CXII. MRS. LOVETT FINDS THAT IT IS EASIER TO PLAN THAN TO EXECUTE…

CXII. MRS. LOVETT FINDS THAT IT IS EASIER TO PLAN THAN TO EXECUTE

It wants five minutes to nine, and Mrs. Lovett's shop is filling with persons anxious to devour or to carry away one or more of the nine o'clock batch of savoury, delightful, gushing gravy pies.

Many of Mrs. Lovett's customers paid her in advance for the pies, in order that they might be quite sure of getting their orders fulfilled when the first batch should make its gracious appearance from the depths below.

"Well, Jiggs," said one of the legal fraternity to another, "how are you to-day, old fellow? What do you bring it in?"

"Oh! I ain't very blooming. The fact is, the count and I, and a few others, made a night of it last evening; and somehow or another I don't think whiskey-and-water, half-and-half, and tripe, go well together."

"I should wonder if they did."

"And so I've come for a pie just to settle my stomach; you see I'm rather delicate."

"Ah! you are just like me, young man, there," said an elderly personage; "I have a delicate stomach, and the slightest thing disagrees with me. A mere idea will make me quite ill."

"Will it, really?"

"Yes; and my wife, she--"

"Oh, bother your wife! It's only five minutes to nine, don't you see? What a crowd there is, to be sure. Mrs. Lovett, you charmer, I hope you have ordered enough pies to be made to-night? You see what a lot of customers you have."

"Oh, there will be plenty."

"That's right. I say, don't push so; you'll be in time, I tell you; don't be pushing and driving in that sort of way--I've got ribs."

"And so have I. Last night I didn't get a pie at all, and my old woman is in a certain condition, you see, gentlemen, and won't fancy anything but one of Lovett's veal pies; so I've come all the way from Newington to get one for--"

"Hold your row, will you? and don't push."

"For to have the child marked with a pie on its--"

"Behind there, I say; don't be pushing a fellow as if it were half price at a theatre."

Each moment added some new comers to the throng, and at last any strangers who had known nothing of the attractions of Mrs. Lovett's pie-shop and had walked down Bell Yard, would have been astonished at the throng of persons there assembled--a throng that was each moment increasing in density, and becoming more and more urgent and clamorous.

* * * * *

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! Yes, it is nine at last. It strikes by old St. Dunstan's church clock, and in weaker strains the chronometical machine at the pie-shop echoes the sound. What excitement there is to get at the pies when they shall come! Mrs. Lovett lets down the square moveable platform that goes on pullies in the cellar; some machinery, which only requires a handle to be turned, brings up a hundred pies in a tray. These are eagerly seized by parties who have previously paid, and such a smacking of lips ensues as never was known.

Down goes the platform for the next hundred, and a gentlemanly man says--

"Let me work the handle, Mrs. Lovett, if you please; it's too much for you I'm sure."

"Sir, you are very kind, but I never allow anybody on this side of the counter but my own people, sir. I can turn the handle myself, sir, if you please, with the assistance of this girl. Keep your distance, sir, nobody wants your help."

"But my dear madam, only consider your delicacy. Really you ought not to be permitted to work away like a negro slave at a winch handle. Really you ought not."

The man who spoke thus obligingly to Mrs. Lovett, was tall and stout, and the lawyers clerks repressed the ire they otherwise would probably have given utterance to at thus finding any one quizzing their charming Mrs. Lovett.

"Sir, I tell you again that I don't want your help; keep your distance, sir, if you please."

"Now don't get angry, fair one," said the man. "You don't know but I might have made you an offer before I left the shop."

"Sir," said Mrs. Lovett, drawing herself up and striking terror into the hearts of the limbs of the law. "Sir! What do you want? Say what you want, and be served, sir, and then go. Do you want a pie, sir?"

"A pie? Oh, dear no, I don't want a pie. I would not eat one of the nasty things on any account. Pah!" Here the man spat on the floor. "Oh, dear, don't ask me to eat any of your pies."

"Shame, shame," said several of the lawyers clerks.

"Will any gentleman who thinks it a shame, be so good as to step forward and say so a little closer?"

Everybody shrunk back upon this, instead of accepting the challenge, and Mrs. Lovett soon saw that she must, despite all the legal chivalry by which she was surrounded, fight her battles herself. With a look of vehement anger, she cried--

"Beware, sir, I am not to be trifled with. If you carry your jokes too far, you will wish that you had not found your way, sir, into this shop."

"That, madam," said the tall stout man, "is not surely possible, when I have the beauty of a Mrs. Lovett to gaze upon, and render the place so exquisitely attractive; but if you will not permit me to have the pleasure of helping you up with the next batch of pies, which, after all, you may find heavier than you expect, I must leave you to do it yourself."

"So that I am not troubled any longer by you, sir, at all," said Mrs. Lovett, "I don't care how heavy the next batch of pies may happen to be, sir."

"Very good, madam."

"Upon my word," said a small boy, giving the side of his face a violent rub with the hope of finding the ghost of a whisker there, "it's really too bad."

"Ah, who's that? Let me get at him!"

"Oh, no, no, I--mean--that it's too bad of Mrs. Lovett, my dear sir. Oh, don't."

"Oh, very good; I am satisfied. Now, madam, you see that even your dear friends here, from Lincoln's Inn--Are you from the Inn, small boy?"

"Yes, sir, if you please."

"Very good. As I was saying, Mrs. Lovett, you now must of necessity perceive, that even your friends from the Inn, feel that your conduct is really too bad, madam."

Mrs. Lovett was upon this so dreadfully angry, that she disdained any reply to the tall stout man, but at once she applied herself to the windlass, which worked up the little platform, upon which a whole tray of a hundred pies was wont to come up, and began to turn it with what might be called a vengeance.

How very strange it was--surely the words of the tall stout impertinent stranger were prophetic, for never before had Mrs. Lovett found what a job it was to work that handle, as upon that night. The axle creaked, and the cords and the pullies strained and wheezed, but she was a determined woman, and she worked away at it.

"I told you so, my dear madam," said the stranger; "it is more evidently than you can do."

"Peace, sir."

"I am done; work away ma'am, only don't say afterwards that I did not offer to help you, that's all."

Indignation was swelling at the heart of Mrs. Lovett, but she felt that if she wasted her breath upon the impertinent stranger, she should have none for the windlass; so setting her teeth, she fagged at it with a strength and a will that if she had not been in a right royal passion, she could not have brought to bear upon it on any account.

There was quite an awful stillness in the shop. All eyes were bent upon Mrs. Lovett, and the cavity through which the next batch of those delicious pies were coming. Those who had had the good fortune to get one of the first lot, had only had their appetites heightened by the luxurious feast they had partaken of, while those who had had as yet none, actually licked their lips, and snuffed up the delightful aroma from the remains of the first batch.

"Two for me, Mrs. Lovett," cried a voice. "One veal for me. Three porks--one pork."

The voices grew fast and furious.

"Silence!" cried the tall stout man. "I will engage that everybody shall be fully satisfied; and no one shall leave here without a thorough conviction that his wants in pies has been more than attended to."

The platform could be made to stop at any stage of its upward progress, by means of a ratchet wheel and a catch, and now Mrs. Lovett paused to take breath. She attributed the unusual difficulty in working the machinery to her own weakness, contingent upon her recent immersion in the Thames.

"Sir," she said between her clenched teeth, addressing the man who was such an eye-sore to her in the shop. "Sir, I don't know who you are, but I hope to be able to show you when I have served these gentlemen, that even I am not to be insulted with impunity."

"Anything you please, madam," he replied, "in a small way, only don't exert yourself too much."

Mrs. Lovett flew to the windlass again, and from the manner in which she now worked at it, it was quite clear that when she had her hands free from that job, she fully intended to make good her threats against the tall stout man. The young beardless scions of the law, trembled at the idea of what might happen.

And now the tops of the pies appeared. Then they saw the rim of the large tray upon which they were, and then just as the platform itself was level with the floor of the shop, up flew tray and pies, as if something had exploded beneath them, and a tall slim man sprung upon the counter. It was the cook, who from the cellars beneath, had laid himself as flat as he could beneath the tray of pies, and so had been worked up to the shop by Mrs. Lovett!

"Gentlemen," he cried, "I am Mrs. Lovett's cook. The pies are made of human flesh!"

* * * * *

We shrink, we tremble at the idea of attempting to describe the scene that ensued in the shop of Mrs. Lovett contingent upon this frightful apparition, and still more frightful speech of the cook; but duty--our duty to the public--requires that we should say something upon the occasion.

If we can do nothing more, we can briefly enumerate what did actually take place in some instances.

About twenty clerks rushed into Bell Yard, and there and then, to the intense surprise of the passers-by, became intensely sick. The cook, with one spring, cleared the counter, and alighted amongst the customers, and with another spring, the tall impertinent man, who had made many remarks to Mrs. Lovett of an aggravating tendency, cleared the counter likewise in the other direction, and, alighting close to Mrs. Lovett, he cried--

"Madam, you are my prisoner!"

For a moment, and only for a moment, the great--the cunning, and the redoubtable Mrs. Lovett, lost her self-possession, and, staggering back, she lurched heavily against the glass-case next to the wall, immediately behind the counter. It was only for a moment, though, that such an effect was produced upon Mrs. Lovett; and then, with a spring like an enraged tigress, she caught up a knife that was used for slipping under the pies and getting them cleanly out of the little tins, and rushed upon the tall stranger.

Yes, she rushed upon him; but for once in a way, even Mrs. Lovett had met with her match. With a dexterity, that only long practice in dealings with the more desperate portion of human nature could have taught him, the tall man closed with her, and had the knife out of her hand in a moment. He at once threw it right through the window into Bell Yard, and then, holding Mrs. Lovett in his arms, he said--

"My dear madam, you only distress yourself for nothing; all resistance is perfectly useless. Either I must take you prisoner, or you me, and I decidedly incline to the former alternative."

The knife that had been thrown through the window was not without its object, for in a moment afterwards Mr. Crotchet made his appearance in the shop.

"All right, Crotchet," said he who had captured Mrs. Lovett; "first clap the bracelets on this lady."

"Here yer is," said Crotchet. "Lor, mum! I had a eye on you months and months agone. How is you, mum, in yer feelin's this here nice evening?--Eh mum?"

"A knife--a knife! Oh, for a knife!" cried Mrs. Lovett.

"Ex-actly, mum," added Crotchet, as he with professional dexterity slipped the handcuffs on her wrists. "Would you like one with a hivory handle, mum? or would anything more common do, mum?"

Mrs. Lovett fell to the floor, or rather she cast herself to it, and began voluntarily beating her head against the boards. They quickly lifted her up; and then the tall stranger turned to the cook, who, after leaping over the counter, had sat down upon a chair in a state of complete exhaustion, and he said--

"Do you know the way to Sir Richard's office, in Craven Street? He expects you there, I believe?"

"Yes, yes. But now that all is over, I feel very ill."

"In that case, I will go with you, then. Crotchet, who have you got outside?"

"Only two of our pals, Muster Green; but it's all right, if so be as you leaves the lady to us."

"Very well. The warrant is at Newgate, and the governor is expecting her instant arrival. You will get a coach at the corner of the yard, and be off with her at once."

"All's right," said Crotchet. "I knowed as she'd be nabbed, and I had one all ready, you sees."

"That was right, Crotchet. How amazingly quick everybody has left the shop. Why--why, what is all this?"

As the officer spoke, about half a dozen squares of glass in the shop window of the house were broken in, and a ringing shout from a dense mob that was rapidly collecting in the yard, came upon the ears of the officer. The two men whom Crotchet had mentioned, with difficulty pressed their way into the shop, and one of them cried--

"The people that were in the shop have spread the news all over the neighbourhood, and the place is getting jammed up with a mob, every one of which is mad, I think, for they talk of nothing but of the tearing of Mrs. Lovett to pieces. They are pouring in from Fleet Street and Carey Street by hundreds at a time."

CXIII. THE ROUTE TO NEWGATE--MRS. LOVETT'S DANGER FROM THE MOB

Mrs. Lovett, upon hearing these words, turned ghastly pale, but she did not speak. The officers looked at each other with something like dismay, and then before either of them could say another word, there arose a wild prolonged shout from without.

"Out with her--out with her! Kill her! Tear her to bits and hang her on the lamp-post in the middle of Bell Yard! Out with her! Drag her out! Hang her! hang her!"

"The coach you say is waiting, Crotchet?" said the officer, who had been intrusted by Sir Richard Blunt with the conduct of the whole business connected with Mrs. Lovett's capture.

"It were," said Crotchet, "and that coachman ain't the sort of fellow to move on till I tell him. I knows him."

"Very good, then we must make a dash for it, and get her away by main force, it must be done, let the risk and the consequences be what they may, and the sooner the better, too. Come on, madam."

"Death--death!" said Mrs. Lovett. "Kill me here, some of you, kill me at once; but do not let me be torn to pieces by a savage mob. Oh, God, they yell for my blood! Save me from them, and kill me here. A knife! oh, for a knife!"

"And a fork too, mum," said Crotchet; "in course, if you wants 'em. I tells you what it is, Mr. Green, that there mob is just savage, and we have about as much chance of getting her down to Fleet Street with her head on her shoulders, as all of us have of flying over the blessed house tops."

"We must. It is our duty, and if we fail, they must kill us, which I don't think they will do. Come on."

"I will go with you," said the cook, starting up from the chair upon which he had on account of his weakness been compelled to seat himself, "I will go with you, and implore the people to let the law take its course upon this woman."

"In the cupboard, in the parlour," said Mrs. Lovett, speaking in a strange gasping tone, "there is a letter addressed by me to Sir Richard Blunt. It will be worth your while to save it from the mob. Let me show you where to lay your hands upon it, and if you have any wish to take a greater criminal than I, go to the shop of one Sweeney Todd, a barber, in Fleet Street. His number is sixty nine. Seize him, for he is the head of all the criminality you can possibly impute to me. Seize him, and I shall be content."

"The man you mention," said Mr. Green, "has been in Newgate an hour nearly."

"Newgate?"

"Yes. We took him first, and then attended to you."

"Todd--captured--in Newgate--and I in fancied security here remained wasting the previous moments upon which hung my life. Oh, fool--fool--dolt--idiot. A knife! Oh, sirs, I pray you to give me the means of instant death. What can the law do, but take my life? What have you all come here, and plotted and planned for, but to take my life? I will do it. Oh, I pray you to give me the means, and I will satisfy you and justice, and die at once."

Another loud roar from the infuriated people without, drowned whatever the officer might have said in reply to this appeal from Mrs. Lovett, and again arose the wild shouts of--

"Out with her!--Out with her!--Hang her!--Hang the murderess!--Hang her in the yard!--Out with her!"

"Forward!" cried Mr. Green. "To hesitate is only to make our situation ten times worse. Forward!"

"Hold a bit," cried Crotchet, "let me speak to the people; I knows how to humour 'em. Only you see if I don't get her along. Come, mum, just step this a-ways if yer pleases. Open the door, Mr. Cook, and let me out first."

The cook opened the door, and before the mob could rush into the place, Crotchet stepped on to the threshold of the shop, and in a tremendous voice that made itself heard above all others, he cried--

"Hurrah! Hurrah!"

Nothing is easier than to throw a cry into a crowd, and to get it echoed to your heart's content; and so some couple of hundred voices now immediately cried--"Hurrah!" and when the vast volume of sound had died away, Crotchet in such a voice that it must have been heard in Fleet Street quite plainly, said--

"My opinion is, that Mrs. Lovett ought to be hung outright, and at once without any more bother about it."

"Hurrah!--Hang her!--Hang her!" shouted the mob.

"And," added Crotchet, "I propose the lamp-post at the top of Fleet Market as a nice public sort of place to do the job in. She says she won't walk, but I have a coach in Fleet Street, and we will pop her into that, and so take her along quite snug."

"Yes, yes," cried the people. "Bring her along, that will do."

"Oh, will it?" muttered Crochet to himself. "What a precious set of ninnies you are. If I get her once in the coach, and she gets out again except to step into the stone jug, may I be hanged myself."

"I think you have managed it, Crotchet," whispered Mr. Green, "I think that will do."

"To be sure it will, sir. All's right. Bless your heart, mobs is the stupidest beasts as is. You may do anything you like with them if you will only let them have their own way a little, but if so be as you trys to fight 'em, they is all horns and porkipines, quills and stone walls, and iron rails, they is!"

"You are right enough, Crotchet; and now then let Smith stay here and mind the house, and shut it all up snug till the morning; when it can be thoroughly searched, and you and I and Simmons here will go with Mrs. Lovett."

"And I too," said the cook. "We can go to Sir Richard's afterwards."

"So we can--so we can. Come on, now."

"You will deliver me up to the mob," screamed Mrs. Lovett. "Mercy! Mercy! I shall be torn limb from limb. Oh, what a death! Are you men or fiends that you will condemn me to it? Mercy!--mercy!"

This sudden passion of Mrs. Lovett's was the very thing the officers would have desired, inasmuch as it materially helped to deceive the mob, and to prevent any idea upon the part of the infuriated people, that there was any collusion between the officers and Mrs. Lovett, for the purpose of getting her safely to prison.

They dragged her out into Bell Yard, and then the shouts that the mob set up was truly terrific.

"Lights! Links!" cried a voice. "Let's show her the way!"

In a moment an oil-shop opposite to Mrs. Lovett's was plundered of a score or two of links, and being lighted with great rapidity from the solitary oil-lamp that there stood in the middle of Bell Yard, they sent a bright lurid glare upon the sea of heads, that seemed so close they might have been walked upon all the way to Fleet Street. Another shout echoed far and near, and then Crotchet took hold of one of Mrs. Lovett's arms, and Mr. Green hold of the other, and the cook and the other officers following, they all began slowly to make way through the mob.

"Let's get along with her," cried Crotchet. "I have her tight. She won't get away. Some of you get a good stout rope ready, and make a noose in it. We will hang her on the lamp-post at the top of the market. Bring her along. Make way a little. Only a little!"

Mrs. Lovett shrieked as she saw the sea of angry faces before, behind, and on all sides of her. She thought that surely her last hour was come, and that a far more horrible death than any she had ever calculated upon in her worst moments of depression, was about to be hers. Her eyes were blood-shot--she bit her under lip through, and the blood poured from her mouth--she each moment that she could gather breath to do so, raised a fearful shriek, and the mob shouted and yelled, and swayed to and fro, and the links were tossed from hand to hand, flashing, and throwing around them thousands of bright sparks, and people rapidly joined the mob.

CXIV. THE COOK WAITS UPON SIR RICHARD BLUNT AND HEARS NEWS

It took a quarter of an hour to reach the coach from the door of Mrs. Lovett's shop, a distance that in twenty steps any one might have traversed; and, oh! what a quarter of an hour of horrible suffering that was to the wretched woman, whose crimes had so infuriated the populace, that with one voice they called for her death!

The coach door was opened, and Crotchet pushed his prisoner in. Mr. Green, and the other officer and the cook followed her.

"I will go on the box," said Crotchet.

"Very well," said Green, "but be mindful of your own safety, Crotchet."

"All's right. There ain't any more o' my sort in London, and I know I am rather a valuable piece o' goods. Has anybody got the rope ready for the lady?"

"Here you are," said a man, "I have one."

"You get up behind then," said Crotchet, "for of course you know we shall soon want you."

"Yes, I will. That's right! It's all right, friends. I am to get up behind with the rope. Here's the rope!"

"Three cheers for the rope!" cried somebody, and the cheers were given with deafening violence. What will not a mob give three cheers for--ay, or any number of cheers you like to name? A piece of poor humanity in tinsel and fine linen, called a king or queen--a popular cry--a murderess--a rope--anything will suffice. Surely, Mr. Crotchet, you know something of the people!

"Now," said Crotchet to the coachman, "are you as bold as brass, and as strong as an iron file?"

