The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
the way, a young lad nearly upset me into the kennel. He did not see me,
but I saw him. Truly, brother Oakley, I saw the face of that--that
individual."
"Well, what is that to me? I ask you what is he to me? Go on."
"Oh, oh, oh! Don't say I have not prepared you for the worst. Oh, oh,
oh! Now, brother Oakley, I will tell you, even although it provoke an
abundance of wrath. That boy--that individual who nearly overthrew me,
one of the elect as I am, into the kennel, had the face of your
daughter, Johanna."
The spectacle-maker looked confused, as well he might.
"The face of my daughter, Johanna?" he said. "What do you mean? Is all
this cock-and-a-bull story about some boy in the street, who happened in
your eyes to bear a resemblance to my child?"
"Humph! Ay, truly. Humph! so striking a resemblance, that sitting here,
even as I am upon the points of many instruments of steel and of iron, I
aver that that boy was Johanna Oakley."
Oakley staggered back, and the antique sword dropped from his hand, a
proceeding which Mr. Lupin proffited sufficiently by to scramble out of
the tool-chest, and make towards the door. In another moment he would
have left the shop, for he had done all the mischief he could, by
telling the anxious father such a tale, but suddenly Oakley snatched the
sword from the floor again, and rushing after Mr. Lupin, he caught him
by the skirts at the very nick of time, and dragged him into the shop
again. Holding then the sword to his throat, he said--
"Scoundrel! How dare you come and tell me such a thing? Your life, your
worthless life, ought to pay the penalty of such an odious falsehood."
"No, no!" cried Lupin falling upon his knees, for he saw the sword
uplifted. "No! What if it be true? What if it be true?"
The old man's hands shook, and the point of the sword which had been in
most dreadful proximity to Mr. Lupin's throat, was gradually lowered
until it touched the floor.
"Tell me again--tell me again!" gasped Oakley.
The preacher saw that his danger was over, and rising, he took a
handkerchief from his pocket, and began deliberately to dust his knees,
as he said in a low snuffling voice--
"Truly, you are a vessel of wrath, brother Oakley."
"Stop!" cried Oakley. "I have told you before not to call me brother: I
have no fellowship or brotherhood with you. Do not tempt me to more
violence by the use of that word."
"Let it be as you please," said Lupin, "but as regards the maiden, who
for a surety is fair to look upon, although all flesh is grass, and
beauty waneth after a season--"
"I want none of your canting reflections. To your tale. When and where
was it that you saw my child?"
"In the street called Fleet, as I and all of us are sinners. She wore
nether garments suitable and conformable unto a boy, but not to a girl,
as the way of the world goeth; and yet she looked comely did the
maiden--ay, very comely. I was moved to see her truly. Her eyes there
was no mistaking, and her lips--Ay, it was the maiden; but after sitting
in the kennel for one moment into which I fell, and getting up again
amid the laughter of the ungodly bystanders, I found that she was gone."
"And so you have come on to me with this monstrous tale?"
"Monstrous tail?" said Mr. Lupin, turning round as though he expected to
find such an appendage flourishing behind him. "I am not aware--"
The old spectacle-maker staggered into a seat, and holding his hands
clasped before him for a few moments, he strove to think calmly of what
had been told to him.
The preacher was not slow in taking advantage of this condition into
which Mr. Oakley fell, to protect himself against any further danger
from the sword. He picked up that weapon from the floor, and not finding
any place readily in the shop where he might effectually hide it, he
held it behind his back, and finally thrust the long blade of it between
his coat and his waistcoat, where he thought it was to be sure
wonderfully well hidden. He did not calculate that the point projected
above his coat-collar and his head some six inches or so, presenting a
very singular appearance indeed.
He then waited for Oakley to speak, for to tell the truth, the curiosity
of Lupin was strongly excited concerning Johanna, as well as his sense
of enjoyment, tickled by the distress of the father whom he considered
his enemy.
After this he waited patiently enough to see what course the afflicted
man would pursue, and, indeed, the whole conduct of Lupin was most
convincing of the fact, that he entertained no doubt whatever as to the
identity of the supposed boy he had seen in Fleet Street. The time at
which he had seen Johanna, must have been when she ran over the road
from Todd's shop, and took refuge in the fruiterer's.
Well, then, poor Mr. Oakley was trying to think. He was trying to
convince himself that it could not possibly have been Johanna who had
been seen by the preacher; but then there was still present to his mind,
the impression that had been made upon it by the singular manner in
which she had bidden him adieu upon the last occasion of his seeing her.
He remembered how she had come back, after leaving the shop with her
young friend, Arabella Wilmot, and how then, with a burst of feeling,
she had taken of him a second farewell.
No wonder then that, by combining that with the information Lupin had
brought, the father found enough to shudder at; and he did shudder.
Mr. Lupin watched him attentively.
