TAKES A PEEP AT TOBIAS AT THE COLONEL'S HOUSE.
The more stirring events of our story, have compelled us in some measure
to neglect poor Tobias. He had suffered very much from that visit of
Todd's to the colonel's house, and it had a very prejudicial effect upon
his mind too, inasmuch as it deprived him of that feeling of security,
which had before possessed him beneath that roof.
The colonel felt this very acutely, and he could not help perceiving by
Tobias's manner, that the faith he put in his assurance that Todd could
not possibly again come near him, was not full and complete. Under these
circumstances, then, it was a very great satisfaction to the colonel to
be able to make the gratifying communication he had it in his power to
make to Tobias, on the morning following the arrest of Todd and Mrs.
Lovett.
The illness contingent upon the fright that Todd had given the poor boy,
or the relapse as we might call it, had in a great measure worn off, and
if Tobias's mind could have been quite at ease, his recovery would have
been as rapid as any one could possibly have wished or expected.
As soon as he was up and about upon the following morning, then, after
the arrests, the colonel sought Tobias's room, and with a cheerful smile
upon his face he said--
"Well, Tobias, I come to bring you good news."
"Indeed, sir?" said Tobias his colour coming and going in flushes. "I am
very weak, and--and if--"
"Come, come, Tobias. What I am going to tell you will strengthen you, I
know. Todd is in Newgate!"
Tobias drew a long breath.
"Todd is in Newgate?" he replied. "Todd is in Newgate? The walls are
very thick. I am safe now."
"Yes, you are, indeed, Tobias. The walls of Newgate are thick, and the
doors are massive and well-guarded. Be assured that Todd will never
issue out at them but to his execution. Your old cunning enemy is at
length more powerless by a great deal than you are, and from this moment
you may completely banish all fear from your mind upon his account."
"And the woman, sir, Mrs. Lovett?"
"She is in Newgate likewise."
"Both, both, and their crimes then are all known at last, and there will
be no more murders, and no more poor boys driven mad as I was! Oh, God
be thanked, it is indeed all over now, all over."
With this Tobias burst into tears, and relieved his surcharged heart of
a load of misery. In the course of about five minutes he looked up with
such a great smile of happiness upon his face, that it was quite a joy
to see it.
"And you, sir, you," he said, "my dear friend have done all this!"
"Not all, Tobias. I have helped in every way that lay in my power to
bring the affair about, but it is Sir Richard Blunt the magistrate, who
has toiled day and night almost in the matter, and who has at last
brought it to so successful an issue, that the guilt of both Todd and
Mrs. Lovett can be distinctly and clearly proved, without the shadow of
a doubt."
"Unhappy wretches!"
"They are, indeed, Tobias, unhappy wretches, and may Heaven have mercy
upon them. Some other old friends of yours, too, will, before nightfall
I think, find a home in Newgate."
"Indeed, sir, whom mean you?"
"The folks at the madhouse at Peckham. Sir Richard would have had them
apprehended some time ago, but he was afraid that it might give the
alarm to Todd, before the affair was ripe enough to enable him to be
arrested, with a certainty of his crimes being clearly understood and
brought home to him. Now, however, that is all over, and they will be
punished."
"They are very, very wicked. I think, sir, they are almost worse than
Sweeney Todd."
"They are, if anything; but they will meet with their deserts, never
fear; and as Minna Gray is expected every moment, so your mother tells
me, I will not deprive you of the gratification of giving her the piece
of news yourself. Of course, all the town will know it soon through the
medium of the press; and Sir Richard Blunt, too, will be here in the
course of the morning, to arrange with you concerning your evidence."
"My evidence? Shall I be wanted?"
"Yes, Tobias. Surely you would not like so notorious a criminal to find
a loop-hole of escape, from the want of your evidence?"
"Oh, no, no--I will go. I have only to tell the truth, and that should
never be denied for or against. I will go, sir."
"You are right, Tobias. It is a duty you owe to society. If some one
long ago, and before you even had the evil fortune to go into his shop,
had found out and exposed the iniquities of Sweeney Todd, how much
misery would have been spared in this world both to you and to others!"
"Ah, yes, sir; and yet--"
"Yet what, Tobias?"
"I was only thinking, sir, that what at times seems like our very worst
misfortunes, at times turn out to be the very things that are the making
of us."
"Indeed, Tobias?"
"Yes, sir. If I had not been Sweeney Todd's boy, and if he had not
persecuted me in the way he did, I should never have known what it was
to have the friend I now have in you, sir; and perhaps she whom I love
so dearly, would not have thought so much of me, if she had not deeply
pitied me for all that I suffered."
"There is profound philosophy in what you say, my poor boy," replied the
colonel; "and if we could only bring ourselves to think, when things
apparently go wrong with us, that after all it is for the best, we
should be much happier than we are now; but with our short-sighted
wisdom, we hastily take upon ourselves to decide upon matters concerning
the issues of which we know nothing, and so by anticipation we make
ourselves pleased or sorrowful, when the precise contrary may be the
real result."
