The String of Pearls by Thomas Preskett Prest

Author:Thomas Preskett Prest [Prest, Thomas Preskett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141962023
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Tobias’s Adventures During the Absence of Sweeney Todd

Tobias guessed, and guessed rightly, too, that when Sweeney Todd said he would be away half an hour, he only mentioned that short period of time, in order to keep the lad’s vigilance on the alert, and to prevent him from taking advantage of a more protracted absence.

The very style and manner in which he had gone out precluded the likelihood of it being for so short a period of time; and that circumstance set Tobias seriously thinking over a situation which was becoming more intolerable every day.

The lad had the sense to feel that he could not go on much longer as he was going on, and that in a short time such a life would destroy him.

‘It is beyond endurance,’ he said, ‘and I know not what to do; and since Sweeney Todd has told me that the boy he had before went out of his senses, and is now in the cell of a madhouse, I feel that such will be my fate, and that I, too, shall come to that dreadful end, and then no one will believe a word I utter, but consider everything to be mere raving.’

After a time, as the darkness increased, he lit the lamp which hung in the shop, and which, until it was closed for the night, usually shed a dim ray from the window. Then he sat down to think again, and he said to himself, –

‘If I could but summon courage to ask my mother about this robbery which Sweeney Todd imputes to her, she might assure me it was false, and that she never did such a deed; but then it is dreadful for me to ask her such a question, because it may be true; and then how shocking it would be for her to be forced to confess to me, her own son, such a circumstance.’

These were the honourable feelings which prevented Tobias from questioning his mother as regarded Todd’s accusation of her – an accusation too dreadful to believe implicitly, and yet sufficiently probable for him to have a strong suspicion that it might be true after all.

It is to be deeply regretted that Tobias’s philosophy did not carry him a little further, and make him see, the moment the charge was made, that he ought unquestionably to investigate it to the very utmost.

But, still, we could hardly expect from a mere boy that acute reasoning and power of action, which depends so much on the knowledge of the world, and an extensive practice in the usages of society.

It was sufficient if he felt correctly – we could scarcely expect him to reason so. But upon this occasion above all other, he seemed completely overcome by the circumstances which surrounded him; and from his excited manner, one might almost have imagined that the insanity he himself predicted at the close of his career was really not far off.

He wrung his hands, and he wept, every now

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