Chapter XXXI…

Chapter XXXI

SIR FRANCIS VARNEY AND HIS MYSTERIOUS VISITOR.—THE STRANGE CONFERENCE.

Sir Francis Varney is in what he calls his own apartment. It is night, and a dim and uncertain light from a candle which has been long neglected, only serves to render obscurity more perplexing. The room is a costly one. One replete with all the appliances of refinement and luxury which the spirit and the genius of the age could possibly supply him with, but there is upon his brow the marks of corroding care, and little does that most mysterious being seem to care for all the rich furnishing of that apartment in which he sits.

His cadaverous-looking face is even paler and more death-like-looking than usual; and, if it can be conceived possible that such an one can feel largely interested in human affairs, to look at him, we could well suppose that some interest of no common magnitude was at stake.

Occasionally, too, he muttered some unconnected words, no doubt mentally filling up the gaps which rendered the sentences incomplete; and being unconscious, perhaps, that he was giving audible utterance to any of his dark and secret meditations.

At length he rose, and with an anxious expression of countenance, he went to the window, and looked out into the darkness of the night. All was still, and not an object was visible. It was that pitchy darkness without, which, for some hours, when the moon is late in lending her reflected beams, comes over the earth’s surface.

“It is near the hour,” he muttered. “It is now very near the hour; surely he will come, and yet I know not why I should fear him, although I seem to tremble at the thought of his approach. He will surely come. Once a year—only once does he visit me, and then ’tis but to take the price which he has compelled me to pay for that existence, which but for him had been long since terminated. Sometimes I devoutly wish it were.”

With a shudder he returned to the seat he had so recently left, and there for some time he appeared to meditate in silence.

Suddenly now, a clock, which was in the hall of that mansion he had purchased, sounded the hour loudly.

“The time has come,” said Sir Francis. “The time has come. He will surely soon be here. Hark! hark!”

Slowly and distinctly he counted the strokes of the clock, and, when they had ceased, he exclaimed, with sudden surprise—

“Eleven! But eleven! How have I been deceived. I thought the hour of midnight was at hand.”

He hastily consulted the watch he wore, and then he indeed found, that whatever he had been looking forward to with dread for some time past, as certain to ensue, at or about twelve o’ clock, had yet another hour in which to prey upon his imagination.

“How could I have made so grievous an error?” he exclaimed. “Another hour of suspense and wonder as to whether that man be among the living or the dead. I have thought of raising my hand against his life, but some strange mysterious feeling has always staid me; and I have let him come and go freely, while an opportunity might well have served me to put such a design into execution. He is old, too—very old, and yet he keeps death at a distance. He looked pale, but far from unwell or failing, when last I saw him. Alas! a whole hour yet to wait. I would that this interview were over.”

That extremely well known and popular disease called the fidgets, now began, indeed, to torment Sir Francis Varney. He could not sit—he could not walk, and, somehow or another, he never once seemed to imagine that from the wine cup he should experience any relief, although, upon a side table, there stood refreshments of that character. And thus some more time passed away, and he strove to cheat it of its weariness by thinking of a variety of subjects; but as the fates would have it, there seemed not one agreeable reminiscence in the mind of that most inexplicable man, and the more he plunged into the recesses of memory the more uneasy, not to say almost terrified, he looked and became. A shuddering nervousness came across him, and, for a few moments, he sat as if he were upon the point of fainting. By a vigorous effort, however, he shook this off, and then placing before him the watch, which now indicated about the quarter past eleven, he strove with a calmer aspect to wait the coming of him whose presence, when he did come, would really be a great terror, since the very thought beforehand produced so much hesitation and apparent dismay.

In order too, if possible, then to further withdraw himself from a too painful consideration of those terrors, which in due time the reader will be acquainted with the cause of, he took up a book, and plunging at random into its contents, he amused his mind for a time with the following brief narrative:—

The wind howled round the gable ends of Bridport House in sudden and furious gusts, while the inmates sat by the fire-side, gazing in silence upon the blazing embers of the huge fire that shed a red and bright light all over the immense apartment in which they all sat.

It was an ancient looking place, very large, end capable of containing a number of guests. Several were present.

An aged couple were seated in tall high straight-backed chairs. They were the owners of that lordly mansion, and near them sat two young maidens of surpassing beauty; they were dissimilar, and yet there was a slight likeness, but of totally different complexions.

The one had tresses of raven black; eyebrows, eyelashes, and eyes were all of the same hue; she was a beautiful and proud-looking girl, her complexion clear, with the hue of health upon her cheeks, while a smile played around her lips. The glance of the eye was sufficient to thrill through the whole soul.

The other maiden was altogether different; her complexion altogether fairer—her hair of sunny chestnut, and her beautiful hazel eyes were shaded by long brown eyelashes, while a playful smile also lit up her countenance. She was the younger of the two.

The attention of the two young maidens had been directed to the words of the aged owner of the house, for he had been speaking a few moments before.

There were several other persons present, and at some little distance were many of the domestics who were not denied the privilege of warmth and rest in the presence of their master.

These were not the times, when, if servants sat down, they were deemed idle; but the daily task done, then the evening hour was spent by the fire-side.

“The wind howls and moans,” said an aged domestic, “in an awful manner. I never heard the like.”

“It seems as though some imprisoned spirit was waiting for the repose that had been denied on earth,” said the old lady, as she shifted her seat and gazed steadily on the fire.

“Ay,” said her aged companion, “it is a windy night, and there will be a storm before long, or I’m mistaken.”

“It was just such a night as that my son Henry left his home,” said Mrs. Bradley, “just such another—only it had the addition of sleet and rain.”

The old man sighed at the mention of his son’s name, a tear stood in the eyes of the maidens, while one looked silently at the other, and seemed to exchange glances.

“I would that I might again see him before my body seeks its final home in the cold remorseless grave.”

“Mother,” said the fairest of the two maidens, “do not talk thus, let us hope that we yet may have many years of happiness together.”

“Many, Emma?”

“Yes, mamma, many.”

“Do you know that I am very old, Emma, very old indeed, considering what I have suffered, such a life of sorrow and ill health is at least equal to thirty years added to my life.”

“You may have deceived yourself, aunt,” said the other maiden; “at all events, you cannot count upon life as certain, for the strongest often go first, while those who seem much more likely to fall, by care, as often live in peace and happiness.”

“But I lead no life of peace and happiness, while Henry Bradley is not here; besides, my life might be passed without me seeing him again.”

“It is now two years since he was here last,” said the old man.

“This night two years was the night on which he left.”

“This night two years?”

“Yes.”

“It was this night two years,” said one of the servant men, “because old Dame Poutlet had twins on that night.”

“A memorable circumstance.”

“And one died at a twelvemonth old,” said the man; “and she had a dream which foretold the event.”

“Ay, ay.”

“Yes, and moreover she’s had the same dream again last Wednesday was a week,” said the man.

“And lost the other twin?”

“Yes sir, this morning.”

“Omens multiply,” said the aged man; “I would that it would seem to indicate the return of Henry to his home.”

“I wonder where he can have gone to, or what he could have done all this time; probably he may not be in the land of the living.”

“Poor Henry,” said Emma.

“Alas, poor boy! We may never see him again—it was a mistaken act of his, and yet he knew not otherwise how to act or escape his father’s displeasure.”

“Say no more—say no more upon that subject; I dare not listen to it. God knows I know quite enough,” said Mr. Bradley; “I knew not he would have taken my words so to heart as he did.”

“Why,” said the old woman, “he thought you meant what you said.”

There was a long pause, during which all gazed at the blazing fire, seemingly wrapt in their own meditation.

Henry Bradley, the son of the apparently aged couple, had left that day two years, and wherefore had he left the home of his childhood? wherefore had he, the heir to large estates, done this?

He had dared to love without his father’s leave, and had refused the offer his father made him of marrying a young lady whom he had chosen for him, but whom he could not love.

It was as much a matter of surprise to the father that the son should refuse, as it was to the son that his father should contemplate such a match.

“Henry,” said the father, “you have been thought of by me, I have made proposals for marrying you to the daughter of our neighbour, Sir Arthur Onslow.”

“Indeed, father!”

“Yes; I wish you to go there with me to see the young lady.”

“In the character of a suitor?”

“Yes,” replied the father, “certainly; it’s high time you were settled.”

“Indeed, I would rather not go, father; I have no intention of marrying just yet. I do not desire to do so.”

This was an opposition that Mr. Bradley had not expected from his son, and which his imperious temper could ill brook, and with a darkened brow he said,—

“It is not much, Henry, that I trespass upon your obedience; but when I do so, I expect that you will obey me.”

“But, father, this matter affects me for my whole life.”

“That is why I have deliberated so long and carefully over it.”

“But it is not unreasonable that I should have a voice in the affair, father, since it may render me miserable.”

“You shall have a voice.”

“Then I say no to the whole regulation,” said Henry, decisively.

“If you do so you forfeit my protection, much more favour; but you had better consider over what you have said. Forget it, and come with me.”

“I cannot.”

“You will not?”

“No, father; I cannot do as you wish me; my mind is fully made up upon that matter.”

“And so is mine. You either do as I would have you, or you leave the house, and seek your own living, and you are a beggar.”

“I should prefer being such,” said Henry, “than to marry any young lady, and be unable to love her.”

“That is not required.”

“No! I am astonished! Not necessary to love the woman you marry!”

“Not at all; if you act justly towards her she ought to be grateful; and it is all that is requisite in the marriage state. Gratitude will beget love, and love in one begets love in the other.”

“I will not argue with you, father, upon the matter. You are a better judge than I; you have had more experience.”

“I have.”

“And it would be useless to speak upon the subject; but of this I can speak—my own resolve—that I will not marry the lady in question.”

The son had all the stern resolve of the father, but he had also very good reasons for what he did. He loved, and was beloved in return; and hence he would not break his faith with her whom he loved.

To have explained this to his father would have been to gain nothing except an accession of anger, and he would have made a new demand upon his (the son’s) obedience, by ordering him to discard from his bosom the image that was there indelibly engraven.

“You will not marry her whom I have chosen for your bride?”

“I cannot.”

“Do not talk to me of can and can’t, when I speak of will and wont. It Is useless to disguise the fact. You have your free will in the matter. I shall take no answer but yes or no.”

“Then, no, father.”

“Good, sir; and now we are strangers.”

With that Mr. Bradley turned abruptly from his son, and left him to himself.

It was the first time they had any words of difference together, and it was sudden and soon terminated.

Henry Bradley was indignant at what had happened; he did not think his father would have acted as he had done in this instance; but he was too much interested in the fate of another to hesitate for a moment. Then came the consideration as to what he should do, now that he had arrived at such a climax.

His first thoughts turned to his mother and sister. He could not leave the house without bidding them good-bye. He determined to see his mother, for his father had left the Hall upon a visit.

Mrs. Bradley and Emma were alone when he entered their apartment, and to them he related all that had passed between himself and father.

They besought him to stay, to remain there, or at least in the neighbourhood; but he was resolved to quit the place altogether for a time, as he could do nothing there, and he might chance to do something elsewhere.

Upon this, they got together all the money and such jewels as they could spare, which in all amounted to a considerable sum; then taking an affectionate leave of his mother and sister, Henry left the Hall—not before he had taken a long and affectionate farewell of one other who lived within those walls.

This was no other than the raven-eyed maiden who sat by the fire side, and listened attentively to the conversation that was going on. She was his love—she, a poor cousin. For her sake he had braved all his father’s anger, and attempted to seek his fortune abroad.

This done, he quietly left the Hall, without giving any one any intimation of where he was going.

Old Mr. Bradley, when he had said so much to his son, was highly incensed at what he deemed his obstinacy; and he thought the threat hanging over him would have had a good effect; but he was amazed when he discovered that Henry had indeed left the Hall, and he knew not whither.

For some time he comforted himself with the assurance that he would, he must return; but, alas! he came not, and this was the second anniversary of that melancholy day, which no one more repented of and grieved for, than did poor Mr. Bradley.

“Surely, surely he will return, or let us know where he is,” he said; “he cannot be in need, else he would have written to us for aid.”

“No, no,” said Mrs. Bradley; “it is, I fear, because he has not written, that he is in want; he would never write if he was in poverty, lest he should cause us unhappiness at his fate. Were he doing well, we should hear of it, for he would be proud of the result of his own unaided exertions.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Bradley, “I can say no more; if I was hasty, so was he; but it is passed. I would forgive all the past, if I could but see him once again—once again!”

“How the wind howls,” added the aged man; “and it’s getting worse and worse.”

“Yes, and the snow is coming down now in style,” said one of the servants, who brought in some fresh logs which were piled up on the fire, and he shook the white flakes off his clothes.

“It will be a heavy fall before morning,” said one of the men.

“Yes, it has been gathering for some days; it will be much warmer than it has been when it is all down.”

“So it will—so it will.”

At that moment there was a knocking at the gate, and the dogs burst into a dreadful uproar from their kennels.

“Go, Robert,” said Mr. Bradley, “and see who it is that knocks such a night as this; it is not fit or safe that a dog should be out in it.”

The man went out, and shortly returned, saying,—

“So please you, sir, there is a traveller that has missed his way, and desires to know if he can obtain shelter here, or if any one can be found to guide him to the nearest inn.”

“Bid him come in; we shall lose no warmth because there is one more before the fire.”

The stranger entered, and said,—

“I have missed my way, and the snow comes down so thick and fast, and is whirled in such eddies, that I fear, by myself, I should fall into some drift, and perish before morning.”

“Do not speak of it, sir,” said Mr. Bradley; “such a night as this is a sufficient apology for the request you make, and an inducement to me to grant it most willingly.”

“Thanks,” replied the stranger; “the welcome is most seasonable.”

“Be seated, sir; take your seat by the ingle; it is warm.”

The stranger seated himself, and seemed lost in reflection, as he gazed intently on the blazing logs. He was a robust man, with great whiskers and beard, and, to judge from his outward habiliments, he was a stout man.

“Have you travelled far?”

“I have, sir.”

“You appear to belong to the army, if I mistake not?”

“I do, sir.”

There was a pause; the stranger seemed not inclined to speak of himself much; but Mr. Bradley continued,—

“Have you come from foreign service, sir? I presume you have.”

“Yes; I have not been in this country more than six days.”

“Indeed; shall we have peace think you?”

“I do so, and I hope it may be so, for the sake of many who desire to return to their native land, and to those they love best.”

Mr. Bradley heaved a deep sigh, which was echoed softly by all present, and the stranger looked from one to another, with a hasty glance, and then turned his gaze upon the fire.

“May I ask, sir, if you have any person whom you regard in the army—any relative?”

“Alas! I have—perhaps, I ought to say I had a son. I know not, however, where he is gone.”

“Oh! a runaway; I see.”

“Oh, no; he left because there were some family differences, and now, I would, that he were once more here.”

“Oh!” said the stranger, softly, “differences and mistakes will happen now and then, when least desired.”

At this moment, an old hound who had lain beside Ellen Mowbray, she who wore the coal-black tresses, lifted his head at the difference in sound that was noticed in the stranger’s voice. He got up and slowly walked up to him, and began to smell around him, and, in another moment, he rushed at him with a cry of joy, and began to lick and caress him in the most extravagant manner. This was followed by a cry of joy in all present.

“It is Henry!” exclaimed Ellen Mowbray, rising and rushing into his arms.

It was Henry, and he threw off the several coats he had on, as well as the large beard he wore to disguise himself.

The meeting was a happy one; there was not a more joyful house than that within many miles around. Henry was restored to the arms of those who loved him, and, in a month, a wedding was celebrated between him and his cousin Ellen.

• • • • •

Sir Francis Varney glanced at his watch. It indicated but five minutes to twelve o’clock, and he sprang to his feet. Even as he did so, a loud knocking at the principal entrance to his house awakened every echo within its walls.

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XXXII. THE THOUSAND POUNDS.—THE STRANGER’S PRECAUTIONS

Varney moved not now, nor did he speak, but, like a statue, he stood, with his unearthly looking eyes rivetted upon the door of the apartment.

In a few moments one of his servants came, and said—

“Sir, a person is here, who says he wants to see you. He desired me to say, that he had ridden far, and that moments were precious when the tide of life was ebbing fast.”

“Yes! yes!” gasped Varney; “admit him, I know him! Bring him here? It is—an—old friend—of mine.”

He sank into a chair, and still he kept his eyes fixed upon that door through which his visitor must come. Surely some secret of dreadful moment must be connected with him whom Sir Francis expected—dreaded—and yet dared not refuse to see. And now a footstep approaches—a slow and a solemn footstep—it pauses a moment at the door of the apartment, and then the servant flings it open, and a tall man enters. He is enveloped in the folds of a horseman’s cloak, and there is the clank of spurs upon his heels as he walks into the room.

Varney rose again, but he said not a word; and for a few moments they stood opposite each other in silence. The domestic has left the room, and the door is closed, so that there was nothing to prevent them from conversing; and, yet, silent they continued for some minutes. It seemed as if each was most anxious that the other should commence the conversation first.

And yet there was nothing so very remarkable in the appearance of that stranger, which should entirely justify Sir Francis Varney, in feeling so much alarm at his presence. He certainly was a man past the prime of life; and he looked like one who had battled much with misfortune, and as if time had not passed so lightly over his brow, but that it had left deep traces of its progress.