The coachman looked puzzled, but Mr. Crotchet pursued his queries.

"Will these 'osses, if they is frightened a bit, cut along quick?"

"Rather," said the coachman. "The blessed fact is, that they won't cut along unless you do frighten them a bit; and as for me being an old file and having lots o' brass, I doesn't consider as I'm a bit worser nor my neighbours."

"You is as hignorant as a badger!" said Crotchet. "Make yourself easy and give me the reins. The mobs o' people thinks as we is a going to hang the woman at the corner of Fleet Market, but if I lives another ten minutes, she will be in Newgate. There may be something of a scuffle, and if anything happens to you, or to the coach or the 'osses, the county will pay handsomely, so now give me the reins. You may not like to whip through them, but I haven't the least objection."

The coachman looked scared and nervous, but he gave up the reins and the whip to Crotchet, and then leaning back on the box, he waited with no small trepidation the result of the expected disturbance, while he had only Mr. Crotchet's word that the county would pay for handsomely.

The short distance from the corner of Bell Yard to the end of Fleet Market was rapidly traversed, and when that interesting point was reached, the dense mass of people set up another shout, and began to surround the lamp-post that was there, and to fill up all the avenues.

"Get the rope up," said Crotchet.

"Yes, yes. Hurrah! hurrah! Pull her out, and hang her!"

The highly interesting process of getting the rope fixed upon the little projecting piece of iron, upon which the lamplighter was wont to rest his ladder, had the effect that Crotchet expected, namely, to attract general attention; and then, taking advantage of the moment, he seized the whip and used it with such effect upon the horses, that, terrified and half maddened, they set off with the coach at a tearing gallop.

For a moment or two--and in that moment or two Mr. Crotchet with his prisoner got to the corner of the Old Bailey--the mob were so staggered by this unexpected elopement of the hackney-coach, that not a soul followed it. The idea that the horses had of their own accord started, being probably alarmed at the links, was the first that possessed the people, and many voices called out loudly--

"Pull 'em in--pull 'em in! Saw their heads off!"

But when they saw Mr. Crotchet fairly turn into the Old Bailey, the trick that had been played upon them became apparent; and one yell of indignation and rage burst from the multitude.

The pursuit was immediate; but Mr. Crotchet had too much the start of the mob, and long before the struggling infuriated people, impeding each other as they tore along, had reached the corner of the Old Bailey, Mrs. Lovett was in the lobby of the prison, and the officers safely with her.

She looked like a corpse. The colour of her face was that of soiled white wax.

But mobs, if they cannot wreak their vengeance upon what may be, for distinction's sake, called the legitimate object of their displeasure, will do so upon something else; and upon reaching the door of Newgate, and finding there was no sort of chance of getting hold of Mrs. Lovett, they took the horses out of the hackney-coach, and started them off through the streets to go where they liked; and then, dragging the coach to Smithfield, they then and there made a bon-fire of it, and were very much satisfied and delighted, indeed.

"Now, mum," said Crotchet to Mrs. Lovett, "didn't I say I'd bring yer to the old stone jug as safe as ninepence?"

She only looked at him vacantly; and then, glaring around her with a shudder, she said--

"And this is Newgate!"

"Just a few," said Crotchet.

The governor at this moment made his appearance, and began to give orders as to where Mrs. Lovett should be placed. A slight change of colour came over her face, as she said--

"Shall I see Todd?"

"Not at present," said the governor.

"I should like to see him to forgive him; for no doubt it is to him that I owe this situation. He has betrayed me!"

The look which she put on when she uttered the words "I should like to see him to forgive him," was so truly demoniac, that it was quite clear if she did see Todd, that whether she were armed or not, she would fly upon him, and try to take his life; and although in that she might fail, there would be very little doubt but that, in the process of failure, she would inflict upon him some very serious injury.

It was not likely, though, that the officials of Newgate would indulge her with an opportunity.

"You had better all of you wait here," said the governor to Mr. Crotchet, and the officers, and the cook, "until the mob is gone."

"The street is quite clear, sir," said a turnkey, "They have taken the coach to knock it to pieces, I suppose, sir."

"And I'm done up at last!" said the coachman, wringing his hands, for he had, in fear for his own safety, made his way into the lobby of Newgate along with Mr. Crotchet; "I'm done up at last!"

"Not at all," said the governor. "We would not have lost such a prisoner as this Mrs. Lovett, for the worth of fifty coaches. Every penny of your loss will be made good to you. There is a guinea, in the meantime--go home, and do not distress yourself upon the subject, my good fellow."

Upon this the coachman was greatly comforted, and with Mr. Crotchet and the officers, he left the lobby of Newgate at the same moment that Mrs. Lovett was led off into the interim of that gloomy and horrible abode.

The object of the officer was now to get to the private office of Sir Richard Blunt as soon as possible, and let him know of the successful capture of Mrs. Lovett. Sir Richard, too, it will be remembered, had left a special message with the cook to repair to his office as soon as he could after his release from his bondage in Bell Yard, so that the liberated cook, who felt that he owed that liberation to the advice and assistance of Sir Richard, did not scruple to obey the directions of the magistrate at once.

The private-office of Sir Richard, it will be recollected, was in Craven Street, at the bottom of the Strand.

Upon the route there, Mr. Crotchet and the cook held a long and very serious discourse about the proceedings of Mrs. Lovett, and if the cook was able to tell the active and enterprising Crotchet much that was curious regarding the underground operations at Mrs. Lovett's, he, in return, received some curious edifying information concerning the lady's business connexion with Sweeney Todd, with the particulars of which the cook had been completely ignorant.

By the time they reached Craven Street, therefore, the cook's eyes were considerably opened, and many matters that had been to him extremely obscure, became all at once quite clear, so that he was upon the whole far from sorry for the companionship of the eccentric Crotchet on the road down the Strand to the magistrate's private office.

Sir Richard was at home, and anxiously expecting them, so that upon the first hint of their presence they were introduced to him, and he received the report of the officer with evident satisfaction.

"Thank God," he said, "two of the greatest malefactors the world ever saw are now in the hands of justice."

"Yes," said Crotchet. "They are cotched."

"You may depend all of you," added Sir Richard, "that your conduct and great skill in exertions in this affair shall be by me communicated to the Secretary of State, who will not leave you unrewarded. Pray wait for me in the outer room, I have some private business with this gentleman."

The officers were a little surprised to hear Sir Richard Blunt call Mrs. Lovett's cook, "this gentleman;" but they of course took no notice of the circumstance while in the presence of their principal, and in a few moments the magistrate was alone with the cook.

From a cupboard in his room, then Sir Richard Blunt took wine and other refreshments, and laid them before the cook, saying--

"Refresh yourself, my friend; but for your own sake, as your fare has been but indifferent for some time, I beg you to be sparing."

"I will, sir. I owe you much--very much!"

"You are free now."

"I--am--sir."

"And yet you are very unhappy."

The cook started and changed colour slightly. He filled, for himself, a glass of wine, and after drinking it he heaved a sigh, as he said--

"Sir, I am unhappy. I do not care how soon the world and I part, sir. The hope--the dream of my life has gone from me. All that I lived for--all that I cherished as the brightest expectation of joy in this world has passed away like a vapour, and left not a rack behind. I am unhappy, and better, far better, would it have been for me if Sweeney Todd had taken my life, or if by some subtle poison, Mrs. Lovett had shuffled me out of the world--I am unhappy."

"Indeed! And you really think you have nothing in this world now to live for?"

"I do. But it is not a thought only. It is a knowledge--it is a fact that cannot be gainsaid or controverted. I tell you, sir, that I can never now hope to realise the happiness which was the day-dream of my existence, and which has passed from me like a dream, never--never to come again. It was in the despair contingent upon such thoughts and feelings, that I went to Mrs. Lovett and became her slave; but now I will be off far away from England, and on some foreign shore I will lay my bones."

"But, my good sir, you will be wanted on the trial of your old friend, Mrs. Lovett."

"Cannot you hang the woman without my help?"

"Yes, I think we might, but so material a witness to her infamy as yourself cannot be dispensed with. Of course I do not pretend to be a conjuror, or to say to any man--'You shall be happy in spite of all your prognostications to the contrary;' but from what you have told me of your story, I must confess that to my perception you take much too gloomy a view of your condition."

"Too gloomy!" exclaimed the cook, as he filled himself up another glass of wine. "Too gloomy! My dear, sir, you don't know how I loved that girl--you don't know how I--I--But it is no matter now--all that is past. Oh God! that she should be false to me--she of all persons in the great world!"

"And so you will let this little disappointment of the heart, place you in your youth quite beside all possible enjoyment? Is this wise, sir? Is it even manly?"

The poor cook was silent for a few moments, and then in a voice of deep emotion, he said--

"Sir, you don't know how much I loved her. You do not know how I pictured to myself happiness with her alone. You do not know, sir, how, even when death stared me in the face, I thought of her and her only, and how--But no matter--no matter, sir. She is false, and it is madness to speak of her. Let her go, sir. It is just possible that in the time to come, I may outlive the despair that now fills my heart."

"You surely will."

"I do not think it. But I will hope that I may."

"And have you really no hope--no innate lurking supposition in your mind, that you may be doing her an injustice in your suspicions of her faith?"

"Suspicions?"

"Ay, sir, suspicions, for even you must admit that you know nothing."

"Know nothing, sir?"

"Absolutely nothing. You will find, if you come to consider the affair, that, as I say, you know nothing, but suspect much; and so upon mere suspicion you will make your future life miserable. I would not so bend to circumstances if the whole world stood up before me, and told me I was right in my dread thoughts of one whom I had loved."

The poor cook glanced at Sir Richard Blunt, and for the space of about half a minute, not one word passed between them. Then in a low voice, the cook said--

"You have read Romeo and Juliet, sir?"

"Yes--what then?"

"There is one line there, in which we read that

'He jests at scars who never felt a wound.'"

"Well, how would you apply that line to the present circumstances?"

"I would say you have never loved, sir, and I have loved."

"A broad assumption that, my friend," said Sir Richard Blunt, "a very broad assertion, indeed. But come, I have to spare a short time. Will you, in recompense for what I have done for you, relate to me more fully than you have done, how it is that you suspect her whom you loved of falsehood to you?"

"Do not say loved, sir; I love her still."

"I am glad to hear it. I pray you to go on, and tell me now all, if you feel that you can have sufficient confidence in me, and that you can view me with a sufficient friendly feeling."

"Oh, sir, why do you doubt me? Do I not owe to you my life? Do I not owe it to you that I escaped the death that without a doubt was designed for me by Todd? and was it not by your persevering, that at length I had patience enough to wait until the proper time had come for my release, when it could be accomplished without the shadow of a doubt as to the result?"

"Well," said Sir Richard Blunt, with a smile, "I hope then that I have established some claim upon you; so now tell me your story, my friend, and at the end of it I will, from my experience, do what I can to bring you substantial comfort."

"You shall hear all, sir," said the cook, "but comfort and I have parted long since, I fear, from each other for ever."

CXV. THE COOK BECOMES A VERY IMPORTANT PERSONAGE

At this last declaration of Mrs. Lovett's late cook, regarding the tender adieu that he and comfort had taken of each other, Sir Richard Blunt only smiled faintly, and slightly inclined his hand as much as to say--

"That is all very well, but I am waiting to hear your story, if you please."

"Well, sir," added the cook. "You already know that I am not exactly what I seem, and that my being in that most abominable woman's employment as a cook, was one of those odd freaks of fortune, which will at times detract the due order of society, and place people in the most extraordinary positions."

"Exactly."

"I am, sir, an orphan, and was brought up by an uncle with every expectation that he would be kind and liberal to me as I progressed in years; but he had taken his own course and had made up his mind as to what I was to be, how I was to look, and what I was to say and to do, without asking himself the question, if nature was good enough to coincide with him or not. The consequence was then, that directly he found me very different from what he wished me to be, he was very angry indeed, and then I put the finishing stroke to his displeasure, by committing the greatest crime that in his eyes I could commit: I fell in love."

"Humph!"

"Yes, sir, that was just what he said at first, when some officious friend told of it, and sending for me he said--'You must give up all love nonsense if you wish to preserve my favour,' upon which I said--'Sir, did you never love?' 'That is not the question,' he said. 'It is of your follies now, not mine, that we are speaking,' and so he turned me out of the room."

"And what did you do? Did you give up your love?"

"No, sir; if he had asked me to give up my life that would have been much easier to me."

"Go on. What then happened?"

"Why, sir, my uncle and I met very seldom, but there was one upon my track that he paid to follow me, and to report my actions to him; and that spy--oh, that I had caught him! that spy made my uncle acquainted with the fact, that I continued, despite his prohibition, to meet with the only being who ever awakened in my bosom a tender feeling; and so I was abandoned by my relative, and left penniless almost."

"But you had youth and health?"

"I had, and I resolved to make use of those advantages as best I might, by endeavouring while they lasted, frail and fluttering possessions as they are, to make a home for myself and for her whom I loved."

"The feeling, I presume, was reciprocal?"

"I thought so."

"Was it only a thought, then?"

"Alas! no. It was a certainty; and if an angel with wings fresh spread from Heaven, and carrying upon them the soft light of an eternal world, had come to me and told me that she would be false to me, I would not have believed as much."

"And yet--"

"And yet, as you say, I have found her false. Well--well, Sir Richard--let me proceed. The thought of her unmans me at moments, but in time I may recover from such feelings."

"Most unquestionably you will; and then you will look to your present condition of mind with such a smile of incredulity, and only a faint faith in your own memory that paints you such feelings."

"I cannot say, sir, that it will not be so, but I do not think so. To proceed, however. I heard that an expedition was about to start to explore some rich islands in the Southern Sea. If successful, every one who took part in it would be enriched; and if unsuccessful, I could not lose my life in a better cause then in trying to make a happy home for her whom I love. I at once embraced the proposition, and became one of the adventurers, much against the inclination of the gentle girl whom I loved, and who in imagination pictured to herself a thousand dangers as involved in the enterprise."

"You went?"

"I did, and with every hope of returning in about a year an independent man. I thought little of the perils I was about to encounter in my voyage. I and the fair girl upon whom I had fixed my best hopes and affections parted, after many tears and protestations of fidelity. I kept my faith."

"And she?"

"Broke hers."

"As you think--as you think. You cannot be too cautious, my young friend, in making assertions of that character."

"Cautious, sir? Am I to believe the evidence of my own eyes, or am I not?"

"Not always," said Sir Richard Blunt, calmly. "But I pray you go on with your narrative."

"I will. The principal object of the voyage failed entirely; but by pure accident I got possession of a String of Pearls, of very great value indeed, which, provided I could get home in safety, would value in Europe quite a sufficient sum to enable us to live in comfort. But the dangers of the deep assailed us. We were wrecked; and fully believing that I should not survive, I handed the pearls to a stronger comrade, and begged him to take them to her whom I had loved, to tell herself my fate, and to bid her not weep for me, since I had died happy in the thought that I had achieved something for her; and so, my friend and I parted. I was preserved and got on board a merchant vessel bound for England, where I arrived absolutely penniless. But I had a heart full of hope and joy; for if I could but find my poor girl faithful to me, I felt that we might yet be happy, whether my comrade had lived to bring to her the pearls or not."

"And you found her?"

"You shall hear, sir. I walked from Southampton to London, subsisting on the road as best I could. Sometimes I met with kind treatment at farm-houses, and sometimes with quite the reverse, until at length I reached London tolerably exhausted, as you may suppose, and in anything but a good plight."

"Well, but you found your girl all right, I suppose?"

"No. I walked up the Strand; and as some of our happiest interviews had taken place in the Temple Gardens, I could not resist turning aside for a moment to look at the old familiar spot, when what do you think was the sight that met my eyes?"

"I really can't say."

"I will tell you, sir. I saw her whom I loved--the young and beautiful girl for whom I had gone through so much--the being upon whose faith and constancy I would at any time have staked my life--the, as I thought, most innocent, guileless creature upon the face of the earth--"

"Well, well, my good friend, what did you see this paragon of perfection about?"

"You will not believe it, sir."

"Oh, yes, I shall--do not be afraid of that--I shall believe it. Your narrative bears too much the stamp of truth about it for me to doubt it for a moment. I pray you to go on."

"I will then. The first object that met my eyes in that Temple Garden was the being whom I loved so fondly leaning upon the arm of a man in a military undress--leaning, did I say, upon his arm? she was almost upon his breast, and he was actually supporting her with one of his arms round her waist."

"Well?"

"What, sir! Is that all you can say to it? Would you say 'Well?' if you saw the only creature you ever loved in such a situation, sir? Well, indeed!"

"My dear friend, do not get excited, now."

"Oh, sir, it would excite a stick or a stone."

"Excuse me, then, for having said 'Well,' and go on with your story. What did she say to excuse herself to you?"

"'Tis well, sir--of course, I cannot expect others to feel as I do upon such an occasion. I did not speak to her, sir. The sight of such perfidy was enough for me. From that moment she fell from the height I had raised her to in my imagination, and nothing she could say, and nothing I could say, would raise her up again."

"And you, then, only walked away?"

"That is all. With such a pang at my heart at the moment as I wonder did not kill me, I walked away, and left her to her own conclusions."

"Then--then, my young friend, you did the very reverse of what I should have done, for you should have gone up to her, and politely taken leave of her, so as to let her know at all events that you were aware of her perfidy. I should not have been content to let her have the satisfaction of thinking I was at the bottom of the sea while she was enjoying a flirtation with her officer; but, of course, different people take different courses upon emergencies. There is one thing, however, that I wonder you did not inquire about."

"What was that?"

"Your String of Pearls. How could you tell but that your friend had got to London, and had actually given her the Pearls with your message appended to them? I really am surprised that you did not step forward and say, 'Oblige me, miss, with my pearls, if you no longer favour me with your affections!'"

"No, no. To tell the truth, I was too heart-broken at the time to care about anything in all the world; I had lost her who was to me the greatest jewel it had ever contained, and I cared for nothing else. I do believe I was a little mad, for I walked about the rest of that day, not knowing where I went to, and at last I found myself, tired, worn out, famishing, opposite to Mrs. Lovett's shop-window, and the steam of those abominable pies began to tempt me, so much that I went into the shop, and after some talk, I actually accepted the situation of cook to her, and there, but for you, I should have breathed my last."

"Not a doubt of it. And now, my young friend, you know that I am a police-magistrate, and I dare say you have heard a great deal about my sources of information, and the odd way in which I find out things when folks think they keep them a profound secret. You have told me all your history, but you have thought proper, as you were, if you pleased, quite justified in doing, to withhold your name."

"I have done so, but I hardly know why. I will tell it to you, however, now."

"Hold, I know it."

"You know it, sir?"

"Yes, your name is Mark Ingestrie!"

"It is, indeed. But how you came to know that, sir, is to me most mysterious."

"Oh, I know more than that. The name of the young lady who, you believe, played you such a trick, is Johanna Oakley."

Mark Ingestrie, for it was indeed no other, sprang to his feet, exclaiming--

"Are you man or devil, that you know what I have never breathed to you?"

"Don't be surprised, my young friend. I can tell you a little more than that even. The friend to whom you intrusted your String of Pearls, was named Francis Thornhill; and his dog--let me see--Oh, his large dog was called 'Hector.'"

Mark Ingestrie trembled excessively, and sinking back in his seat, he turned very pale.

"This must be a dream," he said, "or you, sir, get your information from the spirits of the dead."

"Not at all. But have you faith in my inspiration now sufficient to induce you to believe anything that I may tell you?"

"In good truth, I have; and I may well have, for after what you have already told me, your power of knowledge cannot by me be for one moment doubted."

"Very well, then. In the first place, Mr. Francis Thornhill reached London in safety."

"He did?"

"I tell you so. He arrived in London with your String of Pearls in his pocket. He fully believed you were dead. Indeed, he fancied that he had seen the last of you, and was quite prepared to say as much to Miss Johanna Oakley."

