THE SECOND NIGHT-WATCH OF MR. CHILLINGWORTH AT THE HALL.
The military party in the morning left Bannerworth Hall, and the
old place resumed its wonted quiet. But Dr. Chillingworth found it
difficult to get rid of his old friend, the hangman, who seemed quite
disposed to share his watch with him.
The doctor, without being at all accused of being a prejudiced man,
might well object to the continued companionship of one, who, according
to his own account, was decidedly no better than he should be, if he
were half so good.
Moreover, it materially interfered with the proceedings of our medical
friend, whose object was to watch the vampyre with all imaginable
quietness and secrecy, in the event of his again visiting Bannerworth
Hall.
“Sir,” he said, to the hangman, “now that you have so obligingly
related to me your melancholy history, I will not detain you.”
“Oh, you are not detaining me.”
“Yes, but I shall probably remain here for a considerable time.”
“I have nothing to do; and one place is about the same as another to
me.”
“Well, then, if I must speak plainly, allow me to say, that as I
came here upon a very important and special errand, I desire most
particularly to be left alone. Do you understand me now?”
“Oh! ah!—I understand; you want me to go?”
“Just so.”
“Well, then, Dr. Chillingworth, allow me to tell you, I have come here
on a very special errand likewise.”
“You have?”
“I have. I have been putting one circumstance to another, and drawing
a variety of conclusions from a variety of facts, so that I have come
to what I consider an important resolve, namely, to have a good look at
Bannerworth Hall, and if I continue to like it as well as I do now, I
should like to make the Bannerworth family an offer for the purchase of
it.”
“The devil you would! Why all the world seems mad upon the project of
buying this old building, which really is getting into such a state of
dilapidation, that it cannot last many years longer.”
“It is my fancy.”
“No, no; there is something more in this than meets the eye. The same
reason, be it what may, that has induced Varney the vampyre to become
so desirous of possessing the Hall, actuates you.”
“Possibly.”
“And what is that reason? You may as well be candid with me.”
“Yes, I will, and am. I like the picturesque aspect of the place.”
“No, you know that that is a disingenuous answer, that you know well.
It is not the aspect of the old Hall that has charms for you. But I
feel, only from your conduct, more than ever convinced, that some plot
is going on, having the accomplishment of some great object as its
climax, a something of which you have guessed.”
“How much you are mistaken!”
“No, I am certain I am right; and I shall immediately advise the
Bannerworth family to return, and to take up their abode again here, in
order to put an end to the hopes which you, or Varney, or any one else
may have, of getting possession of the place.”
“If you were a man,” said the hangman, “who cared a little more for
yourself, and a little less for others, I would make a confidant of
you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, I mean, candidly, that you are not selfish enough to be entitled
to my confidence.”
“That is a strange reason for withholding confidence from any man.”
“It is a strange reason; but, in this case, a most abundantly true one.
I cannot tell you what I would tell you, because I cannot make the
agreement with you that I would fain make.”
“You talk in riddles.”
“To explain which, then, would be to tell my secret.”
Dr. Chillingworth was, evidently, much annoyed, and yet he was in an
extremely helpless condition; for as to forcing the hangman to leave
the Hall, if he did not feel disposed to do so, that was completely out
of the question, and could not be done. In the first place, he was a
much more powerful man than the doctor, and in the second, it was quite
contrary to all Mr. Chillingworth’s habits, to engage in anything like
personal warfare.
He could only, therefore, look his vexation, and say,—
“If you are determined upon remaining, I cannot help it; but, when some
one, as there assuredly will, comes from the Bannerworths, here, to
me, or I shall be under the necessity of stating candidly that you are
intruding.”
“Very good. As the morning air is keen, and as we now are not likely
to be as good company to each other as we were, I shall go inside the
house.”
This was a proposition which the doctor did not like, but he was
compelled to submit to it; and he saw, with feelings of uneasiness, the
hangman make his way into the Hall by one of the windows.
Then Dr. Chillingworth sat down to think. Much he wondered what could
be the secret of the great desire which Varney, Marchdale, and even
this man had, all of them to be possessors of the old Hall.
That there was some powerful incentive he felt convinced, and he longed
for some conversation with the Bannerworths, or with Admiral Bell, in
order that he might state what had now taken place. That some one would
soon come to him, in order to bring fresh provisions for the day, he
was certain, and all he could do, in the interim, was, to listen to
what the hangman was about in the Hall.
Not a sound, for a considerable time, disturbed the intense stillness
of the place; but, now, suddenly, Mr. Chillingworth thought he heard a
hammering, as if some one was at work in one of the rooms of the Hall.
“What can be the meaning of that?” he said, and he was about to proceed
at once to the interior of the building, through the same window which
had enabled the hangman to gain admittance, when he heard his own
name pronounced by some one at the back of the garden fence, and upon
casting his eyes in that direction, he, to his great relief, saw the
admiral and Henry Bannerworth.
“Come round to the gate,” said the doctor. “I am more glad to see you
than I can tell you just now. Do not make more noise than you can help;
but, come round to the gate at once.”
They obeyed the injunction with alacrity, and when the doctor had
admitted them, the admiral said, eagerly,—
“You don’t mean to tell us that he is here?”
“No, no, not Varney; but he is not the only one who has taken a great
affection for Bannerworth Hall; you may have another tenant for it, and
I believe at any price you like to name.”
“Indeed!”
“Hush! creep along close to the house, and then you will not be seen.
There! do you hear that noise in the hall?”
“Why it sounds,” said the admiral, “like the ship’s carpenter at work.”
“It does, indeed, sound like a carpenter; it’s only the new tenant
making, I dare say, some repairs.”
“D—n his impudence!”
