CHAPTER CLIV.

DETAILS THE PERILOUS SITUATION OF THE BEADLE.

Todd had heard all this with anger and impatience rankling at his heart.

He began to have the most serious thoughts of sacrificing the

beadle--indeed, if any good could have been got to himself by so doing,

he would not have scrupled to do so with the greatest speed. As it was,

however, he could not concoct any plan of proceedings quickly which

would benefit him, and so he was compelled to remain an auditor of the

beadle's private thoughts, and a spectator of what he was about, when he

chose to peep over the edge of the pulpit.

"Well, it's astonishing," continued the beadle, "what a fever that

fellow Todd has kept me in for I don't know how long, one way or

another: me and Fleet Street have been regularly bothered by him. First

of all, I was in all sorts of doubts and uncertainties about the matter

before they took him and tried him, and was a-going to hang him, and

then I did think that he was as--good--as done--for--"

As he uttered these last words, the beadle was banging one of the

cushions of the communion-table, so that he was compelled for want of

breath to utter them at intervals.

"Oh, confound you!" muttered Todd, "if I only had hold of you, I would

throttle you, and then think of what to do afterwards."

Todd's great difficulty arose from the fact that he thought if he tried

to descend from the pulpit, the beadle might see him and get the start

of him in leaving the church, in which event the alarm that he would

raise in Fleet Street would be such, that any attempt to escape would be

attended by the greatest hazard.

"There is nothing for it but to wait," said Todd to himself gloomily. "I

can do nothing else; but woe to him when I do catch him!"

"This dusting job on a Saturday," said the beadle, "does seem to me to

be one of the most disagreeable of all that has to be done with the

church. I don't mind one's duty on a Sunday, but this is horrid. On a

Sunday there's lots of people, and the old place has a sort of cheerful

look about it, but now I don't like it, and I've a good mind to get one

of the charity-boys of the blessed parish to keep me company."

"I will kill him, too, if you do," muttered Todd.

The beadle paused upon this thought concerning the charity-boy; but as

he had finished the communion-table, he did not think that for the mere

dusting the pulpit and its cushions, it was worth while to make any

fuss.

"It will soon be over," he said, "very soon. I'll just pop up and settle

the pulpit, and then get home again as quick as I possibly can. I do

wonder, now, if that old Todd will be caught soon? The old wretch!"

The beadle began the ascent of the pulpit.

"It's my opinion," he said, "that Todd--as he had other folks made up

into pies--ought to be made into one himself, and then given to mad dogs

for a supper--Ha! ha! That's a very good thought of mine, and when I go

to the 'Pig's-eye, Tooth, and Tinder-box,' to-night, I will out with it,

and they will knock their pots and glasses against the table

beautifully, and cry out--'Well done, bravo!--bravo!' I rather think I'm

a great man at the 'Pig's-eye, Tooth and Tinder-box.'"

By this time the beadle had got quite to the top of the pulpit stairs,

and had his hand on the door. Todd was crouched down at the bottom of

the pulpit, waiting for him like some famished tiger ready to pounce

upon his prey. He fully intended to murder the unfortunate beadle.

"Well, here goes," said that most unhappily-situated functionary, as he

stepped into the pulpit.

Todd immediately grasped his legs.

"If you say one word, you are a dead man!"

The shock was too much for the nerves of the poor beadle of St.

Dunstan's, and on the instant he fainted, and fell huddled up at the

bottom of the little place.

Todd immediately stood upon the prostrate form of the parochial

authority.

"Ha! ha!" he laughed, "I have him now, and I shall be able to leave St.

Dunstan's yet."

He trampled as hard upon the beadle as he could, and then he took the

clasp knife from his pocket, and said--

"It will be better to kill him. Rise, idiot, rise, and tell me if you

can, why I should not cut your throat?"

The beadle neither moved nor spoke.

"Is he dead?" said Todd. "Has the fright killed him? It is strange; but

I have heard of such things. Why it surely must be so. The sudden shock

has been the death of him, and it would be a waste of time for me to

touch him. He is dead--he must be dead!"

