Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest

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The reader will, doubtless, too, recollect that, at his last moments,
this unhappy individual was said to have uttered some incoherent words
about some hidden money, and that the rapid hand of death alone seemed
to prevent him from being explicit upon that subject, and left it merely
a matter of conjecture.

As years had rolled on, this affair, even as a subject of speculation,
had ceased to occupy the minds of any of the Bannerworth family, and
several of their friends, among whom was Mr. Marchdale, were decidedly
of opinion that the apparently pointed and mysterious words uttered,
were but the disordered wanderings of an intellect already hovering on
the confines of eternity.

Indeed, far from any money, of any amount, being a disturbance to the
last moments of the dissolute man, whose vices and extravagances had
brought his family, to such ruin, it was pretty generally believed that
he had committed suicide simply from a conviction of the impossibility
of raising any more supplies of cash, to enable him to carry on the
career which he had pursued for so long.

But to resume.

Henry at once communicated to the admiral what his mother had said, and
then the whole question regarding the removal being settled in the
affirmative, nothing remained to be done but to set about it as quickly
as possible.

The Bannerworths lived sufficiently distant from the town to be out of
earshot of the disturbances which were then taking place; and so
completely isolated were they from all sort of society, that they had no
notion of the popular disturbance which Varney the vampyre had given
rise to.

It was not until the following morning that Mr. Chillingworth, who had
been home in the meantime, brought word of what had taken place, and
that great commotion was still in the town, and that the civil
authorities, finding themselves by far too weak to contend against the
popular will, had sent for assistance to a garrison town, some twenty
miles distant.

It was a great grief to the Bannerworth family to hear these tidings,
not that they were in any way, except as victims, accessory to creating
the disturbance about the vampyre, but it seemed to promise a kind of
notoriety which they might well shrink from, and which they were just
the people to view with dislike.

View the matter how we like, however, it is not to be considered as at
all probable that the Bannerworth family would remain long in ignorance
of what a great sensation they had created unwittingly in the
neighbourhood.

The very reasons which had induced their servants to leave their
establishment, and prefer throwing themselves completely out of place,
rather than remain in so ill-omened a house, were sure to be bruited
abroad far and wide.

And that, perhaps, when they came to consider of it, would suffice to
form another good and substantial reason for leaving the Hall, and
seeking a refuge in obscurity from the extremely troublesome sort of
popularity incidental to their peculiar situation.

Mr. Chillingworth felt uncommonly chary of telling them all that had
taken place; although he was well aware that the proceedings of the
riotous mob had not terminated with the little disappointment at the old
ruin, to which they had so effectually chased Varney the vampyre, but to
lose him so singularly when he got there.

No doubt he possessed the admiral with the uproar that was going on in
the town, for the latter did hint a little of it to Henry Bannerworth.

"Hilloa!" he said to Henry, as he saw him walking in the garden; "it
strikes me if you and your ship's crew continue in these latitudes,
you'll get as notorious as the Flying Dutchman in the southern ocean."

"How do you mean?" said Henry.

"Why, it's a sure going proverb to say, that a nod's as good as a wink;
but, the fact is, it's getting rather too well known to be pleasant,
that a vampyre has struck up rather a close acquaintance with your
family. I understand there's a precious row in the town."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; bother the particulars, for I don't know them; but, hark ye, by
to-morrow I'll have found a place for you to go to, so pack up the
sticks, get all your stores ready to clear out, and make yourself scarce
from this place."

"I understand you," said Henry; "We have become the subject of popular
rumour; I've only to beg of you, admiral, that you'll say nothing of
this to Flora; she has already suffered enough, Heaven knows; do not let
her have the additional infliction of thinking that her name is made
familiar in every pothouse in the town."

"Leave me alone for that," said the admiral. "Do you think I'm an ass?"

"Ay, ay," said Jack Pringle, who came in at that moment, and thought the
question was addressed to him.

"Who spoke to you, you bad-looking horse-marine?"

"Me a horse-marine! didn't you ask a plain question of a fellow, and get
a plain answer?"

"Why, you son of a bad looking gun, what do you mean by that? I tell you
what it is, Jack; I've let you come sneaking too often on the
quarter-deck, and now you come poking your fun at your officers, you
rascal!"

