LXXXII. TODD PLANS…

LXXXII. TODD PLANS

How she sped with Todd we are already aware. Let us take a peep at the arch-demon in that parlour, which he considered his sanctuary, his city of refuge as it were. At least Todd considered it to be such, whether it was or not. He sits at a table, the table beneath which there was no floor, and covering up his face with his huge hands, he sets about thinking. Yes, that man now abandons himself to thought, as to how he is, with a blaze of wickedness, to disappear from the scene of his iniquities. It was not remorse that now filled his brain. It was not any feeling of bitter heart-felt regret for what he had done that oppressed him now. No such feeling might possibly find a home in his heart at the hour of success, but now when he saw and felt that he was surrounded by many difficulties, it had no home in his brain. But yet he thought that they were only difficulties that now surrounded; he did not as yet dream of positive danger. He still reasoned, as you have heard him reason before, namely, that if anything beyond mere suspicion were entertained regarding his mode of life, he would be at once apprehended. He thought that somebody--most likely Colonel Jeffery--was trying to find out something, and the fact that he, Todd, was there in his own parlour, a free man, appeared to him proof-sufficient that nothing was found out.

"How fallacious!"

If he had but known that he was virtually in custody even then, as he, indeed, really was, for Fleet-street was alive with officers and the emissaries of the police. If he had but guessed so much for a moment what a wild tumult would have been raised in his brain. But he knew nothing and suspected little. After a time from generalizing upon his condition, Todd began to be particular, and then he laid down, as it were, one proposition or fact which he intended should be the groundwork of all in other proceedings. That proposition was contained in the words--

"Before the dawn of to-morrow I must be off!" "That's settled," said Todd, and he gave the table a blow with his hand. "Yes, that's settled."

The table creaked ominously, and Todd rose to peep into the shop to see what his boy was doing. Charley Green, alias, Johanna Oakley, was sitting upon a low stool reading a bill that some one had thrown into the shop, and which detailed the merits of some merchandize. How far away from the contents of that bill which she held before her face, were her thoughts?

"Good," said Todd. "That boy, at all events, suspects nothing, and yet his death is one of the things which had better not be left to chance. He shall fall in the general way of this place. What proper feeling errand-boy would wish to survive his master's absence. Ha!"

Of late Todd had not been very profuse in his laughs, but now he came out with one quite of the old sort.

The sound startled himself, and he retired to the table again.

By the dim light he opened a desk and supplied himself with writing materials; the twilight was creeping on, and he could only just see. Spreading a piece of paper before him, he proceeded to make a memoranda of what he had to do.

It was no bad plan this of Todd's, and the paper, when it was finished was quite a curiosity in its way.

It ran thus--

Mem.--To go to Colonel Jeffery's, and by some means get into the house and murder Tobias.

Mem.--To pack off goods to the wharf where the Hamburg vessel, called the Dianna, sails from.

Mem.--To arrange combustibles for setting fire to the house.

Mem.--To cut Charley Green's throat, if any suspicion arise--if not to let him be smothered in the fire.

Mem.--To have a letter ready to post to Sir Richard Blunt, the magistrate, accusing Mrs. Lovett of her own crimes, and mine likewise.

"I think that is all," said Todd.

He folded the paper and placed it in his bosom, after which he came out of the parlour into the shop, and called to Johanna.

"Charles?"

"Yes, sir."

"Go to the market, and get me a couple of stout porter--I want something carried a short distance."

"Yes, sir."

Away went Johanna, but before she got half way down to Fleet Market she met Sir Richard, who said--

"What is it?"

"He wants a couple of porters to carry something."

"Very well, get them. Depend upon me."

"I do, sir. I feel now in good heart to go through with anything, for you are near to me, and I know that I am safe."

"You are safe. It will need to be some very extraordinary circumstances, indeed, that could compromise you. But go at once for these porters; I, and my men will take good care to find where they go to."

There was no difficulty in finding parties in abundance at the end of Fleet Market, and Johanna speedily returned, followed by two sturdy fellows. Todd had quite a smile upon his face, as he received them.

"This way," he said--"This way. I hope you have been lucky to day, and have had plenty of work."

"No, master," said one, "we haven't, I'm sorry to say."

"Indeed," added Todd. "Well, I am very glad I have a little job for you. You see these two little boxes. You can carry one each of you, and I will go with you and show you where to."

One of the porters raised one of the boxes, and then he gave a long whistle, as he said--

"I say, master is there penny pieces or paving stones in this here, its deuced heavy, that it is."

"And so is this, Bill," said the other. "Oh, my eyes ain't it. There must be a quarter of a pound of goose feathers in here."

"Ha! ha!" said Todd, "How funny you both are."

"Funny?"

"Yes, to be sure, but come. This will put strength into you if you had none before."

He took a bottle and glass from a cupboard, and gave each of the men a full measure of such frightfully strong spirits, that they winked again, and the tears came into their eyes, as they drank it.

"Now shoulder the little boxes, and come along," he said, "and I tell you what I'll do. If you step in here in the evening, and I should happen to be at home, I'll give each of you a shave for nothing, and polish you off in such a manner, that you will recollect it as long you live."

"Thank you, master--thank you. We'll come."

One of the porters helped his companion with the chest on to his back and head, and Todd then lent a helping hand with the other.

"Charley," he said. "I shall be back in a quarter of an hour."

Away he went, preceding the porter by some half dozen steps only, but yet ever and anon keeping a wary eye upon the two chests, which contained cash, and jewels, sufficient to found a little kingdom. If he got clear off with those two chests only, he felt that he would not give himself much uneasiness about what was left behind. But was Todd going to trust these two porters from out his own immediate neighbourhood, with the secret of the destination of the boxes? No. He was by far too crafty for that. After proceeding some distance, he took them round the unfrequented side of St. Paul's Church yard, and stopping suddenly at the door of a house that was to let, he said--

"This will do."

"In here, master."

"This will do. Put them down."

The porters complied, and Todd set down upon one of the boxes, as he said--

"How much?"

"A shilling each of us, master."

"There's double the money, and now be off, both of you, about your business."

The porters were rather surprised, but as they considered themselves sufficiently paid, they made no objection, and walked off with considerable alacrity, leaving Todd, and his treasure in the street.

"Now for a coach," he muttered. "Now for a coach. Here boy"--to a ragged boy who was creeping on at some short distance. "Earn a penny by fetching me a coach directly."

The boy darted off, and in a very few minutes brought Todd a hackney coach. The boxes, too, were got upon it by the united efforts of Todd, the coachman, and the boy, and then, and not till then did Todd give the correct address of the wharf in Thames Street from which the Hamburg ship was going, and in which he fully intended to embark that night. The ship was advertised to sail at the turn of the tide, which would be about four o'clock in the morning. All this did not take long to do. The coach rumbled along Thames Street, but Todd was not aware that Mr. Crotchet had got up behind the vehicle, but such was the fact, and when the lumbering old machine stopped at the wharf, that gentleman got down, and felt quite satisfied with the discovery he had made. "He's a trying of it on," soliloquised Mr. Crotchet in the bolting line, "but it ain't no manner of a go. He'll swing, and he can't help it, if he were to book himself to the moon, and there was a coach or a ship as went all the way, and no stoppages."

"Mem," said Todd to himself. "To go to Colonel Jeffery's and murder Tobias--Ha!"

"Lor!" said the coachman, "was that you, sir?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why as made that horrid sort of noise."

"Mind your business, my friend, and tell me if you can take me quickly to Islington, for I have no time to lose."

"Like the wind, sir, you can go with these here osses," replied the coachman, "did you ever see sich bits o' blood, sir, one on 'ems blind, and' t'other on 'em is deaf, which is advantages as you don't get in one pair."

"Advantages?"

"Lor bless you, yes, sir. The blind 'un goes unknown quick, cos you sees, sir, he thinks he's only in some dark place, and in course he wants to get out on it as soon as he can."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, sir, and the deaf 'un, he goes quick too, cos as he hears nothink, he thinks as there never was sich a quiet place as he's go's, and he does it out o' feeling and gratitude, sir, yer sees."

"Be quick then, and charge your own price."

Todd sprang into the vehicle, and stimulated by the idea of charging his own price, the coachman certainly did make the bits of blood do wonders, and in quite an incredibly short space of time, Todd found himself in the immediate neighbourhood of the Colonel's house. It was now getting dark, but that was what he wished. He dismissed the coach, and took from the angle of a wall, near at hand, a long and earnest look at the Colonel's house, and as he did so dark and hideous thoughts concerning Tobias passed through his mind.

LXXXII. TODD VISITS THE COLONEL

"Well, Tobias," said Colonel Jeffery, as he entered the pretty, cheerful room into which the now convalescent boy had been removed. "Well, Tobias, how are you now?"

"Much better, sir. Oh, sir,--I--I--"

"What would you say?"

"I feel that when I see you, sir, I ought to say so much to convince you of how truly, and deeply grateful I am to you, and yet I can scarcely ever say a word about it. I pray for your happiness, sir, indeed I do. Your name and my mother's, and--and Minna Gray's, are always uttered to God by me."

"Now, Tobias," said Colonel Jeffery gravely. "I am quite satisfied that as regards all that has passed, you feel as you ought to feel, and for my own part, I beg you to feel and to know that your saying anything about it only distresses me."

"Distresses you, sir?"

"Yes, it does, indeed. I see your eyes are upon the door. You expect Minna, to day, I am sure."

"Yes, sir,--she--she--my mother was to bring her, sir."

A ringing at a bell now came upon Tobias's ear, and his colour went and came fitfully.

"You are still very weak, my poor boy," said the colonel, "but you are certainly much improved. Do you feel any confusion in your head now?"

"None at all, only when I think of Todd suddenly, ever it makes me feel cold and sick, and something seems to rush through my heart."

"Oh, that will go away. That is nothing. There, I will draw up the blind for you. The evening is coming, and the sky is overclouded. You can see better now, and there is one coming whom I know you wish to lose no sight of."

"I hear her foot upon the stairs," said Tobias.

"Do you?--It is more than I do."

"Ah, sir, the senses are sharpened, I think, by illness."

"Not so much as by love. Tobias! do you hear her footstep now?"

"Yes, and it is like music."

He had his head on one side in an attitude of listening; and then with joy sparkling from every feature of his face, he spoke again--

"She comes--she comes. Ah, she comes fast. My own--my beautiful. She come--she comes."

"This is real love," said the colonel, and he stepped from the room. Nearly on the landing at the head of the stairs, he met Minna Gray.

"Welcome," he said as he held out his hand to her. "You will find your young friend up and much better."

Minna could only look her thanks. Mrs. Ragg was following her, and as the ascent of stairs was always rather a task to that good Lady, she was making a noise like a stranded grampus in breathing.

"Ah, colonel," she said, "young legs get up stairs faster than old ones, sir, as you see. Well--well, there was a time when first I knew poor dear Ragg, who is of course dead and gone, quite premature."

"Exactly, Mrs. Ragg," said the colonel, as he rapidly descended the stairs.

"Did you ever, my dear, know such a strange man?" said Mrs. Ragg to Minna.

"Who?"

"The colonel, to be sure. So soon as I begin to tell him any little what do you call it. No it ain't nannygoat--that's ridiculous. It's--it's--what is it?"

"Anecdote do you mean, Mrs. Ragg?"

"Yes, to be sure. Well, as I was a saying, no sooner do I begin telling him a little nannygoat--no, I mean anecdote, than off he is like a shot."

Minna smiled to herself, and she was far from wondering that the colonel was off like a shot, for well she knew, that when Mrs. Ragg did begin anything concerning the late Mr. Ragg, it usually lasted three quarters of an hour at the very least.

"Minna, Minna!" called Tobias.

"I am here, Tobias."

In another moment she was in the room. Truly it was a pleasant thing to see the face of Tobias, when, his sunshine, as he called Minna, came close to him, and in her soft voice asked him if he was better.

"Don't mind me," said Mrs. Ragg, "I am going to darn a stocking or two. that's all. Just say what you both like. Young folks will be young folks. Bless me, I recollect just as if it were only yesterday, when I used to speak to poor departed Mr. Ragg, who is, premature, dead and gone, in a manner of speaking. Ah, dear me! How the world goes round and round--round and round, continually."

Tobias and Minna were so well accustomed to the garrulity of Mrs. Ragg, and so well aware that she required no answer, that they let her talk on, and did not mind her, as she requested they would not; and so the evening grew apace, and the light gradually began to wane, as those two young loving hearts spoke together of the future, and indulged in that day dream of happiness which can only belong to youth and love.

* * * * *

Todd is skulking round the angle of the garden wall, from which he can get a view of the colonel's house, and yet not be seen himself.

The more he looked the more the desire grew upon him, notwithstanding the immense risk he ran of personal detection, by so doing, to get into the house, and finish the career of poor Tobias. He would have had no particular objection rather to have taken the life of Mrs. Ragg, if it could be easily and comfortably done.

It has been said that there are folks in the world who never forgive any one for doing them a kindness; and such paradoxical views of human nature have been attempted to be laid down as truths; but whether this be so or not, is still to be proved, although it is certain that nothing stirs the evil passions of men who will inflict injury upon the innocent, as to find themselves baffled in their villany. From that moment the matter becomes a personal affair of vengeance.

Hence, since Todd had become thoroughly aware that Tobias had escaped from the death he had intended for him at the mad-house, his rage against the boy knew no bounds.

Indeed, the reader will conclude that it must have been a feeling of no ordinary strength, that, at such a busy and ticklish time, would take Todd to the colonel's house at all.

It was revenge--bitter, uncompromising revenge!

Now, you must know the colonel's house was one of those half-villa, half-mansion-like residences, that are so common in the neighbourhood of London. There was a kind of terrace in the front, and a garden with flowering shrubs, that had a pretty enough appearance, and which at night afforded abundance of shelter.

It was by this front garden that Todd hoped to reach the house.

When it was nearly dark, he slunk in, crouching down among the trees and shrubs, and crawling along like a serpent as he was. He soon came to a flight of stone steps that led to the kitchens.

By the time Todd had got thus far, some of her domestic duties had called Mrs. Ragg to the lower part of the house. He saw by the fire-light that some one was going about the kitchen, close to the foot of the stone steps; but he could not exactly, by that dim and uncertain radiance, take upon himself to say that it was Mrs. Ragg.

She soon lit a candle, though, and then all was clear. He saw the good lady preparing divers lights for the upper rooms.

While Todd was half-way down the stone steps, peeping into the kitchen, one of the other servants of the house came into that receptacle for culinary articles, and commenced putting on a bonnet and shawl. Todd could not hear one word of what was said by Mrs. Ragg and this young woman who was getting ready to go out; but he saw them talk, and by their manner he felt convinced that it was only upon ordinary topics.

If the young woman left the house by the steps upon which Todd was, and which it was more than likely she would do, his situation would be anything but a pleasant one, and discovery would be certain.

To obviate the chance of this, he stepped back, and crouched down in among the shrubs in the garden.

He was not wrong in his conjectures, for in a few moments the servant, who was going out, ascended the steps, and passed him so closely, that by stretching out his hand, he could, if he had been so minded, have touched her dress. In a short time she was out of ear-shot.

Todd emerged from his concealment again, and crept down the steps, and once more peeped into the kitchen.

Mrs. Ragg was still busy with the candles.

He was just considering what he should do, when he heard the tramp of horses' feet in the road above. He ascended sufficient of the steps to enable himself to get a peep at what was going on. He saw a groom well mounted, and leading another horse. Then no other than Colonel Jeffrey himself, although he did not of his own knowledge, feel assured that it was him, come out at the front door of the house and mounted.

"Now, William," said the colonel, "we must ride sharply."

"Yes, sir," said the groom.

Another moment and they were gone.

"This is lucky," said Todd. "It is not likely that there is any other room in the house; and if not, I have the game in my own hands."

He crept down the remainder of the stone steps, and placed his ear quite close to the kitchen window.

Mrs. Ragg was enjoying a little conversation to herself.

"Ah!" she said, "it's always the way--girls will be girls; but what I blame her for is, that she don't ask the colonel's leave at once, and say--'Sir, your disorderly has won my infections, and may he come here and take a cup of tea?'"

This was Greek to Todd.

"What is the old fool talking about," he muttered. "But I will soon give her a subject that will last for her life."

He now arrived at the door of the kitchen. It was very unlikely to be locked or otherwise fastened, so immediately after the young woman, who had left the house, and passed so close to him, Todd. Yet he listened for a few moments more, as Mrs. Ragg kept making observations to herself.

"Listeners hear no good of themselves, says the proverb, and at all events it was verified in this instance."

"Lor' a mussy," ejaculated Mrs. Ragg, "how my mind do run upon that horrid old ugly monster of a Todd to day. Well, I do hope I shall never look upon his frightful face again, and how awful he did squint, too. Dear me, what did the colonel say he had with his vision--could it be--a something afixity? No that isn't it."

"Obliquity!" said Todd, popping his head in at the kitchen door. "It was obliquity, and if you scream or make the least alarm, I'll skin you, and strew this kitchen with your mangled remains!"

Mrs. Ragg sank into a chair with a melo-dramatic groan, that would have made her fortune over the water in domestic tragedy if she could have done it so naturally. Todd kept his eye upon her. That basilisk-like eye, which had fascinated the good woman often, and this time it acted as a kind of spell, for truly might he have said, or rather might some one have said for him,

"He held her with his glittering eye."

Todd's first care now was to get between Mrs. Ragg and the kitchen door, lest upon some sudden impulse she should rise and flee. Then he folded his arms, and looked at her calmly, and with such a devilish smile as might have become Mephistopheles himself, while contemplating the ruin of a soul. He took from his pocket a razor.

"Mercy," gasped Mrs. Ragg.

"Where is Tobias?"

"Up stairs. Back room, second floor, looking into the garden."

"Alone?"

"No, Minna Grey is with him."

"Listen to me. If you stir from here until I come to you again, I will not only murder you, but Tobias likewise, and every one whom I meet with in this house. You know me, and can come to some opinion as to whether or not I am a man likely to keep my word. Remain where you are; move not, speak not, and all will be well."

Mrs. Ragg slowly slid off her chair, and fell to the floor of the kitchen, where she lay, in what seemed a swoon.

"That will do as well," said Todd as he glanced at her, "and yet as I return." He made a movement with his hand across his throat to indicate what he would do, and then feeling assured that he had little or, indeed, no opposition to expect in the house, he left the kitchen, and walked up stairs.

When he reached the top of the kitchen stairs he paused to listen. All was very still in the house.

"'Tis well," he said "tis well. This deed of blood shall be done, and long before it can be thought that it was I who struck the blow, I shall be gone."

Alas! After passing through so much! After being persued in so almost a miraculous manner from the murderous intentions of Todd, backed by the cupidity of Fogg, and his subordinate Watson, was poor Tobias yet to die a terrible death as a victim to the cruel passions of his relentless persecutor? No, we will not yet believe that such is to be the fate of poor honest Tobias, although at the present time, his prospects look gloomy. Todd may, and no doubt has taken as worthy lives, but we will hope that the hand of Providence will prevent him from taking this one. He reached the landing of the first floor, and he paused to listen again. He thought this time, that he heard the faint sound of voices above, but he was not quite sure. Otherwise all was quiet. This was a critical situation for Todd. If any one, who was a painter of pictures or of morals had but seen him, Sweeney Todd, as he there stood, they would no longer have doubted either that there was a devil, or that some persons in this world, were actuated by a devilish fiend. He looked the incarnate fiend!--the Mephistopheles of the imagination, such as he is painted by the German enthusiast. His laugh too? Was not that satanic? He set himself to listen to the voices that he heard in that quiet rooms and the sounds, holy and full of affection as they were, awakened no chord of answering feeling, in that bold, bad man's breast. He stood apart from human nature, a solitary being. A wreck upon the ocean of society

"None loving, and by none beloved."

Who would be Sweeney Todd, for all the wealth, real or fabled, of a million Californias?

