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Penny Dreadfuls, 1850 · page 387 of 400

The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 387: what you’re looking at

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The Gift of the Sailor: The String of Pearls & Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — page 387: Penny Dreadfuls, 1850

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“And I too,” said the cook. “We can go to Sir Richard’s afterwards.” “SO we Can—SO we can. Come on, now.” “You will deliver me up to the mob,” screamed Mrs. Lovett. “Mercy! Mercy! I shall be torn limb from limb. Oh, what a death! Are you men or fiends that you will condemn me to it? Mercy!—mercy!” This sudden passion of Mrs. Lovett’s was the very thing the officers would have desired, inasmuch as it materially helped to deceive the mob, and to prevent any idea upon the part of the infuriated people, that there was any collusion between the officers and Mrs. Lovett, for the purpose of getting her safely to prison. They dragged her out into Bell Yard, and then the shouts that the mob set up was truly terrific. “Lights! Links!” cried a voice. “Let’s show her the way!” In a moment an oil-shop opposite to Mrs. Lovett’s was plundered of a score or two of links, and being lighted with great rapidity from the solitary oil-lamp that there stood in the middle of Bell Yard, they sent a bright lurid glare upon the sea of heads, that seemed so close they might have been walked upon all the way to Fleet Street. Another shout echoed far and near, and then Crotchet took hold of one of Mrs. Lovett’s arms, and Mr. Green hold of the other, and the cook and the other officers following, they all began slowly to make way through the mob. “Let’s get along with her,” cried Crotchet. “I have her tight. She won’t get away. Some of you get a good stout rope ready, and make a noose in it. We will hang her on the lamp-post at the top of the market. Bring her along. Make way a little. Only a little!” Mrs. Lovett shrieked as she saw the sea of angry faces before, behind, and on all sides of her. She thought that surely her last hour was come, and that a far more horrible death than any she had ever calculated upon in her worst moments of depression, was about to be hers. Her eyes were blood-shot—she bit her under lip through, and the blood poured from her mouth—each moment that she could gather breath to do so, she raised a fearful shriek, and the mob shouted and yelled, and swayed to and fro, and the links were tossed from hand to hand, flashing, and throwing around them thousands of bright sparks, and people rapidly joined the mob. Q9OOOOGOOO GOnMG oOo SS CO)