Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest

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"That is true."

"There may have been a time--who shall say there was not?--when he, like
me, would have shrunk, with a dread as great as any one could have
experienced, from the contamination of the touch even of a vampyre."

"I cannot, sister, deny the soundness of your reasoning," said Henry,
with a sigh; "but I still no not see anything, even from a full
conviction that Varney is unfortunate, which should induce us to
tolerate him."

"Nay, brother, I said not tolerate. What I mean is, that even with the
horror and dread we must naturally feel at such a being, we may afford
to mingle some amount of pity, which shall make us rather seek to shun
him, than to cross his path with a resolution of doing him an injury."

"I perceive well, sister, what you mean. Rather than remain here, and
make an attempt to defy Sir Francis Varney, you would fly from him, and
leave him undisputed master of the field."

"I would--I would."

"Heaven forbid that I or any one should thwart you. You know well,
Flora, how dear you are to me; you know well that your happiness has
ever been to us all a matter which has assumed the most important of
shapes, as regarded our general domestic policy. It is not, therefore,
likely now, dear sister, that we should thwart you in your wish to
remove from here."

"I know, Henry, all you would say," remarked Flora, as a tear started to
her eyes. "I know well all you think, and, in your love for me, I
likewise know well I rely for ever. You are attached to this place, as,
indeed, we all are, by a thousand happy and pleasant associations; but
listen to me further, Henry, I do not wish to wander far."

"Not far, Flora?"

"No. Do I not still cling to a hope that Charles may yet appear? and if
he do so, it will assuredly be in this neighbourhood, which he knows is
native and most dear to us all."

"True."

"Then do I wish to make some sort of parade, in the way of publicity, of
our leaving the Hall."

"Yes, yes."

"And yet not go far. In the neighbouring town, for example, surely we
might find some means of living entirely free from remark or observation
as to who or what we were."

"That, sister, I doubt. If you seek for that species of solitude which
you contemplate, it is only to be found in a desert."

"A desert?"

"Yes; or in a large city."

"Indeed!"

"Ay, Flora; you may well believe me, that it is so. In a small community
you can have no possible chance of evading an amount of scrutiny which
would very soon pierce through any disguise you could by any possibility
assume."

"Then there is no resource. We must go far."

"Nay, I will consider for you, Flora; and although, as a general
principle, what I have said I know to be true, yet some more special
circumstance may arise that may point a course that, while it enables
us, for Charles Holland's sake, to remain in this immediate
neighbourhood, yet will procure to us all the secrecy we may desire."

"Dear--dear brother," said Flora, as she flung herself upon Henry's
neck, "you speak cheeringly to me, and, what is more, you believe in
Charles's faithfulness and truth."

"As Heaven is my judge, I do."

"A thousand, thousand thanks for such an assurance. I know him too well
to doubt, for one moment, his faith. Oh, brother! could he--could
Charles Holland, the soul of honour, the abode of every noble impulse
that can adorn humanity--could he have written those letters? No, no!
perish the thought!"

"It has perished."

"Thank God!"

"I only, upon reflection, wonder how, misled for the moment by the
concurrence of a number of circumstances, I could ever have suspected
him."

"It is like your generous nature, brother to say so; but you know as
well as I, that there has been one here who has, far from feeling any
sort of anxiety to think as well as possible of poor Charles Holland,
has done all that in him lay to take the worst view of his mysterious
disappearance, and induce us to do the like."

"You allude to Mr. Marchdale?"

"I do."

"Well, Flora, at the same time that I must admit you have cause for
speaking of Mr. Marchdale as you do, yet when we come to consider all
things, there may be found for him excuses."

"May there?"

"Yes, Flora; he is a man, as he himself says, past the meridian of life,
and the world is a sad as well as a bad teacher, for it soon--too soon,
alas! deprives us of our trusting confidence in human nature."

"It may be so; but yet, he, knowing as he did so very little of Charles
Holland, judged him hastily and harshly."

"You rather ought to say, Flora, that he did not judge him generously."

"Well, be it so."

"And you must recollect, when you say so, that Marchdale did not love
Charles Holland."

"Nay, now," said Flora, while there flashed across her cheek, for a
moment, a heightened colour, "you are commencing to jest with me, and,
therefore, we will say no more. You know, dear Henry, all my hopes, my
wishes, and my feelings, and I shall therefore leave my future destiny
in your hands, to dispose of as you please. Look yonder!"