The only thing positively bad about his countenance, was to be found in his eyes. There there was a most ungracious and sinister expression, a kind of lurking and suspicious look, as if he were always resolving in his mind some deep laid scheme, which might be sufficient to circumvent the whole of mankind.

Finding, probably, that Varney would not speak first, he let his cloak fall more loosely about him, and in a low, deep tone, he said,

“I presume I was expected?”

“You were,” said Varney. “It is the day, and it is the hour.”

“You are right. I like to see you so mindful. You don’t improve in looks since——”

“Hush—hush! no more of that; can we not meet without a dreadful allusion to the past? There needs nothing to remind me of it; and your presence here now shows that you are not forgetful. Speak not of that fearful episode. Let no words combine to place it in a tangible shape to human understanding. I cannot, dare not, hear you speak of that.”

“It is well,” said the stranger; “as you please. Let our interview be brief. You know my errand?”

“I do. So fearful a drag upon limited means, is not likely to be readily forgotten.”

“Oh, you are too ingenious—too full of well laid schemes, and too apt and ready in their execution, to feel, as any fearful drag, the conditions of our bargain. Why do you look at me so earnestly?”

“Because,” said Varney—and he trembled as he spoke—“because each lineament of your countenance brings me back to the recollection of the only scene in life that made me shudder, and which I cannot think of, even with the indifference of contempt. I see it all before my mind’s eye, coming in frightful panoramic array, those incidents, which even to dream of, are sufficient to drive the soul to madness; the dread of this annual visit, hangs upon me like a dark cloud upon my very heart; it sits like some foul incubus, destroying its vitality, and dragging me, from day to day, nearer to that tomb, from whence not as before, I can emerge.”

“You have been among the dead?” said the stranger.

“I have.”

“And yet are mortal.”

“Yes,” repeated Varney, “yes, and yet am mortal.”

“It was I that plucked you back to that world, which, to judge from your appearance, has had since that eventful period but few charms for you. By my faith you look like——”

“Like what I am,” interrupted Varney. “This is a subject that once a year gets frightfully renewed between us. For weeks before your visit I am haunted by frightful recollections, and it takes me many weeks after you are gone, before I can restore myself to serenity. Look at me; am I not an altered man?”

“In faith you are,” said the stranger “I have no wish to press upon you painful recollections. And yet ’tis strange to me that upon such a man as you, the event to which you allude should produce so terrible an impression.”

“I have passed through the agony of death,” said Varney, “and have again endured the torture—for it is such—of the re-union of the body and the soul; not having endured so much, not the faintest echo of such feelings can enter into your imagination.”

“There may be truth in that, and yet, like a fluttering moth round a flame, it seems to me, that when I do see you, you take a terrific kind of satisfaction in talking of the past.”

“That is strictly true,” said Varney; “the images with which my mind is filled are frightful. Pent up do they remain for twelve long months. I can speak to you, and you only, without disguise, and thus does it seem to me that I get rid of the uneasy load of horrible imaginings. When you are gone, and have been gone a sufficient lapse of time, my slumbers are not haunted with frightful images—I regain a comparative peace, until the time slowly comes around again, when we are doomed to meet.”

“I understand you. You seem well lodged here?”

“I have ever kept my word, and sent to you, telling you where I am.”

“You have, truly. I have no shadow of complaint to make against you. No one could have more faithfully performed his bond than you have. I give you ample credit for all that, and long may you live still to perform your conditions.”

“I dare not deceive you, although to keep such faith I may be compelled to deceive a hundred others.”

“Of that I cannot judge. Fortune seems to smile upon you; you have not as yet disappointed me.”

“And will not now,” said Varney. “The gigantic and frightful penalty of disappointing you, stares me in the face. I dare not do so.”

He took from his pocket, as he spoke, a clasped book, from which he produced several bank notes, which he placed before the stranger.

“A thousand pounds,” he said; “that is the agreement.”

“It is to the very letter. I do not return to you a thousand thanks—we understand each other better than to waste time with idle compliment. Indeed I will go quite as far as to say, truthfully, that did not my necessities require this amount from you, you should have the boon, for which you pay that price at a much cheaper rate.”

“Enough! enough!” said Varney. “It is strange, that your face should have been the last I saw, when the world closed upon me, and the first that met my eyes when I was again snatched back to life! Do you pursue still your dreadful trade?”

“Yes,” said the stranger, “for another year, and then, with such a moderate competence as fortune has assigned me, I retire, to make way for younger and abler spirits.”

“And then,” said Varney, “shall you still require of me such an amount as this?”

“No; this is my last visit but one. I shall be just and liberal towards you. You are not old; and I have no wish to become the clog of your existence. As I have before told you, it is my necessity, and not my inclination, that sets the value upon the service I rendered you.”

“I understand you, and ought to thank you. And in reply to so much courtesy, be assured, that when I shudder at your presence, it is not that I regard you with horror, as an individual, but it is because the sight of you awakens mournfully the remembrance of the past.”

“It is clear to me,” said the stranger; “and now I think we part with each other in a better spirit than we ever did before; and when we meet again, the remembrance that it is the last time, will clear away the gloom that I now find hanging over you.”

“It may! it may! With what an earnest gaze you still regard me!”

“I do. It does appear to me most strange, that time should not have obliterated the effects which I thought would have ceased with their cause. You are no more the man that in my recollection you once were, than I am like a sporting child.”

“And I never shall be,” said Varney; “never—never again! This self-same look which the hand of death had placed upon me, I shall ever wear. I shudder at myself, and as I oft perceive the eye of idle curiosity fixed steadfastly upon me, I wonder in my inmost heart, if even the wildest guesser hits upon the cause why I am not like unto other men?”

“No. Of that you may depend there is no suspicion; but I will leave you now; we part such friends, as men situated as we are can be. Once again shall we meet, and then farewell for ever.”

“Do you leave England, then?”

“I do. You know my situation in life. It is not one which offers me inducements to remain. In some other land, I shall win the respect and attention I may not hope for here. There my wealth will win many golden opinions; and casting, as best I may, the veil of forgetfulness over my former life, my declining years may yet be happy. This money, that I have had of you from time to time, has been more pleasantly earned than all beside. Wrung, as it has been, from your fears, still have I taken it with less reproach. And now, farewell!”

Varney rang for a servant to show the stranger from the house, and without another word they parted.

Then, when he was alone, that mysterious owner of that costly home drew a long breath of apparently exquisite relief.

“That is over!—that is over!” he said. “He shall have the other thousand pounds, perchance, sooner than he thinks. With all expedition I will send it to him. And then on that subject I shall be at peace. I shall have paid a large sum; but that which I purchased was to me priceless. It was my life!—it was my life itself! That possession which the world’s wealth cannot restore! And shall I grudge these thousands, which have found their way into this man’s hands? No! ’Tis true, that existence, for me, has lost some of its most resplendent charms. ’Tis true, that I have no earthly affections, and that shunning companionship with all, I am alike shunned by all; and yet, while the life-blood still will circulate within my shrunken veins, I cling to vitality.”

He passed into an inner room, and taking from a hook, on which it hung, a long, dark-coloured cloak, he enveloped his tall, unearthly figure within its folds. Then, with his hat in his hand, he passed out of his house, and appeared to be taking his way towards Bannerworth House.

Surely it must be guilt of no common die that could oppress a man so destitute of human sympathies as Sir Francis Varney. The dreadful suspicions that hovered round him with respect to what he was, appeared to gather confirmation from every act of his existence.

Whether or not this man, to whom he felt bound to pay annually so large a sum, was in the secret, and knew him to be something more than earthly, we cannot at present declare; but it would seem from the tenor of their conversation as if such were the fact.

Perchance he had saved him from the corruption of the tomb, by placing out, on some sylvan spot, where the cold moonbeams fell, the apparently lifeless form, and now claimed so large a reward for such a service, and the necessary secrecy contingent upon it.

We say this may be so, and yet again some more natural and rational explanation may unexpectedly present itself; and there may be yet a dark page in Sir Francis Varney’s life’s volume, which will place him in a light of superadded terrors to our readers.

Time, and the now rapidly accumulating incidents of our tale, will soon tear aside the veil of mystery that now envelopes some of our dramatis personæ.

And let us hope that in the development of those incidents we shall be enabled to rescue the beautiful Flora Bannerworth from the despairing gloom that is around her. Let us hope and even anticipate that we shall see her smile again; that the roseate hue of health will again revisit her cheeks, the light buoyancy of her step return, and that as before she may be the joy of all around her, dispensing and receiving happiness.

And, he too, that gallant fearless lover, he whom no chance of time or tide could sever from the object of his fond affections, he who listened to nothing but the dictates of his heart’s best feelings, let us indulge a hope that he will have a bright reward, and that the sunshine of a permanent felicity will only seem the brighter for the shadows that for a time have obscured its glory.

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XXXIII. THE STRANGE INTERVIEW.—THE CHASE THROUGH THE HALL

It was with the most melancholy aspect that anything human could well bear, that Sir Francis Varney took his lonely walk, although perhaps in saying so much, probably we are instituting a comparison which circumstances scarcely empower us to do; for who shall say that that singular man, around whom a very atmosphere of mystery seemed to be perpetually increasing, was human?

Averse as we are to believe in the supernatural, or even to invest humanity with any preternatural powers, the more than singular facts and circumstances surrounding the existence and the acts of that man bring to the mind a kind of shuddering conviction, that if he be indeed really mortal he still must possess some powers beyond ordinary mortality, and be walking the earth for some unhallowed purposes, such as ordinary men with the ordinary attributes of human nature can scarcely guess at.

Silently and alone he took his way through that beautiful tract of country, comprehending such picturesque charms of hill and dale which lay between his home and Bannerworth Hall. He was evidently intent upon reaching the latter place by the shortest possible route, and in the darkness of that night, for the moon had not yet risen, he showed no slight acquaintance with the intricacies of that locality, that he was at all enabled to pursue so undeviatingly a tract as that which he took.

He muttered frequently to himself low, indistinct words as he went, and chiefly did they seem to have reference to that strange interview he had so recently had with one who, from some combination of circumstances scarcely to be guessed at, evidently exercised a powerful control over him, and was enabled to make a demand upon his pecuniary resources of rather startling magnitude.

And yet, from a stray word or two, which were pronounced more distinctly, he did not seem to be thinking in anger over that interview; but it would appear that it rather had recalled to his remembrance circumstances of a painful and a degrading nature, which time had not been able entirely to obliterate from his recollection.

“Yes, yes,” he said, as he paused upon the margin of the wood, to the confines of which he, or what seemed to be he, had once been chased by Marchdale and the Bannerworths—“yes, the very sight of that man recalls all the frightful pageantry of a horrible tragedy, which I can never—never forget. Never can it escape my memory, as a horrible, a terrific fact; but it is the sight of this man alone that can recall all its fearful minutiæ to my mind, and paint to my imagination, in the most vivid colours, every, the least particular connected with that time of agony. These periodical visits much affect me. For months I dread them, and for months I am but slowly recovering from the shocks they give me. ‘But once more,’ he says—‘but once more,’ and then we shall not meet again. Well, well; perchance before that time arrives, I may be able to possess myself of those resources which will enable me to forestall his visit, and so at least free myself from the pang of expecting him.”

He paused at the margin of the wood, and glanced in the direction of Bannerworth Hall. By the dim light which yet showed from out the light sky, he could discern the ancient gable ends, and turret-like windows; he could see the well laid out gardens, and the grove of stately firs that shaded it from the northern blasts, and, as he gazed, a strong emotion seemed to come over him, such as no one could have supposed would for one moment have possessed the frame of one so apparently unconnected with all human sympathies.

“I know this spot well,” he said, “and my appearance here on that eventful occasion, when the dread of my approach induced a crime only second to murder itself, was on such a night as this, when all was so still and calm around, and when he who, at the merest shadow of my presence, rather chose to rush on death than be assured it was myself. Curses on the circumstances that so foiled me! I should have been most wealthy. I should have possessed the means of commanding the adulation of those who now hold me but cheaply; but still the time may come. I have a hope yet, and that greatness which I have ever panted for, that magician-like power over my kind, which the possession of ample means alone can give, may yet be mine.”

Wrapping his cloak more closely around him, he strode forward with that long, noiseless step which was peculiar to him. Mechanically he appeared to avoid those obstacles of hedge and ditch which impeded his pathway. Surely he had come that road often, or he would not so easily have pursued his way. And now he stood by the edge of a plantation which in some measure protected from trespassers the more private gardens of the Hall, and there he paused, as if a feeling of irresolution had come over him, or it might be, as indeed it seemed from his subsequent conduct, that he had come without any fixed intention, or if with a fixed intention, without any regular plan of carrying it into effect.

Did he again dream of intruding into any of the chambers of that mansion, with the ghastly aspect of that terrible creation with which, in the minds of its inhabitants, he seemed to be but too closely identified? He was pale, attenuated, and trembled. Could it be that so soon it had become necessary to renew the life-blood in his veins in the awful manner which it is supposed the vampyre brood are compelled to protract their miserable existence?

It might be so, and that he was even now reflecting upon how once more he could kindle the fire of madness in the brain of that beautiful girl, who he had already made so irretrievably wretched.

He leant against an aged tree, and his strange, lustrous-looking eyes seemed to collect every wandering scintillation of light that was around, and to shine with preternatural intensity.

“I must, I will,” he said, “be master of Bannerworth Hall. It must come to that. I have set an existence upon its possession, and I will have it; and then, if with my own hands I displace it brick by brick and stone by stone, I will discover that hidden secret which no one but myself now dreams of. It shall be done by force or fraud, by love or by despair, I care not which; the end shall sanctify all means. Ay, even if I wade through blood to my desire, I say it shall be done.”

There was a holy and a still calmness about the night much at variance with the storm of angry passion that appeared to be momentarily gathering power in the breast of that fearful man. Not the least sound came from Bannerworth Hall, and it was only occasionally that from afar off on the night air there came the bark of some watchdog, or the low of distant cattle. All else was mute save when the deep sepulchral tones of that man, if man he was, gave an impulse to the soft air around him.

With a strolling movement as if he were careless if he proceeded in that direction or not, he still went onward toward the house, and now he stood by that little summer-house once so sweet and so dear a retreat, in which the heart-stricken Flora had held her interview with him whom she loved with a devotion unknown to meaner minds.

This spot scarcely commanded any view of the house, for so enclosed was it among evergreens and blooming flowers, that it seemed like a very wilderness of nature, upon which, with liberal hand, she had showered down in wild luxuriance her wildest floral beauties.

In and around that spot the night air was loaded with sweets. The mingled perfume of many flowers made that place seem a very paradise. But oh, how sadly at variance with that beauty and contentedness of nature was he who stood amidst such beauty! All incapable as he was of appreciating its tenderness, or of gathering the faintest moral from its glory.

“Why am I here?” he said. “Here, without fixed design or stability of purpose, like some miser who has hidden his own hoards so deeply within the bowels of the earth he cannot hope that he shall ever again be able to bring them to the light of day. I hover around this spot which I feel—which I know—contains my treasure, though I cannot lay my hands upon it, or exult in its glistening beauty.”

Even as he spoke he cowered down like some guilty thing, for he heard a faint footstep upon the garden path. So light, so fragile was the step, that, in the light of day, the very hum of summer insects would have drowned the noise; but he heard it, that man of crime—of unholy and awful impulses. He heard it, and he shrunk down among the shrubs and flowers till he was hidden completely from observation amid a world of fragrant essences.

Was it some one stealthily in that place even as he was, unwelcome or unknown? or was it one who had observed him intrude upon the privacy of those now unhappy precincts, and who was coming to deal upon him that death which, vampyre though he might be, he was yet susceptible of from mortal hands?

The footstep advanced, and lower down he shrunk until his coward-heart beat against the very earth itself. He knew that he was unarmed, a circumstance rare with him, and only to be accounted for by the disturbance of his mind consequent upon the visit of that strange man to his house, whose presence had awakened so many conflicting emotions.

Nearer and nearer still came that light footstep, and his deep-seated fears would not let him perceive that it was not the step of caution or of treachery, but owed its lightness to the natural grace and freedom of movement of its owner.

The moon must have arisen, although obscured by clouds, through which it cast but a dim radiance, for the night had certainly grown lighter; so that although there were no strong shadows cast, a more diffused brightness was about all things, and their outlines looked not so dancing, and confused the one with the other.

He strained his eyes in the direction whence the sounds proceeded, and then his fears for his personal safety vanished, for he saw it was a female form that was slowly advancing towards him.

His first impulse was to rise, for with the transient glimpse he got of it, he knew that it must be Flora Bannerworth; but a second thought, probably one of intense curiosity to know what could possibly have brought her to such a spot at such a time, restrained him, and he was quiet. But if the surprise of Sir Francis Varney was great to see Flora Bannerworth at such a time in such a place, we have no doubt, that with the knowledge which our readers have of her, their astonishment would more than fully equal his; and when we come to consider, that since that eventful period when the sanctity of her chamber had been so violated by that fearful midnight visitant, it must appear somewhat strange that she could gather courage sufficient to wander forth alone at such an hour.

