below. At that moment the horse of one of the officers gave a bound and backed into the battalion, lashing out with his heels. One man was ridden down; another was kicked in the chest and hurled through the ranks. The officer sank his spurs into the horse and forced him to the front again, where he stood trembling. The cannonade seemed to draw nearer. A staffofficer, riding slowly up and down the battalion suddenly collapsed in his saddle and clung to his horse's mane. One of his boots dangled, crimsoned and dripping, from the stirrup. Then out of the mist in front men came running. The roads, the fields, the ditches were full of them, and many of them fell. For an instant he imagined he saw horsemen riding about like ghosts in the vapours beyond, and a man behind him cursed horribly, declaring he too had seen them, and that they were Uhlans; but the battalion stood inactive, and the mist fell again over the meadows. The colonel sat heavily upon his horse, his bulletshaped head buried in the astrakan collar of his dolman, his fat legs sticking straight out in the stirrups. The buglers clustered about him with bugles poised, and behind him a staffofficer in a pale blue jacket smoked a cigarette and chatted with a captain of hussars. From the road in front came the sound of furious galloping and an orderly reined up beside the colonel, who motioned him to the rear without turning his head. Then on the left a confused murmur arose which ended in a shout. A hussar passed like the wind, followed by another and another, and then squadron after squadron whirled by them into the sheeted mists. At that instant the colonel reared in his saddle, the bugles clanged, and the whole battalion scrambled down the embankment, over the ditch and started across the soggy meadow. Almost at once Trent lost his cap. Something snatched it from his head, he thought it was a tree branch. A good many of his comrades rolled over in the slush and ice, and he imagined that they had slipped. One pitched right across his path and he stopped to help him up, but the man screamed when he touched him and an officer shouted, "Forward! Forward!" so he ran on again. It was a long jog through the mist, and he was often obliged to shift his rifle. When at last they lay panting behind the railroad embankment, he looked about him. He had felt the need of action, of a desperate physical struggle, of killing and crushing. He had been seized with a desire to fling himself among masses and tear right and left. He longed to fire, to use the thin sharp bayonet on his chassepot. He had not expected this. He wished to become exhausted, to struggle and cut until incapable of lifting his arm. Then he had intended to go home. He heard a man say that half the battalion had gone down in the charge, and he saw another examining a corpse under the embankment. The body, still warm, was clothed in a strange uniform, but even when he noticed the spiked helmet lying a few inches further away, he did not realize what had happened. The colonel sat on his horse a few feet to the left, his eyes sparkling under the crimson kpi. Trent heard him reply to an officer "I can hold it, but another charge, and I won't have enough men left to sound a bugle." "Were the Prussians here?" Trent asked of a soldier who sat wiping the blood trickling from his hair. "Yes. The hussars cleaned them out. We caught their cross fire." "We are supporting a battery on the embankment," said another. Then the battalion crawled over the embankment and moved along the lines of twisted rails. Trent rolled up his trousers and tucked them into his woollen socks but they halted again, and some of the men sat down on the dismantled railroad track. Trent looked for his wounded comrade from the Beaux Arts. He was standing in his place, very pale. The cannonade had become terrific. For a moment the mist lifted. He caught a glimpse of the first battalion motionless on the railroad track in front, of regiments on either flank, and then, as the fog settled again, the drums beat and the music of the bugles began away on the extreme left. A restless movement passed among the troops, the colonel threw up his arm, the drums rolled, and the battalion moved off through the fog. They were near the front now for the battalion was firing as it advanced. Ambulances galloped along the base of the embankment to the rear, and the hussars passed and repassed like phantoms. They were in the front at last, for all about them was movement and turmoil, while from the fog, close at hand, came cries and groans and crashing volleys. Shells fell everywhere, bursting along the embankment, splashing them with frozen slush. Trent was frightened. He began to dread the unknown, which lay there crackling and flaming in obscurity. The shock of the cannon sickened him. He could even see the fog light up with a dull orange as the thunder shook the earth. It was near, he felt certain, for the colonel shouted "Forward!" and the first battalion was hastening into it. He felt its breath, he trembled, but hurried on. A fearful discharge in front terrified him. Somewhere in the fog men were cheering, and the colonel's horse, streaming with blood plunged about in the smoke. Another blast and shock, right in his face, almost stunned him, and he faltered. All the