THE OPEN GRAVES.—THE DEAD BODIES.—A SCENE OF TERROR.
We have said Waggles spoilt everything, and so he did, for before
Mr. Leigh could utter a word more, or advance two steps towards the
rioters, Waggles charged them staff in hand, and there soon ensued a
riot of a most formidable description.
A kind of desperation seemed to have seized the beadle, and certainly,
by his sudden and unexpected attack, he achieved wonders. When,
however, a dozen hands got hold of the staff, and it was wrenched from
him, and he was knocked down, and half-a-dozen people rolled over him,
Waggles was not near the man he had been, and he would have been very
well content to have lain quiet where he was; this, however, he was
not permitted to do, for two or three, who had felt what a weighty
instrument of warfare the parochial staff was, lifted him bodily from
the ground, and canted him over the wall, without much regard to
whether he fell on a hard or a soft place on the other side.
This feat accomplished, no further attention was paid to Mr. Leigh,
who, finding that his exhortations were quite unheeded, retired into
the church with an appearance of deep affliction about him, and locked
himself in the vestry.
The crowd now had entire possession—without even the sort of control
that an exhortation assumed over them—of the burying-ground, and soon
in a dense mass were these desperate and excited people collected round
the well-known spot where lay the mortal remains of Miles, the butcher.
“Silence!” cried a loud voice, and every one obeyed the mandate,
looking towards the speaker, who was a tall, gaunt-looking man, attired
in a suit of faded black, and who now pressed forward to the front of
the throng.
“Oh!” cried one, “it’s Fletcher, the ranter. What does he do here?”
“Hear him! hear him!” cried others; “he won’t stop us.”
“Yes, hear him,” cried the tall man, waving his arms about like the
sails of a windmill. “Yes, hear him. Sons of darkness, you’re all
vampyres, and are continually sucking the life-blood from each other.
No wonder that the evil one has power over you all. You’re as men who
walk in the darkness when the sunlight invites you, and you listen to
the words of humanity when those of a diviner origin are offered to
your acceptance. But there shall be miracles in the land, and even in
this place, set apart with a pretended piety that is in itself most
damnable, you shall find an evidence of the true light; and the proof
that those who will follow me the true path to glory shall be found
here within this grave. Dig up Miles, the butcher!”
“Hear, hear, hear, hurra!” said every body. “Mr. Fletcher’s not such a
fool, after all. He means well.”
“Yes, you sinners,” said the ranter, “and if you find Miles, the
butcher, decaying—even as men are expected to decay whose mortal
tabernacles are placed within the bowels of the earth—you shall gather
from that a great omen, and a sign that if you follow me you seek the
Lord; but if you find him looking fresh and healthy, as if the warm
blood was still within his veins, you shall take that likewise as a
signification that what I say to you shall be as the Gospel, and that
by coming to the chapel of the Little Boozlehum, ye shall achieve a
great salvation.”
“Very good,” said a brawny fellow, advancing with a spade in his hand;
“you get out of the way, and I’ll soon have him up. Here goes, like
blue blazes!”
The first shovelful of earth he took up, he cast over his head into the
air, so that it fell in a shower among the mob, which of course raised
a shout of indignation; and, as he continued so to dispose of the
superfluous earth, a general row seemed likely to ensue. Mr. Fletcher
opened his mouth to make a remark, and, as that feature of his face
was rather a capacious one, a descending lump of mould, of a clayey
consistency, fell into it, and got so wedged among his teeth, that in
the process of extracting it he nearly brought some of those essential
portions of his anatomy with it.
This was a state of things that could not last long, and he who had
been so liberal with his spadesful of mould was speedily disarmed,
and yet he was a popular favourite, and had done the thing so
good-humouredly, that nobody touched him. Six or eight others, who had
brought spades and pickaxes, now pushed forward to the work, and in an
incredibly short space of time the grave of Miles, the butcher, seemed
to be very nearly excavated.
Work of any kind or nature whatever, is speedily executed when done
with a wish to get through it; and never, perhaps, within the memory
of man, was a grave opened in that churchyard with such a wonderful
celerity. The excitement of the crowd grew intense—every available spot
from which a view of the grave could be got, was occupied; for the last
few minutes scarcely a remark had been uttered, and when, at last,
the spade of one of those who were digging struck upon something that
sounded like wood, you might have heard a pin drop, and each one there
present drew his breath more shortly than before.
“There he is,” said the man, whose spade struck upon the coffin.
Those few words broke the spell, and there was a general murmur, while
every individual present seemed to shift his position in his anxiety to
obtain a better view of what was about to ensue.
The coffin now having been once found, there seemed to be an increased
impetus given to the work; the earth was thrown out with a rapidity
that seemed almost the quick result of the working of some machine; and
those closest to the grave’s brink crouched down, and, intent as they
were upon the progress of events, heeded not the damp earth that fell
upon them, nor the frail brittle and humid remains of humanity that
occasionally rolled to their feet.
