The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
natural explanation, than to fall back upon a special Providence, and
fancy that it is continually interfering with the great and immutable
laws that govern the world. I do not--mark me--deny such a thing, but I
would not be hasty in asserting it. No man's experience can have been
without numerous instances such as you mention."
"Certainly not."
"Then I should say to you, as St. Paul said to the Athenians--'In all
things I find you superstitious.' What's that?"
A faint moan had come upon both their ears, and after listening for a
few moments another made itself heard, and they fancied, by the
direction of the sound, that Tobias's lips must have uttered it. Placing
his finger against his mouth to indicate silence, the colonel stepped up
to the bedside, and hiding behind the curtains, he said, in the softest
and kindest voice he could assume--
"Tobias! Tobias! fear nothing now you are with friends, Tobias; and,
above all, you are perfectly free from the power of Sweeney Todd."
"I am not mad! I am not mad!" shouted Tobias with a shrill vehemence
that made both the colonel and his friend start.
"Nay, who says you are mad, Tobias? We know you are not mad, my lad.
Don't alarm yourself about that, we know you are not mad."
"Mercy! mercy! I will say nothing--nothing. How fiend-like he looks. Oh,
Mr. Todd, spare me, and I will go far, far away, and die somewhere else,
but do not kill me now, I am yet such--such a boy only, and my poor
father is dead--dead--dead!"
"Ring the bell," said Jeffery to his friend, "and tell John to go for
Mr. Chisolm, the surgeon. Come--come, Tobias, you still fancy you are
under the power of Todd, but it is not so--you are quite safe here."
"Hush! hush! mother--oh, where are you, mother--did you leave me here,
mother? Say you took, in a moment of thoughtlessness, the silver
candlestick! Is Todd to be a devil, because you were thoughtless once?
Hide me from him--hide me--hide! hide! I am not mad. Hark! I hear
him--one--two--three--four--five--six steps, and all Todd's. Each one
leaves blood in its track. Look at him now! His face changes--'tis a
fox's--a serpent's--hideous--hideous--God--God! I am mad--mad--mad!"
The boy dashed his head from side to side, and would have flung himself
from the bed had not Colonel Jeffery advanced and held him.
"Poor fellow," he said, "this is very shocking. Tobias! Tobias!"
"Hush! I hear--poor thing, did they say you was mad too?--Hide me
in the straw! There--there--what a strange thing it is for all the
air to be so full of blood. Do we breathe blood, and only fancy it
air? Hush! not a word--he comes with a serpent's face--oh, tell me
why does God let such beings ever riot upon the beautiful
earth--one--two--three--four--five--six--Hiss--hiss! Off--off! I
am not mad--not mad. Ha! ha! ha!"
An appalling shriek concluded this paroxysm, and for a few moments
Tobias was still. The medical man at this time entered the room.
"Oh," he said, "we have roused him up again, have we." Medical men are
rather fond of the plural identifying style of talking.
"Yes," said Colonel Jeffery, "but he had better have slept the sleep of
death than have awakened to be what he is, poor fellow."
"A little--eh?"
The doctor tapped his forehead.
"Not a little."
"Far away over the sea!" said Tobias, "oh, yes--in any ship, only do
not kill me, Mr. Todd--let me go and I will say nothing, I will work
and send my poor mother hard-earned gold, and your name shall never
pass our lips. Oh, no--no--no, do not say that I am mad. Do you see
these tears? I have--I have not cried so since my poor father called
me to him and held me in a last embrace of his wasted arms, saying,
'Tobias, my darling, I am going--going far from you. God's blessing be
upon you, poor child.' I thought my heart would break then, but it did
not, I saw him put from the face of the living into the grave, and I
did not quite break my heart then, but it is broken--broken now! Mad!
mad! oh, no, not mad--no--no, but the last--but the last. I tell you,
sir, that I am--am--am _not_ mad. Why do you look at me, I am not
mad--one--two--three--four--five--six. God--God--God! I am mad--mad.
Ha! ha! ha! There they come, all the serpents, and Todd is their king.
How the shadows fly about--they shrink--I cannot shrink. Help! God!
God! God!"
"This is horrible," said Colonel Jeffery.
"It is appalling, from the lips of one so young," said the captain.
The medical man rubbed his hands together as he said--
"Why, a-hem! it certainly is strangely indicative of a considerable
amount of mental derangement, but we shall be able, I dare say, to
subdue that. I think, if he could be persuaded to swallow a little
draught I have here, it would be beneficial, and allay this irritation,
which is partly nervous."
"There cannot be much difficulty," said the colonel, "in making him
swallow anything, I should think."
"Let us try."
They held Tobias up while the doctor poured the contents of a small
phial into his mouth. Nature preferred performing the office of
deglutition to choking, and it was taken. The effect of the opiate was
rapid, and after some inarticulate moans and vain attempts to spring
from the bed, a deep sleep came over poor Tobias.
"Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Chisolm, "I beg to inform you that this is a
bad case."
"I feared as much."
"A very bad case. Some very serious shock indeed has been given to the
lad's brain, and if he at all recovers from it, he will be a long time
doing so. I do not think those violent paroxysms will continue, but they
may leave a kind of fatuity behind them which may be exceedingly
difficult to grapple with."