men to the right were down. His head swam; the fog and smoke stupefied him. He put out his hand for a support and caught something. It was the wheel of a guncarriage, and a man sprang from behind it, aiming a blow at his head with a rammer, but stumbled back shrieking with a bayonet through his neck, and Trent knew that he had killed. Mechanically he stooped to pick up his rifle, but the bayonet was still in the man, who lay, beating with red hands against the sod. It sickened him and he leaned on the cannon. Men were fighting all around him now, and the air was foul with smoke and sweat. Somebody seized him from behind and another in front, but others in turn seized them or struck them solid blows. The click! click! click! of bayonets infuriated him, and he grasped the rammer and struck out blindly until it was shivered to pieces. A man threw his arm around his neck and bore him to the ground, but he throttled him and raised himself on his knees. He saw a comrade seize the cannon, and fall across it with his skull crushed in; he saw the colonel tumble clean out of his saddle into the mud; then consciousness fled. When he came to himself, he was lying on the embankment among the twisted rails. On every side huddled men who cried out and cursed and fled away into the fog, and he staggered to his feet and followed them. Once he stopped to help a comrade with a bandaged jaw, who could not speak but clung to his arm for a time and then fell dead in the freezing mire; and again he aided another, who groaned "Trent, c'est moiPhilippe," until a sudden volley in the midst relieved him of his charge. An icy wind swept down from the heights, cutting the fog into shreds. For an instant, with an evil leer the sun peered through the naked woods of Vincennes, sank like a bloodclot in the battery smoke, lower, lower, into the bloodsoaked plain. IV When midnight sounded from the belfry of St. Sulpice the gates of Paris were still choked with fragments of what had once been an army. They entered with the night, a sullen horde, spattered with slime, faint with hunger and exhaustion. There was little disorder at first, and the throng at the gates parted silently as the troops tramped along the freezing streets. Confusion came as the hours passed. Swiftly and more swiftly, crowding squadron after squadron and battery on battery, horses plunging and caissons jolting, the remnants from the front surged through the gates, a chaos of cavalry and artillery struggling for the right of way. Close upon them stumbled the infantry; here a skeleton of a regiment marching with a desperate attempt at order, there a riotous mob of Mobiles crushing their way to the streets, then a turmoil of horsemen, cannon, troops without, officers, officers without men, then again a line of ambulances, the wheels groaning under their heavy loads. Dumb with misery the crowd looked on. All through the day the ambulances had been arriving, and all day long the ragged throng whimpered and shivered by the barriers. At noon the crowd was increased tenfold, filling the squares about the gates, and swarming over the inner fortifications. At four o'clock in the afternoon the German batteries suddenly wreathed themselves in smoke, and the shells fell fast on Montparnasse. At twenty minutes after four two projectiles struck a house in the rue de Bac, and a moment later the first shell fell in the Latin Quarter. Braith was painting in bed when West came in very much scared. "I wish you would come down; our house has been knocked into a cocked hat, and I'm afraid that some of the pillagers may take it into their heads to pay us a visit tonight." Braith jumped out of bed and bundled himself into a garment which had once been an overcoat. "Anybody hurt?" he inquired, struggling with a sleeve full of dilapidated lining. "No. Colette is barricaded in the cellar, and the concierge ran away to the fortifications. There will be a rough gang there if the bombardment keeps up. You might help us" "Of course," said Braith; but it was not until they had reached the rue Serpente and had turned in the passage which led to West's cellar, that the latter cried "Have you seen Jack Trent, today?" "No," replied Braith, looking troubled, "he was not at Ambulance Headquarters." "He stayed to take care of Sylvia, I suppose." A bomb came crashing through the roof of a house at the end of the alley and burst in the basement, showering the street with slate and plaster. A second struck a chimney and plunged into the garden, followed by an avalanche of bricks, and another exploded with a deafening report in the next street. They hurried along the passage to the steps which led to the cellar. Here again Braith stopped. "Don't you think I had better run up to see if Jack and Sylvia are well entrenched? I can get back before dark." "No. Go in and find Colette, and I'll go." "No, no, let me go, there's no danger." "I know it," replied West calmly; and, dragging Braith into the alley, pointed to the cellar steps. The iron door was barred. "Colette! Colette!" he called. The door swung inward, and the girl sprang up the stairs to meet them. At that instant, Braith, glancing behind him, gave a startled cry, and pushing the two before him into the cellar, jumped down after them and slammed the iron door. A few