Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest

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"I have. They are here."

Marchdale took from his pocket a parcel which contained several wax
candles, and when it was opened, a smaller packet fell to the ground.

"Why, these are instantaneous matches," said Mr. Chillingworth, as he
lifted the small packet up.

"They are; and what a fruitless journey I should have had back to the
hall," said Mr. Marchdale, "if you had not been so well provided as you
are with the means of getting a light. These matches, which I thought I
had not with me, have been, in the hurry of departure, enclosed, you
see, with the candles. Truly, I should have hunted for them at home in
vain."

Mr. Chillingworth lit the wax candle which was now handed to him by
Marchdale, and in another moment the vault from one end of it to the
other was quite clearly discernible.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE COFFIN.--THE ABSENCE OF THE DEAD.--THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE, AND
THE CONSTERNATION OF GEORGE.

[Illustration]

They were all silent for a few moments as they looked around them with
natural feelings of curiosity. Two of that party had of course never
been in that vault at all, and the brothers, although they had descended
into it upon the occasion, nearly a year before, of their father being
placed in it, still looked upon it with almost as curious eyes as they
who now had their first sight of it.

If a man be at all of a thoughtful or imaginative cast of mind, some
curious sensations are sure to come over him, upon standing in such a
place, where he knows around him lie, in the calmness of death, those in
whose veins have flowed kindred blood to him--who bore the same name,
and who preceded him in the brief drama of his existence, influencing
his destiny and his position in life probably largely by their actions
compounded of their virtues and their vices.

Henry Bannerworth and his brother George were just the kind of persons
to feel strongly such sensations. Both were reflective, imaginative,
educated young men, and, as the light from the wax candle flashed upon
their faces, it was evident how deeply they felt the situation in which
they were placed.

Mr. Chillingworth and Marchdale were silent. They both knew what was
passing in the minds of the brothers, and they had too much delicacy to
interrupt a train of thought which, although from having no affinity
with the dead who lay around, they could not share in, yet they
respected. Henry at length, with a sudden start, seemed to recover
himself from his reverie.

"This is a time for action, George," he said, "and not for romantic
thought. Let us proceed."

"Yes, yes," said George, and he advanced a step towards the centre of
the vault.

"Can you find out among all these coffins, for there seem to be nearly
twenty," said Mr. Chillingworth, "which is the one we seek?"

"I think we may," replied Henry. "Some of the earlier coffins of our
race, I know, were made of marble, and others of metal, both of which
materials, I expect, would withstand the encroaches of time for a
hundred years, at least."

"Let us examine," said George.

There were shelves or niches built into the walls all round, on which
the coffins were placed, so that there could not be much difficulty in a
minute examination of them all, the one after the other.

When, however, they came to look, they found that "decay's offensive
fingers" had been more busy than they could have imagined, and that
whatever they touched of the earlier coffins crumbled into dust before
their very fingers.

In some cases the inscriptions were quite illegible, and, in others, the
plates that had borne them had fallen on to the floor of the vault, so
that it was impossible to say to which coffin they belonged.

Of course, the more recent and fresh-looking coffins they did not
examine, because they could not have anything to do with the object of
that melancholy visit.

"We shall arrive at no conclusion," said George. "All seems to have
rotted away among those coffins where we might expect to find the one
belonging to Marmaduke Bannerworth, our ancestor."

"Here is a coffin plate," said Marchdale, taking one from the floor.

He handed it to Mr. Chillingworth, who, upon an inspection of it, close
to the light, exclaimed,--

"It must have belonged to the coffin you seek."

"What says it?"

"Ye mortale remains of Marmaduke Bannerworth, Yeoman. God reste his
soule. A.D. 1540."

"It is the plate belonging to his coffin," said Henry, "and now our
search is fruitless."

"It is so, indeed," exclaimed George, "for how can we tell to which of
the coffins that have lost the plates this one really belongs?"

"I should not be so hopeless," said Marchdale. "I have, from time to
time, in the pursuit of antiquarian lore, which I was once fond of,
entered many vaults, and I have always observed that an inner coffin of
metal was sound and good, while the outer one of wood had rotted away,
and yielded at once to the touch of the first hand that was laid upon
it."

"But, admitting that to be the case," said Henry, "how does that assist
us in the identification of a coffin?"