"Where?"

"There. Do you not see the admiral and Mr. Chillingworth walking among
the trees?"

"Yes, yes; I do now."

"How very serious and intent they are upon the subject of their
discourse. They seem quite lost to all surrounding objects. I could not
have imagined any subject that would so completely have absorbed the
attention of Admiral Bell."

"Mr. Chillingworth had something to relate to him or to propose, of a
nature which, perchance, has had the effect of enchaining all his
attention--he called him from the room."

"Yes; I saw that he did. But see, they come towards us, and now we
shall, probably, hear what is the subject-matter of their discourse and
consultation."

"We shall."

Admiral Bell had evidently seen Henry and his sister, for now, suddenly,
as if not from having for the first moment observed them, and, in
consequence, broken off their private discourse, but as if they arrived
at some point in it which enabled them to come to a conclusion to be
communicative, the admiral came towards the brother and sister,

"Well," said the bluff old admiral, when they were sufficiently near to
exchange words, "well, Miss Flora, you are looking a thousand times
better than you were."

"I thank you, admiral, I am much better."

"Oh, to be sure you are; and you will be much better still, and no sort
of mistake. Now, here's the doctor and I have both been agreeing upon
what is best for you."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, to be sure. Have we not, doctor?"

"We have, admiral."

"Good; and what, now, Miss Flora, do you suppose it is?"

"I really cannot say."

"Why, it's change of air, to be sure. You must get away from here as
quickly as you can, or there will be no peace for you."

"Yes," added Mr. Chillingworth, advancing; "I am quite convinced that
change of scene and change of place, and habits, and people, will tend
more to your complete recovery than any other circumstances. In the most
ordinary cases of indisposition we always find that the invalid recovers
much sooner away from the scene of his indisposition, than by remaining
in it, even though its general salubrity be much greater than the place
to which he may be removed."

"Good," said the admiral.

"Then we are to understand," said Henry, with a smile, "that we are no
longer to be your guests, Admiral Bell?"

"Belay there!" cried the admiral; "who told you to understand any such
thing, I should like to know?"

"Well, but we shall look upon this house as yours, now; and, that being
the case, if we remove from it, of course we cease to be your guests any
longer."

"That's all you know about it. Now, hark ye. You don't command the
fleet, so don't pretend to know what the admiral is going to do. I have
made money by knocking about some of the enemies of old England, and
that's the most gratifying manner in the world of making money, so far
as I am concerned."

[Illustration]

"It is an honourable mode."

"Of course it is. Well, I am going to--what the deuce do you call it?"

"What?"

"That's just what I want to know. Oh, I have it now. I am going to what
the lawyers call invest it."

"A prudent step, admiral, and one which it is to be hoped, before now,
has occurred to you."

"Perhaps it has and perhaps it hasn't; however, that's my business, and
no one's else's. I am going to invest my spare cash in taking houses;
so, as I don't care a straw where the houses may be situated, you can
look out for one somewhere that will suit you, and I'll take it; so,
after all, you will be my guests there just the same as you are here."

"Admiral," said Henry, "it would be imposing upon a generosity as rare
as it is noble, were we to allow you to do so much for us as you
contemplate."

"Very good."

"We cannot--we dare not."

"But I say you shall. So you have had your say, and I've had mine, after
which, if you please, Master Henry Bannerworth, I shall take upon myself
to consider the affair as altogether settled. You can commence
operations as soon as you like. I know that Miss Flora, here--bless her
sweet eyes--don't want to stay at Bannerworth Hall any longer than she
can help it."

"Indeed I was urging upon Henry to remove," said Flora; "but yet I
cannot help feeling with him, admiral, that we are imposing upon your
goodness."

"Go on imposing, then."

"But--"

"Psha! Can't a man be imposed upon if he likes? D--n it, that's a poor
privilege for an Englishman to be forced to make a row about. I tell you
I like it. I will be imposed upon, so there's an end of that; and now
let's come in and see what Mrs. Bannerworth has got ready for luncheon."

* * * * *

It can hardly be supposed that such a popular ferment as had been
created in the country town, by the singular reports concerning Varney
the Vampyre, should readily, and without abundant satisfaction, subside.

