Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest

T >> Thomas Preskett Prest >> Varney the Vampire

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73

"Young as I then was, in comparison to what I am now, in my profession,
this inflamed my imagination, and nothing seemed to me so desirable as
getting hold of some one who had only recently been put to death, for
the purpose of trying what I could do in the way of attempting a
resuscitation of the subject. It was precisely for this reason that I
sought out the public executioner, and made his acquaintance, whom every
one else shunned, because I thought he might assist me by handing over
to me the body of some condemned and executed man, upon whom I could try
my skill.

"I broached the subject to him, and found him not averse. He said, that
if I would come forward and claim, as next of kin and allow the body to
be removed to his house, the body of the criminal who was to be executed
the first time, from that period, that he could give me a hint that I
should have no real next of kin opponents, he would throw every facility
in my way.

"This was just what I wanted; and, I believe, I waited with impatience
for some poor wretch to be hurried to his last account by the hands of
my friend, the public executioner.

"At length a circumstance occurred which favoured my designs most
effectually,--A man was apprehended for a highway robbery of a most
aggravated character. He was tried, and the evidence against him was so
conclusive, that the defence which was attempted by his counsel, became
a mere matter of form.

"He was convicted, and sentenced. The judge told him not to flatter
himself with the least notion that mercy would be extended to him. The
crime of which he had been found guilty was on the increase it was
highly necessary to make some great public example, to show evil doers
that they could not, with impunity, thus trample upon the liberty of the
subject, and had suddenly, just as it were, in the very nick of time,
committed the very crime, attended with all the aggravated circumstances
which made it easy and desirable to hang him out of hand.

"He heard his sentence, they tell me unmoved. I did not see him, but he
was represented to me as a man of a strong, and well-knit frame, with
rather a strange, but what some would have considered a handsome
expression of countenance, inasmuch as that there was an expression of
much haughty resolution depicted on it.

"I flew to my friend the executioner.

"'Can you,' I said, 'get me that man's body, who is to be hanged for the
highway robbery, on Monday?'

"'Yes,' he said; 'I see nothing to prevent it. Not one soul has offered
to claim even common companionship with him,--far less kindred. I think
if you put in your claim as a cousin, who will bear the expense of his
decent burial, you will have every chance of getting possession of the
body.'

"I did not hesitate, but, on the morning before the execution, I called
upon one of the sheriffs.

"I told him that the condemned man, I regretted to say, was related to
me; but as I knew nothing could be done to save him on the trial, I had
abstained from coming forward; but that as I did not like the idea of
his being rudely interred by the authorities, I had come forward to ask
for the body, after the execution should have taken place, in order that
I might, at all events, bestow upon it, in some sequestered spot, a
decent burial, with all the rites of the church.

"The sheriff was a man not overburthened with penetration. He applauded
my pious feelings, and actually gave me, without any inquiry, a written
order to receive the body from the hands of the hangman, after it had
hung the hour prescribed by the law.

"I did not, as you may well suppose, wish to appear more in the business
than was absolutely necessary; but I gave the executioner the sheriff's
order for the body, and he promised that he would get a shell ready to
place it in, and four stout men to carry it at once to his house, when
he should cut it down.

"'Good!' I said; 'and now as I am not a little anxious for the success
of my experiment, do you not think that you can manage so that the fall
of the criminal shall not be so sudden as to break his neck?'

"'I have thought of that,' he said, 'and I believe that I can manage to
let him down gently, so that he shall die of suffocation, instead of
having his neck put out of joint. I will do my best."

"'If you can but succeed in that,' said I, for I was quite in a state of
mania upon the subject, 'I shall be much indebted to you, and will
double the amount of money which I have already promised.'

"This was, as I believed it would be, a powerful stimulus to him to do
all in his power to meet my wishes, and he took, no doubt, active
measures to accomplish all that I desired.

"You can imagine with what intense impatience I waited the result. He
resided in an old ruinous looking house, a short distance on the Surrey
side of the river, and there I had arranged all my apparatus for making
experiments upon the dead man, in an apartment the windows of which
commanded a view of the entrance."

[Illustration]

"I was completely ready by half-past eight, although a moment's
consideration of course told me that at least another hour must elapse
before there could be the least chance of my seeing him arrive, for whom
I so anxiously longed.