"I have always, in my experience, found the name and rank of the
deceased engraved upon the lid of the inner coffin, as well as being set
forth in a much more perishable manner on the plate which was secured to
the outer one."

"He is right," said Mr. Chillingworth. "I wonder we never thought of
that. If your ancestor was buried in a leaden coffin, there will be no
difficulty in finding which it is."

Henry seized the light, and proceeding to one of the coffins, which
seemed to be a mass of decay, he pulled away some of the rotted wood
work, and then suddenly exclaimed,--

"You are quite right. Here is a firm strong leaden coffin within, which,
although quite black, does not otherwise appear to have suffered."

"What is the inscription on that?" said George.

With difficulty the name on the lid was deciphered, but it was found not
to be the coffin of him whom they sought.

"We can make short work of this," said Marchdale, "by only examining
those leaden coffins which have lost the plates from off their outer
cases. There do not appear to be many in such a state."

He then, with another light, which he lighted from the one that Henry
now carried, commenced actively assisting in the search, which was
carried on silently for more than ten minutes.

Suddenly Mr. Marchdale cried, in a tone of excitement,--

"I have found it. It is here."

They all immediately surrounded the spot where he was, and then he
pointed to the lid of a coffin, which he had been rubbing with his
handkerchief, in order to make the inscription more legible, and said,--

"See. It is here."

By the combined light of the candles they saw the words,--

"Marmaduke Bannerworth, Yeoman, 1640."

"Yes, there can be no mistake here," said Henry. "This is the coffin,
and it shall be opened."

"I have the iron crowbar here," said Marchdale. "It is an old friend of
mine, and I am accustomed to the use of it. Shall I open the coffin?"

"Do so--do so," said Henry.

They stood around in silence, while Mr. Marchdale, with much care,
proceeded to open the coffin, which seemed of great thickness, and was
of solid lead.

It was probably the partial rotting of the metal, in consequence of the
damps of that place, that made it easier to open the coffin than it
otherwise would have been, but certain it was that the top came away
remarkably easily. Indeed, so easily did it come off, that another
supposition might have been hazarded, namely, that it had never at all
been effectually fastened.

[Illustration]

The few moments that elapsed were ones of very great suspense to every
one there present; and it would, indeed, be quite sure to assert, that
all the world was for the time forgotten in the absorbing interest which
appertained to the affair which was in progress.

The candles were now both held by Mr. Chillingworth, and they were so
held as to cast a full and clear light upon the coffin. Now the lid slid
off, and Henry eagerly gazed into the interior.

There lay something certainly there, and an audible "Thank God!" escaped
his lips.

"The body is there!" exclaimed George.

"All right," said Marchdale, "here it is. There is something, and what
else can it be?"

"Hold the lights," said Mr. Chillingworth; "hold the lights, some of
you; let us be quite certain."

George took the lights, and Mr. Chillingworth, without any hesitation,
dipped his hands at once into the coffin, and took up some fragments of
rags which were there. They were so rotten, that they fell to pieces in
his grasp, like so many pieces of tinder.

There was a death-like pause for some few moments, and then Mr.
Chillingworth said, in a low voice,--

"There is not the least vestige of a dead body here."

Henry gave a deep groan, as he said,--

"Mr. Chillingworth, can you take upon yourself to say that no corpse has
undergone the process of decomposition in this coffin?"

"To answer your question exactly, as probably in your hurry you have
worded it," said Mr. Chillingworth, "I cannot take upon myself to say
any such thing; but this I can say, namely, that in this coffin there
are no animal remains, and that it is quite impossible that any corpse
enclosed here could, in any lapse of time, have so utterly and entirely
disappeared."

"I am answered," said Henry.

"Good God!" exclaimed George, "and has this but added another damning
proof, to those we have already on our minds, of one of the must
dreadful superstitions that ever the mind of man conceived?"

"It would seem so," said Marchdale, sadly.

"Oh, that I were dead! This is terrible. God of heaven, why are these
things? Oh, if I were but dead, and so spared the torture of supposing
such things possible."

"Think again, Mr. Chillingworth; I pray you think again," cried
Marchdale.

"If I were to think for the remainder of my existence," he replied, "I
could come to no other conclusion. It is not a matter of opinion; it is
a matter of fact."