"I poking fun!" said Jack; "couldn't think of such a thing. I should
just as soon think of you making a joke as me."

"Now, I tell you what it is, I shall just strike you off the ship's
books, and you shall just go and cruise by yourself; I've done with
you."

"Go and tell that to the marines, if you like," said Jack. "I ain't done
with you yet, for a jolly long watch. Why, what do you suppose would
become of you, you great babby, without me? Ain't I always a conveying
you from place to place, and steering you through all sorts of
difficulties?"

"D---n your impudence!"

"Well, then, d---n yours."

"Shiver my timbers!"

"Ay, you may do what you like with your own timbers."

"And you won't leave me?"

"Sartingly not."

"Come here, then?"

Jack might have expected a gratuity, for he advanced with alacrity.

"There," said the admiral, as he laid his stick across his shoulders;
"that's your last month's wages; don't spend it all at once."

"Well, I'm d----d!" said Jack; "who'd have thought of that?--he's a
turning rumgumtious, and no mistake. Howsomdever, I must turn it over in
my mind, and be even with him, somehow--I owes him one for that. I say,
admiral."

"What now, you lubber?"

"Nothing; turn that over in your mind;" and away Jack walked, not quite
satisfied, but feeling, at least, that he had made a demonstration of
attack.

As for the admiral, he considered that the thump he had given Jack with
the stick, and it was no gentle one, was a decided balancing of accounts
up to that period, and as he remained likewise master of the field, he
was upon the whole very well satisfied.

These last few words which had been spoken to Henry by Admiral Bell,
more than any others, induced him to hasten his departure from
Bannerworth Hall; he had walked away when the altercation between Jack
Pringle and the admiral began, for he had seen sufficient of those wordy
conflicts between those originals to be quite satisfied that neither of
them meant what he said of a discouraging character towards the other,
and that far from there being any unfriendly feeling contingent upon
those little affairs, they were only a species of friendly sparring,
which both parties enjoyed extremely.

He went direct to Flora, and he said to her,--

"Since we are all agreed upon the necessity, or, at all events, upon the
expediency of a departure from the Hall, I think, sister, the sooner we
carry out that determination the better and the pleasanter for us all it
will be. Do you think you could remove so hastily as to-morrow?"

"To-morrow! That is soon indeed."

"I grant you that it is so; but Admiral Bell assures me that he will
have everything in readiness, and a place provided for us to go to by
then."

"Would it be possible to remove from a house like this so very quickly?"

"Yes, sister. If you look around you, you will see that a great portion
of the comforts you enjoy in this mansion belong to it as a part of its
very structure, and are not removable at pleasure; what we really have
to take away is very little. The urgent want of money during our
father's lifetime induced him, as you may recollect even, at various
times to part with much that was ornamental, as well as useful, which
was in the Hall. You will recollect that we seldom returned from those
little continental tours which to us were so delightful, without finding
some old familiar objects gone, which, upon inquiry, we found had been
turned into money, to meet some more than usually pressing demand."

"That is true, brother; I recollect well."

"So that, upon the whole, sister, there is little to remove."

"Well, well, be it so. I will prepare our mother for this sudden step.
Believe me, my heart goes with it; and as a force of vengeful
circumstances have induced us to remove from this home, which was once
so full of pleasant recollections, it is certainly better, as you say,
that the act should be at once consummated, than left hanging in terror
over our minds."

"Then I'll consider that as settled," said Henry.

CHAPTER XLVII.

THE REMOVAL FROM THE HALL.--THE NIGHT WATCH, AND THE ALARM.

[Illustration]

Mrs. Bannerworth's consent having been already given to the removal, she
said at once, when appealed to, that she was quite ready to go at any
time her children thought expedient.

Upon this, Henry sought the admiral, and told him as much, at the same
time adding,--

"My sister feared that we should have considerable trouble in the
removal, but I have convinced her that such will not be the case, as we
are by no means overburdened with cumbrous property."

"Cumbrous property," said the admiral, "why, what do you mean? I beg
leave to say, that when I took the house, I took the table and chairs
with it. D--n it, what good do you suppose an empty house is to me?"

"The tables and chairs!"

"Yes. I took the house just as it stands. Don't try and bamboozle me out
of it. I tell you, you've nothing to move but yourselves and immediate
personal effects."

