THE STAKE AND THE DEAD BODY.
The mob seemed from the first to have an impression that, as regarded
the military force, no very serious results would arise from that
quarter, for it was not to be supposed that, on an occasion which could
not possibly arouse any ill blood on the part of the soldiery, or on
which they could have the least personal feeling, they would like to
get a bad name, which would stick to them for years to come.
It was no political riot, on which men might be supposed, in
consequence of differing in opinion, to have their passions inflamed;
so that, although the call of the civil authorities for military aid
had been acceded to, yet it was hoped, and, indeed, almost understood
by the officers, that their operations would lie confined more to a
demonstration of power, than anything else.
Besides, some of the men had got talking to the townspeople, and had
heard all about the vampyre story, and not being of the most refined or
educated class themselves, they felt rather interested than otherwise
in the affair.
Under these circumstances, then, we are inclined to think, that the
disorderly mob of that inn had not so wholesome a fear as it was most
certainly intended they should have of the red coats. Then, again, they
were not attacking the churchyard, which, in the first case, was the
main point in dispute, and about which the authorities had felt so very
sore, inasmuch as they felt that, if once the common people found out
that the sanctity of such places could be outraged with impunity, they
would lose their reverence for the church; that is to say, for the host
of persons who live well and get fat in this country by the trade of
religion.
Consequently, this churchyard was the main point of defence, and it
was zealously looked to when it need not have been done so, while the
public-house where there really reigned mischief was half unguarded.
There are always in all communities, whether large or small, a number
of persons who really have, or fancy they have, something to gain by
disturbance. These people, of course, care not for what pretext the
public peace is violated; so long as there is a row, and something like
an excuse for running into other people’s houses, they are satisfied.
To get into a public-house under such circumstances is an unexpected
treat; and thus, when the mob rushed into the inn with such symptoms
of fury and excitement, there went with the leaders of the disturbance
a number of persons who never thought of getting further than the bar,
where they attacked the spirit-taps with an alacrity which showed how
great was their love for ardent compounds.
Leaving these persons behind, however, we will follow those who, with a
real superstition, and a furious interest in the affair of the vampyre,
made their way towards the upper chamber, determining to satisfy
themselves if there were truth in the statement so alarmingly made by
the woman who had created such an emotion.
It is astonishing what people will do in crowds, in comparison with the
acts that they would be able to commit individually. There is usually
a calmness, a sanctity, a sublimity about death, which irresistibly
induces a respect for its presence, alike from the educated or from the
illiterate; and let the object of the fell-destroyer’s presence be whom
it may, the very consciousness that death has claimed it for its own,
invests it with a halo of respect, that, in life, the individual could
never aspire to probably.
Let us precede these furious rioters for a few moments, and look upon
the chamber of the dead—that chamber, which for a whole week, had been
looked upon with a kind of shuddering terror—that chamber which had
been darkened by having its sources of light closed, as if it were a
kind of disrespect to the dead to allow the pleasant sunshine to fall
upon the faded form.
And every inhabitant of that house, upon ascending and descending its
intricate and ancient staircases, had walked with a quiet and subdued
step past that one particular door.
Even the tones of voice in which they spoke to each other, while they
knew that that sad remnant of mortality was in the house, was quiet and
subdued, as if the repose of death was but a mortal sleep, and could be
broken by rude sounds.
Ay, even some of these very persons, who now with loud and boisterous
clamour, had rushed into the place, had visited the house and talked
in whispers; but then they were alone, and men will do in throngs
acts which, individually, they would shrink from with compunction or
cowardice, call it which we will.
The chamber of death is upon the second story of the house. It is a
back room, the windows of which command a view of that half garden,
half farm-yard, which we find generally belonging to country inns.
But now the shutters were closed, with the exception of one small
opening, that, in daylight, would have admitted a straggling ray of
light to fall upon the corpse. Now, however, that the sombre shades of
evening had wrapped everything in gloom, the room appeared in total
darkness, so that the most of those adventurers who had ventured into
the place shrunk back until lights were procured from the lower part of
the house, with which to enter the room.
A dim oil lamp in a niche sufficiently lighted the staircase, and, by
the friendly aid of its glimmering beams, they had found their way up
to the landing tolerably well, and had not thought of the necessity of
having lights with which to enter the apartments, until they found them
in utter darkness.
These requisites, however, were speedily procured from the kitchen of
the inn. Indeed, anything that was wanted was laid hold of without the
least word of remark to the people of the place, as if might, from that
evening forthwith, was understood to constitute right, in that town.
Up to this point no one had taken a very prominent part in the attack
upon 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
himself a sort of control over his companions and, turning to them, he
said,—
“Hark ye, my friends; we’ll do everything quietly and properly; so I
think 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 your
cowardice 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
of fear which was beginning to creep over the others in consequence of
the timid suggestion of the man who, up to that moment, had been first
and foremost in the enterprise.
In an instant the chamber was half filled with persons, four or five of
whom carried lights; so that, as it was not of very large dimensions,
it was sufficiently illuminated for every object in it to be clearly
visible.
There was the bed, smooth and unruffled, as if waiting for some
expected guest; while close by its side a coffin, supported upon
tressles, over which a sheet was partially thrown, contained the sad
remains of him who little expected in life that, after death, he should
be stigmatised as an example of one of the ghastliest superstitions
that ever found a home in the human imagination.