"I can safely say so infatuated was I upon the subject, that no fond
lover ever looked with more nervous anxiety for the arrival of the
chosen object of his heart, than I did for that dead body, upon which I
proposed to exert all the influences of professional skill, to recall
back the soul to its earthly dwelling-place.

"At length I heard the sound of wheels. I found that my friend the
hangman had procured a cart, in which he brought the coffin, that being
a much quicker mode of conveyance than by bearers so that about a
quarter past nine o'clock the vehicle, with its ghastly content, stopped
at the door of his house.

"In my impatience I ran down stairs to meet that which ninety-nine men
out of a hundred would have gone some distance to avoid the sight of,
namely, a corpse, livid and fresh from the gallows. I, however, heralded
it as a great gift, and already, in imagination I saw myself imitating
the learned Frenchman, who had published such an elaborate treatise on
the mode of restoring life under all sorts of circumstances, to those
who were already pronounced by unscientific persons to be dead.

"To be sure, a sort of feeling had come over me at times, knowing as I
did that the French are a nation that do not scruple at all to sacrifice
truth on the altar of vanity, that it might be after all a mere
rhodomontade; but, however, I could only ascertain so much by actually
trying, so the suspicion that such might, by a possibility, be the end
of the adventure, did not deter me.

"I officiously assisted in having the coffin brought into the room where
I had prepared everything that was necessary in the conduction of my
grand experiment; and then, when no one was there with me but my friend
the executioner, I, with his help, the one of us taking the head and the
other the feet, took the body from the coffin and laid it upon a table.

"Hastily I placed my hand upon the region of the heart, and to my great
delight I found it still warm. I drew off the cap that covered the face,
and then, for the first time, my eyes rested upon the countenance of him
who now calls himself--Heaven only knows why--Sir Francis Varney."

"Good God!" said Henry, "are you certain?"

"Quite."

"It may have been some other rascal like him," said the admiral.

"No, I am quite sure now; I have, as I have before mentioned to you,
tried to get out of my own conviction upon the subject, but I have been
actually assured that he is the man by the very hangman himself."

"Go on, go on! Your tale certainly is a strange one, and I do not say it
either to compliment you or to cast a doubt upon you, but, except from
the lips of an old, and valued friend, such as you yourself are, I
should not believe it.'

"I am not surprised to hear you say that," replied the doctor; "nor
should I be offended even now if you were to entertain a belief that I
might, after all, be mistaken."

"No, no; you would not be so positive upon the subject, I well know, if
there was the slightest possibility of an error."

"Indeed I should not."

"Let us have the sequel, then."

"It is this. I was most anxious to effect an immediate resuscitation, if
it were possible, of the hanged man. A little manipulation soon
convinced me that the neck was not broken, which left me at once every
thing to hope for. The hangman was more prudent than I was, and before I
commenced my experiments, he said,--

"'Doctor, have you duly considered what you mean to do with this fellow,
in case you should be successful in restoring him to life?'

"'Not I,' said I.

"'Well,' he said, 'you can do as you like; but I consider that it is
really worth thinking of.'

"I was headstrong on the matter, and could think of nothing but the
success or the non-success, in a physiological point of view, of my plan
for restoring the dead to life; so I set about my experiments without
any delay, and with a completeness and a vigour that promised the most
completely successful results, if success could at all be an ingredient
in what sober judgment would doubtless have denominated a mad-headed and
wild scheme.

"For more than half an hour I tried in vain, by the assistance of the
hangman, who acted under my directions. Not the least symptom of
vitality presented itself; and he had a smile upon his countenance, as
he said in a bantering tone,--

"'I am afraid, sir, it is much easier to kill than to restore their
patients with doctors.'

"Before I could make him any reply, for I felt that his observation had
a good amount of truth in it, joined to its sarcasm the hanged man
uttered a loud scream, and opened his eyes.

"I must own I was myself rather startled; but I for some moments longer
continued the same means which had produced such an effect, when
suddenly he sprang up and laid hold of me, at the same time
exclaiming,--

"'Death, death, where is the treasure?'

"I had fully succeeded--too fully; and while the executioner looked on
with horror depicted in his countenance, I fled from the room and the
house, taking my way home as fast as I possibly could.