"And he did? That will be some excuse for her, if she thought that I was gone."

"No, he did not. On his route he turned into the shop of Sweeney Todd to be shaved, and there he was murdered."

"Murdered!"

"Yes, most foully murdered; and the String of Pearls got into the possession of that man, proving ultimately one of the means by which his frightful villainous crime came to light. The dog remained at Todd's door seeking for its master, to the great discomfiture of the murderer, who made every effort within his power for its destruction, in which however he did not succeed."

"Gracious Heaven! my poor friend Thornhill to meet with such a fate! Oh God! and all on account of that fatal String of Pearls! Oh, Thornhill--Thornhill! rather would I have sunk for ever beneath the wave, than such a dreadful end should have been yours."

"The past cannot be recalled," said Sir Richard. "It is only with the present, and with the future that we have anything to do now. Would you like to hear more?"

"More? Of whom? Is he not dead?--my poor friend?"

"Yes, he is dead; but I can tell you more of other people. I can tell you that Johanna Oakley was faithful to you. I can tell you that she mourned your loss as you would wish her to mourn it, knowing how you would mourn hers. I can tell you that the gentleman's arm she was leaning upon was only a dear friend, and that the fact of her having to be supported by him at the unlucky moment when you saw this was solely owing to the deep grief she was plunged into upon your account."

"Oh no--no--no!"

"I say yes. It was so, Mr. Ingestrie; and if you had at that moment stepped forward, you would have saved yourself much misery, and you would have saved her such heart-breaking thoughts, and such danger, as it will frighten you to listen to."

CXVI. JOHANNA IS AMPLY PAID FOR HER BRIEF SERVICE AT TODD'S

Upon hearing all this, poor Mark Ingestrie turned very faint and fell back in his chair, looking so pale and wan, that Sir Richard Blunt was compelled to go across the room to hold him up. After giving him a glass of wine, he recovered, and with a deep sigh he said--

"And so I have wronged her after all! Oh, my Johanna, I am unworthy of you!"

"That," said Sir Richard, "is a subject entirely for the young lady's own consideration.--N. O. W."

Mark Ingestrie looked curiously in the face of Sir Richard Blunt, as with marked emphasis upon each letter he said, "N. O. W!" But he had not to wait long for an explanation of what it meant. A door at the back of the room was flung open, and Johanna sprung forward with a cry of joy. In another moment she was in the arms of Mark Ingestrie, and Sir Richard Blunt had left the room.

It would be quite impossible, if we had the will to attempt it, for us to go through the scene that took place between Johanna Oakley and Mark Ingestrie in the magistrate's parlour. For about half an hour they quite forgot where they were, or that there was any one in the world but themselves. At the end of that period of time, though, Sir Richard Blunt gently walked into the room.

"Well," he said, "have you come to any understanding about that military man in the Temple Gardens?"

Johanna sprang towards the magistrate, and placing her arms upon his breast, she kissed him on the cheek.

"Sir," she said, "you are our very dear friend, and I love you as I love my father."

"God bless you!" said Sir Richard, "You have, by those few words, more then repaid me for all that I have done. Are you happy?"

"Very, very happy."

"So very happy, sir," said Ingestrie, as his eyes glistened through tears of joy, "that I can hardly believe in its reality."

"And yet you are both so poor."

"Ah, sir, what is poverty when we shall be together?"

"We will face that foe, Mark, I think," said Johanna, with a smile, "and he shall not extort a tear from us."

"Well," said Sir Richard, as he opened his desk, "since you are not to be knocked down by poverty, what say you to riches? Do you know these, Mr. Ingestrie?"

"Why, that is my String of Pearls."

"Yes. I took this from Todd's escritoire myself, and they are yours and Johanna's. Will you permit me always to call you Johanna?"

"Oh, yes--yes. Do so. All who love me call me Johanna."

"Very well. This String of Pearls, I have ascertained, is worth a sufficient sum to place you both very far above all the primary exigences of life. It will be necessary to produce them at the trial of Sweeney Todd, but after that event they will be handed to you to do what you please with them, when you can realise them at at once, and be happy enough with the proceeds."

"If my poor friend, Thornhill," sighed Mark Ingestrie, "could but have lived to see this day!"

"That, indeed, would have been a joy," said Johanna.

"Yes," said the magistrate; "but the grave has closed on his poor remains--at least, I may say so figuratively. He was one of Todd's victims, one of his numerous victims; for I do believe that, for a long time, scarcely a week passed that did not witness some three or four murders in that man's shop."

"Horrible!"

"You may well use that expression, in speaking of the career of Sweeney Todd. It has been most horrible; but there cannot be a doubt of his expiating his crimes upon the scaffold, together with his partner in guilt, Mrs. Lovett."

Mark Ingestrie gave a shudder as that woman's name was mentioned, for it put him in mind of the cellar where he had lived so long, and where it was only by the most good fortune that he had not terminated his career.

Before they could say any more, one of the officers in attendance upon Sir Richard, announced Colonel Jeffery.

"Ah, that is your dreadful military rival," said Sir Richard to Ingestrie. "That is the gentleman whom you saw in the garden of the Temple with Johanna."

"I have much to thank him for. His conduct to Johanna has been most noble."

The colonel smiled when he saw Mark Ingestrie and Johanna, for he well knew, from private information he had got from the magistrate, that Mark Ingestrie and Mrs. Lovett's cook were identical; and holding out his hand to the young man, he said--

"Accept of my best and sincerest wishes, Mr. Ingestrie."

"And you, sir," said Mark, "accept of my best thanks. Our gratitude is largely due to you, sir."

"I am quite repaid by this very happy result; and I have the pleasure of informing you, Sir Richard, that poor Tobias is very much better indeed."

"Which I am rejoiced to hear," said Sir Richard. "And now, my dear Johanna, it is time for you to go home. You will hear from me in the morning, for I intend to do myself the pleasure of calling upon your father, and explaining all to him; for there are some circumstances that he is yet in ignorance of, and particularly concerning Mr. Ingestrie."

"I will walk with you to your door, Johanna," said Mark rising and tottering.

"No," said Sir Richard Blunt; "that must not be to-night. Do not let him, Johanna. He is by far too weak and unwell to do anything of the kind. A calm and long night's rest here will do him a world of good. Business prevents me from leaving the office; but I daresay the colonel will see Johanna in safety."

"With pleasure," said Colonel Jeffery, "if Mr. Ingestrie has no objection to my doing so."

"Sir," said Mark, "there is no one in all the world that I would more cheerfully see protecting my Johanna. I feel that I am in too great a state of exhaustion to go out. I leave her to your care, sir."

"That is right," said Sir Richard Blunt. "Now, good-night, Johanna, and God bless you. You will see me in the morning, recollect."

Mark Ingestrie took a parting embrace of Johanna, and then she went off with the colonel, who, on their road home, told her how he and Arabella had got so far as to fix their wedding day, and how he should not feel at all happy unless both she and Mark Ingestrie were at the ceremony.

"Indeed, he hoped," he said, "that they might give the parson only one trouble, by being married upon the same occasion."

Johanna warded this last part of the colonel's speech; but she was fervent in her hopes that he and Arabella would be so very happy, and in her praises of her young friend; so in very pleasant discourse indeed, they reached the old spectacle-maker's shop, and then the colonel shook hands with Johanna, and bade her a kind and friendly adieu, and she was let in by--to her immense surprise--her mother!

Mrs. Oakley fell upon Johanna's neck in a passion of tears, crying--

"Come, my child--come to your mother's heart, and tell her that you forgive her for much past neglect and unkindness."

"Oh, mother," said Johanna, "do not speak so. There is nothing to forgive; and if you are happy and we are all good friends, we will never think of the past."

"That's right, my dear," said Mr. Oakley, from the passage; "that's right, my love. Come in, both of you." But it is necessary that we should briefly state how it was that this wonderful change in the behaviour of Mrs. Oakley came about, and for that purpose we must retrace our steps a little.

The reader will be so good as to recollect that the last time Mrs. Oakley was introduced to his notice she was encumbered by Mr. Lupin, and had the pleasure of introducing that gentleman to the notice of Big Ben the beef-eater, who had quickly put all idea of escape out of the question, as regarded that highly religious personage.

At that point the presence of other events compelled us to leave the lady, and repair to Todd's shop, and to Mrs. Lovett's little concern in Bell Yard.

The appearance of Lupin's face when he found that he was in the grasp of Big Ben, would have been quite a study for a painter. It transcended all description, and for the moment seemed as if he were bidding farewell to this world and to all his iniquities in it, without the intervention of the law. But in a few moments he recovered from this condition, and sliding on to his knees, and in a whining tone, he cried--

"Mercy, Mercy! Oh, let me go!"

"At the end of a rope," said Big Ben. "Easy does it. What has he been and done, Mrs. O.?"

"Murder, murder!"

A crowd of people soon began to collect around them, and then Lupin made an effort to thrust himself out of the grasp of Big Ben, but the only result of the effort was very nearly to strangle himself.

"You are killing the man, you great brute!" cried a woman. "You are throttling the poor man."

"He will be murdered," shouted another female. "Oh, you great wretch, do you want to take his life?"

"Listen to me," said Mrs. Oakley. "He has murdered his poor wife, and that is the reason I have asked that he should be held tight."

"Murdered his wife!" exclaimed about twelve females in chorus. "Murdered his wife? Then hanging is a great deal too good for him. Hold him tight, sir, do. Oh, the wretch!"

The tide of popular feeling fairly turned against Mr. Lupin, and Big Ben had as much difficulty now in preserving the half dead wretch from popular fury as if he had been accused of any other crime, he might have had to prevent popular sympathy from aiding his escape.

"Oh!" cried one lady, of rather extensive proportions, who was the wife of a baker, "I should like to have him in a brisk oven for an hour and a half."

"And I," said the lady of a butcher, "would see him slaughtered without so much as winking at him."

"And serve him right, the wagabone!" cried Big Ben. "Come along, will you, you ill-looking scarecrow! Easy does it. Will you walk? Oh, very well, don't. Who are you?"

A little man with a constable's staff in his hand, rushed before Ben, crying out--

"What is it? what is it? I'm a constable. What is it?"

"Murder!" said Mrs. Oakley. "I give that man in charge for murdering his wife. I saw him do it."

"That will do," said the constable. "Give him to me. I'll take him. He dare not resist me. I'll have him."

Big Ben looked at the constable and then he shook his head, as he said very gravely--

"I tell you what it is, my little man, you ain't fit to tussle with such a fellow as this--I'll take him along for you. Where is he to go?"

"To the round-house, in course; but I'm a constable. I must take him--I will take him! Give him to me, sir, directly--I will have him--I must go with him!"

"Wait a minute," said Ben. "Easy does it! You must go with him, you say? Very good--easy does everything!"

With this, Ben grasped Mr. Lupin round the middle, and placed him under his left arm, and suddenly pouncing, then, upon the constable, he caught him up and placed him under the right arm; and then away he walked, to the admiration of the populace, and paying about as much attention to the kicking of the constable and the kicking of Mr. Lupin, as though they were two dogs that he was carrying home.

And so the murderer was taken to the round-house, where Mrs. Oakley duly preferred the charge against him, and promised to substantiate it before a magistrate when called upon so to do.

CXVII. SHOWS HOW MRS. OAKLEY RECONCILED HERSELF TO EVERYBODY AT HOME

When Ben and Mrs. Oakley had thus disposed of Mr. Lupin, and left him to his solitary and not very pleasant reflections in a cell of the round-house, they found themselves together in the open street, and Ben, as he cast a woeful glance at her, said--

"Well, how does yer feel now? Easy does it! Oh, you aint a-been and behaved yourself properly lately--you is like the old bear as we calls Nosey. He's always a-doing what he shouldn't, and always a-never doing what he should."

"Ben?"

"Well, blaze away. What is yer going to say now?"

"I feel, Ben, that I am a very different woman from what I was--very different."

"Then you must have gained by the exchange, for you was, I will say it, anything but a pleasant bit o' goods. There's poor old Oakley a-making of spectacles all days, and a-wearing of his old eyes out--and there's Miss Johanna, bless her heart! as wise a little bit o' human nature as you'd wish to see, whether she's in petticoats or the other things; and yet you neglects 'em both, all for to run arter a canting snivelling wagabone like this Lupin, that we wouldn't have among the beasteses at the Tower, if so be he'd come and offer himself."

"I know it, Ben--I know it."

"You know it! Why didn't you know it before?"

"I don't know, Ben; but my eyes are open now. I have had a lesson that to my dying day I shall never forget. I have found that piety may only be a cloak with which to cover up the most monstrous iniquity."

"Oh, you have made that discovery, have you?"

"I have, indeed, Ben."

"Well, I knowed as much as that when I was a small baby. It only shows how back'ard some folks is in coming for'ard with their edication."

"Yes, Ben."

"Well, and what is you going to be arter now?"

"I wish to go home, and I want you to come with me, and to say a kind word for me; I want you to tell them how I now see the error of my ways, and how I am an altered woman, and mean to be a very--very different person than I was."

Here Mrs. Oakley's genuine feelings got the better of her, and she began to weep bitterly; and Ben, after looking at her for a few moments, cried out--

"Why, it's real, and not like our hyena that only does it to gammon us! Come, mother Oakley, just pop your front paw under my arm, and I'll go home with you; and if you don't get a welcome there, I'm not a beef-eater. Why, the old man will fly right bang out of his wits for joy. You should only see what a house is when the mother and the wife don't do as she ought. Mother O., you should see what a bit of fire there is in the grate, and what a hearth."

"I know it--I ought to know it."

"You ought to know it!" added Ben, putting himself into an oratorial attitude. "You should only see the old man when dinner time comes round. He goes into the parlour and he finds no fire; then he says--'Dear me!'"

"Yes--yes."

"Then he gives a boy a ha'penny to go and get him something that don't do him no sort of good from the cook's shop, and sometimes the boy nabs the ha'penny and the shilling both, and ain't never heard of again by any means no more."

"No doubt, Ben."

"Then, when tea comes round, it don't come round at all, and the old man has none; but he takes in a ha'porth of milk in a jug without a spout, and he drinks that up, cold and miserable, with a penny-loaf, you see."

"Yes--yes."

"And then at night, when there ought to be a little sort of comfort round the fireside, there ain't none."

"But Johanna, Ben--there is Johanna?"

"Johanna?"

"Yes. Is she not there to see to some of her father's comforts? She loves him--I know she does, Ben!"

Ben placed his finger by the side of his nose, and in an aside to himself, he said--

"Now I'll touch her up a bit--now I'll punish her for all she has done, and it will serve her right." Then, elevating his voice, he added--"Did you mention Johanna?"

"Yes, Ben, I did."

"Then I'm sorry you did. Perhaps you think she's been seeing to the old man's comforts a little--airing his night-cap, and so on--Eh? Is that the idea?"

"Yes, I know that she would do anything gladly for her father. She was always most tenderly attached to him."

"Humph!"

"Why do you say, Humph, Ben?"

"Just answer me one question, Mrs. O. Did you ever hear of a young girl as was neglected by her mother--her mother who of all ought to be the person to attend to her--turning out well?"

"Do not terrify me, Ben."

"Well, all I have got to say is, that Johanna can't be in two places at once, and as she isn't at home, how, I would ask any reasonable Christian, can she attend to the old man?"

"Not at home, Ben?"

"Not--at--home!"

"Oh, Heaven! why did I not stay in that dreadful man's house, and let him murder me! Why did I not tell him at once that I knew of his crime, and implore him to make me his next victim! Oh, Ben, if you have any compassion in your disposition you will tell me all, and then I shall know what to hope, and what to dread."

"Well," said Ben, "here goes then."

"What goes?"

"I mean I'm a-going to tell you all, as you seem as if you'd like to know it."

"Do! Oh, do!"

"Then of course Johanna being but a very young piece of goods, and not knowing much o' the ways o' this here world, and the habits and manners o' the wild beasteses as is in it, when she found as the old house wasn't good enough for her mother, she naturally enough thought it wasn't good enough for her, you know."

"Oh, this is the most dreadful stroke of all!"

"I should say it were," said Ben, quite solemnly. "Take it easy though, and you'll get through it in the course of time. Well then, when Johanna found as everything at home was sixes and sevens, she borrowed a pair of what do call 'ems of some boy, and a jacket, and off she went."

"She what?"

"She put on a pair of thingumys--well, breeches then, if you must have it--and away she went, and the last I saw of her was in Fleet Street with 'em on."

"Gracious Heaven!"

"Very likely, but that don't alter the facts of the case, you know, Mrs. O. On she had 'em, and all I can say is that you might have knocked me down flat to see her, that you might. I didn't think I should ever have got home to the beasteses in the Tower again, it gave me such a turn."

"Lost! Lost!"

"Eh? What do you say? What have you lost now?"

"My child! My Johanna!"

"Oh! Ah, to be sure. But then you know, Mrs. O, you ought to have staid at home, and gived her ever so much good advice, you know; and when you saw she was bent upon putting on the boy's things, you as a mother ought to have said, 'My dear, take your legs out of that if yer pleases, and if yer don't, I'll pretty soon make you,' and then staid and gived the affair up as a bad job that wouldn't pay, and took to morals."

"Yes--yes. 'Tis I, and I only, who am to blame. I have been the destruction of my child. Farewell, Ben. You will perhaps in the course of time not think quite so badly of me as you now do. Farewell!"

"Hold!" cried Ben as he clutched the arm of Mrs. Oakley only the more tightly in his own: "What are you at now?"

"Death is now my only resource. My child is lost to me, and I have driven her by my neglect to such a dreadful course. I cannot live now. Let me go, Ben. You will never hear of me again."

"If I let you go may I be--Well, no matter--no matter. Come on. It's all one, you know, a hundred years hence."

"But at present it is madness and despair. Let me go, I say. The river is not far off, and beneath its waters I shall at least find peace for my breaking heart. Let my death be considered as some sort of expiation of my sins."

"Stop a bit."

"No--no--no."

"But I say, yes. Things ain't quite so bad as you think 'em, only it was right o' me, you know, just to let you know what they might have been."

"What do you tell me?"

"Why that there ain't a better girl than Johanna in all the world, and that if all the mothers that ever was or ever will be, had neglected her and set her all their bad examples in the universal world, she would still be the little angel that she is now, and no mistake."

"Then she is not from home? It is all a fable?"

"Not quite, Mrs. O. just you trot on now comfortably by the side of me, and I will tell you the whole particulars, and then you will find that there ain't no occasion to go plumping into the river on Johanna's account."

Poor Mrs. Oakley, with delight beaming upon every feature of her face, now listened to Ben while he explained the whole matter to her, as far as he himself was cognisant of it; and if he did not offer to be very explicit in minor details, she at all events heard from him quite enough to convince her that Johanna was all that the tenderest mother could wish.

"Oh, Ben," she said, as the tears coursed each other down her cheeks, "how could you torture me as you have done?"

"All for your own good," said Ben. "It only lets you see what might have happened if Johanna had not been the good little thing that she is, that's all."

"Well, perhaps it is for the best that I should have suffered such a pang, and I only hope that Heaven will accept of it as some sort of expiation of my wickedness. If you had not held me, Ben, I should certainly have taken my life."

"Not a doubt about it," said Ben; "and a pretty kittle of fish you would then have made of the whole affair. However, that's all right enough now, and as for old Oakley, all you have got to do is to go into the shop and say to him. 'Here I am, and I am sorry for the past, which I hope you will forgive, and for the future I will strive to be a good wife.'"

"Must I say that, Ben?"

"Yes, to be sure. If you are ashamed to say what's right, you may depend upon it you haven't much inclination to do it."

"You have convinced me, Ben. I will humble myself. It is fit and proper that I should. So I will say as nearly as I can recollect just what you have told me to say."

