THE GUESTS AT THE INN, AND THE STORY OF THE DEAD UNCLE.
As had been truly stated by Mr. Marchdale, who now stands out in his
true colours to the reader as the confidant and abettor of Sir Francis
Varney, there had assembled on that evening a curious and a gossipping
party at the inn where such dreadful and such riotous proceedings had
taken place, which, in their proper place, we have already duly and at
length recorded.
It was not very likely that, on that evening, or for many and many an
evening to come, the conversation in the parlour of the inn would be
upon any other subject than that of the vampyre.
Indeed, the strange, mysterious, and horrible circumstances which had
occurred, bade fair to be gossipping stock in trade for many a year.
Never before had a subject presenting so many curious features arisen.
Never, within the memory of that personage who is supposed to know
everything, had there occurred any circumstance in the county, or set
of circumstances, which afforded such abundant scope for conjecture and
speculation.
Everybody might have his individual opinion, and be just as likely to
be right as his neighbours; and the beauty of the affair was, that such
was the interest of the subject itself, that there was sure to be a
kind of reflected interest with every surmise that at all bore upon it.
On this particular night, when Marchdale was prowling about, gathering
what news he could, in order that he might carry it to the vampyre, a
more than usually strong muster of the gossips of the town took place.
Indeed, all of any note in the talking way were there, with the
exception of one, and he was in the county gaol, being one of the
prisoners apprehended by the military when they made the successful
attack upon the lumber-room of the inn, after the dreadful desecration
of the dead which had taken place.
The landlord of the inn was likely to make a good thing of it, for
talking makes people thirsty; and he began to consider that a vampyre
about once a-year would be no bad thing for the Blue Lion.
“It’s shocking,” said one of the guests; “it’s shocking to think of.
Only last night, I am quite sure I had such a fright that it added at
least ten years to my age.”
“A fright!” said several.
“I believe I speak English—I said a fright.”
“Well, but had it anything to do with the vampyre?”
“Everything.”
“Oh! do tell us; do tell us all about it. How was it? Did he come to
you? Go on. Well, well.”
The first speaker became immediately a very important personage in
the room; and, when he saw that, he became at once a very important
personage in his own eyes likewise; and, before he would speak another
word, he filled a fresh pipe, and ordered another mug of ale.
“It’s no use trying to hurry him,” said one.
“No,” he said, “it isn’t. I’ll tell you in good time what a dreadful
circumstance has made me sixty-three to-day, when I was only
fifty-three yesterday.”
“Was it very dreadful?”
“Rather. You wouldn’t have survived it at all.”
“Indeed!”
“No. Now listen. I went to bed at a quarter after eleven, as usual. I
didn’t notice anything particular in the room.”
“Did you peep under the bed?”
“No, I didn’t. Well, as I was a-saying, to bed I went, and I didn’t
fasten the door; because, being a very sound sleeper, in case there was
a fire, I shouldn’t hear a word of it if I did.”
“No,” said another. “I recollect once——”
“Be so good as allow me to finish what I know, before you begin to
recollect anything, if you please. As I was saying, I didn’t lock the
door, but I went to bed. Somehow or another, I did not feel at all
comfortable, and I tossed about, first on one side, and then on the
other; but it was all in vain; I only got, every moment, more and more
fidgetty.”
“And did you think of the vampyre?” said one of the listeners.
“I thought of nothing else till I heard my clock, which is on the
landing of the stairs above my bed-room, begin to strike twelve.”
“Ah! I like to hear a clock sound in the night,” said one; “it puts
one in mind of the rest of the world, and lets one know one isn’t all
alone.”
“Very good. The striking of the clock I should not at all have objected
to; but it was what followed that did the business.”
“What, what?”
“Fair and softly; fair and softly. Just hand me a light, Mr. Sprigs, if
you please. I’ll tell you all, gentlemen, in a moment or two.”
With the most provoking deliberation, the speaker re-lit his pipe,
which had gone out while he was talking, and then, after a few whiffs,
to assure himself that its contents had thoroughly ignited, he resumed,—
“No sooner had the last sound of it died away, than I heard something
on the stairs.”