"I was not aware, admiral, that that was your plan."

"Well, then, now you are, listen to me. I've circumvented the enemy too
often not to know how to get up a plot. Jack and I have managed it all.
To-morrow evening, after dark, and before the moon's got high enough to
throw any light, you and your brother, and Miss Flora and your mother,
will come out of the house, and Jack and I will lead you where you're to
go to. There's plenty of furniture where you're a-going, and so you will
get off free, without anybody knowing anything about it."

"Well, admiral, I've said it before, and it is the unanimous opinion of
us all, that everything should be left to you. You have proved yourself
too good a friend to us for us to hesitate at all in obeying your
commands. Arrange everything, I pray you, according to your wishes and
feelings, and you will find there shall be no cavilling on our parts."

"That's right; there's nothing like giving a command to some one person.
There's no good done without. Now I'll manage it all. Mind you, seven
o'clock to-morrow evening everything is to be ready, and you will all be
prepared to leave the Hall."

"It shall be so."

"Who's that giving such a thundering ring at the gate?"

"Nay, I know not. We have few visitors and no servants, so I must e'en
be my own gate porter."

Henry walked to the gate, and having opened it, a servant in a handsome
livery stepped a pace or two into the garden.

"Well," said Henry.

"Is Mr. Henry Bannerworth within, or Admiral Bell?"

"Both," cried the admiral. "I'm Admiral Bell, and this is Mr. Henry
Bannerworth. What do you want with us, you d----d gingerbread-looking
flunkey?"

"Sir, my master desires his compliments--his very best compliments--and
he wants to know how you are after your flurry."

"What?"

"After your--a--a--flurry and excitement."

"Who is your master?" said Henry.

"Sir Francis Varney."

"The devil!" said the admiral; "if that don't beat all the impudence I
ever came near. Our flurry! Ah! I like that fellow. Just go and tell
him--"

"No, no," said Henry, interposing, "send back no message. Say to your
master, fellow, that Mr. Henry Bannerworth feels that not only has he no
claim to Sir Francis Varney's courtesy, but that he would rather be
without it."

"Oh, ha!" said the footman, adjusting his collar; "very good. This seems
a d----d, old-fashioned, outlandish place of yours. Any ale?"

"Now, shiver my hulks!" said the admiral.

"Hush! hush!" said Henry; "who knows but there may be a design in this?
We have no ale."

"Oh, ah! dem!--dry as dust, by God! What does the old commodore say? Any
message, my ancient Greek?"

"No, thank you," said the admiral; "bless you, nothing. What did you
give for that waistcoat, d--n you? Ha! ha! you're a clever fellow."

"Ah! the old gentleman's ill. However, I'll take back his compliments,
and that he's much obliged at Sir Francis's condescension. At the same
time, I suppose may place in my eye what I may get out of either of you,
without hindering me seeing my way back. Ha! ha! Adieu--adieu."

"Bravo!" said the admiral; "that's it--go it--now for it. D--n it, it is
a _do!_"

The admiral's calmness during the latter part of the dialogue arose from
the fact that over the flunkey's shoulder, and at some little distance
off, he saw Jack Pringle taking off his jacket, and rolling up his
sleeves in that deliberate sort of way that seemed to imply a
determination of setting about some species of work that combined the
pleasant with the useful.

Jack executed many nods to and winks at the livery-servant, and jerked
his thumb likewise in the direction of a pump near at hand, in a manner
that spoke as plainly as possible, that John was to be pumped upon.

And now the conference was ended, and Sir Francis's messenger turned to
go; but Jack Pringle bothered him completely, for he danced round him in
such a singular manner, that, turn which way he would, there stood Jack
Pringle, in some grotesque attitude, intercepting him; and so he edged
him on, till he got him to the pump.

"Jack," said the admiral.

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Don't pump on that fellow now."

"Ay, ay, sir; give us a hand."

Jack laid hold of him by the two ears, and holding him under the pump,
kicked his shins until he completely gathered himself beneath the spout.
It was in vain that he shouted "Murder! help! fire! thieves!" Jack was
inexorable, and the admiral pumped.

