The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 303: what you’re looking at

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

regarding this affair at your house now, for he will expect nothing but instant arrest on its account.” “What can I do?” “Tf you will be guided by me you will write Todd a letter, threatening him that if there is any more interference with Tobias, you will prosecute him, but that you will, if you hear no more of him at your house, say nothing of the past. You need be under no fear that he will derive any future advantage from such a promise, as any charge against him connected with poor Tobias will sink into insignificance, compared with other offences.” “True! true!” “Such a letter, couched with the one concerning the non-departure of the ship, may keep him in his shop over to-morrow.” “And then—-” “Then he sleeps in Newgate, from which building he steps on to the scaffold.” “But has he not sent many trunks and packages to the ship?” “Yes, and I have as regularly removed them all to the police-office at Bow Street. We have already some thousands of pounds worth of property of the most costly description.” “But Johanna? What is to become of her?” “You may depend upon it that Todd will pursue the same course with her that he did with Tobias. He will give her a trifle of money, and tell her to get a night’s lodging out; and in that case she knows where to come to be quite safe and comfortable. But if such should not be the case, my protecting arm is over her; I think I can almost defy Todd to do her any injury.” “Think you so?” “Yes, I have made such arrangements that if she were missed only for ten minutes, Todd’s house would be searched from top to bottom. I would not, for this right hand, that any harm should come to her.” “Nor I—nor I.” “Be at ease regarding her, colonel.” “T know how fully we may trust to you, and therefore I will be at ease regarding her; and I will at once write the letter to Todd you suggest to me.” “Do so. His fears upon your account must be calmed down.” The colonel accordingly wrote the necessary note to Todd. Of course, neither he nor Sir Richard Blunt knew that Todd had another reason for wishing to be off that night, which consisted in his great unwillingness to meet Mrs. Lovett in the morning; for it will be recollected that he had an appointment with that lady upon money matters at an early hour. The reader is now fully aware of how matters stand, and will be able to comprehend easily the remarkable events which rapidly ensued upon this state of things, and therefore we can at once return to Todd. We left him upon his door-step. It was never Todd’s custom to walk at once into his house as any one else would do upon their arrival, whose “Conscience was not redolent of guilt!” but he would peep and pry about, and linger like a moth fluttering around a candle, or a rat smelling at some tempting morsel, which might be connected with some artfully contrived trap, before he entered. He wanted sadly to get a peep at what Charley was doing. Now, poor Johanna, fortunately at that moment, was only sitting before the little miserable fire, holding her face in her hands, and deeply thinking of the once happy past. She had brought out from beneath the counter the sleeve of a sailor’s jacket, which she had found upon her former examination of the shop,and after sprinkling it with some tears, for she fully believed it must have belonged to Mark Ingestrie, she had hidden it again. And now as she sat in that house of murder all alone, she was picturing to herself every tone and look of her lover when he had first told her that he loved her before, as she might have said in the words of the old song— “He loved me, and he sped away Far o’er the raging sea, To seek the gems of other lands, And bring them all to me.” At that moment, with all external objects hidden from her perception, she could almost fancy she could hear his voice as he had said to her—“My darling, I shall come back rich and prosperous, and we shall be happy.” Alas! how sadly had that dream ended. He who had escaped the perils of the deep—he who had successfully battled with the tempest, and all the perils by sea and by land incidental to the life he had embarked in, had returned miserably to perish, almost within hearing of her for whom he had adventured so much. The thought was maddening! “And I live!” she said; “I can live after that! Oh, Mark—Mark—I did not love you well enough, or I could not have existed so long after the horrible certainty of your fate has been revealed to me. They may say what they will to try to make me calmer and happier, but I know that he is Todd’s victim.” After this she sat for a time in a kind of stupor, and it was during that interval that Todd arrived home. CORniclooo S CO)