CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE STAKE AND THE DEAD BODY.
The mob seemed from the first to have an impression that, as regardedthe military force, no very serious results would arise from thatquarter, for it was not to be supposed that, on an occasion which couldnot possibly arouse any ill blood on the part of the soldiery, or onwhich they could have the least personal feeling, they would like to geta bad name, which would stick to them for years to come.
It was no political riot, on which men might be supposed, in consequenceof differing in opinion, to have their passions inflamed; so that,although the call of the civil authorities for military aid had beenacceded to, yet it was hoped, and, indeed, almost understood by theofficers, that their operations would lie confined more to ademonstration of power, than anything else.
Besides, some of the men had got talking to the townspeople, and hadheard all about the vampyre story, and not being of the most refined oreducated class themselves, they felt rather interested than otherwise inthe affair.
Under these circumstances, then, we are inclined to think, that thedisorderly mob of that inn had not so wholesome a fear as it was mostcertainly intended they should have of the redcoats. Then, again, theywere not attacking the churchyard, which, in the first case, was themain point in dispute, and about which the authorities had felt so verysore, inasmuch as they felt that, if once the common people found outthat the sanctity of such places could be outraged with impunity, theywould lose their reverence for the church; that is to say, for the hostof persons who live well and get fat in this country by the trade ofreligion.
Consequently, this churchyard was the main point of defence, and it waszealously looked to when it need not have been done so, while thepublic-house where there really reigned mischief was half unguarded.
There are always in all communities, whether large or small, a number ofpersons who really have, or fancy they have, something to gain bydisturbance. These people, of course, care not for what pretext thepublic peace is violated; so long as there is a row, and something likean excuse for running into other people's houses, they are satisfied.
To get into a public-house under such circumstances is an unexpectedtreat; and thus, when the mob rushed into the inn with such symptoms offury and excitement, there went with the leaders of the disturbance anumber of persons who never thought of getting further than the bar,where they attacked the spirit-taps with an alacrity which showed howgreat was their love for ardent compounds.
Leaving these persons behind, however, we will follow those who, with areal superstition, and a furious interest in the affair of the vampyre,made their way towards the upper chamber, determining to satisfythemselves if there were truth in the statement so alarmingly made bythe woman who had created such an emotion.
It is astonishing what people will do in crowds, in comparison with theacts that they would be able to commit individually. There is usually acalmness, a sanctity, a sublimity about death, which irresistiblyinduces a respect for its presence, alike from the educated or from theilliterate; and let the object of the fell-destroyer's presence be whomit may, the very consciousness that death has claimed it for its own,invests it with a halo of respect, that, in life, the individual couldnever aspire to probably.
Let us precede these furious rioters for a few moments, and look uponthe chamber of the dead--that chamber, which for a whole week, had beenlooked upon with a kind of shuddering terror--that chamber which hadbeen darkened by having its sources of light closed, as if it were akind of disrespect to the dead to allow the pleasant sunshine to fallupon the faded form.
And every inhabitant of that house, upon ascending and descending itsintricate and ancient staircases, had walked with a quiet and subduedstep past that one particular door.
Even the tones of voice in which they spoke to each other, while theyknew that that sad remnant of mortality was in the house, was quiet andsubdued, as if the repose of death was but a mortal sleep, and could bebroken by rude sounds.
Ay, even some of these very persons, who now with loud and boisterousclamour, had rushed into the place, had visited the house and talked inwhispers; but then they were alone, and men will do in throngs actswhich, individually, they would shrink from with compunction orcowardice, call it which we will.
The chamber of death is upon the second story of the house. It is a backroom, the windows of which command a view of that half garden, halffarm-yard, which we find generally belonging to country inns.
But now the shutters were closed, with the exception of one smallopening, that, in daylight, would have admitted a straggling ray oflight to fall upon the corpse. Now, however, that the sombre shades ofevening had wrapped everything in gloom, the room appeared in totaldarkness, so that the most of those adventurers who had ventured intothe place shrunk back until lights were procured from the lower part ofthe house, with which to enter the room.