It was, indeed, a scene of intense excitement—a scene which only wanted
a few prominent features in its foreground of a more intellectual and
higher cast than composed the mob, to make it a fit theme for a painter
of the highest talent.
And now the last few shovelfuls of earth that hid the top of the coffin
were cast from the grave, and that narrow house which contained the
mortal remains of him who was so well known, while in life, to almost
every one then present, was brought to the gaze of eyes which never had
seemed likely to have looked upon him again.
The cry was now for ropes, with which to raise the cumbrous mass; but
these were not to be had, no one thought of providing himself with such
appliances, so that by main strength, only, could the coffin be raised
to the brink.
The difficulty of doing this was immense, for there was nothing
tangible to stand upon; and even when the mould from the sides was
sufficiently cleared away, that the handles of the coffin could be laid
hold of, they came away immediately in the grasp of those who did so.
But the more trouble that presented itself to the accomplishment of the
designs of the mob, the more intent that body seemed upon carrying out
to the full extent their original designs.
Finding it quite impossible by bodily strength to raise the coffin of
the butcher from the position in which it had got imbedded by excessive
rains, a boy was hastily despatched to the village for ropes, and never
did boy run with such speed before, for all his own curiosity was
excited in the issue of an adventure, that to his young imagination was
appallingly interesting.
As impatient as mobs usually are, they had not time, in this case, for
the exercise of that quality of mind before the boy came back with the
necessary means of exerting quite a different species of power against
the butcher’s coffin.
Strong ropes were slid under the inert mass, and twenty hands at once
plied the task of raising that receptacle of the dead from what had
been presumed to be its last resting-place. The ropes strained and
creaked, and many thought that they would burst asunder sooner than
raise the heavy coffin of the defunct butcher.
It is singular what reasons people find for backing their opinion.
“You may depend he’s a vampyre,” said one, “or it wouldn’t be so
difficult to get him out of the grave.”
“Oh, there can be no mistake about that,” said one; “when did a natural
Christian’s coffin stick in the mud in that way?”
“Ah, to be sure,” said another; “I knew no good would come of his
goings on; he never was a decent sort of man like his neighbours, and
many queer things have been said of him that I have no doubt are true
enough, if we did but know the rights of them.”
“Ah, but,” said a young lad, thrusting his head between the two who
were talking, “if he is a vampyre, how does he get out of his coffin of
a night with all that weight of mould a top of him?”
One of the men considered for a moment, and then finding no rational
answer occur to him, he gave the boy a box on the ear, saying,—
“I should like to know what business that is of yours? Boys,
now-a-days, ain’t like the boys in my time; they think nothing now of
putting their spokes in grown-up people’s wheels, just as if their
opinions were of any consequence.”
Now, by a vigorous effort, those who were tugging at the ropes
succeeded in moving the coffin a little, and that first step was all
the difficulty, for it was loosened from the adhesive soil in which it
lay, and now came up with considerable facility.
[Illustration: The exhumation of the body of the butcher.]
There was a half shout of satisfaction at this result, while some of
the congregation turned pale, and trembled at the prospect of the sight
which was about to present itself; the coffin was dragged from the
grave’s brink fairly among the long rank grass that flourished in the
churchyard, and then they all looked at it for a time, and the men who
had been most earnest in raising it wiped the perspiration from their
brows, and seemed to shrink from the task of opening that receptacle of
the dead now that it was fairly in their power so to do.
Each man looked anxiously in his neighbour’s face, and several audibly
wondered why somebody else didn’t open the coffin.
“There’s no harm in it,” said one; “if he’s a vampyre, we ought to know
it; and, if he ain’t, we can’t do any hurt to a dead man.”
“Oughtn’t we to have the service for the dead?” said one.
“Yes,” said the impertinent boy who had before received the knock on
the head, “I think we ought to have that read backwards.”
This ingenious idea was recompensed by a great many kicks and cuffs,
which ought to have been sufficient to have warned him of the great
danger of being a little before his age in wit.
“Where’s the use of shirking the job?” cried he who had been so active
in shoveling the mud upon the multitude; “why, you cowardly sneaking
set of humbugs, you’re half afraid, now.”
“Afraid—afraid!” cried everybody; “who’s afraid?”
“Ah, who’s afraid?” said a little man, advancing, and assuming an
heroic attitude; “I always notice, if anybody’s afraid, it’s some big
fellow, with more bones than brains.”
At this moment, the man to whom this reproach was more particularly
levelled, raised a horrible shout of terror, and cried out, in frantic
accents,—
“He’s a-coming—he’s a-coming!”