“Yes, yes.”
“It was as if some man had given his foot a hard blow against one of
the stairs; and he would have needed to have had a heavy boot on to do
it. I started up in bed and listened, as you may well suppose, not in
the most tranquil state of mind, and then I heard an odd, gnawing sort
of noise, and then another dab upon one of the stairs.”
“How dreadful!”
“It was. What to do I knew not, or what to think, except that the
vampyre had, by some means, got in at the attic window, and was coming
down stairs to my room. That seemed the most likely. Then there was
another groan, and then another heavy step; and, as they were evidently
coming towards my door, I felt accordingly, and got out of bed, not
knowing hardly whether I was on my head or my heels, to try and lock my
door.”
“Ah, to be sure.”
“Yes; that was all very well, if I could have done it; but a man in
such a state of mind as I was in is not a very sharp hand at doing
anything. I shook from head to foot. The room was very dark, and I
couldn’t, for a moment or two, collect my senses sufficient really to
know which way the door lay.”
“What a situation!”
“It was. Dab, dab, dab, came these horrid footsteps, and there was I
groping about the room in an agony. I heard them coming nearer and
nearer to my door. Another moment, and they must have reached it, when
my hand struck against the lock.”
“What an escape!”
“No, it was not.”
“No?”
“No, indeed. The key was on the outside, and you may well guess I was
not over and above disposed to open the door to get at it.”
“No, no.”
“I felt regularly bewildered, I can tell you; it seemed to me as if the
very devil himself was coming down stairs hopping all the way upon one
leg.”
“How terrific!”
“I felt my senses almost leaving me; but I did what I could to hold the
door shut just as I heard the strange step come from the last stair
on to the landing. Then there was a horrid sound, and some one began
trying the lock of my door.”
“What a moment!”
“Yes, I can tell you it was a moment. Such a moment as I don’t wish
to go through again. I held the door as close as I could, and did not
speak. I tried to cry out help and murder, but I could not; my tongue
stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my strength was fast failing me.”
“Horrid, horrid!”
“Take a drop of ale.”
“Thank you. Well, I don’t think this went on above two or three
minutes, and all the while some one tried might and main to push open
the door. My strength left me all at once; I had only time to stagger
back a step or two, and then, as the door opened, I fainted away.”
“Well, well!”
“Ah, you wouldn’t have said well, if you had been there, I can tell
you.”
“No; but what become of you. What happened next? How did it end? What
was it?”
“Why, what exactly happened next after I fainted I cannot tell you; but
the first thing I saw when I recovered was a candle.”
“Yes, yes.”
“And then a crowd of people.”
“Ah, ah!”
“And then Dr. Webb.”
“Gracious!”
“And Mrs. Bulk, my housekeeper. I was in my own bed, and when I opened
my eyes I heard Dr. Webb say,—
“‘He will be better soon. Can no one form any idea of what it is all
about. Some sudden fright surely could alone have produced such an
effect.’”
“‘The Lord have mercy upon me!’ said I.
“Upon this everybody who had been called in got round the bed, and
wanted to know what had happened; but I said not a word of it; but
turning to Mrs. Bulk, I asked her how it was she found out I had
fainted.
“‘Why, sir,’ says she, ‘I was coming up to bed as softly as I could,
because I knew you had gone to rest some time before. The clock was
striking twelve, and as I went past it some of my clothes, I suppose,
caught the large weight, but it was knocked off, and down the stairs it
rolled, going with such a lump from one to the other, and I couldn’t
catch it because it rolled so fast, that I made sure you would be
awakened; so I came down to tell you what it was, and it was some time
before I could get your room door open, and when I did I found you out
of bed and insensible.’”
There was a general look of disappointment when this explanation was
given, and one said,—
“Then it was not the vampire?”
“Certainly not.”
“And, after all, only a clock weight.”
“That’s about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that at first?”
“Because that would have spoilt the story.”
There was a general murmur of discontent, and, after a few moments one
man said, with some vivacity,—
“Well, although our friend’s vampyre has turned out, after all, to be
nothing but a confounded clock-weight, there’s no disputing the fact
about Sir Francis Varney being a vampyre, and not a clock-weight.”
