She leant upon the arm of the garden-seat, and gave herself up to such a passion of tears that Colonel Jeffery felt he dared not interrupt her.
There is something exceedingly sacred about real grief, which awes the beholder, and it was with an involuntary feeling of respect that Colonel Jeffery stepped a few paces off, and waited until that burst of agony had passed away.
It was during those few brief moments that he overheard some words uttered by one who seemed likewise to be suffering from that prolific source of all affliction, disappointed affection. Seated at some short distance was a maiden, and one not young enough to be called a youth, but still not far enough advanced in existence to have had all his better feelings crushed by an admixture with the cold world, and he was listening while the maiden spoke.
‘It is the neglect,’ she said, ‘which touched me to the heart. But one word spoken or written, one message of affection, to tell me that the memory of a love I thought would be eternal, still lingered in your heart, would have been a world of consolation; but it came not, and all was despair.’
‘Listen to me,’ said her companion, ‘and if ever in this world you can believe that one who truly loves can be cruel to be kind, believe that I am that one. I yielded for a time to the fascination of a passion which should never have found a home within my heart; but yet it was far more of a sentiment than a passion, inasmuch as never for one moment did an evil thought mingle with its pure aspirations.
‘It was a dream of joy, which for a time obliterated a remembrance that ought never to have been forgotten; but when I was rudely awakened to the fact that those whose opinions were of more importance to your welfare and your happiness knew nothing of love, but in its grossest aspect, it became necessary at once to crush a feeling which, in its continuance, could shadow forth nothing but evil.
‘You may not imagine, and you may never know, for I cannot tell the heart-pangs it has cost me to persevere in a line of conduct which I felt was due to you – whatever heart-pangs it might cost me. I have been content to imagine that your affection would turn to indifference, perchance to hatred; that a consciousness of being slighted would arouse in your defence all a woman’s pride, and that thus you would be lifted above regret. Farewell for ever! I dare not love you honestly and truly; and better is it thus to part than to persevere in a delusive dream that can but terminate in degradation and sadness.’
‘Do you hear those words?’ whispered Colonel Jeffery to Johanna. ‘You perceive that others suffer, and from the same cause, the perils of affection.’
‘I do. I will go home, and pray for strength to maintain my heart against this sad affliction.’
‘The course of true love never yet ran smooth; wonder not, therefore, Johanna Oakley, that yours has suffered such a blight. It is the great curse of the highest and noblest feelings of which humanity is capable, that while, under felicitous circumstances, they produce an extraordinary amount of happiness, when anything adverse occurs, they are most prolific sources of misery. Shall I accompany you?’
Johanna felt grateful for the support of the colonel’s arm towards her own home, and as they passed the barber’s shop they were surprised to see that the dog and the hat were gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Barber and the Lapidary
It is night and a man, one of the most celebrated lapidaries in London, but yet a man frugal withal, although rich, is putting up the shutters of his shop.
This lapidary is an old man; his scanty hair is white, and his hands shake as he secures the fastenings, and then, over and over again, feels and shakes each shutter, to be assured that his shop is well secured. This shop of his is in Moor-fields, then a place very much frequented by dealers in bullion and precious stones. He was about entering his door, just having cast a satisfied look upon the fastenings of his shop, when a tall, ungainly-looking man stepped up to him. This man had a three-cornered hat, much too small for him, perched upon the top of his great, hideous-looking head, while the coat he wore had ample skirts enough to have made another of ordinary dimensions. Our readers will have no difficulty in recognising Sweeney Todd, and well might the little old lapidary start as such a very unprepossessing-looking personage addressed him.
‘You deal,’ he said, ‘in precious stones.’
‘Yes, I do,’ was the reply; ‘but it’s rather late. Do you want to buy or sell?’
‘To sell.’
‘Humph! Ah, I dare say it’s something not in my line; the only order I get is for pearls, and they are not in the market.’
‘And I have nothing but pearls to sell,’ said Sweeney Todd; ‘I mean to keep all my diamonds, my garnets, topazes, brilliants, emeralds, and rubies.’
‘The deuce you do! Why, you don’t mean to say you have any of them? Be off with you! I am too old to joke with, and am waiting for my supper.’
‘Will you look at the pearls I have?’
‘Little seed-pearls, I suppose; they are of no value, and I don’t want them; we have plenty of those. It’s real, genuine, large pearls we want. Pearls worth thousands.’
‘Will you look at mine?’
‘No; good-night!’
‘Very good; then I will take them to Mr Coventry up the street. He will, perhaps, deal with me for them if you cannot.’
The lapidary hesitated. ‘Stop,’ he said; ‘what’s the use of going to Mr Coventry? He has not the means of purchasing what I can present cash for. Come in, come in; I will, at all events, look at what you have for sale.’
Thus encouraged, Sweeney Todd entered the little, low, dusky shop, and the lapidary having procured a light, and taken care to keep his customer outside the counter, put on his spectacles, and said, ‘Now, sir, where are your pearls?’
‘There,’ said Sweeney Todd, as he laid a string of twenty-four pearls before the lapidary.
