At that point the presence of other events compelled us to leave the
lady, and repair to Todd's shop, and to Mrs. Lovett's little concern in
Bell Yard. The appearance of Lupin's face when he found that he was in the grasp of
Big Ben, would have been quite a study for a painter. It transcended all
description, and for the moment seemed as if he were bidding farewell to
this world and to all his iniquities in it, without the intervention of
the law. But in a few moments he recovered from this condition, and
sliding on to his knees, and in a whining tone, he cried--

"Mercy, Mercy! Oh, let me go!" "At the end of a rope," said Big Ben. "Easy does it. What has he been
and done, Mrs. O.?" "Murder, murder!" A crowd of people soon began to collect around them, and then Lupin made
an effort to thrust himself out of the grasp of Big Ben, but the only
result of the effort was very nearly to strangle himself. "You are killing the man, you great brute!" cried a woman. "You are
throttling the poor man." "He will be murdered," shouted another female. "Oh, you great wretch, do
you want to take his life?" "Listen to me," said Mrs. Oakley. "He has murdered his poor wife, and
that is the reason I have asked that he should be held tight." "Murdered his wife!" exclaimed about twelve females in chorus. "Murdered
his wife? Then hanging is a great deal too good for him. Hold him tight,
sir, do. Oh, the wretch!" The tide of popular feeling fairly turned against Mr. Lupin, and Big Ben
had as much difficulty now in preserving the half dead wretch from
popular fury as if he had been accused of any other crime, he might have
had to prevent popular sympathy from aiding his escape. "Oh!" cried one lady, of rather extensive proportions, who was the wife
of a baker, "I should like to have him in a brisk oven for an hour and a
half." "And I," said the lady of a butcher, "would see him slaughtered without
so much as winking at him." "And serve him right, the wagabone!" cried Big Ben. "Come along, will
you, you ill-looking scarecrow! Easy does it. Will you walk? Oh, very
well, don't. Who are you?" A little man with a constable's staff in his hand, rushed before Ben,
crying out--

"What is it? what is it? I'm a constable. What is it?" "Murder!" said Mrs. Oakley. "I give that man in charge for murdering his
wife. I saw him do it." "That will do," said the constable. "Give him to me. I'll take him. He
dare not resist me. I'll have him." Big Ben looked at the constable and then he shook his head, as he said
very gravely--

"I tell you what it is, my little man, you ain't fit to tussle with such
a fellow as this--I'll take him along for you. Where is he to go?" "To the round-house, in course; but I'm a constable. I must take him--I
will take him! Give him to me, sir, directly--I will have him--I must go
with him!" "Wait a minute," said Ben. "Easy does it! You must go with him, you say? Very good--easy does everything!" With this, Ben grasped Mr. Lupin round the middle, and placed him under
his left arm, and suddenly pouncing, then, upon the constable, he caught
him up and placed him under the right arm; and then away he walked, to
the admiration of the populace, and paying about as much attention to
the kicking of the constable and the kicking of Mr. Lupin, as though
they were two dogs that he was carrying home. And so the murderer was taken to the round-house, where Mrs. Oakley duly
preferred the charge against him, and promised to substantiate it before
a magistrate when called upon so to do. CHAPTER CXVII. SHOWS HOW MRS. OAKLEY RECONCILED HERSELF TO EVERYBODY AT HOME. When Ben and Mrs. Oakley had thus disposed of Mr. Lupin, and left him to
his solitary and not very pleasant reflections in a cell of the
round-house, they found themselves together in the open street, and Ben,
as he cast a woeful glance at her, said--

"Well, how does yer feel now? Easy does it! Oh, you aint a-been and
behaved yourself properly lately--you is like the old bear as we calls
Nosey. He's always a-doing what he shouldn't, and always a-never doing
what he should." "Ben?" "Well, blaze away. What is yer going to say now?" "I feel, Ben, that I am a very different woman from what I was--very
different." "Then you must have gained by the exchange, for you was, I will say it,
anything but a pleasant bit o' goods. There's poor old Oakley a-making
of spectacles all days, and a-wearing of his old eyes out--and there's
Miss Johanna, bless her heart! as wise a little bit o' human nature as
you'd wish to see, whether she's in petticoats or the other things; and
yet you neglects 'em both, all for to run arter a canting snivelling
wagabone like this Lupin, that we wouldn't have among the beasteses at
the Tower, if so be he'd come and offer himself." "I know it, Ben--I know it." "You know it! Why didn't you know it before?" "I don't know, Ben; but my eyes are open now. I have had a lesson that
to my dying day I shall never forget. I have found that piety may only
be a cloak with which to cover up the most monstrous iniquity." "Oh, you have made that discovery, have you?" "I have, indeed, Ben." "Well, I knowed as much as that when I was a small baby. It only shows
how back'ard some folks is in coming for'ard with their edication." "Yes, Ben." "Well, and what is you going to be arter now?" "I wish to go home, and I want you to come with me, and to say a kind
word for me; I want you to tell them how I now see the error of my ways,
and how I am an altered woman, and mean to be a very--very different
person than I was." Here Mrs. Oakley's genuine feelings got the better of her, and she began
to weep bitterly; and Ben, after looking at her for a few moments, cried
out--

"Why, it's real, and not like our hyena that only does it to gammon us! Come, mother Oakley, just pop your front paw under my arm, and I'll go
home with you; and if you don't get a welcome there, I'm not a
beef-eater. Why, the old man will fly right bang out of his wits for
joy. You should only see what a house is when the mother and the wife
don't do as she ought. Mother O., you should see what a bit of fire
there is in the grate, and what a hearth." "I know it--I ought to know it." "You ought to know it!" added Ben, putting himself into an oratorial
attitude. "You should only see the old man when dinner time comes round. He goes into the parlour and he finds no fire; then he says--'Dear me!'" "Yes--yes." "Then he gives a boy a ha'penny to go and get him something that don't
do him no sort of good from the cook's shop, and sometimes the boy nabs
the ha'penny and the shilling both, and ain't never heard of again by
any means no more." "No doubt, Ben." "Then, when tea comes round, it don't come round at all, and the old man
has none; but he takes in a ha'porth of milk in a jug without a spout,
and he drinks that up, cold and miserable, with a penny-loaf, you see." "Yes--yes." "And then at night, when there ought to be a little sort of comfort
round the fireside, there ain't none."