“Very true—very true.”
“And what’s to be done to rid the town of such a man?”
“Oh, don’t call him a man.”
“Well, a monster.”
“Ah, that’s more like. I tell you what, sir, if you had got a light,
when you first heard the noise in your room, and gone out to see what
it was, you would have spared yourself much fright.”
“Ah, no doubt; it’s always easy afterwards to say, if you had done
this, and if you had done the other, so and so would have been the
effect; but there is something about the hour of midnight that makes
men tremble.”
“Well,” said one, who had not yet spoken, “I don’t see why twelve at
night should be a whit more disagreeable than twelve at day.”
“Don’t you?”
“Not I.”
“Now, for instance, many a party of pleasure goes to that old ruin
where Sir Francis Varney so unaccountably disappeared in broad
daylight. But is there any one here who would go to it alone, and at
midnight?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I would.”
“What! and after what has happened as regards the vampyre in connection
with it?”
“Yes, I would.”
“I’ll bet you twenty shillings you won’t.”
“And I—and I,” cried several.
“Well, gentlemen,” said the man, who certainly shewed no signs of fear,
“I will go, and not only will I go and take all your bets, but, if I
do meet the vampyre, then I’ll do my best to take him prisoner.”
“And when will you go?”
“To-night,” he cried, and he sprang to his feet; “hark ye all, I don’t
believe one word about vampyres. I’ll go at once; it’s getting late,
and let any one of you, in order that you may be convinced I have been
to the place, give me any article, which I will hide among the ruins;
and tell you where to find it to-morrow in broad daylight.”
“Well,” said one, “that’s fair, Tom Eccles. Here’s a handkerchief of
mine; I should know it again among a hundred others.”
“Agreed; I’ll leave it in the ruins.”
The wagers were fairly agreed upon; several handkerchiefs were handed
to Tom Eccles; and at eleven o’clock he fairly started, through the
murky darkness of the night, to the old ruin where Sir Francis Varney
and Marchdale were holding their most unholy conference.
It is one thing to talk and to accept wagers in the snug parlour of
an inn, and another to go alone across a tract of country wrapped in
the profound stillness of night to an ancient ruin which, in addition
to the natural gloom which might well be supposed to surround it, has
superadded associations which are anything but of a pleasant character.
Tom Eccles, as he was named, was one of those individuals who act
greatly from impulse. He was certainly not a coward, and, perhaps,
really as free from superstition as most persons, but he was human, and
consequently he had nerves, and he had likewise an imagination.
He went to his house first before he started on his errand to the
ruins. It was to get a horse-pistol which he had, and which he duly
loaded and placed in his pocket. Then he wrapped himself up in a
great-coat, and with the air of a man quite determined upon something
desperate he left the town.
The guests at the inn looked after him as he walked from the door of
that friendly establishment, and some of them, as they saw his resolved
aspect, began to quake for the amount of the wagers they had laid upon
his non-success.
However, it was resolved among them, that they would stay until
half-past twelve, in the expectation of his return, before they
separated.
To while away the time, he who had been so facetious about his story
of the clock-weight, volunteered to tell what happened to a friend of
his who went to take possession of some family property which he became
possessed of as heir-at-law to an uncle who had died without a will,
having an illegitimate family unprovided for in every shape.
“Ah! nobody cares for other people’s illegitimate children, and, if
their parents don’t provide for them, why, the workhouse is open for
them, just as if they were something different from other people.”
“So they are; if their parents don’t take care of them, and provide for
them, nobody else will, as you say, neighbour, except when they have a
Fitz put to their name, which tells you they are royal bastards, and of
course unlike anybody else’s.”
“But go on—let’s know all about it; we sha’n’t hear what he has got to
say at all, at this rate.”
“Well, as I was saying, or about to say, the nephew, as soon as he
heard his uncle was dead, comes and claps his seal upon everything in
the house.”
“But, could he do so?” inquired one of the guests.
“I don’t see what was to hinder him,” replied a third. “He could do so,
certainly.”
“But there was a son, and, as I take it, a son’s nearer than a nephew
any day.”