"A dread came over me, that the restored man would follow me if he
should find out, to whom it was he was indebted for the rather
questionable boon of a new life. I packed up what articles I set the
greatest store by, bade adieu to London, and never have I since set foot
within that city."

"And you never met the man you had so resuscitated?"

"Not till I saw Varney, the vampyre; and, as I tell you, I am now
certain that he is the man."

"That is the strangest yarn that ever I heard," said the admiral.

"A most singular circumstance," said Henry.

"You may have noticed about his countenance," said Dr. Chillingworth, "a
strange distorted look?"

"Yes, yes."

"Well, that has arisen from a spasmodic contraction of the muscles, in
consequence of his having been hanged. He will never lose it, and it has
not a little contributed to give him the horrible look he has, and to
invest him with some of the seeming outward attributes of the vampyre."

"And that man who is now in the hall with him, doctor," said Henry, "is
the very hangman who executed him?"

"The same. He tells me that after I left, he paid attention to the
restored man, and completed what I had nearly done. He kept him in his
house for a time, and then made a bargain with him, for a large sum of
money per annum, all of which he has regularly been paid, although he
tells me he has no more idea where Varney gets it, than the man in the
moon."

"It is very strange; but, hark! do you not hear the sound of voices in
angry altercation?"

"Yes, yes, they have met. Let us approach the windows now. We may chance
to hear something of what they say to each other."

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

THE ALTERCATION BETWEEN VARNEY AND THE EXECUTIONER IN THE HALL.--THE
MUTUAL AGREEMENT.

[Illustration]

There was certainly a loud wrangling in the Hall, just as the doctor
finished his most remarkable revelation concerning Sir Francis Varney, a
revelation which by no means attacked the fact of his being a vampyre or
not; but rather on the contrary, had a tendency to confirm any opinion
that might arise from the circumstance of his being restored to life
after his execution, favourable to that belief.

They all three now carefully approached the windows of the Hall, to
listen to what was going on, and after a few moments they distinctly
heard the voice of the hangman, saying in loud and rather angry
accents,--

"I do not deny but that you have kept your word with me--our bargain has
been, as you say, a profitable one: but, still I cannot see why that
circumstance should give you any sort of control over my actions."

"But what do you here?" said Varney, impatiently.

"What do you?" cried the other.

"Nay, to ask another question, is not to answer mine. I tell you that I
have special and most important business in this house; you can have no
motive but curiosity."

"Can I not, indeed? What, too, if I have serious and important business
here?"

"Impossible."

"Well, I may as easily use such a term as regards what you call
important business, but here I shall remain."

"Here you shall not remain."

"And will you make the somewhat hazardous attempt to force me to leave?"

"Yes, much as I dislike lifting my hand against you, I must do so; I
tell you that I must be alone in this house. I have most special
reasons--reasons which concern my continued existence.

"Your continued existence you talk of.--Tell me, now, how is it that you
have acquired so frightful a reputation in this neighbourhood? Go where
I will, the theme of conversation is Varney, the vampyre! and it is
implicitly believed that you are one of those dreadful characters that
feed upon the life-blood of others, only now and then revisiting the
tomb to which you ought long since to have gone in peace."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; what, in the name of all that's inexplicable, has induced you to
enact such a character?"

"Enact it! you say. Can you, then, from all you have heard of me, and
from all you know of me, not conceive it possible that I am not enacting
any such character? Why may it not be real? Look at me. Do I look like
one of the inhabitants of the earth?"

"In sooth, you do not."

"And yet I am, as you see, upon it. Do not, with an affected philosophy,
doubt all that may happen to be in any degree repugnant to your usual
experiences."

"I am not one disposed to do so; nor am I prepared to deny that such
dreadful beings may exist as vampyres. However, whether or not you
belong to so frightful a class of creatures, I do not intend to leave
here; but, I will make an agreement with you."

Varney was silent; and after a few moments' pause, the other
exclaimed,--

"There are people, even now, watching the place, and no doubt you have
been seen coming into it."

"No, no, I was satisfied no one was here but you."

"Then you are wrong. A Doctor Chillingworth, of whom you know something,
is here; and him, you have said, you would do no harm to, even to save
your life."

"I do know him. You told me that it was to him that I was mainly
indebted for my mere existence; and although I do not consider human
life to be a great boon, I cannot bring myself to raise my hand against
the man who, whatever might have been the motives for the deed, at all
events, did snatch me from the grave."

