LXVI. THE COOK'S VISITORS…

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 free-thinker--indeed 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. "I--I--feel 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?"

"Yes--yes!" 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 double-barrelled 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 lord--oh, no," said the secretary to the chief magistrate of the city. "We cannot think of sparing you."

"But--but--"

"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."

"I--I--" stammered the Lord Mayor, "I really--humph! 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."

"So--so 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 well-authenticated 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 well-affected 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 crow-bar 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 vaults--a 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 charnel-house 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."

"Certainly--certainly. 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.

"But--but 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."

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 crown-piece from his pocket and tapped with the edge of it upon the stone-work 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 object--namely, to bring to the just punishment of the law those who have placed you and others in this awful position?"

"Yes--yes. 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?"

"No--no. 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 abroad--that 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 steam--a 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 flesh--glistening vermin, shiny and sleek with the luxurious feeding they there got, slipped glibly in and out of the heaped-up horror.

"No more--no 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.

"For--for 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."

"Yes--yes."

"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 did--you 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."

"Gentlemen--gentlemen," 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 half-hour, I assure you."

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? Todd--yes, Sweeney Todd, who had waded knee-deep--knee-deep do we say?--lip-deep in blood for gold, had begun to find that there was something more precious still which he had bartered for it--peace! That peace of mind--that 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; yes--she 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 go--she 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 woman--that 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 door-lock 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 easy-going 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--"

"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 good--your 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 mother-in-law, 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 mother-in-law, 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 mother-in-law began her ill-usage 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 orphan--strange in London. No one to care for him. The very thing for me. No prying friends--nowhere 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 it--oh, yes. I am good at finding places."

"He is strange in London," muttered Todd. "I am satisfied of that. He is strange. Come in--come 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 all-important subject another time, and if I consent to be your master, a--a--a--"

"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 wash-hand 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; but--but, 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 charnel-house 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?"

"I--I thought some one groaned, or--or sighed. Was it you? No.--Well, it was nothing. See if that water on the fire is hot. Do you hear me? Well--well don't be alarmed. Is it hot?"

"I think."

"Think! Put your hand in it."

"Quite hot, sir."

"Well, then, master Charley--Ah! A customer! Come in, sir; come in, if you please, sir. A remarkably fine day, sir. Cloudy, though. Pray be seated, sir. A-hem! Now, Charley, bustle--bustle. Shaved, sir, I presume? D--n the door!"

Todd was making exertions to shut the door after the entrance of a stout-built man, in an ample white coat and a broad brimmed farmer looking hat; but he could not get it close, and then the stout-built man cried out--

"Why don't you come in, Bob--leave off your tricks. Why you is old enough to know better."

"It's only me," said another stout-built man, in another white coat, as he came in with a broad grin upon his face. "It's only me, Mr. Barber--ha! 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."

"Well--well, 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 alive--look 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 boy--no father, no mother, no friend in all the world but me, sir."

"Really!"

"Yes, poor lad, but thank God I have a heart--Leave the whiskers as they are, sir?--Yes, and I can feel for the distresses of a fellow creature. Many's the--Your brother--I 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 like--like 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.

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 four-and-twenty; 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 second-hand 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.

"Yes--yes!" she exclaimed, as with frantic eagerness she arrayed herself for the event, for she had gone home after seeing Johanna on her way; "yes--yes! I will go to him--I will tell him all. He shall know what a silly, foolish, wicked girl I have been, and how by my mad--mad council, I have perhaps destroyed Johanna. But he will save her--oh, 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--

"Sir--sir. You--and you only. Todd, Todd--oh, God! he will kill her, and I am more her murderer than he. Johanna--Johanna, 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, yes--yes."

"Be seated, I pray you."

"Yes--yes. 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? Why--why--what 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 is--she is."

"When did she go?"

"About two hours since. Oh, sir--you must do something--you 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 will--I 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 hair-brained scheme."

