THE VAMPYRE.—THE FLIGHT.—THE WATCHMAN IN THE VALE OF HEALTH.
A death-like stillness now was over the whole scene, and those who had
partially exhumed the body stood as still as statues, waiting the event
which they looked forward to as certain to ensue.
The clear beauty and intensity of the moonbeams increased each moment,
and the whole surrounding landscape was lit up with a perfect flood
of soft, silvery light. The old church stood out in fine relief, and
every tree, and every wild flower, and every blade of grass in the
churchyard, could be seen in its finest and most delicate proportions
and construction.
The lid of the coffin was wrenched up on one side to about six inches
in height, and that side faced the moon, so that some rays, it was
quite clearly to be seen, found their way into that sad receptacle
for the dead. A quarter of an hour, however, passed away, and nothing
happened.
“Are you certain he is one of us?” whispered Varney.
“Quite, I have known it years past. He had the mark upon him.”
“Enough. Behold.”
A deep and dreadful groan came from the grave, and yet it could hardly
be called a groan; it was more like a howl, and the lid which was
partially open, was visibly agitated.
“He comes,” whispered one.
“Hush,” said another, “hush; our duty will be done when he stands upon
the level ground. Hush, let him hear nothing, let him know nothing,
since we will not aid him. Behold, behold.”
They all looked down into the grave, but they betrayed no signs of
emotion, and the sight they saw there was such as one would have
supposed would have created emotion in the breast of any one at all
capable of feeling. But then we must not reason upon these strange
frightful existences as we reason upon human nature such as we usually
know it.
The coffin lid was each moment more and more agitated. The deep
frightful groans increased in number and sound, and then the corpse
stretched out one ghastly hand from the open crevice and grasped
despairingly and frantically at the damp earth that was around.
[Illustration: The corpse grasps at the earth around its coffin, as the
vampyres watch.]
There was still towards one side of the coffin sufficient weight of
mould that it would require some strength to turn it off, but as the
dead man struggled within his narrow house it kept falling aside in
lumps, so that his task of exhumation became each moment an easier one.
At length he uttered a strange wailing shriek, and by a great effort
succeeded in throwing the coffin lid quite open, and then he sat up,
looking so horrible and ghastly in the grave clothes, that even the
vampyres that were around that grave recoiled a little.
“Is it done?” said Varney.
“Not yet,” said he who had summoned them to the fearful rite, and so
assumed a sort of direction over them, “not yet; we will not assist
him, but we may not leave him before telling him who and what he is.”
“Do so now.”
The corpse stood up in the coffin, and the moonlight fell full upon him.
“Vampyre arise,” said he who had just spoken to Varney. “Vampyre arise,
and do your work in the world until your doom shall be accomplished.
Vampyre arise—arise. Pursue your victims in the mansion and in the
cottage. Be a terror and a desolation, go you where you may, and if the
hand of death strike you down, the cold beams of the moon shall restore
you to new life. Vampyre arise, arise!”
“I come, I come!” shrieked the corpse.
In another moment the five vampyres who had dug him from the grave were
gone.
Moaning, shrieking, and groaning he made some further attempts to get
out of the deep grave. He clutched at it in vain, the earth crumbled
beneath him, and it was only at last by dint of reaching up and
dragging in the displaced material that lay in a heap at the sides, so
that in a few minutes it formed a mound for him to stand upon in the
grave, and he was at length able to get out.
Then, although he sighed, and now and then uttered a wailing shriek as
he went about his work, he with a strange kind of instinct, began to
carefully fill up the grave from which he had but just emerged, nor did
he cease from his occupation until he had finished it, and so carefully
shaped the mound of mould and turf over it that no one would have
thought it had been disturbed.
When this work was done a kind of madness seemed to seize him, and he
walked to the gate of the grave yard, which opens upon Church-street,
and placing his hands upon the sides of his mouth he produced such an
appalling shriek that it must have awakened everybody in Hampstead.
Then, turning, he fled like a hunted hare in the other direction,
and taking the first turning to the right ran up a lane called
Frognal-lane, and which is parallel to the town, for a town Hampstead
may be fairly called now, although it was not then.
By pursuing this lane, he got upon the outskirts of the heath, and
then turning to the right again, for, with a strange pertinacity he
always kept, as far as he could, his face towards the light of the
moon, he rushed down a deep hollow, where there was a cluster of little
cottages, enjoying such repose that one would have thought the flutter
of an awakened bird upon the wing would have been heard.