“Why, it certainly does look like a very cool proceeding, I must admit.”
“Who, and what is he?”
“Who he is now, I cannot tell you, but he was once the hangman of
London, at a time when I was practising in the metropolis, and so I
became acquainted with him. He knows Sir Francis Varney, and, if I
mistake not, has found out the cause of that mysterious personage’s
great attachment to Bannerworth Hall, and has found the reasons so
cogent, that he has got up an affection for it himself.”
“To me,” said Henry, “all this is as incomprehensible as anything can
possibly be. What on earth does it all mean?”
“My dear Henry,” said the doctor, “will you be ruled by me?”
“I will be ruled by any one whom I know I can trust; for I am like a
man groping his way in the dark.”
“Then allow this gentleman who is carpentering away so pleasantly
within the house, to do so to his heart’s content, but don’t let him
leave it. Show yourselves now in the garden, he has sufficient prudence
to know that three constitute rather fearful odds against one, and so
he will be careful, and remain where he is. If he should come out, we
need not let him go until we thoroughly ascertain what he has been
about.”
“You shall command the squadron, doctor,” said the admiral, “and have
it all your own way, you know, so here goes! Come along, Henry, and
let’s show ourselves; we are both armed too!”
They walked out into the centre of the garden, and they were soon
convinced that the hangman saw them, for a face appeared at the window,
and was as quickly withdrawn again.
“There,” said the doctor, “now he knows he is a prisoner, and we may as
well place ourselves in some position which commands a good view of the
house, as well as of the garden gate, and so see if we cannot starve
him out, though we may be starved out ourselves.”
“Not at all!” said Admiral Bell, producing from his ample pockets
various parcels,—“we came to bring you ample supplies.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes; we have been as far as the ruins.”
“Oh, to release Marchdale. Charles told me how the villain had fallen
into the trap he had laid for him.”
“He has, indeed, fallen into the trap, and it’s one he won’t easily get
out of again. He’s dead.”
“Dead!—dead!”
“Yes; in the storm of last night the ruins have fallen, and he is by
this time as flat as a pancake.”
“Good God! and yet it is but a just retribution upon him. He would have
assassinated poor Charles Holland in the cruelest and most cold-blooded
manner, and, however we may shudder at the manner of his death, we
cannot regret it.”
“Except that he has escaped your friend the hangman,” said the admiral.
“Don’t call him my friend, if you please,” said Dr. Chillingworth,
“but, hark how he is working away, as if he really intended to carry
the house away piece by piece, as opportunity may serve, if you will
not let it to him altogether, just as it stands.”
“Confound him! he is evidently working on his own account,” said the
admiral, “or he would not be half so industrious.”
There was, indeed, a tremendous amount of hammering and noise, of one
sort and another, from the house, and it was quite clear that the
hangman was too heart and soul in his work, whatever may have been the
object of it, to care who was listening to him, or to what conjecture
he gave rise.
He thought probably that he could but be stopped in what he was about,
and, until he was so, that he might as well go on.
And on he went, with a vengeance, vexing the admiral terribly, who
proposed so repeatedly to go into the house and insist upon knowing
what he was about, that his wishes were upon the point of being
conceded to by Henry, although they were combatted by the doctor, when,
from the window at which he had entered, out stepped the hangman.
“Good morning, gentlemen! good morning,” he said, and he moved towards
the garden gate. “I will not trouble you any longer. Good morning!”
“Not so fast,” said the admiral, “or we may bring you up with a round
turn, and I never miss my mark when I can see it, and I shall not let
it get out of sight, you may depend.”
He drew a pistol from his pocket, as he spoke, and pointed it at the
hangman, who, thereupon paused and said:—
“What! am I not to be permitted to go in peace? Why it was but a short
time since the doctor was quarrelling with me because I did not go, and
now it seems that I am to be shot if I do.”
“Yes,” said the admiral, “that’s it.”
“Well! but,——”
“You dare,” said he, “stir another inch towards the gate, and you are a
dead man!”
The hangman hesitated a moment, and looked at Admiral Bell; apparently
the result of the scrutiny was, that he would keep his word, for he
suddenly turned and dived in at the window again without saying another
word.
“Well; you have certainly stopped him from leaving,” said Henry; “but
what’s to be done now?”
“Let him be, let him be,” said the doctor; “he must come out again, for
there are no provisions in the place, and he will be starved out.”
“Hush! what is that?” said Henry.
There was a very gentle ring at the bell which hung over the garden
gate.
“That’s an experiment, now, I’ll be bound,” said the doctor, “to
ascertain if any one is here; let us hide ourselves, and take no
notice.”
The ring in a few moments was repeated, and the three confederates hid
themselves effectually behind some thick laurel bushes and awaited with
expectation what might next ensue.
Not long had they occupied their place of concealment, before they
heard a heavy fall upon the gravelled pathway, immediately within the
gate, as if some one had clambered to the top from the outside, and
then jumped down.
That this was the case the sound of footsteps soon convinced them,
and to their surprise as well as satisfaction, they saw through the
interstices of the laurel bush behind which they were concealed, no
less a personage than Sir Francis Varney himself.
“It is Varney,” said Henry.
“Yes, yes,” whispered the doctor. “Let him be, do not move for any
consideration, for the first time let him do just what he likes.”
“D—n the fellow!” said the admiral; “there are some points about him
that I like, after all, and he’s quite an angel compared to that rascal
Marchdale.”
“He is,—he saved Charles.”
“He did, and not if I know it shall any harm come to him, unless he
were terribly to provoke it by becoming himself the assailant.”
“How sad he looks!”
“Hush! he comes nearer; it is not safe to talk. Look at him.”