"He is here," he said, "I know his voice. Tobias is here. Ah! he mentions the name of God. Ha! He is more fitting to go to that heaven he can talk of so glibly, but there is none. There is none! No, no! all that is a fable."

Of course Todd could not believe in a divinity of goodness and mercy. If he had, what on earth could have saved him from absolute madness?

LXXXIII. TOBIAS IN JEOPARDY

"And so you do love me, Minna?" said Tobias.

How his voice shook like a reed swayed by the wind, and yet what a world of melody was in it.

"Can you ask me to say yes?" was the reply of the fair young creature by his side. "Can you ask me to say yes, Tobias?"

"It seems to me," said Tobias, "as though it would be such a joy to hear you say so, Minna, and yet I will not ask you."

"How well you have got, Tobias. Your cheek has got its old colour back again. The colour it had long before you knew there was such a man as Sweeney Todd in the world. Your eyes are bright too, and your voice has its old pleasant sound."

"Used it to be pleasant to you, Minna?"

She held up her hand, and shook her head laughingly.

"No questions, Tobias! No questions. I will confess nothing."

"Stop!" said Tobias, as he put himself into an attitude of listening, "what was that, I thought I heard something? It was like a suppressed growl. I wish the colonel would come home. Did you not hear it, Minna?"

Minna had heard it, but she did not say she had.

"Where did it come from, Tobias?"

"From the stair-head, Minna."

"Oh, it is some accidental noise, such as is common to all houses, and such as always defy conjecture and explanation, and being nothing and meaning nothing, always comes to nothing. Yet I will go and see. Perhaps a door has been left open, and is banging to and fro by the wind, and if so it will only vex you to hear it again, Tobias."

It was Todd, who upon hearing the soft and tender speeches from the young lovers, had not been able to suppress a growl, and now that he had heard Minna Grey talk of coming to look what it was, he felt the necessity of instantly concealing himself somewhere.

It was not likely she would come down the stairs, so Todd adopted an original mode of keeping himself out of sight.

He descended steps sufficient, that by laying at full length along them, his head did not reach the top, and in the darkness he then considered that he should be quite safe from the casual glance, that in all likelihood, merely to satisfy Tobias, Minna would give outside the room door.

Todd thought by her manner she had heard nothing.

"No, no, Minna," said Tobias, "there is no occasion. It is nothing, I dare say, and I don't like you to be out of my sight a moment."

"It is only a moment."

She rose, and proceeded to the door.

An unknown feeling of dread, she knew not why, was at the heart of Minna. Certainly the slight sound she had heard, and that too in the house of Colonel Jeffery, was not sufficient to warrant such a feeling, and yet there, at her heart, it sat brooding.

She stood for a moment at the door.

It was only for a moment.

"How foolish I am," she thought, and then she passed out on to the landing, where she stood for a moment glancing round her.

"It is nothing, Minna," called out Tobias, "or shall I try and come. I feel quite strong enough to do so."

"Oh, no--no! It is nothing."

Minna stepped lightly back and sat down. She clasped her hands very tight indeed together, and then placed both upon her breast.

She had seen Todd.

Yes, Minna Grey had seen the man that had been, and who was for all she knew to the contrary still to be, the bane of Tobias's existence. The clear eyes of youth had noticed the lumbering figure as it lay upon the stairs before them.

And she did not scream--she did not cry for help--she did not faint, she only crept back as we have seen, and held her hands upon her heart, and looked at Tobias.

There was no mistaking Todd. Once seen he was known for ever. Like some hideous picture, there dwelt the memory of Sweeney Todd upon the young imagination of the fair Minna Grey.

Once before, a long time ago, so it seemed to her, she had seen him in the Temple skulking up an old staircase. From that moment the face was Daguerreotyped upon her brain.

It was never to be forgotten, and with the face comes the figure too. That she saw upon the stairs.

Alas! Poor Minn!

"And so it was nothing but one of those odd accidents that will occur in defiance of all experience, and calculation," said Tobias.

"Just that," replied Minna.

"Ah, my dear Minna. We are so safe here. It always seems to me as though the very air of this house, belonging as it does to such a man, so full of goodness as the colonel is, such that nothing very bad could live in it for long."

"I--I hope so--I think so.--What a calm and pleasant evening it is, Tobias, did you see the new book of the seasons, so full of pretty engravings in the shape of birds and trees, and flowers, that the colonel has purchased."

"New book?"

"Yes, it lies in his small study, upon this floor. I will fetch it for you, if you wish it, Tobias?"

"Nay, I will go."

"You are still weak. Remain in peace upon the couch, dear Tobias, and I will go for you."

Before she left the room, she kissed the forehead of the boy. A tear, too, fell upon his hand.

"Who knows," she thought, "that I shall ever see him in life again?"

"Minna, you weep."

"Weep? No--no--I am so--so happy."

She hastily left the room. Todd had heard what had passed, and had turned to hide himself again. The young girl knew that she passed the murderer within a hair's breadth. She knew that he had but to stretch out his right hand and say--"Minna Gray, you are my victim!" and his victim she would have become. Was not that dreadful? And she so young and so fair--so upon the threshold, as it were, of the garden of her existence--so loving, and so well-beloved. She felt for a moment, as she crossed the landing--just for a moment as though she were going mad. But the eye of the Omnipotent was upon that house. She staggered on. She made her way into a bed-room. It was the colonel's. Above the mantel-shelf, supported on a small bracket, was a pair of pistols. They were of a large size, and she had heard from the current gossip of the house, how they were always loaded, and how the servants feared to touch them, and how even they shrank from making the bed, lest the pistol from some malice aforethought, or from something incidental to such watching, should go off at once of their own accord, and inevitably shoot whoever chanced to be in the room. Minna Gray laid her hand upon the dreaded weapons.

"For Tobias! for Tobias!" she gasped.

Then she paused to listen. All was still as the grave. Todd was not yet ready for the murder, or he wished to take their lives both together, and in the one room. That was more probable. Then she began to think that he must have some suspicion, and that it was necessary upon her part to do something more than merely make no alarm. The idea of singing occurred to her. It was a childish song that she had been taught, when a pretty child, that she now warbled forth a few lines of--

"If I were a forest bird, I'd shun the noisy town; I'd seek the verdure of the spring The dear autumnal brown. And even when the winter came, By sunny skies bereft, I'd sleep in some deep distant cave, Which wanton winds had left."

She crossed the landing.

"Minna," said Tobias. "My Minna!"

"I come."

She passed into the room, and the moment she crossed the threshold--she turned her face to it and presented both the pistols before her. Then as she wound, inch by inch, into the centre of the room, all her power of further concealment of her feelings deserted her, and she could only say, in a strange choking tone--

"Todd!--Todd!--Todd!"

"No--no--no! Oh, God, no!" cried Tobias.

"Todd!--Todd!--Todd!"

"No--no! Help! help!"

"D--n!" said Sweeney Todd, as he dashed open the door of the chamber, and stood upon the threshold with a glittering knife in his right hand.

"Hold!" shrieked Minna Gray. "Another step, murderer, and I send you to your God!"

Todd waited. He could almost see down the barrels of the large pistols, which a touch of the young girl's finger would explode in his face. With a sharp convulsive cry, Tobias fell to the floor. The blood gushed from his mouth, and he lay bereft of sensation.

"Away!" cried Minna. "Monster, away! Another moment, and as Heaven hears me, I will fire; once--twice--"

Todd darted to the stair head, but he darted away again quicker than he had gone there; for who, to his horror, should he meet, advancing with great speed up the steps, but Mrs. Ragg, who had managed to get out of the kitchen, and who bore, as a weapon of offence and defence, the large kitchen poker, which was of a glowing red heat. Todd caught a touch of it on his face.

"Oh, you villain of the world!" cried Mrs. Ragg, "I'll teach you to come here murdering people. My poor Tobias is no more, I know; but I'll take the law of you, I will. Murder! murder! Police! Colonel!"

With an alacrity, that was far beyond to all appearance Mrs. Ragg's powers, that good lady pursued Todd with the red-hot poker. He dared not take refuge in Tobias's room, for there stood Minna with the pistols in her hand, so he darted up the first flight of stairs he saw, which led to the top of the house. Mrs. Ragg pursued him; but when she got to the head of the stairs, Minna pressed too hard upon the hair-trigger of one of the pistols, and off it went. Mrs. Ragg fully believed herself shot, and rolled down the stairs, poker included; while Todd, labouring under the impression that the shot was at him, became still more anxious to find some place of refuge. Upon the landing, which he was not a moment in reaching, he found a great show of doors; for he was, in fact, upon the floor from which all the sleeping rooms of the servants opened. It was quite a chance that the first one he bounced into was one that had in the roof a little square trap-door, facetiously called "a fire escape;" but which, in the event of a fire, would have acquired the agility of a harlequin, and the coolness of a tax-gatherer to get through. Todd dragged a bedstead beneath the trap; and then his great height enabled him to thrust it open, and project his head through it. He found that part of his corporality was in the roof as it were--that is to say, in the cavity, between the ceiling of the room and the house. A trap-door of somewhat larger size in the actual roof, opened to the air. Todd dragged himself through, and was fairly upon the top of the colonel's house. A slippery elevation! But surely that was better than facing a red-hot poker, and a pair of hair-trigger duelling pistols; and so, for a time, the desire to escape kept down every other feeling. Even his revengeful thoughts gave way to the great principle of self-preservation; and Todd was only intent upon safely getting away. He glared round him upon the night sky, and a gaudy assemblage of chimney tops. What was he to do? In a minute he uttered a string of such curses, as we cannot very well here set down, and he turned preternaturally calm and still.

"Shall I go back," he said, "or escape?"

He heard the tramp of horses' feet, and peeping carefully over the front parapet of the house, he saw Colonel Jeffery arrive on horseback, and dismount. His groom led the horse away, and the colonel ascended the steps. Then, and not until then, Todd made up his mind.

"Escape," he said, "and be off."

There was a long sloping part of the roof close to where he was, and he thought that if he slid down that very carefully he should be able to get on to the roof of the next house, and so perchance through their trap door, and by dint of violence or cunning, or both united, reach the street.

It was a desperate resource, but his only one.

The top part of the long sloping roof was easily gained, and then Todd began to let himself down very carefully, but the angle of the roof was greater than he had imagined, and by the time he got about half way down he found a dangerous and most uncomfortable acceleration of motion ensuing.

It was in vain he tried to stop himself: down he went with a speed into the gutter behind the copping-stone, that left him lying there for a few moments half stunned, and scarcely conscious if he were safe or not.

The colonel's house, however, was stoutly built, and Todd's weight had not displaced anything; so that there he lay safe enough, wedged into a narrow rain gutter, from which, when he did recover himself sufficiently to make the attempt, he found some difficulty in wrenching himself out of.

Sore and shaken, Todd now looked about him. He was close to the roof of the next-door house. To be sure there was a chasm of sixty feet; but its width was not as many inches, so Todd ought, with his long legs, to easily step it.

LXXXIV. TODD'S WONDERFUL ESCAPE

The step was but a trifle; and yet, shaken as Todd was by his fall, it really seemed to him to be one of the most hazardous and nervous things in the world to take it.

He made two feints before he succeeded. At length he stood fairly upon the roof of the adjoining house. He did not say "Thank God!"; such words were not exactly in the vocabulary of Sweeney Todd; but he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and seemed to think that he had effected something at last.

And yet how far was he from safety? It is some satisfaction to have got such a man as Todd upon the house-tops. Who pities him? Who would be violently afflicted if he made a false step and broke his neck? No one, we apprehend; but such men, somehow, do not make false steps; and if they do, they manage to escape the consequences.

Surely it was about as ticklish a thing to crawl up a sloping roof as to come down one. Todd did not think so, however, and he began to shuffle up the roof of the house he was now on, looking like some gigantic tortoise, slowly making its way.

Reasoning from his experience of the colonel's house, Todd thought he should very well be able to pitch upon the trap, in the roof of the domicile upon which he was, nor was he wrong. He found it in precisely the same relative position, and then he paused.

He drew a long breath.

"What a mad adventure this is," he said; "and yet what a satisfaction it would have been to me, before I left England, to be able to feel that I had had my revenge upon that brat Tobias. That he had not altogether failed me after I had paid so much money to be rid of him. But that is over. I have failed in that attempt; but they shall not say it cost me my life. They will be bold people who stop me in my passage to the street in this house."

He felt the trap-door. It was fast.

"Humph!" he said, "doors are but bonds; and the rains of a few winters rot them quickly enough. We shall see."

The knife, with which he would have been well pleased to give poor Tobias his quietus, was thick and strong. He slid it under the wooden trap, and by mere force lifted it up. The nails of the bolt easily withdrew themselves from the rotten wood.

Todd was right. The rains of a few winters had done their work.

It was not exactly a time in the evening, when, in such a class of house, any one might be expected to be found in the attics; so Todd made no scruple of at once removing the lower trap in the ceiling.

He dropped comfortably enough on to the floor.

And now, coming suddenly as he did from the light, faint as it was, of the open air in the room, which he found himself, seemed to be involved in profound darkness; but that he knew would wear away in a few moments, and he stood still for his eyes to get accustomed to the semi-obscurity of the place.

Gradually, then, as though out of chaos, there loomed a bedstead and all the necessary appointments of a bed-room. It was untenanted; and so Todd, after listening intently, and believing, from the marked stillness that there prevailed, that the upper part of the house was deserted, walked to the door, and opening it, stood upon the landing.

"If I can now but step down stairs noiselessly, and open the street door, all will be well. People don't sit upon the staircase, and I may be fortunate enough to encounter no one."

There was no time to lose. Affairs in Fleet-street required his presence; and, besides, the present moment might be the most propitious, for all he knew, for the enterprise.

Down he went, not clinging to the balustrades--for who should say they might not wheeze and creak?--not walking upon the middle of the stairs, for there was no saying what tell-tale sounds they might give vocality to; but sliding along close to the wall, and stepping so quietly, that it would have required attentive ears to have detected his silent and steady march.

And so, flight by flight of these stairs Todd descended in safety, until he reached the passage. Yes, he got to the passage without the shadow of an interruption.

Then he heard voices in one of the parlours.

"Confound them!" said Todd, "they will hear me open the street door to a certainty; but it must be done."

He crept up to the door. There was some complicated latch upon it that defied all his knowledge of latches, and all his perseverance; and yet, no doubt, it was something that only required a touch; but he might be hours in finding out in the dark where to apply that touch.

He still heard the voices in the parlour.

More than five minutes--precious minutes to him--had already been consumed in fumbling at the lock of the street door; and then Todd gave it up as useless, and he crept to the parlour-door to listen to the speakers, and so, perhaps, ascertain the force that was within.

A female voice was speaking.

"Oh, dear me, yes, I daresay," it said. "You no doubt think that house can be kept for nothing, and that a respectable female wants no clothes to her back; but I can tell you, Mr. Simmons, that you will find yourself wonderfully mistaken, sir."

"Pshaw!" said a man's voice. "Pshaw! I know what I mean, and so do you. You be quiet wife, and think yourself well off, that you are as you are."

"Well off?"

"Yes, to be sure, well off."

"Well off, when I was forced to go to Mr. Rickup's party, in the same dress they saw me in last Easter. Oh! you brute!"

"What's the matter with the dress?"

"The matter? Why I'll tell you what the matter is. The matter is, and the long and short of everything, that you are a brute."

"Very conclusive indeed. The deuce take me if it ain't."

"I suppose by the deuce, you mean the devil, Mr. Simmons; and if he don't take you some day, he won't have his own. Ha! ha! you may laugh, but there's many a true word spoken in jest, Mr. Simmons."

"Oh, you are in jest, are you?"

"No sir, I am not, and I should like to know what woman could jest with only one black silk, and, that turned. Yes, Mr. Simmons, you often call upon the deuce to take this, and to take that. Mind he don't come some day to you when you least expect it sir, and say--"

"Lend me a light!" said Todd, popping his awfully ugly face right over the top of the half open door, a feat which he was able to accomplish by standing on his tip toes.

There are things that can be described, but certainly the consternation of Mr. and Mrs. Simmons cannot be included in the list. They gazed upon the face of Todd in speechless horror, nor did he render himself a bit less attractive by several of his most hideous contortions of visage.

Finding then that both husband and wife appeared spell-bound, Todd stepped into the room, and taking a candle from the table, he stalked into the passage with it.

The light in his hand threw a light upon the mystery of the lock. Todd opened the street-door, and passed out in a moment. To hurl the candle and candlestick into the passage, and close the door, was the next movement of Todd, but then he saw two figures upon the steps leading to Colonel Jeffery's house, and he shrunk back a moment.

"Now William," said Colonel Jeffery himself, "you will take this letter to Sir Richard Blunt, and tell him to use his own discretion about it."

"Yes, sir."

"Be quick, and give it into no hands but his own."

"Certainly, sir."

"Remember, William, this is important."

The groom touched his hat, and went away at a good pace, and Colonel Jeffery himself closed the door.

"Indeed," muttered Todd. "Indeed. So, Sir Richard Blunt, who is called an active magistrate, is to know of my little adventure here? Well--well--we shall see."

He darted from the door of the house, through which he had made so highly successful and adventurous a progress, and pursued William with such strides as soon brought him close up to him. But the thoroughfare in which they were was too public a one for Todd to venture upon any overt act in it.

He followed William sufficiently closely however to be enabled to take advantage of any opportunity that might present itself to possess himself by violence of the letter.

Now William had been told the affair was urgent, so of course he took all the nearest cuts he could to the house of Sir Richard Blunt, and such a mode of progress soon brought him into a sufficiently quiet street for Todd's purpose.

The latter looked right and left. He turned completely round, and no one was coming--a more favourable opportunity could not be. Stepping lightly up to William he by one heavy blow upon the back of his neck felled him.

The groom lay insensible.

Todd had seen him place the colonel's letter in his breast-pocket, and at once he dived his huge hand into that receptacle to find it. He was successful--one glance at the epistle that he drew forth sufficed to assure him that it was the one he sought. It was duly addressed to Sir Richard Blunt--"With speed and private."

"Indeed, very private," said Todd.

"Wretch! Wretch!" cried some one from a window, and Todd knew then that the deed of violence had been witnessed by some one from one of the houses.

With an execration, he darted off at full speed, and soon placed a perfect labyrinth of streets between him and all pursuit. He thrust the letter all crumbled up into his pocket, and he would not pause to read it until he was much nearer to Fleet-street than to the colonel's house, or the scene of his attack upon the groom. Then, by the light of a more than usually brilliant lamp, which with its expiring energies was showing the world what an old oil lamp could do, he opened and read the brief letter.

It was as follows.

"DEAR SIR RICHARD.

"Todd has been here upon murderous thoughts intent. Poor Tobias has, I fear, broken a blood-vessel, and is in a most precarious condition. I leave all to you. The villain escaped, but is injured I think."

"Yours very faithfully, "JOHN JEFFERY." "To SIR RICHARD BLUNT.

"Broken a blood-vessel," said Todd. "Ha! ha! Broken a blood-vessel. Ha! Then Tobias may yet be food for worms, and the meat of the pretty crawlers to the banquet. Ha!"

He walked on with quite a feeling of elation; and yet there was, as he came to think, a something--he could not exactly define what--about the tone of the letter, that began upon second thoughts to give him no small share of uneasiness.

The familiar way in which he was mentioned as Todd merely, without further description, argued some foregone conclusion. It seemed to say, Todd, the man whom we both know so well, and have our eyes upon.

Did it mean that? A cold perspiration broke out upon the forehead of the guilty wretch. What was he to think? What was he to do?

He read the letter again. It sounded much more unmeaning and strange now. He had at first been too much dazzled by the pleasant intelligence regarding Tobias, to comprehend fully the alarming tone of the epistle; but now it waked upon his imagination, and his brain soon became vexed and troubled.

