THE NIGHT WATCH.—THE VAULT.
It was each moment becoming a more difficult affair to carry on any
conversation in the public-house parlour, for not only did the thunder
each moment almost interrupt the speakers with its loud reverberations,
but now and then such a tremendous gust of wind would sweep round the
house that it would be quite impossible for any one to make himself
heard amidst its loud howling noise.
These were circumstances however, which greatly aided no doubt, in the
getting up of a superstitious feeling in the minds of the people there
assembled, which made them ripe for any proposition, which perhaps
in their soberer moments they would have regarded with considerable
dismay; hence when the blacksmith rushed to the door, crying,—
“Who will follow me to the old church and lay hold of the vampyre?”
about half-a-dozen of the boldest and most reckless,—and be it told to
their honour (if there be any honour in such an enterprise, which after
all, was a grossly selfish one,) they were the worst characters in the
village—started to their feet to accompany him thither.
There are many persons who waver about an enterprise, who will join
it when it has a show of force, and thus was it with this affair.
The moment it was found that the blacksmith’s proposition had some
half-dozen stout adherents, he got as many more—some of whom joined him
from curiosity, and some from dread of being thought to lack courage by
their companions if they held off.
There was now a sufficiently large party to make a respectable
demonstration, and quite elated with his success, and caring little for
the land storm that was raging, the blacksmith, closely followed by the
butcher, who had no objection in life to the affair, especially as he
was at variance with the parson concerning the tithes of a little farm
he kept, called out,—
“To the church—to the church!” and followed by the rabble, rushed
forward in the direction of the sacred edifice.
• • • • •
As the hour of eleven has struck, and as the reader is aware that at
that hour Sir George Crofton and his two sons, accompanied by Mr.
Bevan, had agreed to go to the church on their melancholy errand,
we will leave the noisy brawlers of the alehouse for the purpose of
detailing the proceedings of those whose fortunes we feel more closely
interested in.
The baronet was by no means wavering in his determination,
notwithstanding it had been made at a time of unusual excitement, when
second thoughts might have been allowed to step in, and suggest some
other course of proceeding.
Now, Mr. Bevan was not without his own private hopes that such would be
the case; for what he dreaded above all other things was, the truth of
the affair, and that Sir George would have the horror of discovering
that there was much more in the popular superstition than, without
ocular demonstration, he would have been inclined to admit.
Although a man of education and of refined abilities, the evidence that
had already showed itself to him of the existence at all events of
some supernatural being, with powers analogous to those of the fabled
vampyre, was such that he could not wholly deny, without stultifying
his intellect, that there might be such things.
It is a sad circumstance when the mind is, as it were, compelled to
receive undeniable evidence of a something which the judgment has the
strongest general reasons for disputing, and that was precisely the
position of Mr. Bevan, and a most unenviable one it was.
That night’s proceedings, however, in the vault, he felt must put
an end to all doubts and perplexity upon the subject, and so with a
fervent hope that, in some, at present inexplicable manner, the thing
would be found to be a delusion, he waited more anxiously the arrival
of the Croftons at the parsonage.
At half past ten o’clock, instead of eleven, for as the evening
advanced, Sir George Crofton had shown such an amount of nervousness
that his sons had thought it would be better to bring him to the
parsonage, they arrived, and Mr. Bevan perceived at once what a
remarkable effect grief and anxiety had already had upon the features
of the baronet.
He was a different man to what, but a few days since, he had been, and
more than ever the kind clergyman felt inclined to doubt the expediency
of his being present on such an occasion, and yet how to prevent him if
he were really determined, was a matter of no small difficulty.
“My dear friend,” said Mr. Bevan, “will you pardon me if I make an
effort now to persuade you to abandon this enterprise?”
“I can pardon the effort easily,” said Sir George Crofton, “because I
know it is dictated by the best of motives, but I would fain be spared
it, for I am determined.”
“I will say no more, but only with deep sincerity hope that you may
return to your dwelling, each relieved from the load of anxiety that
now oppresses you.”
“I hope to Heaven it may be so.”
“The night looks strange and still,” said Charles, who wished to
draw his father’s attention as much as possible from too close a
contemplation of the expedition on which they were bound.
