CHAPTER CLVIII.

TODD'S FEARFUL ADVENTURES ON THE RIVER.

"Shall I lay hold of her," thought Todd, "and choke her the moment she

comes into the room, or shall I answer her, and let her go again? Which

will be the safest course? I suppose I must let her go, for she might

possibly make a noise. Ah! how I should like to have my hand upon all

their throats!"

Mrs. Hardman came into the room on tip-toe, leaving the folding-door

just a little ajar.

"My dear sir," she said, "are you awake?"

"Oh, go to the deuce," said Todd.

"What did you remark, my dear sir?"

"Go along--go along--Eugh!--eugh! Oh, dear, how bad my cough is. I

dreamt that no end of people were talking and talking away in the next

room; but that can't be, as I have paid for it. Oh, dear!--oh!"

Mrs. Hardman took her cue from this; and she was at once resolved to

pass off the disturbance in the next room as merely a dream of her new

lodger.

"Dear me, sir," she said in the blandest possible accents; "have you

indeed had a dream? What a singular thing!"

"Eugh! Is it? I don't think so."

"Well, sir, when I say singular, of course I mean that it's very

natural. I always dream when I sleep in a strange bed, do you know, sir,

and sometimes the most horrid dreams."

"Oh, go along."

"Yes, sir, directly. Would you like anything got for you, sir? A nice

mutton chop for instance, or--or--"

"No--no! Good God, why don't you go?"

"I am going, sir. Thank you. There will be a very quiet house here, I

assure you, sir."

With these words, Mrs. Hardman was about to leave the room, flattering

herself that it was all passing off quite comfortably as a mere dream,

when Ben, thinking it incumbent upon him to do something civil, suddenly

popped his head into the room, and in a voice that sounded like the

growl of some bear for his food, he said--

"Take it easy, old gentleman. You'll find that easy does it all the

world over; and if so be as you ever comes near the Tower, just you ask

for Ben, and I'll show you the beasteses, all gratis, and for nothing.

Feeding time at four o'clock."

"Oh, you great ugly wretch!" cried Mrs. Hardman, dealing Ben a sound box

on the ear. "How dared you interfere, I should like to know, you monster

in inhuman shape?"

"Oh, lor!" said Ben, "I only hope another of the family ain't so handy

with her front paws."

"Oh--oh!" said Todd. "No peace!--no peace!"

Mrs. Hardman at once closed the door of communication between the two

rooms; for she quite despaired now of being able to make any apology to

her lodger, and she seemed much inclined to execute further vengeance

upon Ben, but Sir Richard Blunt interfered, saying--

"Come--come, Mrs. Hardman, you should recollect that what Ben said was

with the very best of motives, and any one, you know, may go wrong a

little in trying to do good. Let us all adjourn down stairs, and be no

further disturbance to this old gentleman, who, taking everything into

consideration, has, I think, shown quite an exemplary amount of

patience."

Todd heard those words. They seemed to him quite like a reprieve from

death.

"I will come down stairs, of course," said Mrs. Hardman, in an under

tone; "but for all that, this great monster of a Ben ought to be put in

one of his own cages, at the Tower, and there kept as a warning to all

people."

"A warning o' what, mum?" said Ben.

Mrs. Hardman was not very clear about what he would be a warning of, so

she got out of the difficulty by saying--"What's that to you,

stupid?"--and as Ben was rather slow in explaining that it did rather

concern him, she walked down stairs with a look of triumph that was

highly amusing to Sir Richard Blunt, as well as to Mr. Hardman, the

officer.

How Todd listened to the footsteps as they went down the stairs! How his

heart beat responsive to every one of them! and when he felt for certain

that that immediate and awful danger had passed away, he peeped out from

amid the mass of bed-clothes, with his eyes almost starting from his

head.

"Gone! gone!" he gasped. "He has really gone. My mortal enemy--the only

man who can make me tremble, that terrible Sir Richard Blunt! That he

should be within half-a-dozen paces of me; that he should hear me speak;

that he should only have to stretch out his hand to lay it upon my

shoulder, and yet that I should escape him! Oh, it cannot be real!"

Todd heard some accidental noise in the house, and he immediately dived

his head under the bed-clothes again.

"They are coming again!--they are coming again!" he gasped.

The noise led to nothing, and after a few moments, Todd became convinced

that it had nothing to do with him, so he ventured, half-suffocated, to

look up again.

"I must listen--I must listen," he said, in a low anxious tone. "I must

listen until he has gone. When I hear the street-door of the house shut,

I shall think that they have let him go and then I shall be able to

breathe again; but not before. Oh, no--no, not before--hush--hush! What

is that?"

Every little accidental sound in the house now set the heart of Todd

wildly beating. If one had come into the room, and said--"You are my

prisoner,"--the probability was, that he would have fainted; but if he

did not, it is quite certain that he could not have offered any

resistance. A child might have captured him then, during the accession

of terror that had come over him in that house, whither he had slunk

purposely for safety and for secrecy.

At length he heard a noise of voices in the passage, and then the

street-door was opened. As he lay, he could feel a rush of cold air in

consequence. Then it was closed again, and the house was very still.

"He has gone! He has gone!" said Todd.

The manner in which Todd pronounced these few words it would be

impossible to describe. No shivering wretch reprieved upon the scaffold,

with the rope round his neck, could feel a greater relief than did Todd,

when he found that the door of that house was really closed upon Sir

Richard Blunt.

And then he began to felicitate himself upon the fact that, after all,

he had come to that place; "for now," he thought, "I know that, although

I have been in great danger, it has passed away; and as Sir Richard

Blunt has transacted all his business in this house, he is not likely to

come to it again."

That was a pleasant thought, and as Todd dashed from his brow the heavy

drops that intense fear had caused to assemble there, he almost smiled.