"Off--off, and away," he muttered. "Yes, I must be off before the dawn. The interception of this letter saves me for some few hours. In the morning, the colonel will see Sir Richard Blunt, and then they will come to arrest me; but I shall be upon the German Ocean by then. Yes, the Hamburgh ship for me."

He was so near his home now that it was not worth while to call a coach. He could run to Fleet Street quicker, so off he set at a great pace till his breath failed him.

Then he held on to a post so faint and weak, that a little child might have apprehended him.

"Curse them all," he said. "I wish they all had but one throat, and I a knife at it. All who cross me, I mean."

Time was rather an important element now in Todd's affairs, and he felt that he could not allow himself a long period even to recover from the state of exhaustion in which he was.

After a few minutes rest, he pushed on.

One of those sudden changes that the climate of this country is subject to, now took place; and although the sky had looked serene and bright, and there had been twinkling stars in the blue firmament but a short time before, Todd began to find that his clothing was but little protection against the steady rain that commenced falling with a perseverance that threatened something lasting.

"All is against me," he said. "All is against me."

He struggled on with the rain dashing in his face, and trickling, despite all his exertions to the contrary, down his neck. Suddenly he paused, and laid his finger upon his forehead, as though a sudden thought of more than ordinary importance had come across his mind.

"The turpentine!" he said. "The turpentine. Confound it, I forget the turpentine."

What this might mean was one of Todd's own secrets; but before he went home, he ran down several streets until he came to a kind of wholesale drug warehouse.

He rang the bell violently.

"What is it?" said a voice.

"The small keg of turpentine that was to be sent to Mr. Todd's in Fleet Street, is particularly wanted."

"It was sent about half an hour ago."

"Oh, thank you--thank you. That will do. A wet night."

In a few minutes more he was at his own shop-door.

LXXXV. SIR RICHARD MAKES PLANS

Johanna had had a long time to herself in Todd's shop now. When first he left upon that expedition of murder, she had almost been afraid to stir, for she had feared he might momentarily return; but as his stay became longer and longer protracted, she plucked up courage.

She began to look about her.

"As yet," she said to herself, "what has been done towards arriving at a solution of the mysteries of this dreadful place?"

The more she thought, the more she felt compelled to answer this inquiry in an unsatisfactory manner. What had been done?

The only thing that could be said to be settled, was the fact that Todd was guilty, and that Mrs. Lovett was his accomplice. That he, by some diabolical means, murdered people who came into his shop to be shaved, was a fact, incontestable; but how he did the deed, still remained a mystery.

The care which Todd always bestowed for the purpose of concealing the manner in which he committed the murder, had hitherto been successful. No one but himself, and probably Mrs. Lovett, knew exactly how he did the deed.

It has been of course sufficiently observed that he never attempted anything amiss when two people were in the shop. That he always made it a point to get rid of Johanna upon occasions when he thought he had a chance of making a victim; and that in fact he had, by the very fact that Sir Richard Blunt and his officers had in various disguises followed people into his shop, been for some time prevented from the commission of his usual murders.

Now without in the smallest degree disguising what he did know, it is quite clear that Sir Richard Blunt up to that time did not know how Todd did the deeds of blood for which his shop was to become famous, and himself infamous.

That people went in and never came out again, was about the extent of what was really known.

The authorities, including Sir Richard Blunt, were extremely anxious to know exactly how these murders were committed, and hence they waited with the hope, that something would occur to throw a light upon that part of the subject, before they apprehended Todd.

At any moment, of course, he could have been seized, and he little suspected that he was upon such a mine.

If anything, however, could be said to expedite the arrest of Todd, it would certainly be what had taken place at the colonel's house.

Now, to all appearance, when the colonel came home so close upon the events that had happened in his absence, and had so very nearly been fatal to both Minna Gray and Tobias, Todd had made his escape.

A rapid, but effective search of his, the colonel's house, sufficed to prove that there he was not.

The appearance of Tobias, with blood gushing from his mouth, was sufficiently alarming, and it was under the impression that he was dying from the rupture of a blood-vessel, that the colonel wrote the note to Sir Richard Blunt, which was intercepted by Sweeney Todd himself.

Upon the arrival, however, of the surgeon, who was immediately sent for, it was soon ascertained that the blood-vessel which had given way in poor Tobias, was not on the lungs, and that the danger arising from it was by no means great, provided he were kept quiet and properly attended to.

Minna Gray received this information with deep thankfulness, and the colonel, upon hearing it, immediately sought Sir Richard to consult with him upon the subject in its now altered state, for the idea that Tobias was dying, had made him, the colonel, view the affair much more passionately than prudently.

By dint of some trouble, the colonel found Sir Richard Blunt, and then to his no small surprise, for he had known his groom long, and thought he could thoroughly depend upon him, he found that the magistrate had received no note at all upon the subject, so that of course no steps had been taken.

Upon hearing the affair detailed to him, Sir Richard Blunt said--

"I regret this much, as it will put Todd in a fright and expedite his departure."

"But was he not going by the Hamburgh packet before day-dawn? At any rate, I understood you that by the manner in which you had dogged him, you had thoroughly ascertained that fact?"

"I had, but had taken steps to prevent him."

"You would arrest him to-night?"

"No, I do not think it advisable to arrest him just yet. The fact is, I do not know all that I want to know; but in order to stop him from leaving his shop to-night, I have caused the Hamburgh Captain Owners, to write to him, since he had taken a passage, telling him that the ships stores would not be ready until to-morrow, when at one hour before sunrise he would sail."

"Then you want to keep him in his shop another day?"

"I do. I hope and expect that during that day, something may occur to clear up the mystery that still attaches to the mode in which he commits his murders."

"It may so."

"I think I can take measures by running some little personal risk to make it do so; but something must be hit upon to calm his mind, regarding this affair at your house now, for he will expect nothing but instant arrest on its account."

"What can I do?"

"If you will be guided by me you will write Todd a letter, threatening him that if there is any more interference with Tobias, you will prosecute him, but that you will, if you hear no more of him at your house, say nothing of the past. You need be under no fear that he will derive any future advantage from such a promise, as any charge against him connected with poor Tobias will sink into insignificance, compared with other offences."

"True! true!"

"Such a letter, couched with the one concerning the non-departure of the ship, may keep him in his shop over to-morrow."

"And then--"

"Then he sleeps in Newgate, from which building he steps on to the scaffold."

"But has he not sent many trunks and packages to the ship?"

"Yes, and I have as regularly removed them all to the police-office at Bow Street. We have already some thousands of pounds worth of property of the most costly description."

"But Johanna? What is to become of her?"

"You may depend upon it that Todd will pursue the same course with her that he did with Tobias. He will give her a trifle of money, and tell her to get a night's lodging out; and in that case she knows where to come to be quite safe and comfortable. But if such should not be the case, my protecting arm is over her; I think I can almost defy Todd to do her any injury."

"Think you so?"

"Yes, I have made such arrangements that if she were missed only for ten minutes, Todd's house would be searched from top to bottom. I would not, for this right hand, that any harm should come to her."

"Nor I--nor I."

"Be at ease regarding her, colonel."

"I know how fully we may trust to you, and therefore I will be at ease regarding her; and I will at once write the letter to Todd you suggest to me."

"Do so. His fears upon your account must be calmed down."

The colonel accordingly wrote the necessary note to Todd. Of course, neither he nor Sir Richard Blunt knew that Todd had another reason for wishing to be off that night, which consisted in his great unwillingness to meet Mrs. Lovett in the morning; for it will be recollected that he had an appointment with that lady upon money matters at an early hour.

The reader is now fully aware of how matters stand, and will be able to comprehend easily the remarkable events which rapidly ensued upon this state of things, and therefore we can at once return to Todd.

We left him upon his door-step.

It was never Todd's custom to walk at once into his house as any one else would do upon their arrival, whose

"Conscience was not redolent of guilt!"

but he would peep and pry about, and linger like a moth fluttering around a candle, or a rat smelling at some tempting morsel, which might be connected with some artfully contrived trap, before he entered.

He wanted sadly to get a peep at what Charley was doing.

Now, poor Johanna, fortunately at that moment, was only sitting before the little miserable fire, holding her face in her hands, and deeply thinking of the once happy past. She had brought out from beneath the counter the sleeve of a sailor's jacket, which she had found upon her former examination of the shop, and after sprinkling it with some tears, for she fully believed it must have belonged to Mark Ingestrie, she had hidden it again.

And now as she sat in that house of murder all alone, she was picturing to herself every tone and look of her lover when he had first told her that he loved her before, as she might have said in the words of the old song--

"He loved me, and he sped away Far o'er the raging sea, To seek the gems of other lands, And bring them all to me."

At that moment, with all external objects hidden from her perception she could almost fancy she could hear his voice as he had said to her--"My darling, I shall come back rich and prosperous, and we shall be happy."

Alas! how sadly had that dream ended. He who had escaped the perils of the deep--he who had successfully battled with the tempest, and all the perils by sea and by land incidental to the life he had embarked in, had returned miserably to perish, almost within hearing of her for whom he had adventured so much.

The thought was maddening!

"And I live!" she said; "I can live after that! Oh, Mark--Mark--I did not love you well enough, or I could not have existed so long after the horrible certainly of your fate has been revealed to me. They may say what they will to try to make me calmer and happier, but I know that he is Todd's victim."

After this she sat for a time in a kind of stupor, and it was during that interval that Todd arrived home.

There was no light in the shop but what at times came from a little flickering flame, that would splutter into a moment's brief existence in the fire; but Todd, as he glared through the upper portion of the half-glass door at a spot where he knew the blind did not prevent him, could just see Johanna thus sitting.

"Humph!" he said. "The boy is quiet enough, and probably, after all, may suspect nothing; although I don't at all like his manner at times; yet it is safer to kill him before I go. It is absolute security. He shall help me to arrange everything to set the house on fire, and then when I have completed all my arrangements, it will be easy to knock him on the head."

With this he opened the door.

Johanna started.

"Well," said Todd, "well, any one been?"

"Only a man to be shaved, sir. I told him you would be home soon, but he could not wait, so he left."

"Let him leave and get shaved at the devil!" said Todd. "You are sure no one has been here peeping and prying, and asking questions which you would be quite delighted to answer, eh?"

"Peeping and prying, sir?"

"Yes, peeping and prying. You know the meaning of that. Don't put on a look of surprise at me. It won't do. I known what you boys are. Curse you all! Yes, I know what you are."

Johanna made no answer.

Todd took off his hat, and shook the rain from it violently. Then in a voice that made Johanna start again, he cried--

"Light the lamp, idiot!"

It was quite clear that the occurrences at the colonel's had not improved Todd's temper at all, and that upon very little pretext for it, he would have committed some act of violence, of which Johanna might be the victim. Anything short of that she could endure, but she had made up her mind that if even he so much as laid his hand upon her, her power of further patience would be gone, and she would be compelled to adopt the means of summoning aid which had been pointed out to her by Sir Richard Blunt--namely, by casting something through the window into the street.

She lit the shop-lamp as quickly as she could.

"A lazy life you lead," said Todd. "A lazy life, indeed. Well, well," he added, softening his tone, "it don't matter--I shall polish you off for all that, Charley. What a pretty boy you are."

"Sir?"

"I say what a pretty boy you are. Why, you must have been your mamma's pet, that you must. I was. Ha! ha! Look at me, now. I was fondled and kissed once, and called a pretty boy. Ha!"

Johanna shuddered.

"Yes," added Todd, as he wiped himself down with a soiled towel, "yes, my mother used to make quite a pet of me. I often used to wish I was strong enough to throttle her! Ha! ha! That I did!"

"Throttle her, sir?"

"Yes," added Todd, fiercely. "What the devil did she bring me into the world for her own gratifications, unless she had plenty of money to give me that I might enjoy myself in it?"

"I don't know, sir."

"You don't know? Who the devil supposed you did know? Answer me that, you imp! Well, well, Charley, you and I won't quarrel about such matters. Come, my boy, I want you to be of use to me to-night."

"To-night, sir?"

"Yes, to-night. Is it broad daylight? Is the sun shining? Is there no such thing as night, under cover of which black deeds are done? Curse you! why do you ask if to-night is the time for action?"

"I will do your bidding, sir."

"Yes; and--Ah! who is this?"

"Is this here keg of turpentine for you?" said a man, with it upon his shoulder. "Mr. Todd's this is, ain't it?"

"Yes--yes. Put it down, my good fellow. You ought to have something to drink."

"Thank you kindly, sir."

"But you must pay for it yourself. There is a public-house opposite."

The man went away swearing; and scarcely had he crossed the threshold, when a letter was brought by a lad, and handed to Todd. Before he could ask any questions, the lad was gone.

Todd held the letter in his hand, and glared at the direction. It was to him, sure enough, and written in a very clerk-like hand, too. Before he could open it, some one hit the door a blow upon the outside, and it swung open.

"Is this Todd's, the barber?"

"Yes," said Johanna.

"Then give him that letter, little chap, will you?"

"Stop!" cried Todd. "Stop. Where do you come from, and who are you? Stop, you rascal. Will you stop? Confound you, I wish I had a razor at your throat."

LXXXVI. TODD RECEIVES TWO EXTRAORDINARY LETTERS, AND ACTS UPON THEM

Todd looked the picture of amazement.

"Two letters!" he muttered, "two letters to me, who seldom receive any? To me who have no acquaintances--no relations? Bah! It must be some mistake, or perhaps, after all, some infernal nonsense about the parish."

He tore open the last received one, and read as follows:--

"Colonel Jeffery informs Sweeney Todd that, although from a variety of reasons he may not think proper to prosecute him for his recent outrage at his house, he will, upon a repetition of such conduct, at once hand him over to the police."

Todd's countenance, during the perusal of this brief note, betrayed a variety of emotions; and when he had concluded it, he let it drop from his hands, and knitting his brows, he muttered--

"What does this mean?"

That there was--that there must be something much more than met the eye in this boasted clemency of the colonel towards him, he felt quite convinced; but what it was, he was puzzled to think for a time. At length, brightening up, he said--

"Yes, I have it. It is Tobias--it is Tobias. He cannot rid himself from the idea that I have some mysterious power of injuring his mother; and perhaps, after all, he may have made no disclosures to the colonel injurious to me."

Comforted by this wide supposition, Todd picked up the letter again, and put it in his pocket carefully.

"It is as well," he said, "for I shall not now be hurried. No, I shall not be at all hurried now, which I might have been.--Charley."

"Yes, sir."

"Trim the lamp."

Johanna did so; and while the process was going on, Todd opened the other letter, it was as follows:--

"Sir,--We beg to inform you that our Hamburgh vessel in which you have done us the favour to take passage, will not sail until to-morrow night at four, God willing, and that consequently there will be no occasion for your coming on board earlier.--We are, sir,

"Your obedient servants,

"BROWN, BUGGINS, MUGGS, AND SCREAMER."

"To Mr. S. Todd."

Todd ground his teeth together in a horrible manner. He dashed the letter to the floor, and stamped upon it.

"Curse Brown and Buggins!" he cried. "I only wish I could dash out Muggs and Screamer's brains with Brown and Buggins's skulls. Confound them and their ships. May they all go to the bottom when I am out of them, and be smashed and d--d!"

Johanna was amazed at this sudden torrent of wrath. She could not imagine what had produced it, for Todd had read the letter in a muttering tone, that effectually prevented her from hearing any of it.

Suddenly he rose and rushed into the back room, and bolted the door upon himself. He went to think what was best to be done.

When he was alone he read both the letters again, and then he burst out into such a torrent of wrath against the ship-owners, that it was a mercy Johanna's ears were spared the dreadful words that came from his lips.

Suddenly he saw a postscript at the foot of the ship-owner's letter, which he had at first overlooked.

"P. S.--The ship is removed to Crimmins's Wharf, but will be at her old moorings at time mentioned above."

"D--n Crimmins and his wharf, too!" cried Todd.

He flung himself into a chair, and sat for a time profoundly still. During that period he tried to make up his mind as to what it would be best for him, under the circumstances, to do. Many plans floated through his imagination. He could not for a long time bring himself to believe that the letter of the colonel's was anything but a feint to throw him off his guard in some way.

At length he got into a calmer frame of mind.

"Shall I leave at once, or stay till to-morrow night, that is the question?"

He argued this with himself, pro and con.

If he left he would have to secret himself somewhere all the following day, and the fact of his having left would make an active search, safe to be instituted for him, which would possibly be successful. Besides, how was he to conveniently set fire to his house, unless he was off on the moment that the flames burst forth?

Then if he stayed he had Mrs. Lovett to encounter, but that was all; and surely he could put her off for a few hours? Surely she, of all people in the world, was not to run to a police-office and destroy both him and herself, just because she did not get some money at ten o'clock that he had promised to hand to her.

"She shall be put off," he said, suddenly, "and I will stay over to-morrow. I am safer here than anywhere else, of that I feel assured. If there are any suspicious whisperings about me at all, they will grow to loud clamours the moment I am gone, and then they may reach the ears of these ship-owners, and they may say at once, 'Why we have such a man with a passage taken in one of our Hamburgh ships.' Let them say that when the ship is some twenty hours gone with me on board, and I don't care; but with me on land, and the ship only to sail, instead of having actually sailed, it is quite a different matter."

He rose from his seat. His mind was made up. He had not quite decided what he should say to Mrs. Lovett, but he had decided upon staying.

"Charley will live another day," he muttered; "but to-morrow night he dies, and his body will be consumed with this house, and, I hope, a good part of Fleet-street. It will not be prudent to get him to assist now in disposing the combustibles to fire the house. He might speak of it before to-morrow night."

Todd came out into the shop.

"Charley, my boy!" How kindly he spoke!

"I am here, sir."

"You must not mind what I say when I am vexed. Many things happen to put me out of the way. Sometimes people that I have done I don't know how much for, turn out to be very ungrateful, and then I get chafed, you see, Charley."

"Yes, sir, no doubt."

"But, after I have retired to the parlour and prayed a little, my mind soon recovers its usual religious tone, and its wonted serenity; and for the sake of the Almighty, who, you know, is good to us all, Charley, I forgive all that is done to me, and pray for the wicked."

Johanna shuddered. This hypocrisy sounded awful to her.

"Never go to rest, Charley, without saying your prayers. There's threepence for you. You can get yourself a bed in the neighbourhood for that amount somewhere, I daresay. I am very sorry I cannot accommodate you here, Charley. Now go away, and let me have you here by seven in the morning; and mind, above all things, cultivate a religious spirit, and do unto your neighbours as you would that your neighbours should do unto you."

Johanna could not reply.

"Here is a tract that you can read before you go to sleep, if they allow you a candle, when you get a-bed. It is entitled 'Groans of Grace, or the Sinner Sifted,' a most godly production, from a pious bookseller in Paternoster-row, Charley."

"Yes," Johanna just managed to say.

"Now you may go."

She darted from the shop.

"Hilloa! hilloa! Stop--stop, Charley! Stop--stop, will you? Confound you, stop! The infernal shutters are not up. Do you hear? I forgot them."

Todd rushed to his door. He looked right and left, and over the way, and, in fact, everywhere, but no Charley was to be seen. The fact is, that Johanna, the moment she felt herself released from the shop, had darted over the way, and into the fruiterers, where she had found so friendly a welcome before, and all this was done in such a moment, that she was housed before Todd could get his shop-door open.

"Welcome!" said a voice.

She found it proceeded from the fruiterer's daughter, who had behaved so kindly to her.

Johanna burst into tears.

"What has happened?--what has happened?" cried the young girl.

"Nothing, now," said Johanna. "But I cannot keep up longer than when I am in that shop. As soon as I am fairly out of the presence of that dreadful man, I feel ready to faint."

"Be of good cheer," said a deep-toned voice.

She looked up, and saw Sir Richard Blunt.

"You here, sir?"

"Yes, Johanna. I have been now for some time watching Todd's shop from our friend's first-floor window. I saw you dart across the road, and for the moment feared something had gone wrong. Did Todd get two letters?"