Todd, full of this feeling, retreated two or three steps down the little

winding staircase of the pulpit, and then reaching in his hand, he

caught hold of the poor beadle by the hair of his head, and dragged him

sufficiently out of the pulpit to be enabled to look him in the face.

The eyes were closed, the inspiration seemed to be stopped, and there

was, in truth, every appearance of death about the unfortunate

functionary of the old church.

"Yes, dead," said Todd; "but it will be better for me. He will be found

here, and as no violence will show upon him, the doctors will learnedly

pronounce it a case of apoplexy, and there will arise no suspicion of my

having been here at all. It is much better, oh, much, than as if I had

killed him."

With this feeling, Todd pushed what he considered to be the dead body of

the beadle back into the pulpit again, and then himself rapidly

descended the little spiral flight of stairs.

The clock of St. Dunstan's struck the hour of ten, and Todd carefully

counted the strokes.

"Ten," he said. "A busy hour--a hour of broad daylight, and I with such

a price upon my head, and the hands of all men lifted against me, in one

of the most populous streets in the City of London! It is a fearful

risk!"

It was a fearful risk, and Todd might well shudder to find that his

temerity had brought him into such a position; but yet he felt that if

anything were to save him, it would be boldness, and not shrinking

timidity. One great cause of dread had passed away from Todd when Sir

Richard Blunt left the church. If in any way Todd had had to encounter

him, he would have shrunk back appalled at the frightful risk.

When he gained the body of the church, he glanced again up to the

pulpit, but all was there profoundly still; and the fact of the death of

the beadle appeared to him, Todd, to be so very firmly established, now,

as to require no further confirmation.

Although the beadle had closed the church door, he had placed the key,

most probably for security, in the inner side of the lock, and there

Todd found it. He thought it would be a good thing to put it in his

pocket, and he did so accordingly; and when the key was removed, he

placed his eye to the keyhole, and peeped out into Fleet Street.

Todd could see the people passing quickly, but no one cast a glance

towards the old church, and he began to reason with himself, that surely

there could be no difficulty in getting into the street quite unnoticed,

if not quite unobserved. Again he told himself that he was well

disguised.

"I dread no eye," he said, "but that of Sir Richard Blunt, and he is not

here to look upon me. There is not one else, I think, in London that

would know me through this disguise. There was never but one who could

do so, and she is dead. Yes, Mrs. Lovett might have known me, but she is

no more: so I will venture. Yes, I will venture now."

His heart failed him a little as he placed his hand upon the lock of the

church-door. It well might do so, for the risk he run, or was about to

run, was truly fearful. He was on the point of sallying out among a

population, the whole of whom were familiar with his name, and to whom

he was as a being accursed, who would upon the slightest hint of

identity be gladly hunted to the death.

Truly, Todd might well hesitate.

But yet to hesitate was perhaps to be lost. How could he tell now one

moment from another when some one might come to the church-door? and

then he would be in a worse position than before. Yes, he felt that he

must make the attempt to leave, whether that attempt should involve him

in destruction or not, for to stay were far worse.

He opened the door and coolly closed it again, and marched into Fleet

Street.

We say he did this coolly, but it were better to say that he acted a

coolness that he was far from feeling. A very tempest of terror was at

his heart. His brain for a moment or two felt like a volcano, and he

reeled as he felt himself in the broad open light of day in Fleet Street

among the throng of the population, and yet in that throng was in truth

his greatest safety.

"Ain't you well, sir?" said a man.

Todd started and placed his hand upon the knife that he had handy in his

pocket; and then he thought that after all it might only be a civil

inquiry, and he replied--

"Oh, yes, thank you--thank you, sir. But I am old."

"I beg your pardon, sir."

The man passed on.