"Yes, sir," said Tobias, "I have had time to think of that, and of many
other strange things, as I lay here."
"Then you have done yourself some good, Tobias. But I hear a light
footstep upon the stairs, and I will now leave you, for I can guess by
that heightened colour that you hear it likewise, and I know that two
may be good company but three none."
Tobias would have said something deprecatory of the colonel leaving him,
and he did begin, but with a smile his kind and hospitable friend took
his leave, and Tobias soon had the satisfaction of relating to the young
girl, whom he was so tenderly attached to, that nothing further was now
to be feared from Sweeney Todd or from Mrs. Lovett.
We may now leave Tobias in good company; and it was really surprising to
those who have not made a habit of noting the intimate connection there
is between the mind and the body, to see how from the very moment that
he felt assured there was nothing further to apprehend from Sweeney
Todd, Tobias's health picked up and improved. The absolute dread with
which that bold impious bad man had inspired the boy, had been the sole
cause of keeping him in so delicate a state. His dreams had been all of
Todd; but now that word Newgate, in conjunction with Todd's name, was a
spell that brought with it peace and security.
Tobias, as he sat with the hand of the young and fair girl who had
pleased his boyish fancy in his own, was now truly happy.
When Johanna got home, after being escorted from Sir Richard Blunt's
house in Craven Street by Colonel Jeffery, she found her mother at home,
and not a little surprised was she to find herself suddenly clasped in
that mother's arms, a most unwonted process for Mrs. Oakley to go
through.
"Oh, my child, my dear child!" sobbed the now repentant woman. "Can you
forgive me as your father has done?"
"Forgive you, mother? Oh, do not speak to me in such a way as that. It
is quite a joy to find you--you are really my mother?"
"You might well doubt it, my dear child; but the future is before us
all, and then you will find that it was only when I could not have been
in my right mind, that I preferred any place to my own home."
Old Oakley wiped his eyes as he said to Johanna--
"Yes, my darling, your mother has come back to us now in every sense of
the word, and all the past is to be forgotten, except such of it as will
be pleasant to remember. Your good friend, and I may say the good friend
of us all, Sir Richard Blunt, sent us a letter to say that you would be
here to-night, and God bless him my child, for watching over you as he
did."
"Oh, how perilous an enterprise you went upon, my darling," said Mrs.
Oakley.
The door of the adjoining room was partially open, and from it now
stepped forward Arabella, saying--
"It is I who ought to ask pardon of you all for advising that step; and
you will grant me that pardon I am sure, if upon no other ground, upon
that that I have suffered greatly for my folly and precipitation."
"My dear Arabella," said Johanna, "you must not blame yourself in such a
way. How pleased I am to find you here, my dear friend. Ah! at one time
how little did we ever expect to meet all thus, in this little room!"
Johanna and Arabella embraced each other, and while they were so
occupied, big Ben came out of the room from whence Arabella had
proceeded, and flinging his arms round them both, he made a great
roaring noise, in imitation of the largest of the bears in the Tower
collection.
At the moment, Johanna was alarmed, and could not conceive what it was;
but Arabella, who knew that Ben had been in the room, waiting for some
opportunity of coming out in a highly practical manner, only laughed,
and then Johanna knew in a moment who it was, and she cried--
"Ben, it is you!"
"Yes, it's me," said Ben, "and I'm only astonished at you two girls
fancying I was going to be quiet, and see all that kissing and hugging
going on, and not come in for any of it. Don't kick now, for I must kiss
you both, and there's an end of it. It's no use a-kicking."
To the credit of both Arabella and Johanna we may state, that they
neither of them kicked, but very quietly let Ben kiss them both.
"Well," said Ben as he plumped himself down upon a chair after the
salute. "Well!--Murder! Where am I going to now?"
"Dear me," said Mrs. Oakley. "All four legs of the chair are broken off,
and Ben is on the floor."
"Really, Ben," said Mr. Oakley, "you ought to be perfectly careful when
you sit down."
"Easy does it," said Ben. "I really thought I was going to kingdom come.
Pull me, Johanna, my dear. Pull me up."
Johanna shook her head, and declined the Herculean attempt, so that Ben
had to scramble to his feet the best way he could, and then as he sat
down upon the sofa which was sufficiently strong to withstand any
shocks, Mrs. Oakley asked him what it was he had been upon the point of
saying, when the chair had so very unceremoniously given way with him;
but Ben had quite forgotten it, only he said he recollected something
else that was quite as good, and that was that he ordered to come about
that hour a foaming tankard of mulled wine, and then he winked at Mrs.
Oakley and hoped she had no medicine in the house to put in it.
"Oh, no, Ben," she said, "and if there isn't a knock at the door; and if
you ordered it at the Unicorn's Tail, you may depend that's it."
"Very good," said Ben, and then he proceeded to the door and found that
it was the boy from the Unicorn's dorsal appendage with the spiced wine;
and after whispering to bring a similar quantity in half an hour, and to
keep on at it every half hour until further orders, Ben took it into the
parlour, and a happier party than was there could not have been found in
all London.