seconds later a heavy jar from the outside shook the hinges. "They are here," muttered West, very pale. "That door," observed Colette calmly, "will hold for ever." Braith examined the low iron structure, now trembling with the blows rained on it from without. West glanced anxiously at Colette, who displayed no agitation, and this comforted him. "I don't believe they will spend much time here," said Braith; "they only rummage in cellars for spirits, I imagine." "Unless they hear that valuables are buried there." "But surely nothing is buried here?" exclaimed Braith uneasily. "Unfortunately there is," growled West. "That miserly landlord of mine" A crash from the outside, followed by a yell, cut him short; then blow after blow shook the doors, until there came a sharp snap, a clinking of metal and a triangular bit of iron fell inwards, leaving a hole through which struggled a ray of light. Instantly West knelt, and shoving his revolver through the aperture fired every cartridge. For a moment the alley resounded with the racket of the revolver, then absolute silence followed. Presently a single questioning blow fell upon the door, and a moment later another and another, and then a sudden crack zigzagged across the iron plate. "Here," said West, seizing Colette by the wrist, "you follow me, Braith!" and he ran swiftly toward a circular spot of light at the further end of the cellar. The spot of light came from a barred manhole above. West motioned Braith to mount on his shoulders. "Push it over. You must!" With little effort Braith lifted the barred cover, scrambled out on his stomach, and easily raised Colette from West's shoulders. "Quick, old chap!" cried the latter. Braith twisted his legs around a fencechain and leaned down again. The cellar was flooded with a yellow light, and the air reeked with the stench of petroleum torches. The iron door still held, but a whole plate of metal was gone, and now as they looked a figure came creeping through, holding a torch. "Quick!" whispered Braith. "Jump!" and West hung dangling until Colette grasped him by the collar, and he was dragged out. Then her nerves gave way and she wept hysterically, but West threw his arm around her and led her across the gardens into the next street, where Braith, after replacing the manhole cover and piling some stone slabs from the wall over it, rejoined them. It was almost dark. They hurried through the street, now only lighted by burning buildings, or the swift glare of the shells. They gave wide berth to the fires, but at a distance saw the flitting forms of pillagers among the dbris. Sometimes they passed a female fury crazed with drink shrieking anathemas upon the world, or some slouching lout whose blackened face and hands betrayed his share in the work of destruction. At last they reached the Seine and passed the bridge, and then Braith said "I must go back. I am not sure of Jack and Sylvia." As he spoke, he made way for a crowd which came trampling across the bridge, and along the river wall by the d'Orsay barracks. In the midst of it West caught the measured tread of a platoon. A lantern passed, a file of bayonets, then another lantern which glimmered on a deathly face behind, and Colette gasped, "Hartman!" and he was gone. They peered fearfully across the embankment, holding their breath. There was a shuffle of feet on the quay, and the gate of the barracks slammed. A lantern shone for a moment at the postern, the crowd pressed to the grille, then came the clang of the volley from the stone parade. One by one the petroleum torches flared up along the embankment, and now the whole square was in motion. Down from the Champs Elyses and across the Place de la Concorde straggled the fragments of the battle, a company here, and a mob there. They poured in from every street followed by women and children, and a great murmur, borne on the icy wind, swept through the Arc de Triomphe and down the dark avenue,"Perdus! perdus!" A ragged end of a battalion was pressing past, the spectre of annihilation. West groaned. Then a figure sprang from the shadowy ranks and called West's name, and when he saw it was Trent he cried out. Trent seized him, white with terror. "Sylvia?" West stared speechless, but Colette moaned, "Oh, Sylvia! Sylvia!and they are shelling the Quarter!" "Trent!" shouted Braith; but he was gone, and they could not overtake him. The bombardment ceased as Trent crossed the Boulevard St. Germain, but the entrance to the rue de Seine was blocked by a heap of smoking bricks. Everywhere the shells had torn great holes in the pavement. The caf was a wreck of splinters and glass, the bookstore tottered, ripped from roof to basement, and the little bakery, long since closed, bulged outward above a mass of slate and tin. He climbed over the steaming bricks and hurried into the rue de Tournon. On the corner a fire blazed, lighting up his own street, and on the bank wall, beneath a shattered gas lamp, a child was writing with a bit of cinder. "HERE FELL THE FIRST SHELL." The letters stared him in the face. The ratkiller finished and stepped back to view his work, but catching sight of Trent's bayonet, screamed and fled, and as Trent staggered across the shattered street, from holes and crannies in the ruins fierce women fled from their work of