"Oh, curse you! I should like to settle you," said Todd to himself as he

passed through Temple Bar; but what a relief it was to pass through

Temple Bar at all! To leave that now frightfully dangerous Fleet Street

behind him. Oh, yes, that was a relief indeed; and Todd felt as if some

heavy weight had been taken off his heart upon the moment that he set

foot in the Strand.

"Am I safe?" he muttered. "Am I safe? Oh, no, no. Do not let me be too

confident."

He was superstitiously afraid of pluming himself upon the fact of having

got so far in safety, lest at the moment that he did so, malignant

destiny might be revenged upon him, by bringing in his way some one who

might know him, even though his capital disguise; so he went on

tremblingly.

Todd did not like large open thoroughfares now, and yet, perhaps, if he

had set to work reasoning upon the subject, he would have come to the

conclusion that they were quite as safe, if not a few degrees safer for

him, than by-streets but there was something in the glaring publicity of

such a thoroughfare as the Strand that he shrunk from, and he was glad

to get from it into the gloomy precincts of Holywell Street.

That street then, as now, was certainly not the resort of the most

choice of the population of London, but Todd liked it, and he was

wonderfully attracted by a dirty-looking little public-house which was

then in it. A murder was committed in that house afterwards, and it lost

its licence, and was eventually destroyed by fire.

"Dare I go in here?" said Todd. "I am faint for want of food, and if I

do not have something soon I feel that I shall sink, and then there will

be a fuss, and who knows what horrible discovery might then take place?

This house is dark and gloomy, and in all likelihood is the resort of

gentlemen who are not in the habit of having any superfluous questions

asked of them; so it will suit me well."

He dived in at the narrow doorway, and found himself in one of the

smallest and darkest public-houses that he had ever beheld in all his

life, for although he had lived so long in Fleet Street so close at

hand, he had never ventured into that den.

"A nice parlour to the right, sir," said a rather masculine-looking

specimen of the fair sex in the bar.

"Thank you, madam."

Todd went to the right, and opening a little door, which, in consequence

of having a cord and pulley attached to it, made a great resistance, he

entered a little grimy room, the walls of which were of wainscot, but so

begrimed with tobacco smoke were they, that they were of the colour of

the darkest rose-wood, and the ceiling in no way differed from them in

tint. A fire was burning in a little wretched grate, and the floor was

covered with coarse sand, which crackled under Todd's feet.

The furniture of this little den, which certainly had the name of

'Parlour' from courtesy only, consisted of the coldest-looking rigid

wooden chairs and tables that could be imagined. Two men sat by the fire

trying to warm themselves, for a cold wind was blowing in the streets of

London, and the season was chilly and wintry for the time of the year.

Todd, when he found the parlour had some one in it, would gladly have

effected a retreat; but to do so, after he had made his way into the

middle of the room, would have only aroused suspicion, so he resolved to

go on, and carry the affair through; and for greater safety, he put on a

very infirm aspect, and appeared to be bent double by age and disease.

He coughed dreadfully.

"You don't seem to be very well, sir," said one of the men.

"Oh, dear me, no," said Todd. "When you are as old as I am, young man,

you won't wonder at infirmities coming upon you."

"Young man, do you call me? I am forty."

"Ah, forty! When I was forty, and that was thirty years ago, I thought

myself quite a youth. Oh, dear me, but what with the gout, and the

lumbago, and two or three more little things, I am nearly done for now.

Oh, dear me, life's a burthen."

"What would you like to have, sir?" said a girl who waited upon the

parlour guests, and who came in for Todd's order.

"Anything, my dear, you have in the house to eat, and some brandy to

drink, if you please."

"Sit by the fire, sir," said one of the men; "you will be more

comfortable. We ought to make way for age."

"Oh, dear no, I thank you. I must be somewhere where I can rest my poor

back at times, so I like this corner." It was a dark corner, and Todd

preferred it. "It will do very well for me, if you please. Oh, dear me;

don't disturb yourselves, gentlemen, on my account, I beg of you. I am

an old broken-down man, and have not long to live now in this world of

care and sorrow."