An idea like that which had lent so powerful an impulse to the popular
mind, was one far easier to set going than to deprecate or extinguish.
The very circumstances which had occurred to foil the excited mob in
their pursuit of Sir Francis Varney, were of a nature to increase the
popular superstition concerning him, and to make him and his acts appear
in still more dreadful colours.

Mobs do not reason very closely and clearly; but the very fact of the
frantic flight of Sir Francis Varney from the projected attack of the
infuriated multitude, was seized hold of as proof positive of the
reality of his vampyre-like existence.

Then, again, had he not disappeared in the most mysterious manner? Had
he not sought refuge where no human being would think of seeking refuge,
namely, in that old, dilapidated ruin, where, when his pursuers were so
close upon his track, he had succeeded in eluding their grasp with a
facility which looked as if he had vanished into thin air, or as if the
very earth had opened to receive him bodily within its cold embraces?

It is not to be wondered at, that the few who fled so precipitately from
the ruin, lost nothing of the wonderful story they had to tell, in the
carrying it from that place to the town. When they reached their
neighbours, they not only told what had really occurred, but they added
to it all their own surmises, and the fanciful creation of all their own
fears, so that before mid-day, and about the time when Henry Bannerworth
was conversing so quietly in the gardens of the Hall with his beautiful
sister, there was an amount of popular ferment in the town, of which
they had no conception.

All business was suspended, and many persons, now that once the idea had
been started concerning the possibility that a vampyre might have been
visiting some of the houses in the place, told how, in the dead of the
night, they had heard strange noises. How children had shrieked from no
apparent cause--doors opened and shut without human agency; and windows
rattled that never had been known to rattle before.

Some, too, went so far as to declare that they had been awakened out of
their sleep by noises incidental to an effort made to enter their
chambers; and others had seen dusky forms of gigantic proportions
outside their windows, tampering with their fastenings, and only
disappearing when the light of day mocked all attempts at concealment.

These tales flew from mouth to mouth, and all listened to them with such
an eager interest, that none thought it worth while to challenge their
inconsistencies, or to express a doubt of their truth, because they had
not been mentioned before.

The only individual, and he was a remarkably clever man, who made the
slightest remark upon the subject of a practical character, hazarded a
suggestion that made confusion worse confounded.

He knew something of vampyres. He had travelled abroad, and had heard of
them in Germany, as well as in the east, and, to a crowd of wondering
and aghast listeners, he said,--

"You may depend upon it, my friends, this has been going on for some
time; there have been several mysterious and sudden deaths in the town
lately; people have wasted away and died nobody knew how or wherefore."

"Yes--yes," said everybody.

"There was Miles, the butcher; you know how fat he was, and then how fat
he wasn't."

A general assent was given to the proposition; and then, elevating one
arm in an oratorical manner, the clever fellow continued,--

"I have not a doubt that Miles, the butcher, and every one else who has
died suddenly lately, have been victims of the vampyre; and what's more,
they'll all be vampyres, and come and suck other people's blood, till at
last the whole town will be a town of vampyres."

"But what's to be done?" cried one, who trembled so excessively that he
could scarcely stand under his apprehension.

"There is but one plan--Sir Francis Varney must be found, and put out of
the world in such a manner that he can't come back to it again; and all
those who are dead that we have any suspicion of, should be taken up out
of their graves and looked at, to see if they're rotting or not; if they
are it's all right; but, if they look fresh and much, as usual, you may
depend they're vampyres, and no mistake."

This was a terrific suggestion thrown amongst a mob. To have caught Sir
Francis Varney and immolated him at the shrine of popular fury, they
would not have shrunk from; but a desecration of the graves of those
whom they had known in life was a matter which, however much it had to
recommend it, even the boldest stood aghast at, and felt some qualms of
irresolution.

There are many ideas, however, which, like the first plunge into a cold
bath, are rather uncomfortable for the moment; but which, in a little
time, we become so familiarized with, that they become stripped of their
disagreeable concomitants, and appear quite pleasing and natural.

So it was with this notion of exhuming the dead bodies of those
townspeople who had recently died from what was called a decay of
nature, and such other failures of vitality as bore not the tangible
name of any understood disease.

