We left the poor beadle in anything but a pleasant situation in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church. Now it so happened that the beadle was particularly wanted at home; and as he did not make his appearance, his wife repaired to the church to search for him; but it was locked by Todd, who had swung the door shut after him, and as he had taken the key with him, she could not make her way into the sacred edifice.
As she stood at the door, however, she distinctly heard deep groans issuing from some one within the church; and in a state of great alarm, she ran off to one of the churchwardens, who had a duplicate key, and related what she had heard.
The churchwarden not being one of the most valorous of men, rather, upon the whole, declined to go into the church with no other escort than the beadle's wife; and as he, too, upon listening at the key-hole, heard the groans distinctly, he called upon the passers-by to assist, and got together quickly enough about twenty people to go into the church with him.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I don't know what it is, but there's groans; and in these horrid times, when, for all we know, Sweeney Todd is about the neighbourhood, one can't be too cautious."
"Certainly," said everybody.
"Then, gentlemen, if we all go in together when I open the door, it will be the very best plan."
This was duly agreed to; and the churchwarden, with a trembling hand, turned his key in the lock, and opened the door. He then stepped aside, and let all the crowd go in first, thinking that, as he was a man in office, the parish could not afford to lose him, in case anything serious should happen.
"Well, gentlemen," he cried, "what is it?"
"Nothing," said everybody.
"Then I will soon let nothing see that I, a churchwarden, am not to be frightened with impunity—that is to say, when I say frightened, I don't exactly mean that, but astonished, I mean. Come, come—if any one be here, I call upon them to surrender in the king's name!"
A deep groan was the only response to this valorous speech; and the moment the churchwarden heard it, he bolted out of the church, and ran right across the way into a shop opposite.
For a moment or two, this precipitate retreat of the churchwarden had something contagious in it, and the whole of the men who had been induced to stop and go into the church with him were inclined to retreat likewise; but curiosity detained some three of four of them, and that gave courage to the others.
"What was it?" said one.
"A groan," said another; "and it came from the pulpit."
"The pulpit!" cried everybody.
"Who ever heard of a pulpit groaning?" cried a third.
"You stupid!" cried the second speaker: "might it not be some one in the pulpit?—and—Oh Lord—there's a head!"
At this they all took to flight; but at the door they encountered a man, who called out—
"What's the matter? Can't you tell a fellow what the blessed row is—eh?"
This was no other than our old friend Crotchet, who was returning from a conference with Sir Richard Blunt at his private office in Craven Street.
"Oh, it's a ghost! A ghost!"
"A what?"
"A ghost in the pulpit, and there is his head."
"You don't say so?" said Crotchet, as he peered into the church, and shading his eyes with his hand, saw the beadle's head just peeping over the side of the pulpit in a most mysterious kind of way. "I'll soon have him out, ghost or no ghost."
Courage is as contagious as fear, especially when somebody else volunteers to run all the risk; and so when Crotchet said he would soon have the somebody out of the pulpit, the whole crowd followed him into the church, applauding him very greatly for his prowess, and declaring that if he had not then arrived, they would soon have had the ghost or no ghost out of the sacred building, that they would. But they kept within a few paces of the door for all that, so that they might be ready for a rush into Fleet Street, if Mr. Crotchet should be overcome in the adventure.
That was only prudent.
But Crotchet was not exactly the man to be overcome in any adventure, and with an utter oblivion of all fear, he marched right into the middle of the church, and commenced the ascent of the pulpit stairs.
"Come—come," said Crotchet. "This won't do, Mr. Ghost, if you please; just let me get hold of you, that's all."
"Oh!" groaned the beadle.
"Oh, yer is remarkably bad, is yer? but that sort of thing won't answer, by no means. Where is yer?"
Crotchet opened the pulpit door, and reaching in his hand, he caught hold of the beadle by the leg, and fairly dragged him out on to the little spiral stairs, down which he let him roll with a great many bumps, until he landed in the body of the church all over bruises.
"Why, goodness gracious!" cried the beadle's wife, "it's my wretch of a husband after all!"
The beadle had just strength to assume a sitting posture, and then he cried—"Murder!—murder!—murder!" until Mr. Crotchet, seizing a cushion from a pew, held it up before his mouth, to the imminent danger of choking him, and said—
"Hold your row! If you wants to be murdered, can't you get it done quietly, without alarming of all the parish? If you has got anything to say, say it; and if you has got nothink, keep it to yourself, stupid."
"Todd!" gasped the beadle, the moment the pew-cushion was withdrawn from his mouth. "Todd—Sweeney Todd!"
"What?" cried Crotchet.
"Here!—he has been here, and I'm a dead man—no, I'm a beadle. Oh, murder! murder!"
"Don't begin that again. Be quiet, will you? If you have got anything to say about Todd, say it, for I'm the very man of all the world as wants to hear it. Speak up, and don't wink."
"Oh, I've seen him. He's been here. I came to dust the bellowses, you see, after my wife had thrown the pulpit at my head, for asking her to come with me."
"Oh, he's a-raving gentlemen," said the wife. "As I'm a sinner, it was the bellowses as I throwed at his stupid head, and not the pulpit as never was."
"Go on," said Crotchet. "Confound the pulpit and the bellows too. It's about Todd I want to hear. Drive on, will you?"
"Oh, yes. I'm a coming to that; but it curdles my blood, and makes my wig stand on end. I had dusted the communion table, and banged the cushions, and up I goes to the pulpit, meaning to do for that as soon as I could, when who should be there but Sweeney Todd!"
"In the pulpit!"............