"Upon my word," whispered the admiral, "there is something about that
fellow that I like, after all."

"Hush!" said Henry, "listen to them. This would all have been
unintelligible to us, if you had not related to us what you have."

"I have just told you in time," said Chillingworth, "it seems."

"Will you, then," said the hangman, "listen to proposals?"

"Yes," said Varney.

"Come along, then, and I will show you what I have been about; and I
rather think you have already a shrewd guess as to my motive. This
way--this way."

They moved off to some other part of the mansion, and the sound of their
voices gradually died away, so that after all, the friends had not got
the least idea of what that motive was, which still induced the vampyre
and the hangman, rather than leave the other on the premises, to make an
agreement to stay with each other.

"What's to be done now?" said Henry.

"Wait," said Dr. Chillingworth, "wait, and watch still. I see nothing
else that can be done with any degree of safety."

"But what are we to wait for?" said the admiral.

"By waiting, we shall, perhaps, find out," was the doctor's reply; "but
you may depend that we never shall by interfering."

"Well, well, be it so. It seems that we have no other resource. And when
either or both of those fellows make their appearance, and seem about to
leave, what is to be done with them?"

"They must be seized then, and in order that that may be done without
any bloodshed, we ought to have plenty of force here. Henry, could you
get your brother, and Charles, if he be sufficiently recovered, to
come?"

"Certainly, and Jack Pringle."

"No," said the admiral, "no Jack Pringle for me; I have done with him
completely, and I have made up my mind to strike him off the ship's
books, and have nothing more to do with him."

"Well, well," added the doctor, "we will not have him, then; and it is
just as well, for, in all likelihood, he would come drunk, and we shall
be--let me see--five strong without him, which ought to be enough to
take prisoners two men."

"Yes," said Henry, "although one of them may be a vampyre."

"That makes no difference," said the admiral. "I'd as soon take a ship
manned with vampyres as with Frenchmen."

Henry started off upon his errand, certainly leaving the admiral and the
doctor in rather a critical situation while he was gone; for had Varney
the vampyre and the hangman chosen, they could certainly easily have
overcome so inefficient a force.

The admiral would, of course, have fought, and so might the doctor, as
far as his hands would permit him; but if the others had really been
intent upon mischief, they could, from their downright superior physical
power, have taken the lives of the two that were opposed to them.

But somehow the doctor appeared to have a great confidence in the
affair. Whether that confidence arose from what the vampyre had said
with regard to him, or from any hidden conviction of his own that they
would not yet emerge from the Hall, we cannot say; but certain it is, he
waited the course of events with great coolness.

No noise for some time came from the house; but then the sounds, as if
workmen were busy within it, were suddenly resumed, and with more vigour
than before.

It was nearly two hours before Henry made the private signal which had
been agreed upon as that which should proclaim his return; and then he
and his brother, with Charles, who, when he heard of the matter, would,
notwithstanding the persuasions of Flora to the contrary, come, got
quietly over the fence at a part of the garden which was quite hidden
from the house by abundant vegetation, and the whole three of them took
up a position that tolerably well commanded a view of the house, while
they were themselves extremely well hidden behind a dense mass of
evergreens.

"Did you see that rascal, Jack Pringle?" said the admiral.

"Yes," said Henry; "he is drunk."

"Ah, to be sure."

"And we had no little difficulty in shaking him off. He suspected where
we were going; but I think, by being peremptory, we got fairly rid of
him."

"The vagabond! if he comes here, I'll brain him, I will, the swab. Why,
lately he's done nothing but drink. That's the way with him. He'll go on
sometimes for a year and more, and not take more than enough to do him
good, and then all at once, for about six or eight weeks, he does
nothing but drink."

"Well, well, we can do without him," said Henry.

"Without him! I should think so. Do you hear those fellows in the Hall
at work? D--n me, if I haven't all of a sudden thought what the reason
of it all is."

"What--what?" said the doctor, anxiously.

"Why, that rascal Varney, you know, had his house burnt down."

"Yes; well?"

"Yes, well. I dare say he didn't think it well. But, however, he no
doubt wants another; so, you see, my idea is, that he's stealing the
material from Bannerworth Hall."

"Oh, is that your notion?"