The old man’s eye opened to an enormous width, and he pushed his spectacles right up upon his forehead, as he glared in the face of Sweeney Todd with undisguised astonishment. Then down he pulled his spectacles again, and taking up the string of pearls, he rapidly examined every one of them, after which he exclaimed, ‘Real, real, by Heaven! All real!’
Then he pushed his spectacles up again to the top of his head and took another long stare at Sweeney Todd.
‘I know they are real,’ said the latter. ‘Will you deal with me or will you not?’
‘Will I deal with you? Yes; I am quite sure that they are real. Let me look again. Oh, I see, counterfeits; but so well done, that really, for the curiosity of the thing, I will give £50 for them.’
‘I am fond of curiosities,’ said Sweeney Todd, ‘and, as they are not real, I’ll keep them: they will do for a present to some child or other.’
‘What! give those to a child? You must be mad – that is to say, not mad, but certainly indiscreet. Come, now, at a word, I’ll give you £100 for them.’
‘Hark ye,’ said Sweeney Todd, ‘it neither suits my inclination nor my time to stand here chaffing with you. I know the value of the pearls, and, as a matter of ordinary and every-day business, I will sell them to you so that you may get a handsome profit.’
‘What do you call a handsome profit?’
‘The pearls are worth £12,000, and I will let you have them for ten. What do you think of that for an offer?’
‘What odd noise was that?’
‘Oh, it was only I who laughed. Come, what do you say, at once; are we to do business or are we not?’
‘Hark ye, me friend, since you do know the value of your pearls, and this is to be a downright business transaction, I think I can find a customer who will give £11,000 for them, and if so, I have no objection to give you £8,000.’
‘Give me the £8,000,’ said Sweeney Todd, ‘and let me go. I hate bargaining.’
‘Stop a bit; there are some rather important things to consider. You must know, my friend, that a string of pearls of this value are not to be bought like a few ounces of old silver of anybody who might come
with it. Such a string of pearls as these are like a house, or an estate, and when they change hands, the vendor of them must give every satisfaction as to how he came by them, and prove how he can give to the purchaser a good right and title to them.’
‘Psha!’ said Sweeney Todd, ‘who will question you, who are well known to be in the trade, and to be continually dealing in such things?’
‘That’s all very fine; but I don’t see why I should give you the full value of an article without evidence as to how you came by it.’
‘In other words, you mean, you don’t care how I came by them, provided I sell them to you at a thief’s price, but if I want their value you mean to be particular.’
‘My good sir, you may conclude what you like. Show me you have a right to dispose of the pearls, and you need go no further than my shop for a customer.’
‘I am not disposed to take that trouble, so I shall bid you good-night, and when you want any pearls again, I would certainly advise you not to be so wonderfully particular where you get them.’
Sweeney Todd strode towards the door, but the lapidary was not going to part with him so easy, for springing over his counter with an agility one would not have expected from so old a man, he was at the door in a moment, and shouted at the top of his lungs, ‘Stop thief! Stop thief! Stop him! There he goes! The big fellow with the three-cornered hat! Stop thief! Stop thief!’
These cries, uttered with great vehemence, as they were, could not be totally ineffective, but they roused the whole neighbourhood, and before Sweeney Todd had proceeded many yards a man made an attempt to collar him, but was repulsed by such a terrific blow in his face, that another person, who had run half-way across the road with a similar object, turned and went back again, thinking it scarcely prudent to risk his own safety in apprehending a criminal for the good of the public.
Having thus got rid of one of his foes, Sweeney Todd, with an inward determination to come back someday and be the death of the old lapidary, looked anxiously about for some court down which he could plunge, and so get out of sight of the many pursuers who were sure to attack him in the public streets.
His ignorance of the locality, however, was a great bar to such a proceeding, for the great dread he had was, that he might get down some blind alley, and so be completely caged, and at the mercy of those who followed him.
He pelted on at a tremendous speed, but it was quite astonishing to see how the little old lapidary ran after him, falling down every now and then, and never stopping to pick himself up, as people say, but rolling on and getting on his feet in some miraculous manner, that was quite wonderful to behold, particularly in one so aged, and so apparently unable to undertake any active exertion.
There was one thing, however, he could not continue doing, and that was to cry ‘stop thief!’ for he had lost his wind, and was quite incapable of uttering a word. How long he would have continued the chase is doubtful, but his career was suddenly put an end to, as regards that, by tripping his foot over a projecting stone in the pavement, and shooting headlong down a cellar which was open.
But abler persons than the little old lapidary had taken up the chase, and Sweeney Todd was hard pressed; and, although he ran very fast, the provoking thing was, that in consequence of the cries and shouts of his pursuers, new people took up the chase, who were fresh and vigorous, and close to him.
There is something awful in seeing a human being thus hunted by his fellows; and although we can have no sympathy with a man such as Sweeney Todd, because, from all that has happened, we begin to have some very horrible suspicions concerning him, still, as a general principle, it does not decrease the fact that it is a dreadful thing to see a human being hunted through the streets.