"You can't do better; and here we are at the corner of the street. Now if you would rather go in by yourself without me, only say the word, and I'm off."

Mrs. Oakley hesitated for a moment and then she said--

"Yes, Ben, I would rather go alone."

"Very good. I think it's better too, so good-by; and I'll call to-morrow and see how you are all getting on."

"Do so, Ben. No one can possibly be more welcome than you will be. You will be sure to come to-morrow?"

"Rather."

With this Ben walked away, and Mrs. Oakley entered the house. What then passed we do not feel that we ought to relate. The humiliations of human nature, although for the best of purposes, and for the ultimate happiness of the parties themselves, are not subjects for the pen of the chronicler. Suffice it, that Mr. and Mrs. Oakley were perfectly reconciled, and were happy upon that day.

CXVIII. TAKES A PEEP AT TOBIAS AT THE COLONEL'S HOUSE

The more stirring events of our story, have compelled us in some measure to neglect poor Tobias. He had suffered very much from that visit of Todd's to the colonel's house, and it had a very prejudicial effect upon his mind too, inasmuch as it deprived him of that feeling of security, which had before possessed him beneath that roof.

The colonel felt this very acutely, and he could not help perceiving by Tobias's manner, that the faith he put in his assurance that Todd could not possibly again come near him, was not full and complete. Under these circumstances, then, it was a very great satisfaction to the colonel to be able to make the gratifying communication he had it in his power to make to Tobias, on the morning following the arrest of Todd and Mrs. Lovett.

The illness contingent upon the fright that Todd had given the poor boy, or the relapse as we might call it, had in a great measure worn off, and if Tobias's mind could have been quite at ease, his recovery would have been as rapid as any one could possibly have wished or expected.

As soon as he was up and about upon the following morning, then, after the arrests, the colonel sought Tobias's room, and with a cheerful smile upon his face he said--

"Well, Tobias, I come to bring you good news."

"Indeed, sir?" said Tobias his colour coming and going in flushes. "I am very weak, and--and if--"

"Come, come, Tobias. What I am going to tell you will strengthen you, I know. Todd is in Newgate!"

Tobias drew a long breath.

"Todd is in Newgate?" he replied. "Todd is in Newgate? The walls are very thick. I am safe now."

"Yes, you are, indeed, Tobias. The walls of Newgate are thick, and the doors are massive and well-guarded. Be assured that Todd will never issue out at them but to his execution. Your old cunning enemy is at length more powerless by a great deal than you are, and from this moment you may completely banish all fear from your mind upon his account."

"And the woman, sir, Mrs. Lovett?"

"She is in Newgate likewise."

"Both, both, and their crimes then are all known at last, and there will be no more murders, and no more poor boys driven mad as I was! Oh, God be thanked, it is indeed all over now, all over."

With this Tobias burst into tears, and relieved his surcharged heart of a load of misery. In the course of about five minutes he looked up with such a great smile of happiness upon his face, that it was quite a joy to see it.

"And you, sir, you," he said, "my dear friend have done all this!"

"Not all, Tobias. I have helped in every way that lay in my power to bring the affair about, but it is Sir Richard Blunt the magistrate, who has toiled day and night almost in the matter, and who has at last brought it to so successful an issue, that the guilt of both Todd and Mrs. Lovett can be distinctly and clearly proved, without the shadow of a doubt."

"Unhappy wretches!"

"They are, indeed, Tobias, unhappy wretches, and may Heaven have mercy upon them. Some other old friends of yours, too, will, before nightfall I think, find a home in Newgate."

"Indeed, sir, whom mean you?"

"The folks at the madhouse at Peckham. Sir Richard would have had them apprehended some time ago, but he was afraid that it might give the alarm to Todd, before the affair was ripe enough to enable him to be arrested, with a certainty of his crimes being clearly understood and brought home to him. Now, however, that is all over, and they will be punished."

"They are very, very wicked. I think, sir, they are almost worse than Sweeney Todd."

"They are, if anything; but they will meet with their deserts, never fear; and as Minna Gray is expected every moment, so your mother tells me, I will not deprive you of the gratification of giving her the piece of news yourself. Of course, all the town will know it soon through the medium of the press; and Sir Richard Blunt, too, will be here in the course of the morning, to arrange with you concerning your evidence."

"My evidence? Shall I be wanted?"

"Yes, Tobias. Surely you would not like so notorious a criminal to find a loop-hole of escape, from the want of your evidence?"

"Oh, no, no--I will go. I have only to tell the truth, and that should never be denied for or against. I will go, sir."

"You are right, Tobias. It is a duty you owe to society. If some one long ago, and before you even had the evil fortune to go into his shop, had found out and exposed the iniquities of Sweeney Todd, how much misery would have been spared in this world both to you and to others!"

"Ah, yes, sir; and yet--"

"Yet what, Tobias?"

"I was only thinking, sir, that what at times seems like our very worst misfortunes, at times turn out to be the very things that are the making of us."

"Indeed, Tobias?"

"Yes, sir. If I had not been Sweeney Todd's boy, and if he had not persecuted me in the way he did, I should never have known what it was to have the friend I now have in you, sir; and perhaps she whom I love so dearly, would not have thought so much of me, if she had not deeply pitied me for all that I suffered."

"There is profound philosophy in what you say, my poor boy," replied the colonel; "and if we could only bring ourselves to think, when things apparently go wrong with us, that after all it is for the best, we should be much happier than we are now; but with our short-sighted wisdom, we hastily take upon ourselves to decide upon matters concerning the issues of which we know nothing, and so by anticipation we make ourselves pleased or sorrowful, when the precise contrary may be the real result."

"Yes, sir," said Tobias, "I have had time to think of that, and of many other strange things, as I lay here."

"Then you have done yourself some good, Tobias. But I hear a light footstep upon the stairs, and I will now leave you, for I can guess by that heightened colour that you hear it likewise, and I know that two may be good company but three none."

Tobias would have said something deprecatory of the colonel leaving him, and he did begin, but with a smile his kind and hospitable friend took his leave, and Tobias soon had the satisfaction of relating to the young girl, whom he was so tenderly attached to, that nothing further was now to be feared from Sweeney Todd or from Mrs. Lovett.

We may now leave Tobias in good company; and it was really surprising to those who have not made a habit of noting the intimate connection there is between the mind and the body, to see how from the very moment that he felt assured there was nothing further to apprehend from Sweeney Todd, Tobias's health picked up and improved. The absolute dread with which that bold impious bad man had inspired the boy, had been the sole cause of keeping him in so delicate a state. His dreams had been all of Todd; but now that word Newgate, in conjunction with Todd's name, was a spell that brought with it peace and security.

Tobias, as he sat with the hand of the young and fair girl who had pleased his boyish fancy in his own, was now truly happy.

When Johanna got home, after being escorted from Sir Richard Blunt's house in Craven Street by Colonel Jeffery, she found her mother at home, and not a little surprised was she to find herself suddenly clasped in that mother's arms, a most unwonted process for Mrs. Oakley to go through.

"Oh, my child, my dear child!" sobbed the now repentant woman. "Can you forgive me as your father has done?"

"Forgive you, mother? Oh, do not speak to me in such a way as that. It is quite a joy to find you--you are really my mother?"

"You might well doubt it, my dear child; but the future is before us all, and then you will find that it was only when I could not have been in my right mind, that I preferred any place to my own home."

Old Oakley wiped his eyes as he said to Johanna--

"Yes, my darling, your mother has come back to us now in every sense of the word, and all the past is to be forgotten, except such of it as will be pleasant to remember. Your good friend, and I may say the good friend of us all, Sir Richard Blunt, sent us a letter to say that you would be here to-night, and God bless him my child, for watching over you as he did."

"Oh, how perilous an enterprise you went upon, my darling," said Mrs. Oakley.

The door of the adjoining room was partially open, and from it now stepped forward Arabella, saying--

"It is I who ought to ask pardon of you all for advising that step; and you will grant me that pardon I am sure, if upon no other ground, upon that that I have suffered greatly for my folly and precipitation."

"My dear Arabella," said Johanna, "you must not blame yourself in such a way. How pleased I am to find you here, my dear friend. Ah! at one time how little did we ever expect to meet all thus, in this little room!"

Johanna and Arabella embraced each other, and while they were so occupied, big Ben came out of the room from whence Arabella had proceeded, and flinging his arms round them both, he made a great roaring noise, in imitation of the largest of the bears in the Tower collection.

At the moment, Johanna was alarmed, and could not conceive what it was; but Arabella, who knew that Ben had been in the room, waiting for some opportunity of coming out in a highly practical manner, only laughed, and then Johanna knew in a moment who it was, and she cried--

"Ben, it is you!"

"Yes, it's me," said Ben, "and I'm only astonished at you two girls fancying I was going to be quiet, and see all that kissing and hugging going on, and not come in for any of it. Don't kick now, for I must kiss you both, and there's an end of it. It's no use a-kicking."

To the credit of both Arabella and Johanna we may state, that they neither of them kicked, but very quietly let Ben kiss them both.

"Well," said Ben as he plumped himself down upon a chair after the salute. "Well!--Murder! Where am I going to now?"

"Dear me," said Mrs. Oakley. "All four legs of the chair are broken off, and Ben is on the floor."

"Really, Ben," said Mr. Oakley, "you ought to be perfectly careful when you sit down."

"Easy does it," said Ben. "I really thought I was going to kingdom come. Pull me, Johanna, my dear. Pull me up."

Johanna shook her head, and declined the Herculean attempt, so that Ben had to scramble to his feet the best way he could, and then as he sat down upon the sofa which was sufficiently strong to withstand any shocks, Mrs. Oakley asked him what it was he had been upon the point of saying, when the chair had so very unceremoniously given way with him; but Ben had quite forgotten it, only he said he recollected something else that was quite as good, and that was that he ordered to come about that hour a foaming tankard of mulled wine, and then he winked at Mrs. Oakley and hoped she had no medicine in the house to put in it.

"Oh, no, Ben," she said, "and if there isn't a knock at the door; and if you ordered it at the Unicorn's Tail, you may depend that's it."

"Very good," said Ben, and then he proceeded to the door and found that it was the boy from the Unicorn's dorsal appendage with the spiced wine; and after whispering to bring a similar quantity in half an hour, and to keep on at it every half hour until further orders, Ben took it into the parlour, and a happier party than was there could not have been found in all London.

CXIX. THE CRIMINALS IN NEWGATE.--TODD'S ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE

It is grievous to turn from the contemplation of so pleasant and grateful a scene as that that was taking place at the old spectacle-maker's house, to dive into the interior of Newgate. But thither it is that now we would conduct the reader.

The state of mind that Todd was in after his arrest, was one that such a man with such strong passions as he had was exceedingly unlikely to come to. It is difficult to describe it, but if we say that he was mentally stunned, we shall be as near the mark as language will permit us to be.

He walked, and looked, and spoke very much like a man in a dream; and it is really doubtful whether, for some hours, he comprehended the full measure of the calamity that had befallen him on his apprehension.

At Newgate they are quite accustomed to find this unnatural calmness in great criminals immediately after their arrest, so they take their measures accordingly.

Sir Richard Blunt had given some very special instructions to the Governor of Newgate concerning his prisoner, when he should arrive and be placed in his custody, so everything was ready for Todd. How little he suspected that for two days and two nights the very cell he was to occupy in Newgate had been actually pointed out, and that the irons in which his limbs were to be encompassed were waiting for him in the lobby!

He was placed in a small stone room that had no light but what came from a little orifice in the roof, and that was only a borrowed light after all, so that the cell was in a state of semi-darkness always.

Into this place he was hurried, and the blacksmith who was in the habit of officiating upon such occasions, riveted upon him, as was then the custom, a complete set of irons.

All this Todd looked at with seeming indifference. His face had upon it an unnatural flush, and probably Todd had never looked so strangely well in health as upon the occasion of the first few hours he spent in Newgate.

"Now, old fellow," said one of the turnkeys, "I'm not to be very far off, in case you should happen to want to say anything; and if you give a rap at the door, I'll come to you."

"In case I want to say anything?" said Todd.

"Yes, to be sure. What, are you asleep?"

"Am I asleep?"

"Why, he's gone a little bit out of his mind," said the blacksmith, as he gathered up his tools to be gone.

The turnkey shook his head.

"Are you quite sure you have made a tight job of that?"

"Sure? Ay, that I am. If he gets out of them, put me in 'em, that's all. Oh, no! It would take--let me see--it would take about half a dozen of him to twist out o' that suit of armour. They are just about the best we have in the old stone jug."

"Good."

"Yes, they are good."

"I mean very well. And now Mr. Sweeney Todd, we will leave you to your own reflections, old boy, and much good may they do you. Good-night, old fellow. I always says good-night to the prisoners, cos it has a tender sort o' sound, and disposes of 'em to sleep. It's kind o' me, but I always was tender-hearted, as any little chick, I was."

Bang went the cell door, and its triple locks were shot into their hoops. Todd was alone.

He had sat down upon a stool that was in the cell; and that stool, with a sort of bench fastened to the wall, was the only furniture it contained; and there he sat for about half an hour, during which time one of the most extraordinary changes that ever took place in the face of any human being, took place in his.

It seemed as if the wear and tear of years had been concentrated into minutes; and in that short space of time he passed from a middle aged, to be an old man.

Then reflection came!

"Newgate!" he cried as he sprang to his feet.

The chains rattled and clanked together.

"Chains--Newgate--a cell--death! Found out at last! At the moment of my triumph--defeated--detected! Newgate--chains--death!"

He fell back upon the stool again, and sat for the space of about two minutes in perfect silence. Then he sprang up again with such a wild yell of rage and mental agony, that not only the cell, but the whole of that portion of the prison, echoed again with it.

The turnkey opened a small wicket in the door, which when it was opened from without, still was defended by iron bars across it, and peering into the cell, he said--

"Hilloa! What now?"

"Hilloa!" shouted Todd. "Air--air!"

"Air? Why what do you mean by gammoning a fellow in that sort o' way for, eh? Haven't you got lots o' air? Well, of all the unreasonable coves as ever I comed across, you is the worstest. Be quiet, will you?"

"No--no! Death--death! Give me the means of instant death. I am going mad--mad--mad!"

"Oh, no yer ain't. It's only yer first few hours in the stone-jug that has comed over you a little, that's all, old fellow. You'll soon pick up, and behave yourself like any other christian. All you have got to do is never to mind, and then it's nothink at all, old chap."

Clap went shut the little wicket door again.

"Help! Help!" shouted Todd. "Take these irons off me. It is only a dream after all. Back, back you grinning fiends--why do you look at me when you know that it is not real? No--no, it cannot be, you know that it cannot be real."

"Be quiet will you?" shouted the turnkey.

"Keep off, I say. All is well. Mrs. Lovett dead--quite dead. The boy to die too. The house in a blaze--all is well arranged. Why do you mock and joke at me?"

"Well, I never!" said the turnkey. "I do begin to think now that he's getting queer in the upper story. I have heard of its driving some of 'em mad to be bowled out when they didn't expect it, more 'special when it's a hanging affair. I wonder what he will say next? He's a regular rum un, he is."

"What have I done?" shouted Todd. "What have I done? Nothing--nothing. The dead tell no tales. All is safe--quite safe. The grave is a good secret keeper. I think Tobias is dead too--why not? Mrs. Lovett is dead. This is not Newgate. These are not chains. It is only the nightmare. Ha! ha! ha! It is only the nightmare--I can laugh now!"

"Oh, can you?" said the turnkey. "It's rather an odd sort o' laugh though, to my thinking. Howsomdever, there's no rule agin grinning, so you can go on at it as long as you like."

"Mercy!" suddenly shrieked Todd, and then down he fell upon the floor of the cell, and lay quite still. The turnkey looked curiously in at him, through the little grating.

"Humph!" he said, "I must go and report him to the Governor, and he will do whatsomdever he likes about him; but I suppose as they will send the doctor to him, and all that ere sort o' thing, for it won't do to let him slip out o' the world and quite cheat the gallows; oh dear no."

Muttering these and similar remarks to himself, the turnkey went, as he was bound in duty to do upon any very extraordinary conduct upon the part of any prisoner in his department, to report what Todd was about to the Governor.

"Ah!" said that functionary, the surgeon, "and I will soon come to him. I fully expected we should have some trouble with that man. It really is too bad, that when people come into the prison, they will not be quiet. It would be just as well for them, and much more comfortable for me."

"Werry much, sir," said the turnkey.

"Well--well, he shall be attended to."

"Werry good, sir."

The turnkey went back and took up his post again outside Todd's door, and in the course of ten minutes or so, without making the least hurry of the subject, the Governor and the jail surgeon arrived and entered the cell.

Todd was picked up, and then it was found that he had struck his head against the stone floor, and so produced a state of insensibility, but whether he had done it on purpose or by accident, they could come to no opinion.

"Lay him on the bench," said the surgeon, "I can do nothing with him. He will come to himself again in a little while, I daresay, and be all right again in the morning."

"He seems really, indeed, to be a very troublesome man," said the Governor to the surgeon.

"Very likely. Have you a mind for a game of cribbage to-night, Governor? I suppose this fellow will hang?"

"Yes, I don't mind a game. Yes, they will tuck him up."

With this they left Todd's cell, and the turnkey closed the door, and made the highly philosophical remark to himself of--

"Werry good."

Todd remained until the morning in a state of insensibility, and when he awakened from it he was very much depressed in strength indeed. He lay for about two hours gazing on the ceiling of his cell, and then the door was opened, and the turnkey appeared with a bason of milk-and-water and a lump of coarse bread.

"Breakfast!" he cried.

Todd glared at him.

"Breakfast; don't you understand that, old cock? However, it's all one to me. There it is--take it or leave it."

Todd did not speak, and the not over luxurious meal was placed on the table, or rather upon the end of the bench upon which he lay, and which served the purpose of a table.

The moment Todd heard the door of the cell closed behind the turnkey, he rose from his recumbent posture, and, although he staggered when he got to his feet, he seized the bason, and at once, without tasting any of its contents, broke it against the corner of the bench to fragments.

"I shall elude them yet!" he said. "They think they have me in their toils--but I shall elude them yet!"

He selected a long jagged piece of the broken bason, and dragging down his cravat with one hand, he was upon the very point of plunging it into his throat with the other, when the turnkey sprang into the cell.

"Hold a bit!" he cried. "We don't allow that sort of thing here with any of our customers. You should have thought of those games before you got into the stone jug!"

With one powerful blow, the turnkey struck the piece of the broken bason from the hand of Todd, and with another he felled him to the floor.

"None o' your nonsense," he said; and then he carefully collected the pieces of the broken bason.

"Why should you grudge me the means of death," said Todd, "when you know that you have brought me here among you to die?"

"Contrary to rules."

"In mercy, I ask you only to give me leave to take my own life, for I have failed in the object of my living."

"Contrary to rules."

The turnkey left the cell, then, as coolly as if nothing had happened, and carefully locked the door again, while he went to report the attempted suicide of the prisoner to the proper quarter.

Foiled, then, in every way, Todd looked round the cell for some means of ridding himself of his life and his troubles together; but he found none. He then paced the cell to and fro like a maniac, as he muttered to himself--

"All lost--lost--lost--all lost! Foiled, too, at the moment when I thought myself most secure--when I had made every preparation to leave England for ever! Oh, dolt that I was, not to have done so long ago, when I had half--ay, when I had only a quarter of the sum that I should this day have fled with! In my dreams I have seen myself as I am now, and the sight has shaken me, but I never thought to be so in reality. Is there any hope for me? What do they know?--what can they know?"

Upon these questions, Todd paused in his uneasy walk in the cell, and sat down upon the low stool to think. His head rested upon his breast, and he was profoundly still.

