THE RETURN OF THE MOB AND MILITARY TO THE TOWN.—THE MADNESS OF THE
MOB.—THE GROCER’S REVENGE.
On the termination of the conflagration, or, rather, the fall of the
roof, with the loss of grandeur in the spectacle, men’s minds began to
be free from the excitement that chained them to the spot, watching the
progress of that element which has been truly described as a very good
servant, but a very bad master; and of the truth of this every one must
be well satisfied.
There was now remaining little more than the livid glare of the hot and
burning embers; and this did not extend far, for the walls were too
strongly built to fall in from their own weight; they were strong and
stout, and intercepted the little light the ashes would have given out.
The mob now began to feel fatigued and chilly. It had been standing and
walking about many hours, and the approach of exhaustion could not
be put off much longer, especially as there was no longer any great
excitement to carry it off.
The officer, seeing that nothing was to be done, collected his men
together, and they were soon seen in motion. He had been ordered to
stop any tumult that he might have seen, and to save any property. But
there was nothing to do now; all the property that could have been
saved was now destroyed, and the mob were beginning to disperse, and
creep towards their own houses.
The order was then given for the men to take close order, and keep
together, and the word to march was given, which the men obeyed with
alacrity, for they had no good-will in stopping there the whole of the
night.
The return to the village of both the mob and the military was not
without its vicissitudes; accidents of all kinds were rife amongst
them; the military, however, taking the open paths, soon diminished
the distance, and that, too, with little or no accidents, save such as
might have been expected from the state of the fields, after they had
been so much trodden down of late.
Not so the townspeople or the peasantry; for, by way of keeping up
their spirits, and amusing themselves on their way home, they commenced
larking, as they called it, which often meant the execution of
practical jokes, and these sometimes were of a serious nature.
The night was dark at that hour, especially so when there was a number
of persons traversing about, so that little or nothing could be seen.
The mistakes and blunders that were made were numerous. In one place
there were a number of people penetrating a path that led only to a
hedge and deep ditch; indeed it was a brook very deep and muddy.
Here they came to a stop and endeavoured to ascertain its width, but
the little reflected light they had was deceptive, and it did not
appear so broad as it was.
“Oh, I can jump it,” exclaimed one.
“And so can I,” said another. “I have done so before, and why should I
not do so now.”
This was unanswerable, and as there were many present, at least a dozen
were eager to jump.
“If thee can do it, I know I can,” said a brawny countryman; “so I’ll
do it at once.
“The sooner the better,” shouted some one behind, “or you’ll have no
room for a run, here’s a lot of ’em coming up; push over as quickly as
you can.”
Thus urged, the jumpers at once made a rush to the edge of the ditch,
and many jumped, and many more, from the prevailing darkness, did not
see exactly where the ditch was, and taking one or two steps too many,
found themselves up above the waist in muddy water.
Nor were those who jumped much better off, for nearly all jumped short
or fell backwards into the stream, and were dragged out in a terrible
state.
“Oh, lord! oh, lord!” exclaimed one poor fellow, dripping wet and
shivering with cold, “I shall die! oh, the rheumatiz, there’ll be a
pretty winter for me: I’m half dead.”
“Hold your noise,” said another, “and help me to get the mud out of my
eye; I can’t see.”
“Never mind,” added a third, “considering how you jump, I don’t think
you want to see.”
“This comes a hunting vampyres.”
“Oh, it’s all a judgment; who knows but he may be in the air; it is
nothing to laugh at as I shouldn’t be surprised if he were; only think
how precious pleasant.”
“However pleasant it may be to you,” remarked one, “it’s profitable to
a good many.”
“How so?”
“Why, see the numbers of things that will be spoiled, coats torn, hats
crushed, heads broken, and shoes burst. Oh, it’s an ill-wind that blows
nobody any good.”
“So it is, but you may benefit anybody you like, so you don’t do it at
my expence.”
In one part of a field where there were some stiles and gates, a
big countryman caught a fat shopkeeper with the arms of the stile a
terrible poke in the stomach; while the breath was knocked out of the
poor man’s stomach, and he was gasping with agony, the fellow set to
laughing, and said to his companions, who were of the same class—
“I say, Jim, look at the grocer, he hasn’t got any wind to spare, I’d
run him for a wager, see how he gapes like a fish out of water.”
The poor shopkeeper felt indeed like a fish out of water, and as he
afterwards declared he felt just as if he had had a red hot clock
weight thrust into the midst of his stomach and there left to cool.