"You are positive, then," said Henry, "that the dead body of Marmaduke
Bannerworth is not rested here?"

"I am positive. Look for yourselves. The lead is but slightly
discoloured; it looks tolerably clean and fresh; there is not a vestige
of putrefaction--no bones, no dust even."

They did all look for themselves, and the most casual glance was
sufficient to satisfy the most sceptical.

"All is over," said Henry; "let us now leave this place; and all I can
now ask of you, my friends, is to lock this dreadful secret deep in your
own hearts."

"It shall never pass my lips," said Marchdale.

"Nor mine, you may depend," said the doctor. "I was much in hopes that
this night's work would have had the effect of dissipating, instead of
adding to, the gloomy fancies that now possess you."

"Good heavens!" cried George, "can you call them fancies, Mr.
Chillingworth?"

"I do, indeed."

"Have you yet a doubt?"

"My young friend, I told you from the first, that I would not believe in
your vampyre; and I tell you now, that if one was to come and lay hold
of me by the throat, as long as I could at all gasp for breath I would
tell him he was a d----d impostor."

"This is carrying incredulity to the verge of obstinacy."

"Far beyond it, if you please."

"You will not be convinced?" said Marchdale.

"I most decidedly, on this point, will not."

"Then you are one who would doubt a miracle, if you saw it with your own
eyes."

"I would, because I do not believe in miracles. I should endeavour to
find some rational and some scientific means of accounting for the
phenomenon, and that's the very reason why we have no miracles
now-a-days, between you and I, and no prophets and saints, and all that
sort of thing."

"I would rather avoid such observations in such a place as this," said
Marchdale.

"Nay, do not be the moral coward," cried Mr. Chillingworth, "to make
your opinions, or the expression of them, dependent upon any certain
locality."

"I know not what to think," said Henry; "I am bewildered quite. Let us
now come away."

Mr. Marchdale replaced the lid of the coffin, and then the little party
moved towards the staircase. Henry turned before he ascended, and
glanced back into the vault.

"Oh," he said, "if I could but think there had been some mistake, some
error of judgment, on which the mind could rest for hope."

"I deeply regret," said Marchdale, "that I so strenuously advised this
expedition. I did hope that from it would have resulted much good."

"And you had every reason so to hope," said Chillingworth. "I advised it
likewise, and I tell you that its result perfectly astonishes me,
although I will not allow myself to embrace at once all the conclusions
to which it would seem to lead me."

"I am satisfied," said Henry; "I know you both advised me for the best.
The curse of Heaven seems now to have fallen upon me and my house."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Chillingworth. "What for?"

"Alas! I know not."

"Then you may depend that Heaven would never act so oddly. In the first
place, Heaven don't curse anybody; and, in the second, it is too just to
inflict pain where pain is not amply deserved."

They ascended the gloomy staircase of the vault. The countenances of
both George and Henry were very much saddened, and it was quite evident
that their thoughts were by far too busy to enable them to enter into
any conversation. They did not, and particularly George, seem to hear
all that was said to them. Their intellects seemed almost stunned by the
unexpected circumstance of the disappearance of the body of their
ancestor.

All along they had, although almost unknown to themselves, felt a sort
of conviction that they must find some remains of Marmaduke Bannerworth,
which would render the supposition, even in the most superstitious
minds, that he was the vampyre, a thing totally and physically
impossible.

But now the whole question assumed a far more bewildering shape. The
body was not in its coffin--it had not there quietly slept the long
sleep of death common to humanity. Where was it then? What had become of
it? Where, how, and under what circumstances had it been removed? Had it
itself burst the bands that held it, and hideously stalked forth into
the world again to make one of its seeming inhabitants, and kept up for
a hundred years a dreadful existence by such adventures as it had
consummated at the hall, where, in the course of ordinary human life, it
had once lived?

All these were questions which irresistibly pressed themselves upon the
consideration of Henry and his brother. They were awful questions.

And yet, take any sober, sane, thinking, educated man, and show him all
that they had seen, subject him to all to which they had been subjected,
and say if human reason, and all the arguments that the subtlest brain
could back it with, would be able to hold out against such a vast
accumulation of horrible evidences, and say--"I don't believe it."