From mouth to mouth the awful suggestion spread like wildfire, until at
last it grew into such a shape that it almost seemed to become a duty,
at all events, to have up Miles the butcher, and see how he looked.

There is, too, about human nature a natural craving curiosity concerning
everything connected with the dead. There is not a man of education or
of intellectual endowment who would not travel many miles to look upon
the exhumation of the remains of some one famous in his time, whether
for his vices, his virtues, his knowledge, his talents, or his heroism;
and, if this feeling exist in the minds of the educated and refined in a
sublimated shape, which lends to it grace and dignity, we may look for
it among the vulgar and the ignorant, taking only a grosser and meaner
form, in accordance with their habits of thought. The rude materials, of
which the highest and noblest feelings of educated minds are formed,
will be found amongst the most grovelling and base; and so this vulgar
curiosity, which, combined with other feelings, prompted an ignorant and
illiterate mob to exhume Miles, the once fat butcher, in a different
form tempted the philosophic Hamlet to moralise upon the skull of
Yorick.

And it was wonderful to see how, when these people had made up their
minds to carry out the singularly interesting, but, at the same,
fearful, suggestion, they assumed to themselves a great virtue in so
doing--told each other what an absolute necessity there was, for the
public good, that it should be done; and then, with loud shouts and
cries concerning the vampyre, they proceeded in a body to the village
churchyard, where had been lain, with a hope of reposing in peace, the
bones of their ancestors.

A species of savage ferocity now appeared to have seized upon the crowd,
and the people, in making up their minds to do something which was
strikingly at variance with all their preconceived notions of right and
wrong, appeared to feel that it was necessary, in order that they might
be consistent, to cast off many of the decencies of life, and to become
riotous and reckless.

As they proceeded towards the graveyard, they amused themselves by
breaking the windows of the tax-gatherers, and doing what passing
mischief they could to the habitations of all who held any official
situation or authority.

This was something like a proclamation of war against those who might
think it their duty to interfere with the lawless proceedings of an
ignorant multitude. A public-house or two, likewise, _en route_, was
sacked of some of its inebriating contents, so that, what with the
madness of intoxication, and the general excitement consequent upon the
very nature of the business which took them to the churchyard, a more
wild and infuriated multitude than that which paused at two iron gates
which led into the sanctuary of that church could not be imagined.

Those who have never seen a mob placed in such a situation as to have
cast off all moral restraint whatever, at the same time that it feels
there is no physical power to cope with it, can form no notion of the
mass of terrible passions which lie slumbering under what, in ordinary
cases, have appeared harmless bosoms, but which now run riot, and
overcame every principle of restraint. It is a melancholy fact, but,
nevertheless, a fact, despite its melancholy, that, even in a civilised
country like this, with a generally well-educated population, nothing
but a well-organised physical force keeps down, from the commission of
the most outrageous offences, hundreds and thousands of persons.

We have said that the mob paused at the iron gates of the churchyard,
but it was more a pause of surprise than one of vacillation, because
they saw that those iron gates were closed, which had not been the case
within the memory of the oldest among them.

At the first building of the church, and the enclosure of its graveyard,
two pairs of these massive gates had been presented by some munificent
patron; but, after a time, they hung idly upon their hinges, ornamental
certainly, but useless, while a couple of turnstiles, to keep cattle
from straying within the sacred precincts, did duty instead, and
established, without trouble, the regular thoroughfare, which long habit
had dictated as necessary, through the place of sepulture.

But now those gates were closed, and for once were doing duty. Heaven
only knows how they had been moved upon their rusty and time-worn
hinges. The mob, however, was checked for the moment, and it was clear
that the ecclesiastical authorities were resolved to attempt something
to prevent the desecration of the tombs.

Those gates were sufficiently strong to resist the first vigorous shake
which was given to them by some of the foremost among the crowd, and
then one fellow started the idea that they might be opened from the
inside, and volunteered to clamber over the wall to do so.

Hoisted up upon the shoulders of several, he grasped the top of the
wall, and raised his head above its level, and then something of a
mysterious nature rose up from the inside, and dealt him such a whack
between the eyes, that down he went sprawling among his coadjutors.

