Sweeney Todd Re-Visited By The Dog Of One Of His Victims. Sweeney Todd Re-Visited By The Dog Of One Of His Victims.
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............