The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.

Todd threw the bed-clothes right over his head. It was no other than Sir Richard Blunt who was in the front-room of that diabolical lodging-house, and Todd looked upon himself as all but in custody. His sense of hearing seemed to be preternaturally acute, and although the bed-clothes covered up his ears, and he could not be said to be exactly in his usual state, inasmuch as terror had half deprived him of his reasoning powers, yet he heard plainly, and with what might be called a perfect distinctness, every word that was spoken in the front room. Perhaps, even in the condemned cell of Newgate, Todd did not suffer such terrors as he was now assailed with in that lodging, where he thought he was so safe, and which he had, as he fancied, managed so cleverly. "Will you be quiet, Ben!" said the girl's voice again. "Make him--make him, Julia," said Sir Richard. "Lor bless your little bits of eyes," said Ben. "Do now come and sit in my lap, and I'll tell you such a lively story of how the leopard we have got at the Tower lost a bit off the end of his tail?" "I don't want to hear it." "You don't want to hear it? Come--come, my lambkin of a Julia--when shall we be married? Oh, do name the day your Ben will be done for for life. I want it over." "Well, I'm sure," said Julia, "if you think you will be done for, you had better not think of it any more, Mr. Benjamin." "It won't bear thinking of, my dear. It's like a cold bath in January: you had better shut yer eyes and tumble in." "Upon my word, Ben," said Sir Richard, laughing, "you are anything but gallant; and if I were Julia, I would not have you." "Not have me? Lord, yes, she'll have me. Only look at me." "Ah," said Julia, "you think, because you are a great monster of a fellow, that anybody would have you; but I can tell you that a husband half your size would be just as well, and I only wonder, after you have made all the neighbours laugh at me, that I have a word to say to such a mountain of a man, that I do, you wretch!" "Laugh!" cried Ben, "Why, my duck, what do they laugh at? I should like to catch them laughing." "Why, you know, you wretch, that that day it rained as if cats and dogs were coming down, you took me up as if I had been a baby, you did, and carried me home, and me with a jug of porter in my right hand, and the change out of a shilling in my left, so that I could not help myself a bit, and all the street laughing. Oh, I hate you!" "She hates me!" said Ben. "Oh!" "But she don't mean it, Ben," said Sir Richard. "Do you think she doesn't, sir?" "I am sure of it. Do you, now, Julia?" "Yes, Sir Richard, indeed I do, really now, for he is quite a horrid monster, and I only wonder they don't put him in one of the cages at the Tower along with the other wild beasts, and make a show of him. That's all that he is fit for." "Oh, you aggravating darling," said Ben, making a dart at Julia, and catching her up in his arms as you would some little child. "How can you go on so to your Ben?" "Murder!" cried Julia. "Oh, if you are going to have a fight for it," said Sir Richard, "I will go and wait down stairs, Julia." Bang came a knock at the street-door. "Oh, Ben, there's ma or pa," said Julia. "Let me down directly. Do Ben--oh, pray do. Let me down, Ben." "Do yer love your Ben?" "Anything you like, only let me down." "Very good. There yer is, then, agin on yer little mites of feet. Lor bless you, Sir Richard, that girl loves the very ground as I walks on, she does, and she has comed over me with her fascinations in such a way as never was known. Ain't she a nice 'un?--sleek and shiny, with a capital mane. But you should see her at feeding-time, Sir Richard, how nice she does it--quite delicate and pretty; and you should see her--" The door of the room opened, and Hardman, the officer, made his appearance. "Your humble servant, Sir Richard. I hope I have not kept you waiting long? I was only in the neighbourhood." "No, Hardman, thank you, it's all right. I have not been here above a quarter of an hour." "I am glad of that, sir. How do you do, Mr. Ben?" "Pretty well," said Ben, "only a little hungry and thirsty, that's all; but don't trouble yourself about that, Mr. Hardman; I always do get hungry when I look at Julia." "I hope, Mr. Ben, that don't mean that you will dine off her some day when you are married?" "Oh, lor, no. Bless her heart, no. She loves me more and more, Mr. Hardman." "I am glad to hear it, Ben--very glad to hear it. But I presume, Sir Richard, that you have some orders for me?" "Why, yes, Hardman. There's that rascal Todd, you know, still continues to elude us. What I want you to do is, to take charge entirely on the river, and to make what arrangements you like at the various quays and landing-places, and with all the watermen, so that he shall not have a chance of escaping in that way." "Certainly, sir; I will set about it directly." "Do so, Hardman. Expense in this case is of no object, for the Secretary of State will guarantee all that; but of course I don't wish you to be extravagant on that account." "I quite understand you, Sir Richard, and will do my best." "That I am sure you will, Hardman; and now I will go. I shall feel no peace of mind until that man is dead, or in the cell again at Newgate." Todd popped his head out from under the clothes, and making the most hideous face, he shook one of his clenched fists in the direction of the front room. It would have been some satisfaction to him to have given a loud howl of rage but he dared not venture upon it; so he was forced to content himself with the pantomime of passion instead of its vocal expression. "I do hope, sir, we shall soon have him," said Hardman. "It seems to me to be next thing to impossible he