On he flew at the top of his speed, striking down whoever opposed him, until at last many who could have outrun him gave up the chase, not liking to encounter the knockdown blow which such a hand as his seemed capable of inflicting.
His teeth were set, and his breathing came short and laborious, just as a man sprung out at a shop-door and succeeded in laying hold of him.
‘I have got you, have I?’ he said.
Sweeney Todd uttered not a word, but, puffing forth an amount of strength that was perfectly prodigious, he seized the man by a great handful of his hair and by his clothes behind, and flung him through the shop-window, smashing glass, frame-work, and everything in his progress.
The man gave a shriek, for it was his own shop, and he was a dealer in fancy goods of the most flimsy texture, so that the smash with which he came down among his stock-in-trade, produced at once what the haberdashers are so delighted with in the present day, a ruinous sacrifice.
This occurrence had a great effect upon Sweeney Todd’s pursuers; it taught them the practical wisdom of not interfering with a man possessed evidently of such tremendous powers of mischief, and consequently, as just about this period the defeat of the little lapidary took place, he got considerably the start of his pursuers.
But he was by no means yet safe. The cry of ‘stop thief!’ still sounded in his ears, and on he flew, panting with the exertion he made, until he heard a man behind him say, –
‘Turn into the second court on your right and you will be safe. I’ll follow you. They shan’t nab you, if I can help it.’
Sweeney Todd had not much confidence in human nature – it was not likely he would; but, panting and exhausted as he was, the voice of anyone speaking in friendly accents was welcome, and, rather impulsively than from reflection, he darted down the second court to his right.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Thieves Home
In a very few minutes Sweeney Todd found that this court had no thoroughfare, and therefore there was no outlet or escape; but he immediately concluded that something more was to be found than was at first sight to be seen, and, casting a furtive glance beside him in the direction in which he had come, rested his hand upon a door which stood close by.
The door gave way, and Sweeney Todd hearing, as he imagined, a noise in the street, dashed in and closed the door, and then he, heedless of all consequences, walked to the end of a long, dirty passage, and, pushing open a door, descended a short flight of steps, to the bottom of which he had scarcely got, when the door which faced him at the bottom of the steps opened by some hand, and he suddenly found himself in the presence of a number of men seated round a large table.
In an instant all eyes were turned towards Sweeney Todd, who was quite unprepared for such a scene, and for a minute he knew not what to say; but, as indecision was not Sweeney Todd’s characteristic, he at once advanced to the table and sat down.
There was some surprise evinced by the persons who were seated in that room, of whom there were many more than a score, and much talking was going on among them, which did not appear to cease on his entrance.
Those who were near him looked hard at him, but nothing was said for some minutes, and Sweeney Todd looked about to understand, if he could, how he was placed, though it could not be much of a matter of doubt as to the character of the individuals present.
Their looks were often an index to their vocations, for all grades of the worst of characters were there, and some of them were by no means complimentary to human nature, for there were some of the most desperate characters that were to be found in London.
They were dressed in various fashions, some after the manner of the city – some more gay, and some half military, while not a few wore the garb of country-men; but there was in all that an air of scampish, offhand behaviour, not unmixed with brutality.
‘Friend,’ said one, who sat near him, ‘how came you here; are you known here?’
‘I came here, because I found the door open, and I was told by someone to come here, as I was pursued.’
‘Pursued!’
‘Ay, someone running after me, you know.’
‘I know what being pursued is,’ replied the man, ‘and yet I know nothing of you.’
‘That is not at all astonis
hing,’ said Sweeney, ‘seeing that I never saw you before, nor you me; but that makes no difference. I’m in difficulties, and I suppose a man may do his best to escape the consequences.’
‘Yes, he may, yet there is no reason why he should come here; this is the place for free friends, who know and aid one another.’
‘And such I am willing to be; but at the same time I must have a beginning. I cannot be initiated without someone introducing me. I have sought protection, and I have found it; if there be any objection to my remaining here any longer, I will leave.’
‘No, no,’ said a tall man on the other side of the table, ‘I have heard what you said, and we do not usually allow any such things; you have come here unasked, and now we must have a little explanation, our own safety may demand it; at all events we have our customs, and they must be complied with.’
‘And what are your customs?’ demanded Todd.
‘This: you must answer the questions which we shall propound unto you; now answer truly what we shall ask of you.’
‘Speak,’ said Todd, ‘and I will answer all that you proposed to me if possible.’
‘We will not tax you too hardly, depend upon it: who are you?’
‘Candidly, then,’ said Todd, ‘that’s a question I do not like to answer, nor do I think it is one that you ought to ask. It is an inconvenient thing to name oneself – you must pass by that enquiry.’
‘Shall we do so?’ enquired the interrogator of those around him, and, gathering his cue from their looks, he after a brief pause continued, –
‘Well, we will pass over that, seeing it is not necessary; but you must tell us what you are, cutpurse, footpad, or what not?’
The String of Pearls: a Romance--The Original Sweeney Todd Page 7