"In that case, he will not be able to give me the information I desire,
and all I can do is to take care that he is kindly treated somewhere,
poor lad. Poor fellow, his has been a hard lot. He evidently has a mind
of uncommon sensibility, as is manifest from his ravings."
"Yes, and that makes the case worse. However, we must hope for the best,
and I will call again in the morning."
"Will he awake soon?"
"Not for six or eight hours at least, and when he does, it is very
unlikely that those paroxysms will again ensue. He will be quiet
enough."
"Then it will be scarcely necessary, during that time, to watch him,
poor fellow?"
"Not at all. Of course, when he awakens it will be very desirable that
some one should be here to speak to him; for, finding himself in a
strange place, he will otherwise naturally be terrified."
All this was promised by the colonel, and the medical man left the
house, evidently with very slender hopes in his own mind of the recovery
of Tobias. The colonel and his friend retired to another room, and then,
after a consultation, they agreed that it was highly proper they should
inform Sir Richard Blunt of what had taken place, for although poor
Tobias was in no present condition to give any information, yet his
capture, if it might be called by such a term, was so important an event
that it would be unpardonable to keep it from the magistrate. They
accordingly went together to his house, and luckily finding him at home,
they at once communicated to him their errand. He listened to them with
the most profound attention, and when they had concluded, he said--
"Gentlemen, it will be everything, if this lad recovers sufficiently to
be a witness against his rascal of a master, for that is just what we
want. However, from the account you give me of him, I am very much
afraid the poor fellow's mind is too severely affected."
"That, too, is our fear."
"Well, we must do the best we can, and I should advise that when he
awakens some one should be by him with whose voice, as a friendly sound,
he will be familiar."
"Who can we get?"
"His poor mother."
"Ah, yes, I will set about that at once."
"Leave it to me," said Sir Richard Blunt, "leave that to me--I know
where to find Mrs. Ragg, and what's best to say to her in the case. Let
me see, in about four hours from now probably Tobias may be upon the
point of recovery."
"Most probably."
"Then, sir, expect me at your house in that time with Mrs. Ragg. I will
take care that the old lady's mind is put completely at ease, so that
she will aid us in any respect to bring about the recovery of her son,
who no doubt has suffered severely from some plan of Todd's to put him
out of the way. That seems to me to be the most likely solution to the
mystery of his present condition."
"Todd, I am convinced," said Colonel Jeffery, "would stop at no
villany."
"Certainly not. My own belief is, that he is so steeped to the lips in
crime, that he sees no other mode of covering his misdeeds already done
than by the commission of new ones. But his career is nearly at an end,
gentlemen."
The colonel and the captain took the rising of the magistrate from his
chair as a polite hint that he had something else to do than to gossip
with them any longer, and they took their leave, after expressing again
to him how much they appreciated his exertions.
"If the mystery of the fate of my unhappy friend," said the colonel, "is
ever cleared up, it will be by your exertion, Sir Richard, and he and I,
and society at large, will owe to you a heavy debt of gratitude for
unmasking so horrible a villain as Sweeney Todd, for that he is such no
one can doubt."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
JOHANNA WALKS ABROAD IN DISGUISE.
But, amid all the trials, and perplexities, and anxieties that beset the
dramatis personæ of our story, who suffered like Johanna? What heart
bled as hers bled? What heart heaved with sad emotion as hers heaved?
Alas! poor Johanna, let the fate of Mark Ingestrie be what it might, he
could not feel the pangs that tore thy gentle heart. Truly might she
have said--
"Man's love is of his life a thing apart
'Tis woman's whole existence,"
for she felt that her joy--her life itself, was bartered for the
remembrance of how she had been loved by him whose fate was involved in
one of the most painful and most inscrutable of mysteries. Where could
she seek for consolation, where for hope? The horizon of her young life
seemed ever darkening, and the more she gazed upon it with the fond hope
of singing--
"The first faint star of coming joy,"
the more confounded her gentle spirit became by the blackness of
despair. It is sad indeed that the young, the good, and the gentle,
should be the grand sufferers in this world, but so it is. The exquisite
capacity to feel acutely is certain to find ample food for agony. If
human nature could wrap itself up in the chill mantle of selfishness,
and be perfectly insensible to all human feeling, it might escape, but
such cannot be done by those who, like the fine and noble-minded Johanna
Oakley, sympathise with all that is beautiful and great in creation.
Already the pangs of hope deferred were feeding upon the damask of her
cheeks. The lily had usurped the rose, and although still exquisitely
beautiful, it was the pale beauty of a statue that she began to show to
those who loved her. In the street people would turn to gaze after her
with admiration blended with pity. They already looked upon her as half
an angel, for already it seemed as though she had shaken off much of her
earthly lurements, and was hastening to
"Rejoin the stars."
Let us look at her as she lies weeping upon the breast of her friend
Arabella Wilmot. The tears of the two young girls are mingling together,
but the one is playing the part of comforter, while the other mourns
over much.
"Now, Johanna," sobbed Arabella, "you talk of doing something to save
Mark Ingestrie, if he be living, or to bring to justice the man whom you