It was quite clear that the new vampyre had as yet no notion of what
he was about, or where he was going, and that he was with mere frantic
haste speeding along, from the first impulse of his frightful nature.
The place into which he had now plunged, is called the Vale of Health:
now a place of very favourite resort, but then a mere collection of
white faced cottages, with a couple of places that might be called
villas. A watchman went his nightly rounds in that place. And it so
happened that the guardian of the Vale had just roused himself up at
this juncture, and made up his mind to make his walk of observation,
when he saw the terrific figure of a man attired in grave clothes
coming along with dreadful speed towards him, as if to take the Vale of
Health by storm.
The watchman was so paralysed by fear that he could not find strength
enough to spring his rattle, although he made the attempt, and held it
out at arm’s length, while his eyes glared with perfect ferocity, and
his mouth was wide enough open to nourish the idea, that after all he
had a hope of being able to swallow the spectre.
But, nothing heeding him, the vampyre came wildly on.
Fain now would the petrified watchman have got out of the way, but he
could not, and in another moment he was dashed down to the earth, and
trodden on by the horrible existence that knew not what it did.
A cloud came over the moon, and the vampyre sunk down, exhausted, by
a garden-wall, and there lay as if dead, while the watchman, who had
fairly fainted away, lay in a picturesque attitude on his back, not
very far off.
Half an hour passed, and a slight mist-like rain began to fall.
The vampyre slowly rose to his feet, and commenced wringing his hands
and moaning, but his former violence of demeanour had passed away. That
was but the first flush of new life, and now he seemed to be more
fully aware of who and what he was.
He shivered as he tottered slowly on, until he came to where the
watchman lay, and then he divested that guardian of the Vale of his
greatcoat, his hat, and some other portions of his apparel, all of
which he put on himself, still slightly moaning as he did so, and ever
and anon stopping to make a gesture of despair.
When this operation was completed, he slunk off into a narrow path
which led on to the heath again, and there he seemed to waver a little,
whether he would go towards London, or the country. At length it seemed
that he decided upon the former course, and he walked on at a rapid
pace right through Hampstead, and down the hill towards London, the
lights of which would be seen gleaming in the distance.
When the watchman did recover himself, the first thing he did was, to
be kind enough to rouse every body up from their sleep in the Vale of
Health, by springing his rattle at a prodigious rate, and by the time
he had roused up the whole neighbourhood, he felt almost ready to faint
again at the bare recollection of the terrible apparition that had
knocked him down.
The story in the morning was told all over the place, with many
additions to it of course, and it was long afterwards before the
inhabitants of the Vale could induce another watchman, for that one
gave up the post, to run the risk of such a visitation.
And the oddest thing of all was, that the watchman declared that he
caught a glance at the countenance, and that it was like that of a Mr.
Brooks, who had only been buried the day previous, that if he had not
known that gentleman to be dead and buried, he should have thought it
was he himself gone mad.
But there was the grave of Mr. Brooks, with its circular mound of
earth, all right enough; and then Mr. B. was known to have been such a
respectable man. He went to the city every day, and used to do so just
for the purpose of granting audiences to ladies and gentlemen who might
be labouring under any little pecuniary difficulties, and accommodating
them. Kind Mr. Brooks. He only took one hundred pounds per cent. Why
should he be a Vampyre? Bless him! Too severe, really!
There were people who called him a blood-sucker while he lived, and now
he was one practically, and yet he had his own pew at the church, and
subscribed a whole guinea a year to a hospital—he did, although people
did say it was in order that he might pack off any of his servants at
once to it in case of illness. But then the world is so censorious.
To this day the watchman’s story of the apparition that visited the
Vale of Health is talked of by the old women who make what they call
tea for Sunday parties at nine pence a head. But it is time now that
we go back to London, and see what is taking place at the hotel where
the Lakes are staying, and how the villainy of the uncle thrives—that
villainy of which he actually had the face to give such an exposition
to Mr. Lee the clerk of the attorney.
Let us hope that the right will still overcome the injustice that is
armed against it, and that Lord Lake and his beautiful child may not
fall victims to the machinations that are brought into play against
them, by those who ought to have been their best friends.