"He did."

"They will, I hope, keep him quiet until another night. Dare you go back again, Johanna, to that place?"

"Yes, if it be necessary; but he has told me to sleep out, and the gust of pleasure I felt at the permission, almost, I fear, betrayed me."

"He came to the door and looked furiously after you, but he did not see which way you had come. You were over here like a flash of light."

"He would have had me back again, then?--What could that be for?"

"At all events, you shall not go until the morning, and not then, unless after a night's rest here, you feel that you can do so with a good heart."

"Oh yes, I will fulfil my mission."

"Todd is putting up his shutters," said the fruiterer, as he came in from his front shop.

"Ah, then the secret is out," said Sir Richard Blunt. "That is what he wanted you back for, Johanna. He had forgotten at the moment all about the shutters you may depend. I am glad he spared you the trouble, at any rate. I do not like you to perform any service for such a rank villain as he is."

"It would not have been for him, sir."

"For who, then?"

"For the dead. I feel that I am bound to bring to justice the murderer of Mark Ingestrie. When I was here last, sir, you strove to comfort me, by making me feel a sort of hope that he was not dead, but I cannot think that--I would that I could, but indeed I cannot, sir."

"Do not be too sure, Johanna."

"Nay, look at that."

She laid before the magistrate the sleeve of the jacket that she had found at Todd's, and which fancy, for she certainly had no proof that way tending, told her had belonged to Mark Ingestrie.

"What is this?"

"Look at it, sir. My heart tells me it was his!"

"And so you suppose there was never but one sailor's jacket with ivory buttons on the wrist in the world, and never any one who wore one, but Mark Ingestrie?"

"Nay, the place in which it was found brings conviction."

"Not at all. Do you forget there was such a person as Thornhill in the world, Johanna?"

"No; but why will every one persist in fancying Thornhill and Ingestrie to be two persons, when I am convinced they were but one? Let who will identify this as part of Thornhill's apparel, and I will weep for Mark."

"I cannot just now shake this supposition."

"You never will."

"If I live I will, Johanna, I give you my word for so much. Pray who is the best to judge of such things? You, a young girl who have seen little or nothing of the world, and whose natural apprehension is rendered obscure by the conflict of your affections, or I whose business it is to come to an accurate conclusion of such matters? I repeat my conviction, that Thornhill was not Mark Ingestrie."

"Oh, if I could think so!"

"You will."

"You have no doubt, sir, but Thornhill perished by the hand of Todd?"

"None whatever."

Johanna looked deeply affected.

"Come," added Sir Richard, "you want both rest and refreshment, and you can have both here at this house. To-morrow I hope will end all your trials, my dear girl, and I shall live, I trust, to see you smile as you ought to smile, and to be as happy as only a very dim recollection of the past will make you."

"Ah, no--never happy."

"You must love some one. You must recover, and in the cares and joys of a new existence, you must only look back upon what has passed, as though you pondered upon the phantasma of some fearful dream; and when you see all around you smiling--"

"It will be cruel for them to smile, sir; and it is now cruel of you to speak to me of loving another, when you know my affections are with Ingestrie, in that world to which he has gone before me, but to which I look forward to as the place of our happy meeting, where we shall part again no more."

"Well, I thought I could find you a lover that would be to your mind when all these affairs were over."

"Sir?"

"Nay, be not offended. You know I am your sincere friend."

"I know you are, and that is what makes it so grievous to me to hear you talk in such a strain, sir."

"Then I will say no more."

"I thank you, Sir Richard; and I will forget what you have said, because I will recollect nothing from you, or committed with you, but kindness and consideration."

Sir Richard smiled slightly for a moment, as he turned aside and spoke to his friend the fruiterer for some minutes in a low tone. The young girl who had before behaved with such kindness to Johanna, took her by the hand, and led her up-stairs.

"Come," she said, "you shall tell me all you have suffered opposite since we parted last, and I will speak to you of him whom you love."

"You are too good to me."

While all this was going on so close to him, Todd, with many oaths and execrations, was putting up his own shutters, which he did with a violence that nearly knocked the front of the window in. When he had finished, he walked into his house, and closing the door, he said, in a low tone--

"I must make up my mind what to say to Mrs. Lovett in the morning. I am afraid she will be hard to pacify."

At this moment a man peered out from the inn gateway opposite, and said to himself--

"Now begins my watch. I dare say now Mrs. Lovett has some particular reason for watching this barber, though she did not tell me. However, a guinea for one night's work is not bad pay."

LXXXVII. MR. LUPIN MEDDLES WITH OTHER FOLKS' AFFAIRS

"Brother Oakley, is sister Oakley within?"

This rather cool speech--cool considering all the circumstances--was uttered by no other than the Reverend Mr. Lupin to Mr. Oakley, who was working in his shop on the morning after Johanna had gone upon her perilous enterprise to Todd's.

Mr. Oakley looked up with surprise upon his features.

"What?" he said.

"Is sister Oakley within, brother?"

"Don't call me brother, you canting hypocrite. How do you make out any such relationship, I should like to know?"

"Are we not all brothers in the Lord?"

"Pho! Go along."

"Nay, brother Oakley, my coming to you upon this day hath, in good truth, a meaning."

As he said these words, the countenance of the pious man had upon it a malignant expression, and there was a twinkle about his eyes, which said as plainly as possible, "And that meaning is mischief!" Old Oakley looked at him for some few seconds, and then he said--

"Hark you, Mr. Lupin, you have already meddled too much in my affairs, and I desire now that you will be so good as to leave them alone."

"Humph! brother Oakley, what I have to say, concerns thee to hear, but I would rather say it to thy wife, who is a sister in the faith, and assuredly one of the elect, than I would say it to you, who will assuredly go to a warm place below for your want of faith; so I say again, is sister Oakley within?"

"If you mean my wife," replied the old spectacle-maker, "I am sorry to say that nobody knows less of her going out and coming home than I do."

"Truly, she frequents the Tabernacle of the Lord, called Ebenezer, where we all put up a hearty and moving prayer for you."

"Nobody asks you. I believe you are a set of rascals."

"How pleasant this is."

"What is pleasant?"

"To be nailed. How charming it is for the friends of Satan to call the Saints hard names. Brother Oakley, you are lost, indeed."

"If you call me brother again, you shall be lost, Mr. Lupin. I tell you once for all, I don't know anything of my wife's going out or coming home, and I don't want to see you in my shop any more. If it were not for one person in this world, and that one an angel, if ever one lived upon the earth, I should not care how soon my head was laid low."

"Humph! brother Oakley! Humph!"

Oakley caught up a file to throw at the head of the hypocrite, but there was such an expression of triumph upon his face, that the heart of the old spectacle-maker sunk within him as he thought to himself, "This man brings ill news, or he would never look as he does." The file dropped from his hands, and pushing his spectacles up to the top of his head, he glared at Lupin as he said--

"Speak--speak! What have you to say?"

"Humph!"

"Speak man, if you be a man!"

"Humph, brother Oakley; you have a daughter--Johanna?"

"Yes, yes!" cried old Oakley. "My heart told me that it was of my child this wretch came to speak. Tell me all instantly. Speak--what of my dear Johanna? I will wrest the truth from you. Has anything happened--is she well? Speak--speak!"

Mr. Oakley sprang upon the preacher, and seizing him by the throat, forced him back until he fell upon an old chest in the shop that was full of tools and the lid of which giving way with Lupin's weight and the sudden concussion with which he came upon it, precipitated him into the box among a number of pointed implements, the effect of which may be better imagined than described, as the newspapers say.

"Murder! murder!" screamed the preacher.

"Now you rascal!" cried old Oakley. "Say what you have got to say, and at once, too."

"Murder!" again gasped Lupin. "Brother Oakley, spare my life."

"I will not spare it if you are not quite explicit as regards what you have hinted of my child. Speak at once. Tell me what you have to say?"

"Let me get up. Oh, be merciful, and let me get up."

"No. You can stay very well where you are. Be quiet and speak freely, in which case no harm will come to you."

"Did you say, be quiet, brother Oakley? Truly you would be anything but quiet in my situation. What induces you to keep all your tools in this chest with the points uppermost?"

"You are trying to prevaricate now," said Oakley, suddenly snatching from the wall of his shop an antique sword, that had hung there as a sort of ornament, not entirely inconsistent with his trade. "You are trying to prevaricate with me now, and I must and will have your life. Prepare for the worst. You have now aroused feelings that cannot be so easily quelled again. Your last hour has come!"

The sight of the sword awakened the most lively feelings of terror in the mind of the preacher. He gave a howl of dismay, and made the most frantic efforts to get up out of the tool-chest; but that was no easy matter, particularly as old Oakley flourished the antique sword in dangerous proximity to his nose. At length, lifting up his hands in the most supplicating manner, he cried--

"Mercy--mercy, and I will tell."

"Go on, then. Quick."

"Yes--yes. Oh, dear! Yes. I was sojourning in this ungodly city, and taking my way, deep in thought, upon the wickedness of the world, the greater portion of the inhabitants of which will assuredly go down below, where there is howling and--"

"You rascal, I'll make you howl if you do not come to the point quickly."

A flourish of the sword, so close to the face of Mr. Lupin that he really believed for the moment it had taken the end of his nose off, admonished him that the patience of Mr. Oakley was nearly exhausted, and in a whining tone, he added--

"Truly, I was in the street called Fleet-street; when as I was crossing the way, a young lad nearly upset me into the kennel. He did not see me, but I saw him. Truly, brother Oakley, I saw the face of that--that individual."

"Well, what is that to me? I ask you what is he to me? Go on."

"Oh, oh, oh! Don't say I have not prepared you for the worst. Oh, oh, oh! Now, brother Oakley, I will tell you, even although it provoke an abundance of wrath. That boy--that individual who nearly overthrew me, one of the elect as I am, into the kennel, had the face of your daughter, Johanna."

The spectacle-maker looked confused, as well he might.

"The face of my daughter, Johanna?" he said. "What do you mean? Is all this cock-and-a-bull story about some boy in the street, who happened in your eyes to bear a resemblance to my child?"

"Humph! Ay, truly. Humph! so striking a resemblance, that sitting here, even as I am upon the points of many instruments of steel and of iron, I aver that that boy was Johanna Oakley."

Oakley staggered back, and the antique sword dropped from his hand, a proceeding which Mr. Lupin proffited sufficiently by to scramble out of the tool-chest, and make towards the door. In another moment he would have left the shop, for he had done all the mischief he could, by telling the anxious father such a tale, but suddenly Oakley snatched the sword from the floor again, and rushing after Mr. Lupin, he caught him by the skirts at the very nick of time, and dragged him into the shop again. Holding then the sword to his throat, he said--

"Scoundrel! How dare you come and tell me such a thing? Your life, your worthless life, ought to pay the penalty of such an odious falsehood."

"No, no!" cried Lupin falling upon his knees, for he saw the sword uplifted. "No! What if it be true? What if it be true?"

The old man's hands shook, and the point of the sword which had been in most dreadful proximity to Mr. Lupin's throat, was gradually lowered until it touched the floor.

"Tell me again--tell me again!" gasped Oakley.

The preacher saw that his danger was over, and rising, he took a handkerchief from his pocket, and began deliberately to dust his knees, as he said in a low snuffling voice--

"Truly, you are a vessel of wrath, brother Oakley."

"Stop!" cried Oakley. "I have told you before not to call me brother: I have no fellowship or brotherhood with you. Do not tempt me to more violence by the use of that word."

"Let it be as you please," said Lupin, "but as regards the maiden, who for a surety is fair to look upon, although all flesh is grass, and beauty waneth after a season--"

"I want none of your canting reflections. To your tale. When and where was it that you saw my child?"

"In the street called Fleet, as I and all of us are sinners. She wore nether garments suitable and conformable unto a boy, but not to a girl, as the way of the world goeth; and yet she looked comely did the maiden--ay, very comely. I was moved to see her truly. Her eyes there was no mistaking, and her lips--Ay, it was the maiden; but after sitting in the kennel for one moment into which I fell, and getting up again amid the laughter of the ungodly bystanders, I found that she was gone."

"And so you have come on to me with this monstrous tale?"

"Monstrous tail?" said Mr. Lupin, turning round as though he expected to find such an appendage flourishing behind him. "I am not aware--"

The old spectacle-maker staggered into a seat, and holding his hands clasped before him for a few moments, he strove to think calmly of what had been told to him.

The preacher was not slow in taking advantage of this condition into which Mr. Oakley fell, to protect himself against any further danger from the sword. He picked up that weapon from the floor, and not finding any place readily in the shop where he might effectually hide it, he held it behind his back, and finally thrust the long blade of it between his coat and his waistcoat, where he thought it was to be sure wonderfully well hidden. He did not calculate that the point projected above his coat-collar and his head some six inches or so, presenting a very singular appearance indeed.

He then waited for Oakley to speak, for to tell the truth, the curiosity of Lupin was strongly excited concerning Johanna, as well as his sense of enjoyment, tickled by the distress of the father whom he considered his enemy.

After this he waited patiently enough to see what course the afflicted man would pursue, and, indeed, the whole conduct of Lupin was most convincing of the fact, that he entertained no doubt whatever as to the identity of the supposed boy he had seen in Fleet Street. The time at which he had seen Johanna, must have been when she ran over the road from Todd's shop, and took refuge in the fruiterer's.

Well, then, poor Mr. Oakley was trying to think. He was trying to convince himself that it could not possibly have been Johanna who had been seen by the preacher; but then there was still present to his mind, the impression that had been made upon it by the singular manner in which she had bidden him adieu upon the last occasion of his seeing her. He remembered how she had come back, after leaving the shop with her young friend, Arabella Wilmot, and how then, with a burst of feeling, she had taken of him a second farewell.

No wonder then that, by combining that with the information Lupin had brought, the father found enough to shudder at; and he did shudder.

Mr. Lupin watched him attentively.

Suddenly rising, with a face pale as death itself, Oakley advanced to Lupin, and laying his hand upon his breast, he said to him--

"Man, I suspect that there is much hypocrisy in your nature. It may be unjust to do so--it may be that I am doing you a wrong, but yet I do think in my heart that you are one of those who adopt the garb and the language of piety for the selfish purposes of human nature. And yet you must have some feeling: at the bottom of even such a heart as yours, there must be some touch of humanity; and by that I conjure you to say if you have told the truth to me in this matter concerning my child."

"I have," said Lupin.

"If you have not, I will say nothing to you, I will be guilty of no attempt at revengeful violence. Only tell me so, and you shall go in peace."

"What I have told you of the maiden is true," said Lupin. "I saw her--with these eyes I saw her."

The spectacle-maker slipped off his working apron and the black sleeves he wore over his coat to protect it from the dust and other destructive matters incidental to his work-bench, and then he snatched his hat from a peg upon which it hung in the shop.

"Come," he said. "Come. You and I will walk together to the house, where I was told Johanna was to be; and if I do not find her there, I will thank you for the information you have given to me. I will not stop to inquire what were your motives in giving it, but I will thank you for it. Come. Come with me."

"Truly I will come with you," said Lupin, "for I am curious--that is to say, I am in a religious point of view, anxious to know what has become of the maiden, who was so fair to look upon always, although she had not a godly spirit."

Oakley locked up his shop, and put the key in his pocket. Then taking the preacher by the arm, he set off at a fast pace for the house of Arabella Wilmot.

LXXXVIII. TODD ASTONISHES MRS. LOVETT'S SPY

We return to Todd. After he had put up his own shutters, and properly secured his doors for the night, he lit the lamp in his parlour, and glancing curiously around him, he muttered--

"Yes. This will assuredly be the last night here. How I hate the look of anything, and how eagerly I shall banish from my mind all kind of remembrance of this place when I am in another land, as I shall be shortly. Let me see: I will embrace the catholic religion, and I will be most devout. The regularity of my religious exercises shall do much for me. Indeed, I do not think I could have remained so long in London, if I had not had the prudence to be regular at the church. It is true that of late I have neglected all that, but then I am going soon, and it does not matter."

Todd sat down, and looked over the memoranda of things he had to do that he had made. He felt tolerably satisfied with the condition of affairs. That Colonel Jeffery and that others suspected him, he could not doubt; but he felt quite confident that he should be far off, before those suspicions repaired into anything dangerous to him.

He still clung to the idea that they knew nothing, or else they would arrest him; and while such did not ensue, he considered himself as in a tolerably safe position.

He then set about the preparations for firing his house. We need not follow him through those preparations. We need not state how he soaked clothes in turpentine and oil, and how he placed them in such positions, combined with small packages of gunpowder, and lumps of rosin, that if a torch were to be applied at the lower part of the house, the whole would be in a few moments in a blaze. Suffice it to say, that Todd worked hard for the next two hours, and that by the time they had gone, he had got everything ready for the perpetration of that last crime which he intended to commit, before he crossed the threshold of his house upon the following night, to leave it for ever.

More than once during these two hours he drank brandy. The ardent spirit had become necessary to the existence of Todd now; and when he took a draught at the conclusion of his labours, he smiled grimly as he said--

"Charley Green will have quite a funeral of flame. He shall die, and his body shall be consumed in the blazing fragments of this house, and it will go hard but this side of Fleet Street suffers. Oh, if the flames would only spread to the old church, I should rejoice much at that, and they may do so.--Yes, they may do so. Ha! ha! I shall be remembered in London."

As he spoke, a dull heavy sort of sound at the outer door of his house came upon his ears. It was as though something heavy had been thrown against it. With fear expressed upon every feature of his face, Todd listened for a repetition of the sound.

It did not come again.

Todd began to breathe a little more freely, and yet he kept asking himself--"What was it?"--and the utmost powers of his imagination could return him no feasible answer to the interesting inquiry. But nothing was more easy than to go to the door and see if any one was there, or if anything had happened to it. Should he open it for such a purpose? Should he unbar and unbolt at the risk of he knew not what? No: he would, from the first floor balcony, and there was a frail one, reconnoitre the street. He should then be easily able to see if there were any danger.

He had no sooner made this determination, than he carried it out, by ascending the dark blackened staircase, conducting to the upper part of his house, that staircase which was now so completely covered by combustible materials.

At every few steps he took he listened attentively. He thought there might yet be a repetition of the sound; but no--all was still; and by the time he reached his first floor, he was in some sort recovered from his first fright. That was something. He left his light upon the stair-head, for he had no wish to point himself out to the chance passengers in Fleet Street, or perhaps to some enemy, by going into that room with a light in his hand. No, Todd was much too acute for that; so carefully closing the door, so that no ray of light got in from the staircase, he crept to the window.

The shutters had to be unfastened, for Todd's house was always carefully closed up like the Duke of Wellington's at the present day. He very quickly unclosed one of the long-disused windows, and opening it gently, looked out over the edge of the little crazy balcony into the street.

Something big and black was against his door.

The more Todd bent his gaze upon this object, the more a kind of undefined terror took possession of him, and the more puzzled he was to give a name to the dark mass that had been laid upon his threshold. There was no lamp very near his house, or else, miserable as was the light from those old oil apologies for illuminators, some few rays might have fallen upon the dark mass, and told Todd what it was.

But no--all was dark and dubious, and he strained his eyes in vain to penetrate the mystery.

"I must go down," he said; "I must open the door. Yes, I cannot live and not know what this is. I must open the door, however reluctantly, and ascertain precisely. Ah!"

While Todd was talking, and still keeping his eyes fixed upon the mysterious object at his door, he saw suddenly in the midst of it a bright luminous spark, as if something connected with it was of a red heat, and slowly smouldering on fire.

If he was before puzzled to account for the phenomenon of a dark object, without shape or form, lying propped up against his door, he was now more than ever confounded, and his imagination started some of the most improbable conjectures in the world, to account for the appearance.

He thought that it must be some combustible, which, in the course of a few moments, would go off with a stunning report, and blow his street-door to atoms; but then again, what could be the object of such a thing?