The little man fell at once into the grave, while the mob, with one
accord, turned tail, and fled in all directions, leaving him alone with
the coffin. Such a fighting, and kicking, and scrambling ensued to get
over the wall of the grave-yard, that this great fellow, who had caused
all the mischief, burst into such peals of laughter that the majority
of the people became aware that it was a joke, and came creeping back,
looking as sheepish as possible.
Some got up very faint sorts of laugh, and said “very good,” and swore
they saw what big Dick meant from the first, and only ran to make the
others run.
“Very good,” said Dick, “I’m glad you enjoyed it, that’s all. My eye,
what a scampering there was among you. Where’s my little friend, who
was so infernally cunning about bones and brains?”
With some difficulty the little man was extricated from the grave, and
then, oh, for the consistency of a mob! they all laughed at him; those
very people who, heedless of all the amenities of existence, had been
trampling upon each other, and roaring with terror, actually had the
impudence to laugh at him, and call him a cowardly little rascal, and
say it served him right.
But such is popularity!
“Well, if nobody won’t open the coffin,” said big Dick, “I will, so
here goes. I knowed the old fellow when he was alive, and many a time
he’s d—d me and I’ve d—d him, so I ain’t a-going to be afraid of him
now he’s dead. We was very intimate, you see, ’cos we was the two
heaviest men in the parish; there’s a reason for everything.”
“Ah, Dick’s the fellow to do it,” cried a number of persons; “there’s
nobody like Dick for opening a coffin; he’s the man as don’t care for
nothing.”
“Ah, you snivelling curs,” said Dick, “I hate you. If it warn’t for my
own satisfaction, and all for to prove that my old friend, the butcher,
as weighed seventeen stone, and stood six feet two and-a-half on his
own sole, I’d see you all jolly well——”
“D——d first,” said the boy; “open the lid, Dick, let’s have a look.”
“Ah, you’re a rum un,” said Dick, “arter my own heart. I sometimes
thinks as you must be a nevy, or some sort of relation of mine.
Howsomdever, here goes. Who’d a thought that I should ever had a look
at old fat and thunder again?—that’s what I used to call him; and then
he used to request me to go down below, where I needn’t turn round to
light my blessed pipe.”
“Hell—we know,” said the boy; “why don’t you open the lid, Dick?”
“I’m a going,” said Dick; “kim up.”
He introduced the corner of a shovel between the lid and the coffin,
and giving it a sudden wrench, he loosened it all down one side.
A shudder pervaded the multitude, and, popularly speaking, you might
have heard a pin drop in that crowded churchyard at that eventful
moment.
Dick then proceeded to the other side, and executed the same manœuvre.
“Now for it,” he said; “we shall see him in a moment, and we’ll think
we seed him still.”
“What a lark!” said the boy.
“You hold yer jaw, will yer? Who axed you for a remark, blow yer? What
do you mean by squatting down there, like a cock-sparrow, with a pain
in his tail, hanging yer head, too, right over the coffin? Did you
never hear of what they call a fluvifium coming from the dead, yer
ignorant beast, as is enough to send nobody to blazes in a minute? Get
out of the way of the cold meat, will yer?”
“A what, do you say, Dick?”
“Request information from the extreme point of my elbow.”
Dick threw down the spade, and laying hold of the coffin-lid with both
hands, he lifted it off, and flung it on one side.
There was a visible movement and an exclamation among the multitude.
Some were pushed down, in the eager desire of those behind to obtain a
sight of the ghastly remains of the butcher; those at a distance were
frantic, and the excitement was momentarily increasing.
They might all have spared themselves the trouble, for the coffin was
empty—here was no dead butcher, nor any evidence of one ever having
been there, not even the grave-clothes; the only thing at all in the
receptacle of the dead was a brick.
Dick’s astonishment was so intense that his eyes and mouth kept opening
together to such an extent, that it seemed doubtful when they would
reach their extreme point of elongation. He then took up the brick and
looked at it curiously, and turned it over and over, examined the ends
and the sides with a critical eye, and at length he said,—
“Well, I’m blowed, here’s a transmogrification; he’s consolidified
himself into a blessed brick—my eye, here’s a curiosity.”
“But you don’t mean to say that’s the butcher, Dick?” said the boy.
Dick reached over, and gave him a tap on the head with the brick.
“There!” he said, “that’s what I calls occular demonstration. Do you
believe it now, you blessed infidel? What’s more natural? He was an
out-and-out brick while he was alive; and he’s turned to a brick now
he’s dead.”
“Give it to me, Dick,” said the boy; “I should like to have that brick,
just for the fun of the thing.”
“I’ll see you turned into a pantile first. I sha’n’t part with this
here, it looks so blessed sensible; it’s a gaining on me every minute
as a most remarkable likeness, d——d if it ain’t.”
