Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood

by Thomas Preskett Prest

  CHAPTER LXXX.

  THE DISCOVERY OF THE BODY OF MARCHDALE IN THE RUINS BY THE MOB.--THEBURNING OF THE CORPSE.--THE MURDER OF THE HANGMAN.

  The mob reached the ruins of Bannerworth Hall, and crowded round it onall sides, with the view of ascertaining if a human creature, dead oralive, were there; various surmises were afloat, and some were forconsidering that everybody but themselves, or their friends, must benothing less than vampyres. Indeed, a strange man, suddenly appearingamong them, would have caused a sensation, and a ring would no doubthave been formed round him, and then a hasty council held, or, what wasmore probable, some shout, or word uttered by some one behind, who couldnot understand what was going on in front, would have determined them tocommit some desperate outrage, and the sacrifice of life would have beenthe inevitable result of such an unfortunate concurrence ofcircumstances.

  There was a pause before anyone ventured among the ruins; the walls werecarefully looked to, and in more than one instance, but they were founddangerous, what were remaining; some parts had been so completelydestroyed, that there were nothing but heaps of rubbish.

  However, curiosity was exerted to such an extraordinary pitch that itovercame the fear of danger, in search of the horrible; for theybelieved that if there were any one in the ruins he must be a vampyre,of course, and they were somewhat cautious in going near such acreature, lest in so doing they should meet with some accident, andbecome vampyres too.

  This was a dreadful reflection, and one that every now and thenimpressed itself upon the individuals composing the mob; but at the sametime any new impulse, or a shout, and they immediately became insensibleto all fear; the mere impulse is the dominant one, and then all isforgotten.

  The scene was an impressive one; the beautiful house and grounds lookeddesolate and drear; many of the trees were stripped and broken down, andmany scorched and burned, while the gardens and flower beds, the delightof the Bannerworth family, were rudely trodden under foot by the rabble,and all those little beauties so much admired and tended by theinhabitants, were now utterly destroyed, and in such a state that theirsite could not even be detected by the former owners.

  It was a sad sight to see such a sacrilege committed,--such violencedone to private feelings, as to have all these places thrown open to thescrutiny of the brutal and vulgar, who are incapable of appreciating orunderstanding the pleasures of a refined taste.

  The ruins presented a remarkable contrast to what the place had been buta very short time before; and now the scene of desolation was complete,there was no one spot in which the most wretched could find shelter.

  To be sure, under the lee of some broken and crumbling wall, thattottered, rather than stood, a huddled wretch might have found shelterfrom the wind, but it would have been at the risk of his life, and notthere complete.

  The mob became quiet for some moments, but was not so long; indeed, amob of people,--which is, in fact, always composed of the mostdisorderly characters to be found in a place, is not exactly theassembly that is most calculated for quietness; somebody gave a shout,and then somebody else shouted, and the one wide throat of the wholeconcourse was opened, and sent forth a mighty yell.

  After this exhibition of power, they began to run about likemad,--traverse the grounds from one end to the other, and then the ruinswere in progress of being explored.

  This was a tender affair, and had to be done with some care and cautionby those who were so engaged; and they walked over crumbling and decayedmasses.

  In one or two places, they saw what appeared to be large holes, intowhich the building materials had been sunk, by their own weight, throughthe flooring, that seemed as roofs to some cellars or dungeons.

  Seeing this, they knew not how soon some other part might sink in, andcarry their precious bodies down with the mass of rubbish; this gave aninterest to the scene,--a little danger is a sort of salt to anadventure, and enables those who have taken part in it to talk of theirexploits, and of their dangers, which is pleasant to do, and to hear inthe ale-house, and by the inglenook in the winter.

  However, when a few had gone some distance, others followed, when theysaw them enter the place in safety: and at length the whole ruins werecovered with living men, and not a few women, who seemed necessary tomake up the elements of mischief in this case.

  There were some shouting and hallooing from one to the other as theyhurried about the ruins.

  At length they had explored the ruins nearly all over, when one man, whohad stood a few minutes upon a spot, gazing intently upon something,suddenly exclaimed,--

  "Hilloa! hurrah! here we are, altogether,--come on,--I've foundhim,--I've found--recollect it's me, and nobody else hasfound,--hurrah!"

  Then, with a wild kind of frenzy, he threw his hat up into the air, asif to attract attention, and call others round him, to see what it washe had found.

  "What's the matter, Bill?" exclaimed one who came up to him, and who hadbeen close at hand.