Had she no dread of meeting that unearthly being? Did the possibility that she might fall into his ruthless grasp, not come across her mind with a shuddering consciousness of its probability? Had she no reflection that each step she took, was taking her further and further from those who would aid her in all extremities? It would seem not, for she walked onward, unheeding, and apparently unthinking of the presence, possible or probable, of that bane of her existence.

But let us look at her again. How strange and spectral-like she moves along; there seems no speculation in her countenance, but with a strange and gliding step, she walks like some dim shadow of the past in that ancient garden. She is very pale, and on her brow there is the stamp of suffering; her dress is a morning robe, she holds it lightly round her, and thus she moves forward towards that summer-house which probably to her was sanctified by having witnessed those vows of pure affection, which came from the lips of Charles Holland, about whose fate there now hung so great a mystery.

Has madness really seized upon the brain of that beautiful girl? Has the strong intellect really sunk beneath the oppressions to which it has been subjected? Does she now walk forth with a disordered intellect, the queen of some fantastic realm, viewing the material world with eyes that are not of earth; shunning perhaps that which she should have sought, and, perchance, in her frenzy, seeking that which in a happier frame of mind she would have shunned.

Such might have been the impression of any one who had looked upon her for a moment, and who knew the disastrous scenes through which she had so recently passed; but we can spare our readers the pangs of such a supposition. We have bespoken their love for Flora Bannerworth, and we are certain that she has it; therefore would we spare them, even for a few brief moments, from imagining that cruel destiny had done its worst, and that the fine and beautiful spirit we have so much commended had lost its power of rational reflection. No; thank Heaven, such is not the case. Flora Bannerworth is not mad, but under the strong influence of some eccentric dream, which has pictured to her mind images which have no home but in the airy realms of imagination. She has wandered forth from her chamber to that sacred spot where she had met him she loved, and heard the noblest declaration of truth and constancy that ever flowed from human lips.

Yes, she is sleeping; but, with a precision such as the somnambulist so strangely exerts, she trod the well-known paths slowly, but surely, toward that summer’s bower, where her dreams had not told her lay crouching that most hideous spectre of her imagination, Sir Francis Varney. He who stood between her and her heart’s best joy; he who had destroyed all hope of happiness, and who had converted her dearest affections into only so many causes of greater disquietude than the blessings they should have been to her.

Oh! could she have imagined but for one moment that he was there, with what an eagerness of terror would she have flown back again to the shelter of those walls, where at least was to be found some protection from the fearful vampyre’s embrace, and where she would be within hail of friendly hearts, who would stand boldly between her and every thought of harm.

But she knew it not, and onwards she went until the very hem of her garment touched the face of Sir Francis Varney.

And he was terrified—he dared not move—he dared not speak! The idea that she had died, and that this was her spirit, come to wreak some terrible vengeance upon him, for a time possessed him, and so paralysed with fear was he, that he could neither move nor speak.

It had been well if, during that trance of indecision in which his coward heart placed him, Flora had left the place, and again sought her home; but unhappily such an impulse came not over her; she sat upon that rustic seat, where she had reposed when Charles had clasped her to his heart, and through her very dream the remembrance of that pure affection came across her, and in the tenderest and most melodious accents, she said,—

“Charles! Charles! and do you love me still? No—no; you have not forsaken me. Save me, save me from the vampyre!”

She shuddered, and Sir Francis Varney heard her weeping.

“Fool that I am,” he muttered, “to be so terrified. She sleeps. This is one of the phases which a disordered imagination oft puts on. She sleeps, and perchance this may be an opportunity of further increasing the dread of my visitation, which shall make Bannerworth Hall far too terrible a dwelling-place for her; and well I know, if she goes, they will all go. It will become a deserted house, and that is what I want. A house, too, with such an evil reputation, that none but myself, who have created that reputation, will venture within its walls:—a house, which superstition will point out as the abode of evil spirits;—a house, as it were, by general opinion, ceded to the vampyre. Yes, it shall be my own; fit dwelling-place for a while for me. I have sworn it shall be mine, and I will keep my oath, little such as I have to do with vows.”

He rose, and moved slowly to the narrow entrance of the summer-house; a movement he could make, without at all disturbing Flora, for the rustic seat, on which she sat, was at its further extremity. And there he stood, the upper part of his gaunt and hideous form clearly defined upon the now much lighter sky, so that if Flora Bannerworth had not been in that trance of sleep in which she really was, one glance upward would let her see the hideous companion she had, in that once much-loved spot—a spot hitherto sacred to the best and noblest feelings, but now doomed for ever to be associated with that terrific spectre of despair.

But she was in no state to see so terrible a sight. Her hands were over her face, and she was weeping still.

“Surely, he loves me,” she whispered; “he has said he loved me, and he does not speak in vain. He loves me still, and I shall again look upon his face, a Heaven to me! Charles! Charles! you will come again? Surely, they sin against the divinity of love, who would tell me that you love me not!”

“Ha!” muttered Varney, “this passion is her first, and takes a strong hold on her young heart—she loves him—but what are human affections to me? I have no right to count myself in the great muster-roll of humanity. I look not like an inhabitant of the earth, and yet am on it. I love no one, expect no love from any one, but I will make humanity a slave to me; and the lip-service of them who hate me in their hearts, shall be as pleasant jingling music to my ear, as if it were quite sincere! I will speak to this girl; she is not mad—perchance she may be.”

There was a diabolical look of concentrated hatred upon Varney’s face, as he now advanced two paces towards the beautiful Flora.

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Chapter XXXIV

THE THREAT.—ITS CONSEQUENCES.—THE RESCUE, AND SIR FRANCIS VARNEY’S DANGER.

Sir Francis Varney now paused again, and he seemed for a few moments to gloat over the helpless condition of her whom he had so determined to make his victim; there was no look of pity in his face, no one touch of human kindness could be found in the whole expression of those diabolical features; and if he delayed making the attempt to strike terror into the heart of that unhappy, but beautiful being, it could not be from any relenting feeling, but simply, that he wished for a few moments to indulge his imagination with the idea of perfecting his villany more effectually.

Alas! and they who would have flown to her rescue,—they, who for her would have chanced all accidents, ay, even life itself, were sleeping, and knew not of the loved one’s danger. She was alone, and far enough from the house, to be driven to that tottering verge where sanity ends, and the dream of madness, with all its terrors, commences.

But still she slept—if that half-waking sleep could indeed be considered as any thing akin to ordinary slumber—still she slept, and called mournfully upon her lover’s name; and in tender, beseeching accents, that should have melted even the stubbornest hearts, did she express her soul’s conviction that he loved her still.

The very repetition of the name of Charles Holland seemed to be galling to Sir Francis Varney. He made a gesture of impatience, as she again uttered it, and then stepping forward, he stood within a pace of where she sat, and in a fearfully distinct voice he said,—

“Flora Bannerworth, awake! awake! and look upon me, although the sight blast you, and drive you to despair. Awake! awake!”

It was not the sound of the voice which aroused her from that strange slumber. It is said that those who sleep in that eccentric manner, are insensible to sounds, but that the lightest touch will arouse them in an instant; and so it was in this case, for Sir Francis Varney, as he spoke, laid upon the hand of Flora two of his cold, corpse-like looking fingers. A shriek burst from her lips, and although the confusion of her memory and conceptions was immense, yet she was awake, and the somnambulistic trance had left her.

“Help, help!” she cried. “Gracious Heavens! Where am I?”

Varney spoke not, but he spread out his long, thin arms in such a manner that he seemed almost to encircle her, while he touched her not, so that escape became a matter of impossibility, and to attempt to do so, must have been to have thrown herself into his hideous embrace.

She could obtain but a single view of the face and figure of him who opposed her progress, but, slight as that view was, it more than sufficed. The very extremity of fear came across her, and she sat like one paralysed; the only evidence of existence she gave consisting in the words,—

“The vampyre—the vampyre!”

“Yes,” said Varney, “the vampyre. You know me, Flora Bannerworth—Varney, the vampyre; your midnight guest at that feast of blood. I am the vampyre. Look upon me well; shrink not from my gaze. You will do well not to shun me, but to speak to me in such a shape that I may learn to love you.”

Flora shook as in a convulsion, and she looked as white as any marble statue.

“This is horrible!” she said. “Why does not Heaven grant me the death I pray for?”

“Hold!” said Varney. “Dress not up in the false colours of the imagination that which in itself is sufficiently terrific to need none of the allurements of romance. Flora Bannerworth, you are persecuted—persecuted by me, the vampyre. It is my fate to persecute you; for there are laws to the invisible as well as the visible creation that force even such a being as I am to play my part in the great drama of existence. I am a vampyre; the sustenance that supports this frame must be drawn from the life-blood of others.”

“Oh, horror—horror!”

“But most I do affect the young and beautiful. It is from the veins of such as thou art, Flora Bannerworth, that I would seek the sustenance I’m compelled to obtain for my own exhausted energies. But never yet, in all my long career—a career extending over centuries of time—never yet have I felt the soft sensation of human pity till I looked on thee, exquisite piece of excellence. Even at the moment when the reviving fluid from the gushing fountain of your veins was warming at my heart, I pitied and I loved you. Oh, Flora! even I can now feel the pang of being what I am!”

There was a something in the tone, a touch of sadness in the manner, and a deep sincerity in these words, that in some measure disabused Flora of her fears. She sobbed hysterically, and a gush of tears came to her relief, as, in almost inarticulate accents, she said,—

“May the great God forgive even you!”

“I have need of such a prayer,” exclaimed Varney—“Heaven knows I have need of such a prayer. May it ascend on the wings of the night air to the throne of Heaven. May it be softly whispered by ministering angels to the ear of Divinity. God knows I have need of such a prayer!”

“To hear you speak in such a strain,” said Flora, “calms the excited fancy, and strips even your horrible presence of some of its maddening influence.”

“Hush,” said the vampire, “you must hear more—you must know more ere you speak of the matters that have of late exercised an influence of terror over you.”

“But how came I here?” said Flora, “tell me that. By what more than earthly power have you brought me to this spot? If I am to listen to you, why should it not be at some more likely time and place?”

“I have powers,” said Varney, assuming from Flora’s words, that she would believe such arrogance—“I have powers which suffice to bend many purposes to my will—powers incidental to my position, and therefore is it I have brought you here to listen to that which should make you happier than you are.”

“I will attend,” said Flora. “I do not shudder now; there’s an icy coldness through my veins, but it is the night air—speak, I will attend you.”

“I will. Flora Bannerworth, I am one who has witnessed time’s mutations on man and on his works, and I have pitied neither; I have seen the fall of empires, and sighed not that high reaching ambition was toppled to the dust. I have seen the grave close over the young and the beautiful—those whom I have doomed by my insatiable thirst for human blood to death, long ere the usual span of life was past, but I never loved till now.”

“Can such a being as you,” said Flora “be susceptible of such an earthly passion?”

“And wherefore not?”

“Love is either too much of heaven, or too much of earth to find a home with thee.”

“No, Flora, no! it may be that the feeling is born of pity. I will save you—I will save you from a continuance of the horrors that are assailing you.”

“Oh! then may Heaven have mercy in your hour of need!”

“Amen!”

“May you even yet know peace and joy above.”

“It is a faint and straggling hope—but if achieved, it will be through the interposition of such a spirit as thine, Flora, which has already exercised so benign an influence upon my tortured soul, as to produce the wish within my heart, to do a least one unselfish action.”

“That wish,” said Flora, “shall be father to the deed. Heaven has boundless mercy yet.”

“For thy sweet sake, I will believe so much, Flora Bannerworth; it is a condition with my hateful race, that if we can find one human heart to love us, we are free. If, in the face of Heaven, you will consent to be mine, you will snatch me from a continuance of my frightful doom, and for your pure sake, and on your merits, shall I yet know heavenly happiness. Will you be mine?”

A cloud swept from off the face of the moon, and a slant ray fell upon the hideous features of the vampire. He looked as if just rescued from some charnel-house, and endowed for a space with vitality to destroy all beauty and harmony in nature, and drive some benighted soul to madness.

“No, no, no!” shrieked Flora, “never!”

“Enough,” said Varney, “I am answered. It was a bad proposal. I am a vampyre still.”

“Spare me! spare me!”

“Blood!”

Flora sank upon her knees, and uplifted her hands to heaven. “Mercy, mercy!” she said.

“Blood!” said Varney, and she saw his hideous, fang-like teeth. “Blood! Flora Bannerworth, the vampyre’s motto. I have asked you to love me, and you will not—the penalty be yours.”

“No, no!” said Flora. “Can it be possible that even you, who have already spoken with judgment and precision, can be so unjust? you must feel that, in all respects, I have been a victim, most gratuitously—a sufferer, while there existed no just cause that I should suffer; one who has been tortured, not from personal fault, selfishness, lapse of integrity, or honourable feelings, but because you have found it necessary, for the prolongation of your terrific existence, to attack me as you have done. By what plea of honour, honesty, or justice, can I be blamed for not embracing an alternative which is beyond all human control?—I cannot love you.”

“Then be content to suffer. Flora Bannerworth, will you not, even for a time, to save yourself and to save me, become mine?”

“Horrible proposition!”

“Then am I doomed yet, perhaps, for many a cycle of years, to spread misery and desolation around me; and yet I love you with a feeling which has in it more of gratefulness and unselfishness than ever yet found a home within my breast. I would fain save you, although you cannot save me; there may yet be a chance, which shall enable you to escape from the persecution of my presence.”

“Oh! glorious chance!” said Flora. “Which way can it come? tell me how I may embrace it, and such grateful feelings as a heart-stricken mourner can offer to him who has rescued her from her deep affliction, shall yet be yours.”

“Hear me, then, Flora Bannerworth, while I state to you some particulars of mysterious existence, of such beings as myself, which never yet have been breathed to mortal ears.”

Flora looked intently at him, and listened, while, with a serious earnestness of manner, he detailed to her something of the physiology of the singular class of beings which the concurrence of all circumstances tended to make him appear.

“Flora,” he said, “it is not that I am so enamoured of an existence to be prolonged only by such frightful means, which induces me to become a terror to you or to others. Believe me, that if my victims, those whom my insatiable thirst for blood make wretched, suffer much, I, the vampyre, am not without my moments of unutterable agony. But it is a mysterious law of our nature, that as the period approaches when the exhausted energies of life require a new support from the warm, gushing fountain of another’s veins, the strong desire to live grows upon us, until, in a paroxysm of wild insanity, which will recognise no obstacles, human or divine, we seek a victim.”

“A fearful state!” said Flora.

“It is so; and, when the dreadful repast is over, then again the pulse beats healthfully, and the wasted energies of a strange kind of vitality are restored to us, we become calm again, but with that calmness comes all the horror, all the agony of reflection, and we suffer far more than tongue can tell.”

“You have my pity,” said Flora; “even you have my pity.”

“I might well demand it, if such a feeling held a place within your breast. I might well demand your pity, Flora Bannerworth, for never crawled an abject wretch upon the earth’s rotundity, so pitiable as I.”

“Go on, go on.”

“I will, and with such brief conclusions as I may. Having once attacked any human being, we feel a strange, but terribly impulsive desire again to seek that person for more blood. But I love you, Flora; the small amount of sensibility that still lingers about my preternatural existence, acknowledges in you a pure and better spirit. I would fain save you.”

“Oh! tell me how I may escape the terrible infliction.”

“That can only be done by flight. Leave this place, I implore you! leave it as quickly as the movement may be made. Linger not—cast not one regretful look behind you on your ancient home. I shall remain in this locality for years. Let me lose sight of you, I will not pursue you; but, by force of circumstances, I am myself compelled to linger here. Flight is the only means by which you may avoid a doom as terrific as that which I endure.”

“But tell me,” said Flora, after a moment’s pause, during which she appeared to be endeavouring to gather courage to ask some fearful question; “tell me if it be true that those who have once endured the terrific attack of a vampyre, become themselves, after death, one of that dread race?”

“It is by such means,” said Varney, “that the frightful brood increases; but time and circumstances must aid the development of the new and horrible existence. You, however, are safe.”

“Safe! Oh! say that word again.”

“Yes, safe; not once or twice will the vampyre’s attack have sufficient influence on your mortal frame, as to induce a susceptibility on your part to become coexistent with such as he. The attacks must be often repeated, and the termination of mortal existence must be a consequence essential, and direct from those attacks, before such a result may be anticipated.”

“Yes, yes; I understand.”

“If you were to continue my victim from year to year, the energies of life would slowly waste away, till like some faint taper’s gleam, consuming more sustenance than it received, the veriest accident would extinguish your existence, and then, Flora Bannerworth, you might become a vampyre.”

“Oh! horrible! most horrible!”

“If by chance, or by design, the least glimpse of the cold moonbeams rested on your apparently lifeless remains, you would rise again and be one of us—a terror to yourself and a desolation to all around.”

“Oh! I will fly from here,” said Flora. “The hope of escape from so terrific and dreadful a doom shall urge me onward; if flight can save me—flight from Bannerworth Hall, I will pause not until continents and oceans divide us.”

“It is well. I’m able now thus calmly to reason with you. A few short months more and I shall feel the languor of death creeping over me, and then will come that mad excitement of the brain, which, were you hidden behind triple doors of steel, would tempt me again to seek your chamber—again to seize you in my full embrace—again to draw from your veins the means of prolonged life—again to convulse your very soul with terror.”