"Yes, and a very natural one, I think, too, Master Doctor, whatever you
may think of it. Come, now, have you a better?"

"Oh, dear, no, certainly not; but I have a notion that something to eat
would comfort the inward man much."

"And so would something to drink, blow me if it wouldn't," said Jack
Pringle, suddenly making his appearance.

The admiral made a rush upon him; but he was restrained by the others,
and Jack, with a look of triumph, said,--

"Why, what's amiss with you now? I ain't drunk now. Come, come, you have
something dangerous in the wind, I know, so I've made up my mind to be
in it, so don't put yourself out of the way. If you think I don't know
all about it, you are mistaken, for I do. The vampyre is in the house
yonder, and I'm the fellow to tackle him, I believe you, my boys."

"Good God!" said the doctor, "what shall we do?"

"Nothing," said Jack, as he took a bottle from his pocket and applied
the neck of it to his lips--"nothing--nothing at all."

"There's something to begin with," said the admiral, as with his stick
he gave the bottle a sudden blow that broke it and spilt all its
contents, leaving Jack petrified, with the bit of the neck of it still
in his mouth.

"My eye, admiral," he said, "was that done like a British seaman? My
eye--was that the trick of a lubber, or of a thorough-going first-rater?
first-rater? My eye--"

"Hold your noise, will you; you are not drunk yet, and I was determined
that you should not get so, which you soon would with that rum-bottle,
if I had not come with a broadside across it. Now you may stay; but,
mark me, you are on active service now, and must do nothing without
orders."

"Ay, ay, your honour," said Jack, as he dropped the neck of the bottle,
and looked ruefully upon the ground, from whence arose the aroma of
rum--"ay, ay; but it's a hard case, take it how you will, to have your
grog stopped; but, d--n it, I never had it stopped yet when it was in my
mouth."

Henry and Charles could not forbear a smile at Jack's discomfiture,
which, however, they were very glad of, for they knew full well his
failing, and that in the course of another half hour he would have been
drunk, and incapable of being controlled, except, as on some former
occasions, by the exercise of brute force.

But Jack was evidently displeased, and considered himself to be
grievously insulted, which, after all, was the better, inasmuch as,
while he was brooding over his wrongs, he was quiet; when, otherwise, it
might have been a very difficult matter to make him so.

They partook of some refreshments, and, as the day advanced, the
brothers Bannerworth, as well as Charles Holland, began to get very
anxious upon the subject of the proceedings of Sir Francis Varney in the
Hall.

They conversed in low tones, exhausting every, as they considered,
possible conjecture to endeavour to account for his mysterious
predilection for that abode, but nothing occurred to them of a
sufficiently probable motive to induce them to adopt it as a conclusion.

They more than suspected Dr. Chillingworth, because he was so silent,
and hazarded no conjecture at all of knowing something, or of having
formed to himself some highly probable hypothesis upon the subject; but
they could not get him to agree that such was the case.

When they challenged him upon the subject, all he would say was,--

"My good friends, you perceive that, there is a great mystery somewhere,
and I do hope that to-night it will be cleared up satisfactorily."

With this they were compelled to be satisfied; and now the soft and
sombre shades of evening began to creep over the scene, enveloping all
objects in the dimness and repose of early night.

The noise from the house had ceased, and all was profoundly still. But
more than once Henry fancied he heard footsteps outside the garden.

He mentioned his suspicions to Charles Holland, who immediately said,--

"The same thing has come to my ears."

"Indeed! Then it must be so; we cannot both of us have merely imagined
such a thing. You may depend that this place is beleaguered in some way,
and that to-night will be productive of events which will throw a great
light upon the affairs connected with this vampyre that have hitherto
baffled conjecture."

"Hush!" said Charles; "there, again; I am quite confident I heard a
sound as of a broken twig outside the garden-wall. The doctor and the
admiral are in deep discussion about something,--shall we tell them?"

"No; let us listen, as yet."

They bent all their attention to listening, inclining their ears towards
the ground, and, after a few moments, they felt confident that more than
one footstep was creeping along, as cautiously as possible, under the
garden wall. After a few moments' consultation, Henry made up his
mind--he being the best acquainted with the localities of the place--to
go and reconnoitre, so he, without saying anything to the doctor or the
admiral, glided from where he was, in the direction of a part of the
fence which he knew he could easily scale.