Jack turned the fellow's head about in a very scientific manner, so as
to give him a fair dose of hydropathic treatment, and in a few minutes,
never was human being more thoroughly saturated with moisture than was
Sir Francis Varney's servant. He had left off hallooing for aid, for he
found that whenever he did so, Jack held his mouth under the spout,
which was decidedly unpleasant; so, with a patience that looked like
heroic fortitude, he was compelled to wait until the admiral was tired
of pumping.

"Very good," at length he said. "Now, Jack, for fear this fellow catcher
cold, be so good as to get a horsewhip, and see him off the premises
with it."

"Ay, ay, sir," said Jack. "And I say, old fellow, you can take back all
our blessed compliments now, and say you've been flurried a little
yourself; and if so be as you came here as dry as dust, d----e, you go
back as wet as a mop. Won't it do to kick him out, sir?"

"Very well--as you please, Jack."

"Then here goes;" and Jack proceeded to kick the shivering animal from
the garden with a vehemence that soon convinced him of the necessity of
getting out of it as quickly as possible.

How it was that Sir Francis Varney, after the fearful race he had had,
got home again across the fields, free from all danger, and back to his
own house, from whence he sent so cool and insolent a message, they
could not conceive.

But such must certainly be the fact; somehow or another, he had escaped
all danger, and, with a calm insolence peculiar to the man, he had no
doubt adopted the present mode of signifying as much to the
Bannerworths.

The insolence of his servant was, no doubt, a matter of pre-arrangement
with that individual, however he might have set about it con amore. As
for the termination of the adventure, that, of course, had not been at
all calculated upon; but, like most tools of other people's insolence or
ambition, the insolence of the underling had received both his own
punishment and his master's.

We know quite enough of Sir Francis Varney to feel assured that he would
rather consider it as a good jest than otherwise of his footman, so that
with the suffering he endured at the Bannerworths', and the want of
sympathy he was likely to find at home, that individual had certainly
nothing to congratulate himself upon but the melancholy reminiscence of
his own cleverness.

But were the mob satisfied with what had occurred in the churchyard?
They were not, and that night was to witness the perpetration of a
melancholy outrage, such as the history of the time presents no parallel
to.

The finding of a brick in the coffin of the butcher, instead of the body
of that individual, soon spread as a piece of startling intelligence all
over the place; and the obvious deduction that was drawn from the
circumstance, seemed to be that the deceased butcher was unquestionably
a vampyre, and out upon some expedition at the time when his coffin was
searched.

How he had originally got out of that receptacle for the dead was
certainly a mystery; but the story was none the worse for that. Indeed,
an ingenious individual found a solution for that part of the business,
for, as he said, nothing was more natural, when anybody died who was
capable of becoming a vampyre, than for other vampyres who knew it to
dig him up, and lay him out in the cold beams of the moonlight, until he
acquired the same sort of vitality they themselves possessed, and joined
their horrible fraternity.

In lieu of a better explanation--and, after all, it was no bad one--this
theory was generally received, and, with a shuddering horror, people
asked themselves, if the whole of the churchyard were excavated, how
many coffins would be found tenantless by the dead which had been
supposed, by simple-minded people, to inhabit them.

The presence, however, of a body of dragoons, towards evening,
effectually prevented any renewed attack upon the sacred precincts of
the churchyard, and it was a strange and startling thing to see that
country town under military surveillance, and sentinels posted at its
principal buildings.

This measure smothered the vengeance of the crowd, and insured, for a
time, the safety of Sir Francis Varney; for no considerable body of
persons could assemble for the purpose of attacking his house again,
without being followed; so such a step was not attempted.

It had so happened, however, that on that very day, the funeral of a
young man was to have taken place, who had put up for a time at that
same inn where Admiral Bell was first introduced to the reader. He had
become seriously ill, and, after a few days of indisposition, which had
puzzled the country practitioners, breathed his last.

He was to have been buried in the village churchyard on the very day of
the riot and confusion incidental to the exhumation of the coffin of the
butcher, and probably from that circumstance we may deduce the presence
of the clergyman in canonicals at the period of the riot.

When it was found that so disorderly a mob possessed the churchyard, the
idea of burying the stranger on that day was abandoned; but still all
would have gone on quietly as regarded him, had it not been for the
folly of one of the chamber-maids at the tavern.