"It is--it 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 is--it is."

"Will her friends not miss her?"

"No--no. 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 twelve--yes, it was twelve. More you see, sir, than that. Tell me, sir. Tell me at once what can be done. Speak--oh 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 hand-bell, 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 matronly-looking 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 emergency--for emergency he evidently thought it was--we 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.

LXX. RETURNS TO JOHANNA

We left Johanna in rather an awkward situation. The two graziers were in Todd's shop, and she--at 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 Ingestrie--had dropped the soap-dish, 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. Barber--he 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 fly--not 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 soap-dish, 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 example--Charley, my dear, whip up that lather--there's the church of St. Dunstan's, which, although I say it--Now, Charley, look sharp--is 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 to-morrow."

"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 of--but, 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 red-hot pincers, and scoop your eyes from their gory sockets with an old oyster knife. D--n you, I'll--I'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 prying--no peeping--no 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--

"What--what'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 eat--or--or to drink, rather I should say. You will find a saucer in yon cupboard, with some milk in it. If--if 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 peep-hole 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 coach-office 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!"

"Yes--yes," said Johanna. "Take him away--take him away."

"Won't I, that's all. I suppose you are a young shaver? Only let me catch you a-interfering with Pison, that's all, and won't I let you know what's what, young feller."

The ostler having uttered this most uncalled-for 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! Well--well. 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. A-hem--Charley?"

"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 comes--which it certainly will--Ha!--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 do--I--Ha! 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 eye-lashes. "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.

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 yet--not 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--

"Who--who 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.

"No--no."

"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."

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 saved--I am saved! Yes--yes? I am not deserted. Strong, bold, good men will look to me. Oh! what kindness breathes in every sentence of this letter! Yes--yes; I am not forsaken--not 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 door-way, 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 parlour-door 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 so--I 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 cat-gut 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. All--all. 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, I--I am coming. God protect me!"

"The barber at home?" cried a voice at the door; and in another moment a man with a ruddy, jolly-looking countenance, made his appearance in the shop. "Barber at home, eh? my little lad?"

"Yes--yes."

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 pleasure--Charley!"

"Yes, Sir."

"You can go to Lovett's, in Bell-yard, and get your dinner now. There's two-pence 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 business-like 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.

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 highly-scented 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 jacket-pocket, 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 hat-brush, 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 highly-polished 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 twenty-four hours of this sad work-a-day world sees. But I was always of a tender and sympathetic turn from my cradle--yes 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. Here--here."

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.

"Yes--yes. 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--dear, dear Johanna, you are safe--quite safe. Come home now--oh, come--oh, come--come."

"You here, Arabella?"

"Yes, I am mad--mad!--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 now--come at once."

"Yes, I--I think--"

"Come--come;--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, Arabella--no. Good bye. Go home, love--go home, and--and pray for me--pray 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 place--I 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."

"No--no--no."

"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, sir--only the dog."

"Bolt the door--bolt 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, yes--delicious."

"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--

"Alone--alone 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, sir--oh, 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 shaving-water. 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 shop-door 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 parlour-door 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 parlour-door. She opened a cupboard. A hat fell from within at her feet! One glance at that hat was sufficient; it was of a peculiar colour--she 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 Bell-yard. 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 cast-in 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 shaving-chair.

"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 think--to think how she should bring to justice the man who had been the blight of her young existence--the canker in the rose-bud 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.

LXXIII. STARTLING EVENTS

Business at Mrs. Lovett's was brisk. During the whole of that day--that most eventful day upon which the fair Johanna Oakley had gone upon her desperate errand to Sweeney Todd's--the 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 half-past 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 furry-looking 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 pie-shop 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 hard-earned 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 chamber--the snob of a snob--for three twopennies. Lean and hungry-looking 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 bustle--all is animation, and the side counter--that one, you know, which ran parallel to the window--was 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 to-day. 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 a-coming, mum?" said one.