CXX. A LUNCHEON AT SIR RICHARD BLUNT'S.--THE DOG AND HIS OLD FRIEND

We willingly leave Todd to his own reflections upon the disastrous state of his affairs, while we solicit the attention of our readers to the private house and office of Sir Richard Blunt again, in Craven Street.

The worthy magistrate had quite a party to lunch on that day, and he had fixed the hour as eleven when he wished to see his friends.

Those friends consisted of Johanna Oakley, Mark Ingestrie, Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, Colonel Jeffery, Arabella Wilmot, and Big Ben, who was, at the special request of Johanna, gladly included in the party.

A happier party than that could not very well have been found throughout the whole length and breadth of London; and there was but one slight shade of disquietude upon the face of Johanna, when she at times thought that at one o'clock she would have to attend the police-office at Bow Street to give her testimony against Todd the murderer.

"Well," said Ben, "here we are alive--all alive, and as merry as so many grigs; and all I can say is, my tulips, that I will show the wild beasteses to anybody as likes to come to the Tower, free, gratis and for nothing. Take it easy, Mr. Ingestrie, and don't be casting sheep's-eyes at Johanna. The little love of a thing ain't at all used to it--indeed, she ain't; and the only person as she lets love her above a bit, and takes it easy with, is me; so don't come any nonsense."

"But, Mr. Ben," said Mark, "I may look sometimes?"

"Yes, now and then, if you take things easy."

Old Mr. Oakley had got on his spectacles, and seemed as if he could not be done looking at Mark Ingestrie; and more than once, or twice, or thrice, the old gentleman would shake hands with him, telling him that he looked upon him quite as one risen up from the dead, in a manner of speaking.

"Yes, sir, you may well, indeed, look upon me as such; but I hope now for long life and happiness."

A glance at Johanna was sufficiently expressive of with whom he hoped for happiness--and that glance was returned with one of those sweet endearing looks that only those who truly love can cast one upon another.

"And I, too," said Colonel Jeffery, "put in my claim to the happiness of the future, for am I not blessed with one whom I feel that I can love!"

"Stop!" said Arabella. "We won't have any conversation of this sort before company, colonel, if you please; so I will trouble you to be quiet."

"I am all submission," said the colonel; "and I hope my humble conduct upon this occasion will be to you all, ladies and gentlemen, a good example of what I shall be when I am married."

This was said in so comical a manner that the whole party laughed amazingly, and then Sir Richard Blunt said rather gravely--

"I expect two old friends here this morning."

"Old friends?" said everybody, in surprise.

"Yes. The one is the captain of the ship which brought poor Mr. Thornhill and his dog home, and who has been to Hamburgh with his vessel, and the other is the dog himself."

At this moment an officer, for Sir Richard was quite wholly attended upon by the police at that private office of his, came in to say that a gentleman wanted to see him.

"It is the worthy captain," said Sir Richard; "show him in at once."

"If you please, Sir Richard," added the officer, "there is a man, too, with a great dog who wishes to see you, and the dog has been in the hall once, and walked off with a plate of cheese-cakes and a pickled tongue that were coming in to your worship."

A roar of laughter testified to the amusement which this freak of Hector's caused, and Sir Richard said--

"Well, I don't know any one who was so much entitled to be invited to lunch as Hector, and no doubt he thought so too; and as we had not the courtesy to open the door for him, and properly accommodate him, he has helped himself on the road, that's all."

"Shall I admit him, sir?"

"Yes, and the man who is with him. He is one of the witnesses who I trust will help to bring Todd to justice. Show them all in."

In a very few minutes the captain of the vessel, with whom the reader had some slight acquaintance at the beginning of this most veritable narrative, made his appearance, and Colonel Jeffery warmly shook hands with him. The dog knew the colonel and the captain likewise, and was most vociferous in his joy to see them.

It was an affecting thing then to see the creature pause suddenly in his manifestations of delight, and look sad and solemn, after which he uttered a dismal howl, and catching the colonel by the skirt of his coat, he tried to pull him towards the door of the room.

"Poor fellow," said the captain, "he does not forget his master yet, I see."

"No," said Colonel Jeffery, "nor never will. If he had his own way now, and we would follow him, I lay any wager he would take us to Sweeney Todd's shop."

"In course he would, sir," said the ostler. "In course he would. Lord bless you, gemmen, if this here dog as I calls Pison, cos why he was pisoned, was only to get hold of Todd, I would not give much for his chances. You sees, gemmen, as I have kept him in good condition."

"He does look well," said the captain.

"Indeed it does you great credit," said Colonel Jeffery; "but his keep must cost something. There is my guinea towards it."

The colonel placed a guinea in the ostler's hand, and his example was followed by all present, so that the ostler found himself growing quite a man of substance when he least expected it.

"Lor, Pison," he said, "you'll be a fortin for a fellow yet, you will. But I hope, gemmen, as you don't mean to take him away, cos if that's the caper, here's the money agin, and I'd rather keep Pison. He's got fond o' me by this time, poor fellow, and I have got fond on him, as I hav'nt no other brothers and sisters or family of my own."

"It would indeed be unfair," said the colonel, "to deprive you of him. But tell me, are you comfortable in your situation?"

"Lor bless you, sir, it ain't much of a situation. Lots of hard work, and werry little for it."

"Well, if you like to come into my service and bring Hector with you--you are welcome."

"Oh, won't I, sir, above a bit. Why, Pison, we is promoted, old fellor. We is a going to a new place, where there will be no end of grub, old chap."

"You shall not have any complaints to make in that department," said the colonel.

"So then," said the captain, "it is quite clear that Mr. Thornhill was murdered by that rascal of a barber?"

"Quite," replied Sir Richard Blunt, "and it is for that murder we mean to try Todd. If, however, by any chance, he should escape conviction upon that, we will be provided with two more indictments against him, so that he is tolerably well cared for; but the murder of Mr. Thornhill is what we mean ostensibly to go upon."

"That's right, sir," said the ostler, "and I'll bring Pison as a witness to all the blessed facts. He'll settle the business, even if the jury is half as stupid agin as usual."

"He will be committed for trial this morning," said Sir Richard Blunt, "for the murder of Mr. Thornhill; and that woman, Mrs. Lovett, will be arraigned as an accessory before the fact, so that there can be very little doubt of the fate of both of them; and if ever two notorious criminals deserved that the last dread sentence of the law should be carried out against them, Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are those two."

"They could not be worse," said the captain.

"No, that would be impossible," remarked the colonel. "I shall be glad when this gloomy tragedy is over though. The public mind will soon be filled with it, and we shall hear of nothing but of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, with all their sayings and doings, for the next few months to come."

"That is true enough," said Sir Richard Blunt. "But I don't think you will find any but one feeling upon the subject, and that will be one of universal condemnation."

"Not a doubt of it."

"There is another too who will suffer the just reward of his crimes," said the magistrate glancing at Mrs. Oakley.

She shook her head and sighed, for she shrunk naturally from the awfully responsible share she was condemned to have in the conviction of Mr. Lupin.

"I will do my duty," she said, "in that dreadful piece of business. The guilt of Lupin, although not so extensive as Todd's, is to the full as great."

"It is indeed, madam."

"Ah, yes!" said Ben. "They are a bad lot altogether, and the sooner they are hung up like a rope of ingions the better. Bless me, I always was delicate, and so was obliged to take things easy; but I have more than once looked into that horrid pie shop in Bell Yard, and thought I should like a smack of about fifteen or twenty of them, just to stay my stomach till I got home to the Tower; and what a mercy it was I never bought 'em."

"It was, indeed, my friend," Sir Richard said.

"Yes, you may say that, my dear, sir--you may say that. With my very delicate stomach, I should have been as good as done brown if I had had 'em. I should have fallen a victim to the wild beasteses, the very next time as I went a-near 'em; and all I can say is, as I shall be uncommon glad to show these creatures to any of this company, as will come to the Tower at feeding time."

Ben had made this liberal offer so often that the company left off thanking him for it; but the ostler whispered to him--

"I'll come and bring Pison."

"No, will you though?" said Ben.

"Yes, to be sure I will. Who knows but he'd like to see them wild beasteses, as perhaps he has only heard of 'em in a wery promiscous sort o' way."

"Not a doubt of it," cried Ben, "not a doubt of it--only when he does come you must tell him to take things easy, and not be discomposed at any of the roaring and bellowing, as the creatures sets up at times."

"Oh, I'll hold him."

"You needn't go for to hold him. Just you impress upon him afore he comes that easy does it, that's all you need do, and then he'll know very well what to do."

"Won't I!"

The conversation was rather breaking up into small fragments, when the magistrate rose from his seat.

"Now then," said Sir Richard Blunt, "it is time for us to go to Bow Street, where I appear as a witness to-day, instead of as a magistrate."

As he spoke, the clock in the office sounded the half-past twelve.

All the guests of the magistrate rose, for they knew that his duties were imperative. There was a tone of great gravity now about Sir Richard Blunt as he spoke--

"I fully expect," he said, "that Todd will be committed for trial and Mrs. Lovett likewise. Already she has made repeated applications to her attendants in prison, to be permitted to become evidence against Todd."

"Which will surely not be permitted?" said the colonel.

"Certainly not; the evidence against him is quite clear enough without the assistance of Mrs. Lovett, while the proofs of her criminality with him, are of too strong a character for her to be given any chance of escape."

"She is a dreadful woman."

"She is, indeed; but you will all of you soon see how she conducts herself now, for she will be brought up with Todd."

CXXI. TODD IS COMMITTED FOR TRIAL, AND EXPECTS THE WORST

By the time the police office at Bow Street opened upon the morning, a wild vague, and uncertain sort of rumour had spread itself over London, concerning the discoveries that had been made at Todd's house in Fleet Street, and at Mrs. Lovett's in Bell Yard, Temple Bar.

Of course, the affair had lost nothing from many-tongued rumour, and the popular belief was, that Todd's house had been found full of dead bodies from the attics to the cellars, while Mrs. Lovett had been actually detected in the very act of scraping some dead man's bones, for tid-bits to make a veal pie of.

A dense crowd had assembled in Fleet Street, to have a look at Todd's now shut-up house, and that thoroughfare very soon, in consequence, became no thoroughfare at all. Bell Yard too was so completely blocked up, that the lawyers who were in the habit of using it as a short cut from the Temple to Lincoln's Inn, were forced to take the slight round of Chancery Lane instead; and the confusion and general excitement in the whole of the neighbourhood was immense.

But it was in Bow Street, and round the doors of the police-office, that the densest crowd, and the greatest excitement prevailed. There it was only with the greatest difficulty that the officers and others officially connected with the public office could get in and out of it as occasion required; and the three or four magistrates who thought proper to attend upon that occasion, had quite a struggle to get into the court at all.

By dint of great perseverance, our friends, with Sir Richard Blunt, at length succeeded in forcing a passage through the crowd, to the magistrates private entrance, and having once passed that, they were no longer in the smallest degree incommoded.

"Well, Crotchet," said Sir Richard, as he encountered that individual, "Have you been to Newgate this morning?"

"Rather, Sir Richard."

"Any news?"

"No. Only that Todd has been a trying it on a little, that's all."

"What do you mean?"

"Why he's only petikler anxious to save Jack Ketch any trouble on his account, that's all, Sir Richard; so he's been trying to put himself out o' this here world, and shove himself into t'other, without going through all the trouble of being hung, that's all, sir."

"I fully expected that both Todd and Mrs. Lovett would make some such attempts; but I hope the governor of Newgate has been sufficiently careful to prevent the possibility of either of them succeeding."

"It's all right," added Crotchet. "I seed 'em both, and they is as lively as black beetles as has been trod on by somebody as isn't a very light weight."

The doors of the court had not been opened, but when they were, the struggle for admission was tremendous, and it required the utmost exertions of the officers of the establishment to keep anything like a semblance of order. The few night charges were rapidly disposed of, and while a gentleman who looked very foolish, was fined five shillings for being drunk and disorderly the evening previous, a roaring shout from the mob in the street proclaimed the arrival of the two important prisoners from Newgate.

Up to some time after his arrest, Todd, notwithstanding some stray words that would indicate a contrary state of things, fully believed that he had succeeded in murdering Mrs. Lovett, and it was not until the morning that he became aware of her escape from drowning in the Thames.

It did not require a conjuror to tell the authorities that there would be some trouble in getting the prisoners to Bow Street, so it was thought better to make one job of it, and to place Todd and Mrs. Lovett in the same coach along with four officers.

With this intent the coach was brought close to the wicket-gate of Newgate, and Todd and Mrs. Lovett, well guarded, were brought to the lobby at the same moment. The moment Todd caught sight of Mrs. Lovett, a kind of spasm seemed to shake his frame, and pointing to her, he cried--

"Does that woman indeed live, or is she but some fiend in the shape of such a one come to torment me?"

"That is Mrs. Lovett," said the Governor.

"Oh, no--no--no," added Todd, "it is not so--it cannot be. The dark rolling river cannot so give up its dead."

"You were well disposed that it should not," said Mrs. Lovett, bending upon Todd a most ferocious glance.

"She is saved!" gasped Todd.

"Yes, I am saved to your confusion. I call you all to witness," she then added in a loud voice, "that I had no idea of the extent of Todd's iniquity; but what I do know I will freely tell as evidence for the crown against him."

Mrs. Lovett looked peculiarly at the Governor while she uttered these words, for she was anxious to know what he thought of them, but that functionary took not the remotest notice.

At this moment one of the warders announced the sheriff, and one of the Sheriffs of London with his gold chain of office on, appeared in the lobby. To him Mrs. Lovett immediately turned, saying--

"Sir, I offer myself as king's evidence. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly, madam; but I have nothing to do with the matter."

"Nothing to do, sir? Then why do you wear that bauble?"

"My office, so far as you are concerned, madam, will be to keep you in safe custody, and see that the sentence of the law is carried into effect upon you, in case you should be convicted of the crimes laid to your charge."

"But I turn king's evidence. It is quite a common thing that you have all heard of that often enough."

"Now, madam, the coach is ready," said a turnkey.

"Where are you going to take me? Is not this Newgate?"

"Yes, but you must undergo an examination at the police-office in Bow Street."

Without any further ceremony, Mrs. Lovett was handed into the coach, and Todd after her. She was at first placed in the seat immediately opposite to him, but she insisted upon changing it, saying, that she could not bear to look at him all the way that she went, and as it was a matter of no moment which way she sat, the officers so far indulged her as to permit her to change her place.

In this way then, both of them upon the same seat, while three officers sat opposite to them, and one with them, dividing them, they arrived at Bow Street, and were met by that roaring shout, that everybody had heard, from without the court.

Of course every precaution had been taken to prevent the mob from wreaking their vengeance upon the criminals, which they were well-disposed to do. A number of people were knocked down and some of the officers rather roughly treated; but the result was, that Todd and Mrs. Lovett were got into the office in safety.

Sweeney Todd, as he ascended the steps of the office, turned his head for a moment, and looked at the sea of angry faces that was in the street. He shuddered and passed on. Mrs. Lovett did not look round at all.

With great difficulty the door of the office was closed, and then in a few moments Todd and Mrs. Lovett were placed side by side at the bar of justice.

There was one person sitting on the bench near to Sir Richard Blunt, upon whom Todd fixed his eyes in amazement. That person was Johanna Oakley. The features came at once to his recollection, and as though he really doubted if he were awake or not, he more than once pressed his hand upon his eyes.

His and every one else's attention were, however, speedily taken up by the conduct of Mrs. Lovett. The moment comparative order was restored in the crowded court, so that what she said could be distinctly and clearly heard, she spoke--

"I am willing to turn king's evidence upon this occasion, and to declare all I know of Todd's nefarious transactions. I am quite willing to tell all--I don't perhaps know the full extent of Todd's guilt, but I repeat I will turn king's evidence, and tell all I do know."

A gentleman, plainly dressed in black, rose new, and in a calm, assured voice, said--

"Upon the part of the crown I reject the offer of the female prisoner. Anything she may say will be used as evidence against her, if it bear that construction."

"Reject?" cried Mrs. Lovett. "And pray, sir, who are you that you dare reject such a proposition for furthering the ends of justice?"

"That, madam, is the Attorney-General," said an officer.

"Oh," said Mrs. Lovett, "and am I to understand that I am accused of any participation in Todd's crimes?"

"You will find by the evidence that will be adduced against you of what you are accused," said the magistrate. "You, I believe, Sir Richard Blunt, give these people in charge?"

"Yes," said Sir Richard rising. "I charge them with, in the first place, the wilful murder of Charles James Thornhill. If your worship should think fit, from the evidence that will be brought forward, to commit them upon that charge, I shall not at present trouble you with any others, although I am fully prepared with several."

"What is the meaning of all this?" cried Mrs. Lovett. "I will be heard."

Sir Richard Blunt paid no manner of attention to her, but brought before the magistrate quite sufficient evidence to warrant him in committing both the prisoners for trial.

The only great effect that the proceedings seemed to have upon Todd consisted in his surprise when Johanna Oakley came forward, and to her examination he listened attentively indeed. When she related how, under the name of Charles Green, she had taken the situation of errand boy at Todd's shop, and been in daily communication with Sir Richard Blunt, Todd dashed his clenched fist against his own head, crying--

"Dolt--Idiot--idiot! and I did suspect it once!"

Johanna went on then to state how in hunting over Todd's shop and house for some vestige of Mark Ingestrie, the sleeve of a seaman's jacket was found, which she had thought belonged to him, but which would be identified by the captain of the ship as having been part of Mr. Thornhill's apparel when he went on shore upon that fatal morning of his murder, no doubt by Todd.

The evidence against Mrs. Lovett consisted of the fact of there being an underground communication all the way from the cellars of Todd's house to her cooking concern; and Mark Ingestrie had quite enough to tell of that to make it tolerably clear they acted in concert.

Of course there could be but one opinion in the minds of all present of the guilt of the prisoners; but it was necessary that that guilt should be legally as well as morally proved, and hence the evidence was very carefully arranged to meet the exigencies of the case.

"Have you any legal adviser?" said the Magistrate to Todd.

"No," was the brief response.

The same question was put to Mrs. Lovett, but she did not answer, and the death-like paleness of her countenance sufficiently testified that it was out of her power to do so. In another moment, overcome by dread and chagrin, she fainted.

"Is she dead?" said Todd.

No one replied to the question, and he added--

"Look to her well or she will yet baffle you. If ever the spirit of a fiend found a home in any human brain it is in that woman's. I say to you, look to her well, or she will still baffle you all by some rare device you little dream of."

Mrs. Lovett in her insensible state was carried from the court, and a surgeon was in prompt attendance upon her. It was found that there was nothing the matter with her; she had merely fainted through sheer vexation of spirit at finding that her overtures to be evidence against Todd were not attended to in the way she had wished; for now, with the loss of everything but life, how glad she would have been to back out of those odious transactions which clung to her.

Todd was asked if he had anything to say.

"Really," he said. "I do not know what it is all about. I am a poor humble man, who get but a scanty living by shaving any kind customer, and all this must be some desperate conspiracy against me on the part of the Roman Catholic, I think."

"The Roman Catholics?"

"Yes, your worship. I never would shave or dress the hair of a Roman Catholic if I knew it, and more than one of that religion have sworn to be avenged upon me."

"And is this your defence?"

"Yes, exactly; it is all I can say; and if I perish, it will be as one of the most innocent of men who ever was persecuted to death."

"Well," said the magistrate, "I have heard many a singular defence, but never one like this."

"It's--it's truth," said Todd, "that staggers your worship."

"Well, you can try what effect it will have upon a jury. I commit you for trial on the charge of wilful murder."

"Murder of whom?"

"Charles James Thornhill."

"Oh, your worship, he is alive and well, and now in Havannah. If I have murdered him, where is the body?"

"We are prepared," said the Attorney General, "with that objection. At the trial we will tell the jury where the body is."

Mrs. Lovett, now having sufficiently recovered, was brought into court to hear that she was committed for trial, but she made no remark upon that circumstance whatever; and in the course of a few moments another shout from the multitude without announced that the prisoners were off to Newgate.

