Hector whined a kind of recognition of this man, but he did not move from the chair in Todd's shop upon which he had seated himself.
"Come, old fellow," said the man, "you don't want to be shaved, do you?"
Hector gave a short bark, but he wagged his tail as much as to intimate--"Mind, I am not at all angry with you." And indeed it was quite evident, from the manner of the dog to this man, that there was a good understanding between them.
"Come now, Pison," said the man, "don't be making a fool of yourself here any more. You ain't on friendly terms here, my tulip."
"Hilloa!" cried Todd.
The man gave a start, and Hector uttered an angry growl.
"Hilloa! Who are you?"
"Why, I'm the ostler at the 'Bullfinch!' oppesite."
"Is that your dog?"
"Why in a manner o' speaking, for want of a better master, he's got me."
The ostler, by dint of shading his eyes with his hands, and looking very intently, at last saw Todd, and then he added--
"Oh, it's you, master, is it?"
"Take away that animal directly," cried Todd. "Take him away. I hate dogs. Curses on both you and him; how came he here?"
"Ah, Pison, Pison, why did you come here, you good for nothink feller you? You ought to have knowed better. Didn't I always say to you--leastways, since I've had you--didn't I say to you--'Don't you go over the way, for that ere barber is your natural enemy, Pison,' and yet here yer is."
As he spoke, the ostler embraced Hector, who was not at all backward in returning the caress, although in the midst of it he turned his head in the direction of the back-parlour, and gave a furious bark at Todd.
"There is some mystery at the bottom of all this," muttered Todd; and then raising his voice, he added--"How did you come by the dog?"
"Why, I'll tell you, master. For a matter of two days, you know, he stuck at your door with a hat as belonged--"
"Well, well!"
"Yes, his master, folks said, was murdered."
"Ha! ha!"
"Eh? Oh, Lord, what was that?"
"Only me; I laughed at the idea of anybody being murdered in Fleet Street, that was all."
"Oh, ah! It don't seem very likely. Well, as I was a saying, arter you had finished off his master--"
"I?"
"Oh, I begs your pardon! Only, you see, the dog would have it that you had, and so folks say so as natural as possible; but, howsomdever, I comed by and seed this here dog in the agonies o' conwulsions all along o' pison. Now where I come from, the old man--that's my father as was--had lots o' dogs, and consekewently I knowed somethink about them ere creturs; so I takes up this one and carries him on my back over the way to the stables, and there I cures him and makes a pet of him, and I called him Pison, cos, you see, as he had been pisoned. Lor, sir, you should only have seed him, when he was a getting a little better, how he used to look at me and try to say--'Bill, don't I love you neither!' It's affection--that it is, blow me!"
Todd gave an angry snarl of derision.
"I tell you what it is, my man," he said; "if you will hang that dog, I will give you a guinea."
"Hang Pison? No, old 'un, I'd much rather hang you for half that ere money. Come along, my daffydowndilly. Don't you stay here any more. Why, I do believe it was you as pisoned him, you old bloak."
The ostler seized Hector, or Pison, as he had fresh christened him, round the neck, and fairly dragged him away out of the shop. To be sure, if Hector had resisted, the ostler, with all the power of resistance he possessed, it would indeed have been no easy matter to remove him; but it was wonderful to see how nicely the grateful creature graduated his struggles, so that they fell short of doing the smallest hurt to his preserver, and yet showed how much he wished to remain as a terror and a reproach to Sweeney Todd. When they were both fairly gone, Todd emerged from his parlour again, and the horrible oaths and imprecations he uttered will not bear transcription. With eager haste he again bundled into the cupboard all the things that the dog had dragged out of it, and then stamping his foot, he said--
"Am I, after defeating the vigilance of heaven only knows who, and for so long preserving myself from almost suspicion, to live in dread of a dog? Am I to be tormented with the thought that that fiend of an animal is opposite to me, and ready at any moment to fly over here and chase me out of my own shop. Confound it! I cannot and will not put up with such a state of things. Oh, if I could but get one fair blow at him. Only one fair blow!"
As he spoke he took up a hammer that was in a corner of the shop, and made a swinging movement with it through the air. Some one at that moment opened the shop door, and narrowly escaped a blow upon the head, that would have finished their mortal career.
"Hilloa! Are you mad?"
"Mad!" said Todd.
"Yes: do you knock folks' brains out when they come to be shaved?"
"Mine's a sedentary employment," said Todd, "and when I am alone, I like exercise to open my chest. That's all. Ain't it rather late to be shaved? I was just about to shut up."
"Why it is rather late, Mr. Todd; but the fact is, I am going to York by the early coach from the Bullfinch Inn, opposite, and I want a shave before I get upon my journey, as I shan't have an opportunity you see, again, for some time."
"Very well, sir."
"Come in, Charley."
Todd started.
"What's that?" he said. He felt afraid that it was the dog again, under some new name. Truly, conscience was beginning to make a coward of Sweeney Todd, although he denied to himself the possession of such an article. Charley came in the shape of a little boy, of about eight years of age.
"Now you sit down, and don't do any mischief," said the father, "while I get Mr. Todd to shave me. I am a late customer indeed. You see the coach goes in two hours, and as I have got to call the last thing upon Alderman Stantons, I thought I would be shaved first, and my little lad here would come with me."