“I need no incentives,” said Flora, with a shudder, “in the shape of descriptions of the past, to urge me on.”

“You will fly from Bannerworth Hall?”

“Yes, yes!” said Flora, “it shall be so; its very chambers now are hideous with the recollection of scenes enacted in them. I will urge my brothers, my mother, all to leave, and in some distant clime we will find security and shelter. There even we will learn to think of you with more of sorrow than of anger—more pity than reproach—more curiosity than loathing.”

“Be it so,” said the vampyre; and he clasped his hands, as if with a thankfulness that he had done so much towards restoring peace at least to one, who, in consequence of his acts, had felt such exquisite despair. “Be it so; and even I will hope that the feelings which have induced so desolated and so isolated a being as myself to endeavour to bring peace to one human heart, will plead for me, trumpet-tongued, to Heaven!”

“It will—it will,” said Flora.

“Do you think so?”

“I do; and I will pray that the thought may turn to certainty in such a cause.”

The vampyre appeared to be much affected; and then he added,—

“Flora, you know that this spot has been the scene of a catastrophe fearful to look back upon, in the annals of your family?”

“It has,” said Flora. “I know to what you allude; ’tis a matter of common knowledge to all—a sad theme to me, and one I would not court.”

“Nor would I oppress you with it. Your father, here, on this very spot, committed that desperate act which brought him uncalled for to the judgment seat of God. I have a strange, wild curiosity upon such subjects. Will you, in return for the good that I have tried to do you, gratify it?”

“I know not what you mean,” said Flora.

“To be more explicit, then, do you remember the day on which your father breathed his last?”

“Too well—too well.”

“Did you see him or converse with him shortly before that desperate act was committed?”

“No; he shut himself up for some time in a solitary chamber.”

“Ha! what chamber?”

“The one in which I slept myself on the night——”

“Yes, yes; the one with the portrait—that speaking portrait—the eyes of which seem to challenge an intruder as he enters the apartment.”

“The same.”

“For hours shut up there!” added Varney, musingly; “and from thence he wandered to the garden, where, in this summer-house, he breathed his last?”

“It was so.”

“Then, Flora, ere I bid you adieu——”

These words were scarcely uttered, when there was a quick, hasty footstep, and Henry Bannerworth appeared behind Varney, in the very entrance of the summer-house.

“Now,” he cried, “for revenge! Now, foul being, blot upon the earth’s surface, horrible imitation of humanity, if mortal arm can do aught against you, you shall die!”

A shriek came from the lips of Flora, and flinging herself past Varney, who stepped aside, she clung to her brother, who made an unavailing pass with his sword at the vampyre. It was a critical moment; and had the presence of mind of Varney deserted him in the least, unarmed as he was, he must have fallen beneath the weapon of Henry. To spring, however, up the seat which Flora had vacated, and to dash out some of the flimsy and rotten wood-work at the back of the summer-house by the propulsive power of his whole frame, was the work of a moment; and before Henry could free himself from the clinging embrace of Flora, Varney, the vampyre, was gone, and there was no greater chance of his capture than on a former occasion, when he was pursued in vain from the Hall to the wood, in the intricacies of which he was so entirely lost.

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Chapter XXXV

THE EXPLANATION.—MARCHDALE’S ADVICE.—THE PROJECTED REMOVAL, AND THE ADMIRAL’S ANGER.

This extremely sudden movement on the part of Varney was certainly as unexpected as it was decisive. Henry had imagined, that by taking possession of the only entrance to the summer-house, he must come into personal conflict with the being who had worked so much evil for him and his; and that he should so suddenly have created for himself another mode of exit, certainly never occurred to him.

“For Heaven’s sake, Flora,” he said, “unhand me; this is a time for action.”

“But, Henry, Henry, hear me.”

“Presently, presently, dear Flora; I will yet make another effort to arrest the headlong flight of Varney.”

He shook her off, perhaps with not more roughness than was necessary to induce her to forego her grasp of him, but in a manner that fully showed he intended to be free; and then he sprang through the same aperture whence Varney had disappeared, just as George and Mr. Marchdale arrived at the door of the summer-house.

It was nearly morning, so that the fields were brightening up with the faint radiance of the coming day; and when Henry reached a point which he knew commanded an extensive view, he paused, and ran his eye eagerly along the landscape, with a hope of discovering some trace of the fugitive.

Such, however, was not the case; he saw nothing, heard nothing of Sir Francis Varney; and then he turned, and called loudly to George to join him, and was immediately replied to by his brother’s presence, accompanied by Marchdale.

Before, however, they could exchange a word, a rattling discharge of fire-arms took place from one of the windows, and they heard the admiral, in a loud voice, shouting,—

“Broadside to broadside! Give it them again, Jack! Hit them between wind and water!”

Then there was another rattling discharge, and Henry exclaimed,—

“What is the meaning of that firing?”

“It comes from the admiral’s room,” said Marchdale. “On my life, I think the old man must be mad. He has some six or eight pistols ranged in a row along the window-sill, and all loaded, so that by the aid of a match they can be pretty well discharged as a volley, which he considers the only proper means of firing upon the vampyre.”

“It is so,” replied George; “and, no doubt, hearing an alarm, he has commenced operations by firing into the enemy.”

“Well, well,” said Henry; “he must have his way. I have pursued Varney thus far, and that he has again retreated to the wood, I cannot doubt. Between this and the full light of day, let us at least make an effort to discover his place of retreat. We know the locality as well as he can possibly, and I propose now that we commence an active search.”

“Come on, then,” said Marchdale. “We are all armed; and I, for one, shall feel no hesitation in taking the life, if it be possible to do so, of that strange being.”

“Of that possibility you doubt?” said George, as they hurried on across the meadows.

“Indeed I do, and with reason too. I’m certain that when I fired at him before I hit him; and besides, Flora must have shot him upon the occasion when we were absent, and she used your pistols Henry, to defend herself and her mother.”

“It would seem so,” said Henry; “and disregarding all present circumstances, if I do meet him, I will put to the proof whether he be mortal or not.”

The distance was not great, and they soon reached the margin of the wood; they then separated agreeing to meet within it, at a well-spring, familiar to them all; previous to which each was to make his best endeavour to discover if any one was hidden among the bush-wood or in the hollows of the ancient trees they should encounter on their line of march.

The fact was, that Henry finding that he was likely to pass an exceedingly disturbed, restless night, through agitation of spirits, had, after tossing to and fro on his couch for many hours, wisely at length risen, and determined to walk abroad in the gardens belonging to the mansion, in preference to continuing in such a state of fever and anxiety, as he was in, in his own chamber.

Since the vampyre’s dreadful visit, it had been the custom of both the brothers, occasionally, to tap at the chamber door of Flora, who, at her own request, now that she had changed her room, and dispensed with any one sitting up with her, wished occasionally to be communicated with by some member of the family.

Henry, then, after rapidly dressing, as he passed the door of her bedroom, was about to tap at it, when to his surprise he found it open, and upon hastily entering it he observed that the bed was empty, and a hasty glance round the apartment convinced him that Flora was not there.

Alarm took possession of him, and hastily arming himself, he roused Marchdale and George, but without waiting for them to be ready to accompany him, he sought the garden, to search it thoroughly in case she should be anywhere there concealed.

Thus it was he had come upon the conference so strangely and so unexpectedly held between Varney and Flora in the summer-house. With what occurred upon that discovery the readers are acquainted.

Flora had promised George that she would return immediately to the house, but when, in compliance with the call of Henry, George and Marchdale had left her alone, she felt so agitated and faint that she began to cling to the trellis work of the little building for a few moments before she could gather strength to reach the mansion.

Two or three minutes might thus have elapsed, and Flora was in such a state of mental bewilderment with all that had occurred, that she could scarce believe it real, when suddenly a slight sound attracted her attention, and through the gap which had been made in the wall of the summer-house, with an appearance of perfect composure, again appeared Sir Francis Varney.

“Flora,” he said, quietly resuming the discourse which had been broken off, “I am quite convinced now that you will be much the happier for the interview.”

“Gracious Heaven!” said Flora, “whence have you come from?”

“I have never left,” said Varney.

“But I saw you fly from this spot.”

“You did; but it was only to another immediately outside the summer house. I had no idea of breaking off our conference so abruptly.”

“Have you anything to add to what you have already stated?”

“Absolutely nothing, unless you have a question to propose to me—I should have thought you had, Flora. Is there no other circumstance weighing heavily upon your mind, as well as the dreadful visitation I have subjected you to?”

“Yes,” said Flora. “What has become of Charles Holland?”

“Listen. Do not discard all hope; when you are far from here you will meet with him again.”

“But he has left me.”

“And yet he will be able, when you again encounter him, so far to extenuate his seeming perfidy, that you shall hold him as untouched in honour as when first he whispered to you that he loved you.”

“Oh, joy! joy!” said Flora; “by that assurance you have robbed misfortune of its sting, and richly compensated me for all that I have suffered.”

“Adieu!” said the vampyre. “I shall now proceed to my own home by a different route to that taken by those who would kill me.”

“But after this,” said Flora, “there shall be no danger; you shall be held harmless, and our departure from Bannerworth Hall shall be so quick, that you will soon be released from all apprehension of vengeance from my brother, and I shall taste again of that happiness which I thought had fled from me for ever.”

“Farewell,” said the vampire; and folding his cloak closely around him, he strode from the summer-house, soon disappearing from her sight behind the shrubs and ample vegetation with which that garden abounded.

Flora sunk upon her knees, and uttered a brief, but heartfelt thanksgiving to Heaven for this happy change in her destiny. The hue of health faintly again visited her cheeks, and as she now, with a feeling of more energy and strength than she had been capable of exerting for many days, walked towards the house, she felt all that delightful sensation which the mind experiences when it is shaking off the trammels of some serious evil which it delights now to find that the imagination has attired in far worse colours than the facts deserved.

It is scarcely necessary, after this, to say that the search in the wood for Sir Francis Varney was an unproductive one, and that the morning dawned upon the labours of the brother and of Mr. Marchdale, without their having discovered the least indication of the presence of Varney. Again puzzled and confounded, they stood on the margin of the wood, and looked sadly towards the brightening windows of Bannerworth Hall, which were now reflecting with a golden radiance the slant rays of the morning sun.

“Foiled again,” remarked Henry, with a gesture of impatience; “foiled again, and as completely as before. I declare that I will fight this man, let our friend the admiral say what he will against such a measure I will meet him in mortal combat; he shall consummate his triumph over our whole family by my death, or I will rid the world and ourselves of so frightful a character.”

“Let us hope,” said Marchdale, “that some other course may be adopted, which shall put an end to these proceedings.”

“That,” exclaimed Henry, “is to hope against all probability; what other course can be pursued? Be this Varney man or devil, he has evidently marked us for his prey.”

“Indeed, it would seem so,” remarked George; “but yet he shall find that we will not fall so easily; he shall discover that if poor Flora’s gentle spirit has been crushed by these frightful circumstances, we are of a sterner mould.”

“He shall,” said Henry; “I for one will dedicate my life to this matter. I will know no more rest than is necessary to recruit my frame, until I have succeeded in overcoming this monster; I will seek no pleasure here, and will banish from my mind all else that may interfere with that one fixed pursuit. He or I must fall.”

“Well spoken,” said Marchdale; “and yet I hope that circumstances may occur to prevent such a necessity of action, and that probably you will yet see that it will be wise and prudent to adopt a milder and a safer course.”

“No, Marchdale, you cannot feel as we feel. You look on more as a spectator, sympathising with the afflictions of either, than feeling the full sting of those afflictions yourself.”

“Do I not feel acutely for you? I’m a lonely man in the world, and I have taught myself now to centre my affections in your family; my recollections of early years assist me in so doing. Believe me, both of you, that I am no idle spectator of your griefs, but that I share them fully. If I advise you to be peaceful, and to endeavour by the gentlest means possible to accomplish your aims, it is not that I would counsel you cowardice; but having seen so much more of the world than either of you have had time or opportunity of seeing, I do not look so enthusiastically upon matters, but, with a cooler, calmer judgment, I do not say a better, I proffer to you my counsel.”

“We thank you,” said Henry; “but this is a matter in which action seems specially called for. It is not to be borne that a whole family is to be oppressed by such a fiend in human shape as that Varney.”

“Let me,” said Marchdale, “counsel you to submit to Flora’s decision in this business; let her wishes constitute the rules of action. She is the greatest sufferer, and the one most deeply interested in the termination of this fearful business. Moreover, she has judgment and decision of character—she will advise you rightly, be assured.”

“That she would advise us honourably,” said Henry, “and that we should feel every disposition in the world to defer to her wishes our proposition, is not to be doubted; but little shall be done without her counsel and sanction. Let us now proceed homeward, for I am most anxious to ascertain how it came about that she and Sir Francis Varney were together in that summer-house at so strange an hour.”

They all three walked together towards the house, conversing in a similar strain as they went.

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XXXVI. THE CONSULTATION.—THE DUEL AND ITS RESULTS

Independent of this interview which Flora had had with the much dreaded Sir Francis Varney, the circumstances in which she and all who were dear to her, happened at that moment to be placed, certainly required an amount of consideration, which could not be too soon bestowed.

By a combination of disagreeables, everything that could possibly occur to disturb the peace of the family seemed to have taken place at once; like Macbeth’s, their troubles had truly come in battalions, and now that the serenity of their domestic position was destroyed, minor evils and annoyances which that very serenity had enabled them to hold at arm’s-length became gigantic, and added much to their distress.

The small income, which, when all was happiness, health and peace, was made to constitute a comfortable household, was now totally inadequate to do so—the power to economise and to make the most of a little, had flown along with that contentedness of spirit which the harmony of circumstances alone could produce.

It was not to be supposed that poor Mrs. Bannerworth could now, as she had formerly done, when her mind was free from anxiety, attend to those domestic matters which make up the comforts of a family—distracted at the situation of her daughter, and bewildered by the rapid succession of troublesome events which so short a period of time had given birth to, she fell into an inert state of mind as different as anything could possibly be, from her former active existence.

It has likewise been seen how the very domestics fled from Bannerworth Hall in dismay, rather than remain beneath the same roof with a family believed to be subject to the visitations of so awful a being as a vampyre.

Among the class who occupy positions of servitude, certainly there might have been found some, who, with feelings and understandings above such considerations, would have clung sympathetically to that family in distress, which they had known under a happier aspect; but it had not been the good fortune of the Bannerworths to have such as these about them; hence selfishness had its way, and they were deserted. It was not likely, then, that strangers would willingly accept service in a family so situated, without some powerful impulse in the shape of a higher pecuniary consideration, as was completely out of the power of the Bannerworths to offer.

Thus was it, then, that most cruelly, at the very time that they had most need of assistance and of sympathy, this unfortunate family almost became isolated from their kind; and, apart from every other consideration, it would have been almost impossible for them to continue inhabitants of the Hall, with anything like comfort, or advantage.

And then, although the disappearance of Charles Holland no longer awakened those feelings of indignation at his supposed perfidy which were first produced by that event; still, view it in which way they might, it was a severe blow of fate, and after it, they one and all found themselves still less able to contend against the sea of troubles that surrounded them.

The reader, too, will not have failed to remark that there was about the whole of the family that pride of independence which induced them to shrink from living upon extraneous aid; and hence, although they felt and felt truly, that when Admiral Bell, in his frank manner, offered them pecuniary assistance, that it was no idle compliment, yet with a sensitiveness such as they might well be expected to feel, they held back, and asked each other what prospect there was of emerging from such a state of things, and if it were justifiable to commence a life of dependence, the end of which was not evident or tangible.

Notwithstanding, too, the noble confidence of Flora in her lover, and notwithstanding that confidence had been echoed by her brothers, there would at times obtrude into the minds of the latter, a feeling of the possibility, that after all they might be mistaken; and Charles Holland might, from some sudden impulse, fancying his future happiness was all at stake, have withdrawn himself from the Hall, and really written the letters attributed to him.

We say this only obtruded itself occasionally, for all their real feelings and aspirations were the other way, although Mr. Marchdale, they could perceive, had his doubts, and they could not but confess that he was more likely to view the matter calmly and dispassionately than they.

In fact, the very hesitation with which he spoke upon the subject, convinced them of his doubts, for they attributed that hesitation to a fear of giving them pain, or of wounding the prejudices of Admiral Bell, with whom he had already had words so nearly approaching to a quarrel.

Henry’s visit to Mr. Chillingworth was not likely to be productive of any results beyond those of a conjectural character. All that that gentleman could do was to express a willingness to be directed by them in any way, rather than suggest any course of conduct himself upon circumstances which he could not be expected to judge of as they who were on the spot, and had witnessed their actual occurrence.

And now we will suppose that the reader is enabled with us to look into one of the principal rooms of Bannerworth Hall. It is evening, and some candles are shedding a sickly light on the ample proportions of the once handsome apartment. At solemn consultation the whole of the family are assembled. As well as the admiral, Mr. Chillingworth, and Marchdale, Jack Pringle, too, walked in, by the sufferance of his master, as if he considered he had a perfect right to do so.

The occasion of the meeting had been a communication which Flora had made concerning her most singular and deeply interesting interview with the vampyre. The details of this interview had produced a deep effect upon the whole of the family.