CXXII. A LARGE PARTY VISITS BIG BEN AND THE LIONS IN THE TOWER

On the morning following the committal of Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd to Newgate for trial, a rather large party met at the office of Sir Richard Blunt, in Craven Street, Strand. The fact was that after the proceedings at the police-office, Big Ben had earnestly besought them all to name the day to visit him and the lions in the Tower, and as no day was so convenient to Sir Richard as that immediately following, it was arranged that they were all to meet at the private office in Craven Street, and go there by water to the Tower.

The sun shone beautifully; and to look at that party no one would have supposed that there had ever been such persons as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett in the world.

The party consisted of Colonel Jeffery, Tobias, Mr. and Mrs. Oakley, Minna Gray, Johanna, Mark Ingestrie, Arabella Wilmot, and the fruiterer's daughter from Fleet Street, who had been so kind to Johanna during that very sad and anxious time that she had passed while in the temporary service of Todd.

So happy-looking and smiling a party surely could not have been found in all London, as they made up. It will be seen that there were no less than three couples intent upon matrimony, for although it was understood that Tobias was to wait two years yet before he married, he looked as happy as the rest.

A large eight-oared barge was at the stairs at the bottom of the street to convey them, and as they all walked to it arm-in-arm, and in couples, everybody who met them would have it that it was a wedding, and many jocular remarks were made to them by the way.

"Upon my word," said Sir Richard, "I shall be considered a match-maker, and folks will say that I keep this office of my own only as a matrimonial speculation."

"You certainly," said the colonel, "have been the cause of two or three matches, at all events, for, but for you, I doubt if any of us would have felt as we feel to day, Sir Richard."

"He has restored Mark Ingestrie to me," said Johanna.

"And my Johanna to me," said Ingestrie.

"And my dear Minna to me," cried Tobias.

"Stop--stop!" cried Sir Richard.

"And I am quite certain," said the colonel, "that I owe to him the joy of calling Arabella mine."

Sir Richard Blunt came now to a halt, as he said--

"Stop, all of you, or I will not go one step further. If we get into this kind of talk, who is to say where it will end? Let us enjoy ourselves, and make it a rule to say anything but revert to the past. It has its joys and its sorrows, but it had better upon this occasion be left to itself."

"Agreed--agreed," said everybody.

The barge was a very handsome one. Indeed Sir Richard Blunt had borrowed it of one of the city companies for the occasion, and beneath the gay awning they could all sit with perfect ease.

And now in the course of another five minutes they were going down the river, quite at a slashing pace, towards the old Tower; and as they were animated by the many pleasing sights upon the river, their conversation soon became animated and spirited.

"What is that?--A wherry coming towards us from the Temple-stairs," said the colonel.

All eyes were bent upon the wherry, which shot out from the little landing-place by the side of the Temple Gardens, and presently they, with one accord, cried out--

"It's Hector!"

In truth Hector was there, but with him was the colonel's new groom, the late ostler, who had been so efficient a protector to the dog, and the captain of the ship, whom he knew so well.

"Barge a-hoi!" cried the captain.

"Ay--ay!" shouted Ingestrie in reply, and the wherry shot alongside the barge.

"Well," said the captain, "I do think for you all to go on such a party as this, and not ask me and Hector, is too bad."

"But," said Sir Richard Blunt, "you told me you were going to be very busy at the docks."

"So I did, but I found our owner had not come to town, and I have nothing to do to-day. I called at your house, colonel, hoping to be in time to come with you, but you had gone. Hector, however, saw me, and made such a racket I was forced to bring him."

"And no one can be more glad to see you and Hector than I," cried the colonel.

"And I didn't like, sir," said the ostler, "not for to come for to go, when Pison said as he'd like to come."

"Very good," said the colonel smiling. "Come on board."

The waterman who was with the wherry laid it alongside the barge, and having been liberally paid for his freight, rowed off again, leaving with the barge party, his two customers and the dog.

The Tower was soon in sight, for at that time there were not by any means so many obstructions to the navigation of the River Thames as are to be found now, and the stream too was very much clearer than now it can boast of being. The host of manufactories that have since risen upon its banks were not then thought of.

"I do think," said Colonel Jeffery, "that I can see our friend Ben at the landing place. Look, Mr. Oakley, is that not Ben?"

"Bless you, sir," said Mr. Oakley, "I couldn't see so far if you would make me king of England for doing so. Johanna, my love, you have young eyes, and know Ben well."

"Yes, pa, it is Ben, and he is waving his hand to us, and looks so pleased."

"He is a most worthy honest fellow," said Sir Richard Blunt. "I like him very much, from what little I have seen of him. He has the simplicity of a child."

"Yes," added the colonel, "and the candour and honesty of a lover of human nature. I believe a better heart than Ben's never beat in human bosom."

"I am quite sure of it," said Johanna. "I love Ben very much indeed. He has been ever a kind and indulgent friend to me."

"Do you hear that, Mr. Ingestrie?" said Arabella.

"Yes," laughed Mark, "but I decline investing Ben with any of the attributes of a rival. Now, I love you, Miss Wilmot very much indeed, because you have always been such a dear kind friend to Johanna; and I daresay the colonel will permit me to do so."

"To be sure I will--at a distance," said the colonel.

Everybody laughed at this, and then, as the rowers increased their exertions to come in to the Tower stairs with some eclat, the barge soon was safely moored at the landing place.

"Here you are all of you," cried Ben, capering in his huge delight. "Here you all are. Come along. Oh, how hungry I am."

"That sounds as if you meant to eat us, Ben," said Sir Richard, as he stepped from the barge.

"Oh, dear no. Only I have got a little bit of lunch ready for you all, and as I helped to place it on the table it made me so hungry that I've been half mad ever since, and I'm as thirsty too as can be. Oh, Mr. Jeffery, I often think if the Thames were only strong ale, what a place the Tower would be."

"You may depend," said Sir Richard, "if it were, the government would pretty soon bottle it all off."

Johanna was going to step on shore, but Ben made a dash at her, and lifting her up as you would some little child, he seated her on his left arm, and so fairly carried her into the Tower.

"You wait, Miss Arabella," he cried. "I'll come for you."

This so alarmed Miss Wilmot that she sprang on shore in a moment, and all the party laughed heartily to see Mark Ingestrie flying along after Ben, and shouting as he went--

"Put her down--put her down! Ben!--Ben! She'd rather walk. Put her down!"

Ben paid no manner of attention to any of these remonstrances, but carried Johanna right into the Tower before he set her upon her feet again, which he then did as tenderly as though she had been some infant, only just learning to walk.

"Mind how you go," he said. "Take it easy. Easy does it."

"But I can walk, Ben."

"Very good. Mind how you does, you nice little thing. Oh, I likes you a great deal better in the petticoats and not the breeches."

"Well, Ben," said Mark Ingestrie, "I am certainly very much obliged to you--very much, indeed."

"Don't mention it, my boy," replied Ben, totally oblivious of the manner in which Mark Ingestrie uttered the words--a manner which betrayed some little pique upon the occasion. The laughter of Johanna and his friends, however, soon chased away the temporary cloud.

"Where's the t'other little one?" said Ben.

"I am here," cried Arabella, laughing.

"Oh, you got on without me, did you? Very good: only if you had only waited, I shouldn't have thought it no trouble at all, whatsomedever. Easy does it, you know."

"Thank you, Ben. I'd just as soon walk, and a little rather, perhaps, of the two. It was quite amusing enough to see you carry Johanna."

"Well--well, there ain't much gratitude in this world. Come on, all of you, for you must be famished; and as for me, I haven't had a bit of anything to eat for a whole hour and a half, and then it was only a pound and three quarters of beef-steak, and a half quartern loaf!"

"But we are none of us hungry," said Johanna.

"Never mind that," replied Ben, "you don't know what you may be; so always eat when you can get it. That's my maxim, and I find it answers very well. Plenty to eat and drink, and taking things easy, is how I get through the world, and you'll all on you find it the best in the long run."

"There are worse philosophies than that going," said Sir Richard Blunt to Colonel Jeffery.

"Very much worse," laughed the colonel.

Ben now led the way along a narrow arched passage, and through two rather gloomy corridors to a stone room, with a grand arched roof, in the ancient fortress; and there, sure enough, they found the little snack, as he called it, laid out very nicely for their reception.

A table ran along the centre of the room, and at one end of it there was placed an immense round of corn beef. At the other was a haunch of mutton, weighing at least thirty pounds. Somewhat about the middle of the table was an enormous turkey; and those dishes, with a ham and four tongues, made up a tolerable repast.

Six half-gallon flagons, filled with old Burton Ale, stood at regular distances upon the table.

"It's only," said Ben, "a slight snack, after all; but I hope you will be just able to find enough."

"Enough!" cried Sir Richard. "Why, there's enough for fifty people."

"There's almost enough for a regiment!" said the colonel.

"Oh, you are joking," said Ben; "but come, sit down. You, father Oakley, sit here by this little bit of mutton, and I'll cut up the beef."

After considerable laughing they were all seated; and then Ben, finding that Johanna was on one side of him, and Miss Wilmot on the other, declared that he was quite satisfied.

He cut, first of all, a cold tongue in halves down the middle lengthways, and placed one half upon a plate for Johanna, and the other on a plate for Arabella. Then upon the tongue in each plate, he placed about a pound of ham.

"Take that, my little dears," he said, "to begin with, and don't be sparing now, for there's the turkey and the mutton, you know, to fall back upon. Easy does it."

The room resounded with shrieks of laughter at the looks of utter distressful dismay which Johanna and Arabella cast upon their plates; and Ben looked from one face to another in perfect astonishment, for he could not see any joke for the life of him.

"Dear Ben," said Johanna, "do you really imagine we can eat a tenth part of all this?"

"Do I imagine?--In course I does. Only you begin. Lord bless you, that ain't much. Come--come, you want your ale, I suppose. So here it is."

Upon this, Ben poured them each out about a quart of the strong ale, and requested them to take an easy pull at that.

They found that it was of no use requesting Ben to diminish the quantity he helped them to; so they just, as he advised, took it easy, and ate what they had a mind to do.

As for Ben himself, he cut one large slice off the round of beef, and then placed upon it two slices of ham, so that the thickness--for he was not a delicate carver--was about three inches; and so he set to work, every now and then taking up one of the half-gallon ale flagons, and pledging the company all round.

Probably, rough and homely as was Ben's lunch, not one of them present had ever enjoyed such a meal more than they this did; and if we might judge by the loud laughter that echoed about the old arched roof, a merrier hour was never spent than in the Tower with Big Ben.

But it was a sadness to Ben to find that such little progress was made in the consumption of his eatables and drinkables; and he uttered many groans as he watched Johanna and Arabella.

CXXIII. THE BEASTS AT THE TOWER

All good things must have an end, and Ben's lunch in the Tower was not any exception to the rule. At last even he was satisfied that nobody would eat any more, although he was very far indeed from being satisfied that they had had enough.

"Won't anybody be so good," he said, "as just to try and pick a little bit of something?"

"No--no!" was the general response.

"Indeed, Ben," said Colonel Jeffery, "if we take any more we shall positively be ill, and I'm sure you don't wish that."

"Oh, dear, no," groaned Ben; "but it's quite clear to me, of course, that you don't like the lunch, or else you could not have took it so very easy."

With one accord upon this, everybody declared that they had liked it amazingly well.

"Then you will all try a drop more ale?"

Upon this, they rose from the table, for they had a well-grounded suspicion that if they staid any longer, Ben would try to force something down their throats, whether they would or not.

"Ah, well," said Ben, with a sigh, when he found that they would not be prevailed upon to take anything else. "Then we may as well go and see the lions in the Tower."

"Oh, yes," added Johanna, "I have heard so much of them, that I quite long to see them."

"Should you, my duck?" cried Ben; "then come along."

Here Ben would have carried Johanna again, for somehow he had got the idea fixed in his head that the kindest thing he could possibly do as regarded Johanna was to prevent her from using her feet; but Mark Ingestrie interposed, saying--

"Ben, she would much rather walk. You forget, my kind friend, that she is no longer now a child."

"Oh, dear," said Ben, with a look of profound wisdom, "if you come to that, we are all children. Look at me, I'm only a fine baby."

Everybody laughed at this sally of Ben's, as well they might; and then, being fully convinced that no more eating nor drinking was at all practicable, Ben proceeded to lead the way to the lions.

"Is there any danger?" said Arabella. "I hope you will not let any of them out of their cages, Mr. Ben."

"Oh, dear, no, there's no danger, and we don't let any of them out. We only pokes them up a bit with a long pole, to make 'em rather lively to visitors."

"And have no accidents ever happened?" said Johanna.

"Lord bless you, no. To be sure one of the warders, who was rather a new hand, would put his hand in between the bars of the lion's den and get it snapped off; and once a leopard we had here broke loose, and jumped on the back of a sentinel, and half eat him up; but we haven't had any accidents."

"Why, what do you call them, Ben?"

"Oh, nothing at all."

"I dare say," said Sir Richard Blunt, "that the poor warder and the sentinel would have called those little incidents something."

"Well, perhaps they might," said Ben. "In course people will think of themselves before anybody else; but, howsomdever, don't you be after going to be afeard, my little dears; and if any of the beasteses was to get out, always recollect that easy does it, and it's no use making a fuss."

"I suppose you think, Ben, that if we are to be eaten up by a lion or a leopard, there's no such thing as avoiding our fate," said the colonel. "Is that your idea?"

"Well, I hardly know," said Ben. "But one day we had a young chap--a new warder--who came here out of the country, and he said he had had a dream the night before he came that he should be devoured by a wolf. Now we hadn't a wolf in the Tower collection at all, so, in course, we all laughed at him, and told him he would have to go to foreign parts to bring his dream true. But you'd hardly believe it, that very day afore the young fellow had been one hour in the Tower, there comes a boat to the stairs, with an officer, and he asks to see the keeper of the beasts, and he says to him--'My ship is lying at the Nore, and we have brought from Friesland one of the largest wolves as ever was known for the Tower collection,' says he, 'and he's in a large bag we made on purpose to hold him in the boat.' Well, when the young warder heard this he said--'That's my wolf. He has come for me!' and off he set a trembling like anything. The wolf was brought in in a coal sack, and we got him into an empty den that was shut up with a chain and a staple only; but as all the fastenings were out of his reach, he could not interfere with it if he was ever so cunning. Well, night came, and we all took it easy, and went to bed; but in the middle of the night what should we hear but the most horrid howling that ever you could think of, and when we ran to the Lion Tower, where it came from, we found the iron door of the wolf's den open, and the young warder lying, half in and half out of it, stone dead. The wolf had had him by the throat."

"And what became of the wolf?" said Johanna.

"He was gone, and we never so much as heard of him from that day to this."

"Well, Ben," said the colonel, "that is a very good story of the lions in the Tower, and here we are, I think, close to them."

A terrific roar at this moment proved the colonel's words to be tolerably true.

"Ah, they are feeding some on 'em," said Ben. "It just the time, and they will not be convinced as easy does it."

"It is hard enough, Ben," said Sir Richard Blunt, "to convince human beings of that piece of philosophy, to say nothing of lions and tigers."

"Oh, but," said Ben, with great gravity, "lions and tigers is generally much more reasonable than human beings."

Another roar from the menagerie joined in as bass to the laugh with which this piece of philosophy from so unlikely a person as Ben was received.

"Come on," he said; "come on. They can make a noise, but that's just about all they can do. Come on, my little dears--and if you fell at all afeard, all you have got to do is to take hold of the lion by the nose, and then you'll find he looks upon you as one of them as takes things easy, and he won't say another word to you anyhow."

"We will leave that to you, Ben," said Johanna, "and in the meantime, I will keep close to you, you know."

"Do, my little duck; and I'll just carry you."

"No--no--no!"

Johanna darted away; for if she had not done so, Ben would inevitably have had her up in his arms by way of showing his affection for her. It was a fixed idea of his, and was not to be shaken by any denials or remonstrances.

And now in a few minutes, after traversing the highly picturesque and antique passages of the Tower, the little party arrived at where the lions were kept.

The colonel gave a caution to the late ostler of the inn in Fleet Street to keep an eye over Hector, who not being accustomed to an introduction to such animals as he was about to see, might fancy himself called upon to do something out of the way upon the occasion.

"Oh, I'll watch him, sir," said the man. "Come here, Pison, will you? and don't you be after going and interfering with wild beasteses. Lor bless you, sir, he'll be quite glad to see 'em, and will go on speaking of 'em for ever afterwards--I know he will."

"Here you are," said Ben, as he halted opposite the door of a lordly lion. They all looked at the immense creature with a vast amount of interest, for such creatures were rather rarities at that time in London.

While our friends are thus examining the king of the forest, as he crunches a huge beef bone with his formidable jaws, we may give a brief account of the wild creatures that in old times were kept in the tower. There was Pedore, a beautiful lioness, brought from Senegal, and presented to the king by Governor V. Harora.

Cæsar, brother to Pedore, brought from the same place, and presented to his majesty, by Captain Haycraft. He has been in the Tower about eight months, is three years and a half old, and supposed to be the finest lion ever seen in England. His looks strike the stoutest beholder with astonishing awe. His head is large, being covered with a long shagged mane that reaches to his shoulders, and adds rather to the terror than majesty of his countenance; for his eyes being very fiery, and darting, as it were, a kind of red flame through his long, shaggy, and dishevelled hair, raises such an idea of fierceness as cannot be excited in a mind unaccompanied with fear, nor can we conceive it possible for human courage to encounter a creature of such a dreadful aspect, without the intervention of some lucky circumstance, notwithstanding the stories that have been related of men killing lions in equal combat. His mouth opens wide, and discovers a frightful set of teeth; and when he roars he may be heard at a great distance.

Miss Jane, a beautiful lioness, about six years old, brought from the coast of Barbary, by Sir Jacob Wyatt.

Phillis, a large wolf, brought from Boulogne, in France, and presented to his majesty by Colonel Hollingworth. It is in form not unlike a dog of a mixed breed, and has been in the Tower about five years. These are very ravenous creatures, which inhabit the immense forests in France and other parts, and are a terror to men and cattle. In the severe season of the year they come from the woods and fall ravenously upon every living thing they meet, and have been known to enter houses in search of food.

Sukey, a North American bear, brought over by Lord Bruce. She has been in the Tower about twelve months.

Hector, a most beautiful lion, sent from the Emperor of Morocco as a present to his majesty. He is fourteen years old, and has been in the Tower about ten. He greatly resembles Cæsar.

Helena, companion to Hector, a very handsome lioness, and presented also by the Emperor of Morocco.

Miss Gregory, a beautiful leopardess, about twenty years of age. She was sent to his late majesty by the Dey of Algiers, and presented by the late Algerine Ambassador.

Sir Robert, a fine leopard, of a shining yellow colour intermixed with bright spots. He was brought from Senegal by--Touchit, Esq. He has been in his present situation about eight years, during which he has had seven young ones by two different leopardesses. The young, however, all died soon after being whelped, except one which lived about ten months.

Miss Nancy, a very beautiful lioness, brought from Senegal, and presented to his majesty by -- Brady, Esq. She has been here only about nine months, is not quite two years old, and seems very tractable.

A lion monkey. This beast is of a black colour, with very shaggy hair. It was brought from the Cape of Good Hope, and has been here about four months.

An American black bear, lately brought over by Colonel Clarke.

A racoon, brought from Norway by Colonel Clarke. This is a very small beast, and exceedingly harmless. It lives on the sea-sands, and chiefly on shell fish, which it takes in a very safe and dexterous manner; for whenever the fish opens its shell to receive either air or nourishment, this creature, we are told, puts a small pebble in, so that the shell may not close again, and picks out the fish with its claws.