The more he considered the affair from above, the more he was puzzled and terrified; so at last, with a feeling of desperation, he ran down stairs and began to unfasten the street-door. He did not pause in his work until he had flung it open, and then the mystery was explained.

A man, half asleep, with a lighted pipe in his mouth, rolled backwards into the shop; and as he did so, with the dreamy half-consciousness that he was upon some sort of duty, he said--

"I'll watch him, Mrs. Lovett. He shan't get away without your knowing of it, ma'am."

Todd understood the man's errand in a moment. Of course he had been employed to watch him by Mrs. Lovett, who had a slight idea that he might not be forthcoming for the promised morning settlement. Todd seized the man by the collar, and dragging him fairly into the shop, closed the door again.

"Ah!" he said, "a good joke."

"What's a joke, sir?" said the man. "What's a joke? Murder! Where am I?--where am I? Help!"

"Hush!" said Todd. "Hush! It's of no consequence. I know all about it man. Mrs. Lovett employed you to watch me. She was a little jealous, but we have made it all right now, and she asked me, if I saw you, to pay you and give you a glass of something, beside."

"Did she, sir?"

"To be sure she did; so come in, and you can tell her when you see her in the morning, that you had of me a glass of as good liquor as could be found in London. By-the-bye, what am I to pay you?"

"A guinea, sir."

"Exactly. It was a guinea, of course. This way, my friend, this way. Don't fall over the shaving-chair, I beg of you. You can't hurt it, for it is a fixture; but you might hurt yourself, and that is of more importance to you, you know. While we do live in this world, if it be for ever so short a time, we may as well live comfortably."

Talking away thus all suspicion from the man who was not one of the brightest of geniuses in the world, Todd led the way to the parlour--that fatal parlour which had been the last scene of more than one mortal life.

He closed the door, and then in quite a good-humoured way, he pointed to the seat, saying--

"Rest yourself, my friend--rest yourself, while I get out the bottle. And so it is one guinea that I am to give you, eh?"

"Yes, sir; and all I can say is that I am very glad to hear that you and Mrs. Lovett have made matters all right again. Very glad, indeed, sir, I may say. In course, I shouldn't have took the liberty of sitting down by your door, sir, if she had not told me to watch the house and let her know, if so, be as you come out of it, or if I saw any packages moving. She didn't say anything to me what it was for; but a guinea is just as well earned easy as not, you see, sir!"

"Certainly, my friend, certainly. Drink that."

The man tossed off the glass of something that Todd gave him, and then he licked his lips, as he said--

"What is it, sir? It's strong, but I can't say, for my part, that I like the flavour of it much."

"Not like it?"

"Not much, sir."

"Why it's a most expensive foreign liquor that is, and by all the best judges in the kingdom is never found fault with. Very few persons, indeed, have tasted it; but of those few, not one has come to me to say, Mr. Todd--"

"Good God!" said the man, as he clasped his head with both of his hands. "Good God, how strange I feel. I must be going mad!"

"Mad!" cried Todd, as he leant far over the table so as to bring his face quite close to the man's. "Mad! not at all. What you feel now is part of your death-pang. You are dying--I have poisoned you. Do you hear that? You have watched me, and I have in return poisoned you. Do you understand that?"

The dying man made an ineffectual effort to rise from the chair, but he could not. With a gasping sob he let his head sink upon his breast--he was dead!

"They perish," said Todd, "one by one; they who oppose me, perish, and so shall they all. Ha! so shall they all; and she who set this fool on to his destruction shall feel, yet, the pang of death, and know that she owes it to me! Yes, Mrs. Lovett, yes."

He closed his arms over his breast, and looked at the body for some moments in silence; and then, with a sneer upon his lips, he added--

"No, Mrs. Lovett, you did not show your judgment in this matter. Had you wished to watch me, you should have done it yourself, and not employed this poor weak wretch who has paid the price of his folly. Go--go!"

He struck the chair from under the dead man with his foot, and the corpse that had partially been supported by it and the table, fell to the floor. Another kick sent it under the large table, and then, as another of Todd's victims had once done, it disappeared.

"To-morrow night, by this time," said Todd, musingly, "where shall I be!"

LXXXIX. MR. OAKLEY IS IN DESPAIR AT THE LOSS OF JOHANNA

The anxiety of poor Mr. Oakley increased each moment as he and the preacher neared the house of Arabella Wilmot's friends. We regret to say that Mr. Lupin did enjoy the mental agony of the father; but it was in his nature so to do, and we must take poor humanity as we find it.

It must be recollected that Mr. Lupin had, through Johanna, suffered great malefactions. The treatment he had received at the hands of Big Ben, although most richly deserved, had been on account of Johanna, and as regarded the old spectacle-maker himself, he had always occupied an antagonistic position as regarded Mr. Lupin.

No wonder then, we say, that human nature, particularly in its evangelical variety, was not proof against the fascination of a little revenge. Now, Mr. Lupin felt so sure that he had made no mistake, but that it was no other than the fair Johanna whom he had seen in what he called the unseemly apparel, that he did not feel inclined to draw back for a moment in the matter. Curiosity, as well as a natural (to him) feeling of malignity, urged him to stick by the father in order that he might know the result of inquiries that he, Lupin, had no opportunity or excuse for making, but which Mr. Oakley might institute with the most perfect and unquestionable profundity.

As we have before had occasion to remark, the distance between Oakley's shop and the residence of the friends of Arabella was but short, so that, at the speed which the excited feelings of the fond father induced him to adopt, he soon stood upon the threshold of the residence, beneath the roof of which he hoped, notwithstanding the news so confidently brought by Lupin, to find his much-loved, idolized child.

"You shall see," he said to Lupin, catching his breath as he spoke; "you shall see how very wrong you are."

"Humph!" said Lupin.

"You shall see," continued poor Oakley, still dallying with the knocker; "you shall see what an error you have made, and how impossible it is that my child--my good and kind Johanna--could be the person you saw in Fleet-street."

"Ah!" said Lupin.

Mr. Oakley knocked at the door, and, as one of the family had seen him through the blinds of the parlour-window, he was at once admitted, and kindly received by those who knew him and his worth well. He asked, in an odd gasping manner, that Mr. Lupin might have permission to come in, which was readily granted; and with a solemn air, shaking his head at the vanities he saw in the shape of some profane statuary in the hall, the preacher followed Oakley to the dining-room.

It was an aunt of Arabella's to whom they were introduced, and, with a smile, she said--

"Really, Mr. Oakley, a visit from you is such a rarity that we ought not to know how to make enough of you when you do come. Why, it must have been Christmas twelvemonths since you were last beneath this roof. Don't you remember when your dear, good, pretty Johanna won all hearts?"

"Yes, yes," said Oakley, glancing triumphantly at Lupin. "My dear child, whom all the world loves--God bless her!--She is pure, and good, and faultless as an angel."

"That, Mr. Oakley," said the lady, "I believe she is. We are as fond of her here, and always as glad to see her, as though she belonged to us. Indeed, we quite envy you such a treasure as she is."

Tears gushed into the grateful father's eyes, as he heard his child--his own Johanna--she who reigned all alone in his heart, and yet filled it so completely--so spoken of. How glad he was that there was some one besides himself present to hear all that, although that one was an enemy! With what a triumphant glance he looked around him.

"Humph!" said Lupin.

That humph recalled Oakley to the business of his visit, and yet how hot and parched his lips got, when he would have framed the all-important question, "Is my child here?"--and how he shook, and gasped for breath a moment before he could speak.

At length, he found courage--not to ask if Johanna was there. No--no. He felt that he dared not doubt that. It would have been madness to doubt it, sheer insanity. So he put the question indirectly, and he contrived to say--

"I hope the two girls are quite well, quite--quite--well."

"Two girls!" said the aunt. "Two girls!"

"Yes," gasped Oakley. "Johanna and Arabella, you know--your Arabella, and my Johanna--my child."

"You ought to know, Mr. Oakley, considering that they are at your house, you know. I hope that neither of them have been at all indisposed? Surely that is not the case, and this is not your strange way of breaking it to us, Mr. Oakley?"

The bereaved father--yes, at that moment he felt that he was a bereaved father--clutched the arms of the chair upon which he sat, and his face turned of a ghastly paleness. He made an inarticulate effort to speak, but could only produce a strange gurgling noise.

"Gracious Heavens! he is ill," cried Arabella's aunt.

"No, madam," said Lupin. "He is only convinced."

"Convinced of what?"

"Of what he himself will tell you, madam."

"Help! help!" cried Oakley. "Help! My child--my Johanna--my beautiful child. Mercy--help. Give her to my arms again. Oh, no--no--no, she could not leave me thus. It is false--it is some desperate juggle! My child--my child, come once again to these arms.--God--God help me!"

Arabella's aunt rose in the greatest alarm, and rung the bell so sharply, that it brought everybody that was in the house to that room, and Mr. Lupin, when he saw what a congregation there was, rose up and said in a snuffling voice--

"Is there any objection to a prayer?"

"The greatest at present, sir," said Arabella's aunt. "Sir, there is a time for all things. The state of poor Mr. Oakley, now claims all our care. If you are his friend--"

At these words, Oakley appeared to shake off much of the prostrating effects of the first dreadful conviction, that what Lupin had told him was true, and he said--

"No--no, he is no friend--he is a bitter enemy. The enemy of my peace, and of my dear child. I am calmer now, and I demand--I implore, that that man be made to leave this house."

"Brother Oakley," said Lupin, "you brought me here."

"And I now command you hence. Begone, villain, begone; go and exult over the heart-broken father's grief; go and tell the tale where you will. You cannot move me now--go--go--go."

"Truly I will go presently, but first of all, I say to you, brother Oakley, hardened sinner as you are, repent. Down upon your knees all of you, and join me in prayer, that the unbelievers may roll upon billows of burning brimstone, and that--"

"Come," said a man, who happened to be in the house upon some domestic errand, "Mrs. Wilmot says you are to go, and go you shall. Come, be off--I know who you are. You are the rascal that married the widow in Moorfields, but who, they say, has another wife in Liverpool. If you don't go, I shall give you in charge for bigamy, and the widow says she will spend her last penny in prosecuting you."

To meet any one half so well informed about his affairs, would have been a terrible blow to Mr. Lupin; but when he found that this man, who was a kind of jobbing cabinet-maker, knew so much, his great goggle eyes opened to an alarming width, and he made a movement towards the door. Still, he did not like to go without saying something.

"Flee, ye wretches," he said, "from the wrath to come! You will all go into the bottomless pit, you will, and I shall rejoice at it; and sing many songs of joy over you. Scoffers and mockers, I leave you all to your fate. The devil will have you all, and that is a great comfort and gratification to the elect and to the saints."

With this, Mr. Lupin made a precipitate retreat, having achieved about as little in the way of satisfying his curiosity as could very well be conceived.

It was a relief--a great relief to Mr. Oakley to be rid of such a witness to his feelings as Lupin; and when he had fairly gone, and the outer door was closed upon him, the spectacle-maker, with clasped hands, and countenance expressive of the greatest possible amount of mental agony, spoke--

"Dismiss all but ourselves, madam," he said. "There's that to say which may be said to you alone, but which it would break my heart to say to many."

The room was soon clear, and then Oakley continued in a low faltering voice to make those inquiries, each answer to which was so fatal to his peace of mind.

"Madam," he said, "is not my child--my Johanna--here staying on a visit with Arabella?"

"No, no--certainly not."

This was so frightfully conclusive, that it was some few moments before he could go on; but when he did, he said--

"Is Arabella in the house?"

"That, Mr. Oakley," replied the aunt, "is a question I cannot answer you at the moment; but rest and compose yourself for a few moments, and I will ascertain myself if she be in or out, and if the latter, when she was last seen."

"I am much beholden to you, madam. I am a poor old man, much broken in spirit, and with but one strong tie to bind me to a world which has nearly done with me. That tie is the love of my dear child, Johanna. Alas! if that be broken, I am all adrift, and at the mercy of the winds and waves of evil fortune; and the sooner I close my eyes in the long sleep of death, the better for me and all who feel for me."

"Nay, Mr. Oakley, I look upon it as a thing almost criminal to despair. There is one maxim which I have learnt in my experience of life, and which I am sure you must have had abundant opportunities of learning likewise. It is, 'Never to trust to appearances.'"

The old man looked at her with a saddened aspect. It was quite evident his feelings had been too strongly acted upon to make any philosophy available to him; and when she left the room to make the inquiries concerning Arabella, he wrung his hands, and wept.

"Yes," he said, "yes, I am indeed alone now--a wreck--a straw upon the ocean of society. The sooner I drift in the grave now, the better for me, and all who pity the old man. Oh, Johanna--Johanna. My child--my beautiful, why did you not wait until I was dead before you left me? Then I should have slept calmly, and known nothing; but now my days and nights will be dreams of horror."

The door opened and the aunt re-appeared.

"Arabella is not within," she said, "and has not been seen for some hours now. When last seen her manner was evidently perturbed. But now, Mr. Oakley, sit down by me and tell me as clearly and as distinctly, all you know and all you fear. There are few evils in this world but there are some remedies for, and you shall have my true and calm opinion if you will tell me all."

It is something astonishing, and yet one of the most ordinary of mental phenomena, to note what a power a cool and clear intellect will exert over one that is distracted and full of woe and clamorous grief. Mr. Oakley did sit down by the side of Arabella's aunt, and he told her all that happened the girl of which, of course, was the real or supposed appearance of Johanna in Fleet Street, in male attire. The collateral circumstances, such as the hurried and half frantic farewell of him in the shop by Johanna, and the misrepresentation by Arabella, that she (Johanna) was going to stop there, evidently made a deep impression upon the aunt. Her countenance changed visibly, as she said faintly--

"God help us all."

"Lost! lost," cried Oakley. "Yes, you--even you, hopeful as you were, and hopeful as you would fain have made me--even you, now that you know all, feel that she is lost. God, indeed, only can help me now."

"No, Mr. Oakley," said the aunt, rallying, "I will not yet trust to appearances, although I own that they are bad. I will come to no conclusion until I have seen Arabella, and got the truth from her. It is quite clear that there is some secret between the two young creatures. It is quite clear that there is something going on that we know nothing of, and to speculate upon which may only involve us in an inextricable labyrinth of conjectures. I say, there is some secret, but it may not be a guilty one."

"Not--not guilty?"

"No, Mr. Oakley, there are many degrees of indiscretion to pass through ere the gulf of guilt is reached at last. I have faith in Arabella--I have faith in Johanna; and even now, admitting for a moment the truth of what that man whom you brought with you here, reports, Johanna may only have to be blamed for folly."

"Do--do you think he did so see her?"

"I doubt it much."

"Mother," said a lad of fifteen, coming hastily into the room. "Mother I--"

He paused upon seeing Mr. Oakley there, and stammered out some apology--

"He had only come to tell his mother that a whole suit of his clothes were missing from his room and that he could find them nowhere, and he could not make it out; and one of his hats was gone too, and a pair of shoes, and--"

Old Oakley fell back in his chair with a groan.

"She has them," he said. "She has them. My child, whom I shall never see again, has them."

XC. MORNING IN FLEET STREET AGAIN

Another day has dawned upon the great city--another sun has risen upon the iniquities of hosts of men, but upon no amount of cold-blooded, hardened, pitiless criminality that could come near to that of Sweeney Todd. No, he certainly held the position of being in London, then, the worst of the worst.

But who shall take upon himself now to say that in this pest-ridden, loyalty-mad, abuse-loving city of London, there are not some who are more than even Sweeney Todd's equals? Who shall say that hidden scenes of guilt and horror are not transacting all around us, that would, in their black iniquity, far transcend anything that Sweeney Todd has done or dreamt of doing? Let the imagination run riot in its fanciful conjectures of what human nature is capable of, and in London there shall be found those who will reduce to practice the worst frenzied deeds that can be conceived.

Yes, the dawn of another day had come, and Todd had made all his preparations. Nothing was wanting, but the match that was to set Fleet Street, he fondly hoped, in a blaze. His own house, he felt quite certain, could not escape. It would be a charred mass long before any effectual means could be procured to check the devastation of the flames, and then as the good ship spread its swelling sails to the wind to bear him to another shore, he should be lighted upon his way by the glare of the great fire in Fleet Street, that no one would be able to guess the origin of.

So he told himself.

Short-sighted mortals that we are! How little Todd, with all his cleverness--all his far-seeing thrift and fancy--dreamt of the volcano upon which he stood. How little he for one moment imagined it was possible that the sword of justice hung over him by so slender a thread. How he would have glared at any one who might have told him that he only moved about by sufferance; and yet such was the fact.

Sir Richard Blunt could put his hand upon him at any moment, and say, "Todd, you are my prisoner. To Newgate--to Newgate, from whence only you will emerge to your trial, and to the scaffold!"

No, Todd, good easy soul, had not the slightest idea of his real position upon that morning.

He waited rather impatiently for the arrival of Johanna to take down the shutters, and she urged upon Sir Richard Blunt and her friends at the fruiterer's, the propriety of her going and doing that morning piece of work; but they would not hear of it. She at length used an argument which made Sir Richard adopt another course than keeping her at the fruiterer's until Todd should get out of all patience and open his shop himself.

"It is possible," she said, "that I may be subjected to ill-usage if I am not there; and then being compelled to call for aid as I might, you would feel that you were forced to take Todd into custody before the time at which you have resolved so to do."

"That is true," said Sir Richard; and then, after some little consideration, he added, "I have a plan that will save you both ways. You shall be in time, and yet you shall not take down Todd's shutters."

They could none of them conceive at the moment how Sir Richard intended to manage this; but they quickly saw that it was easy enough. Opening just a little way one of the windows of the first floor at the fruiterer's, he blew a whistle that he had suspended round his neck by a small chain. In the course of a few moments, Crotchet walked into the shop.

"Governor here?" he said. "I heard him a chirping for me just now--didn't I?"

"Yes, Crotchet," said the fruiterer, who knew him quite well. "Step up-stairs; you will find him there."

Crotchet was soon in the presence of Sir Richard, and Johanna, and the fruiterer's daughter. He made a rough sort of salute to the whole party, and then remarked again that he had heard the governor a chirping, he rather thought.

"Yes, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, "you're quite right. You know this young lady here?"--indicating Johanna.

"Reether!" said Crotchet.

"Well, then, you will seem to be passing Todd's shop when she commences taking down the shutters; and, seeing that they are too heavy for such a mere boy, you good-naturedly take them down for him--you understand? It is the last time that they will be taken down for Todd, I think."

"All's right," said Crotchet; "I understands--it's as good as done. Lord! what a scrouge there will be at the hanging o' that barber, to be sure, unless he manages to cheat the gallows; and I takes notice in my hexperieace as them 'ere wery bad 'uns seldom does try that 'ere game on, with all their bounce."

"Now, Miss Oakley," said Sir Richard Blunt, "I think, then, your time has come; and, as Crotchet will take down the shutters, you may as well go over at once. I think you thoroughly understand what you have to do--and if Todd asks you where you lodged, you had better say that the servants here offered to let you sleep by the kitchen fire, and you accepted the offer--for he may be watching for you now, and see you come out of this house, for all we know to the contrary. And now remember, without any reference to my plans or what I would rather do, if you feel yourself, or fancy you feel yourself in the least danger, take the means I have pointed out to you of summoning aid, and aid will come to you."

"I will," said Johanna.

"Heaven speed you, then! This will be the last day, I think, of the career of that bold bad man. I intend to make such an effort to get under his house to-day, as I hope and expect will enable me to come at the grand secret, namely, of how he disposes of his victims so quickly--for that there is some wonderful jugglery in it, I am certain."

Johanna took a kind leave of the fruiterer's daughter, who had lavished upon her all those attentions which, in Johanna's position, became so precious from one of her own sex; and then, assuming a careless manner, with her hat put on in a boyish slovenly sort of way, she boldly crossed the road to Sweeney Todd's.

