Unknown

“ The shock of this astonishing and sudden appearance of Sweeney Todd was so great, that for a few moments Tobias was deprived of all power of speech or action, and with his head so strangely twisted as to seem to threaten the destruction of his neck, he glared in the triumphant and malignant countenance of his persecutor, as he would into that of the arch enemy of all mankind, which probably he now began to think the barber really was. ”

“ I am always affected when I look upon him, doctor. We were boys ourselves once, you know, and to think that the divine spark of intelligence has gone out in one so young, is enough to make any feeling heart throb with agony. This lad, though, sir, is only a monomaniac. He has a fancy that someone named Sweeney Todd is a murderer, and that he has discovered his bad practices. On all other subjects he is sane enough; but upon that, and upon his presumed freedom from mental derangement, he is furious.'
'It is false, sir, it is false!' said Tobias, stepping up. ”

“ Certainly Tobias Ragg was as sane as any ordinary Christian need wish to be, when the scoundrel, Sweeney Todd, put him in the coach, to take him to Mr Fogg's establishment; but if by any ingenious process the human intellect can be toppled from its throne, certainly that process must consist in putting a sane person into a lunatic asylum.
To the imagination of a boy, too, and that boy one of vivid imagination, as was poor Tobias, a madhouse must be invested with a world of terrors. ”

“ Who is Sweeney Todd, Mr Fogg?'
'Oh, sir, there is no such person in the world.'
'Ah, I thought as much - I thought as much - a sad case, a very sad case indeed. Be calm, my little lad, and Mr Fogg will do all that can be done for you, I'm sure.
'Oh, how can you be as foolish, sir,' cried Tobias, 'as to be deceived by that man, who is making a mere instrument of you to cover his own villainy? What I say to you is true, and I am not mad!'
'I think, Dr Popplejoy,' said. Fogg with a smile, 'it would take rather a cleverer fellow than I am to make a fool of you ”

“ Never do the charms of nature present themselves to the imagination in more lovely guise than when someone with an imagination full of such beauties and a mind to appreciate the glories of the world is shut up from real, actual contemplation. To Tobias now the thought of green fields, sunshine and flowers, was at once rapture and agony. ”

“ She was very much surprised (for she happened to be at home) at the unexpected visit of her son Tobias, and uttered a faint scream as she let fall a flat-iron very nearly upon his toe.
'Mother,' he said, 'I cannot stay with Sweeney Todd any longer, so do not ask me.'
'Not stay with a respectable man?'
'A respectable man, mother! Alas, alas, how little you know of him! But what am I saying? I dare not speak! Oh, that fatal, fatal candlestick!'
'But how are you to live, and what do you mean by a fatal candlestick?'
'Forgive me - I did not mean to say that! Farewell, mother! ”

“ This exhortation was quite needless, for Tobias could not have uttered a word, had he been ever so much inclined to do so; the barber held his throat with such an iron clutch, as if it had been in a vice.
'Villain,' growled Todd, 'villain, so this is the way in which you have dared to disregard my injunctions. But no matter, no matter! you shall have plenty of leisure to reflect upon what you have done for yourself. Fool to think that you could cope with me, Sweeney Todd. ”

“ Tobias heard Watson rise. The crisis was a serious one. His eye fell upon a bolt that was outside the door, and, with the quickness of thought, he shot it into its socket, and then made his way down the passage towards his cell, the door of which he shut close.
His next movement was to run to the end of the passage and descend some stairs. A door opposed him, but a push opened it, and he found himself in a small, dimly-lighted room, in one corner of which, upon a heap of straw, lay a woman, apparently sleeping. ”

“ He could have wept bitterly, wept as he there sat, for he thought over days long passed away, of opportunities let go by with the heedless laugh of youth; he thought over all the chances and misfortunes of his life, and now to find himself the miserable inhabitant of a cellar, condemned to a mean and troublesome employment, without even the liberty of leaving that to starve if he chose, upon pain of death - a frightful death which had been threatened him - was indeed torment! ”

“ I could not believe the evidence of my own senses; I thought it must be something that I did not understand; perhaps my poor aunt's death had caused this distress and alteration in people's demeanour to me.
However, I was a child, and though I was quick enough at noting all this, yet I was too young to feel acutely the conduct of my friends.
My father and mother were careless of me, and let me run where I would; they cared not when I was hurt, they cared not when I was in danger. Come what would, I was left to take my chance. ”

“ Think what a great lady you will be then! You will have servants of your own.
'I don't think I shall live till then.'
'Oh yes, you will - or, at least, I hope so.'
'And if I should not, what will become of all those fine things that you have told me of? Who'll have them?'
'Why, if you do not live till you are of age, your fortune will go to your father and mother, who take all.'
'Then they would sooner I die than live.'
'What makes you think so?' she enquired. ”

