The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™

by Oscar Wilde

  ‘Think you so? It is a warning, if it be such at all, that I should not be inclined to neglect; and if you will follow the dog, I will accompany you; there may be more in it than we think of, and we ought not to allow Mr Thornhill to be in want of any assistance that we can render him, when we consider what great assistance he has been to us. Look how anxious the poor beast is.’

  The captain ordered a boat to be launched at once, and manned by four stout rowers. He then sprang into it, followed by the passenger, who was a Colonel Jeffery, of the Indian army, and the dog immediately followed them, testifying by his manner great pleasure at the expedition they were undertaking, and carrying the hat with him, which he evidently showed an immense disinclination to part with.

  The captain ordered the boat to proceed up the river towards the Temple stairs, where Hector’s master had expressed his intention of proceeding, and, when the faithful animal saw the direction in which they were going, he lay down in the bottom of the boat perfectly satisfied, and gave himself up to that repose, of which he was evidently so much in need.

  It cannot be said that Colonel Jeffery suspected that anything of a very serious nature had happened; indeed, their principal anticipation, when they came to talk it over, consisted in the probability that Thornhill had, with an impetuosity of character they knew very well he possessed, interfered to redress what he considered some street grievance, and had got himself into the custody of the civil power in consequence.

  ‘Of course,’ said the captain, ‘Master Hector would view that as a very serious affair, and finding himself denied access to his master, see he has come off to us, which was certainly the most prudent thing he 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 steamboats, 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 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 enquire 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 his 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 eye 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 Philip’s, in Cateaton-street, and get me six-penny-worth of preserved figs, and don’t say that I don’t give you the money this time when you go on a message. I think I did before, but you swallowed it; and when you come back, just please 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 anyone having the appearance of an officer in the navy came to your house?’

  ‘Yes—a rather good-looking man, weatherbeaten, 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 Todd. ‘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 actually making efforts to explain something to the assemblage. They walked on until they reached the spectacle-maker’s, and there they paused; for they all of a sudden recollected that the mission that Mr Thornhill had 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 tonight; at least I have got 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 anyone 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 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 should himself 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, whom 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 he looked in the faces of the people who were around, he felt quite convinced that it would not be the most prudent thing in the world to interfere with the dog in any way that savoured of violence.

  ‘Where’s the dog’s master?’ said one.

  ‘Ah, where indeed?’ said Todd; ‘I should not wonder if he had come to some foul end!’

  ‘But I say, old soapsuds,’ cried a boy; ‘the dog says you did it.’

  There was a general laugh, but the barber was no means disconcerted, and he shortly replied, ‘Does he? he is wrong then.’

  Sweeney Todd had no desire to enter into anything like a controversy with the people, so he turned again and entered his own shop, in a distant corner of which he sat down, and folding his great gaunt-looking arms over his chest, he gave himself up to thought, and, if we might judge from the expression of his countenance, those thoughts were of a pleasant anticipatory character, for now and then he gave such a grim sort of smile as might well have sat upon the features of some ogre.

  And now we will turn to another scene, of a widely different character.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE PIE-SHOP IN BELL YARD

  Hark! Twelve o’clock at midday is cheerily proclaimed by St Dunstan’s church, and scarcely have the sounds done echoing throughout the neighbourhood, and scarcely has the clock of Lincoln’s-inn done chiming in with its announcement of the same hour, when Bell-yard, Temple-bar, becomes a scene of commotion. What a scampering of feet is there, what a laughing and talking, what a jostling to be first; and what an immense number of manoeuvres are resorted to by some of the throng to distance others!

  And mostly from Lincoln’s-inn do these persons, young and old, but most certainly a majority of the former, come bustling and striving, although from the neighbouring legal establishments likewise there come not a few; the Temple contributes its numbers, and from the more distant Gray’s-inn there come a goodly lot.

  Now Bell-yard is almost choked up, and a stranger would wonder what could be the matter, and most probably stand in some doorway until the commotion was over.

  Is it a fire? is it a fight? or anything else sufficiently alarming and extraordinary to excite the junior members of the legal profession to such a species of madness? No, it is none of these, nor is there a fat cause to be run for, which, in the hands of some clever practitioner, might become quite a vested interest. No, the enjoyment is purely one of a physical character, and all the pacing and racing—all this turmoil and trouble—all this pushing, jostling, laughing, and shouting, is to see who will get first to Lovett’s pie-shop.

  Yes, on the left-hand side of Bell-yard, going down from Carey-street, was, at the time we write of, one of the most celebrated shops for the sale of veal and po
rk pies that London ever produced. High and low, rich and poor, resorted to it; its fame had spread far and wide; and it was because the first batch of those pies came up at twelve o’clock that there was such a rush of the legal profession to obtain them.

  Their fame had spread even to great distances, and many persons carried them to the suburbs of the city as quite a treat to friends and relations there residing. And well did they deserve their reputation, those delicious pies; there was about them a flavour never surpassed, and rarely equalled; the paste was of the most delicate construction, and impregnated with the aroma of a delicious gravy that defies description. Then the small portions of meat which they contained were so tender, and the fat and the lean so artistically mixed up, that to eat one of Lovett’s pies was such a provocative to eat another, that many persons who came to lunch stayed to dine, wasting more than an hour, perhaps, of precious time, and endangering—who knows to the contrary?—the success of some lawsuit thereby.

  The counter in Lovett’s pie-shop was in the shape of a horseshoe, and it was the custom of the young bloods from the Temple and Lincoln’s-inn to sit in a row upon its edge while they partook of the delicious pies, and chatted gaily about one concern and another.

  Many an appointment was made at Lovett’s pie-shop, and many a piece of gossiping scandal was there first circulated. The din of tongues was prodigious. The ringing laugh of the boy who looked upon the quarter of an hour he spent at Lovett’s as the brightest of the whole twenty-four, mingled gaily with the more boisterous mirth of his seniors; and oh! with what rapidity the pies disappeared!

  They were brought up on large trays, each of which contained about a hundred, and from these trays they were so speedily transferred to the mouths of Mrs Lovett’s customers that it looked like a work of magic.

  And now we have let out some portion of the secret. There was a Mistress Lovett; but possibly our readers guessed as much, for what but a female hand, and that female buxom, young and good-looking, could have ventured upon the production of those pies. Yes, Mrs Lovett was all that; and every enamoured young scion of the law, as he devoured his pie, pleased himself with the idea that the charming Mrs Lovett had made that pie especially for him, and that fate or predestination had placed it in his hands.