Flora was there, and she looked better, calmer, and more collected than she had done for some days past.

No doubt the interview she had had with Varney in the summer-house in the garden had dispelled a host of imaginary terrors with which she had surrounded him, although it had confirmed her fully that he and he only was the dreadful being who had caused her so much misery.

That interview had tended to show her that about him there was yet something human, and that there was not a danger of her being hunted down from place to place by so horrible an existence.

Such a feeling as this was, of course, a source of deep consolation; and with a firmer voice, and more of her old spirit of cheerfulness about her than she had lately exhibited, she again detailed the particulars of the interview to all who had assembled, concluding by saying,—

“And this has given me hope of happier days. If it be a delusion, it is a happy one; and now that but a frightful veil of mystery still hangs over the fate of Charles Holland, how gladly would I bid adieu to this place, and all that has made it terrible. I could almost pity Sir Francis Varney, rather than condemn him.”

“That may be true,” said Henry, “to a certain extent, sister; but we never can forget the amount of misery he has brought upon us. It is no slight thing to be forced from our old and much-loved home, even if such proceeding does succeed in freeing us from his persecutions.”

“But, my young friend,” said Marchdale, “you must recollect, that through life it is continually the lot of humanity to be endeavouring to fly from great evils to those which do not present themselves to the mind in so bad an aspect. It is something, surely, to alleviate affliction, if we cannot entirely remove it.”

“That is true,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “to a considerable extent, but then it takes too much for granted to please me.”

“How so, sir?”

“Why, certainly, to remove from Bannerworth Hall is a much less evil than to remain at Bannerworth Hall, and be haunted by a vampyre; but then that proposition takes for granted that vampyre business, which I will never grant. I repeat, again and again, it is contrary to all experience, to philosophy, and to all the laws of ordinary nature.”

“Facts are stubborn things,” said Marchdale.

“Apparently,” remarked Mr. Chillingworth.

“Well, sir; and here we have the fact of a vampyre.”

“The presumed fact. One swallow don’t make a summer, Mr. Marchdale.”

“This is waste of time,” said Henry—“of course, the amount of evidence that will suffice to bring conviction to one man’s mind will fail in doing so to another. The question is, what are we to do?”

All eyes were turned upon Flora, as if this question was more particularly addressed to her, and it behoved her, above all others, to answer it. She did so; and in a firm, clear voice, she said,—

“I will discover the fate of Charles Holland, and then leave the Hall.”

“The fate of Charles Holland!” said Marchdale. “Why, really, unless that young gentleman chooses to be communicative himself upon so interesting a subject, we may be a long while discovering his fate. I know that it is not a romantic view to take of the question, to suppose simply that he wrote the three letters found upon his dressing-table, and then decamped; but to my mind, it savours most wonderfully of matter-of-fact. I now speak more freely than I have otherwise done, for I am now upon the eve of my departure. I have no wish to remain here, and breed dissension in any family, or to run a tilt against anybody’s prejudices.” Here he looked at Admiral Bell. “I leave this house to-night.”

“You’re a d—d lubberly thief,” said the admiral; “the sooner you leave it the better. Why, you bad-looking son of a gun, what do you mean? I thought we’d had enough of that.”

“I fully expected this abuse,” said Marchdale.

“Did you expect that?” said the admiral, as he snatched up an inkstand, and threw at Marchdale, hitting him a hard knock on the chin, and bespattering its contents on his breast. “Now I’ll give you satisfaction, you lubber. D—me, if you ain’t a second Jones, and enough to sink the ship. Shiver my timbers if I sha’n’t say something strong presently.”

“I really,” said Henry, “must protest, Admiral Bell, against this conduct.”

“Protest and be d—d.”

“Mr. Marchdale may be right, sir, or he may be wrong, it’s a matter of opinion.”

“Oh, never mind,” said Marchdale; “I look upon this old nautical ruffian as something between a fool and a madman. If he were a younger man I should chastise him upon the spot; but as it is I live in hopes yet of getting him into some comfortable lunatic asylum.”

“Me into an asylum!” shouted the admiral. “Jack, did you hear that?”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Farewell all of you,” said Marchdale; “my best wishes be with this family. I cannot remain under this roof to be so insulted.”

“A good riddance,” cried the admiral. “I’d rather sail round the world with a shipload of vampyres than with such a humbugging son of a gun as you are. D——e, you’re worse than a lawyer.”

“Nay, nay,” cried they, “Mr. Marchdale, stay.”

“Stay, stay,” cried George, and Mrs. Bannerworth, likewise, said stay; but at the moment Flora stepped forward, and in a clear voice she said,—

“No, let him go, he doubts Charles Holland; let all go who doubt Charles Holland. Mr. Marchdale, Heaven forgive you this injustice you are doing. We may never meet again. Farewell, sir!”

These words were spoken in so decided a tone, that no one contradicted them. Marchdale cast a strange kind of look round upon the family circle, and in another instant he was gone.

“Huzza!” shouted Jack Pringle; “that’s one good job.”

Henry looked rather resentful, which the admiral could not but observe, and so, less with the devil-may-care manner in which he usually spoke, the old man addressed him.

“Hark ye, Mr. Henry Bannerworth, you ain’t best pleased with me, and in that case I don’t know that I shall stay to trouble you any longer, as for your friend who has just left you, sooner or later you’ll find him out—I tell you there’s no good in that fellow. Do you think I’ve been cruizing about for a matter of sixty years, and don’t know an honest man when I see him. But never mind, I’m going on a voyage of discovery for my nephew, and you can do as you like.”

“Heaven only knows, Admiral Bell,” said Henry, “who is right and who is wrong. I do much regret that you have quarrelled with Mr. Marchdale; but what is done can’t be undone.”

“Do not leave us,” said Flora; “let me beg of you, Admiral Bell, not to leave us; for my sake remain here, for to you I can speak freely and with confidence, of Charles, when probably I can do so to no one else. You knew him well and have a confidence in him, which no one else can aspire to. I pray you, therefore, to stay with us.”

“Only on one condition,” said the admiral.

“Name it—name it!

“You think of letting the Hall?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Let me have it, then, and let me pay a few years in advance. If you don’t, I’m d—d if I stay another night in the place. You must give me immediate possession, too, and stay here as my guests until you suit yourselves elsewhere. Those are my terms and conditions. Say yes, and all’s right; say no, and I’m off like a round shot from a carronade. D—me, that’s the thing, Jack, isn’t it?”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

There was a silence of some few moments after this extraordinary offer had been made, and then they spoke, saying,—

“Admiral Bell, your generous offer, and the feelings which dictated it, are by far too transparent for us to affect not to understand them. Your actions, Admiral——”

“Oh, bother my actions! what are they to you? Come, now, I consider myself master of the house, d—n you! I invite you all to dinner, or supper, or to whatever meal comes next. Mrs. Bannerworth, will you oblige me, as I’m an old fool in family affairs, by buying what’s wanted for me and my guests? There’s the money, ma’am. Come along, Jack, we’ll take a look over our new house. What do you think of it?”

“Wants some sheathing, sir, here and there.”

“Very like; but, however, it will do well enough for us; we’re in port, you know. Come along.”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

And off went the admiral and Jack, after leaving a twenty pound note in Mrs. Bannerworth’s lap.

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Chapter XXXVII

SIR FRANCIS VARNEY’S SEPARATE OPPONENTS.—THE INTERPOSITION OF FLORA.

The old admiral so completely overcame the family of the Bannerworths by his generosity and evident single-mindedness of his behaviour, that although not one, except Flora, approved of his conduct towards Mr. Marchdale, yet they could not help liking him; and had they been placed in a position to choose which of the two they would have had remain with them, the admiral or Marchdale, there can be no question they would have made choice of the former.

Still, however, it was not pleasant to find a man like Marchdale virtually driven from the house, because he presumed to differ in opinion upon a very doubtful matter with another of its inmates. But as it was the nature of the Bannerworth family always to incline to the most generous view of subjects, the frank, hearty confidence of the old admiral in Charles Holland pleased them better than the calm and serious doubting of Marchdale.

His ruse of hiring the house of them, and paying the rent in advance, for the purpose of placing ample funds in their hands for any contingency, was not the less amiable because it was so easily seen through; and they could not make up their minds to hurt the feelings of the old man by the rejection of his generous offer.

When he had left, this subject was canvassed among them, and it was agreed that he should have his own way in the matter for the present, although they hoped to hear something from Marchdale, which should make his departure appear less abrupt and uncomfortable to the whole of the family.

During the course of this conversation, it was made known to Flora with more distinctness than under any other circumstances it would have been, that George Holland had been on the eve of fighting a duel with Sir Francis Varney, previous to his mysterious disappearance.

When she became fully aware of this fact, to her mind it seemed materially to add to the suspicions previously to then entertained, that foul means had been used in order to put Charles out of the way.

“Who knows,” she said, “that this Varney may not shrink with the greatest terror from a conflict with any human being, and feeling one was inevitable with Charles Holland, unless interrupted by some vigorous act of his own, he or some myrmidons of his may have taken Charles’s life!”

“I do not think, Flora,” said Henry, “that he would have ventured upon so desperate an act; I cannot well believe such a thing possible. But fear not; he will find, if he have really committed any such atrocity, that it will not save him.”

These words of Henry, though it made no impression at the time upon Flora, beyond what they carried upon their surface, they really, however, as concerned Henry himself, implied a settled resolution, which he immediately set about reducing to practice.

When the conference broke up, night, as it still was, he, without saying anything to any one, took his hat and cloak, and left the Hall, proceeding by the nearest practicable route to the residence of Sir Francis Varney, where he arrived without any interruption of any character.

Varney was at first denied to him, but before he could leave the house, a servant came down the great staircase, to say it was a mistake; and that Sir Francis was at home, and would be happy to see him.

He was ushered into the same apartment where Sir Francis Varney had before received his visitors; and there sat the now declared vampyre, looking pale and ghastly by the dim light which burned in the apartment, and, indeed, more like some spectre of the tomb, than one of the great family of man.

“Be seated, sir,” said Varney; “although my eyes have seldom the pleasure of beholding you within these walls, be assured you are a honoured guest.”

“Sir Francis Varney,” said Henry, “I came not here to bandy compliments with you; I have none to pay to you, nor do I wish to hear any of them from your lips.”

“An excellent sentiment, young man,” said Varney, “and well delivered. May I presume, then, without infringing too far upon your extreme courtesy, to inquire, to what circumstances I am indebted for your visit?”

“To one, Sir Francis, that I believe you are better acquainted with than you will have the candour to admit.”

“Indeed, sir,” said Varney, coldly; “you measure my candour, probably, by a standard of your own; in which case I fear, I may be no gainer; and yet that may be of itself a circumstance that should afford little food for surprise, but proceed, sir—since we have so few compliments to stand between us and our purpose, we shall in all due time arrive at it.”

“Yes, in due time, Sir Francis Varney, and that due time has arrived. Know you anything of my friend, Mr. Charles Holland?” said Henry, in marked accents; and he gazed on Sir Francis Varney with earnestness, that seemed to say not even a look should escape his observation.

Varney, however, returned the gaze as steadily, but coldly, as he replied in his measured accents,—

“I have heard of the young gentleman.”

“And seen him?”

“And seen him too, as you, Mr. Bannerworth, must be well aware. Surely you have not come all this way, merely to make such an inquiry; but, sir, you are welcome to the answer.”

Henry had something of a struggle to keep down the rising anger, at these cool taunts of Varney; but he succeeded—and then he said,—

“I suspect Charles Holland, Sir Francis Varney, has met with unfair treatment, and that he has been unfairly dealt with, for an unworthy purpose.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Varney, “if the gentleman you allude to, has been unfairly dealt with, it was for a foul purpose; for no good or generous object, my young sir, could be so obtained—you acknowledge so much, I doubt not?”

“I do, Sir Francis Varney; and hence the purpose of my visit here—for this reason I apply to you——”

“A singular object, supported by a singular reason. I cannot see the connection, young sir; pray proceed to enlighten me upon this matter, and when you have done that, may I presume upon your consideration, to inquire in what way I can be of any service to you?”

“Sir Francis,” said Henry, his anger raising his tones—“this will not serve you—I have come to exact an account of how you have disposed of my friend; and I will have it.”

“Gently, my good sir; you are aware I know nothing of your friend; his motions are his own; and as to what I have done with him; my only answer is, that he would permit me to do nothing with him, had I been so inclined to have taken the liberty.”

“You are suspected, Sir Francis Varney, of having made an attempt upon the life or liberty of Charles Holland; you, in fact, are suspected of being his murderer—and, so help me Heaven! if I have not justice, I will have vengeance!”

“Young sir, your words are of grave import, and ought to be coolly considered before they are uttered. With regard to justice and vengeance, Mr. Bannerworth, you may have both; but I tell you, of Charles Holland, or what has become of him, I know nothing. But wherefore do you come to so unlikely a quarter to learn something of an individual of whom I know nothing?”

“Because Charles Holland was to have fought a duel with you; but before that had time to take place, he has suddenly become missing. I suspect that you are the author of his disappearance, because you fear an encounter with a mortal man.”

“Mr. Bannerworth, permit me to say, in my own defence, that I do not fear any man, however foolish he may be; and wisdom is not an attribute I find, from experience in all men, of your friend. However, you must be dreaming, sir—a kind of vivid insanity has taken possession of your mind, which distorts——”

“Sir Francis Varney!” exclaimed Henry, now perfectly uncontrollable.

“Sir,” said Varney, as he filled up the pause, “proceed; I am all attention. You do me honour.”

“If,” resumed Henry, “such was your object in putting Mr. Holland aside, by becoming personally or by proxy an assassin, you are mistaken in supposing you have accomplished your object.”

“Go on, sir,” said Sir Francis Varney, in a bland and sweet tone; “I am all attention; pray proceed.”

“You have failed; for I now here, on this spot, defy you to mortal combat. Coward, assassin as you are, I challenge you to fight.”

“You don’t mean on the carpet here?” said Varney, deliberately.

“No, sir; but beneath the canopy of heaven, in the light of the day. And then, Sir Francis, we shall see who will shrink from the conflict.”

“It is remarkably good, Mr. Bannerworth, and, begging your pardon, for I do not wish to give any offence, my honoured sir, it would rehearse before an audience; in short, sir, it is highly dramatic.”

“You shrink from the combat, do you? Now, indeed, I know you.”

“Young man—young man,” said Sir Francis, calmly, and shaking his head very deliberately, and the shadows passed across his pale face, “you know me not, if you think Sir Francis Varney shrinks from any man, much less one like yourself.”

“You are a coward, and worse, if you refuse my challenge.”

“I do not refuse it; I accept it,” said Varney, calmly, and in a dignified manner; and then, with a sneer, he added,—“You are well acquainted with the mode in which gentlemen generally manage these matters, Mr. Bannerworth, and perhaps I am somewhat confined in my knowledge in the ways of the world, because you are your own principal and second. In all my experience, I never met with a similar case.”

“The circumstances under which it is given are as unexampled, and will excuse the mode of the challenge,” said Henry, with much warmth.

“Singular coincidence—the challenge and mode of it is most singular! They are well matched in that respect. Singular, did I say? The more I think of it, Mr. Bannerworth, the more I am inclined to think this positively odd.”

“Early to-morrow, Sir Francis, you shall hear from me.”

“In that case, you will not arrange preliminaries now? Well, well; it is very unusual for the principals themselves to do so; and yet, excuse my freedom, I presumed, as you had so far deserted the beaten track, that I had no idea how far you might be disposed to lead the same route.”

“I have said all I intended to say, Sir Francis Varney; we shall see each other again.”

“I may not detain you, I presume, to taste aught in the way of refreshment?”

Henry made no reply, but turned towards the door, without even making an attempt to return the grave and formal bow that Sir Francis Varney made as he saw him about to quit the apartment; for Henry saw that his pale features were lighted up with a sarcastic smile, most disagreeable to look upon as well as irritating to Henry Bannerworth.

He now quitted Sir Francis Varney’s abode, being let out by a servant who had been rung for for that purpose by his master.

Henry walked homeward, satisfied that he had now done all that he could under the circumstances.

“I will send Chillingworth to him in the morning, and then I shall see what all this will end in. He must meet me, and then Charles Holland, if not discovered, shall be, at least, revenged.”

There was another person in Bannerworth Hall who had formed a similar resolution. That person was a very different sort of person to Henry Bannerworth, though quite as estimable in his way.

This was no other than the old admiral. It was singular that two such very different persons should deem the same steps necessary, and both keep the secret from each other; but so it was, and, after some internal swearing, he determined upon challenging Varney in person.

“I’d send Jack Pringle, but the swab would settle the matter as shortly as if a youngster was making an entry in a log, and heard the boatswain’s whistle summoning the hands to a mess, and feared he would lose his grog.

“D—n my quarters! but Sir Francis Varney, as he styles himself, sha’n’t make any way against old Admiral Bell. He’s as tough as a hawser, and just the sort of blade for a vampyre to come athwart. I’ll pitch him end-long, and make a plank of him afore long. Cus my windpipe! what a long, lanky swab he is, with teeth fit to unpick a splice; but let me alone, I’ll see if I can’t make a hull of his carcass, vampyre or no vampyre.

