The String of Pearls (1850), p. 655

do I suffer more, much more, from what does not happen, than from what does?"
Still the notion clung to him for a little while, and he remained at the bottom of the pulpit quite needlessly for the next half hour, listening with all his might, in order to detect the slightest noise that might be indicative of the presence of a foe. But all was as still as the grave, and by slow degrees Sweeney Todd got more assured.
"I breathe again," he said. "They do not suspect that I am here. It is much too unlikely a place for them to dream of for a moment. Even Sir Richard Blunt, with his utmost prescience, does not think of looking for me in the pulpit of St. Dunstan's Church. I am safe—I am safe for the present."
He agreed with this feeling that he was quite alone in the church, and he was right. He looked over the edge of the pulpit. How still and solemn the place looked!
The morning had advanced quite sufficiently now to shed a dim light into the church, and the noise in the street contingent upon the fire had nearly passed away. The fact was, that the firemen had, after making a few efforts and finding them of no use, let Todd's house burn to the ground, and turned all their
efforts towards saving the edifices on either side. In that object they were successful, so that the conflagration was over, and nothing remained but the frail wall of Todd's house.
And so the clank of the engine-pumps no longer sounded in his ears, but he could yet be certain that there was a great crowd in Fleet Street, for he heard the hum of voices, and occasionally the trouble that ensued when a vehicle tried to force its way through the dense mass of people that blocked up the thorough-fare, which at the best of times was none of the clearest.
"Is there a chance now of escape," said Todd, "if I could only make up my mind to it? I do not forget that I am disguised—I ought not to forget that. Who will know me? and yet that man knew me—that man that I missed killing at the old place. Yes, he knew me. He said he could swear to me. Confound him! I wish I could have sworn to his dead body. I wonder if they have left the church-door open, or, rather, only upon the latch? I—I will descend from here, and make a bold attempt."
He opened the pulpit-door, and had got about three steps down the little ornamental flight of winding stairs that led from the pulpit to the body of the building, when the church-door was suddenly opened, and he fled back with a precipitation that made some noise, when he might have done so in perfect quietness, for it was not very likely that any one would have looked up to the pulpit immediately upon their entrance to the building.
A glance towards the door convinced Mr. Todd that it was the beadle.
"Oh, dear, I thought I heard something," said the beadle, as he closed the door after him. "But I suppose it was only fancy, after all. Now they say that all the fire is out, and that it is quite impossible for the church to be blowed up, I suppose I may come in without any danger. Lor bless us, that Sir Richard Blunt, I do believe, would think no more of blowing up a beadle, than he would of eating a penny bun, that's my opinion of him."
"Curses on your head!" muttered Todd.
"Bless me, what a world we live in," said the beadle.
"Wretch—beast," muttered Todd; "what does he want here at this time of day?"
"Yes, to-morrow's Sunday," said the beadle, as if pursuing a train of thought that had found a home in his brain. "How the weeks do run round, to be sure, and one Sunday comes after another at such a rate, that it seems as if there was weeks and weeks and weeks of 'em, without any of the other days at all. I wish I hadn't to come here."
Todd uttered faintly some dreadful imprecations, and the beadle continued talking to himself to keep his courage up, as was evident from his nervous and fidgetty manner.