"Oh, don't I sniff 'em," said another, working his nose like an ex-chancellor. "Don't I sniff 'em."

"De--licious!" 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 appetite-giving 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 minutes--only five minutes--and 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 half-past one batch?"

"We are rather short of--of 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."

"No--no. D--n 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 good--Ha! 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 spotless--a 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 arch-fiend 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? No--no. We cannot--we will not believe that such persons as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett ever came into this world otherwise than ready-made 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.

"I--I must have this," she muttered. "Let Todd be dead or alive, I must have it. I am going mad--I 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 think--let 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 lost--all 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 dungeon-like 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 long--long 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 see--if--if 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 Blunt--promises 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?"

"Worse--worse. 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."

"Calm--calm! 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."

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 ill-looking." "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 do--I 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 freely--it 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.

"Good-bye, madam; I only hope you will be able to carry your benevolent intentions into effect--and," 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."

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 gentlemanly-looking 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 pie-shop, and the gentleman with the great-coat 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, no--no; I said I wanted nothing.--Come away."

Then the gentleman with the great-coat 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 saved--oh, is she saved?"

"She will be," was the reply of the gentleman in the great-coat. "Come away."

The big stout man appeared to be getting rather furious at the idea of the gentleman with the great-coat 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 fine-drawn 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 set-off 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 him--she 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 back-parlour, 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 beef-eater--the gentlemanly-looking 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 personæ, 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."

"But--but--"

"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."

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 self-deprecatory tone--

"Oh, sir, I--I--have 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, a-hem!" said Ben. "Easy does it."

"I am a wicked--wicked girl."

"Oh, dear--oh, 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 then--Easy does it."

"My mother? Tell my mother? Oh, no--no--no!"

"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 kind-hearted."

"Well, but--well, 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 the--the--Oh 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, all--all."

"Not all the particulars, surely. Come--come. 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. Come--come, 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 to-morrow 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. Come--come, easy does it; but haven't you been telling me all this time about something you have been about, that--that--was 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't--a-hem! That is to say, you haven't--dear 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.

"Good-bye, Miss A. W.," added Ben. "Good-bye; 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. Good-bye."

"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, a-hem! 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."

"Well--well. 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 what-do-you-call-'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's--opposite--in--boys--clothes? Oh--oh--just you wait here, and I'll soon put that to rights. I'll--I'll. Only you wait in this door-way, Miss A. W., just a moment or two, and I'll teach her to go and do such things. I'll--I'll--"

"No--no 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.

"And--and how long is the little lamb to be left there?" he asked.

"Only a few hours I think now, Ben--only a few hours. Where are we now, Mr. Ben?"

"Why, this, my dear, is Bell-yard we have strolled into; and that is the famous pie-shop 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 Fleet-street, 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 beef-eater, and Arabella Wilmot, walked to Fleet-street together from Bell-yard. 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 Fleet-street."

"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 Fleet-street 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 safety--and 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 twenty-five men in Fleet-street now--one 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 Fleet-street, and she--"

Arabella shook her head, and frowned.

"And--and--and--she--nothing."

"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 to-day."

"Colonel Jeffery!" exclaimed Arabella, while her face became of the colour of a rose-bud; "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 no--no. I--no--certainly 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. a--a--"

"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.

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 sun-beam 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 shake-hands 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's-your-name, 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 is--is--is--" stammered Arabella.

"Well, I hope," interposed the colonel.

"Oh, no--no--that 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 garden-seats 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 boy-god'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 I--I--loved Johanna Oakley. Yes, I loved her."

"Yes--yes."

"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 child-like 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 on--go 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, that--that--"

"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 change--no extinction."

"True. Oh, how true!"

"I have learnt from her that when once the heart of a young and gentle girl--one in whom there are no evil passions, no world-wise failings nor earthly varieties--is 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 beauty--equal excellence--equal charms of mind and person in another, and--"

Arabella tried to go, but somehow she felt spell-bound 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, no--Johanna."