  "The matter? why, I've found him; that's the matter, old man," repliedthe first.

  "What, a whale?

  "No, a wampyre; the blessed wampyre! there he is,--don't you see himunder them ere bricks?"

  "Oh, that's not him; he got away."

  "I don't care," replied the other, "who got away, or who didn't; I knowthis much, that he's a wampyre,--he wouldn't be there if he warn't."

  This was an unanswerable argument, and nobody could deny it;consequently, there was a cessation of talk, and the people then cameup, as the two first were looking at the body.

  "Whose is it?" inquired a dozen voices.

  "Not Sir Francis Varney's!" said the second speaker; "the clothes are nothis--"

  "No, no; not Sir Francis's"

  "But I tell you what, mates," said the first speaker; "that if it isn'tSir Francis Varney's, it is somebody else's as bad. I dare say, now,he's a wictim."

  "A what!"

  "A wictim to the wampyre; and, if he sees the blessed moonlight, he willbe a wampyre hisself, and so shall we be, too, if he puts his teeth intous."

  "So we shall,--so we shall," said the mob, and their flesh begin to runcold, and there was a feeling of horror creeping over the whole body ofpersons within hearing.

  "I tell you what it is; our only plan will be to get him out of theruins, then, remarked another.

  "What!" said one; "who's going to handle such cattle? if you've a soreabout you, and his blood touches you, who's to say you won't be avampyre, too!"

  "No, no you won't," said an old woman.

  "I won't try," was the happy rejoinder; "I ain't a-going to carry awampyre on my two legs home to my wife and small family of sevenchildren, and another a-coming."

  There was a pause for a few moments, and then one man more adventurousthan the rest, exclaimed,--

  "Well, vampyre, or no vampyre, his dead body can harm no one; so heregoes to get it out, help me who will; once have it out, and then we canprevent any evil, by burning it, and thus destroying the whole body.

  "Hurrah!" shouted three or four more, as they jumped down into the holeformed by the falling in of the materials which had crushed Marchdale todeath, for it was his body they had discovered.

  They immediately set to work to displace such of the materials as lay onthe body, and then, having cleared it of all superincumbent rubbish,they proceeded to lift it up, but found that it had got entangled, asthey called it, with some chains: with some trouble they got them off,and the body was lifted out to a higher spot.

  "Now, what's to be done?" inquired one.

  "Burn it," said another.

  "Hurrah!" shouted a female voice; "we've got the wampyre! run a stakethrough his body, and then place him upon some dry wood,--there's plentyto be had about here, I am sure,--and then burn him to a cinder."

  "That's right, old woman,--that's right," said a man; "nothing better:the devil must be in him if he come to life after that, I should say."

  There might be something in that, and the mob shouted its approbation,as it was
sure to do as anything stupid or senseless, and the proposalmight be said to have been carried by acclamation, and it required onlythe execution.

  This was soon done. There were plenty of laths and rafters, and theadjoining wood furnished an abundant supply of dry sticks, so there wasno want of fuel.

  There was a loud shout as each accession of sticks took place, and, aseach individual threw his bundle into the heap, each man felt all theself-devotion to the task as the Scottish chieftain who sacrificedhimself and seven sons in the battle for his superior; and, when one sonwas cut down, the man filled up his place with the exclamation,--"Anotherfor Hector," until he himself fell as the last of his race.

  Soon now the heap became prodigious, and it required an effort to getthe mangled corpse upon this funeral bier; but it was then a shout fromthe mob that rent the air announced, both the fact and theirsatisfaction.

  The next thing to be done was to light the pile--this was no easy task;but like all others, it was accomplished, and the dead body of thevampyre's victim was thrown on to prevent that becoming a vampyre too,in its turn.

  "There, boys," said one, "he'll not see the moonlight, that's certain,and the sooner we put a light to this the better; for it may be, thesoldiers will be down upon us before we know anything of it; so now,who's got a light?"

  This was a question that required a deal of searching; but, at lengthone was found by one of the mob coming forward, and after drawing hispipe vigorously for some moments, he collected some scraps of paper uponwhich he emptied the contents of the pipe, with the hope they would takefire.

  In this, however, he was doomed to disappointment; for it producednothing but a deal of smoke, and the paper burned without producing anyflame.

  This act of disinterestedness, however was not without its dueconsequences, for there were several who had pipes, and, fired with thehope of emulating the first projector of the scheme for raising theflame, they joined together, and potting the contents of their pipestogether on some paper, straw, and chips, they produced, after somelittle trouble, a flame.