“But the son is illegitimate.”
“Legitimate, or illegitimate, a son’s a son; don’t bother me about
distinction of that sort; why, now, there was old Weatherbit——”
“Order, order.”
“Let’s hear the tale.”
“Very good, gentlemen, I’ll go on, if I ain’t to be interrupted; but
I’ll say this, that an illegitimate son is no son, in the eyes of the
law; or at most he’s an accident quite, and ain’t what he is, and so
can’t inherit.”
“Well, that’s what I call making matters plain,” said one of the
guests, who took his pipe from his mouth to make room for the remark;
“now that is what I likes.”
“Well, as I have proved then,” resumed the speaker, “the nephew was the
heir, and into the house he would come. A fine affair it was too—the
illegitimates looking the colour of sloes; but he knew the law, and
would have it put in force.”
“Law’s law, you know.”
“Uncommonly true that; and the nephew stuck to it like a cobbler to his
last—he said they should go out, and they did go out; and, say what
they would about their natural claims, he would not listen to them, but
bundled them out and out in a pretty short space of time.”
“It was trying to them, mind you, to leave the house they had been born
in with very different expectations to those which now appeared to be
their fate. Poor things, they looked ruefully enough, and well they
might, for there was a wide world for them, and no prospect of a warm
corner.
“Well, as I was saying, he had them all out and the house clear to
himself.
“Now,” said he, “I have an open field and no favour. I don’t care for
no——Eh! what?”
“There was a sudden knocking, he thought, the door, and went and opened
it, but nothing was to be seen.
“Oh! I see—somebody next door; and if it wasn’t, it don’t matter.
There’s nobody here. I’m alone, and there’s plenty of valuables in
the house. That is what I call very good company. I wouldn’t wish for
better.”
He turned about, looked over room after room, and satisfied himself
that he was alone—that the house was empty.
At every room he entered he paused to think over the value—what it was
worth, and that he was a very fortunate man in having dropped into such
a good thing.
“Ah! there’s the old boy’s secretary, too—his bureau—there’ll be
something in that that will amuse me mightily; but I don’t think I
shall sit up late. He was a rum old man, to say the least of it—a very
odd sort of man.”
With that he gave himself a shrug, as if some very uncomfortable
feeling had come over him.
“I’ll go to bed early, and get some sleep, and then in daylight I can
look after these papers. They won’t be less interesting in the morning
than they are now.”
There had been some rum stories about the old man, and now the nephew
seemed to think he might have let the family sleep on the premises for
that night; yes, at that moment he could have found it in his heart to
have paid for all the expense of their keep, had it been possible to
have had them back to remain the night.
But that wasn’t possible, for they would not have done it, but sooner
have remained in the streets all night than stay there all night,
like so many house-dogs, employed by one who stepped in between them
and their father’s goods, which were their inheritance, but for one
trifling circumstance—a mere ceremony.
The night came on, and he had lights. True it was he had not been down
stairs, only just to have a look. He could not tell what sort of a
place it was; there were a good many odd sort of passages, that seemed
to end nowhere, and others that did.
There were large doors; but they were all locked, and he had the keys;
so he didn’t mind, but secured all places that were not fastened.
He then went up stairs again, and sat down in the room where the bureau
was placed.
“I’ll be bound,” said one of the guests, “he was in a bit of a stew,
notwithstanding all his brag.”
“Oh! I don’t believe,” said another, “that anything done that is
dangerous, or supposed to be dangerous, by the bravest man, is any way
wholly without some uncomfortable feelings. They may not be strong
enough to prevent the thing proposed to be done from being done, but
they give a disagreeable sensation to the skin.”
“You have felt it, then?”
“Ha! ha! ha!”
“Why, at that time I slept in the churchyard for a wager, I must
say I felt cold all over, as if my skin was walking about me in an
uncomfortable manner.”
“But you won your wager?”
“I did.”
“And of course you slept there?”
“To be sure I did.”
“And met with nothing?”
“Nothing, save a few bumps against the gravestones.”
“Those were hard knocks, I should say.”