"I do not shrink from the pronunciation of that name; I have said that I loved Johanna. If she had been fancy-free 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 may--may be friends."

The colonel took the little hand in silence, but the expression of his face was one of deep chagrin.

"Good-bye," 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."

"And--and I hope you will find--find--that is, meet with some one, who--who don't chance to know that your love is a kind of second-hand--that is, I don't mean that, but a--a--Yes, 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 good-day."

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 a-going? 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, no--that is, anything," replied Arabella. "I will go home now, I am so very--very 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 to-day, I supposes?"

"No, no."

"Very well. Easy does it. Come along, my dear--come 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 you--thank 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 a-coming it strong with fried ingins."

"Fried what?"

"Ingins--ingins; round things. Ingions--ah! that's it."

"Onions?"

"Very like--very like. But come on, my dear--come 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 second-hand lover."

"Did she, though? Ha! ha! ha! ha! Upon my life that was good--was it not?"

LXXVII. MRS. LOVETT VISITS THE BANK

Mrs. Lovett, Mrs. Lovett, we are neglecting you! Excuse us, fascinating piece of wickedness. We are now in Bell-yard 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 parties--nor 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 iniquity--not 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 long-sighted 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 pie-shop had between them accumulated a large sum of money, and that the money was duly deposited in the hands of a stock-broker, 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 stock-broker, it did not seem, we say, under all the circumstances likely that Todd--being fairly entitled as between them, to £20,000--would 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 first--whenever that was--meant 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 money--how 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 stock-broker? 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 stock-broker? What a natural consequence from this question it was to ask herself another, which was--If 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 faint-hearted 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 stock-broker, 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 stock-broker; 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 dress-maker in Bond-street."

"Yes, mum!"

Mrs. Lovett left the shop. At the corner of Bell-yard she turned and cast a glance at it. She hoped it was a farewell one--She shuddered and passed on; and then she muttered to herself--

"If I am--which assuredly I shall be--successful in the city, I will take post-horses there at once for some sea-port, 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 Fleet-street, 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 beef-eater 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 door-way upon the side of which was painted, in letters that had contracted so much the colour of the wood-work that they were nearly illegible, "Mr. Anthony Brown."

This was the stock-broker, who held charge of the ill-gotten gains of that pair of un-worthies, 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. Certainly--a-hem! 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, madam--ah, it was a world of pities to disturb the investments. It was indeed. But ladies will be ladies."

"Sir?"

"I--I merely said ladies will be ladies you know. And indeed--he! 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, a--a--that is--the--a--a--about--concerning--the--my dear madam, if I have inadvertently trodden upon your sensibilities, I--I 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!"

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 stock-broker. 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 stock-broker 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 looks--rather!

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--

"Mum--mum! Here yer is--mum--mum! woo!"

She turned and saw the coach in which she had come to the stock-broker.

"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 Fleet-street!"

Wheeze--creak--wheeze--creak--sway--sway, 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. Yes--she called upon all that calmness--that decision--that 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 moral--a 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 Fleet-street. She fully intended now to measure conclusions with Todd. The distance was so short that even a hackney-coach 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 Fleet-street 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 hackney-coach. It was like watching the moment to spring from a boat to the shore in a heavy surf. And yet, oh much vilified old hackney-coach! how much superior wert thou to thy bastard son, the present odious rattling, bumping, angular, bone-dislocating, horrid cab! The driver received about double his fare, and a cab-man 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 cab-driver, but the old hackney-coach-man 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 Fleet-street. 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 City--of 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 crossed--the handle of the door was in her hand--it 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 genteel-looking 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 in--this way, if you please, madam--to my humble bachelor-parlour, 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 turn--here 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 partnership--the 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.