“My nevy, Charles Holland, can’t be allowed to cut away without nobody’s leave or licence. No, no; I’ll not stand that anyhow. ‘Never desert a messmate in the time of need,’ is the first maxim of a seaman, and I ain’t the one as ’ll do so.”

Thus self-communing, the old admiral marched along until he came to Sir Francis Varney’s house, at the gate of which he gave the bell what he called a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether, that set it ringing with a fury, the like of which had never certainly been heard by the household.

A minute or two scarcely elapsed before the domestics hurried to answer so urgent a summons; and when the gate was opened, the servant who answered it inquired his business.

“What’s that to you, snob? Is your master, Sir Francis Varney, in? because, if he be, let him know old Admiral Bell wants to speak to him. D’ye hear?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the servant, who had paused a few moments to examine the individual who gave this odd kind of address.

In another minute word was brought to him that Sir Francis Varney would be very happy to see Admiral Bell.

“Ay, ay,” he muttered; “just as the devil likes to meet with holy water, or as I like any water save salt water.”

He was speedily introduced to Sir Francis Varney, who was seated in the same posture as he had been left by Henry Bannerworth not many minutes before.

“Admiral Bell,” said Sir Francis, rising, and bowing to that individual in the most polite, calm, and dignified manner imaginable, “permit me to express the honour I feel at this unexpected visit.”

“None of your gammon.”

“Will you be seated. Allow me to offer you such refreshments as this poor house affords.”

“D—n all this! You know, Sir Francis, I don’t want none o’ this palaver. It’s for all the world like a Frenchman, when you are going to give him a broadside; he makes grimaces, throws dust in your eyes, and tries to stab you in the back. Oh, no! none of that for me.”

“I should say not, Admiral Bell. I should not like it myself, and I dare say you are a man of too much experience not to perceive when you are or are not imposed upon.”

“Well, what is that to you? D—n me, I didn’t come here to talk to you about myself.”

“Then may I presume upon your courtesy so far as to beg that you will enlighten me upon the object of your visit!”

“Yes; in pretty quick time. Just tell me where you have stowed away my nephew, Charles Holland?”

“Really, I——”

“Hold your slack, will you, and hear me out; if he’s living, let him out, and I’ll say no more about it; that’s liberal, you know; it ain’t terms everybody would offer you.”

“I must, in truth, admit they are not; and, moreover, they quite surprise even me, and I have learned not to be surprised at almost anything.”

“Well, will you give him up alive? but, hark ye, you mustn’t have made very queer fish of him, do ye see?”

“I hear you,” said Sir Francis, with a bland smile, passing one hand gently over the other, and showing his front teeth in a peculiar manner; “but I really cannot comprehend all this; but I may say, generally, that Mr. Holland is no acquaintance of mine, and I have no sort of knowledge where he may be.”

“That won’t do for me,” said the admiral, positively, shaking his head.

“I am particularly sorry, Admiral Bell, that it will not, seeing that I have nothing else to say.”

“I see how it is; you’ve put him out of the way, and I’m d—d if you shan’t bring him to life, whole and sound, or I’ll know the reason why.”

“With that I have already furnished you, Admiral Bell,” quietly rejoined Varney; “anything more on that head is out of my power, though my willingness to oblige a person of such consideration as yourself, is very great; but, permit me to add, this is a very strange and odd communication from one gentleman to another. You have lost a relative, who has, very probably, taken some offence, or some notion into his head, of which nobody but himself knows anything, and you come to one yet more unlikely to know anything of him, than even yourself.”

“Gammon again, now, Sir Francis Varney, or Blarney.”

“Varney, if you please, Admiral Bell; I was christened Varney.”

“Christened, eh?”

“Yes, christened—were you not christened? If not, I dare say you understand the ceremony well enough.”

“I should think I did; but, as for christening, a——”

“Go on, sir.”

“A vampyre! why I should as soon think of reading the burial service of a pig.”

“Very possible; but what has all this to do with your visit to me?”

“This much, you lubber. Now, d—n my carcass from head to stern, if I don’t call you out.”

“Well, Admiral Bell,” said Varney, mildly, “in that case, I suppose I must come out; but why do you insist that I have any knowledge of your nephew, Mr. Charles Holland?”

“You were to have fought a duel with him, and now he’s gone.”

“I am here,” said Varney.

“Ay,” said the admiral, “that’s as plain as a purser’s shirt upon a handspike; but that’s the very reason why my nevey ain’t here, and that’s all about it.”

“And that’s marvellous little, so far as the sense is concerned,” said Varney, without the movement of a muscle.

“It is said that people of your class don’t like fighting mortal men; now you have disposed of him, lest he should dispose of you.”

“That is explicit, but it is to no purpose, since the gentleman in question hasn’t placed himself at my disposal.”

“Then, d——e, I will; fish, flesh, or fowl, I don’t care; all’s one to Admiral Bell. Come fair or fowl, I’m a tar for all men; a seaman ever ready to face a foe, so here goes, you lubberly moon manufactured calf.”

“I hear, admiral, but it is scarcely civil, to say the least of it; however, as you are somewhat eccentric, and do not, I dare say, mean all your words imply, I am quite willing to make every allowance.”

“I don’t want any allowance; d—n you and your allowance, too; nothing but allowance of grog, and a pretty good allowance, too, will do for me, and I tell you, Sir Francis Varney,” said the admiral, with much wrath, “that you are a d—d lubberly hound, and I’ll fight you; yes, I’m ready to hammer away, or with anything from a pop-gun to a ship’s gun; you don’t come over me with your gammon, I tell you. You’ve murdered Charles Holland because you couldn’t face him—that’s the truth of it.”

“With the other part of your speech, Admiral Bell, allow me to say, you have mixed up a serious accusation—one I cannot permit to pass lightly.”

“Will you or not fight?”

“Oh, yes; I shall be happy to serve you any way that I can. I hope this will be an answer to your accusation, also.”

“That’s settled, then.”

“Why, I am not captious, Admiral Bell, but it is not generally usual for the principals to settle the preliminaries themselves; doubtless you, in your career of fame and glory, know something of the manner in which gentlemen demean themselves on these occasions.”

“Oh, d—n you! Yes, I’ll send some one to do all this. Yes, yes, Jack Pringle will be the man, though Jack ain’t a holiday, shore-going, smooth-spoken swab, but as good a seaman as ever trod deck or handled a boarding-pike.”

“Any friend of yours,” said Varney, blandly, “will be received and treated as such upon an errand of such consequence; and now our conference has, I presume, concluded.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve done—d—e, no—yes—no. I will keel haul you but I’ll know something of my neavy, Charles Holland.”

“Good day, Admiral Bell.” As Varney spoke, he placed his hand upon the bell which he had near him, to summon an attendant to conduct the admiral out. The latter, who had said a vast deal more than he ever intended, left the room in a great rage, protesting to himself that he would amply avenge his nephew, Charles Holland.

He proceeded homeward, considerably vexed and annoyed that he had been treated with so much calmness, and all knowledge of his nephew denied.

When he got back, he quarrelled heartily with Jack Pringle—made it up—drank grog—quarrelled—made it up, and finished with grog again—until he went to bed swearing he should like to fire a broadside at the whole of the French army, and annihilate it at once.

With this wish, he fell asleep.

Early next morning, Henry Bannerworth sought Mr. Chillingworth, and having found him, he said in a serious tone,—

“Mr. Chillingworth, I have rather a serious favour to ask you, and one which you may hesitate in granting.”

“It must be very serious indeed,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “that I should hesitate to grant it to you; but pray inform me what it is that you deem so serious?”

“Sir Francis Varney and I must have a meeting,” said Henry.

“Have you really determined upon such a course?” said Mr. Chillingworth; “you know the character of your adversary?”

“That is all settled,—I have given a challenge, and he has accepted it; so all other considerations verge themselves into one—and that is the when, where, and how.”

“I see,” said Mr. Chillingworth. “Well, since it cannot be helped on your part, I will do what is requisite for you—do you wish anything to be done or insisted on in particular in this affair.”

“Nothing with regard to Sir Francis Varney that I may not leave to your discretion. I feel convinced that he is the assassin of Charles Holland, whom he feared to fight in duel.”

“Then there remains but little else to do, but to arrange preliminaries, I believe. Are you prepared on every other point?”

“I am—you will see that I am the challenger, and that he must now fight. What accident may turn up to save him, I fear not, but sure I am, that he will endeavour to take every advantage that may arise, and so escape the encounter.”

“And what do you imagine he will do now he has accepted your challenge?” said Mr. Chillingworth; “one would imagine he could not very well escape.”

“No—but he accepted the challenge which Charles Holland sent him—a duel was inevitable, and it seems to me to be a necessary consequence that he disappeared from amongst us, for Mr. Holland would never have shrunk from the encounter.”

“There can be no sort of suspicion about that,” remarked Chillingworth; “but allow me to advise you that you take care of yourself, and keep a watchful eye upon every one—do not be seen out alone.”

“I fear not.”

“Nay, the gentleman who has disappeared was, I am sure, fearless enough; but yet that has not saved him. I would not advise you to be fearful, only watchful; you have now an event awaiting upon you, which it is well you should go through with, unless circumstances should so turn out, that it is needless; therefore I say, when you have the suspicions you do entertain of this man’s conduct, beware, be cautious, and vigilant.”

“I will do so—in the mean time, I trust myself confidently in your hands—you know all that is necessary.”

“This affair is quite a secret from all of the family?”

“Most certainly so, and will remain so—I shall be at the Hall.”

“And there I will see you—but be careful not to be drawn into any adventure of any kind—it is best to be on the safe side under all circumstances.”

“I will be especially careful, be assured, but farewell; see Sir Francis Varney as early as you can, and let the meeting be as early as you can, and thus diminish the chance of accident.”

“That I will attend to. Farewell for the present.”

Mr. Chillingworth immediately set about the conducting of the affair thus confided to him; and that no time might be lost, he determined to set out at once for Sir Francis Varney’s residence.

“Things with regard to this family seem to have gone on wild of late,” thought Mr. Chillingworth; “this may bring affairs to a conclusion, though I had much rather they had come to some other. My life for it, there is a juggle or a mystery somewhere; I will do this, and then we shall see what will come of it; if this Sir Francis Varney meets him—and at this moment I can see no reason why he should not do so—it will tend much to deprive him of the mystery about him; but if, on the other hand, he refuse—but then that’s all improbable, because he has agreed to do so. I fear, however, that such a man as Varney is a dreadful enemy to encounter—he is cool and unruffled—and that gives him all the advantage in such affairs; but Henry’s nerves are not bad, though shaken by these untowards events; but time will show—I would it were all over.”

With these thoughts and feelings strangely intermixed, Mr. Chillingworth set forward for Sir Francis Varney’s house.

• • • • •

Admiral Bell slept soundly enough, though, towards morning, he fell into a strange dream, and thought he was yard arm and yard arm with a strange fish—something of the mermaid species.

“Well,” exclaimed the admiral, after a customary benediction, of his eyes and limbs, “what’s to come next? may I be spliced to a shark if I understand what this is all about. I had some grog last night, but then grog, d’y’see, is—is—a seaman’s native element, as the newspapers say, though I never read ’em now, it’s such a plague.”

He lay quiet for a short time, considering in his own mind what was best to be done, and what was the proper course to pursue, and why he should dream.

“Hilloa, hilloa, hil—loa! Jack a-hoy! a-hoy!” shouted the admiral, as a sudden recollection of his challenge came across his memory; “Jack Pringle a-hoy? d—n you, where are you?—you’re never at hand when you are wanted. Oh, you lubber,—a-hoy!”

“A-hoy!” shouted a voice, as the door opened, and Jack thrust his head in; “what cheer, messmate? what ship is this?”

“Oh, you lubberly——”

The door was shut in a minute, and Jack Pringle disappeared.

“Hilloa, Jack Pringle, you don’t mean to say you’ll desert your colours, do you, you dumb dog?”

“Who says I’ll desert the ship as she’s sea-worthy!”

“Then why do you go away?”

“Because I won’t be called lubberly. I’m as good a man as ever swabbed a deck, and don’t care who says to the contrary. I’ll stick to the ship as long as she’s sea-worthy,” said Jack.

“Well, come here, and just listen to the log, and be d——d to you.”

“What’s the orders now, admiral?” said Jack, “though, as we are paid off——”

“There, take that, will you?” said Admiral Bell, as he flung a pillow at Jack, being the only thing in the shape of a missile within reach.

Jack ducked, and the pillow produced a clatter in the washhand-stand among the crockery, as Jack said,—

“There’s a mutiny in the ship, and hark how the cargo clatters; will you have it back again?”

“Come, will you? I’ve been dreaming, Jack.”

“Dreaming! what’s that?”

“Thinking of something when you are asleep, you swab.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Jack; “never did such a thing in my life—ha, ha, ha! what’s the matter now?”

“I’ll tell you what’s the matter. Jack Pringle, you are becoming mutinous, and I won’t have it; if you don’t hold your jaw and draw in your slacks, I’ll have another second.”

“Another second! what’s in the wind, now?” said Jack. “Is this the dream?”

“If ever I dream when I’m alongside a strange craft, then it is a dream; but old Admiral Bell ain’t the man to sleep when there’s any work to be done.”

“That’s uncommon true,” said Jack, turning a quid.

“Well, then, I’m going to fight.”

“Fight!” exclaimed Jack. “Avast, there, I don’t see where’s the enemy—none o’ that gammon; Jack Pringle can fight, too, and will lay alongside his admiral, but he don’t see the enemy anywhere.”

“You don’t understand these things, so I’ll tell you. I have had a bit of talk with Sir Francis Varney, and I am going to fight him.”

“What the wamphigher?” remarked Jack, parenthetically.

“Yes.”

“Well, then,” resumed Jack, “then we shall see another blaze, at least afore we die; but he’s an odd fish—one of Davy Jones’s sort.”

“I don’t care about that; he may be anything he likes; but Admiral Bell ain’t a-going to have his nephew burned and eaten, and sucked like I don’t know what, by a vampyre, or by any other confounded land-shark.”

“In course,” said Jack, “we ain’t a-going to put up with nothing of that sort, and if so be as how he has put him out of the way, why it’s our duty to send him after him, and square the board.”

“That’s the thing, Jack; now you know you must go to Sir Francis Varney and tell him you come from me.”

“I don’t care if I goes on my own account,” said Jack.

“That won’t do; I’ve challenged him and I must fight him.”

“In course you will,” returned Jack, “and, if he blows you away, why I’ll take your place, and have a blaze myself.”

The admiral gave a look at Jack of great admiration, and then said,—

“You are a d—d good seaman, Jack, but he’s a knight, and might say no to that, but do you go to him, and tell him that you come from me to settle the when and the where this duel is to be fought.”

“Single fight?” said Jack.

“Yes; consent to any thing that is fair,” said the admiral, “but let it be as soon as you can. Now, do you understand what I have said?”

“Yes, to be sure; I ain’t lived all these years without knowing your lingo.”

“Then go at once; and don’t let the honour of Admiral Bell and old England suffer, Jack. I’m his man, you know, at any price.”

“Never fear,” said Jack; “you shall fight him, at any rate. I’ll go and see he don’t back out, the warmint.”

“Then go along, Jack; and mind don’t you go blazing away like a fire ship, and letting everybody know what’s going on, or it’ll be stopped.”

“I’ll not spoil sport,” said Jack, as he left the room, to go at once to Sir Francis Varney, charged with the conducting of the important cartel of the admiral. Jack made the best of his way with becoming gravity and expedition until he reached the gate of the admiral’s enemy.

Jack rang loudly at the gate; there seemed, if one might judge by his countenance, a something on his mind, that Jack was almost another man. The gate was opened by the servant, who inquired what he wanted there.

“The wamphigher.”

“Who?”

“The wamphigher.”

The servant frowned, and was about to say something uncivil to Jack, who winked at him very hard, and then said,—

“Oh, may be you don’t know him, or won’t know him by that name; I wants to see Sir Francis Varney.”

“He’s at home,” said the servant; “who are you?”

“Show me up, then. I’m Jack Pringle, and I’m come from Admiral Bell; I’m the admiral’s friend, you see, so none of your black looks.”

The servant seemed amazed, as well as rather daunted, at Jack’s address; he showed him, however, into the hall, where Mr. Chillingworth had just that moment arrived, and was waiting for an interview with Varney.

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Chapter XXXVIII

MARCHDALE’S OFFER.—THE CONSULTATION AT BANNERWORTH HALL.—THE MORNING OF THE DUEL.

Mr. Chillingworth was much annoyed to see Jack Pringle in the hall, and Jack was somewhat surprised at seeing Mr. Chillingworth there at that time in the rooming; they had but little time to indulge in their mutual astonishment, for a servant came to announce that Sir Francis Varney would see them both.

Without saying anything to the servant or each other, they ascended the staircase, and were shown into the apartment where Sir Francis Varney received them.

“Gentlemen,” said Sir Francis, in his usual bland tone, “you are welcome.”

“Sir Francis,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “I have come upon matters of some importance; may I crave a separate audience?”

“And I too,” said Jack Pringle; “I come as the friend of Admiral Bell, I want a private audience; but, stay, I don’t care a rope’s end who knows who I am, or what I come about; say you are ready to name time and place, and I’m as dumb as a figure-head; that is saying something, at all events; and now I’m done.”