A dim oil lamp in a niche sufficiently lighted the staircase, and, bythe friendly aid of its glimmering beams, they had found their way up tothe landing tolerably well, and had not thought of the necessity ofhaving lights with which to enter the apartments, until they found themin utter darkness.
These requisites, however, were speedily procured from the kitchen ofthe inn. Indeed, anything that was wanted was laid hold of without theleast word of remark to the people of the place, as if might, from thatevening forthwith, was understood to constitute right, in that town.
Up to this point no one had taken a very prominent part in the attackupon the inn if attack it could be called; but now the man whom chance,or his own nimbleness, made the first of the throng, assumed to himselfa sort of control over his companions and, turning to them, he said,--
"Hark ye, my friends; we'll do everything quietly and properly; so Ithink we'd better three or four of us go in at once, arm-in-arm."
"Psha!" cried one who had just arrived with a light; "it's yourcowardice that speaks. I'll go in first; let those follow me who like,and those who are afraid may remain where they are."
He at once dashed into the room, and this immediately broke the spell offear which was beginning to creep over the others in consequence of thetimid suggestion of the man who, up to that moment, had been first andforemost in the enterprise.
In an instant the chamber was half filled with persons, four or five ofwhom carried lights; so that, as it was not of very large dimensions, itwas sufficiently illuminated for every object in it to be clearlyvisible.
There was the bed, smooth and unruffled, as if waiting for some expectedguest; while close by its side a coffin, supported upon tressles, overwhich a sheet was partially thrown, contained the sad remains of him wholittle expected in life that, after death, he should be stigmatised asan example of one of the ghastliest superstitions that ever found a homein the human imagination.
It was evident that some one had been in the room; and that this was thewoman whose excited fancy had led her to look upon the face of thecorpse there could be no doubt, for the sheet was drawn aside justsufficiently to discover the countenance.
The fact was that the stranger was unknown at the inn, or probably erethis the coffin lid would have been screwed on; but it was hoped, up tothe last moment, as advertisements had been put into the county papers,that some one would come forward to identify and claim him.
Such, however, had not been the case, and so his funeral had beendetermined upon.
The presence of so many persons at once effectually prevented anyindividual from exhibiting, even if he felt any superstitious fearsabout approaching the coffin; and so, with one accord, they surroundedit, and looked upon the face of the dead.
There was nothing repulsive in that countenance. The fact was thatdecomposition had sufficiently advanced to induce a relaxation of themuscles, and a softening of the fibres, so that an appearance ofcalmness and repose had crept over the face which it did not wearimmediately after death.
It happened, too, that the face was full of flesh--for the death hadbeen sudden
, and there had not been that wasting away of the muscles andinteguments which makes the skin cling, as it were, to the bone, whenthe ravages of long disease have exhausted the physical frame.
There was, unquestionably, a plumpness, a freshness, and a sort ofvitality about the countenance that was remarkable.
For a few moments there was a death-like stillness in the apartment, andthen one voice broke the silence by exclaiming,--
"He's a vampyre, and has come here to die. Well he knows he'd be takenup by Sir Francis Varney, and become one of the crew."
"Yes, yes," cried several voices at once; "a vampyre! a vampyre!"
"Hold a moment," cried one; "let us find somebody in the house who hasseen him some days ago, and then we can ascertain if there's anydifference in his looks."
This suggestion was agreed to, and a couple of stout men ran downstairs, and returned in a few moments with a trembling waiter, whom theyhad caught in the passage, and forced to accompany them.
This man seemed to think that he was to be made a dreadful example of insome sort of way; and, as he was dragged into the room, he trembled, andlooked as pale as death.
"What have I done, gentlemen?" he said; "I ain't a vampyre. Don't bedriving a stake through me. I assure you, gentlemen, I'm only a waiter,and have been for a matter of five-and-twenty years."
"You'll be done no harm to," said one of his captors; "you've only gotto answer a question that will be put to you."
"Oh, well, certainly, gentlemen; anything you please. Coming--coming, asI always say; give your orders, the waiter's in the room."