Suddenly rising, with a face pale as death itself, Oakley advanced to
Lupin, and laying his hand upon his breast, he said to him--
"Man, I suspect that there is much hypocrisy in your nature. It may be
unjust to do so--it may be that I am doing you a wrong, but yet I do
think in my heart that you are one of those who adopt the garb and the
language of piety for the selfish purposes of human nature. And yet you
must have some feeling: at the bottom of even such a heart as yours,
there must be some touch of humanity; and by that I conjure you to say
if you have told the truth to me in this matter concerning my child."
"I have," said Lupin.
"If you have not, I will say nothing to you, I will be guilty of no
attempt at revengeful violence. Only tell me so, and you shall go in
peace."
"What I have told you of the maiden is true," said Lupin. "I saw
her--with these eyes I saw her."
The spectacle-maker slipped off his working apron and the black sleeves
he wore over his coat to protect it from the dust and other destructive
matters incidental to his work-bench, and then he snatched his hat from
a peg upon which it hung in the shop.
"Come," he said. "Come. You and I will walk together to the house, where
I was told Johanna was to be; and if I do not find her there, I will
thank you for the information you have given to me. I will not stop to
inquire what were your motives in giving it, but I will thank you for
it. Come. Come with me."
"Truly I will come with you," said Lupin, "for I am curious--that is to
say, I am in a religious point of view, anxious to know what has become
of the maiden, who was so fair to look upon always, although she had not
a godly spirit."
Oakley locked up his shop, and put the key in his pocket. Then taking
the preacher by the arm, he set off at a fast pace for the house of
Arabella Wilmot.
CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
TODD ASTONISHES MRS. LOVETT'S SPY.
We return to Todd. After he had put up his own shutters, and properly
secured his doors for the night, he lit the lamp in his parlour, and
glancing curiously around him, he muttered--
"Yes. This will assuredly be the last night here. How I hate the look of
anything, and how eagerly I shall banish from my mind all kind of
remembrance of this place when I am in another land, as I shall be
shortly. Let me see: I will embrace the catholic religion, and I will be
most devout. The regularity of my religious exercises shall do much for
me. Indeed, I do not think I could have remained so long in London, if I
had not had the prudence to be regular at the church. It is true that of
late I have neglected all that, but then I am going soon, and it does
not matter."
Todd sat down, and looked over the memoranda of things he had to do that
he had made. He felt tolerably satisfied with the condition of affairs.
That Colonel Jeffery and that others suspected him, he could not doubt;
but he felt quite confident that he should be far off, before those
suspicions repaired into anything dangerous to him.
He still clung to the idea that they knew nothing, or else they would
arrest him; and while such did not ensue, he considered himself as in a
tolerably safe position.
He then set about the preparations for firing his house. We need not
follow him through those preparations. We need not state how he soaked
clothes in turpentine and oil, and how he placed them in such positions,
combined with small packages of gunpowder, and lumps of rosin, that if a
torch were to be applied at the lower part of the house, the whole would
be in a few moments in a blaze. Suffice it to say, that Todd worked hard
for the next two hours, and that by the time they had gone, he had got
everything ready for the perpetration of that last crime which he
intended to commit, before he crossed the threshold of his house upon
the following night, to leave it for ever.
More than once during these two hours he drank brandy. The ardent spirit
had become necessary to the existence of Todd now; and when he took a
draught at the conclusion of his labours, he smiled grimly as he said--
"Charley Green will have quite a funeral of flame. He shall die, and his
body shall be consumed in the blazing fragments of this house, and it
will go hard but this side of Fleet Street suffers. Oh, if the flames
would only spread to the old church, I should rejoice much at that, and
they may do so.--Yes, they may do so. Ha! ha! I shall be remembered in
London."
As he spoke, a dull heavy sort of sound at the outer door of his house
came upon his ears. It was as though something heavy had been thrown
against it. With fear expressed upon every feature of his face, Todd
listened for a repetition of the sound.
It did not come again.
Todd began to breathe a little more freely, and yet he kept asking
himself--"What was it?"--and the utmost powers of his imagination could
return him no feasible answer to the interesting inquiry. But nothing
was more easy than to go to the door and see if any one was there, or if
anything had happened to it. Should he open it for such a purpose?
Should he unbar and unbolt at the risk of he knew not what? No: he
would, from the first floor balcony, and there was a frail one,
reconnoitre the street. He should then be easily able to see if there
were any danger.
He had no sooner made this determination, than he carried it out, by
ascending the dark blackened staircase, conducting to the upper part of
his house, that staircase which was now so completely covered by
combustible materials.
At every few steps he took he listened attentively. He thought there
might yet be a repetition of the sound; but no--all was still; and by
the time he reached his first floor, he was in some sort recovered from
his first fright. That was something. He left his light upon the
stair-head, for he had no wish to point himself out to the chance
passengers in Fleet Street, or perhaps to some enemy, by going into that
room with a light in his hand. No, Todd was much too acute for that; so
carefully closing the door, so that no ray of light got in from the
staircase, he crept to the window.
The shutters had to be unfastened, for Todd's house was always carefully