The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
could do, and I should not be at all surprised if he takes us to the
door of some watch-house, where we shall find our friend snug enough."
The tide was running up; and that Thornhill had not saved the turn of
it, by dropping down earlier to the vessel, was one of the things that
surprised the captain. However, they got up quickly, and as at that hour
there was not much on the river to impede their progress, and as at that
time the Thames was not a thoroughfare for little stinking steam-boats,
they soon reached the ancient Temple stairs.
The dog, who had until then seemed to be asleep, suddenly sprung up, and
seizing the hat again in his mouth, rushed again on shore, and was
closely followed by the captain and colonel.
He led them through the temple with great rapidity, pursuing with
admirable tact the precise path that his master had taken towards the
entrance to the Temple, in Fleet-street, opposite Chancery-lane. Darting
across the road then, he stopped with a low growl at the shop of Sweeney
Todd--a proceeding which very much surprised those who followed him, and
caused them to pause to hold a consultation ere they proceeded further.
While this was proceeding, Todd suddenly opened the door, and aimed a
blow at the dog with an iron bar, but the latter dexterously avoided it,
and, but that the door was suddenly closed again, he would have made
Sweeney Todd regret such an interference.
"We must inquire into this," said the captain; "there seems to be mutual
ill-will between that man and the dog."
They both tried to enter the barber's shop, but it was fast on the
inside; and, after repeated knockings, Todd called from within,
saying,--
"I won't open the door while that dog is there. He is mad, or has a
spite against me--I don't know nor care which--it's a fact, that's all I
am aware of."
"I will undertake," said the captain, "that the dog shall do you no
harm; but open the door, for in we must come, and will."
"I will take your promise," said Sweeney Todd; "but mind you keep it, or
I shall protect myself, and take the creature's life; so if you value
it, you had better hold it fast."
The captain pacified Hector as well as he could, and likewise tied one
end of a silk handkerchief round his neck, and held the other firmly in
his grasp, after which Todd, who seemed to have some means from within
of seeing what was going on, opened the door, and admitted his visitors.
"Well, gentlemen, shaved, or cut, or dressed, I am at your service;
which shall I begin with?"
The dog never took his eyes off Todd, but kept up a low growl from the
first moment of his entrance.
"It's rather a remarkable circumstance," said the captain, "but this is
a very sagacious dog, you see, and he belongs to a friend of ours, who
has most unaccountably disappeared."
"Has he really?" said Todd. "Tobias! Tobias!"
"Yes, sir."
"Run to Mr. Phillips's, in Cateaton-street, and get me six-pennyworth of
figs, and don't say that I don't give you the money this time when you
go a message. I think I did before, but you swallowed it; and when you
come back, just please to remember the insight into business I gave you
yesterday."
"Yes," said the boy, with a shudder, for he had a great horror of
Sweeney Todd, as well he might, after the severe discipline he had
received at his hands, and away he went.
"Well, gentlemen," said Todd, "what is it you require of me?"
"We want to know if any one having the appearance of an officer in the
navy came to your house?"
"Yes--a rather good-looking man, weather-beaten, with a bright blue eye,
and rather fair hair."
"Yes, yes! the same."
"Oh! to be sure, he came here, and I shaved him and polished him off."
"What do you mean by polishing him off?"
"Brushing him up a bit, and making him tidy; he said he had got
somewhere to go in the city, and asked me the address of a Mr. Oakley, a
spectacle-maker. I gave it him, and then he went away; but as I was
standing at my door about five minutes afterwards, it seemed to me, as
well as I could see the distance, that he got into some row near the
market."
"Did this dog come with him?"
"A dog came with him, but whether it was that dog or not I don't know."
"And that's all you know of him?"
"You never spoke a truer word in your life," said Sweeney Todd, as he
diligently stropped a razor upon his great horny hand.
This seemed something like a complete fix; and the captain looked at
Colonel Jeffery, and the colonel at the captain, for some moments, in
complete silence. At length the latter said,--
"It's a very extraordinary thing that the dog should come here if he
missed his master somewhere else. I never heard of such a thing."
"Nor I either," said Ford. "It is extraordinary; so extraordinary that
if I had not seen it, I would not have believed. I dare say you will
find him in the next watch-house."
The dog had watched the countenance of all parties during this brief
dialogue, and twice or thrice he had interrupted it by a strange howling
cry.
"I'll tell you what it is," said the barber; "if that beast stays here,
I'll be the death of him. I hate dogs--detest them; and I tell you, as I
told you before, if you value him at all, keep him away from me."
"You say you directed the person you describe to us where to find a
spectacle maker named Oakley. We happen to know that he was going in
search of such a person, and as he had property of value about him, we
will go there and ascertain if he reached his destination."
"It is in Fore-street--a little shop with two windows; you cannot miss
it."
The dog when he saw they were about to leave, grew furious; and it was
with the greatest difficulty they succeeded, by main force, in getting
him out of the shop, and dragging him some short distance with them, but
then he contrived to get free of the handkerchief that held him, and
darting back, he sat down at Sweeney Todd's door, howling most
piteously.