“Why, gentlemen,” said Sir Francis, with a quiet smile, “as you have both come upon the same errand, and as there may arise a controversy upon the point of precedence, you had better be both present, as I must arrange this matter myself upon due inquiry.”

“I do not exactly understand this,” said Mr. Chillingworth; “do you, Mr. Pringle? perhaps you can enlighten me?”

“If,” said Jack, “as how you came here upon the same errand as I, and I as you, why we both come about fighting Sir Francis Varney.”

“Yes,” said Sir Francis; “what Mr. Pringle says, is, I believe correct to a letter. I have a challenge from both your principals, and am ready to give you both the satisfaction you desire, provided the first encounter will permit me the honour of joining in the second. You, Mr. Pringle, are aware of the chances of war?”

“I should say so,” said Jack, with a wink and a nod of a familiar character. “I’ve seen a few of them.”

“Will you proceed to make the necessary agreement between you both, gentlemen? My affection for the one equals fully the good will I bear the other, and I cannot give a preference in so delicate a matter; proceed gentlemen.”

Mr. Chillingworth looked at Jack, and Jack Pringle looked at Mr. Chillingworth, and then the former said,—

“Well, the admiral means fighting, and I am come to settle the necessaries; pray let me know what are your terms, Mr. What-d’ye-call’em.”

“I am agreeable to anything that is at all reasonable—pistols, I presume?”

“Sir Francis Varney,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “I cannot consent to carry on this office, unless you can appoint a friend who will settle these matters with us—myself, at least.”

“And I too,” said Jack Pringle; “we don’t want to bear down an enemy. Admiral Bell ain’t the man to do that, and if he were, I’m not the man to back him in doing what isn’t fair or right; but he won’t do it.”

“But, gentlemen, this must not be; Mr. Henry Bannerworth must not be disappointed, and Admiral Bell must not be disappointed. Moreover, I have accepted the two cartels, and I am ready and willing to fight;—one at a time, I presume?”

“Sir Francis, after what you have said, I must take upon myself, on the part of Mr. Henry Bannerworth, to decline meeting you, if you cannot name a friend with whom I can arrange this affair.”

“Ah!” said Jack Pringle, “that’s right enough. I recollect very well when Jack Mizen fought Tom Foremast, they had their seconds. Admiral Bell can’t do anything in the dark. No, no, d—e! all must be above board.”

“Gentlemen,” said Sir Francis Varney, “you see the dilemma I am in. Your principals have both challenged me. I am ready to fight any one, or both of them, as the case may be. Distinctly understand that; because it is a notion of theirs that I will not do so, or that I shrink from them; but I am a stranger in this neighbourhood, and have no one whom I could call upon to relinquish so much, as they run the risk of doing by attending me to the field.”

“Then your acquaintances are no friends, d—e!” said Jack Pringle, spitting through his teeth into the bars of a beautifully polished grate. “I’d stick to anybody—the devil himself, leave alone a vampyre—if so be as how I had been his friends and drunk grog from the same can. They are a set of lubbers.”

“I have not been here long enough to form any such friendships, Mr. Chillingworth; but can confidently rely upon your honour and that of your principal, and will freely and fairly meet him.”

“But, Sir Francis, you forget the fact, in transacting, myself for Mr. Bannerworth, and this person for Admiral Bell, we do much, and have our own characters at stake; nay more, our lives and fortunes. These may be small; but they are everything to us. Allow me to say, on my own behalf, that I will not permit my principal to meet you unless you can name a second, as is usual with gentlemen on such occasions.”

“I regret, while I declare to you my entire willingness to meet you, that I cannot comply through utter inability to do so, with your request. Let this go forth to the world as I have stated it, and let it be an answer to any aspersions that may be uttered as to my unwillingness to fight.”

There was a pause of some moments. Mr. Chillingworth was resolved that, come of it what would, he would not permit Henry to fight, unless Sir Francis Varney himself should appoint a friend, and then they could meet upon equal terms.

Jack Pringle whistled, and spit, and chewed and turned his quid—hitched up his trousers, and looked wistfully from one to the other, as he said,—

“So then it’s likely to be no fight at all, Sir Francis what’s-o’-name?”

“It seems like it, Mr. Pringle,” replied Varney, with a meaning smile; “unless you can be more complaisant towards myself, and kind towards the admiral.”

“Why, not exactly that,” said Jack; “it’s a pity to stop a good play in the beginning, just because some little thing is wrong in the tackling.”

“Perhaps your skill and genius may enable us to find some medium course that we may pursue with pleasure and profit. What say you, Mr. Pringle?”

“All I know about genius, as you call it is the Flying Dutchman, or some such odd out o’ the way fish. But, as I said, I am not one to spoil sport, nor more is the admiral. Oh, no, we is all true men and good.”

“I believe it,” said Varney, bowing politely.

“You needn’t keep your figure-head on the move; I can see you just as well. Howsoever, as I was saying, I don’t like to spoil sport, and sooner than both parties should be disappointed, my principal shall become your second, Sir Francis.”

“What, Admiral Bell!” exclaimed Varney, lifting his eyebrows with surprise.

“What, Charles Holland’s uncle!” exclaimed Mr. Chillingworth, in accents of amazement.

“And why not?” said Jack, with great gravity. “I will pledge my word—Jack Pringle’s word—that Admiral Bell shall be second to Sir Francis Varney, during his scrimmage with Mr. Henry Bannerworth. That will let the matter go on; there can be no back-out then, eh?” continued Jack Pringle, with a knowing nod at Chillingworth as he spoke.

“That will, I hope, remove your scruples, Mr. Chillingworth,” said Varney, with a courteous smile.

“But will Admiral Bell do this?”

“His second says so, and has, I daresay, influence enough with him to induce that person to act in conformity with his promise.”

“In course he will. Do you think he would be the man to hang back? Oh, no; he would be the last to leave Jack Pringle in the lurch—no. Depend upon it, Sir Francis, he’ll be as sure to do what I say, as I have said it.”

“After that assurance, I cannot doubt it,” said Sir Francis Varney; “this act of kindness will, indeed, lay me under a deep and lasting obligation to Admiral Bell, which I fear I shall never be able to pay.”

“You need not trouble yourself about that,” said Jack Pringle; “the admiral will credit all, and you can pay off old scores when his turn comes in the field.”

“I will not forget,” said Varney; “he deserves every consideration; but now, Mr. Chillingworth, I presume that we may come to some understanding respecting this meeting, which you were so kind as to do me the honour of seeking.”

“I cannot object to its taking place. I shall be most happy to meet your second in the field, and will arrange with him.”

“I imagine that, under the circumstances, that it will be barely necessary to go to that length of ceremony. Future interviews can be arranged later; name the time and place, and after that we can settle all the rest on the ground.”

“Yes,” said Jack; “it will be time enough, surely, to see the admiral when we are upon the ground. I’ll warrant the old buffer is a true brick as ever was; there’s no flinching about him.”

“I am satisfied,” said Varney.

“And I also,” said Chillingworth; “but, understand, Sir Francis, any default for seconds makes the meeting a blank.”

“I will not doubt Mr. Pringle’s honour so much as to believe it possible.”

“I’m d—d,” said Jack, “if you ain’t a trump-card, and no mistake; it’s a great pity as you is a wamphigher.”

“The time, Mr. Chillingworth?”

“To-morrow, at seven o’clock,” replied that gentleman.

“The place, sir?”

“The best place that I can think of is a level meadow half-way between here and Bannerworth Hall; but that is your privilege, Sir Francis Varney.”

“I waive it, and am much obliged to you for the choice of the spot; it seems of the best character imaginable. I will be punctual.”

“I think we have nothing further to arrange now,” said Mr. Chillingworth. “You will meet with Admiral Bell.”

“Certainly. I believe there is nothing more to be done; this affair is very satisfactorily arranged, and much better than I anticipated.”

“Good morning, Sir Francis,” said Mr. Chillingworth. “Good morning.”

“Adieu,” said Sir Francis, with a courteous salutation. “Good day, Mr. Pringle, and commend me to the admiral, whose services will be of infinite value to me.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Jack; “the admiral’s the man as’d lend any body a helping hand in case of distress like the present; and I’ll pledge my word—Jack Pringle’s too, as that he’ll do what’s right, and give up his turn to Mr. Henry Bannerworth; cause you see he can have his turn arterwards, you know—it’s only waiting awhile.”

“That’s all,” said Sir Francis.

Jack Pringle made a sea bow and took his leave, as he followed Mr. Chillingworth, and they both left the house together, to return to Bannerworth Hall.

“Well,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “I am glad that Sir Francis Varney has got over the difficulty of having no seconds; for it would not be proper or safe to meet a man without a friend for him.”

“It ain’t the right thing,” said Jack hitching up his trousers; “but I was afeard as how he would back out, and that would be just the wrong thing for the admiral; he’d go raving mad.”

They had got but very few paces from Sir Francis Varney’s house, when they were joined by Marchdale.

“Ah,” he said, as he came up, “I see you have been to Sir Francis Varney’s, if I may judge from the direction whence you’re coming, and your proximity.”

“Yes, we have,” said Mr. Chillingworth. “I thought you had left these parts?”

“I had intended to do so,” replied Marchdale; “but second thoughts are sometimes best, you know.”

“Certainly.”

“I have so much friendship for the family at the hall, that notwithstanding I am compelled to be absent from the mansion itself, yet I cannot quit the neighbourhood while there are circumstances of such a character hanging about them. I will remain, and see if there be not something arising, in which I may be useful to them in some matter.”

“It is very disinterested of you; you will remain here for some time, I suppose?”

“Yes, undoubtedly; unless, as I do not anticipate, I should see any occasion to quit my present quarters.”

“I tell you what it is,” said Jack Pringle; “if you had been here half-an-hour earlier you could have seconded the wamphigher.”

“Seconded!”

“Yes, we’re here to challenge.”

“A double challenge?”

“Yes; but in confiding this matter to you, Mr. Marchdale, you will make no use of it to the exploding of this affair. By so doing you will seriously damage the honour of Mr. Henry Bannerworth.”

“I will not, you may rely upon it; but Mr. Chillingworth, do I not see you in the character of a second?”

“You do, sir.”

“To Mr. Henry?”

“The same, sir.”

“Have you reflected upon the probable consequences of such an act, should any serious mischief occur?”

“What I have undertaken, Mr. Marchdale, I will go through with; the consequences I have duly considered, and yet you see me in the character of Mr. Henry Bannerworth’s friend.”

“I am happy to see you as such, and I do not think Henry could find a worthier. But this is beside the question. What induced me to make the remark was this,—had I been at the hall, you will admit that Henry Bannerworth would have chosen myself, without any disparagement to you, Mr. Chillingworth.”

“Well sir, what then?”

“Why I am a single man, I can live, reside and go any where; one country will suit me as well as another. I shall suffer no loss, but as for you, you will be ruined in every particular; for if you go in the character of a second, you will not be excused; for all the penalties incurred your profession of a surgeon will not excuse you.”

“I see all that, sir.”

“What I propose is, that you should accompany the parties to the field, but in your own proper character of surgeon, and permit me to take that of second to Mr. Bannerworth.”

“This cannot be done, unless by Mr. Henry Bannerworth’s consent,” said Mr. Chillingworth.

“Then I will accompany you to Bannerworth Hall, and see Mr. Henry, whom I will request to permit me to do what I have mentioned to you.”

Mr. Chillingworth could not but admit the reasonableness of this proposal, and it was agreed they should return to Bannerworth Hall in company.

Here they arrived in a very short time after, and entered together.

“And now,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “I will go and bring our two principals, who will be as much astonished to find themselves engaged in the same quarrel, as I was to find myself sent on a similar errand to Sir Francis with our friend Mr. John Pringle.”

“Oh, not John—Jack Pringle, you mean,” said that individual.

Chillingworth now went in search of Henry, and sent him to the apartment where Mr. Marchdale was with Jack Pringle, and then he found the admiral waiting the return of Jack with impatience.

“Admiral!” he said, “I perceive you are unwell this morning.”

“Unwell be d—d,” said the admiral, starting up with surprise. “Who ever heard that old Admiral Bell looked ill just afore he was going into action? I say it’s a scandalous lie.”

“Admiral, admiral, I didn’t say you were ill; only you looked ill—a—a little nervous, or so. Rather pale, eh? Is it not so?”

“Confound you, do you think I want to be physicked? I tell you, I have not a little but a great inclination to give you a good keelhauling. I don’t want a doctor just yet.”

“But it may not be so long, you know, admiral; but there is Jack Pringle a-waiting you below. Will you go to him? There is a particular reason; he has something to communicate from Sir Francis Varney, I believe.”

The admiral gave a look of some amazement at Mr. Chillingworth, and then he said, muttering to himself,—

“If Jack Pringle should have betrayed me—but, no; he could not do that, he is too true. I’m sure of Jack; and how did that son of a gallipot hint about the odd fish I sent Jack to?”

Filled with a dubious kind of belief which he had about something he had heard of Jack Pringle, he entered the room, where he met Marchdale, Jack Pringle, and Henry Bannerworth. Immediately afterwards, Mr. Chillingworth entered the apartment.

“I have,” said he, “been to Sir Francis Varney, and there had an interview with him, and with Mr. Pringle; when I found we were both intent upon the same object, namely, an encounter with the knight by our principals.”

“Eh?” said the admiral.

“What!” exclaimed Henry; “had he challenged you, admiral?”

“Challenged me!” exclaimed Admiral Bell, with a round oath. “I—however—since it comes to this, I must admit I challenged him.”

“That’s what I did,” said Henry Bannerworth, after a moment’s thought; “and I perceive we have both fallen into the same line of conduct.”

“That is the fact,” said Mr. Chillingworth. “Both Mr. Pringle and I went there to settle the preliminaries, and we found an insurmountable bar to any meeting taking place at all.”

“He wouldn’t fight, then?” exclaimed Henry. “I see it all now.”

“Not fight!” said Admiral Bell, with a sort of melancholy disappointment. “D—n the cowardly rascal! Tell me, Jack Pringle, what did the long horse-marine-looking slab say to it? He told me he would fight. Why he ought to be made to stand sentry over the wind.”

“You challenged him in person, too, I suppose?” said Henry.

“Yes, confound him! I went there last night.”

“And I too.”

“It seems to me,” said Marchdale, “that this affair has been not indiscretely conducted; but somewhat unusually and strangely, to say the least of it.”

“You see,” said Chillingworth, “Sir Francis was willing to fight both Henry and the admiral, as he told us.”

“Yes,” said Jack; “he told us he would fight us both, if so be as his light was not doused in the first brush.”

“That was all that was wanted,” said the admiral.

“We could expect no more.”

“But then he desired to meet you without any second; but, of course, I would not accede to this proposal. The responsibility was too great and too unequally borne by the parties engaged in the rencontre.”

“Decidedly,” said Henry; “but it is unfortunate—very unfortunate.”

“Very,” said the admiral—“very. What a rascally thing it is there ain’t another rogue in the country to keep him in countenance.”

“I thought it was a pity to spoil sport,” said Jack Pringle. “It was a pity a good intention should be spoiled, and I promised the wamphigher that if as how he would fight, you should second him, and you’d meet him to do so.”

“Eh! who? I!” exclaimed the admiral in some perplexity.

“Yes; that is the truth,” said Mr. Chillingworth. “Mr. Pringle said you would do so, and he then and there pledged his word that you should meet him on the ground and second him.”

“Yes,” said Jack “You must do it. I knew you would not spoil sport, and that there had better be a fight than no fight. I believe you’d sooner see a scrimmage than none, and so it’s all arranged.”

“Very well,” said the admiral, “I only wish Mr. Henry Bannerworth had been his second; I think I was entitled to the first meeting.”

“No,” said Jack, “you warn’t, for Mr. Chillingworth was there first; first come first served, you know.”

“Well, well, I mustn’t grumble at another man’s luck; mine’ll come in turn; but it had better be so than a disappointment altogether; I’ll be second to this Sir Francis Varney; he shall have fair play, as I’m an admiral; but, d—e he shall fight—yes, yes, he shall fight.”

“And to this conclusion I would come,” said Henry, “I wish him to fight; now I will take care that he shall not have any opportunity of putting me on one side quietly.”

“There is one thing,” observed Marchdale, “that I wished to propose. After what has passed, I should not have returned, had I not some presentiment that something was going forward in which I could be useful to my friend.”

“Oh!” said the admiral, with a huge twist of his countenance.

“What I was about to say was this,—Mr. Chillingworth has much to lose as he is situated, and I nothing as I am placed. I am chained down to no spot of earth. I am above following a profession—my means, I mean, place me above the necessity. Now, Henry, allow me to be your second in this affair; allow Mr. Chillingworth to attend in his professional capacity; he may be of service—of great service to one of the principals; whereas, if he go in any other capacity, he will inevitably have his own safety to consult.”

“That is most unquestionably true,” said Henry, “and, to my mind, the best plan that can be proposed. What say you, Admiral Bell, will you act with Mr. Marchdale in this affair?”

