The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
After an hour's stroll upon the beach, the party, at a slow pace,
returned to the house they had hired during their stay at Brighton. The
moment they got to the door, the colonel's servant appeared with his
horse, which he had ordered to be ready for him at twelve o'clock.
"Just walk him up and down," said the colonel, to the man; "I shall be
ready in a few minutes. Hilloa! my friend, Hector, are you here?"
The dog was with the horse, and the man said, touching his hat--
"We were half a mind, sir, to let Hector loose last night during the
storm, for he is a famous fellow in the water; but knowing how much you
valued him, we were afraid to do so."
"I am glad you didn't," said the colonel. "You were quite right to keep
him shut up. I would not have him come to any mischief for any money."
The colonel entered the house, and when he and all his friends had got
into the drawing-room, they sent for a servant to inquire how the poor
wrecked man was getting on; and after a little time, one of the
domestics of the house came to say that he was up and sitting, dressed,
in the front kitchen, and would be happy to see, and to thank those who
had saved him from death in the raging sea.
"Shall we have him up here?" said the colonel.
"Yes, if you please," said Ingestrie; "and, I daresay, a glass of wine
won't hurt him, while he tells us the name of his ship, poor fellow, and
who and what he is."
"Certainly not," said Mr. Oakley. "I will get out the decanter."
"Allow me, my dear," said Mrs. Oakley. "You know you always break every
glass that you interfere with."
"Oh, stuff!"
"But I say, Mr. Oakley, that you do."
"Easy does it," said Ben, in his deepest bass voice. "Easy does it, I
say--Easy!"
"How cold I am," said Tobias.
"Cold, Tobias!" said Ingestrie. "My good fellow, we will have a fire if
you are cold."
"Oh, no--no. Not on my account, Mr. Ingestrie, I shall be better soon;
but I feel as if something were going to happen. My heart beats so
fearfully, and at the same time, I shake as if--as if--I know not what."
"Give him a glass of wine," said Ingestrie to Johanna.
Tobias took the glass of wine, and it evidently did him some good; but
yet he looked ill and uneasy. Orders were given that the shipwrecked man
should be shown up to the drawing-room, for they were all curious to
know to what ship he had belonged, and how many had fallen victims to
the frightful gale that had made the vessel such a complete wreck.
"He is coming, poor fellow," said the colonel. "I hear his footsteps on
the stairs. He comes slowly. No doubt he is weak yet."
"Poor fellow!" sighed Johanna. "Have the wine ready to give him at once,
mother. It will put some heart into him. What must be his feelings
towards you, Mark?"
"Come now," said Ingestrie; "don't plague him, any of you, about his
being saved by me, and all that sort of thing. Just say nothing about
it. Sailors are no great orators, at the best of times, and if he begins
to make a speech about his gratitude, you may depend he will never get
to the end of it."
"Yes; but he ought to know," said Mrs. Oakley, "who he owes his life to,
under providence."
"Hem!" said Ben. He never liked to hear Mrs. Oakley begin to use
religious phrases, as they had a tendency to remind him of the late Mr.
Lupin.
The door of the drawing-room opened, and all eyes were eagerly bent in
that direction. A servant came in, and said--
"The poor man is here, if you please. Is he to come in, now? He seems
rather timid."
"Oh, yes," said Ingestrie, "let him come in, by all manner of means,
poor fellow. He and I made acquaintance in the sea, and we ought to be
good friends, now."
A tall, gigantic figure marched three paces into the room.
"_Todd!_" shouted Tobias. "_It is Todd!_"
It was Sweeney Todd! With one glance round the room, he recognised an
enemy in every face. With a perfect yell of fear and rage, he turned,
and dashed down the staircase. The servant who had conducted him up to
the drawing-room, and whom he met in his way, he knocked down with one
blow, and in another moment he was in the street. The colonel's horse
was close to the door. Todd felled the man who held it by a blow on the
top of the head, that took him so suddenly, he could not guard against
it, and then springing upon the horse, the murderer raised another wild
unearthly kind of shout, and set off at a gallop.
So sudden--so totally unexpected, and so appalling had been the presence
of Todd in the drawing-room, that if a spectre had appeared among the
people there assembled, and they had had no possible means of escaping
from the belief that it was a spectre, they could not have been more
confounded than they were upon this occasion.
Poor Tobias, after uttering the exclamation that we have recorded, fell
flat upon the floor. Ben swung backwards in his chair, and went with a
tremendous crash right away into a corner. Ingestrie and the colonel
rose together, and impeded each other in their efforts to follow Todd.
Johanna, shrieking, clung to Ingestrie, and Arabella made a vain attempt
to delay the colonel.
"By Heaven he is off!" cried the colonel, as he heard the clatter of the
horse's feet.
"No!" shouted Ingestrie; "it cannot be!"
"Easy does it," said Ben, from the corner into which he had fallen.
"Easy--Easy!"
"Johanna, unhand me, I implore you," cried Mark Ingestrie. "Do you wish
the murderer to be lost sight of? Come on, colonel--you and I must
engage in this pursuit. God of Heaven! the idea of me saving Todd from
the waves!"