It was evident that some one had been in the room; and that this was
the woman whose excited fancy had led her to look upon the face of the
corpse there could be no doubt, for the sheet was drawn aside just
sufficiently to discover the countenance.
The fact was that the stranger was unknown at the inn, or probably ere
this the coffin lid would have been screwed on; but it was hoped, up to
the 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 been
determined upon.
The presence of so many persons at once effectually prevented any
individual from exhibiting, even if he felt, any superstitious fears
about approaching the coffin; and so, with one accord, they surrounded
it, and looked upon the face of the dead.
There was nothing repulsive in that countenance. The fact was that
decomposition had sufficiently advanced to induce a relaxation of
the muscles, and a softening of the fibres, so that an appearance of
calmness and repose had crept over the face which it did not wear
immediately after death.
It happened, too, that the face was full of flesh; for the death had
been sudden, and there had not been that wasting away of the muscles
and integuments which makes the skin cling, as it were, to the bone,
when the ravages of long disease have exhausted the physical frame.
There was, unquestionably, a plumpness, a freshness, and a sort of
vitality about the countenance that was remarkable.
For a few moments there was a death-like stillness in the apartment,
and then one voice broke the silence by exclaiming,—
“He’s a vampyre, and has come here to die. Well he knows he’d be taken
up 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
has seen him some days ago, and then we can ascertain if there’s any
difference in his looks.”
This suggestion was agreed to, and a couple of stout men ran down
stairs, and returned in a few moments with a trembling waiter, whom
they had caught in the passage, and forced to accompany them.
This man seemed to think that he was to be made a dreadful example of
in some sort of way; and, as he was dragged into the room, he trembled,
and looked as pale as death.
“What have I done, gentlemen?” he said; “I ain’t a vampyre. Don’t be
driving 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 got
to answer a question that will be put to you.”
“Oh, well, certainly, gentlemen; anything you please. Coming—coming, as
I always say; give your orders, the waiter’s in the room.”
“Look upon the face 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
afore he died, and I seed him arter; and when the undertaker’s men
came, I came up with them and I seed ’em put him in his coffin. You see
I kept an eye on ’em, gentlemen, ’cos knows well enough what they is. A
cousin of mine was in the trade, and he assures me as one of ’em always
brings a tooth-drawing concern in his pocket, and looks in the mouth of
the blessed 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
see any difference now in the face of the corpse to what it was some
days since?”
“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 it
does.”
“Enough,” cried the man who had questioned him, with considerable
excitement of manner. “Neighbours, are we to have our wives and our
children 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 of
anything in the shape of a restoration.”
This was a terrific proposition; and even those who felt most strongly
upon the subject, and had their fears most awakened, shrank from
carrying it into effect. Others, again, applauded it, although they
determined, in their own minds, to keep far enough off from the
execution of the job, which they hoped would devolve upon others, so
that they might have all the security of feeling that such a process
had been gone through with the supposed vampyre, without being in any
way committed by the dreadful act.
Nothing was easier than to procure a stake from the garden in the rear
of the premises; but it was one thing to have the means at hand of
carrying into effect so dreadful a proposition, and another actually to
do it.
For the credit of human nature, we regret that even then, when
civilisation and popular education had by no means made such rapid
strides as in our times they have, such a proposition should be
entertained for a moment; but so it was; and just as an alarm was
given that a party of the soldiers had reached the inn, and had taken
possession of the doorway with a determination to arrest the rioters, a
strong hedge-stake had been procured, and everything was in readiness
for the perpetration of the horrible deed.
Even then those in the room, for they were tolerably sober, would
have revolted, probably, from the execution of so fearful an act; but
the entrance of a party of the military into the lower portion of the
tavern, induced those who had been making free with the strong liquors
below, to make a rush up-stairs to their companions with the hope of
escaping detection of the petty larceny, if they got into trouble on
account of the riot.
These persons, infuriated by drink, were capable of anything, and
to them, accordingly, the more sober parties gladly surrendered the
disagreeable job of rendering the supposed vampyre perfectly innoxious,
by driving a hedge-stake through his body—a proceeding which, it was
currently believed, inflicted so much physical injury to the frame, as
to render his resuscitation out of the question.
The cries of alarm from below, joined now to the shouts of those mad
rioters, produced a scene of dreadful confusion.
We cannot, for we revolt at the office, describe particularly the
dreadful outrage which was committed upon the corpse; suffice it that
two or three, maddened by drink, and incited by the others, plunged
the hedge-stake through the body, and there left it, a sickening and
horrible 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 the
corpse was actually nailed to its last earthly tenement.
Some asserted, that at that moment an audible groan came from the dead
man, and that this arose from the extinguishment of that remnant of
life which remained in him, on account of his being a vampyre, and
which would have been brought into full existence, if the body had been
placed in the rays of the moon, when at its full, according to the
popular superstition upon that subject.
Others, again, were quite ready to swear, that at the moment the stake
was used there was a visible convulsion of all the limbs, and that
the countenance, before so placid and so calm, became immediately
distorted, as if with agony.
But we have done with these horrible surmises; the dreadful deed has
been committed, and wild, ungovernable superstition has had, for a
time, its sway over the ignorant and debased.