This woman, with all the love of gossip incidental to her class, had,
from the first, entered so fully into all the particulars concerning
vampyres, that she fairly might be considered to be a little deranged on
that head. Her imagination had been so worked upon, that she was in an
unfit state to think of anything else, and if ever upon anybody a stern
and revolting superstition was calculated to produce direful effects, it
was upon this woman.

The town was tolerably quiet; the presence of the soldiery had
frightened some and amused others, and no doubt the night would have
passed off serenely, had she not suddenly rushed into the street, and,
with bewildered accents and frantic gestures shouted,--

"A vampyre--a vampyre--a vampyre!"

These words soon collected a crowd around her, and then, with screaming
accents, which would have been quite enough to convince any reflecting
person that she had actually gone distracted upon that point, she
cried,--

"Come into the house--come into the house! Look upon the dead body, that
should have been in its grave; it's fresher now than it was the day on
which it died, and there's a colour in its cheeks! A vampyre--a
vampyre--a vampyre! Heaven save us from a vampyre!"

The strange, infuriated, maniacal manner in which these words were
uttered, produced an astonishingly exciting effect among the mob.
Several women screamed, and some few fainted. The torch was laid again
to the altar of popular feeling, and the fierce flame of superstition
burnt brightly and fiercely.

Some twenty or thirty persons, with shouts and exclamations, rushed into
the inn, while the woman who had created the disturbance still continued
to rave, tearing her hair, and shrieking at intervals, until she fell
exhausted upon the pavement.

Soon, from a hundred throats, rose the dreadful cry of "A vampyre--a
vampyre!" The alarm was given throughout the whole town; the bugles of
the military sounded; there was a clash of arms--the shrieks of women;
altogether, the premonitory symptoms of such a riot as was not likely to
be quelled without bloodshed and considerable disaster.

It is truly astonishing the effect which one weak or vicious-minded
person can produce upon a multitude.

Here was a woman whose opinion would have been accounted valueless upon
the most common-place subject, and whose word would not have passed for
twopence, setting a whole town by the ears by force of nothing but her
sheer brutal ignorance.

It is a notorious physiological fact, that after four or five days, or
even a week, the bodies of many persons assume an appearance of
freshness, such as might have been looked for in vain immediately after
death.

It is one of the most insidious processes of that decay which appears to
regret with its

"----------- offensive fingers, To mar the lines where beauty
lingers."

But what did the chamber-maid know of physiology? Probably, she would
have asked if it was anything good to eat; and so, of course, having her
head full of vampyres, she must needs produce so lamentable a scene of
confusion, the results of which we almost sicken at detailing.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE STAKE AND THE DEAD BODY.

[Illustration]

The mob seemed from the first to have an impression that, as regarded
the military force, no very serious results would arise from that
quarter, for it was not to be supposed that, on an occasion which could
not possibly arouse any ill blood on the part of the soldiery, or on
which they could have the least personal feeling, they would like to get
a bad name, which would stick to them for years to come.

It was no political riot, on which men might be supposed, in consequence
of differing in opinion, to have their passions inflamed; so that,
although the call of the civil authorities for military aid had been
acceded to, yet it was hoped, and, indeed, almost understood by the
officers, that their operations would lie confined more to a
demonstration of power, than anything else.

Besides, some of the men had got talking to the townspeople, and had
heard all about the vampyre story, and not being of the most refined or
educated class themselves, they felt rather interested than otherwise in
the affair.

Under these circumstances, then, we are inclined to think, that the
disorderly mob of that inn had not so wholesome a fear as it was most
certainly intended they should have of the redcoats. Then, again, they
were not attacking the churchyard, which, in the first case, was the
main point in dispute, and about which the authorities had felt so very
sore, inasmuch as they felt that, if once the common people found out
that the sanctity of such places could be outraged with impunity, they
would lose their reverence for the church; that is to say, for the host
of persons who live well and get fat in this country by the trade of
religion.

[Illustration]

Consequently, this churchyard was the main point of defence, and it was
zealously looked to when it need not have been done so, while the
public-house where there really reigned mischief was half unguarded.

There are always in all communities, whether large or small, a number of
persons who really have, or fancy they have, something to gain by
disturbance. These people, of course, care not for what pretext the
public peace is violated; so long as there is a row, and something like
an excuse for running into other people's houses, they are satisfied.