“They were, I assure you; but I lay there, and slept there, and won my
wager.”
“Would you do it again?”
“No.”
“And why not?”
“Because of the rheumatism.”
“You caught that?”
“I did; I would give ten times my wager to get rid of them. I have them
very badly.”
“Come, order, order—the tale; let’s hear the end of that, since it has
begun.”
“With all my heart. Come, neighbour.”
“Well, as I said, he was fidgetty; but yet he was not a man to be very
easily frightened or overcome, for he was stout and bold.
“When he shut himself up in the room, he took out a bottle of some good
wine, and helped himself to drink; it was good old wine, and he soon
felt himself warmed and, comforted. He could have faced the enemy.
“If one bottle produces such an effect,” he muttered, “what will two
do?”
This was a question that could only be solved by trying it, and this he
proceeded to do.
But first he drew a brace of long barrelled pistols from his coat
pocket, and taking a powder-flask and bullets from his pocket also, he
loaded them very carefully.
“There,” said he, “are my bull-dogs; and rare watch-dogs they are. They
never bark but they bite. Now, if anybody does come, it will be all up
with them. Tricks upon travellers ain’t a safe game when I have these;
and now for the other bottle.”
He drew the other bottle, and thought, if anything, it was better than
the first. He drank it rather quick, to be sure, and then he began to
feel sleepy and tired.
“I think I shall go to bed,” he said; “that is, if I can find my way
there, for it does seem to me as if the door was travelling. Never
mind, it will make a call here again presently, and then I’ll get
through.”
So saying he arose. Taking the candle in his hand, he walked with a
better step than might have been expected under the circumstance. True
it was the candle wagged to and fro, and his shadow danced upon the
wall; but still, when he got to the bed, he secured his door, put the
light in a safe place, threw himself down, and was fast asleep in a few
moments, or rather he fell into a doze instantaneously.
How long he remained in this state he knew not, but he was suddenly
awakened by a loud bang, as though something heavy and flat had fallen
upon the floor—such, for instance, as a door, or anything of that
sort. He jumped up, rubbed his eyes, and could even then hear the
reverberations through the house.
“What is that?” he muttered; “what is that?”
He listened, and thought he could hear something moving down stairs,
and for a moment he was seized with an ague fit; but recollecting, I
suppose, that there were some valuables down stairs that were worth
fighting for, he carefully extinguished the light that still burned,
and softly crept down stairs.
When he got down stairs he thought he could hear some one scramble
up the kitchen stairs, and then into the room where the bureau was.
Listening for a moment to ascertain if there were more than one, and
then feeling convinced there was not, he followed into the parlour,
when he heard the cabinet open by a key.
This was a new miracle, and one he could not understand; and then he
heard the papers begin to rattle and rustle; so, drawing out one of the
pistols, he cocked it, and walked in.
The figure instantly began to jump about; it was dressed in white—in
grave-clothes. He was terribly nervous, and shook, so he feared to fire
the pistol; but at length he did, and the report was followed by a fall
and a loud groan.
[Illustration: The ghost of the dead uncle appears to the nephew.]
This was very dreadful—very dreadful; but all was quiet, and he lit the
candle again, and approached the body to examine it, and ascertain if
he knew who it was. A groan came from it. The bureau was open, and the
figure clutched firmly a will in his hand.
The figure was dressed in grave-clothes, and he started up when he
saw the form and features of his own uncle, the man who was dead, who
somehow or other had escaped his confinement, and found his way up,
here. He held his will firmly; and the nephew was so horrified and
stunned, that he threw down the light, and rushed out of the room with
a shout of terror, and never returned again.
• • • • •
The narrator concluded, and one of the guests said,—
“And do you really believe it?”—“No, no—to be sure not.”
“You don’t?”—“Why should I? My friend was, out of all hand, one of the
greatest liars I ever came near; and why, therefore, should I believe
him? I don’t, on my conscience, believe one word of it.”
It was now half-past twelve, and, as Tom Eccles came not back, and the
landlord did not feel disposed to draw any more liquor, they left the
inn, and retired to their separate houses in a great state of anxiety
to know the fate of their respective wagers.