should escape us for long. Do you think he has any money, sir?" "He cannot have much, for all he has, if any, must be but the produce of depredation since his escape from Newgate. He certainly has not extensive means, Hardman." "Then he must fall into our hands, sir. Julia, is that your mother just arrived, do you think?" "Yes, pa, it is ma's step. She has been out to get something or another, but I don't know what, as I was out myself all the morning; but it is ma, I know." Mrs. Hardman came into the room, looking very red and flushed, and with a large basket on her arm. She looked from one to the other of the assembled guests with surprise and horror. "What's the matter?" said her husband. "Why wife, you look panic-stricken. What has happened?" "Oh, gracious! where's the gentleman?" "The gentleman?" cried everybody. "Yes, the lodger. The highly respectable gentleman who took the first-floor only a couple of hours ago. Oh, gracious, where is he? and a capital lodger too, who paid in advance, and didn't mind extras at all." "But what lodger, mother?" said Julia. "Oh, mum, I forgot--I forgot," said Martha, suddenly coming into the room, "I forgot to tell Miss Julia, mum, that an old gentleman had taken the first floor, mum, and gone to bed in the next room." "In bed in the next room?" said Sir Richard Blunt. "I am lost!" thought Todd. "I am lost now, I am quite lost! and the only thing I can do is to kill as many of them as possible, and then blow my own brains out." "Do you mean to say, ma," said Julia, "that there's a gentleman asleep in the next room in the bed?" "Lor!" said Ben, "you don't mean to say that, Mrs. Hardman?" "He may be in bed, but if he is asleep," said Sir Richard, "he is a remarkable man; of course if we had had the least idea of such a thing, we should not have come up here; but here we were shown by the servant." "Oh, yes, it's all that frightful Martha's fault. I'll--I'll kill--no--I'll discharge that odious hussy without a character, and leave her to drown herself! For Heaven's sake go down stairs all of you, and I'll go and speak to the old gentleman, and apologise to him." "Let me go," said Ben, "and roll on him on the bed, and if that don't settle him I don't know what will." "Shall I apologise to him?" said Sir Richard. Todd nearly fainted when he heard this proposition; but when Mrs. Hardman rejected it, and insisted upon going herself, he felt quite a gush of gratitude towards her, and breathed a little more freely once again. CHAPTER CLVIII. TODD'S FEARFUL ADVENTURES ON THE RIVER. "Shall I lay hold of her," thought Todd, "and choke her the moment she comes into the room, or shall I answer her, and let her go again? Which will be the safest course? I suppose I must let her go, for she might possibly make a noise. Ah! how I should like to have my hand upon all their throats!" Mrs. Hardman came into the room on tip-toe, leaving the folding-door just a little ajar. "My dear sir," she said, "are you awake?" "Oh, go to the deuce," said Todd. "What did you remark, my dear sir?" "Go along--go along--Eugh!--eugh! Oh, dear, how bad my cough is. I dreamt that no end of people were talking and talking away in the next room; but that can't be, as I have paid for it. Oh, dear!--oh!" Mrs. Hardman took her cue from this; and she was at once resolved to pass off the disturbance in the next room as merely a dream of her new lodger. "Dear me, sir," she said in the blandest possible accents; "have you indeed had a dream? What a singular thing!" "Eugh! Is it? I don't think so." "Well, sir, when I say singular, of course I mean that it's very natural. I always dream when I sleep in a strange bed, do you know, sir, and sometimes the most horrid dreams." "Oh, go along." "Yes, sir, directly. Would you like anything got for you, sir? A nice mutton chop for instance, or--or--" "No--no! Good God, why don't you go?" "I am going, sir. Thank you. There will be a very quiet house here, I assure you, sir." With these words, Mrs. Hardman was about to leave the room, flattering herself that it was all passing off quite comfortably as a mere dream, when Ben, thinking it incumbent upon him to do something civil, suddenly popped his head into the room, and in a voice that sounded like the growl of some bear for his food, he said-- "Take it easy, old gentleman. You'll find that easy does it all the world over; and if so be as you ever comes near the Tower, just you ask for Ben, and I'll show you the beasteses, all gratis, and for nothing. Feeding time at four o'clock." "Oh, you great ugly wretch!" cried Mrs. Hardman, dealing Ben a sound box on the ear. "How dared you interfere, I should like to know, you monster in inhuman shape?" "Oh, lor!" said Ben, "I only hope another of the family ain't so handy with her front paws." "Oh--oh!" said Todd. "No peace!--no peace!" Mrs. Hardman at once closed the door of communication between the two rooms; for she quite despaired now of being able to make any apology to her lodger, and she seemed much inclined to execute further vengeance upon Ben, but Sir Richard Blunt interfered, saying-- "Come--come, Mrs. Hardman, you should recollect that what Ben said was with the very best of motives, and any one, you know, may go wrong a little in trying to do good. Let us all adjourn down stairs, and be no further disturbance to this old gentleman, who, taking everything into consideration, has, I think, shown quite an exemplary amount of patience." Todd heard those words. They seemed to him quite like a reprieve from death. "I will come down stairs, of course," said Mrs. Hardman, in an under tone; "but for all that, this great monster of a Ben ought to be put in one of his own cages, at the Tower, and there kept as a warning to all people." "A warning o' what, mum?" said Ben.