A very profound stillness now reigned in the house, for Mrs. Hardman was

resolved to make up to her lodger--as well as she could--for the noise

and disturbance that had been so unwittingly caused in her front room.

She had made Ben go away, and as her husband had likewise gone, in

pursuance of the orders of Sir Richard Blunt, to take measures lest Todd

should make an escape by the Thames, the place remained as calm and

still as if no one were in it but herself.

Todd closed his eyes, and wearied nature sought relief in sleep. Even

Sweeney Todd, with more than twenty mortal murders on his conscience,

slept calmly for no less than six hours of that, to him, most eventful

day.

Twice during this long sleep of her lodger's had Mrs. Hardman stolen

into the front-room to listen, and been quite satisfied by the regular

breathing, that, at all events, her lodger was not dead; and she kept

herself upon the alert to attend to him whenever he should awake from

that deep sleep.

The long shadows of the houses on the other side of the street had

fallen upon the windows of the Hardmans' abode, and a slight fog began

to make itself perceptible in London, when Todd awoke.

"Help--help! Oh, God, where am I?" he cried.

He sprang half out of the bed, and then the full tide of recollection

came back to him, and he fully comprehended his situation in a moment.

"Hush!--hush!--hush!" he said; and he listened most intently to hear if

his sudden exclamation had attracted any attention.

He heard a footstep on the stairs.

"Hush!--hush!" he said again, "hush--who is it? I must be very careful

now!--Oh, very!"

The footstep paused at his door, and then he heard it in the next room,

and Mrs. Hardman advancing to the folding doors, said, in the blandest

of accents--

"Are you awake, sir, if you please?"

Todd at once assumed the tone in which he had formerly addressed her,

and replied--

"Yes, madam, yes. I am awake!"

"And how do you feel now, sir, if you please?"

"Oh, a great deal better, ma'am, a great deal better. Indeed, I feel

quite refreshed. I will come out directly, my dear madam. Pray have the

goodness to take this guinea. I shall want a cup of tea at times, and I

think I could take a cup now, my dear madam. You can get it out of that,

and keep the change, you know, till I want something else."

"Oh, really, sir," said Mrs. Hardman, as she put her hand through a

small opening of one of the folding doors and took the guinea. "It is

quite delightful to have so pleasant a lodger as yourself--oh, quite.--I

will get the tea directly, my dear sir, and pray make yourself quite at

home, if you please."

"Yes, ma'am, I will--I will."

"Do, sir. I should be really unhappy now, if I did not think you were

comfortable."

"Oh it's all right, ma'am. Eugh! Oh, dear! I do think my cough has been

better since I have been here."

"How delightful to hear you say that!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardman, speaking

in quite a tremulous voice of sympathetic emotion. "I will get the tea,

directly, sir."

She left the room, and as she went down the stairs, she said to

herself--

"What a pearl of a lodger, to be sure! He pays for everything over and

over again. I should not, now, in the least wonder but the dear old

gentleman will quite forget the change out of this guinea; if he does,

it is not for me to vex him by putting him in mind of it. I know well,

that old people never like it to be supposed that their memory fails

them; so if he says nothing about it, I am sure I shall not. Oh, dear,

no!"

"Wretch!" muttered Todd, as he crept out of the back room into the

front. "Wretch, I find that money will purchase anything in this house;

but am I surprised at that? Oh, no--no. Will not money purchase anything

in this great world? Of course it will. Why, then, should this house be

an exception to the rule so general? No--no. It is no exception; and I

may be very safe for a few guineas well spent; and they are well spent,

indeed. Oh, so well!"

Todd then, as he flung himself into the depths of an easy chair, that

was really easy for a wonder, considering that it was in a

lodging-house, began to arrange in his own mind his course of proceeding

for the night.

"Let me think--let me think," he muttered. "I am now very much refreshed

indeed, and feel quite strong and well, and equal to any emergency. That

sleep has done me a world of good, and it is strange, too, that it has

been the calmest and the quietest sleep I have enjoyed for many a month.

I hope it is not prophetic of some coming evil."

He shuddered at the thought. Todd was each day--ay, each hour, becoming

more and more superstitious.

"No--no. I will not think that. I will not be so mad as to disarm myself

of my courage, by thinking that for a moment. I will take my tea here,

and then I will sally forth, telling this woman that I will soon return,

and then, after a dose of brandy, I will hire a boat and take to the

river. What is that?"

The wind with a sudden gust came dashing against the windows, giving

them such a shake, that it seemed as if it were intent upon getting into

the room to buffet Todd.

He immediately rose, and going to the window, he placed his hideous face

close to one of the panes, and looked out.

The sky was getting very black, and huge clouds were careering about it.

The wind was evidently rising, and there was every appearance of its

being most squally and tempestuous. Todd bit his lips with vexation.

"Always something!" he said. "Always something to annoy me, and to cross

me. Always--always!"

"The tea, sir, if you please."

Todd turned round so suddenly, that he almost upset the servant with the

tea equipage.

"Oh, very well. That will do--that will do. You are the servant of the

house?"

"If you please, sir."

"Ah, you will then have to attend upon me while I am here, my dear, I

presume?"

"Yes, sir, if you please."

"Very good--very good. You are a very nice young woman, and there's

half-a-guinea for you. Eugh! I shall give you that sum every week while

I stay here, you know."

"Lor, sir, will you?"

"Yes, yes. You can go now. Is the tea all right?"

"Oh, dear, yes, sir. You are very good indeed. Misses said as you was a

very good lodger, which I knowed to mean as you didn't be _petikler_

about your money, and now I sees you ain't. Thank you, sir, for me. I'll

get up in the night if you want anythink."