The String of Pearls (1850), p. 666

"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 into the church with him were inclined to retreat likewise; but curiosity detained some three or 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