The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 212: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Yes, all, Tobias.” “T will tell all I know. Come closer to me, Minna; I feel, when you are near me, as though God had sent one of his angels to keep Todd from me. Oh, yes, I will tell all I know. How can he harm me now?” “How indeed, Tobias?” said Minna. Tobias still trembled. What a shock that bold, bad, unscrupulous man had given to the nerves of that boy. His bodily health might be restored, and his mind once more be brought back to sanity, but if Tobias Ragg were to live to the age of a patriarch, the name of Todd would be to him a something yet to shrink from, and the tone of his nervous system could never be what it once was. Minna looked up in his face, and the colonel, too, gazed fully upon him, so that Tobias found he was absolutely called upon to say something. “Yes,” he began, “I remember that people came to the shop, and—and that they never went out of it again.” “Can you particularise any instance?” “Yes, the gentleman with the dog.” Colonel Jeffery showed by his countenance how much he was interested. “Go on,” he said. “What about the gentleman with the dog?” “T don’t know how it was,” added Tobias, “but that circumstance seemed to tell more upon my fancy than any other. I suppose it was the conduct of the dog.” “What sort of a dog was it?” “A large handsome dog, and Todd would not let it remain in the shop, so his master made him wait outside.” “Did he name the dog?” Tobias passed his hand across his brow several times, and then his countenance suddenly brightening up, he said—“Hector! Yes, Hector!” Colonel Jeffery nodded. “What then happened, Tobias?” said Minna. “Why, I think Todd sent me out upon some message, and when I came back the gentleman was gone, but not the dog.” “Now, Tobias, can you tell us what sort of a man the man with the dog was?” “Yes, fresh-coloured, and good-looking rather, with hair that curled. I should know him again.” “Ah, Tobias,” said the colonel, “I am afraid we shall none of us ever see him again in this world.” “Never,” said Tobias. “Todd killed him. How he did it, or what he did with the body, I know not; but he did kill him, and many more, I am certain as that I am now here. Many people came into the shop that never left it again.” “No doubt; and now, Tobias, how came you in the street by London Bridge so utterly overcome and destitute?” “The madhouse.” “Madhouse?” “Yes, I shall recollect it all. Where are you, mother?” “Bless us and save us!—here, to be sure,” said Mrs. Ragg. “Did I not come to you at your room and find you ironing, and did I not tell you that I had something to say about Todd, and ask you to fetch somebody?” “To be sure.” “Well, when you left, Todd came, and after once looking in his face, I almost forgot what happened, except that there was a madhouse and a man named Watson.” “Watson?” said Colonel Jeffery, as he made a note of the name. “Yes,” added Tobias, “and Fogg.” “Good! Fogg, I have it. Now, Tobias, where did you encounter this Fogg and Watson?” “That I cannot tell. I recollect trees, and a large house, and rooms, and a kind of garden, and some dark and dismal cells, and then my mind seems, when I think of all those things, like some large room full of horrors, and anything comes before me just like some dreadful dream. I recollect falling, I think, from some wall, and then running at my utmost speed until I fell, and then the next thing that I remember was hearing the voice of Minna in this house.” “One thing,” said Captain Rathbone, “is pretty certain, and that is, that this madhouse, if it were one in reality, must be in the immediate vicinity of London, or else the strength of Tobias would not have enabled him to run so far as to London from it.” “Mrs. Ragg, I believe Todd told you that he had placed Tobias in a madhouse, did he not?” said the colonel. “Yes, sir, he did, the wagabone!” * “Well, I am inclined to think that it was a madhouse—one of those private dens of iniquity which are, and have been for many years, a disgrace to the jurisprudence of this country.” “If so, then,” said the captain, “there will be no great difficulty in finding it with the clue that Tobias has given us respecting the names.” “T will not be satisfied until I have rooted out that den,” said the colonel, “but at present all our exertions must be directed to ascertain the fate of poor Ingestrie. Every circumstance appears really to combine in favour of the opinion of Johanna Oakley, to the effect that this Thornhill and Mark Ingestrie were the same.” CORniclooo S CO)