pillage, cursing him. At first he could not find his house, for the tears blinded him, but he felt along the wall and reached the door. A lantern burned in the concierge's lodge and the old man lay dead beside it. Faint with fright he leaned a moment on his rifle, then, snatching the lantern, sprang up the stairs. He tried to call, but his tongue hardly moved. On the second floor he saw plaster on the stairway, and on the third the floor was torn and the concierge lay in a pool of blood across the landing. The next floor was his, theirs. The door hung from its hinges, the walls gaped. He crept in and sank down by the bed, and there two arms were flung around his neck, and a tearstained face sought his own. "Sylvia!" "O Jack! Jack! Jack!" From the tumbled pillow beside them a child wailed. "They brought it; it is mine," she sobbed. "Ours," he whispered, with his arms around them both. Then from the stairs below came Braith's anxious voice. "Trent! Is all well?" THE STREET OF OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS "Et tout les jours passs dans la tristesse Nous sont compts comme des jours heureux!" I The street is not fashionable, neither is it shabby. It is a pariah among streetsa street without a Quarter. It is generally understood to lie outside the pale of the aristocratic Avenue de l'Observatoire. The students of the Montparnasse Quarter consider it swell and will have none of it. The Latin Quarter, from the Luxembourg, its northern frontier, sneers at its respectability and regards with disfavour the correctly costumed students who haunt it. Few strangers go into it. At times, however, the Latin Quarter students use it as a thoroughfare between the rue de Rennes and the Bullier, but except for that and the weekly afternoon visits of parents and guardians to the Convent near the rue Vavin, the street of Our Lady of the Fields is as quiet as a Passy boulevard. Perhaps the most respectable portion lies between the rue de la Grande Chaumire and the rue Vavin, at least this was the conclusion arrived at by the Reverend Joel Byram, as he rambled through it with Hastings in charge. To Hastings the street looked pleasant in the bright June weather, and he had begun to hope for its selection when the Reverend Byram shied violently at the cross on the Convent opposite. "Jesuits," he muttered. "Well," said Hastings wearily, "I imagine we won't find anything better. You say yourself that vice is triumphant in Paris, and it seems to me that in every street we find Jesuits or something worse." After a moment he repeated, "Or something worse, which of course I would not notice except for your kindness in warning me." Dr. Byram sucked in his lips and looked about him. He was impressed by the evident respectability of the surroundings. Then frowning at the Convent he took Hastings' arm and shuffled across the street to an iron gateway which bore the number 201 bis painted in white on a blue ground. Below this was a notice printed in English 1.For Porter please oppress once. 2.For Servant please oppress twice. 3.For Parlour please oppress thrice. Hastings touched the electric button three times, and they were ushered through the garden and into the parlour by a trim maid. The diningroom door, just beyond, was open, and from the table in plain view a stout woman hastily arose and came toward them. Hastings caught a glimpse of a young man with a big head and several snuffy old gentlemen at breakfast, before the door closed and the stout woman waddled into the room, bringing with her an aroma of coffee and a black poodle. "It ees a plaisir to you receive!" she cried. "Monsieur is Anglish? No? Americain? Off course. My pension it ees for Americains surtout. Here all spik Angleesh, c'est dire, ze personnel; ze sairvants do spik, plus ou moins, a little. I am happy to have you comme pensionnaires" "Madame," began Dr. Byram, but was cut short again. "Ah, yess, I know, ah! mon Dieu! you do not spik Frainch but you have come to lairne! My husband does spik Frainch wiss ze pensionnaires. We have at ze moment a family Americaine who learn of my husband Frainch" Here the poodle growled at Dr. Byram and was promptly cuffed by his mistress. "Veux tu!" she cried, with a slap, "veux tu! Oh! le vilain, oh! le vilain!" "Mais, madame," said Hastings, smiling, "il n'a pas l'air trs froce." The poodle fled, and his mistress cried, "Ah, ze accent charming! He does spik already Frainch like a Parisien young gentleman!" Then Dr. Byram managed to get in a word or two and gathered more or less information with regard to prices. "It ees a pension serieux; my clientle ees of ze best, indeed a pension de famille where one ees at 'ome." Then they went upstairs to examine Hastings' future quarters, test the bedsprings and arrange for the weekly towel allowance. Dr. Byram appeared satisfied. Madame Marotte accompanied them to the door and rang for the maid, but as Hastings stepped out into the gravel walk, his guide and mentor paused a moment and fixed Madame with his watery eyes. "You understand," he said, "that he is a youth of most careful bringing up, and his character and morals are without a stain. He is young and has never been abroad, never even seen a large city, and his parents have requested me, as an old family friend living in Paris, to see