  Then there was a shout, and the burning mass was then placed in afavourable position nearer the pile of materials collected for burning,and then, in a few moments, it began to take light; one piececommunicated the fire to another, until the whole was in a blaze.

  When the first flame fairly reached the top, a loud and tremendous shoutarose from the mob, and the very welkin re-echoed with its fulness.

  Then the forked flames rushed through the wood, and hissed and crackledas they flew, throwing up huge masses of black smoke, and casting apeculiar reflection around. Not a sound was heard save the hissing androaring of the flames, which seemed like the approaching of a furiouswhirlwind.

  At length there was nothing to be seen but the blackened mass; it wasenveloped in one huge flame, that threw out a great heat, so much so,that those nearest to it felt induced to retire from before it.

  "I reckon," said one, "that he's pretty well done by this time--he's hada warm berth of it up there."

  "Yes," said another, "farmer Walkings's sheep he roasted whole at lastharvest-home hadn't such a fire as this, I'll warrant; there's no suchfire in the county--why, it would prevent a frost, I do believe itwould."

  "So it would, neighbour," answered another.

  "Yes," replied a third, "but you'd want such a one corner of each fieldthough."

  * * * * *

  There was much talk and joking going on among the men who stood around,in the midst of which, however, they were disturbed by a loud shout, andupon looking in the quarter whence it came, they saw stealing from amongthe ruins, the form of a man.

  He was a strange, odd looking man, and at the time it was very doubtfulamong the mob as to whom it was--nobody could tell, and more than onelooked at the burning pile, and then at the man who seemed to be somysteriously present, as if they almost imagined that the body had gotaway.

  "Who is it?" exclaimed one.

  "Danged if I knows," said another, looking very hard, and very white atthe same time;--"I hope it ain't the chap what we've burned here jistnow."

  "No," said the female, "that you may be sure of, for he's had a stakethrough his body, and as you said, he can never get over that, for asthe stake is consumed, so are his vitals, and that's a sure sign he'sdone for."

  "Yes, yes, she's right--a vampyre may live upon blood, but cannot dowithout his inside."

  This was so obvious to them all, that it was at once conceded, and ageneral impression pervaded the mob that it might be Sir Francis Varney:a shout ensued.

  "Hurrah!--After him--there's a vampyre--there he goes!--after him--catchhim--burn him!"

  And a variety of other exclamations were uttered, at the same time; thevictim of popular wrath seemed to be aware that he was now discovered,and made off with all possible expedition, towards some wood.

  Away went the mob in pursuit, hooting and hallooing like demons, anddenouncing the unfortunate being with all the terrors that could beimagined, and which naturally added greater speed to the unfortunateman.

  However, some among the mob, seeing that there was every probability ofthe stranger's escaping at a mere match of speed, brought a littlecunning to bear upon matter, and took a circuit round, and thusintercepted him.

  This was not accomplished without a desperate effort, and by the bestrunners, who thus reached the spot he made for, before he could getthere.

  When the stranger saw himself thus intercepted, he endeavoured to fly ina different direction; but was soon secured by the mob, who madesomewhat free with his person, and commenced knocking him about.

  "Have mercy on me," said the stranger. "What do you want? I am not rich;but take all I have."

  "What do you do here?" inquired twenty voices. "Come, tell us that--whatdo you do here, and who are you?"

  "A stranger, quite a stranger to these parts."

  "Oh, yes! he's a stranger; but that's all the worse for him--he's avampyre--there's no doubt about that."

  "Good God," said the man, "I am a living and breathing man likeyourselves. I have done no wrong, and injured no man--be merciful untome; I intend no harm."

  "Of course not; send him to the fire--take him back to the ruins--to thefire."

  "Ay, and run a stake through his body, and then he's safe for life. I amsure he has something to do with the vampyre; and who knows, if he ain'ta vampyre, how soon he may become one?"

  "Ah! that's very true; bring him back to the fire, and we'll try theeffects of the fire upon his constitution."

  "I tell you what, neighbour, it's my opinion, that as one fool makesmany, so one vampyre makes many."

  "So it does, so it does; there's much truth and reason in thatneighbour; I am decidedly of that opinion, too."

  "Come along then," cried the mob, cuffing and pulling the unfortunatestranger with them.

  "Mercy, mercy!"

  But it was useless to call for mercy to men whose superstitious feelingsurged them on; for when the demon of superstition is active, no matterwhat form it may take, it always results in cruelty and wickedness toall.