He had been watching through a hole in the upper part of one of the shutters. In a moment all sorts of ugly suspicions took possession of his mind. What could Charley Green, his errand-boy from Oxford, who knew no one, and was unknown to all London, doing at a tradesman's house in Fleet Street at such an hour in the morning? How came he to know the people of that house? How came he to dream of going there?

Todd was boiling with anger and curiosity when he opened the door and admitted Johanna, a thing that he was unmindful enough to do before she knocked for admission, which alone would have been amply sufficient to point out to her that she had been watched from some peep-hole in the house.

He stretched out his hand and dragged her in. He controlled his temper sufficiently to enable him to gratify his curiosity. He made quite certain that Charley Green would tell him some story of where he had been, which should not convict the fruiterer. By the light of a miserable candle that Todd had burning in the dark closed shop, he glared at Johanna.

"Well--well," he said. "A good night's rest, Charley?"

"Tolerable, sir!"

"Humph! ha! And did you find a place to sleep at cheaply and decently, my good lad, eh?"

"I was very fortunate indeed, sir."

"Oh, you were very fortunate indeed?"

"Yes, sir. I am, through being country bred I suppose, fond of fruit, so when I left you last night, I bought an apple at a shop opposite."

"Oh, at Mr. a--a--"

"I don't know the name, sir," said Johanna, "but I can run out and ascertain, I dare say."

Todd gave a low sort of growl. He did not know if he were being foiled by innocence or by art. With an impatient gesture, he added--

"Never mind the apples, I wish to know where you slept, Charley, that I may judge if it was a proper place, there are so many wicked people in London."

"Are there, sir?"

"Bah! Go on. Where did you sleep?"

"Well, sir, as there was a kind tempered-looking servant in the fruiterer's shop, I thought she might be able to tell me of some place where I could lodge, and when she had heard my story--"

"Story--story? What story?"

"How destitute I was, sir, and how kind you had been to employ me without a character, and how happy and contented I was in your service, sir. So when she had heard all that, she said, 'It is too late for you to go lodging-hunting to-night. There is an old bench in our kitchen, and if you like you may sleep on that.'"

Todd gave a growl.

"And so you slept there?"

"Yes, sir."

He paced the shop for some few moments in deep thought, knitting his brows and trying to make something out of what he had heard, contrary to what it seemed; but Johanna's story was too straightforward and simple for him to find any flaw in it, and after a few moments he felt compelled to admit to himself that it must be the truth. Turning to her with something of the amount of amiability one might expect from a bear, he said--

"Open the shop!"

"Yes, sir, directly."

Johanna propped the door wide open, and then having, by the dim light of the miserable candle, found a screw which fastened a bar across the shutters, she speedily released it, and then went into the street. At that moment Crotchet came along, whistling in so thoroughly careless a manner, that even Johanna thought he had forgotten his instructions and was about to pass the shop. She had her hand upon the bar when he stopped, saying, in an off-handed manner--

"Why little 'un, them 'ere shutters is too much for you, I'll give you a helping hand. Lor bless you, don't say anything about it. It ain't no sort o' trouble to me my little chap. Here goes."

Mr. Crotchet began opening Todd's shop with such a fury and a vengeance, that the clatter and the speed with which the operation was being accomplished, brought Todd out of the parlour to see what on earth Charley was about. When he saw Crotchet coming in with three shutters in his arms at once, he could scarcely believe his eyes, and he roared out--

"What's this? Who are you?"

"Easy--easy," said Crotchet. "Don't get in the way old gentleman. Easy. There now!"

Crotchet managed to give Todd such a rap on the side of the head with the shutters, that a thousand lights danced in his eyes, and he writhed with pain.

"Well, I never," said Crotchet, "I hope I haven't hurt you, old man? You see I was a passing, and seed as these here shutters was rather a bit top-heavy for your little son here, and I thought I'd give him a helping hand. To be sure he didn't want me to, but you see I would, and perhaps as your old head is getting better, you wouldn't mind a pint of beer, old gentleman?"

"You atrocious villain," yelled Todd, "I'll cut your throat. I'll polish you off. I'll--I'll--would you like to be shaved?"

"I've had a scrape already," said Crotchet, "and if you won't stand the beer, why you won't, and there's no bones broke arter all. Good morning, old Grampus. Good morning my little chap, I wishes you good luck; and if I am passing again, I don't mind lending you a helping hand, though the governor is about one o' the ugliest, nastiest tempered brutes, I ever came near in all my life."

Crotchet went away whistling with great composure.

XCI. MR. TODD'S FIRST CUSTOMERS

Todd seized Johanna by the arm, and dragged her into the shop. He locked the door, and then confronting her, he said--

"How kind it was of your friend, to take down the shutters for you, Charley Green."

"My friend, sir?"

"Yes, your friend who declined being shaved, you know, because you told him last night that he had better go to some other shop."

"Really, sir," said Johanna, "I don't know what you mean."

"Come, come, Charley, confess that you do know some one in London, as well as you know me. Confess, now, that people are so fond of interfering in other folk's affairs, that you have been set on to watch me. I shall not be at all angry, indeed, I shall not, I assure you. Not the least; only tell me the truth. That is all I ask of you, my boy, and you will find that it is no bad thing to make a friend of Sweeney Todd."

"If I had, sir, anything to confess," replied Johanna, "except that at times I do feel that I wish I had not run away from my mother-in-law at Oxford, I should soon tell it all to you."

"And so that is all, Charley?"

"All at present, sir."

"What a good lad. What an exemplary lad. Light the shop fire, if you please, Charley. Humph! I am wrong," muttered Todd to himself; "but yet I will cut his throat before I leave to-night. It will be safer and more satisfactory to do so, and besides, he has given me some uneasiness, and I hate him for his quiet gentle ways. I hate everybody. I would cut the throats of all the world if I could. Light the fire quickly, you young hound, will you?"

Johanna trembled. She felt that anything but a blow from Todd she could put up with, but in her pocket she kept a jagged piece of flint stone, which would go through the window in a moment; and she felt that through she must throw it, if he only so much as raised his hand against her.

The fire blazed up, and Todd at that moment had no further excuse for abusing Charley. With a sulky growl, he said--

"You can call me out if any one comes," and then he retired to his back parlour, closing and locking the door as usual.

The morning felt rather raw, and Johanna was glad to warm her hands at the fire in the shop, which soon burnt brightly; but she did not venture upon keeping up a bright blaze for long. Todd's mode of managing the fire, was always to keep a dry turf smouldering upon the top of it, from which ample heat enough was emitted to keep the shaving-pot upon the simmer. She now placed upon the fire one of those turfs, a small pile of which were always ready in the corner of the shop.

She had scarcely done so, when the shop door opened, and a man walked in.

"Is Mr. Todd in, my little man?" he said.

"Yes, sir. Do you wish to see him?" Johanna wished, if it were possible, to discourage visitors, but the man sat down at once in the shaving chair, and placed his hat upon the floor, adding as he did so--

"Yes, a right down good shave I want. As good as if St. Dunstan himself wanted one."

The manner in which the man pronounced the words St. Dunstan was so marked that Johanna felt convinced at once he was a friend, and she felt quite a gush of pleasure at the thought that Sir Richard Blunt had such a continual supervising eye upon her safety.

She felt that she must not look at this man otherwise than as a stranger. She felt that the least word of recognition might be fatal both to him and to her. She knew that Todd had some small orifice through which from his parlour he peeped into the shop, and that his eye was now upon her she did not doubt.

"I will call Mr. Todd, sir," she said in a moment. "He is close at hand."

"Thank you," replied the man. "I sit here as comfortable as St. Dunstan."

"Yes," said Johanna, as she heard the watch-word of safety and friendship once more uttered by that man who was in truth one of Sir Richard's most confidential and trustworthy officers.

She at once now proceeded to the door of the parlour, and tapped at it until Todd opened it, and popped his head out with a grim smile.

"Oh, Charley my dear," he said, "does a gentleman want me?"

"Yes, sir."

"A-hem! Good morning, sir," added Todd, as he advanced, tying on his apron. "A shave, I presume, sir? A close shave, sir? I do think of all the luxuries in life, sir, a good close shave--what I call a regular polish off, sir--is one of the greatest in a small way. Charley, ain't it near breakfast time, my good lad?"

"Yes, sir," said Johanna. "I daresay it is."

"Very good. The hot-water. Thank you my dear--you will take two pence from the till, Charley, and get yourself somewhere about the market a--Well now?"

A thin man in a cloak made his appearance at the door of the shop, and taking off his hat, made a bow, as he said--

"I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to the pious Mr. Todd?"

"My name is Todd, sir. What is it?"

"I am truly delighted," said the tall thin man sitting down upon the nearest seat, and placing his hat upon his knees. "I am truly delighted to see you. Pray go on shaving that gentleman, as I shall be some time."

"Some time about what?" almost screamed Todd.

"Finding the tract, from which I purpose reading to you a few extracts upon the all-important subject of the election of grace, and the insufficiency of works."

Todd stropped a razor, and glared at the intruder, who, fitting on his nose with great precision a pair of blue spectacles, began rummaging in his hat.

"Humph! this is it. No--this is not it. Well, I thought I had it here, and so I have. This is--no. This is an imaginary and highly religious discourse upon saints, and St. Dunstan in particular."

Johanna knew in a moment that this other man was a friend likewise. He, too, had pronounced the words St. Dunstan in a peculiar manner.

Todd suddenly became quite calm.

"Sir," he said, "I take it as a very particular favour, indeed, that you should have called here upon such an errand, and I only beg that you will not hurry yourself in the least; I can go on shaving this gentleman, and perhaps when he is gone, you will permit me the honour of operating upon you?"

"With great pleasure," replied the man. "Dear me, where can the tract be? Is this it? No--this is about the pious milkmaid, who always put up a prayer for the milking-pail, to prevent the cow from kicking it over. Dear me, where can it be? Oh, is this it? No--this is the story of the pious barber's boy, who, when he had an opportunity, went over the way and found his father there! Dear me, where can it be?"

Johanna started.

"The barber's boy," she thought, "who went over the way and found his father there? Those words are for me."

She was now in quite a fever of anxiety to leave the shop, for she did not doubt but that by some means her father had heard of her position, and she felt that then nothing but the actual sight of her in perfect health and safety would satisfy him. But she dared not show the anxiety she felt. She bent over the fire, and affected to be stirring the turf.

"You can go and get your breakfast, Charley," said Todd.

"Thank you, sir."

Johanna would not betray any haste, but she shook with agitation as she neared the door; and then she recollected that she had not taken the twopence from the till as she had been told to do, and that the circumstance of not doing so might create suspicion.

She crept back and possessed herself of the pence. Todd watched her with the eyes of a demon.

"Are you going, my dear Charley?" he said.

"Yes, sir."

She left the shop, and then her first impulse would have induced her to hurry over the road to the fruiterer's shop, but her eyes fell upon the figure of Sir Richard Blunt standing in the fruiterer's doorway. He moved his hand signifying that she should go towards the market, and she did so. He quickly followed her.

She did not look behind her, until she was quite in the old Fleet-market; and then, just as she looked round, Sir Richard Blunt touched her arm.

"You understood my message?" he said.

"Yes. My father."

"Exactly. It is concerning him. It appears that some busy-body, a man I understand named Lupin, has seen you in your present disguise, and informed him of it."

"I know the man. He is one of those saintly hypocrites, who make religion the cloak for their vices."

"Yes, there are not a few of them," said Sir Richard. "They revel in vice, and daily try to make the Almighty an accomplice in their offences against society. Well, then, Johanna, this man has tortured your father with an account of your being in this disguise."

"It would torture him."

"Naturally, without he knew all the reasons for it; but it appears that he went to the house of Miss Wilmot, and after some trouble saw her, when she, finding that he knew quite enough to make him wretched, and not enough to explain your position, frankly told him all, and brought him to me."

"It was the best."

"Most decidedly it was, and I need only say that he is anxiously waiting to see you, at our friend the fruiterer's house; but as it would not do for you to go direct from Todd's door to there, I have intercepted you, you see, to take you by a safer route."

"How good, and kind, and considerate you are to me," said Johanna, as she looked up in the face of the magistrate, while tears started to her eyes. "Without you how miserably I must have failed in this adventure. Todd would no doubt before this have discovered me, and taken my life."

"Don't say a word about that," replied Sir Richard. "Recollect that after all it was my duty to protect you; and if I have been a little more anxious than usual in the performance of that duty, it is because I admire your heroic constancy and courage, and hope to see you happy yet."

"Alas! the sun of my happiness has set for ever. I can only now pray to Heaven, that it will endow me with patience to bear its decrees with serenity."

"Well," added Sir Richard, "we will say no more upon that subject, just now. Come with me, and I will take you to your father by a safer way than just crossing the road from Todd's shop to the fruiterer's."

He led her down a court in Bridge-street, and thence through a complete labyrinth of passages, some of which still exist at the back of Fleet Street, and some of which have been swept away, until they reached a door in a dingy-looking wall, at which he paused.

"This is the back of the fruiterer's house," he said, "and I dare say some one is waiting for me."

He tapped three times distinctly at the door, and then it was opened immediately by the fruiterer's daughter, who with a smile clasped Johanna in her arms.

"Welcome," she said. "Welcome once again."

"Ah, my dear friend," said Johanna, "I shall learn to bless the circumstances, commencing in affliction as they did, that have brought me acquainted with such kind hearts."

They all three now crossed a little paved yard, and were soon in the fruiterer's house.

"Where is my dear father?" said Johanna. "Where is he?"

"This way," said the young girl, who took so great an interest in the fate of Johanna. "This way, dear. He is in our room up stairs, and will be no less delighted to see you, then you will be delighted to see him."

"I am sure of that," said Johanna.

She ran up the stairs with more speed that the fruiterer's daughter could make, and in another moment was in her father's arms.

XCII. MR. OAKLEY'S ANXIETIES MUCH DIMINISH

For some few moments after this meeting, neither Mr. Oakley nor Johanna could speak. At length the old spectacle-maker was just able to say--

"Great God, I thank thee, that once again I hold my darling to my heart."

"Father--father," said Johanna. "Did you think for one moment that I could have left you?"

"No my dear, no; but I was bewildered by all I heard. I was half mad I think until I was told all; and now we will go home, my pretty darling, at once, and we will have no secrets from each other. Dear heart, what a pretty boy you make to be sure. But come--come. I am in an agony until I have you home again."

"Father, listen to me."

"Yes my child--my darling. Yes."

"If it had not been for Sir Richard Blunt I should now have been with the dead, and you and I would never have met again, but in another world, father. I owe him, therefore, you will say, some gratitude."

"Some gratitude, my darling? We owe him a world of gratitude. Alas, we shall never be able to repay him, but we will pray that he may be as happy as his noble heart deserves, my dear. God bless him!"

"And, father, we will do any little thing he asks of us."

"We will fly to obey his commands, my dear, in all things. Night or day, he will only have to speak to us, and what he says shall be our law."

"Then, father, he asks of me, for the cause of public justice, that I should go back to Todd's, and wear this dress for the remainder only of to-day. Can we refuse him?"

"Alas! Alas!" said the old man, "more trouble--more anxiety--more danger."

"No, father. No danger. He will watch over me, and I have faith that Heaven is with me."

"Can I part with you again?"

"Yes, for such an object. Do not, father, say no to me, for you may say, and I will obey you; but with your own free consent, let me go now, and do the bidding of the great and the good man who has saved me to once more rest upon your breast, and kiss your cheek."

The old man shook for a moment, and then he said--

"Go, go, my child. Go, and take with you my blessing, and the blessing of God, for surely that must be yours; but, oh! be careful. Remember, my darling, that upon your safety hangs my life; for if I were to hear that anything had happened to you, it would kill me. I have nothing now but you in the world to live for."

"Oh, father, you do not mean to tell me that my mother is no more?"

"No, my dear. No.--Ask me nothing now. You shall know all at another time. Only tell me when I shall see you again."

"At sunset," said Sir Richard Blunt, as he stepped into the room at this moment. "At sunset, I hope, Mr. Oakley; and in the meantime be assured of her perfect safety. I offer my life as security for hers, and would not hesitate to sacrifice it for her."

The manner of the magistrate was such that no one could for one moment doubt that he spoke the genuine sentiments at his heart; and such words, coming from such a quarter, it may be well supposed were calculated to produce a great impression.

"I am satisfied," said Mr. Oakley. "I should be more than an unreasonable man if I were not fully convinced now of the safety of Johanna."

When she had got her father to say this much, Johanna was anxious to be off, and she signified as much to Sir Richard Blunt, who fully acquiesced in the propriety of the measure, for already her absence had been quite long enough from the shop, and Todd might not be in the best of humours at her return.

After one more embrace, Johanna tore herself from her father's arms, and followed the magistrate from the fruiterer's house, by the same route which had conducted her to it.

On their way, he explained to her some little matters of which she was in ignorance, or at least concerning which she could only conjecture.

"Both the persons, whom you left in Todd's shop," he said, "belong to my force; and the one only went for the protection of the other, as I, of course, surmised that you would be at once sent out of the way upon some real or mock errand, to give Todd opportunity of committing a murder. My great object is to find out precisely how he does the deed; and the man who came in to be shaved was to make what observations of the place he could during the ceremony, while the other distracted Todd's attention."

"I understand," said Johanna. "I of course knew that they were friends when they mentioned the watchword of St. Dunstan to me."

"Exactly. I gave them instructions to seize the very first opportunity of letting you hear the watch-word. Are there any large cupboards in the shop?"

"Yes. There is one of great size."

"Would it, do you think, hold two men?"

"Oh, yes. Perchance you, who are tall, might have to stoop a little; but with that exception as to height, there is most ample space."

"That will do then. I cannot tell you, of course, the exact hour; but be it when it may, the moment Todd leaves the shop to day to go upon any business out of doors, two persons from me will come to hide themselves in that cupboard."

"They will use the watch-word?"

"Yes, certainly; and you will so dispose any movable article in the shop, as to take away any idea that the cupboard had been visited, or in the slightest degree interfered with."

"That I can easily do."

"Well, here we are, then, in Fleet-street again; and mind all this that I have planned has nothing to do with your proceedings to call for assistance, if any special or unforeseen danger should occur to you."

Johanna, upon this, showed him the jagged stone she had in her pocket, to cast through the window.

"Yes, that would do," said Sir Richard; "but I would gladly supply you with arms. Do you think you could manage a pistol, if you had one?"

"Yes. I have often looked at some fire-arms that my father had in his shop to sell once, and I have seen them used."

"I am glad of that," continued Sir Richard. "Here are two very small pistols loaded. They may be thoroughly depended upon in a room; but they would not carry any distance, in consequence of the shortness of the barrel. If, however, you should be in any sudden and extreme danger from Todd, anywhere else than in the shop, or there, if you are pushed for time, one of these fired in his face will be tolerably effective. You can keep them both in your pocket."

The magistrate, as he spoke, handed to Johanna a pair of very small, but exquisitely made pistols, encircled with silver mounting, and she carefully concealed them, feeling still more secure from any treachery upon the part of Todd, now that she held his life as much, if not more, in her hands, than he held hers in his.

She shook her kind friend warmly by the hand, and then hastened to the barber's shop. As she got near to it, she saw the tall thin man who had so perplexed Todd about the religious tract, come out, and Todd followed him to the door, looking after him with such an expression of deadly malice, that Johanna could not but pause a moment to look at him.

He suddenly turned his eyes towards her, and saw her. He beckoned with his finger, and she entered the shop.

"Well, Charley," he said, with quite an affectation of good humour. "You are a good lad."

"I am glad you think so, sir," she replied, seeing that Todd paused for an answer.

"I cannot but think so. I shall have to look over some accounts in the parlour this morning, and if anybody--any female, I mean--comes for me, say I have gone to the city, and that, after that, I said I would call in Bell Yard before I came home. You well remember that, Bell Yard. Be vigilant and discreet, and you shall have the reward that I have all along intended for you, and which you should not miss upon any account."