The colonel and Ingestrie seized their hats, and rushed down the stairs,
tumbling over the servant in the hall. The next object they came across
was the groom who had had charge of the horse. They found him sitting on
the pavement, looking as confused as possible.
"Which way has he gone?" cried the colonel.
"The--the man. Round that corner, and Hector has gone after him, like
mad, sir. Oh, dear!"
"Hector? Then he will be taken, for I will back Hector to hang upon him
like grim death. Come with me to the nearest stable, Ingestrie, and let
us get horses! Come--come!"
CHAPTER CLXXII.
THE PURSUIT OF TODD ON THE LONDON ROAD.
The whole of these proceedings had really come with such a rush upon the
senses of Mark Ingestrie, that he might well have been excused had he
not been able to act with the energy that he did; but the strong desire
to capture Sweeney Todd, and so to put an end to all the doubts and
fears that were felt concerning him, upon the parts of those to whom he
was fondly attached, roused the young man to action.
Colonel Jeffrey was cooler than Ingestrie in the affair; but he was not
a whit the less determined upon that account.
In the course of seven or eight minutes at the outside, they were both
mounted, and as there were plenty of people who could tell them in which
direction Todd had gone, they were soon upon his track.
Todd had taken the London Road, and had really got a considerable
distance onward, and if he had been, which he was far from being, a good
horseman, there is very little doubt but that he would either have led
his pursuers a long distance, or possibly escaped them altogether, for
the animal that he rode was one that in skilful hands would have done
wonders.
It was no small aggravation to Colonel Jeffrey to be pursuing his own
horse, while he himself was mounted upon a hack that was by no means
equal to it.
Skill, however, will get more work out of an indifferent steed than
absolute ignorance will achieve from a first-rate one, so that after
getting to the top of a rising ground about three miles out of Brighton,
our friends saw Todd not three quarters of a mile in advance, coasting a
little water-course to find a safe place to cross at. Notwithstanding
the distance was great, the colonel knew his own horse in a moment.
"Come on, Ingestrie," he said. "There he is!"
"Are you sure?"
"Quite. That's the rascal. Ah, there he goes through the water! The
horse will carry him well across it, but he did not know that, so it is
a bold step. On--on!"
They had let their horses come rather easy up the ascent, for the
colonel was too good a horseman to break down his steed, merely with an
useless burst, when there might be a chase before it of some twenty or
thirty miles yet, for all he knew to the contrary; and so, as the
country, from the hill-top, sloped very gently right away to the north,
they got on wonderfully, and without giving the cattle too much to do.
To keep Todd in sight was everything now, for in that case they felt
certain that they must eventually have him. From his actions, it did not
seem that he was at all aware of his being so closely pursued, but
suddenly they saw him pull up on an eminence and turn his horse's head
in the direction of Brighton. They saw him shade his eyes with his
hands, and take a long look, and then by the sudden start that he gave,
and which caused the horse to plunge in alarm, they knew that he had
seen them, and that from that moment he would strain every nerve to
escape.
The slight pause that Todd had made in order to look back and see if he
were pursued or not, had given his foes the advantage of about one
hundred yards, for they had pushed on during that pause with renewed
vigour; but now bending low in the saddle, it was evident that he was
doing his best to urge the colonel's horse onwards, and it went like the
wind.
"There he goes, colonel!" cried Ingestrie. "That pace will do for us
pretty quickly. He is leaving us behind fast enough."
"He is, by Heaven, and if he gets to a turn of the road, there is no
knowing what fox-like trick he may play us. On--on, Ingestrie! There is
no help for it, but to do our very best."
For another minute and a half, now, not a word was exchanged between the
friends. The road did take a turn, and for some time they were out of
all sight of Todd, but the moment they themselves got round the elbow of
the road, the colonel raised a shout of gratification, and then cried--
"There he is! He has had a fall. On--on!"
Todd was in the middle of the road-way trying to mount the horse, from
which it would appear as though he had been thrown, for the creature was
rearing in evident alarm, and swerving every time that Todd put his foot
in the stirrup. Maddened, then, at the idea that each moment his foes
were gaining upon him, Todd made such a vigorous effort to mount, that
he succeeded in doing so, although both his feet were out of the
stirrups. He clung to the horse with desperation, and kicked it
violently with his heels, striking it at the same time on the head
violently with his clenched fist.
The animal was driven half crazy by such unusual treatment, and after
plunging and rearing for a few seconds, set off at such a gallop as no
one could have believed any mortal horse could have achieved.
"Off again!" cried the colonel. "I could have shot him, I think,
Ingestrie, just now."
"Then, why, in the name of all that's tantalising, did you not do so?"
"Why, to tell the truth, I was afraid of hitting the horse. If it had
kept still for a moment, it would have been all right; but I could not
be certain of my aim as it was. Now, mind, we must have him, and I think
he begins to find that fact out."
Certainly, if any judgment could be come to, by the desperate manner in
which Todd rode, it would appear as though he considered his career as
all but at an end. Oh, how at that time he roared and raved that he had
no fire-arms, by the aid of which he might turn and cope with his foes!