Mr. Chillingworth's was the only plan. He would not argue the question.
He said at once,--

"I will not believe this thing--upon this point I will yield to no
evidence whatever."

That was the only way of disposing of such a question; but there are not
many who could so dispose of it, and not one so much interested in it as
were the brothers Bannerworth, who could at all hope to get into such a
state of mind.

The boards were laid carefully down again, and the screws replaced.
Henry found himself unequal to the task, so it was done by Marchdale,
who took pains to replace everything in the same state in which they had
found it, even to the laying even the matting at the bottom of the pew.

Then they extinguished the light, and, with heavy hearts, they all
walked towards the window, to leave the sacred edifice by the same means
they had entered it.

"Shall we replace the pane of glass?" said Marchdale.

"Oh, it matters not--it matters not," said Henry, listlessly; "nothing
matters now. I care not what becomes of me--I am getting weary of a life
which now must be one of misery and dread."

"You must not allow yourself to fall into such a state of mind as this,"
said the doctor, "or you will become a patient of mine very quickly."

"I cannot help it."

"Well, but be a man. If there are serious evils affecting you, fight out
against them the best way you can."

"I cannot."

"Come, now, listen to me. We need not, I think, trouble ourselves about
the pane of glass, so come along."

He took the arm of Henry and walked on with him a little in advance of
the others.

"Henry," he said, "the best way, you may depend, of meeting evils, be
they great or small, is to get up an obstinate feeling of defiance
against them. Now, when anything occurs which is uncomfortable to me, I
endeavour to convince myself, and I have no great difficulty in doing
so, that I am a decidedly injured man."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; I get very angry, and that gets up a kind of obstinacy, which
makes me not feel half so much mental misery as would be my portion, if
I were to succumb to the evil, and commence whining over it, as many
people do, under the pretence of being resigned."

"But this family affliction of mine transcends anything that anybody
else ever endured."

"I don't know that; but it is a view of the subject which, if I were
you, would only make me more obstinate."

"What can I do?"

"In the first place, I would say to myself, 'There may or there may not
be supernatural beings, who, from some physical derangement of the
ordinary nature of things, make themselves obnoxious to living people;
if there are, d--n them! There may be vampyres; and if there are, I defy
them.' Let the imagination paint its very worst terrors; let fear do
what it will and what it can in peopling the mind with horrors. Shrink
from nothing, and even then I would defy them all."

"Is not that like defying Heaven?"

"Most certainly not; for in all we say and in all we do we act from the
impulses of that mind which is given to us by Heaven itself. If Heaven
creates an intellect and a mind of a certain order, Heaven will not
quarrel that it does the work which it was adapted to do."

"I know these are your opinions. I have heard you mention them before."

"They are the opinions of every rational person. Henry Bannerworth,
because they will stand the test of reason; and what I urge upon you is,
not to allow yourself to be mentally prostrated, even if a vampyre has
paid a visit to your house. Defy him, say I--fight him.
Self-preservation is a great law of nature, implanted in all our hearts;
do you summon it to your aid."

"I will endeavour to think as you would have me. I thought more than
once of summoning religion to my aid."

"Well, that is religion."

"Indeed!"

"I consider so, and the most rational religion of all. All that we read
about religion that does not seem expressly to agree with it, you may
consider as an allegory."

"But, Mr. Chillingworth, I cannot and will not renounce the sublime
truths of Scripture. They may be incomprehensible; they may be
inconsistent; and some of them may look ridiculous; but still they are
sacred and sublime, and I will not renounce them although my reason may
not accord with them, because they are the laws of Heaven."

No wonder this powerful argument silenced Mr. Chillingworth, who was one
of those characters in society who hold most dreadful opinions, and who
would destroy religious beliefs, and all the different sects in the
world, if they could, and endeavour to introduce instead some horrible
system of human reason and profound philosophy.

But how soon the religious man silences his opponent; and let it not be
supposed that, because his opponent says no more upon the subject, he
does so because he is disgusted with the stupidity of the other; no, it
is because he is completely beaten, and has nothing more to say.

The distance now between the church and the hall was nearly traversed,
and Mr. Chillingworth, who was a very good man, notwithstanding his
disbelief in certain things of course paved the way for him to hell,
took a kind leave of Mr. Marchdale and the brothers, promising to call
on the following morning and see Flora.