"I am much beholden to you, sir. But if any one should come to be shaved while you are in the parlour, what shall I say to them?"

"You can say I have gone to the Temple to dress Mr. Block's new wig, if you like, so that you got rid of them, for I must not be disturbed on any consideration."

"Very well, sir."

"Put another turf on the fire, Charley, and make yourself quite comfortable."

What inconsistent amenity this was upon the part of Todd. It seemed as though he had turned over a new leaf completely, and intended to put an end to all suspicions, if he had any, of Charley Green; and after that--after that, Todd still preserved his kind intention of cutting his throat with one of the razors.

"The very best thing you can do with people," muttered Todd to himself, as he went into the parlour, "is to cut their throats as soon as they cease to be useful to you, for from that moment, if you do not put them out of the way, they are almost certain to be mischievous to you."

What a pleasant lot of maxims Todd had, and what a beautiful system of moral philosophy his was, to be sure!

One thing was quite evident, and that was that he fully expected and dreaded the visit of Mrs. Lovett upon money matters. It will be recollected that ten o'clock was named as about the hour when that lady was to bring in her little account in the partnership affair of Todd, Lovett, & Co.; and as he (Todd) had for once in his life been fairly bothered to make any further excuses to so pertinacious a creditor as Mrs. Lovett, he had hit upon the plan of trying to put her off during the day by one means or another, and at night he would, at an earlier hour than he had before intended, be off and away.

Everything was in readiness, and he considered Mrs. Lovett his only hindrance--a danger he scarcely thought her--for, at the very worst, he could not conceive that even her passion would be sufficient to induce her to sacrifice herself, for the sake of revenge upon him.

His house was prepared so that a match would at any moment suffice to give the touch that would set it in a blaze; and then, as he said--"Who shall say where the conflagration among the old well-dried wooden houses of Fleet-street may reach to?"

His passage in the Hamburgh ship was secure--the fearful proceeds of his life of rapine and murder were in her hold. How uncommonly safe Todd thought himself, and how well he considered he had managed his affairs.

Short-sighted mortals that we are! How often we mistake the shifting morass of difficulty for the terra firma of prosperity, and how often do we weep for those events, which, in themselves and their results, form the ground-work of the happiness of a life! Truly we are

"Such things as air is made of."

If Todd now for one moment could have imagined that his plunder, which he believed was so safe on board the Hamburgh ship, was actually, on the contrary, at the office of Sir Richard Blunt, in Craven-street, what would have been his sensations? Would he have laughed and sniggered over the bumper of brandy he was holding to his lips in his parlour? No, indeed.

If he could but have guessed that the ship in which he had intended to embark, was then twenty-four hours on her route, and battling with the surging waves of the German Ocean, how would he have felt!

Strange to say, he never had felt so confident of success and triumph as upon that day. He could have said with Romeo in Mantua--

"My bosom's lord sits lightly on its throne,"

while, like Romeo, he was on the eve of a blow that at once was to topple to the dust the very structure of all his hopes. He of course fully expected a visit from Mrs. Lovett, but he did hope that she would take an answer from Charley, and go away again. If she did not he trusted to the inspiration of the moment to be able to say something to her which might have the effect of producing that which he wanted only, namely, delay.

XCIII. SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S SUBTERRANEAN EXPEDITION

While Todd is thus waiting anxiously for the arrival of his old ally in iniquity, but who now he considered to be his most deadly foe, and his worst possible hindrance to carry out his deeply--by far too deeply--laid schemes, we shall have time to take a peep at some proceedings of Sir Richard Blunt's, which are rather entertaining, and decidedly important.

Johanna had not been long gone from the fruiterer's shop, before Sir Richard said to the fruiterer--

"If you are ready we will go now to the church at once. I have left quite a sufficient guard over the safety of Miss Oakley, and besides this affair will not take us I daresay above a couple of hours."

"Not so long I think," replied the fruiterer. "I am quite ready, and no doubt your men are in the church by this time. They are apt to be punctual."

"They would not suit me for long if they were not," replied Sir Richard. "Punctuality is the one grand principle which is the hinge of all my business, and the secret of by far the larger portion of my success."

They walked rapidly up Fleet Street together, until they came opposite to St. Dunstan's Church, and then they crossed the road and tapped lightly at a little wicket in the great door of the building. The wicket was immediately opened by a man who touched his hat to Sir Richard.

"All right?" asked the magistrate, "and every one here?"

"Yes, sir. Every one."

"That will do then. Be sure you fasten the door in the inside, so that that troublesome beadle, if he should be smitten with a desire to visit the church, cannot get in; and if he should come and be troublesome, take him into custody at once, and shut him him up anywhere that may keep him out of harm's way for the next twelve hours or so."

"Yes, sir."

This man, whose business it evidently was to stay by the door, carefully fastened it, and Sir Richard Blunt with his friend from Fleet Street advanced into the body of the church. He had not gone far before a pew opened, and six persons came out. One of these was a well-dressed elderly man, who said, as the magistrate approached him--

"I have made all the necessary observations, Sir Richard, and am quite easy and confident that I can direct your men how to excavate directly to Todd's house."

"Thank you Sir Christopher," said the magistrate. "I am very much indebted to you for the trouble you have taken in this affair, which I think is now near its climax."

"I hope so, Sir Richard. This way if you please."

The whole party now proceeded to the same slab of stone which the magistrate had had before removed, for the purpose of making his inquiries below the surface of the earth. The slab was standing on its edge against a column of the nearest aisle, and the deep dark opening to the vaults was before them.

"There is but little foul air," said Sir Christopher. "The stone has been off they tell me many hours. Shall I go first, or will you, Sir Richard?"

"Allow me," said the magistrate; "should there be any risks, it is my duty first to encounter them."

"As you please, Sir Richard. As you please, sir. I willingly give place to you, because I know, if there be any difficulty how much better calculated you are than any one here to overcome it."

The magistrate made a slight bow to the compliment, and then taking a link in his hand, he descended the stairs leading to the vaults of St. Dunstan's.

It will be well recollected that he had been in those vaults before, and that he had made certain discoveries, which to a vast extent implicated Mrs. Lovett in the crimes of Sweeney Todd; but his object upon this present visit was of a different character. In plain language, this was an attempt to ascertain if there were any underground modes of communication between Todd's house, and the vaults of old St. Dunstan's church.

That there were some such subterraneous passages had become, after the most mature consideration, a firm conviction upon the mind of Sir Richard Blunt, and hence he had resolved upon such an exploration of the spot as should confirm or dispel the idea for ever.

Those whom he had with him, were all persons upon whom he could thoroughly depend; and the ancient architect, who had given his services, was to point out the exact direction in which to proceed.

Upon reaching the foot of the stone steps, instead of traversing the passage that led in the direction of Bell Yard, which he had formerly done, Sir Richard turned directly the other way, saying as he did so--

"This, I presume, will be our direction?"

"We shall see in a moment," said the architect. "I have taken the bearings so exactly, that I can point out to you the precise course."

He forced into the ground to a sufficient depth to make it stand steady, his walking stick, and then removing a little gold cap from the top of it, he disclosed a small compass, which after some oscillations, steadied itself.

"Then," said Sir Christopher, "through that wall would lead in a direct line to Todd's house."

"This will assist us," said Sir Richard. "We will, before we actually begin excavating, endeavour to find some of the vaults which may run in that direction, and so perhaps save ourselves an immense amount of labour."

"Very good," said Sir Christopher Wren, "I can at any time give you, from any place, the exact bearing of Todd's house, for I have it fixed in my mind, and can read it off from the compass plate in a moment."

They now at once made their way into the vaults, and by dint of keeping to the right hand, they avoided going much out of their course. These vaults were of great extent, and although some of them, owing to being full of the dead, had been bricked up, yet they were very easily opened, and in many cases a direct thoroughfare for considerable distances was affected.

Ever and anon the compass was appealed to, and showed them that they were approaching Todd's house.

One of the party, a well-dressed gentlemanly-looking man, now stepped forward, and said to Sir Richard--

"Here, according to the plans of the church, the vaults end."

"Then we can get no further?"

"Not an inch, Sir Richard."

"Then here commences in reality our mission, which is to try to discover some communication between the lower part of the house occupied by Sweeney Todd, and these vaults. Let us each use our utmost discrimination to affect that object."

He lighted for himself a small lantern, and commenced a rigorous search of the walls, but for some few minutes could find nothing to excite the least suspicion. At length he paused at one portion of one of the vaults, where a kind of wooden tomb had been erected close to the wall. A large piece of dirty oak was placed upright against the earth work.

"If there be any mode of leaving this vault, but the one we have entered," he said, "it is here."

At these words, so significant as they were of some discovery having been made by Sir Richard, all those who were with him made their way to that spot, and from their several lanterns, a glare of light was thrown upon the wooden monument.

"This," said the person who had before spoken of the plan of the vaults, "this is the monument of a Sir Giles Horseman, who was killed by accident and interred here about twenty-two years ago. It was a very unusual thing to make any such erection in a vault, but his widow wished it, and the authorities saw no good reason for interfering."

The monument had evidently consisted of an oaken kind of square ornamental tomb affixed to the wall, and extending out about six feet into the vault. That portion of it which did so extend into the vault had fallen in, but the piece of oak which had been originally affixed to the wall there remained.

"What leads you to suppose, Sir Richard," said the architect, "that this place will show us anything?"

"This," said the magistrate, as he picked up from amid the rubbish of the broken monument, a nearly new glove of thick leather. "How did this get here?"

The glove was passed from hand to hand, and duly examined. No one owned it, and the only remark that could be made upon it was, that it was of an immense size.

"Then," said Sir Richard Blunt, "since it belongs to none of us, I give it as my opinion that it belongs to Sweeney Todd, and has fallen from his hand in this place."

"It must be so," said the fruiterer. "I know of no hand in the City of London that such a glove would fit but his."

"But how came he here?" said Sir Christopher. "That is the question. How could he get here."

"We shall see," said the magistrate. "Lend me that small iron crow-bar, Jenkins."

The crow-bar was handed to Sir Richard Blunt, and at one touch with it down come the piece of oak that was against the wall. That was conclusive, for, instead of the solid wall beyond it, there was a deep crevice or opening just sufficient to enable one person to go through it.

"This is the place," said the magistrate.

There was a death-like silence among all present. Every ear was on the stretch, and every eye was fixed upon the narrow opening in the wall of the vault. It would almost seem as though every one expected Sweeney Todd to appear with one of his victims on his back that he had just, to use his own expressive phraseology, succeeded in polishing off.

Sir Christopher stuck up his compass again, and it was his voice that first broke the stillness.

"The route is direct," he said.

"To Todd's house?" asked Sir Richard.

"Yes, direct."

"Then all we have got to do is to follow it. It is an enterprise perhaps attended with some danger, and certainly with much horror, I think. Now, I do not ask any one to follow me, but go I will."

"I will follow you, Sir Richard," said the fruiterer. "I reside in Fleet Street, and rather than not ferret out such a villain as Todd from the neighbourhood, I would run any risks. I am with you, sir."

"And I," said Sir Christopher Wren.

"And I--and I," cried every one.

"Come on," said the magistrate. "Come on. I will take the small lantern, and if I meet Todd, my great aim will be to take him a prisoner, not to kill him; and mind all of you, if by any chance a scuffle with that man should ensue, it would be a scandalous cheating of the gallows to do him any injury that might even delay his execution. Now, come on."

It required no small amount of real courage to lead the way in that expedition into the very bowels of the earth as it were; but with the small lantern elevated as far above his head as the roof of the passage would admit of, Sir Richard stepped cautiously and slowly on.

The excavation in which they were was roughly but well made. At intervals of about twelve feet each, there always occurred two upright pieces of plank supporting a third piece on the roof, and firmly wedged in, so that there was but little likelihood of a fall of earth from above.

Suddenly a scuffling noise was heard, and Sir Richard for a moment paused.

"What is it?" said the fruiterer.

"Only some rats," he replied. "I daresay there are plenty of such gentlemen in this quarter of the world, and probably they never saw so large a party here before. They are scudding along in a regiment here."

After going on for about twenty paces further, Sir Richard found a door completely blocking up the passage. By dint of careful investigation of it, he found it was locked, and the key in the other side of the lock. He pushed it through with some difficulty, and then, with a skeleton key, opened the door in the course of a few moments.

"Come on," he said. "Ah! this is a different place."

They now found themselves in some regularly constructed vaults, arched with stone, down the sides of which there rolled long streams of moisture. They were all quite at a loss to know what place they had got into, for they knew of nothing of the sort beneath Fleet Street, and they gazed about them with wonder.

XCIV. IN THE VAULTS

"Who on earth would have thought of vaults like these in such a situation?" said the fruiterer.

"They are," said Sir Christopher, "undoubtedly the remains of some public building, which probably at a very distant date has occupied the site above. They are well built, and really of considerable architectural beauty in some respects. I am quite pleased at the opportunity of seeing such a place."

"It looks," remarked the magistrate, "as though it had been long hidden from the world. It is such men as Sweeney Todd who find out more underground secrets in a month than we should in a lifetime; but I hope that we shall find out all his cleverness and most abhorrent iniquities now."

The air in this stone place was by no means very bad, and indeed, after the vaults, there was rather an agreeable damp kind of freshness in it; while it was evident, by the manner in which the lights burnt in it, that there was no want of vitality in its atmosphere. At first it was no easy matter to find any kind of outlet from the place. After some searching, however, another door was discovered, very similar, indeed, to the one that Sir Richard Blunt had opened with the picklock, and that, too, was found to be locked on the other side, and the key, as in the former case, in the lock.

"All this locking of doors," said the magistrate, "was, I have no sort of doubt, to protect himself from any night visit upon the part of Mrs. Lovett, from whom I feel certain that Sweeney Todd has been expecting attempts upon his life, as much as to my own knowledge he has made attempts upon hers; but by some kind of fatality, or providence, they seem to be unable to harm each other."

"It is a providence," said Sir Christopher. "They must both suffer the penalty of outraging, as they have done, the laws of God and man; and the retribution would be by no means complete were they to fall by the hands or each other."

"I think you are right, sir," said the fruiterer.

The door which was now opened, only led to some other vaults, which somewhat resembled those the party had just left, only that they were by no means so lofty or so carefully constructed as they were; and before they had proceeded far, some evidences of habitation began to show themselves. Some old boots occupied a place in one corner, and some old hats, and other articles of clothing, were lying in a confused heap in another. Sir Richard Blunt looked upon all this as ample testimony that he was quite close to the abode of Sweeney Todd, and he accordingly turned to his friends, saying--

"It is necessary that we proceed with the utmost caution. I think, a very few steps will take us into the cellars of Todd's house, and the object now is not by any means to give him the least alarm, but merely to find out, if possible, by what means he murders and disposes of his victims."

Acting upon this caution, they extinguished all the lights, with the exception of one lantern, and that Sir Richard Blunt himself carried, as he still continued to head the expedition. Suddenly he came upon an arched doorway without a door; and hardly had he proceeded a few paces, when he saw something lying in a strange confused mass upon the floor, which, upon a closer examination, proved to be a dead body.

The reader will probably in this body see the spy who had been employed by Mrs. Lovett to see that Todd did not run away in the course of the preceding night.

The body was lying upon some stones, that seemed to have been placed one upon another in such a position that their most jagged corners and uneven surfaces should be uppermost. A glance at the roof showed a square, black-looking hole.

Sir Richard Blunt was upon the point of saying something, when overhead they heard the distinct tramp of a man. The magistrate immediately placed his finger upon his lips, and all was as still as the grave in that place. Presently they heard a voice, and they all knew that it was the voice of Sweeney Todd. It came from above, and reached their ears with sufficient clearness to enable them to catch the words--

"Her death is certain if I can but get her to cross the threshold of this parlour!"

Then the pacing to and fro of that really wretched man continued. The few words that Todd had spoken, had been sufficient to convince Sir Richard Blunt of one thing, which was, that they were beneath the parlour, and not the shop. It was from the shop the people disappeared, so the heart of Todd's mystery remained yet to be reached. There was another small door-way a little to the left of where he stood, and Sir Richard, upon the impulse of the moment, passed through it alone. He came back again in a moment.

"Gentlemen," he whispered, "have we seen enough?"

They nodded, and without another word, he led the way back again from the dreary subterranean abode of murder. It was only to the fruiterer he whispered, after they had gotten some distance from the spot upon which the dead body lay--

"I know all."

"Indeed?"

"Yes. When we get back to your home, I will tell you. Let for the meantime the general impression be, that all there was to learn consisted of the secret of that square hole in the flooring of the parlour."

"Yes, yes! But there is more?"

"Much more. You and Sir Christopher at present, I think, are the only two persons I shall be communicative with. The whole world will know it all, soon enough, but long and old habits of caution, always induce me to keep my information as quiet as I possibly can."

"You are quite right, Sir Richard. Even I shall feel it to be no offence if you keep entirely to yourself what you have seen."

"No, no! I wish to avail myself of your advice, which has done me good service upon more than one occasion; so when we get to your house, we will talk the matter fully over."

By this time they had got so far from the immediate vicinity of Todd's house, that such excessive caution in conversing was no longer necessary, and the magistrate pausing, made a general remark to all.

"The less that is said about what we have seen here, the better it will be. Let me beg of every one not to give the smallest hint to any one, even in the most confidential manner, of the discoveries that have been made here to-day."

An immediate assent was of course given to this proposition, and in the course of five minutes they were all in St. Dunstan's church. It was something amusing to Sir Richard, at that moment, to notice the look of relief there was upon every countenance, now that the investigation into that underground and unknown region was over. Each person seemed as if he had just escaped from the toils and hazards of a battle. By a glance at his watch, Sir Richard ascertained that only one hour and a quarter had been consumed in the whole affair, and he was pleased to think how soon again he should be personally superintending the safety of Johanna.

Before, however, the party got half way to the door of the church, they heard a vociferous argumentation going on in that quarter, and the voice of the beadle, who was well known to Sir Richard, was heard exclaiming--

"I will come in. I'm the beadle. Fire! Fire! I will come in. What! keep a beadle out of his own church? Oh! Oh! Oh! Conwulsions conwulsions! It ain't possible."

"Gentlemen," said the magistrate, "we must repress our friend the beadle's curiosity. Let us all say 'Hush' to him as we go out, and not another word."

This was generally understood, and they walked slowly in a kind of procession to the church door.

"Pitchforks and hatchets!" cried the beadle. "I will come in. Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes. Look at my hat and coat; I ain't a himposter, but a real beetle! Bless us, who is here? Why--why, there ain't no service nor a wedding. What a lot of folks. Have they been a grabbing of the Communion plate? Oh, murder, conwulsions, and thieves!"

Sir Richard went close up to him, and in the most mysterious way in the world, whispered in his ear "Hush."

"Eh?" said the beadle.

Sir Christopher took hold of him by the collar of the coat, and said--"Hush."

"Well, but--but--"

The fruiterer beckoned to him with great gravity, and when he come forward a pace or two, said--"Hush."

"But good gracious what am I to hush about? What is it all--what does it mean--tell us, for goodness gracious sake? I don't know anything; I'm an ass--an idiot. What am I to hush about--I shall sit upon no end of thorns and nettles, till I know.--What is it?"

"Hush! hush! hush!" said every one as he passed the now nearly distracted beadle, and finally there he was left in the church porch with nothing in the shape of information, but hush! The man who had been left by the magistrate as a sentinel at the church door, was the last to leave, and he took his cue from all the others; and when the beadle laid hold of him crying--"I'll take you up. I won't let you go," he gently sat him on the floor; and then saying "Hush!" away he went likewise.

The large slab in the church, that usually covered up the passage leading to the vaults, was left uncovered; but then the beadle perfectly understood that that was for the sole purpose of relieving the vaults, during the week, of the accumulation of mephitic vapours supposed to be in them; and at all events no impulse of curiosity could be sufficiently strong in him to induce so desperate a step as a descent alone into those dreary abodes of the departed; so that he was, in a manner of speaking, compelled to put up entirely with "Hush!" for his portion of the mystery.