They had no resource but to leave him, intending fully to call as they
came back from Mr. Oakley's; and, as they looked behind them, they saw
that Hector was collecting a crowd round the barber's door, and it was a
singular thing to see a number of persons surrounding the dog, while he
to all appearance, appeared to be making efforts to explain something to
the assemblage. They walked on until they reached the spectacle-maker's,
there they paused; for they all of a sudden recollected that the mission
that Mr. Thornhill had to execute there was of a very delicate nature,
and one by no means to be lightly executed, or even so much as
mentioned, probably, in the hearing of Mr. Oakley himself.
"We must not be so hasty," said the colonel.
"But what am I to do? I sail to-night; at least I have to go round to
Liverpool with my vessel."
"Do not then call at Mr. Oakley's at all at present; but leave me to
ascertain the fact quietly and secretly."
"My anxiety for Thornhill will scarcely permit me to do so; but I
suppose I must, and if you write me a letter to the Royal Oak Hotel, at
Liverpool, it will be sure to reach me, that is to say, unless you find
Mr. Thornhill himself, in which case I need not by any means give you so
much trouble."
"You may depend upon me. My friendship for Mr. Thornhill, and gratitude,
as you know, for the great service he has rendered to us all, will
induce me to do my utmost to discover him; and, but that I know he set
his heart upon performing the message he had to deliver accurately and
well, I should recommend that we at once go into this house of Mr.
Oakley's, only that the fear of compromising the young lady--who is in
the case, and who will have quite enough to bear, poor thing, of her own
grief--restrains me."
After some more conversation of a similar nature, they decided that this
should be the plan adopted. They made an unavailing call at the
watch-house of the district, being informed there that no such person,
nor any one answering the description of Mr. Thornhill had been engaged
in any disturbance, or apprehended by any of the constables; and this
only involved the thing in greater mystery than ever, so they went back
to try and recover the dog, but that was a matter easier to be desired
and determined upon than executed, for threats and persuasions were
alike ineffectual.
Hector would not stir an inch from the barber's door. There he sat with
the hat by his side, a most melancholy and strange-looking spectacle,
and a most efficient guard was he for that hat, and it was evident, that
while he chose to exhibit the formidable row of teeth he did
occasionally, when anybody showed a disposition to touch it, it would
remain sacred. Some people, too, had thrown a few copper coins into the
hat, so that Hector, if his mind had been that way inclined, was making
a very good thing of it; but who shall describe the anger of Sweeney
Todd, when he found that he was so likely to be so beleaguered?
He doubted, if, upon the arrival of the first customer to his shop, the
dog might dart in and take him by storm; but that apprehension went off
at last, when a young gallant came from the Temple to have his hair
dressed, and the dog allowed him to pass in and out unmolested, without
making any attempt to follow him. This was something, at all events; but
whether or not it insured Sweeney Todd's personal safety, when he
himself should come out, was quite another matter.
It was an experiment, however, which he must try. It was quite out of
the question that he should remain a prisoner much longer in his own
place, so, after a time, he thought he might try the experiment, and
that it would be best done when there were plenty of people there,
because if the dog assaulted him, he would have an excuse for any amount
of violence he might think proper to use upon the occasion.
It took some time, however, to screw his courage to the sticking-place;
but at length, muttering deep curses between his clenched teeth, he made
his way to the door, and carried in his hand a long knife, which he
thought a more efficient weapon against the dog's teeth than the iron
bludgeon he had formerly used.
"I hope he will attack me," said Todd, to himself as he thought; but
Tobias, who had come back from the place where they sold the preserved
figs, heard him, and after devoutly in his own mind wishing that the dog
would actually devour Sweeney, said aloud--
"Oh dear, sir; you don't wish that, I'm sure!"
"Who told you what I wished, or what I did not? Remember, Tobias, and
keep your own counsel, or it will be the worse for you, and your mother
too--remember that."
The boy shrunk back. How had Sweeney Todd terrified the boy about his
mother! He must have done so, or Tobias would never have shrunk as he
did.
Then that rascally barber, who we begin to suspect of more crimes than
fall ordinarily to the share of man, went cautiously out of his shop
door: we cannot pretend to account for why it was so, but, as faithful
recorders of facts, we have to state that Hector did not fly at him, but
with a melancholy and subdued expression of countenance he looked up in
the face of Sweeney Todd; then he whined piteously, as if he would have
said, "Give me my master, and I will forgive you all that you have done;
give me back my beloved master, and you shall see that I am neither
revengeful nor ferocious."
This kind of expression was as legibly written in the poor creature's
countenance as if he had actually been endowed with speech, and uttered
the words themselves.
This was what Sweeney Todd certainly did not expect, and, to tell the
truth, it staggered and astonished him a little. He would have been glad
of an excuse to commit some act of violence, but he had now none, and as