Now, nobody had seen how this injury had been inflicted, and the policy
of those in the garrison should have been certainly to keep up the
mystery, and leave the invaders in ignorance of what sort of person it
was that had so foiled them. Man, however, is prone to indulge in vain
glorification, and the secret was exploded by the triumphant waving of
the long staff of the beadle, with the gilt knob at the end of it, just
over the parapet of the wall, in token of victory.

"It's Waggles! it's Waggles!" cried everybody "it's Waggles, the
beadle!"

"Yes," said a voice from within, "it's Waggles, the beadle; and he
thinks as he had yer there rather; try it again. The church isn't in
danger; oh, no. What do you think of this?"

The staff was flourished more vigorously than ever, and in the secure
position that Waggles occupied it seemed not only impossible to attack
him, but that he possessed wonderful powers of resistance, for the staff
was long and the knob was heavy.

It was a boy who hit upon the ingenious expedient of throwing up a great
stone, so that it just fell inside the wall, and hit Waggles a great
blow on the head.

The staff was flourished more vigorously than ever, and the mob, in the
ecstasy at the fun which was going on, almost forgot the errand which
had brought them.

Perhaps after all the affair might have passed off jestingly, had not
there been some really mischievous persons among the throng who were
determined that such should not be the case, and they incited the
multitude to commence an attack upon the gates, which in a few moments
must have produced their entire demolition.

Suddenly, however, the boldest drew back, and there was a pause, as the
well-known form of the clergyman appeared advancing from the church
door, attired in full canonicals.

"There's Mr. Leigh," said several; "how unlucky he should be here."

"What is this?" said the clergyman, approaching the gates. "Can I
believe my eyes when I see before me those who compose the worshippers
at this church armed, and attempting to enter for the purpose of
violence to this sacred place! Oh! let me beseech you, lose not a
moment, but return to your homes, and repent of that which you have
already done. It is not yet too late; listen, I pray you, to the voice
of one with whom you have so often joined in prayer to the throne of the
Almighty, who is now looking upon your actions."

This appeal was heard respectfully, but it was evidently very far from
suiting the feelings and the wishes of those to whom it was addressed;
the presence of the clergyman was evidently an unexpected circumstance,
and the more especially too as he appeared in that costume which they
had been accustomed to regard with a reverence almost amounting to
veneration. He saw the favourable effect he had produced, and anxious to
follow it up, he added,--

"Let this little ebullition of feeling pass away, my friends; and,
believe me, when I assure you upon my sacred word, that whatever ground
there may be for complaint or subject for inquiry, shall be fully and
fairly met; and that the greatest exertions shall be made to restore
peace and tranquillity to all of you."

"It's all about the vampyre!" cried one fellow--"Mr. Leigh, how should
you like a vampyre in the pulpit?"

"Hush, hush! can it be possible that you know so little of the works of
that great Being whom you all pretend to adore, as to believe that he
would create any class of beings of a nature such as those you ascribe
to that terrific word! Oh, let me pray of you to get rid of these
superstitions--alike disgraceful to yourselves and afflicting to me."

The clergyman had the satisfaction of seeing the crowd rapidly thinning
from before the gates, and he believed his exhortations were having all
the effect he wished. It was not until he heard a loud shout behind him,
and, upon hastily turning, saw that the churchyard had been scaled at
another place by some fifty or sixty persons, that his heart sunk within
him, and he began to feel that what he had dreaded would surely come to
pass.

Even then he might have done something in the way of pacific exertion,
but for the interference of Waggles, the beadle, who spoilt everything.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE OPEN GRAVES.--THE DEAD BODIES.--A SCENE OF TERROR.

[Illustration]

We have said Waggles spoilt everything, and so he did, for before Mr.
Leigh could utter a word more, or advance two steps towards the rioters,
Waggles charged them staff in hand, and there soon ensued a riot of a
most formidable description.

A kind of desperation seemed to have seized the beadle, and certainly,
by his sudden and unexpected attack, he achieved wonders. When, however,
a dozen hands got hold of the staff, and it was wrenched from him, and
he was knocked down, and half-a-dozen people rolled over him, Waggles
was not near the man he had been, and he would have been very well
content to have lain quiet where he was; this, however, he was not
permitted to do, for two or three, who had felt what a weighty
instrument of warfare the parochial staff was, lifted him bodily from
the ground, and canted him over the wall, without much regard to whether
he fell on a hard or a soft place on the other side.