However, the grocer would be revenged upon his tormentor, who had now
lost sight of him, but the fat man, after a time, recovering his wind,
and the pain in his stomach becoming less intense, he gathered himself
up.
“My name ain’t Jones,” he muttered, “if I don’t be one to his one for
that; I’ll do something that shall make him remember what it is to
insult a respectable tradesman. I’ll never forgive such an insult. It
is dark, and that’s why it is he has dared to do this.”
Filled with dire thoughts and a spirit of revenge, he looked from side
to side to see with what he could effect his object, but could espy
nothing.
“It’s shameful,” he muttered; “what would I give for a little retort.
I’d plaster his ugly countenance.”
As he spoke, he placed his hands on some pales to rest himself, when
he found that they stuck to them, the pales had that day been newly
pitched.
A bright idea now struck him.
“If I could only get a handful of this stuff,” he thought, “I should be
able to serve him out for serving me out. I will, cost what it may; I’m
resolved upon that. I’ll not have my wind knocked out, and my inside
set on fire for nothing. No, no; I’ll be revenged on him.”
With this view he felt over the pales, and found that he could scrape
off a little only, but not with his hands; indeed, it only plastered
them; he, therefore, marched about for something to scrape it off with.
“Ah; I have a knife, a large pocket knife, that will do, that is the
sort of thing I want.”
He immediately commenced feeling for it, but had scarcely got his
hand into his pocket when he found there would be a great difficulty
in either pushing it in further or withdrawing it altogether, for the
pitch made it difficult to do either, and his pocket stuck to his hands
like a glove.
“D—n it,” said the grocer, “who would have thought of that? here’s a
pretty go, curse that fellow, he is the cause of all this; I’ll be
revenged upon him, if it’s a year hence.”
The enraged grocer drew his hand out, but was unable to effect his
object in withdrawing the knife also; but he saw something shining, he
stooped to pick it up, exclaiming as he did so, in a gratified tone of
voice,
“Ah, here’s something that will do better.”
As he made a grasp at it, he found he had inserted his hand into
something soft.
“God bless me! what now?”
He pulled his hand hastily away, and found that it stuck slightly, and
then he saw what it was.
“Ay, ay, the very thing. Surely it must have been placed here on
purpose by the people.”
The fact was, he had placed his hand into a pot of pitch that had been
left by the people who had been at work at pitching the pales, but had
been attracted by the fire at Sir Francis Varney’s, and to see which
they had left their work, and the pitch was left on a smouldering peat
fire, so that when Mr. Jones, the grocer, accidentally put his hand
into it he found it just warm.
When he made this discovery he dabbed his hand again into the
pitch-pot, exclaiming,—
“In for a penny, in for a pound.”
And he endeavoured to secure as large a handful of the slippery and
sticky stuff as he could, and this done he set off to come up with the
big countryman who had done him so much indignity and made his stomach
uncomfortable.
He soon came up with him, for the man had stopped rather behind, and
was larking, as it is called, with some men, to whom he was a companion.
He had slipped down a bank, and was partially sitting down on the soft
mud. In his bustle, the little grocer came down with a slide, close to
the big countryman.
“Ah—ah! my little grocer,” said the countryman, holding out his hand to
catch him, and drawing him towards himself. “You will come and sit down
by the side of your old friend.”
As he spoke, he endeavoured to pull Mr. Jones down, too; but that
individual only replied by fetching the countryman a swinging smack
across the face with the handful of pitch.
“There, take that; and now we are quits; we shall be old friends after
this, eh? Are you satisfied? You’ll remember me, I’ll warrant.”
As the grocer spoke, he rubbed his hands over the face of the fallen
man, and then rushed from the spot with all the haste he could make.
The countryman sat a moment or two confounded, cursing, and swearing,
and spluttering, vowing vengeance, believing that it was mud only that
had been plastered over his face; but when he put his hands up, and
found out what it was, he roared and bellowed like a town-bull.
He cried out to his companions that his eyes were pitched; but they
only laughed at him, thinking he was having some foolish lark with them.
It was next day before he got home, for he wandered about all night:
and it took him a week to wash the pitch off by means of grease; and
ever afterwards he recollected the pitching of his face; nor did he
ever forget the grocer.
Thus it was the whole party returned a long while after dark across the
fields, with all the various accidents that were likely to befall such
an assemblage of people.
The vampyre hunting cost many of them dear, for clothes were injured
on all sides, hats lost, and shoes missing in a manner that put some
of the rioters to much inconvenience. Soon afterwards, the military
retired to their quarters; and the townspeople at length became
tranquil and nothing more was heard or done that night.