Rose, a large Norway wolf, presented about four years since by Herr Widderman. He is about six years old, and appears very fierce and ravenous.

Miss Sally, a beautiful leopardess, presented by the Emperor of Morocco, and brought over in the same ship with Hector.

These were the principal inhabitants of what was called the Lion's Tower; and Ben, who was never so much in his glory as when he was describing the creatures and commenting upon them, went through the list of them with commendable accuracy.

It was quite impossible but that the party should very much admire these wild inhabitants of the woods and wastes of nature, and Ben was wonderfully gratified at the fearless manner in which both Johanna and Arabella approached the dens.

The inspection of the beasts lasted more than an hour, and then, as Sir Richard Blunt had no more time at his disposal, they all again proceeded to the barge that was waiting for them. Ben accompanied the party from the Tower, as the Oakleys had invited him to dine with them.

"Ah," he said, "by the time we get to your house, cousin Oakley, I shall be half famished. Thank goodness! I have ordered something to eat to be put on board the barge, in case we should be sharp set."

CXXIV. RETURNS TO NEWGATE, AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF MRS. LOVETT

While those persons, in whose happiness we and our readers, no doubt, likewise feel a kindly interest, are thus in the happy society of each other, compensating themselves for many of the mischances and deep anxieties of the past, some events were taking place in Newgate of a character well worth the recording.

Mrs. Lovett, when she found that her proposition to turn evidence against Todd would not be listened to, but that it was the fixed determination of the authorities to include her in the prosecution, became deeply despondent. Upon being taken back to Newgate, she did not say one word to any one; but when she was placed in her cell, she paced to and fro in its narrow confines with that restless perturbed manner which may be noticed in wild animals when caged.

After about an hour, then, she called to one of the attendants of the prison, saying--

"I wish to speak to some one who has authority to hear what I may choose to relate."

"The chaplain will come," was the reply.

"The chaplain!" repeated Mrs. Lovett with a burst of rage, "what do I want with chaplains? Do I not know perfectly well that when a person is found too idiotic for ordinary duties he is made a chaplain of a jail? No! I will not speak to any of your chaplains."

"Well, I never!" said the turnkey. "Our chaplain for certain ain't a conjuror, but I never heard afore that he was sent here on account of being weak in the upper story. It's likely enough though for all that. Perhaps Mrs. Lovett, you'd like to see the Governor?"

"Yes, he will do much better."

"Very good."

Such a prisoner as Mrs. Lovett could command an interview with the Governor of Newgate at any reasonable period; and that functionary having been apprised of her wish to see him, together with what she had said of the chaplain, repaired to her cell with an ill-concealed smile upon his face, for in his heart he perfectly agreed in Mrs. Lovett's estimation of jail chaplains.

"Well, madam," he said. "What have you to say to me?"

"In the first place, sir, I am here without other clothing then that which I now wear. Is it inconsistent with your regulations for me to have a box of clothes brought me from my home?"

"Oh no--you can have them. I will get an order from the committing magistrate for you to have your clothes brought here. Of course they will be scrupulously examined before they reach you."

"What for?"

"It is our custom, that's all."

"You are afraid that I should escape?"

"Oh, no--no! No woman ever yet escaped from Newgate, and I don't think any man ever will again."

"Perhaps not. For my part, I care not how many men escape, so that you take good care Sweeney Todd does not."

"You may make yourself easy upon that score."

"Good--then when I get my clothes here, I will make a full confession of all I know, regarding Todd's crimes."

"And your own?"

"Yes, if you like. And my own. Be it so. But mark me, I will have no pettifogging, prying, canting parsons in the cell. If you bring your chaplain here I am mute."

"Very well, I will say as much. Of course, if you are inclined to make a confession, you can make it to whom you please."

"I should presume so."

With this, the Governor left Mrs. Lovett, and she commenced again her uneasy pacing of the cell. In about two hours, a large box was brought to her with nearly the whole of her clothes from her house in Bell Yard. She selected a dress, with a number of heavy flounces, and put it on, appearing to be much better satisfied than she had been.

"Ah," said the turnkey, "that's the way with women. Give them dress, and even in Newgate they feel comfortable, but make 'em go shabby, and you had much better hang them outright."

Another hour passed, and then the Governor, with a magistrate and writing materials, came to the cell of the wretched woman.

"If Mrs. Lovett," he said, "you still think proper to persevere in your intention of making a confession, this gentleman, who is a magistrate, will in his official capacity receive it, and I will witness it; but you do it entirely at your own risk and peril."

"I know it," replied Mrs. Lovett, "and I likewise do it to the risk of the peril of Sweeney Todd."

"You can make what statement you please. How far it will be taken as evidence against another, will depend entirely upon how it is in essentials corroborated by others," said the magistrate.

"I am content. Now, sir, will you listen to me?"

"Most certainly."

The Governor arranged his writing materials, and while the magistrate listened, Mrs. Lovett said in a calm clear voice--

"Believing that I am upon the brink of the grave, I make this statement. Todd first connived the idea of that mutual guilt which we have both since carried out. He bought the house in Bell Yard, as likewise the one in Fleet Street, and by his own exertions, he excavated an underground connection between the two, mining right under St. Dunstan's church, and through the vaults of that building. When he had completed all his arrangements, he came to me, and cautiously made his offer; but he did not tell me that those arrangements were then complete, as that he doubtless thought would have placed him too much in my power, in the event of my refusing to co-operate with him in his iniquity. He need not have given himself that amount of trouble; I was willing. The plan he proposed was, that the pie-shop should be opened, for the sole purpose of getting rid of the bodies of people, whom he might think proper to murder, in or under his shop. He said that fearing nothing, and believing nothing, he had come to the conclusion, that money was the great thing to be desired in this world, inasmuch as to it he had found that all people bowed down. He said that after the murder of any one, he would take the flesh from the bones quickly, and convey to the shelves of the bake-house in Bell Yard the pieces, as materials for the pies. Minor arrangements he left to me. He murdered many. The business went on and prospered, and we both grew rich. He refused me my share of the spoil; and so I believe we both fell to our present state."

"Have you any more to add?" said the magistrate.

"Nothing. But I will answer you any question you may choose to ask of me upon the subject."

"No. It is not my province to ask anything. This is clearly a voluntary statement and confession. No questions need be, or ought to be, asked concerning it at all."

"Very well."

"You are aware that it will be used against you."

"And against Todd?"

"Yes, it is a strong corroboration of the evidence against him; and as such, if there had been any doubt, would have gone far towards making his conviction certain."

"Then I am satisfied, sir."

The magistrate slightly inclined his head and left the cell with the Governor. When they were outside he said to the latter--

"I would advise you to keep a sharp watch upon that woman. My firm opinion is, that she contemplates suicide, and that this statement is merely made for the purpose of damaging Todd as much as possible."

"No doubt, sir. You may depend upon our keeping a good watch upon her. It is quite impossible she can do herself a mischief. There is literally nothing in the cell for her to convert to any such use; besides, I doubt if really great criminals ever have the courage to die by their own hands."

"Well, it may be so; of course your experience of these people is very considerable. I only tell you my impression."

"For which, sir, I am much obliged, and will be doubly cautious."

Mrs. Lovett, when she was once more alone, paced her cell in the same restless manner that she had done before. It was not then so much as it is now the custom in Newgate to keep such a strict watch upon prisoners before conviction, and with the exception that there was a man in the passage close at hand, boxed up in a sentry-box, and whose duty it was now and then to open the small square wicket in the cell door, and see that the prisoner was all right, Mrs. Lovett had no surveillance over her.

As she paced to and fro, she muttered to herself--

"Yes, I will do it. They think that I would go through the formal parade of a trial. They think that I will stand in one of their courts shrinking before a jury; but I will not--I will not. Oh no, Todd may do all that. It is fitting that he should; but I, having failed in my one great enterprise, will bid adieu to life."

She paused, for the man was at the wicket.

"Do you want anything?" he said.

"No, my friend. Only the poor privilege of being alone."

"Humph! I thought I heard you speaking."

"I was only rehearsing my defence."

"Oh, well; that's a new dodge anyhow. You take it easy, Ma'am Lovett, if anybody ever did."

"Innocence, my friend, should be composed."

The turnkey stared at her through the little bars that crossed even that small orifice in the door, and then closed it without another word. He was scarcely used to such an amount of cool effrontery as he found exhibited by Mrs. Lovett.

"Alone again," she said. "Alone again. I must be cautious, or they will suspect my purpose. I must only converse with myself in faint whispers. I would not be thwarted willingly in this my last and boldest act; and I am resolved that I will not live to look upon the light of another day. I am resolved, and wound up to my purpose. Oh, what poor fools they are to fancy they can prevent such a one as I am from dying when and how I wish! They have unwittingly supplied me with the ready means of death to-day."

These words were spoken so low, that if the turnkey had been listening with all his might on the other side of the door he could not possibly have overheard them. The recent visit of that functionary, if the peep through the little opening in the door could be called a visit, had taught Mrs. Lovett to be more cautious how she trusted the air of her cell with the secret resolves of her teeming brain.

But now that she had really and truly made up her mind to commit suicide, all the worst passions of her nature seemed to be up in arms and to wage wild war in her heart and brain; while amid them all was the intense hatred of Todd, and the hope that she should be revenged upon him, by his being brought to death upon the scaffold, triumphant over every other.

"I had hoped," she said; "oh, how I had hoped, that I might have had the satisfaction of witnessing such a scene--but that is past now. I must go before him; but still it is with the conviction that die he must. I feel, I know that he will not have the courage to do as I am about to do, and if he had, I am certain he has not provided himself with the means of success as I have provided myself."

These last words she scarcely whispered to herself, so very fearful was she that they might be overheard by the turnkey who was so close at hand.

And now a fear came over her that he was watching her through some little hole or crevice of the door, and the very thought was sufficient to make her wonderfully uneasy. If it were so, there was quite sufficient reflected light in the cell to make every one of her actions easily observable, and so her cherished design of taking her own life would be defeated completely.

In lieu of a piece of whalebone in the back of her dress, there was a small tin tube, soldered perfectly tight against the escape of any fluid, and made fast at each end. That tin tube had been in the dress she now selected for many months, and it was filled with a subtle liquid poison, a very few drops of which would prove certainly fatal.

She dreaded that she should be observed to take this ingenious contrivance from her dress and pounced upon before she could break it open and make use of its contents.

She sat down on the miserable kind of bench which served as a bed, and in a very low whisper to herself she said--

"I must wait till night--yes, I must wait till night!"

She knew well that the indulgence of a light would be denied to her, and she smiled to herself, as she thought how that mistaken piece of prison policy would enable her to free herself from what now was the bitter encumbrance of existence.

"The twilight," she muttered, "will soon creep into this gloomy place, and it will be my twilight, too--the twilight of my life before, and only just before, the night of death begins. That night will know no dawn--that long, long sleep which will know no waking! Yea, I will then escape from this strong prison!"

CXXV. MRS. LOVETT SEES SOME TWILIGHT SPECTRES IN HER CELL

After she had sat for some time in this state of feeling, and just before the darkness got so apparent that but little could be seen of the few articles that the place contained, she heard the door open.

A flash of light came into the place.

"Who is that?" she cried.

"Oh, you needn't think as it's robbers--it's only me," said a voice. "You are quite safe here, ma'am. That's one good of being in the stone jug: you needn't be afraid of thieves breaking into your place."

She saw that it was the turnkey whose duty it was to keep watch in the passage outside her cell.

"What do you want here?" she said, "Cannot I have the poor privilege of being left alone?"

"Oh, yes, only it's your rations' time, and here's your boiled rice and water, and here's your loaf, mum. In course, that ain't exactly the sort of thing you have been accustomed to; but it's all the county allows--only between you and me and the post, Mrs. Lovett, as they say you have got a pretty heavy purse, you can have just what you like."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, in a moderate way you know. You have only to pay, and you can have anything."

"Then even Newgate is like the rest of the world. Money rules even here, does it?"

"Why, in a manner of speaking, a guinea is worth twenty-one shillings here, just the same as it is outside, ma'am."

"Then how much will purchase my liberty?"

The turnkey shook his head.

"There, ma'am, you ask for an article that I don't deal in. My shop don't keep such a thing as liberty. What I mean is, that you may have just what you like to eat and drink."

"Very well. In the morning you can bring me what I order."

"Oh, yes--yes."

"I will pay handsomely for what I do order, for I have, as you say, a heavy purse. Much heavier, indeed it is, than any of you imagine, my friends."

"Your humble servant, ma'am. I only wish Newgate was full of such as you."

"Ah, I hear a footstep. Who is it that is about to intrude upon me to-night?"

"It's the chaplain."

"The chaplain? I thought he understood that I declined his visits completely."

"Why, you see, ma'am, so you did, but it's his duty to go the round of all the cells before the prison shuts up for the night, so he will come, you see; and if I might advise you, ma'am, I should say be civil to him whatever you may think, for he can do you an ill turn if he likes in his report. He has more underhanded sort of power than you are aware of, Mrs. Lovett; so you had better, as I say, be civil to him, and keep your thoughts to yourself. Where's the odds, you know, ma'am?"

"I am much obliged to you for this advice, and I will pay you for it. There is a couple of guineas for you as a slight remembrance of me, and let others say what they will, you at least will not accuse me of ingratitude for any benefit conferred upon me."

"That I won't, ma'am; but here he comes. Mum is the word about what I have said, or else my place would not be worth much, I can tell you."

"Depend upon me."

The turnkey, with a great show of respect, backed out of the cell as the chaplain entered it.

"Well, Mrs. Lovett," said the pious individual, "I hope to find you in a better frame of mind than upon my last visit to you."

"Sir," said Mrs. Lovett, "if you will come to me at your own hour in the morning, I shall then present myself to you in a different manner, and I shall no longer object to anything you may be pleased to say to me."

"What a blessed conversion. Really, now, this is very satisfactory indeed. Mrs. Lovett, of course you are a very great sinner, but if you attend to me, I can warrant your being received in the other world by ten thousand angels."

"I thank you, sir. Half the number would be quite sufficient, I feel assured, for my poor deserts."

"Oh no, ten thousand--ten thousand. Not one less than that number. But if you have any doubts about the reality of flames everlasting, I shall have great satisfaction in removing them, by holding your hand for a few moments in the flame of this candle."

"You are very kind," said Mrs. Lovett, "but I shall be quite as well convinced if you hold yours, as I shall then I hope see the agony depicted in your countenance."

"Humph!--ah! No, I would rather not exactly. But quite rejoicing that you are in so very pious a frame of mind, I shall have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock."

"That will do very well," said Mrs. Lovett.

The chaplain, thinking he had made quite a wonderful convert in Mrs. Lovett, and with serious thoughts of getting somebody to write a tract for him on the subject, left the cell, little suspecting how he was to be duped.

"Well, you did gammon him," said the turnkey, "I will say that for you."

"Can you not leave me a light?"

"Agin the rules. Can't do it; but I'll wait till you have put the mattress to rights, if you like."

"Oh, no. It will do very well. Good night."

"Good night, Ma'am Lovett, and thank you for me. They may say what they likes about you, but I will stick up for you, so far that you are liberal with your tin, and that's a very good thing indeed. I ain't quite sure that it isn't everything, as this here world goes."

The door of the cell was closed, and the last rays of the turnkey's candle disappeared. Mrs. Lovett was alone again in her dreary cell.

The darkness now was very intense, indeed: for during the few minutes that she had been conversing with the chaplain, the twilight had almost faded away, dropping quite into night, so that not an object was visible in the cell. She heard the turnkey's footsteps die away in the distance, and then indeed she felt truly alone.

"And I shall not see the sunlight of another day," she said. "My pilgrimage is over."

She pronounced these words with a shudder, for even she could not at such a moment feel quite at ease. She held in her hands the means of death, and yet she hesitated--not that she had the remotest intention of foregoing her fixed resolve; but feeling that at any moment she had it in her power now to carry it out, she lingered there upon the shores of life.

"And it has come to this," she said. "After all my scheming--after all my resolves, it has come to suicide in a felon's cell. Well, I played a daring game, and for heavy stakes, and I have lost, that is all."

She covered her eyes with her hands for several minutes, and slowly rocked to and fro.

Who shall say what thoughts crossed that bold bad woman's soul at that time? Who shall say that in those few moments her memory did not fly back to some period when she was innocent and happy?--for even Mrs. Lovett must have been innocent and happy once; and the thought that such had been her blessed state, compared to what it was now, was enough to drive her mad--quite mad.

When she withdrew her hands from before her eyes she uttered a cry of terror. Memory had conjured up the forms of departed spirits to her; and now so strong had become the impression upon her mind in that hour of agony, that she thought she saw them in her cell.

"Oh, mercy--mercy!" she said. "Why should I be tortured thus? Why should I suffer such horrors? Why do you glare at me with such fiery eyes for, horrible spectres!"

She covered up her eyes again; but then a still more terrible supposition took possession of her, for instead of fancying that the spectres were in the darkness of the cell at some distance from her, she thought that they all came crowding up to within an inch of her face, gibing and mocking.

"Off--off!" she cried, as she suddenly stretched out her arm. "Do not drive me quite mad."

Her eyes glared in the darkness like those of some wild animal. They looked phosphorescent, and for some time such was the agony and the thraldom of her feelings, that she quite forgot she had the means of death in her hands.

She began to question the spirits that fancy presented in the darkness as thronging her cell.

"Who are you?" she said. "I know you not. I did not kill you! Why do you glare at me? And you, with your face matted with blood, I did not kill you. Who are you, too, with those mangled limbs? I killed none of you. Go to Sweeney Todd--go to Sweeney Todd!"

She kept her hands stretched out before her, and she fancied that it was only by such an action that she kept them from touching her very face. Then she dropped upon her knees, and in the same wild half-screaming voice she spoke again, crying--

"Away with you all! Todd it was that killed you--not I. He would have killed me, too. Do you hear, that he tried to kill me? but he could not. What boy are you? Oh, I know you now. He sent you to the madhouse. You are George Allan. Well, I did not kill you. I see that there is blood upon you! But why do you all come to me and leave Todd's cell tenantless, except by himself? for you cannot be here and there both! Away, I say! Away to him! Do not come here to torture me!"

Tap--tap--tap came a sound on the door of the cell.

"Hush!" she said. "Hush!"

"What's the matter?" said the turnkey.

"Nothing--nothing."

"But I heard you calling out about something."

"It is nothing, my friend. All is right. I was only--only praying."

"Humph!" said the turnkey. "If you were, it is something rather new, I reckon. She can't do any mischief, that's one comfort; and many of the worst ones as comes here don't pass very nice, cosy, comfortable nights. They fancies they sees all sorts of things, they does. Poor devils! I never seed nothing worse than myself or my wife in all my time, and I don't think I ever shall."

Mrs. Lovett did not now utter one word until she was sure the turnkey was out of hearing. That slight interruption had recalled her to herself, and done much to banish from her disturbed imagination all those fancied monsters of the brain which had disturbed her.

"Why did I yield even for a moment," she said, "to such a load of superstition? I thought that even at such a moment as this I should be free from such terrors. How I should have smiled in derision of any one else who had been weak enough to give way to them--and yet how real they looked. How very unlike the mere creations of a disturbed brain. Could they be real? Is it possible?"

Mrs. Lovett shook a little as she asked herself these questions, and it was only at such a moment that she could or was at all likely to ask them, for our readers may well believe that such a woman could have had no sort of belief in a providence, or she never, with her active intellect, could have fallen into the mistake of supposing that she was compassing happiness by committing crime.

For awhile now the doubt that she had suggested to herself shook her very much. It was the very first time in all her wicked life that anything like a perception of a future state had crossed her mind; and each minute how fearfully to her the possibility, and then the probability, that there really was another world than this, began now to grow upon her.

That thought was more full of agony than the appearance of the spectres had been to her--those spectres which were only called into existence by her own consciousness of overpowering guilt and deep iniquity.