"Look upon the fare of that corpse."
"Certainly, certainly--directly."
"Have you ever seen it before?"
"Seen it before! Lord bless you! yes, a dozen of times. I seed him aforehe died, and I seed him arter; and when the undertaker's men came, Icame up with them and I seed 'em put him in his coffin. You see I keptan eye on 'em, gentlemen, 'cos knows well enough what they is. A cousinof mine was in the trade, and he assures me as one of 'em always bringsa tooth-drawing concern in his pocket, and looks in the mouth of theblessed corpse to see if there's a blessed tooth worth pulling out."
"Hold your tongue," said one; "we want none of your nonsense. Do you seeany difference now in the face of the corpse to what it was some dayssince?"
"Well, I don't know; somehow, it don't look so rum."
"Does it look fresher?"
"Well, somehow or another, now you mention it, it's very odd, but itdoes."
"Enough," cried the man who had questioned him, with considerableexcitement of manner. "Neighbours, are we to have our wives and ourchildren scared to death by vampyres?"
"No--no!" cried everybody.
"Is not this, then, one of that dreadful order of beings?"
"Yes--yes; what's to be done?"
"Drive a stake through the body, and so prevent the possibility ofanything in the shape of a restoration."
This was a terrific proposition; and even those who felt most stronglyupon the subject, and had their fears most awakened, shrank fromcarrying it into effect. Others, again, applauded it, although theydetermined, in their own minds, to keep far enough off from theexecution of the job, which they hoped would devolve upon others, sothat they might have all the security of feeling that such a process hadbeen gone through with the supposed vampyre, without being in any waycommitted by the dreadful act.
Nothing was easier than to procure a stake from the garden in the rearof the premises; but it was one thing to have the means at hand ofcarrying into effect so dreadful a proposition, and another actually todo it.
For the credit of human nature, we regret that even then, whencivilisation and popular education had by no means made such rapidstrides as in our times they have, such a proposition should beentertained for a moment: but so it was; and just as an alarm was giventhat a party of the soldiers had reached the inn and had takenpossession of the doorway with a determination to arrest the rioters, astrong hedge-stake had been procured, and everything was in readinessfor the perpetration of the horrible deed.
Even then those in the room, for they were tolerably sober, would haverevolted, probably, from the execution of so fearful an act; but theentrance of a party of the military into the lower portion of thetavern, induced those who had been making free with the strong liquorsbelow, to make a rush up-stairs to their companions with the hope ofescaping detection of the petty larceny, if they got into trouble onaccount of the riot.
These persons, infuriated by drink, were capable of anything, and tothem, accordingly, the more sober parties gladly surrendered thedisagreeable job of rendering the supposed vampyre perfectly innoxious,by driving a hedge-stake through his body--a proceeding which, it wascurrently believed, inflicted so much physical injury to the frame, asto render his resuscitation out of the question.
The cries of alarm from below, joined now to the shouts of those madrioters, produced a scene of dreadful confusion.
We cannot, for we revolt at the office, describe particularly thedreadful outrage which was committed upon the corpse; suffice it thattwo or three, maddened by drink, and incited by the others, plunged thehedge-stake through the body, and there left it, a sickening andhorrible spectacle to any one who might cast his eyes upon it.
With such violence had the frightful and inhuman deed been committed,that the bottom of the coffin was perforated by the stake so that thecorpse was actually nailed to its last earthly tenement.
Some asserted, that at that moment an audible groan came from the deadman, and that this arose from the extinguishment of that remnant of lifewhich remained in him, on account of his being a vampyre, and whichwould have been brought into full existence, if the body had been placedin the rays of the moon, when at its full, according to the popularsuperstition upon that subject.
Others, again, were quite ready to swear that at the moment the stakewas used there was a visible convulsion of all the limbs, and that thecountenance, before so placid and so calm, became immediately distorted,as if with agony.
But we have done with these horrible surmises; the dreadful deed hasbeen committed, and wild, ungovernable superstition has had, for a time,its sway over the ignorant and debased.
Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood Page 47