"And--and the sooner we can forget, if that be possible, the past, the better it will be for us both--only 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 side-table an iron, which, in the mystery of hair-dressing, 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 atrocities--contrite evidence--myself 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 emergency--namely, 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 pounds--you may profit by the odd sum--give 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--"

"No--no."

"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 that--you understand me?"

Todd understood her. His hand strayed to a razor that lay partially open close to him. Mrs. Lovett raised the iron.

"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 this--far 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 now--ha! 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 re-invested 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."

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 colours--brown, black, and green--suddenly 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 for--for--why 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?"

"There--really--was--not--time," 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 precipice--a 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 ask--all I demand--is 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 co-partnership 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. But--but--"

"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 other--that guilty pair--with 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 our--our--"

"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 passion--that overwhelming passion which had induced her to enter Todd's shop, and defy him to a species of single combat of wits--had in a great measure subsided, giving place to a calmer and more reflective feeling. One of the results of that feeling was a self-question 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 words--mutual 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 thought--that 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, to-morrow 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 ugliness--notwithstanding 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 Bow-street, 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 to-night."

"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 this--no more of this. Can you bear to paint such a picture--does 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 more--say no more. We will meet to-morrow."

"To-morrow 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. I--I am not very well, A throbbing head-ache--a--a. That is, no!"

"As you please--as you please. By-the-by, 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 to-morrow," said Mrs. Lovett; "I feel convinced that Black did not give you a receipt. Good-day."

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 all-absorbing discourse as before. Todd followed them closely, and yet with abundance of caution.

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 Fetter-lane she encountered Martha Jones her old acquaintance. One word begot another, and at last as they walked up Fleet-street, Mrs. Ragg could not help, with many head-shakings 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 head-shaking and hand-uplifting 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 legally-learned 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."

"No--no. Really."

"Like cream."

"But, really, I--I--"

"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 door-way, and watched them up the staircase of No. 6, in that highly classic locality. He slunk into the door-way, 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 Tobias--Pho! he is--he 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 doors--that is to say, outer black heavy-looking doors--and within them were smaller ones, armed with knockers.

"To the right," he muttered. "They went to the right--this 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, 'Go--go--go!' 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 to-morrow's dawn shall not see me in London. But I will--I 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 elephantine-looking 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.

"It is good, indeed, Mrs. Ragg, as you may well say, and the glasses sticks to the table, when they is left over-night, 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 half-and-half 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, I--I--Bless 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, Martha--the 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 Fleet-street; 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."

"He--he--"

"Yes, yes. What--"

"He takes folks in and does for 'em."

"Kills 'em?"

"Kills 'em."

"What--why--what--? You don't mean to say--why--? 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 good--good--."

Mrs. Ragg began to run over with tears of ale.

"Bless me, and where does he live?"

"Who?"

"The colonel. The good, kind, colonel--colonel--a--a 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.--No--no, I couldn't."

"Only half a glass; look at the--"

"No--no--"

"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 me--dear 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 Fleet-street. 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."

"You--you? suspect what?"

"That I shall have to have it out, for its aching distracts me. Did you ever have the tooth-ache, sir?"

"The tooth-ache?"

"Yes, sir. It's--it's worse than the heart-ache, and that I have had."

"Ah!--humph! Any one been?"

"One gentleman, sir, to be shaved; he says he will call again."

"Very good--very good."

Todd took from his pocket the key of the back-parlour--that 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."

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 delay--and delay just then was to Sweeney Todd--one 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 impertinant--handsome--"

"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, no--no," 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.

"No--no--at 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, I--I 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 her--such 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 heroine--for 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 that--that--"

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, Mark--Mark, 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 not--I 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, yes--I 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 water-works a-going. 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 say--does--it. Don't you think I'm a crying. It's a tea-chest 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 watch-word. 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 her--a power which from the commencement of the world has supported many--a 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 delicate-looking girl with strength to cope with such a man--man 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 expedition--so fraught with danger, to Todd's shop--what 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.