Henry and George then, in earnest conversation with Marchdale, proceeded
homewards. It was evident that the scene in the vault had made a deep
and saddening impression upon them, and one which was not likely easily
to be eradicated.

CHAPTER IX.

THE OCCURRENCES OF THE NIGHT AT THE HALL.--THE SECOND APPEARANCE OF THE
VAMPYRE, AND THE PISTOL-SHOT.

[Illustration]

Despite the full and free consent which Flora had given to her brothers
to entrust her solely to the care of her mother and her own courage at
the hall, she felt greater fear creep over her after they were gone than
she chose to acknowledge.

A sort of presentiment appeared to come over her that some evil was
about to occur, and more than once she caught herself almost in the act
of saying,--

"I wish they had not gone."

Mrs. Bannerworth, too, could not be supposed to be entirely destitute of
uncomfortable feelings, when she came to consider how poor a guard she
was over her beautiful child, and how much terror might even deprive of
the little power she had, should the dreadful visitor again make his
appearance.

"But it is but for two hours," thought Flora, "and two hours will soon
pass away."

There was, too, another feeling which gave her some degree of
confidence, although it arose from a bad source, inasmuch as it was one
which showed powerfully how much her mind was dwelling on the
particulars of the horrible belief in the class of supernatural beings,
one of whom she believed had visited her.

That consideration was this. The two hours of absence from the hall of
its male inhabitants, would be from nine o'clock until eleven, and those
were not the two hours during which she felt that she would be most
timid on account of the vampyre.

"It was after midnight before," she thought, "when it came, and perhaps
it may not be able to come earlier. It may not have the power, until
that time, to make its hideous visits, and, therefore, I will believe
myself safe."

She had made up her mind not to go to bed until the return of her
brothers, and she and her mother sat in a small room that was used as a
breakfast-room, and which had a latticed window that opened on to the
lawn.

This window had in the inside strong oaken shutters, which had been
fastened as securely as their construction would admit of some time
before the departure of the brothers and Mr. Marchdale on that
melancholy expedition, the object of which, if it had been known to her,
would have added so much to the terrors of poor Flora.

It was not even guessed at, however remotely, so that she had not the
additional affliction of thinking, that while she was sitting there, a
prey to all sorts of imaginative terrors, they were perhaps gathering
fresh evidence, as, indeed, they were, of the dreadful reality of the
appearance which, but for the collateral circumstances attendant upon
its coming and its going, she would fain have persuaded herself was but
the vision of a dream.

It was before nine that the brothers started, but in her own mind Flora
gave them to eleven, and when she heard ten o'clock sound from a clock
which stood in the hall, she felt pleased to think that in another hour
they would surely be at home.

"My dear," said her mother, "you look more like yourself, now."

"Do, I, mother?"

"Yes, you are well again."

"Ah, if I could forget--"

"Time, my dear Flora, will enable you to do so, and all the fear of what
made you so unwell will pass away. You will soon forget it all."

"I will hope to do so."

"Be assured that, some day or another, something will occur, as Henry
says, to explain all that has happened, in some way consistent with
reason and the ordinary nature of things, my dear Flora."

"Oh, I will cling to such a belief; I will get Henry, upon whose
judgment I know I can rely, to tell me so, and each time that I hear
such words from his lips, I will contrive to dismiss some portion of the
terror which now, I cannot but confess, clings to my heart."

Flora laid her hand upon her mother's arm, and in a low, anxious tone of
voice, said,--"Listen, mother."

Mrs. Bannerworth turned pale, as she said,--"Listen to what, dear?"

"Within these last ten minutes," said Flora, "I have thought three or
four times that I heard a slight noise without. Nay, mother, do not
tremble--it may be only fancy."

[Illustration]

Flora herself trembled, and was of a death-like paleness; once or twice
she passed her hand across her brow, and altogether she presented a
picture of much mental suffering.

They now conversed in anxious whispers, and almost all they said
consisted in anxious wishes for the return of the brothers and Mr.
Marchdale.

"You will be happier and more assured, my dear, with some company," said
Mrs. Bannerworth. "Shall I ring for the servants, and let them remain in
the room with us, until they who are our best safeguards next to Heaven
return?"

"Hush--hush--hush, mother!"

"What do you hear?"

"I thought--I heard a faint sound."