  Various were the shouts and menaces of the mob, and the stranger saw nohope of life unless he could escape from the hands of the people whosurrounded him.

  They had now nearly reached the ruins, and the stranger, who wascertainly a somewhat odd and remarkable looking man, and who appeared intheir eyes the very impersonation of their notions of a vampyre, wasthrust from one to the other, kicked by one, and then cuffed by theother, as if he was doomed to run the gauntlet.

  "Down with the vampyre!" said the mob.

  "I am no vampyre," said the stranger; "I am new to these parts, and Ipray you have mercy upon me. I have done you no wrong. Hear me,--I knownothing of these people of whom you speak."

  "That won't do; you've come here to see what you can do, I dare say;and, though you may have been hurt by the vampyre, and may be only yourmisfortune, and not your fault, yet the mischief is as great as ever it
was or can be, you become, in spite of yourself, a vampyre, and do thesame injury to others that has been done to you--there's no help foryou."

  "No help,--we can't help it," shouted the mob; "he must die,--throw himon the pile."

  "Put a stake through him first, though," exclaimed the humane female;"put a stake through him, and then he's safe."

  This horrible advice had an electric effect on the stranger, who jumpedup, and eluded the grasp of several hands that were stretched forth toseize him.

  "Throw him upon the burning wood!" shouted one.

  "And a stake through his body," suggested the humane female again, whoseemed to have this one idea in her heart, and no other, and, upon everyavailable opportunity, she seemed to be anxious to give utterance to thecomfortable notion.

  "Seize him!" exclaimed one.

  "Never let him go," said another; "we've gone too far to hang back now;and, if he escape, he will visit us in our sleep, were it only out ofspite."

  The stranger made a dash among the ruins, and, for a moment,out-stripped his pursuers; but a few, more adventurous than the rest,succeeded in driving him into an angle formed by two walls, and theconsequence was, he was compelled to come to a stand.

  "Seize him--seize him!" exclaimed all those at a distance.

  The stranger, seeing he was now nearly surrounded, and had no chance ofescape, save by some great effort, seized a long piece of wood, andstruck two of his assailants down at once, and then dashed through theopening.

  He immediately made for another part of the ruins, and succeeded inmaking his escape for some short distance, but was unable to keep up thespeed that was required, for his great exertion before had nearlyexhausted him, and the fear of a cruel death before his eyes was notenough to give him strength, or lend speed to his flight. He hadsuffered too much from violence, and, though he ran with great speed,yet those who followed were uninjured, and fresher,--he had no chance.

  They came very close upon him at the corner of a field, which heendeavoured to cross, and had succeeded in doing, and he made adesperate attempt to scramble up the bank that divided the field fromthe next, but he slipped back, almost exhausted, into the ditch, and thewhole mob came up.

  However, he got on the bank, and leaped into the next field, and then hewas immediately surrounded by those who pursued him, and he was struckdown.

  "Down with the vampyre!--kill him,--he's one of 'em,--run a stakethrough him!" were a few of the cries of the infuriated mob of people,who were only infuriated because he attempted to escape their murderousintentions.

  It was strange to see how they collected in a ring as the unfortunateman lay on the ground, panting for breath, and hardly able tospeak--their infuriated countenances plainly showing the mischief theywere intent upon.

  "Have mercy upon me!" he exclaimed, as he lay on the earth; "I have nopower to help myself."

  The mob returned no answer, but stood collecting their numbers as theycame up.

  "Have mercy on me! it cannot be any pleasure to you to spill my blood. Iam unable to resist--I am one man among many,--you surely cannot wish tobeat me to death?"

  "We want to hurt no one, except in our own defence, and we won't be madevampyres of because you don't like to die."

  "No, no; we won't be vampyres," exclaimed the mob, and there arose agreat shout from the mob.

  "Are you men--fathers?--have you families? if so, I have the same tiesas you have; spare me for their sakes,--do not murder me,--you willleave one an orphan if you do; besides, what have I done? I have injuredno one."

  "I tell you what, friends, if we listen to him we shall all be vampyres,and all our children will all be vampyres and orphans."

  "So we shall, so we shall; down with him!"

  The man attempted to get up, but, in doing so, he received a heavy blowfrom a hedge-stake, wielded by the herculean arm of a peasant. The soundof the blow was heard by those immediately around, and the man felldead. There was a pause, and those nearest, apparently fearful of theconsequences, and hardly expecting the catastrophe, began to disperse,and the remainder did so very soon afterwards.