Читать книгу Sweeney Todd - Anonymous - Страница 6

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The earliest dawn of morning was glistening on the masts, the cordage, and sails of a fleet of vessels lying below Sheerness.

Over the taffrail of one, in particular, a large-sized merchantman, which had been trading in the Indian seas, two men were leaning. One of them was the captain of the vessel, and the other a passenger, Colonel Jeffery, who intended leaving that morning. They were engaged in earnest conversation, and the captain, as he shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked along the surface of the river, said, in reply to some observation of his companion:

"I'll order my boat the moment Lieutenant Thornhill comes on board. I call him lieutenant, although I have no right to do so, because he has held that rank in the King's service, but when young, was cashiered for fighting a duel with his superior officer."

"The service has lost a good officer," said the other.

"It has, indeed. I [illegible] what keeps him. He went last night, and said he would pull up to the Temple stairs, because he wanted to call on somebody by the waterside; and after that he was going to the City to transact some business of his own, and that would have brought him nearer here, you see."

"He's coming," said the other.

"What makes you think that?"

"Because I see his dog. There, don't you see, swimming in the water towards the ship."

"I cannot imagine--I can see the dog, certainly--but I can't see Thornhill; nor is there any boat at hand. I know not what to make of it. Do you know, my mind misgives me that something has happened amiss. The dog seems exhausted."

Then addressing the crew, he shouted:

"Lend a hand there to Mr. Thornhill's dog, some of you." And in a suppressed voice he said to his companion:

"Why, it's a hat he has in his mouth!"

The dog made towards the vessel; and as with the assistance of the seamen he reached the deck, he sank down upon it in a state of exhaustion, with the hat still in his grasp.

As the animal lay, panting, upon the deck, the sailors looked at each other in amazement, and there was but one opinion among them all now, and that was that something very serious had unquestionably happened to Mr. Thornhill.

"I dread," said the captain, "an explanation of this occurrence. What on earth can it mean? That's Thornhill's hat, and here in Hector. Give the dog some meat and drink directly--he seems thoroughly exhausted."

The dog ate sparingly of some food that was put before him; and then, seizing the hat again in his mouth, he stood by the side of the ship and howled piteously; then he put down the hat for a moment, and, walking, up to the captain, he pulled him by the skirt of his coat.

"You, understand him," Said L the captain to the passenger; "something has happened to Thornhill, I'll be bound; and you see object of the dog is to got me to follow him to see what it's about."

"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 so accompany you; there may be more in it than we think of, when we look how anxious the poor beast is."

The captain ordered a boat to be launched at once, and manned by four stout rowers, 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.

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 soon reached the Temple.

The dog, who until then had seemed to be asleep, suddenly sprang up, and, seizing the hat again in his mouth, rushed on shore, and was closely followed by the captain and colonel.

The dog led them through the Temple with great rapidity, pursuing with admirable sagacity 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 Toad; "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 had 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 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 anyone 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."

"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 gently 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.

The dog had watched the countenances of all parties during the 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--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, but he contrived to get free of them, 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. 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 Mrs. Oakley.

"We must not be so hasty," said the colonel.

"But what am I to do? I sail tonight; 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."

"You may depend upon me. But that I know he set his heart upon performing the message he had to deliver, I should recommend that we at once get into this home 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.

Retracing their steps they found that Hector would not move an inch from the barber's door. There he sat with the hat by his side-exhibiting occasionally a formidable row of teeth when anybody shoed a disposition to touch 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 himself should come out, was quite another matter.

It was, an experiment, however; which he must try. 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 shrank back. How bad Sweeney Todd terrified the boy about his mother! He must have done so, or Tobias would never have shrunk as he did.

Then the barber 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 uttered the words.

This was what Sweeney Todd certainly did not expect. He would have been glad of any 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 a foul end!"

"But I say, old soap-suds," cried a boy, "the dog says you did it."

There was a general laugh, but the barber was by no means disconcerted; he shortly replied:

"Does he? He is wrong then."

Sweeney Todd had no desire to enter into anything like a controversy with 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 rivetted his eyes on the door, and if we may judge from the expression of his countenance his thoughts were not of a pleasant anticipatory character, for now and then he gave a grin as may well have sat on the features of a demon.