that he is placed under good influences. He is to study art, but on no account would his parents wish him to live in the Latin Quarter if they knew of the immorality which is rife there." A sound like the click of a latch interrupted him and he raised his eyes, but not in time to see the maid slap the bigheaded young man behind the parlourdoor. Madame coughed, cast a deadly glance behind her and then beamed on Dr. Byram. "It ees well zat he come here. The pension more serious, il n'en existe pas, eet ees not any!" she announced with conviction. So, as there was nothing more to add, Dr. Byram joined Hastings at the gate. "I trust," he said, eyeing the Convent, "that you will make no acquaintances among Jesuits!" Hastings looked at the Convent until a pretty girl passed before the gray faade, and then he looked at her. A young fellow with a paintbox and canvas came swinging along, stopped before the pretty girl, said something during a brief but vigorous handshake at which they both laughed, and he went his way, calling back, " demain Valentine!" as in the same breath she cried, " demain!" "Valentine," thought Hastings, "what a quaint name;" and he started to follow the Reverend Joel Byram, who was shuffling towards the nearest tramway station. II "An' you are pleas wiz Paris, Monsieur' Astang?" demanded Madame Marotte the next morning as Hastings came into the breakfastroom of the pension, rosy from his plunge in the limited bath above. "I am sure I shall like it," he replied, wondering at his own depression of spirits. The maid brought him coffee and rolls. He returned the vacant glance of the bigheaded young man and acknowledged diffidently the salutes of the snuffy old gentlemen. He did not try to finish his coffee, and sat crumbling a roll, unconscious of the sympathetic glances of Madame Marotte, who had tact enough not to bother him. Presently a maid entered with a tray on which were balanced two bowls of chocolate, and the snuffy old gentlemen leered at her ankles. The maid deposited the chocolate at a table near the window and smiled at Hastings. Then a thin young lady, followed by her counterpart in all except years, marched into the room and took the table near the window. They were evidently American, but Hastings, if he expected any sign of recognition, was disappointed. To be ignored by compatriots intensified his depression. He fumbled with his knife and looked at his plate. The thin young lady was talkative enough. She was quite aware of Hastings' presence, ready to be flattered if he looked at her, but on the other hand she felt her superiority, for she had been three weeks in Paris and he, it was easy to see, had not yet unpacked his steamertrunk. Her conversation was complacent. She argued with her mother upon the relative merits of the Louvre and the Bon March, but her mother's part of the discussion was mostly confined to the observation, "Why, Susie!" The snuffy old gentlemen had left the room in a body, outwardly polite and inwardly raging. They could not endure the Americans, who filled the room with their chatter. The bigheaded young man looked after them with a knowing cough, murmuring, "Gay old birds!" "They look like bad old men, Mr. Bladen," said the girl. To this Mr. Bladen smiled and said, "They've had their day," in a tone which implied that he was now having his. "And that's why they all have baggy eyes," cried the girl. "I think it's a shame for young gentlemen" "Why, Susie!" said the mother, and the conversation lagged. After a while Mr. Bladen threw down the Petit Journal, which he daily studied at the expense of the house, and turning to Hastings, started to make himself agreeable. He began by saying, "I see you are American." To this brilliant and original opening, Hastings, deadly homesick, replied gratefully, and the conversation was judiciously nourished by observations from Miss Susie Byng distinctly addressed to Mr. Bladen. In the course of events Miss Susie, forgetting to address herself exclusively to Mr. Bladen, and Hastings replying to her general question, the entente cordiale was established, and Susie and her mother extended a protectorate over what was clearly neutral territory. "Mr. Hastings, you must not desert the pension every evening as Mr. Bladen does. Paris is an awful place for young gentlemen, and Mr. Bladen is a horrid cynic." Mr. Bladen looked gratified. Hastings answered, "I shall be at the studio all day, and I imagine I shall be glad enough to come back at night." Mr. Bladen, who, at a salary of fifteen dollars a week, acted as agent for the Pewly Manufacturing Company of Troy, N.Y., smiled a sceptical smile and withdrew to keep an appointment with a customer on the Boulevard Magenta. Hastings walked into the garden with Mrs. Byng and Susie, and, at their invitation, sat down in the shade before the iron gate. The chestnut trees still bore their fragrant spikes of pink and white, and the bees hummed among the roses, trellised on the whitewalled house. A faint freshness was in the air. The watering carts moved up and down the street, and a clear stream bubbled over the spotless gutters of the rue de la Grande Chaumire. The sparrows were merry along the curbstones, taking bath after bath in the water and ruffling their feathers with delight.

Subsets and Splits