By this time the bewilderment of the mob had subsided; now that
there was no dead butcher to look upon, they fancied themselves most
grievously injured; and, somehow or other, Dick, notwithstanding
all his exertions in their service, was looked upon in the light of
a showman, who had promised some startling exhibition and then had
disappointed his auditors.
The first intimation he had of popular vengeance was a stone thrown at
him, but Dick’s eye happened to be upon the fellow who threw it, and
collaring him in a moment, he dealt him a cuff on the side of the head,
which confused his faculties for a week.
“Hark ye,” he then cried, with a loud voice, “don’t interfere with me;
you know it won’t go down. There’s something wrong here; and, as one
of yourselves, I’m as much interested in finding out what it is as any
of you can possibly be. There seems to be some truth in this vampyre
business; our old friend, the butcher, you see, is not in his grave;
where is he then?”
The mob looked at each other, and none attempted to answer the question.
“Why, of course, he’s a vampyre,” said Dick, “and you may all of you
expect to see him, in turn, come into your bed-room windows with a
burst, and lay hold of you like a million and a half of leeches rolled
into one.”
There was a general expression of horror, and then Dick continued,—
“You’d better all of you go home; I shall have no hand in pulling up
any more of the coffins—this is a dose for me. Of course you can do
what you like.”
“Pull them all up!” cried a voice; “pull them all up! Let’s see how
many vampyres there are in the churchyard.”
“Well, it’s no business of mine,” said Dick; “but I wouldn’t, if I was
you.”
“You may depend,” said one, “that Dick knows something about it, or he
wouldn’t take it so easy.”
“Ah! down with him,” said the man who had received the box on the ears;
“he’s perhaps a vampyre himself.”
The mob made a demonstration towards him, but Dick stood his ground,
and they paused again.
“Now, you’re a cowardly set,” he said; “cause you’re disappointed, you
want to come upon me. Now, I’ll just show what a little thing will
frighten you all again, and I warn beforehand it will, so you sha’n’t
say you didn’t know it, and were taken by surprise.”
The mob looked at him, wondering what he was going to do.
“Once! twice! thrice!” he said, and then he flung the brick up into the
air an immense height, and shouted “heads,” in a loud tone.
A general dispersion of the crowd ensued, and the brick fell in the
centre of a very large circle indeed.
“There you are again,” said Dick; “why, what a nice set you are!”
“What fun!” said the boy. “It’s a famous coffin, this, Dick,” and he
laid himself down in the butcher’s last resting-place. “I never was in
a coffin before—it’s snug enough.”
“Ah, you’re a rum ’un,” said Dick; “you’re such a inquiring genius, you
is; you’ll get your head into some hole one day, and not be able to get
it out again, and then I shall see you a kicking. Hush! lay still—don’t
say anything.”
“Good again,” said the boy; “what shall I do?”
“Give a sort of a howl and a squeak, when they’ve all come back again.”
“Won’t I!” said the boy; “pop on the lid.”
“There you are,” said Dick; “d—d if I don’t adopt you, and bring you up
to the science of nothing.”
“Now, listen to me, good people all,” added Dick; “I have really got
something to say to you.”
At this intimation the people slowly gathered again round the grave.
“Listen,” said Dick, solemnly; “it strikes me there’s some tremendous
do going on.”
“Yes, there is,” said several who were foremost.
“It won’t be long before you’ll all of you be most d—nably astonished;
but let me beg of all you not to accuse me of having anything to do
with it, provided I tell you all I know.”
“No, Dick; we won’t—we won’t—we won’t.”
“Good; then, listen. I don’t know anything, but I’ll tell you what
I think, and that’s as good; I don’t think that this brick is the
butcher; but I think, that when you least expect it——hush! come a
little closer.”
“Yes, yes; we are closer.”
“Well, then, I say, when you all least expect it, and when you ain’t
dreaming of such a thing, you’ll hear something of my fat friend as is
dead and gone, that will astonish you all.”
Dick paused, and he gave the coffin a slight kick, as intimation to
the boy that he might as well be doing his part in the drama, upon
which that ingenious young gentleman set up such a howl, that even
Dick jumped, so unearthly did it sound within the confines of that
receptacle of the dead.
But if the effect upon him was great, what must it have been upon
those whom it took completely unawares? For a moment or two they
seemed completely paralysed, and then they frightened the boy, for the
shout of terror that rose from so many throats at once was positively
alarming.
This jest of Dick’s was final, for, before three minutes had elapsed,
the churchyard was clear of all human occupants save himself and the
boy, who had played his part so well in the coffin.
“Get out,” said Dick, “it’s all right—we’ve done ’em at last; and now
you may depend upon it they won’t be in a hurry to come here again. You
keep your own counsel, or else somebody will serve you out for this. I
don’t think you’re altogether averse to a bit of fun, and if you keep
yourself quiet, you’ll have the satisfaction of hearing what’s said
about this affair in every pot-house in the village, and no mistake.”