"I am going now," she said. "I am going. World that I hate, and all upon thee, farewell!"

She broke the tin case containing the poison, and applying one of the broken ends to her lips, she swallowed two drops of the deadly liquid, and fell dead upon the floor of her cell.

CXXVI. SWEENEY TODD IS PLACED UPON HIS TRIAL

It was about eight o'clock in the morning that the officials of Newgate found their way to the cell of Mrs. Lovett. At first they thought that she was sleeping upon the floor of her prison, but when they picked her up, they soon became aware of what had really happened, and the alarm spread through the prison.

The governor was vexed, and the chaplain was vexed, and when the sheriff was sent for, he, too, was vexed, so they all revenged themselves upon the turnkey, whose duty it was to be in the passage adjoining the cell, and they fancied they met the justice of the case by discharging him.

Of course, in a very few hours the news of Mrs. Lovett's suicide became known all over London, with very many exaggerations; and there was not one person in the whole of the vast population of the great city who did not know the fact, save and except that man who would feel most interested in it. We, of course, allude to Sweeney Todd.

He, in his cell in Newgate, saw no newspapers, and held no conversation with the world without; and as none of the persons in any way connected with the prison chose to inform him of what had happened, he had not the least idea but that Mrs. Lovett was, along with him, suffering all the terrors of suspense antecedent to her trial upon the serious charge impending over her.

Of course when the day of his, Todd's, trial should arrive, the fact could no longer be kept secret from him; and that day come at last to wither up any faint hopes that he might cling to.

Scarcely ever in London had such an amount of public excitement been produced by any criminal proceedings, as by the trial of Sweeney Todd. While he pursued a monotonous life from day to day in his cell, haunted by all sorts of fears, and the prey of the most dismal apprehensions, the public appetite had been fed by all sorts of strange and vague stories concerning him.

The most hideous crimes had been laid to his charge; and in the imagination of the people, the number of his victims was quadrupled, so that when the morning of his trial arrived, so great was the excitement, that business in the City was almost at a stand still, and sober-minded men who did not see any peculiar interest in the sayings and doings of a great criminal, were of course disgusted that the popular taste should run that way.

As regarded Todd himself, he had gone into Newgate with a fixed determination in his own mind to commit suicide if he possibly could; but he had not taken the precaution that Mrs. Lovett had long before, in providing the means of so doing; and consequently he was thrown upon the scanty resources that might present themselves to him in the prison.

That those resources would be few and limited enough, may be well imagined, for the most special instructions had been given by Sir Richard Blunt to prevent Todd from committing suicide; and since Mrs. Lovett had so disposed of herself despite the authorities, those precautions had been redoubled; so that Todd, after two or three abortive attempts, and thinking the matter over in every way, saw that there was no chance for him in that way, and he made up his mind to abide his trial, with the hope that he might, during the course of it, be able to say enough to make Mrs. Lovett's conviction certain, while he felt certain that he could not possibly make his own situation worse than it was.

He thought, too, that perhaps after conviction he might behave so cunningly as to deceive his jailer into an idea that he was full of contrition and resignation, and so, at some ungarded moment, achieve the object that now he felt to be impossible.

With these hopes and feelings, then, little suspecting that Mrs. Lovett had already removed her case to a higher tribunal, Sweeney Todd awaited his trial.

Probably he had no idea of the amount of excitement that his case had created outside the prison. The customary calm of the officials of the jail, had deceived him into a belief, that after all it was no such great matter; but he quite forgot that that was a professional calm, with which the people had nothing to do, and in which it was not at all likely they would participate.

The Governor came into his cell about a quarter before nine o'clock on the morning fixed for his trial.

"Sweeney Todd," he said, "you are wanted in court."

"I am ready," said Todd.

He rose with alacrity, and accompanied the Governor and two turnkeys. It was the custom then to place prisoners accused of such heavy offences as fell to Todd's charge in irons, and if the authorities had any suspicion of violent intentions upon the part of such prisoners, the irons accompanied them to the bar of the Old Bailey. Todd was so accompanied; and as he walked along, his irons made a melancholy clank together.

His imprisonment preceding his trial had been uncommonly short, but yet it had been sufficient to bring him down greatly in appearance. He had never been one of the fat order of mortals, but now he looked like some great gaunt, ghost. Every patch of colour had forsaken his cheeks, and his eyes looked preternaturally lustrous.

Those who had not been accustomed to the sight of him during his imprisonment in Newgate, shrunk from him as he followed the Governor through the gloomy passages of the prison. Two well-armed officers keep close upon his heels, so that Todd could not complain of a want of attendants.

Even he recoiled when he was brought into the court of the Old Bailey, for it was a complete sea of heads; and from the dock he could hear the roar and the shout, and the shrieks of people outside, who were still struggling for admission.

It was then that the idea first seemed to strike him that the public, in him, had recognised one of those notorious criminals, that awaken in no small degree popular indignation by their acts. Indeed, upon his first appearance in the court, there was a strange kind of groan of execration, which was tolerably evident to all, and yet not defined enough for the judge to take any notice of.

The strife continued at the door of the court, and it was quite evident that the officers were engaged in a severe struggle with the crowd outside.

"Let the doors be closed," said the judge; "the court is already inconveniently crowded."

Upon this order, the officers redoubled their exertions; and being assisted by some of the spectators already within the court, who were fearful of being trampled to death if the crowd should once get in, the doors were made to shut, and fastened.

A yell of rage and disappointment came from the mob; and then a loud voice, that towered above all other noises, shouted--

"Bring Todd out and we will hang him at once without any further trouble. We only want Todd!"

The countenance of the prisoner turned as white as paper, and his glaring eyes were fixed upon the doors of the court.

"It is quite impossible," said the judge, "that the business of the court can be carried on under these circumstances; I hope that the civil power will be sufficient to repress this tumult without, otherwise it will be my duty to send for a guard of military, and then bloodshed may be the consequence, from which those who create this riot alone will be in any way answerable."

"Bring him out!" cried a hundred voices. "Out with him! Todd--Todd! We want Todd."

There was then such a furious hammering at the doors of the court, that it was quite impossible to hear what any one said. Sir Richard Blunt suddenly appeared on the bench, and leaning over to the judge, he said--

"My lord, I am collecting a force with which I shall be able to clear the entrances to the court."

"I wish you would, Sir Richard. This riot is most disgraceful."

"It is, my lord; but it shall be suppressed now with as much speed as may be."

With this, Sir Richard immediately retired. He collected together a force of fifty constables, and forming them into a sort of wedge, he suddenly opened a side door, and attacked the mob. The fight, for a hand-to-hand fight it now was, did not last more than ten minutes, when the mob gave way, and "every one for himself" became the cry. In five minutes more the party of officers had possession of all the avenues to the court, and a profound silence succeeded to the riot that had taken place.

"I think now," said the judge "we may proceed to business. This riot has been a most disgraceful one, and if the officers will bring any one before me who has taken part in it, I will commit him to prison at once."

"They are all dispersed, my lord," said Sir Richard.

"The court thanks you, sir," said the judge. "Let the proceedings commence at once."

Todd now glared about him, and his lips kept moving as though he were repeating something to himself in a whisper. The Governor of Newgate leant forward, and said--

"Do you wish to say anything?"

"Yes. Where is she?"

"Mrs. Lovett do you mean?"

"I do. Why am I here, and she not? Where is she? If she be innocent, why then so am I. I do not see her."

"She will not be here."

"Not here? How--why?"

"She is dead."

Todd nearly dropped to the floor, and from that moment a great portion of his courage, small as it was, departed, and he looked like a ghost rather than a living man. At times, he kept muttering to himself the word--"Dead--dead--dead!"

The usual formalities were gone through, and then Todd was roused up to plead to the indictment, charging him with the murder of Francis Thornhill.

The governor touched him on the shoulder.

"Plead to the indictment," he said.

"Dead!" cried Todd. "Why is she dead?"

"Prisoner at the bar," said the clerk of the arraign. "Do you plead guilty or not guilty to the charge here made against you?"

"Not guilty!" cried Todd, as he roused himself up, and glared at the judge like an enraged tiger.

Government had entrusted the prosecution to the Attorney General of the time being, and that functionary was in court. He rose to open the case, and spoke as follows, amid the most breathless silence--

"My lord, and gentlemen of the jury--

"The prisoner at the bar was originally indicted along with a female named Lovett--"

"Where is she?" said Todd.

"Prisoner," said the judge, "at the proper time you will have an opportunity of making any observation you may think fit, but it is scarcely necessary for me to inform you that this is not the time."

"She is not dead!" cried Todd. "She has been let escape by some juggling, in order that all the vengeance of the law might be directed against me. It is not true that she is dead. Some of you are chargeable with allowing that woman to escape. I tell you that she is a fiend and not a woman. But she has had gold at her disposal, and she has bribed you all--I say she has bought you all."

"Prisoner," said the judge, "this cannot be permitted. You only deeply prejudice your own case by this conduct."

"That is impossible. I know that you are all in one large conspiracy against me, and you have let that woman escape, in order that the last drop should not be wanting to fill my cup of bitterness to the overflowing."

"It will be impossible," said the Attorney-General, "to proceed with the case, if the prisoner at the bar continues these interruptions."

"Prisoner," said the judge, "I, and all here present, are disposed to give any allowance and indulgence to a man in your situation; but let me beg of you to be silent."

"I am done," said Todd, "but it is false to say that she is dead. That fiend cannot die. She is a devil, I tell you all, and if there be any here who fancy that she is dead, I tell them that they are mistaken. She cannot be killed. I know that well. Go on with what you call your proceedings; I have no more to say to you."

CXXVII. THE TRIAL OF SWEENEY TODD CONTINUED

This ebullition of feeling upon the part of Sweeney Todd was by some of the spectators looked upon as a vague indication of insanity, while some of the members of the bench looked very mysterious, and asked themselves if it were not the first step in the direction of some very clever defence. But then they were gentlemen who never exactly saw anything as the world in general agrees to see it.

The judge shook his head as if he rather doubted Sweeney Todd's implicit promise that he would not again interrupt the proceedings; and among the whole of the spectators of that most extraordinary trial, the most intense interest was evidently rather on the increase than the diminution.

The judge finding that Todd did not again say anything for a few moments, slightly inclined his head to the Attorney-General, as much as to say--"Pray get on, now that there seems an opportunity of so doing;" and that personage, learned in the law, accordingly rose again, and having adjusted his gown, addressed himself again to the case before him, with his usual skill.

"My lords, and gentlemen of the jury--

"If this were only some ordinary everyday proceeding, I should not sit so calmly under the indecorous interruptions of the prisoner at the bar; but when I feel, in common with all here present, that that person has so great a stake as his life upon the issue of this investigation, I am disposed in all charity to allow a latitude of action, that otherwise would not, and could not, be endured.

"Gentlemen of the jury, I yet hope that these unseemly interruptions are over, and that I shall be permitted in peace to make those remarks to you, which it is my duty to make on behalf of the crown, who prosecutes in this serious case.

"Nothing can be further from my wish than to heighten by any strength of phraseology or domestic detail the case against the prisoner at the bar. I shall confine myself to a recital of the bare facts of the case, feeling that, while I cannot detract from them, they are of such a character of horror, as to require no adventitious aid from the art of the orator.

"Gentlemen, it appears that the prisoner at the bar is arraigned for the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill. From what information we have been able to collect, the prisoner, Sweeney Todd, is a native of the north of England. He came to London about eighteen years ago, and was in very great poverty, when he opened a small barber's shop in Crutched Friars. He remained in that shop about seventeen months, and then paid one hundred and twenty-five pounds for the lease of a house in Fleet Street, for which he was thus only to pay a rental to the Skinners' Company of seventeen pound ten per annum, he consenting to keep the premises in ordinary repair.

"The lower part of this house had been a small hosier's; but the prisoner at the bar altered it into a barber's shop, and he has there continued to reside until his arrest upon the serious charge which we are brought here to investigate.

"What were the pursuits of the prisoner during his occupancy of that house, it is not our province just now to inquire, as all our attention must be directed to a consideration of the one charge, to answer to which he stands at the bar of this court; and I shall, therefore, proceed to detail the evidence upon which the prosecution founds that charge:--

"It appears that upon the third day of August last, a ship of 400 tons burthen, called the Star, arrived in the London Docks. On board of that ship was the captain, and a crew of nine seamen, and two boys. As passengers, there was a Colonel Jeffery, and a Mr. Thornhill, whose death is the motive of the present proceedings. There was likewise a large dog named Hector on board the vessel, which was very much attached to Mr. Thornhill.

"Now, gentlemen of the jury, it had so happened that Francis Thornhill had been commissioned, during the progress of a wreck at sea by a young gentleman named Mark Ingestrie, to take a certain String of Oriental Pearls, valued at somewhere about sixteen thousand pounds sterling, to a young lady in London, named Johanna Oakley; and this Francis Thornhill, fully believing that Mark Ingestrie had perished at sea, was most anxious to fulfil his request regarding this valuable and important String of Pearls.

"As early as possible he landed from the ship, taking the String of Pearls with him, and his faithful dog Hector accompanied him on shore."

At this moment, Hector, who was in court, having for the second time heard his name mentioned, began to think probably that something was going on concerning him, and he set up a loud bark of defiance.

The effect of this was greatly to interest some of the auditory, while it brought a smile to the faces of others. Todd turned deadly pale, and in a voice of alarm, he cried--

"Keep off the dog--keep off the dog, I say!"

"Bow!--wow!--wow!" barked Hector again.

"That dog," said the judge, "must be immediately removed from the court. Officers, see to it."

"I beg, my lord," said the Attorney-General, "that you will allow him to remain, for I assure your lordship that he is a witness in this most important case."

"A witness?"

"Yes, my lord; I speak advisedly, and as a favour I hope your lordship will permit him to remain."

"Will anybody keep him quiet?"

"Oh, yes, your worship," cried the ostler. "I'll keep Pison like a mouse as has fainted clean away."

"Who is that man, and what does he say?" said the judge.

"My lord," said the Attorney-General, "he says he can keep the dog quite quiet if you will allow him to remain."

"Oh, very well. Pray proceed, Mr. Attorney."

The Attorney-General then resumed.

"With the String of Pearls then, and the dog, which the jury have seen, Mr. Francis Thornhill went into the City to fulfil the request of Mark Ingestrie. The address he had was to Mr. Oakley, a spectacle-maker in the City, with whom Miss Oakley, who was to have the String of Pearls, resided.

"Gentlemen of the jury, neither Francis Thornhill nor the String of Pearls ever reach their destination. It appears that on his route, Thornhill went into the shop of the prisoner at the bar to be shaved, and no one ever saw him come out again. The dog though was found sitting at the door of the shop, and when Todd opened his shop-door, the dog rushed in and brought out his master's hat.

"Gentlemen, the captain of the ship and Colonel Jeffery, both became very anxious concerning the fate of Mr. Thornhill, and they made every inquiry. They questioned the prisoner at the bar, who at once admitted that he had shaved him, but stated that he had left his shop when that operation was over. The captain of the Star was compelled to go to Bristol with his ship, but Colonel Jeffery, in conjunction with a friend, pressed his inquiries about Mr. Thornhill without success. The matter appeared to be involved in the most profound mystery, and the only hope of an elucidation of it, consisted in the probability that such a valuable piece of property as the String of Pearls would be sure to turn up some day in some one's possession. Gentlemen, it did so turn up. It appeared that at Hammersmith resided a Mr. John Mundell, who lent money upon securities, and it will be deposed in evidence, that one evening the prisoner at the bar, magnificently attired, and in a handsome coach, went to this Mr. Mundell, and pawned a string of pearls for some thousands of pounds.

"It is to be regretted that this Mundell cannot be brought before the jury. He is dead, gentlemen; but a confidential clerk of his, who saw the prisoner at the bar, will depose to the facts.

"We thus then, gentlemen of the jury, commit the prisoner with the disappearance of Thornhill, and now we come to the strongest features of this most remarkable case.

"It appears that for a considerable time past, the church of St. Dunstan's had become insufferable from a peculiar stench with which the whole of that sacred edifice appeared to be constantly filled, and it baffled all the authorities to account for it.

"No one had been entombed in any of the vaults beneath the church for a considerable time, and in fact, there was no apparent reason for the frightful miasmatic odour that upon all occasions filled the edifice, and day by day got worse instead of better. Scientific men, gentlemen of the jury, were consulted with regard to this stench in the church, and various very learned theories were broached upon the subject; but no one thought of making an accurate examination of the vaults beneath the church, until Sir Richard Blunt, the well-known magistrate, privately undertook it.

"Gentlemen, Sir Richard Blunt found that almost every vault was full of the fresh remains of the dead. He found that into old coffins, the tenants of which had mouldered to dust, there had been thrust fresh bodies with scarcely any flesh remaining upon them, but yet sufficient to produce the stench in the church, by the effluvia arising from them, and finding its way into the pews. In one vault, too, was found the contents of which were too horrid for description; suffice it that it contained what butchers, when speaking of slaughtered animals, call the offal. The stench in St. Dunstan's Church was no longer a mystery.

"Well, gentlemen of the jury, Sir Richard Blunt persevered in his investigations, and found that there was an underground connection from exactly beneath the shaving shop of the prisoner at the bar, and the cellarage of a house in Bell Yard, Temple-bar, which was his property; and which was in the occupation of a female, named Lovett, who this day would have stood at the bar by the side of the prisoner, had she not, despite every vigilance used to prevent such an act, succeeded in poisoning herself, while in prison in Newgate.

"Gentlemen of the jury, it will be shown in evidence that the way the larger portion of the flesh of Todd's victims was got rid of was by converting it into meat and pork pies upon the premises of Mrs. Lovett.

"Beneath Todd's shop was found a diabolical contrivance, by which he could make any one he pleased fall through the floor upon the chair they sat on to be shaved, while an empty chair, in all respects similar, took the place of the one that had been occupied by the unfortunate victim. If the unhappy man, thus betrayed in a moment of confidence, was not killed by the fall, he would, at all events, be sufficiently stunned to become an easy prey to Sweeney Todd, when he chose to go down and despatch him.

"And now, gentlemen of the jury, and you, my lord, I may be told that these wholesale murders have nothing to do with the indictment, which simply charges the prisoner at the bar with the wilful murder of Francis Thornhill; but I reply that it was impossible to make apparent to the jury the mode by which Francis Thornhill came by his death, without going into these painful details. Todd's house was found crammed with property and clothing sufficient for one hundred and sixty people!"

A thrill of horror pervaded the court at this announcement.

"Yes, gentlemen of the jury; and among that clothing is the sleeve of a jacket, which will be sworn to as having belonged to Francis Thornhill; but we have yet more cogent evidence of the fact that Thornhill met his death at the hands of the prisoner at the bar. His hat, gentlemen, will be identified by the dog now in court. But, gentlemen, is that enough? No, the law wisely looks for the body of a murdered man; and I do not call to mind an instance of a conviction following from murder where there has not been some satisfactory identification of the remains of the murdered man. We will produce that proof. Among the skeletons found contiguous to Todd's premises, was one which will be sworn to as being that of the deceased, Mr. Thornhill. One bone of that skeleton will be produced in court, and sworn to by a surgeon who had the care of it, when once fractured on board ship, and who, from repeated examinations such a surgeon only could make, knows it well."

This announcement on the part of the Attorney-General, produced an enormous amount of excitement in court, for many persons had come, prepossessed with the idea that the non-production of the dead body of the alleged murdered man would be a serious hitch in the prosecution.

Todd looked up, and in a loud clear voice he cried--

"No! no!"

"Yes," added the Attorney-General. "Yes. Gentlemen of the jury, that is all I have to say for the prosecution. The facts are as clear as light, and you will hear from the mouths of creditable witnesses the various particulars which it has been my duty on behalf of the prosecution to lay before you this day."