We left Todd in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church, while his old house was rapidly burning down. A perilous position for Todd! Perhaps, if he had courage sufficient to have made the attempt, he might have escaped at several junctures, but the dread of the consequences of capture was so strong in his heart and brain, that while he felt that he was undiscovered in the pulpit, he preferred remaining there to making any precipitate means of escape.
It will be remembered how the beadle had taken up several gentlemen to the roof of the church, in order that they might get a good view of the fire; and it was during that time that Todd thought of escaping, but the rapid approach of daylight daunted him.
"Oh, that I had remained in the wood at Hampstead, or anywhere but here in London, where the hands of all men are raised against me! Oh, I was mad—mad to come here. But I am not quite lost. If I thought that, my senses would go from me this moment. Oh, no—no, I will be calm now again; I will not believe that I am quite lost yet."
Of a truth, Todd felt that if he really gave up in despair, that he might commit some extravagance which would at once draw down upon him his enemies; and there he lay in the pulpit, his gaunt form huddled up so as completely to hide himself in it, and dreading to stay as much almost as he dreaded to leave.
He heard still the loud shouts of people at the fire, and at times he thought he heard even the flames that were rapidly consuming the old den of iniquity in which he had committed so many crimes. The regular clank, clank, too, of the engine pumps came upon his ears, and he muttered—
"No, no, you may try your hardest, but you will not subdue that fire. It will blaze on in spite of you. You will not—you cannot, I say, subdue it. The house is too well prepared. I had a care for that before I left home. It will burn to the very ground—ay, and below the ground, too; and the spot of earth only will remain that held the foundation of my old house. Would that all whom I hate were at this moment writhing in the flames! Then I might feel some sort of satisfaction with myself, and even this place of peril would be for the time quite tolerable to me."
No doubt it would have been a vast satisfaction to Todd to have all that he hated in the flames of his burning house; but as yet he could only tell himself that the puny vengeance he had achieved had been upon the most inferior tools of those who had wreaked his ruin, while the principals remained untouched and most completely unscathed.
What had he yet done to Sir Richard Blunt? What to Tobias? What to Johanna? What even to the dog that had played no inconsiderable a part in his final conviction of the murder of its master? Little, indeed; and the thought that his revenges were all to do, scared his imagination, and filled him full of rage as well as terror.
He heard the sound of the footsteps of the people who had gone to the roof of the church with the beadle to see the fire, coming down again, and he shrunk still closer into the bottom of the pulpit.
"Oh," he said, "if they could but for one moment guess that I was here, what joy it would give them to drag me forth to the light of day! To once again cast me into the condemned one's cell, and then to hoot me to the gallows! But, no—no; I will not die a felon's death. Rather by my own hands will I fall, if my fortune should reach such a wretched extremity. Hush!—oh, hush! Why do I speak? They come—they come."
"Well, gentlemen, as you say, the old house is gone at last," said the beadle, "and I must say, though fires always gives me a turn, and, as a parish authority perhaps I ought not to say it, I think it is a very good job."
"A good job, Mr. Beadle?" said one. "How do you make that out?"
"Why, sir, who would have lived in it? Who would have paid rent, and rates, and taxes, and given his Christmas-box to the beadle like a Christian, in Todd's old house, I should like to know?"
"Well, you are right there."
"I know I is, sir. The fact is, that house would have been like a great blot, sirs, in the middle of Fleet Street; no one would have taken it for love or money; and it a very good thing as it's gone at last."
"You reason the matter very well, Mr. Beadle," said another, "and I for a certainty subscribe to your opinion, that it is a good thing it is gone at last, and I only hope that its late owner will soon be in the hands of justice. Somebody is trying the door of the church."
The beadle went to it, and upon opening it two persons entered the church. One of them spoke at once, saying—
"Is the beadle of St. Dunstan's in the church?"
Todd knew the voice. It was Sir Richard Blunt, and he shook so that the pulpit creaked again most ominously, so that if the attention of any one had chanced to be directed towards it, they might have felt a kind of suspicion that it was occupied. Luckily for Todd, no one looked up, nor in any way noticed the pulpit.
"Lor, sir, yes," said the beadle. "Here I is, and if I don't make a great mistake, sir, you is Sir Richard Blunt."
"I am."
"Lor bless you, sir, that's the way with me. If I sees a indiwidal once, and knows 'em, I knows 'em again."
"It's a capital faculty, Mr. Beadle. But my friend, Mr. Crotchet, here, will just go down with you through the vaults to make sure that the fire in Todd's house has in no way connected with this. We don't want to burn down the church."
"Burn down the church, sir? Oh, conwulsions! Me go down into the vaults with this gentleman? Bless you, sir, I should only obstructify him in the discharge of his duty. I couldn't think of doing it, I assure you, sir. He can go by himself, you see, and then he will have the advantage of nobody to contradict him."
"I'd rather go without him, Sir Richard," said Crotchet, who was the gentleman. "He's only a idiot!"
The beadle marched up to Crotchet, until he got within about two inches of that gentleman's nose, and then slowly shaking his head to and fro, he said—
"Did you call me a hidiot?"
"Yes, I did."
"You did? Now, young man, mind what you say, because if you call me a hidiot, I shall be bound to do—"
"What?"
"Nothing at all. I see you are rather a low fellow, so I shall treat you with the same contempt as I did the very common person that pulled my nose last week—Silent contempt! That's how I serve people. I despise you, accordingly."
"Werry good," said Crotchet. "That's by far the safestest way, old feller. So now I'll go down into the vaults."
"No news of Todd yet, Sir Richard?" said one of the gentlemen, walking up to the magistrate.
"Oh, Sir Christopher Wren, I beg your pardon," said the magistrate. "I did not see you at the moment. I am sorry to say that although we have some news of Todd, we have not yet been able to catch him. But we must have him, England is not so very large a place after all, and I don't think he has any means of getting away from it."
"The sooner ............