"Oh, certainly, sir," said Todd; "I believe I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Brown, the silversmith."
"Yes--yes. The alderman gave me some jewels, worth about three thousand pounds, to re-set, and though they are not done, I really don't like to have them at home while I take such a journey, so I want to lodge them with him again until I come back."
Todd lathered away at Mr. Brown's chin, as he said with an air of innocence--
"Can you carry so many jewels about with you, sir?"
"So many? Aye, ten times as many. Why they are all in a little narrow case, that would not hold a pair of razors."
"Indeed!"
Todd began the shaving.
"And so this is your little boy? A sharp lad, no doubt."
"Tolerable."
"The whiskers as they are, sir?"
"Oh, yes--yes."
"I suppose you never trust him out alone in the streets?"
"Oh, yes; often."
"Is it possible. Well, now, I should hardly have thought it. What a sweet child he looks, and such a nice complexion, too. It's quite a pleasure to see him. I was considered myself a very fine child a good while ago."
Todd took care to lift the razor judiciously, so as to give Mr. Brown opportunities of replying; and the silversmith said--
"Oh, yes; he's a nice little fellow. He's got his mother's complexion."
"And he shan't lose it," said Todd, "if there's any virtue in pearlometrical savonia."
"In what?"
"Oh, that's the name I give to a soap that preserves the complexion in all its purity. I have only a small parcel of it, so I don't sell it, but I give it away now and then, to my lady customers. Excuse me for one moment."
"Oh, certainly."
Todd opened a glass case, and took out two pieces of soap, of a yellowish tint.
"There, Charley," he said as he handed them to the little fellow. "There's a piece for you, and a piece for mamma."
"Really you are very kind, Mr. Todd," said Brown.
"Oh, don't mention it. Run home at once, Charley, with them, and by the time you get back your father will be--finished. Run along."
"I won't," said Charley.
"Ah, come--come," said his father.
"I won't go, and I don't like soap."
"And why don't you like soap, my little man?" said Todd, as he recommenced operations upon the silversmith's face.
"Because I don't like to be washed at all, it scrubs so, and I don't like you, either, you are so dreadfully ugly--that I don't."
Todd smiled blandly.
"Now, Charley," said his father, "I am very angry with you. You are a very bad boy indeed. Why don't you do as Mr. Todd tells you?"
"Because I won't."
"Bless him," said Todd, "bless his heart. But don't you think, Mr. B."--here Todd's voice sank to a whisper--"don't you think that it's rather injudicious to encourage this obstinacy--if one may call it such--thus early in life? It may, you know, grow upon the dear little fellow."
"You are right, Mr. Todd; and I know that he is spoiled; but I have a more than ordinary affection for him, since, under most critical circumstances, once I saved his life. From that time, I confess that I have been weak enough to allow him too much of his own way. Thank you, Mr. Todd. A very clean comfortable shave indeed."
Mr. Brown rose from his chair and approached the little boy.
"Charley, my dear," he said; "you will save papa's life some day, won't you?"
"Yes," said Charley.
The father kissed him; as he added--
"How affected I feel to-night. I suppose it's the thought of the long journey I am going."
"No doubt," said Todd.
"Good night, Mr. Todd. Come along, Charley."
"Won't you give me a kiss, you darling, before you go?" said Todd.
"No, ugly, I won't."
"Oh, Charley--Charley, your behaviour to Mr. Todd is really anything but right. You are a very bad boy to-night. Come along."
Away they went, and Todd stood stropping the lately-used razor upon his hand, as he glared upon them, and muttered--
"Jewels worth three thousand pounds! And so you saved the child's life, did you? By all that's devilish he has returned the obligation."
He went to the door and looked after the retreating figures of the silversmith and his child. He saw with what tender care the father lifted the little one over the road-way, and again he muttered--
"Three thousand pounds gone!--gone, when it was almost within my grasp. All this is new. I used not to be the sport of such accidents and adverse circumstances. Time was, when by the seeming irresistible force of my will, I could bend circumstances to my purposes, but now I am the sport of dogs and children. What is the meaning of it all? Is my ancient cunning deserting me? Is my brain no longer active and full of daring?"
He crept back into his shop again. The hour was now getting late, and after sitting for some time in silent musing he rose, and without a word, commenced closing his establishment for the night.
"I must have another boy," he said, as he put up the last shutter and secured it in its place. "I must have another boy. This state of things will not do. I must certainly have another boy. Tobias Ragg would have suited me very well, if he had not been so--so--what shall I call it, confoundedly imaginative. But he is dead--dead! that is a comfort. He is dead, and I must have another boy."
Bang! went Sweeney Todd's shop door. The beautiful moon climbed over the house-tops in old Fleet Street. The clock of St. Dunstan's struck the hour of eleven. The streets began to be thin of pedestrians, and the din of carriages had almost entirely ceased. London then, although it was so not long ago, presented a very different aspect at the hour of eleven to what it does now. The old hackney-coaches had not been ousted from the streets by the cabs and the omnibuses, and the bustle of the city was indeed but a faint echo then, of what it is now. Time changes all things.