“It does,” said Edwin; “I should not be surprised at a storm, for there
is every indication of some disturbance of the elements.
“Let it come,” said Sir George, who fancied that in all those remarks
he detected nothing but a wish to withdraw him from his enterprise;
“Let it come. I have a duty to perform, and I will do it, though
Heaven’s thunders should rock the very earth—the forked lightning is
not launched at the father who goes to watch at the grave of his child.”
Charles and Edwin, upon finding that Sir George was in the mood to make
a misapplication of whatever was said to him, desisted from further
remarks, but left Mr. Bevan quietly to converse with him, in a calm and
unirritating manner.
It was the object of the clergyman to put off as much time as possible
before proceeding to the church, so that the period to be spent in the
family vault of the Croftons should be lessened as much as possible,
for he felt assured that each minute there wasted would be one of great
agony to the bereaved father, who would feel himself once again in such
close approximation to that daughter on whom he had placed some of his
dearest affections.
Sir George, however, defeated this intention, by promptly rising when
his watch told him that the hour of eleven had arrived, and it was in
vain to attempt to stultify him into a belief that he was wrong as
regarded the time, for the church was sufficiently near for them to
hear the hour of eleven pealed forth from its ancient steeple.
“Come,” said Sir George, “the hour has arrived. I pray you do not
delay. I know you are all anxious and fearful concerning me, but I
have a spirit of resolution and firmness in this affair which shall
yet stand me in good stead. I shall not shrink, as you imagine I shall
shrink. Come, then, at once—it is suspense and delay which frets me,
and not action.”
These words enforced a better spirit into both his sons and Mr. Bevan,
and in a few moments the party of four, surely sufficiently strong to
overcome any unexpected obstacles, or to defeat any trickery that might
be attempted to be passed off upon them, proceeded towards the church.
It will be recollected that it was just a little after that time that
the storm commenced, and, in fact, the first clap of thunder, that
seemed to shake the heavens, took place just as they reached the old
grave-yard adjoining to the sacred building.
“There!” exclaimed Charles, “I thought that it would come.”
“What matter?” said Sir George, “come on.”
“Humour him in everything,” said Mr. Bevan, “It is madness now to
contradict him—he will not recede under any circumstances.”
The natural senses of Sir George Crofton appeared to be preternaturally
acute, for he turned sharply, and said quickly, but not unkindly,—
“No, he will not recede—come on.”
After this, nothing was said until they reached the church door, and
then while Mr. Bevan was searching in his pockets for the little
key which opened the small private entrance, some vivid flashes
of lightning lit up with extraordinary brilliancy the old gothic
structure—the neighbouring tombs and the melancholy yew trees that
waved their branches in the night air.
Perhaps the delay which ensued before Mr. Bevan could find the key,
likewise arose from the wish to keep Sir George as short a time as
possible within the vault, but he at length produced it, for any
further delay could only be accounted for by saying that he had it not.
The small arched doorway was speedily cleared, and as another peal of
thunder broke over head in awful grandeur of sound, they entered the
church.
Mr. Bevan took the precaution this time to close the door, so that
there could be no interruption from without.
“Now, Sir George,” he said, “remember your promise. You are to come
away freely at the first dawn of day, and if nothing by then has
occurred to strengthen the frightful supposition which, I suppose I may
say, we have all indulged in, I do hope that for ever this subject
will be erased from your recollection.”
“Be it so,” said Sir George; “be it so.”
Mr. Bevan then busied himself in lighting a lantern, and from beneath
one of the pews, where they were hidden, he procured a couple of
crowbars, with which to raise the stone that covered the entrance to
the vault.
These preparations took up some little time, so that the old clock had
chimed the quarter past eleven, and must have been rapidly getting on
to the half-hour, before they stood in the aisle close to the vault.
“This marble slab,” said Sir George, as he cast his eyes upon it,
“always hitherto has been cemented in its place. Why is it not so now?”
“Is it not?” said Mr. Bevan.
“No—lend me the light.”
Mr. Bevan was averse to lending him the light, but he could not very
well refuse it; and when Sir George Crofton had looked more minutely
at the marble slab, he saw that it had been cemented, but that the
cement was torn and broken away, as if some violence had been used for
the purpose of opening the vault; but whether that violence came from
within or without was a matter of conjecture.