As she stood at the door, however, she distinctly heard deep groans issuing from some one within the church; and in a state of great alarm, she ran off to one of the churchwardens, who had a duplicate key, and related what she had heard.
The churchwarden not being one of the most valorous of men, rather, upon the whole, declined to go into the church with no other escort than the beadle's wife; and as he, too, upon listening at the key-hole, heard the groans distinctly, he called upon the passers-by to assist, and got together quickly enough about twenty people to go into the church with him.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I don't know what it is, but there's groans; and in these horrid times, when, for all we know, Sweeney Todd is about the neighbourhood, one can't be too cautious."
"Certainly," said everybody.
"Then, gentlemen, if we all go in together when I open the door, it will be the very best plan."
This was duly agreed to; and the churchwarden, with a trembling hand, turned his key in the lock, and opened the door. He then stepped aside, and let all the crowd go in first, thinking that, as he was a man in office, the parish could not afford to lose him, in case anything serious should happen.
"Well, gentlemen," he cried, "what is it?"
"Nothing," said everybody.
"Then I will soon let nothing see that I, a churchwarden, am not to be frightened with impunity—that is to say, when I say frightened, I don't exactly mean that, but astonished, I mean. Come, come—if any one be here, I call upon them to surrender in the king's name!"
A deep groan was the only response to this valorous speech; and the moment the churchwarden heard it, he bolted out of the church, and ran right across the way into a shop opposite.