Sir Richard bade good-day to every one but the fruiterer at the door of the church; and then with him he walked to his shop opposite to Todd's. Crotchet was close at hand, and he came into the shop, at a signal from the magistrate to do so.

"Is all right, Crotchet?"

"Right as a trivet, sir. Lord bless you about so much as a sneeze, but I'll find it out; and as for little Miss Thingamybob, he shan't hurt a hair of her pretty little bit of a head."

"That's right, Crotchet. Remember that the bringing to justice, with ample evidence of all his crimes, of Sweeney Todd, is a great object; but it is an infinitely greater one to preserve the life of Johanna Oakley."

"I knows it," said Crotchet.

"Resume your charge, then, Crotchet. All will be well, and this will be Todd's last day out of Newgate."

Crotchet nodded, and made his exit.

In the succeeding half hour, it would seem that Sir Richard Blunt made his old acquaintance, the fruiterer, thoroughly acquainted with all he knew of the way in which Todd got rid of his victims. What that way was will very shortly now appear; and we think it had better appear in this regular and most authentic narrative, than in a chance conversation between Sir Richard Blunt and his friend.

It was the special duty of one officer to come into the fruiterer's shop with a report and a description of whoever went into Todd's house, and now this man made his appearance.

"Well, Jervis," said the magistrate, "so Todd has a customer, has he?"

"I don't know, sir. It is a woman, well dressed, and rather tall than otherwise."

"Mrs. Lovett, without a doubt. No one need go and look after that lady, for I don't know any one, except you or I, Jervis, who is so capable of taking care of number one. Todd will find her a troublesome customer, and if she is at all the woman I take her to be, she will not go into his back parlour quite so easily as he would fain persuade her."

"Then no one need follow, sir?"

"No; but if the young lad comes out, you may just look in and ask some frivolous question to see what is going on. If the female is not in the shop--she is dead."

"Dead, sir!"

"Yes. She will not live a minute after she leaves the shop; but you may depend she will not do so; she is to the full as well acquainted with Todd as we are, so there is no sort of apprehension of her coming to any harm. I should indeed be sorry to lose her."

Sir Richard Blunt was right in his guess. It was no other than Mrs. Lovett, who, agreeably to her appointment with Todd, called upon him for her half of the plunder for the last few years.

XCV. MRS. LOVETT IS VERY INTRACTABLE INDEED

Before entering the shop, Mrs. Lovett hovered about it, peeping at the things in the window, and glancing about her as though she had some uncomfortable ideas in her mind concerning the place, and was coquetting with her feelings a little before she could make up her mind to go into it.

At length she laid her hand upon the handle of the door, and turned it. She stood upon the threshold, and her sharp glance at once comprehended that Todd was not there. Johanna advanced towards her, and waited for her to speak.

"Oh," she said. "Is Mr. Todd in?"

"No," said Johanna. "No, madam."

Johanna did not think it worth while at that time to expose herself to the great danger of disobeying Todd's positive commands, to say he was not at home, merely upon a point of punctilious truth. Mrs. Lovett looked keenly at her.

"So," she said, "he is out--is he?"

"Yes, madam."

"And you are Mr. Todd's boy?"

The emphasis which Mrs. Lovett placed upon the word boy, rather alarmed Johanna, and she was more terrified when Mrs. Lovett marched twice round her, as though she were performing some incantation, glaring at her all the while from top to toe.

Whatever was Mrs. Lovett's opinion of Johanna, however, she magnanimously kept it to herself; but the young girl had a sort of perception, that her suit had not escaped the keen and penetrating eyes of Mrs. Lovett. This conviction gave a great air of timidity to Johanna's manner in speaking to the bold bad woman who confronted her.

"And so he is out?" added Mrs. Lovett.

"Yes, madam."

"How long has he been gone?"

"Only a short time."

"Well, my principal business this day, is to see Mr. Todd. I have made such arrangements at home, that I can wait here the whole day if necessary, for see him I must--and see him I will; I had a sort of presentiment that he might be out, notwithstanding I have an appointment with him."

With this Mrs. Lovett sat down and composed herself evidently for a long wait--she did not sit in the shaving-chair though. Johanna thought that as she passed it, she rather shuddered; but that might have been a mere fancy upon the part of our young friend.

Mrs. Lovett was not exactly of the shuddering order of human beings.

"Did he say when he should return?"

"No, madam."

All these questions of Mrs. Lovett's were asked with a sneering kind of incredulity, that was quite sufficient to show Johanna how completely she disbelieved the statement concerning the absence of Todd. That she would wait until Todd was perforce obliged to show himself, Johanna did not doubt. There was something about the pale face and compressed lips of Mrs. Lovett that at once bespoke such a determination; but should any scene of unusual violence ensue, Johanna made up her mind to rush from the shop, if near the door, and if not able to do that, to cast a missile through the window, which she knew would bring her immediate help.

"How long have you been with Mr. Todd?" asked Mrs. Lovett of Johanna.

"Only a few days, madam."

"And what made you come?"

"My necessities, madam. I was in want of a situation, and Mr. Todd wanted an errand boy."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Lovett. "This is very strange." She rested her head upon her hand for a few moments, and appeared to be lost in thought, and at times Johanna could see that she was keenly eyeing her. Truly, Johanna had never felt so thoroughly uncomfortable since she had been in Todd's shop, for she could not but feel that she was discovered.

The only question was now whether, when she did see Todd, Mrs. Lovett would think it worth her while to speak of the affair at all. The probability, however, was that she was too much engrossed in the business that brought her there to pay more than a passing attention to a mystery which, to all appearance, could not in any way concern her.

But Todd all this while was a prisoner in his own parlour, and it may easily be imagined how he chafed and fumed over such a state of things. If any convenient mode of taking the life of Mrs. Lovett had but presented itself to him, how gladly he would have embraced it; but none did; and after enduring the present state of affairs for about a quarter of an hour, he coolly opened the parlour door and walked into the shop as if nothing were amiss.

Mrs. Lovett was not at all taken by surprise at this proceeding. She merely rose and took a step towards the door, as she said, in a cool sarcastic tone--

"I am glad you have come home."

"Come home?" said Todd, with a well-acted look of surprise. "Come home? What do you mean, my dear madam? I am particularly glad to see you, and was particularly desirous to do so."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, to be sure. Really, do you know, I told the lad here, to deny me to anybody but you."

"And he made the slight mistake of denying you to me only."

"Is it possible?--Can such things be? Oh, you careless rascal. Upon my word, some employers would pull your ears--that they would. I'm ashamed of you--that I am. Really, Mrs. Lovett, these boys are always annoying one in some way or another; but walk in, if you please--walk in, and we will soon settle our little affairs."

"Excuse me," said Mrs. Lovett, "I prefer the shop, Mr. Todd."

"You don't say so?"

"You hear me say so, and you might know by this time, that when I say anything--I mean it."

"Of course, Mrs. Lovett, of course," said Todd; "I know you for a lady of infinite powers of mind--of great susceptibility--of feeling--of uncommon intellect and thrift. Please to step into the parlour, and I will settle with you at once, for I believe you call for a small trifle that you are entitled to from me, Mrs. Lovett."

"I do call for what I am entitled to, and I will have it here."

"Charley, just go to St. Dunstan's, my lad, and bring me word the exact time; and then, you can do it all under one, you know, just walk down Fleet-market, and see if you can find any love-apples, and if so, you can ask the price of them, and let me know."

"Yes, sir," said Johanna.

In another moment she was gone. Mrs. Lovett took another step nearer to the door, and actually laid her hand upon it to prevent it closing thoroughly. She did not think that she would be safe if it were shut; and then addressing Todd, she said--

"All disguise between you and I, is useless now, Todd. Give me my half of the money that has been earned by blood. It may have the curse of murder clinging to it, but I will have it--I say I will have it."

"Are you mad?"

"Not yet--not yet. But I shall be, and then it will be time for you to beware of me."

"Mrs. Lovett--Mrs. Lovett, is it not a melancholy thing, that you and I, who may be said to be at war with all the world, should begin to quarrel with each other? If we are not true to one another, what can we expect from others? Have we not for so long carried on our snug little business in safety, merely because we were good friends?"

"No, Todd, no. We never were friends--you know that as well as I do. It is a principal of human nature, that those who are associated together for wicked purposes are never friends. You and I have not been exceptions to the rule. We hate each other--we always did and will, you know it."

"Dear, dear!" said Todd, lifting up his hands, and approaching a step nearer to Mrs. Lovett. "This is afflicting--this is truly afflicting to hear such words from you, Mrs. Lovett."

"Keep off--keep off, I say! Another step, and I will at once into the street, and then to the passers-by scream out for public vengeance upon Todd the murderer!"

"Hush!--hush! God of Heaven! woman, what do you mean by speaking of murder in such a tone?"

"I mean, Todd, what I say; and what I threaten I will do. Keep off--keep off! I will not have you another step nearer to me with that hang-dog look."

"Moderate your tone, woman!" said Todd, as he stamped upon the floor of the shop; "moderate your tone, woman, or you will destroy yourself and me."

"I care not."

"You care not?--what do you mean by that? Have you gone mad in earnest? What do you mean by you care not? Has the scaffold any charms for you?"

"It might have for once, with you for a companion on it, Sweeney Todd; but if I am desperate and reckless, you have yourself to thank for it. Well you know that, Todd. I have toiled, and sinned, and murdered, for what you have done the same, for gold!--Gold was the God of my idolatry, and it was yours. We both seized the same idea. We both saw how gold alone was worshipped in the land. We saw how Heaven was affected to be worshipped by all; but we found out that gold was the real divinity. We saw that it was for the lucre of gain that the priest clothed himself in the garments of his pretended ministry, and spake his mock prayers to the people. We saw that it was for gold only that the rulers of the land struggled and fought. We found that the love and the worship of gold was the true religion of all; and we sought to possess ourselves of the idol."

"Mad!--mad!" cried Todd.

"No, I speak sanely enough now. I say, we found out that by the possession of gold in christian, canting, religious, virtuous England, we should find many worshippers. We found out that thousands upon thousands would bend the knee to us on that account, and on that account only. If we were paragons of virtue, we might rot and starve; but if we were monsters of vice, if we had but gold, and kept but by the side of the law, we should be kings--emperors upon the earth."

"Bah! bah! bah!" cried Todd.

"Well, we took a royal road to our object. We murdered for it, Todd. You dipped your hands in gore, and I helped you. Yes, I do not deny that I helped you."

"Peace, woman!"

"I will not hold my peace. The time has come for you to hear me, and I will make you do so. I will speak trumpet-tongued, and if you like not that word murder, I will shriek it in your ears. If you like not the word blood, I will on the house-tops proclaim and tell the people that it is synonymous with Todd. Ha! ha! You shrink now."

XCVI. THE BOAT ON THE RIVER

Todd did shrink aghast. This wild vehemence of Mrs. Lovett's was something that he did not expect. Every word that she uttered filled him with alarm. He began really to think that she had gone mad, and that he might have everything to dread from her wild vehemence, and that probably he had gone too far in cheating her out of the result of her labours.

"Peace," he said. "Peace, and you shall be satisfied."

"I will be satisfied."

"Well, well, of course you shall. But you cannot be if you destroy both yourself and me, which your present conduct threatens."

"I tell you I joined with you in murder for the love of gold, and I will have my recompense. Give me that which is mine own. I will have it, or I will drag you with me to the halter. Do you understand that, Sweeney Todd? I ask you, do you understand that?"

"It is plain enough," said Todd.

"Then give me my gold--gold for blood. Give it to me, and let me go."

"You are really so precipitate. Upon my word, Mrs. Lovett, you are quite an altered woman, that you are. I certainly never did expect to hear such language from you. Any one would think that you had an idea I meant to cheat you."

Mrs. Lovett made an impatient gesture, but Todd continued--

"Now, anything more repugnant to my feelings than that could not possibly be, I assure you; and I consider you fully entitled to £22,000 8s. 3d., which is precisely your half of the proceeds of the little business."

"Give me the money."

"Now, do you suppose, Mrs. Lovett, that I am so green as to keep here in the house no less a sum than £22,000 8s. 3d.? You really must think I have taken leave of my senses, to dream for one moment of such a thing."

"Where is it, then?--where is it? I see you are bent upon driving me mad."

"Why, really, Mrs. L., it would be insulting you to say that you were perfectly in your right senses at this moment; but come, sit down, and we will see what can be done. Sit down, and compose yourself."

"In the shaving chair"

"Ha--ha, that's a good joke. In the shaving chair! Ha--ha! No Mrs. L., I don't exactly want to polish you off. Sit down where you like, but not in the shaving chair, if you don't fancy it, Mrs. L. Pray sit down."

"For you to cut my throat?"

"What?"

"I say, for you to cut my throat? Do you think I am not sharp sighted enough to see that razor partially hidden in your sleeve? No, Todd, I am well aware that you are panting to murder me. I tell you I know it, and it is useless your making the faintest attempt to conceal it. The fact is broad and evident; but I am upon my guard, and I am armed likewise, Todd."

"Armed?"

"Yes, Todd, I am armed, and you are terrified at the idea, as I knew you would be. Nothing to you is so horrible as death. You who have sent so many from the world, will yourself go from it howling with fright. I am armed, but I do not mean to tell you how."

"You are wrong, Mrs. Lovett. What on earth would be the use of my taking your life?"

"You would have all then."

"All? What do I want with all? I am not a young man now, and all I wish is the means of enjoyment for the remainder of my days. That I can well command with a less sum than my half of that which we have to divide will come to. I have no one that I care to leave a sixpence to, and therefore what need I trouble myself to hoard? You are quite mistaken, Mrs. Lovett."

"Give me my money then."

"I will, of course; but I tell you it is at the banker's, Messrs. Grunt, Mack, Stickinton, and Fubbs. Yes, that is the name of the highly respectable firm in whose hands for the present both my money and yours is deposited; and from the high character of the house, I should say it could not possibly be in safer hands."

"My share will be quite safe with me, or if unsafe, you need not care. I will have it."

"Step into the parlour, and I will write you an order for your half, and you can get it in half an hour."

"No Todd. You will make the attempt to murder me if I step into the parlour. I will not even come further into your shop, than here upon the threshold of it, with the door in my hand. Why do you keep a razor concealed in your sleeve?"

"Oh--I--It's a little habit of mine; but allow me to assure you how very incorrect your suspicions are, Mrs. Lovett; and if you will not come in, I will write the order, and bring it to you; or what do you say to my going with you to the bankers, where you can yourself ask what is the amount of the sum standing in my name there; and when you have ascertained it, you can have half of it to a sixpence."

"Come, then. I confess, Todd, I am sufficiently suspicious of you, that I would rather not lose sight of you."

"Dear me, how dreadful it is for friends to be in such a state of feeling towards each other, to be sure. But the time will come, Mrs. Lovett, when you will see my conduct in a different light, and you will smile at the suspicion which you say you now entertain, but which sometimes I cannot help thinking are not the genuine sentiments of your heart."

"Come--come, at once."

"I must wait for the boy; I cannot leave the shop until the boy is here to mind it in my absence.--Oh, here he is."

At this moment, Johanna, who had not troubled herself to go to the market at all, came back.

"Well, what is the exact time," said Todd, "by St. Dunstan's?"

"A quarter-past eleven, sir."

"How very satisfactory. I am only going a little way with this lady, and will soon be back. You can keep up the fire, Charley, and in that corner you will find some religious tracts, which will I hope improve your mind. Above all things, my lad, never neglect your religious exercises. I hope you said your prayers last night, Charley?"

"I did, sir," said Johanna, and she said it with a look that added the query, "did you say your's?"

Todd hesitated a moment, as though something were passing through his mind respecting Johanna, and then he muttered to himself--

"There is time enough, yet."

No doubt he had begun to entertain serious suspicions of Master Charley, and in those few words was alluding to his intention of taking his life before the coming night.

"Now, my dear Mrs. Lovett," said Todd, as he put on his hat, and pressed it down unusually over his brows, "I am ready."

"And I," she said.

Todd only glanced round the shop, to be certain that he had left everything as he wished it, and he tried the parlour door. Then he at once stalked into Fleet Street, followed by Mrs. Lovett.

"It will look better for you to take my arm," he said.

"I don't care how it looks," she replied. "All I want is my money. Do not touch me, or you will see good cause shortly to me having done so. Go on and I will follow you; but if you attempt to escape me, I will raise the street in pursuit of you, by screaming out that you are Todd the mur--"

"Hush--hush, woman. Do you know where you are?"

"Yes, in the street, but I do not care. All I want is my money, and I will have it."

"Curses on you and your money too," muttered Todd, as he crossed Fleet Street, and turned up Bridge Street at a rapid pace. He passed all the turnings leading to the city, and kept on his way towards the bridge.

Mrs. Lovett followed him closely.

"Stop!" she said. "Stop!"

Todd stopped and turned about. He was mortally afraid that she would carry out some of her threats if he exhibited anything of a restive spirit towards her.

"Whither are you going?" she said. "This is not the way to the City."

"It is by the Thames."

"By the Thames?"

"Yes, I go by water; I do not wish to run the risk of meeting all sorts of people in the streets. I have not communicated to you that we are in great danger, but it is a fact. I do not now think that I shall get fairly off, but you will, if I am not interfered with before you get your money. By taking a boat at the stairs here by Blackfriars Bridge, we can be landed at a spot within about twenty yards of the banking-house, which will be by far the safer route."

Mrs. Lovett did not much fancy the river excursion; but she considered that after all there would be a waterman in the boat, and that the river at that time of the day was populous, so she thought that Todd dared not attempt anything.

"Very well," she said; "so that we are quick, I care not."

"I am to the full," said Todd, "as anxious as you can be to get the job settled."

Mrs. Lovett thought that there was something ominous in the way in which he pronounced the word "job;" but then she thought perhaps she was too critical, and she followed him to the stairs by the side of the old bridge, certainly not without suspicions, but they were only general ones. The idea struck her, however, that she should be safer with two watermen, and she said--

"We will have two men, and by so doing we shall go quicker down the stream."

"So we shall," said Todd; "it is a good idea. Hilloa! first oars, here--first oars!"

"Here you are, sir," said a waterman.

"We want a couple of you," said Todd.

"Yes, your honour. Here we are--me and my mate. All's right, your honour. Now, Bill, look alive.--Mind the step, ma'am. That's yer sort. Where to, your honour?"

"To Pigs Quay."

"Ay, ay. Give way, Bill, give way. A nice day for the water, your honour; a fine fresh air, and not too much of it. Easy, Bill."

"Very," said Todd, as he took his place beside Mrs. Lovett in the stern of the boat, which in a moment, propelled by the vigorous strokes of the two rowers, shot out into the middle of the stream. He whispered to Mrs. Lovett--"Now, how delightful it would be if you and I, with all our money, were going from England to-day!"

"No."

"No? Why, I cannot conceive anything more pleasant. Ha! ha!"

Both Todd and Mrs. Lovett were so much occupied in watching each other, that they did not perceive another boat push off from the same stairs at which they had embarked with two men in it, and which kept in their wake pretty closely. The two watermen of Todd's boat, however, saw it, and they looked at each other, but they said nothing. They went upon the wise plan, that it was no business of theirs; and so they pulled away, while Todd glanced uneasily into the pale face of Mrs. Lovett.

To say that Mrs. Lovett kept an eye upon Todd, would be but faintly to express the feline-like watchfulness with which she regarded him, as they sat together in the boat. There was not the slightest movement of his eye--the least twitch of a muscle of his face, that she did not observe, and strive to draw some conclusion from; and he felt that his very soul was being looked into by that bold woman, who had been the companion of his iniquity, and whom he was now plotting and planning, by some mad desperate means, to deprive of her share of that ill-gotten wealth, which never in this world, even if ten times the amount, could make either of them happy.