“ The officers, without the slightest questions or remarks, followed Sir Richard, and he began rapidly, with them at his heels, to ascend the stone staircase into the church again.
'Hilloa!' cried the beadle - 'I say, stop. O lord! don't let me be lost - Oh, don't! I shall think something horrible is coming up after me, and going to lay hold of my heels: don't let me be lost! oh dear!'
'You can't be lost,' said one of the officers; 'you know if anything is going to lay hold of your heels. ”

“ At about half-past twelve the door of Tobias's cell was opened by Mr Watson, who, walking in, laid hold of the boy by the collar, and said, 'Hark you, my lad! you are going before a physician, and the less you say the better. I speak to you for your own sake; you can do yourself no good, but you can do yourself a great deal of harm. ”

“ In common with all boys of his age, who know nothing whatever of the life of a sailor, it presented itself in the most fascinating colours. A sailor ashore and a sailor afloat are about as two different things as the world can present; but, to the imagination of Tobias Ragg, a sailor was somebody who was always dancing hornpipes, spending money, and telling wonderful stories. No wonder, then, that the profession presented itself under such fascinating colours to all such persons as Tobias ”

“ As the hour drew near, that in which I was likely to become an object of still greater hatred and dislike to them, I thought I was often the subject of their private thoughts, and often when I entered the room my mother, and father, and the rest, would suddenly leave off speaking, and look at me, as if to ascertain if I had ever heard them say anything. ”

“ You shall have it.'
'She disappeared at these words, and in about ten minutes, a small trapdoor opened in the roof, and there was let down by a cord a foaming pot of porter.
'This is capital,' cried the victim of the pies, as he took half of it at a draught. 'This is nectar for the gods. Oh, what a relief, to be sure. It puts new life into me.'
And so it really seemed, for shouldering the poker, which was more like a javelin than anything else, he at once rushed into the vault where the meat was kept. ”

“ But we may as well have sentiment. Sentiment, you know,' continued Fogg, 'is the very soul of friendship. What do you say to "The heart that can feel for another"?'
'With all my soul,' said Sweeney Todd; 'it's very touching - very touching indeed. "The heart that can feel for another!"' and as he spoke, he emptied the glass, which he pushed towards Fogg to refill. ”

“ Each moment added some new comers to the throng, and at last any strangers who had known nothing of the attractions of Mrs Lovett's pie-shop, and had walked down Bell Yard, would have been astonished at the throng of persons there assembled - a throng, that was each moment increasing in density, and becoming more and more urgent and clamorous. ”

“ It was one of those cries which can only come from a heart in its utmost agony - a cry which might have heralded the spirit to another world, and proclaimed as it very nearly did, the destruction of the intellect for ever. ”

“ Oh, have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me!'
'You will give him nothing but bread and water, Watson, and the first symptoms of his recovery, which will produce better treatment, will be his exonerating his master from what he has said about him, for he must be mad so long as he continues to accuse such a gentleman as Mr Todd of such things; nobody but a mad man or a mad boy would think of it.'
'Then,' said Tobias, 'I shall continue mad, for if it be madness to know and to aver that Sweeney Todd, the barber, of Fleet-street, is a murderer, mad am I, for I know it, and aver it. ”

“ At this moment a shriek was heard, and Sweeney Todd shrank away from the door.
'Oh! it's nothing, it's nothing,' said Mr Fogg: 'if you had resided here as long as I have, you would get accustomed to hearing a slight noise. The worst of it is, when half a dozen of the mad fellows get shrieking against each other in the middle of the night. ”

“ He will never emerge from these vaults with life, for there is a hideous secret connected with them so awful and so hideous, that to write it makes one's blood curdle, and the flesh to creep upon my bones. ”

“ Tobias did not forget, too, that on more than one occasion he had come back quicker doubtless than he had been expected, and that he had caught Sweeney Todd in some little confusion, and seen the hat, the stick, or perhaps the umbrella of the last customer quietly waiting there, although the customer had gone; and, even if the glaring improbability of a man leaving his hat behind him in a barber's shop was got over, why did he not come back for it? ”

“ It strikes by old St Dunstan's church clock, and in weaker strains the chronometrical machine at the pie-shop echoes the sound. What excitement there is now to get at the pies when they shall come! Mrs Lovett lets down the square, moveable platform that goes upon pulleys into the cellar; some machinery, which only requires a handle to be turned, brings up a hundred pies in a tray. ”

“ In three minutes he was on the wall.
The moon shone sweetly. There was not a tree or house in the vicinity that was not made beautiful now, in some portions of it, by the sweet, soft light that poured down upon them. ”

“ A thorough determination to do anything, we are well convinced, always goes a long way towards its accomplishment; and certainly Tobias now would cheerfully have faced death in any shape, rather than he would again have been condemned to the solitary horrors of the cell, from which he had by such a chance got free. ”

“ When he reached Mrs Ragg's house, and made his appearance abruptly before that lady, who seemed somehow or another always to be ironing and always to drop the iron when anyone came in very near their toes, he said,-
'Where did your son Tobias go after he left you tonight?'
'Lor! Mr Todd, is it you? you are as good as a conjurer, sir, for he was here; but bless you, sir, I know no more where he is gone to than the man in the moon. ”