“Oh, I!—Yes—certainly—I don’t care. Mr. Marchdale is Mr. Marchdale, I believe, and that’s all I care about. If we quarrel to-day, and have anything to do to-morrow, in course, to-morrow I can put off my quarrel for next day; it will keep,—that’s all I have to say at present.”

“Then this is a final arrangement?” said Mr. Chillingworth.

“It is.”

“But, Mr. Bannerworth, in resigning my character of second to Mr. Marchdale, I only do so because it appears and seems to be the opinion of all present that I can be much better employed in another capacity.”

“Certainly, Mr. Chillingworth; and I cannot but feel that I am under the same obligations to you for the readiness and zeal with which you have acted.”

“I have done what I have done,” said Chillingworth, “because I believed it was my duty to do so.”

“Mr. Chillingworth has undoubtedly acted most friendly and efficiently in this affair,” said Marchdale; “and he does not relinquish the part for the purpose of escaping a friendly deed, but to perform one in which he may act in a capacity that no one else can.”

“That is true,” said the admiral.

“And now,” said Chillingworth, “you are to meet to-morrow morning in the meadow at the bottom of the valley, half way between here and Sir Francis Varney’s house, at seven o’clock in the morning.”

More conversation passed among them, and it was agreed that they should meet early the next morning, and that, of course, the affair should be kept a secret.

Marchdale for that night should remain in the house, and the admiral should appear as if little or nothing was the matter; and he and Jack Pringle retired, to talk over in private all the arrangements.

Henry Bannerworth and Marchdale also retired, and Mr. Chillingworth, after a time, retired, promising to be with them in time for the meeting next morning.

Much of that day was spent by Henry Bannerworth in his own apartment, in writing documents and letters of one kind and another; but at night he had not finished, for he had been compelled to be about, and in Flora’s presence, to prevent anything from being suspected.

Marchdale was much with him, and in secret examined the arms, ammunition, and bullets, and saw all was right for the next morning; and when he had done, he said,—

“Now, Henry, you must permit me to insist that you take some hours’ repose, else you will scarcely be as you ought to be.”

“Very good,” said Henry. “I have just finished, and can take your advice.”

After many thoughts and reflections, Henry Bannerworth fell into a deep sleep, and slept several hours in calmness and quietude, and at an early hour he awoke, and saw Marchdale sitting by him.

“Is it time, Marchdale? I have not overslept myself, have I?”

“No; time enough—time enough,” said Marchdale. “I should have let you sleep longer, but I should have awakened you in good time.”

It was now the grey light of morning, and Henry arose and began to prepare for the encounter. Marchdale stole to Admiral Bell’s chamber, but he and Jack Pringle were ready.

Few words were spoken, and those few were in a whisper, and the whole party left the Hall in as noiseless a manner as possible. It was a mild morning, and yet it was cold at that time of the morning, just as day is beginning to dawn in the east. There was, however, ample time to reach the rendezvous.

It was a curious party that which was now proceeding towards the spot appointed for the duel, the result of which might have so important an effect on the interests of those who were to be engaged in it.

It would be difficult for us to analyse the different and conflicting emotions that filled the breasts of the various individuals composing that party—the hopes and fears—the doubts and surmises that were given utterance to; though we are compelled to acknowledge that though to Henry, the character of the man he was going to meet in mortal fight was of a most ambiguous and undefined nature, and though no one could imagine the means he might be endowed with for protection against the arms of man—Henry, as we said, strode firmly forward with unflinching resolution. His heart was set on recovering the happiness of his sister, and he would not falter.

So far, then, we may consider that at length proceedings of a hostile character were so far clearly and fairly arranged between Henry Bannerworth and that most mysterious being who certainly, from some cause or another, had betrayed no inclination to meet an opponent in that manner which is sanctioned, bad as it is, by the usages of society.

But whether his motive was one of cowardice or mercy, remained yet to be seen. It might be that he feared himself receiving some mortal injury, which would at once put a stop to that preternatural career of existence which he affected to shudder at, and yet evidently took considerable pains to prolong.

Upon the other hand, it is just possible that some consciousness of invulnerability on his own part, or of great power to injure his antagonist, might be the cause why he had held back so long from fighting the duel, and placed so many obstacles in the way of the usual necessary arrangements incidental to such occasions.

Now, however, there would seem to be no possible means of escape. Sir Francis Varney must fight or fly, for he was surrounded by too many opponents.

To be sure he might have appealed to the civil authorities to protect him, and to sanction him in his refusal to commit what undoubtedly is a legal offence; but then there cannot be a question that the whole of the circumstances would come out, and meet the public eye—the result of which would be, his acquisition of a reputation as unenviable as it would be universal.

It had so happened, that the peculiar position of the Bannerworth family kept their acquaintance within extremely narrow limits, and greatly indisposed them to set themselves up as marks for peculiar observation.

Once holding, as they had, a proud position in the county, and being looked upon quite as magnates of the land, they did not now court the prying eye of curiosity to look upon their poverty; but rather with a gloomy melancholy they lived apart, and repelled the advances of society by a cold reserve, which few could break through.

Had this family suffered in any noble cause, or had the misfortunes which had come over them, and robbed their ancestral house of its lustre, been an unavoidable dispensation of providence, they would have borne the hard position with a different aspect; but it must be remembered, that to the faults, the vices, and the criminality of some of their race, was to be attributed their present depressed state.

It has been seen during the progress of our tale, that its action has been tolerably confined to Bannerworth Hall, its adjacent meadows, and the seat of Sir Francis Varney; the only person at any distance, knowing anything of the circumstances, or feeling any interest in them, being Mr. Chillingworth, the surgeon, who, from personal feeling, as well as from professional habit, was not likely to make a family’s affairs a subject of gossip.

A change, however, was at hand—a change of a most startling and alarming character to Varney—one which he might expect, yet not be well prepared for.

This period of serenity was to pass away, and he was to become most alarmingly popular. We will not, however, anticipate, but proceed at once to detail as briefly as may be the hostile meeting.

It would appear that Varney, now that he had once consented to the definitive arrangements of a duel, shrunk not in any way from carrying them out, nor in the slightest attempted to retard arrangements which might be fatal to himself.

The early morning was one of those cloudy ones so frequently occurring in our fickle climate, when the cleverest weather prophet would find it difficult to predict what the next hour might produce.

There was a kind of dim gloominess over all objects; and as there were no bright lights, there were no deep shadows—the consequence of which was a sureness of effect over the landscape, that robbed it of many of its usual beauties.

Such was the state of things when Marchdale accompanied Henry and Admiral Bell from Bannerworth Hall across the garden in the direction of the hilly wood, close to which was the spot intended for the scene of encounter.

Jack Pringle came on at a lazy pace behind with his hands in his pockets, and looking as unconcerned as if he had just come out for a morning’s stroll, and scarcely knew whether he saw what was going on or not.

The curious contortion into which he twisted his countenance, and the different odd-looking lumps that appeared in it from time to time, may be accounted for by a quid of unusual size, which he seemed to be masticating with a relish quite horrifying to one unused to so barbarous a luxury.

The admiral had strictly enjoined him not to interfere on pain of being considered a lubber and no seaman for the remainder of his existence—threatened penalties which, of course, had their own weight with Jack, and accordingly he came just to see the row in as quiet a way as possible, perhaps not without a hope, that something might turn up in the shape of a causus belli, that might justify him in adopting a threatening attitude towards somebody.

“Now, Master Henry,” said the admiral, “none of your palaver to me as we go along, recollect I don’t belong to your party, you know. I’ve stood friend to two or three fellows in my time; but if anybody had said to me, ‘Admiral Bell, the next time you go out on a quiet little shooting party, it will be as second to a vampyre,’ I’d have said ‘you’re a liar’ Howsomever, d—me, here you goes, and what I mean to say is this, Mr Henry, that I’d second even a Frenchman rather than he shouldn’t fight when he’s asked.”

“That’s liberal of you,” said Henry, “at all events.”

“I believe you it is,” said the admiral, “so mind if you don’t hit him, I’m not a-going to tell you how—all you’ve got to do is, to fire low; but that’s no business of mine. Shiver my timbers, I oughtn’t to tell you, but d—n you, hit him if you can.”

“Admiral,” said Henry, “I can hardly think you are even preserving a neutrality in the matter, putting aside my own partisanship as regards your own man.”

“Oh! hang him. I’m not going to let him creep out of the thing on such a shabby pretence, I can tell you. I rather think I ought to have gone to his house this morning; only, as I said I never would cross his threshold again, I won’t.”

“I wonder if he’ll come,” said Mr. Marchdale to Henry. “After all, you know he may take to flight, and shun an encounter which, it is evident, he has entered into but tardily.”

“I hope not,” said Henry, “and yet I must own that your supposition has several times crossed my mind. If, however, he do not meet me, he never can appear at all in the country, and we should, at least, be rid of him, and all his troublesome importunities concerning the Hall. I would not allow that man, on any account, to cross the threshold of my house, as its tenant or its owner.”

“Why, it ain’t usual,” said the admiral, “to let ones house to two people at once, unless you seem quite to forget that I’ve taken yours. I may as well remind you of it.”

“Hurra!” said Jack Pringle, at this moment.

“What’s the matter with you? Who told you to hurra?”

“Enemy in the offing,” said Jack, “three or four pints to the sou-west.”

“So he is, by Jove! dodging about among the trees. Come, now, this vampyre’s a decenter fellow than I thought him. He means, after all, to let us have a pop at him.”

They had now reached so close to the spot, that Sir Francis Varney, who, to all appearance, had been waiting, emerged from among the trees, rolled up in his dismal-looking cloak, and, if possible, looking longer and thinner than ever he had looked before.

His face wore a singular cadaverous-looking aspect. His very lips were white and there was a curious, pinkish-looking circle round each of his eyes, that imparted to his whole countenance a most uninviting appearance. He turned his eyes from one to the other of those who were advancing towards him, until he saw the admiral, upon which he gave such a grim and horrible smile, that the old man exclaimed,—

“I say, Jack, you lubber, there’s a face for a figure-head.”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Did you ever see such a d—d grin as that in your life, in any latitude?”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“You did you swab.”

“I should think so.”

“It’s a lie, and you know it.”

“Very good,” said Jack, “don’t you recollect when that ere iron bullet walked over your head, leaving a nice little nick, all the way off Bergen-ap-Zoom, that was the time—blessed if you didn’t give just such a grin as that.”

“I didn’t, you rascal.”

“And I say you did.”

“Mutiny, by God!”

“Go to blazes!”

How far this contention might have gone, having now reached its culminating point, had the admiral and Jack been alone, it is hard to say; but as it was, Henry and Marchdale interfered, and so the quarrel was patched up for the moment, in order to give place to more important affairs.

Varney seemed to think, that after the smiling welcome he had given to his second, he had done quite enough; for there he stood, tall, and gaunt, and motionless, if we may except an occasional singular movement of the mouth, and a clap together of his teeth, at times, which was enough to make anybody jump to hear.

“For Heaven’s sake,” said Marchdale, “do not let us trifle at such a moment as this. Mr. Pringle, you really had no business here.”

“Mr. who?” said Jack.

“Pringle, I believe, is your name?” returned Marchdale.

“It were; but blowed if ever I was called mister before.”

The admiral walked up to Sir Francis Varney, and gave him a nod that looked much more like one of defiance than of salutation, to which the vampyre replied by a low, courtly bow.

“Oh, bother!” muttered the old admiral. “If I was to double up my backbone like that, I should never get it down straight again. Well, all’s right; you’ve come; that’s all you could do, I suppose.”

“I am here,” said Varney, “and therefore it becomes a work of supererogation to remark that I’ve come.”

“Oh! does it? I never bolted a dictionary, and, therefore, I don’t know exactly what you mean.”

“Step aside with me a moment, Admiral Bell, and I will tell you what you are to do with me after I am shot, if such should be my fate.”

“Do with you! D—d if I’ll do anything with you.”

“I don’t expect you will regret me; you will eat.”

“Eat!”

“Yes, and drink as usual, no doubt, notwithstanding being witness to the decease of a fellow-creature.”

“Belay there; don’t call yourself a fellow-creature of mine; I ain’t a vampyre.”

“But there’s no knowing what you may be; and now listen to my instructions; for as you’re my second, you cannot very well refuse to me a few friendly offices. Rain is falling. Step beneath this ancient tree, and I will talk to you.”

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Chapter XXXIX

THE STORM AND THE FIGHT.-THE ADMIRAL’S REPUDIATION OF HIS PRINCIPAL.

“Well,” said the admiral, when they were fairly under the tree, upon the leaves of which the pattering rain might be heard falling: “well—what is it?”

“If your young friend, Mr. Bannerworth, should chance to send a pistol-bullet through any portion of my anatomy, prejudicial to the prolongation of my existence, you will be so good as not to interfere with anything I may have about me, or to make any disturbance whatever.”

“You may depend I sha’n’t.”

“Just take the matter perfectly easy—as a thing of course.”

“Oh! I mean d—d easy.”

“Ha! what a delightful thing is friendship! There is a little knoll or mound of earth midway between here and the Hall. Do you happen to know it? There is one solitary tree growing near its summit—an oriental looking tree, of the fir tribe, which, fan-like, spreads its deep green leaves; across the azure sky.”

“Oh! bother it; it’s a d—d old tree, growing upon a little bit of a hill, I suppose you mean?”

“Precisely; only much more poetically expressed. The moon rises at a quarter past four to-night, or rather to-morrow, morning.”

“Does it?”

“Yes; and if I should happen to be killed, you will have me removed gently to this mound of earth, and there laid beneath this tree, with my face upwards; and take care that it is done before the moon rises. You can watch that no one interferes.”

“A likely job. What the deuce do you take me for? I tell you what it is, Mr. Vampyre, or Varney, or whatever’s your name, if you should chance to be hit, wherever you chance to fall, there you’ll lie.”

“How very unkind.”

“Uncommon, ain’t it?”

“Well, well, since that is your determination, I must take care of myself in another way. I can do so, and I will.”

“Take care of yourself how you like, for all I care; I’ve come here to second you, and to see that, on the honour of a seaman, if you are put out of the world, it’s done in a proper manner, that’s all I have to do with you—now you know.”

Sir Francis Varney looked after him with a strange kind of smile, as he walked away to make the necessary preparation with Marchdale for the immediate commencement of the contest.

These were simple and brief. It was agreed that twelve paces should be measured out, six each way, from a fixed point; one six to be paced by the admiral, and the other by Marchdale; then they were to draw lots, to see at which end of this imaginary line Varney was to be placed; after this the signal for firing was to be one, two, three—fire!

A few minutes sufficed to complete these arrangements; the ground was measured in the manner we have stated, and the combatants placed in their respective positions, Sir Francis Varney occupying the same spot where he had at first stood, namely, that nearest to the little wood, and to his own residence.

It is impossible that under such circumstances the bravest and the calmest of mankind could fail to feel some slight degree of tremour or uneasiness; and, although we can fairly claim for Henry Bannerworth that he was as truly courageous as any right feeling Christian man could wish to be, yet when it was possible that he stood within, as it were, a hair’s breadth of eternity, a strange world of sensation and emotions found a home in his heart, and he could not look altogether undaunted on that future which might, for all he knew to the contrary, be so close at hand, as far as he was concerned.

It was not that he feared death, but that he looked with a decent gravity upon so grave a change as that from this world to the next, and hence was it that his face was pale, and that he looked all the emotion which he really felt.

This was the aspect and the bearing of a brave but not a reckless man; while Sir Francis Varney, on the other hand, seemed, now that he had fairly engaged in the duel, to look upon it and its attendant circumstances with a kind of smirking satisfaction, as if he were far more amused than personally interested.

This was certainly the more extraordinary after the manner in which he had tried to evade the fight, and, at all events, was quite a sufficient proof that cowardice had not been his actuating motive in so doing.

The admiral, who stood on a level with him, could not see the sort of expression he wore, or, probably, he would have been far from well pleased; but the others did, and they found something inexpressibly disagreeable in the smirking kind of satisfaction with which the vampyre seemed to regard now the proceedings.

“Confound him,” whispered Marchdale to Henry, “one would think he was quite delighted, instead, as we had imagined him, not well pleased, at these proceedings; look how he grins.”

“It is no matter,” said Henry; “let him wear what aspect he may, it is the same to me; and, as Heaven is my judge, I here declare, if I did not think myself justified in so doing, I would not raise my hand against this man.”

“There can be no shadow of a doubt regarding your justification. Have at him, and Heaven protect you.”

“Amen!”

The admiral was to give the word to fire, and now he and Marchdale having stepped sufficiently on one side to be out of all possible danger from any stray shot, he commenced repeating the signal,—

“Are you ready, gentlemen?—once.”

They looked sternly at each other, and each grasped his pistol.

“Twice!”

Sir Francis Varney smiled and looked around him, as if the affair were one of the most common-place description.

“Thrice!”

Varney seemed to be studying the sky rather than attending to the duel.

“Fire!” said the admiral, and one report only struck upon the ear. It was that from Henry’s pistol.

All eyes were turned upon Sir Francis Varney, who had evidently reserved his fire, for what purpose could not be devised, except a murderous one, the taking of a more steady aim at Henry.

Sir Francis, however, seemed in no hurry, but smiled significantly, and gradually raised the point of his weapon.

“Did you hear the word, Sir Francis? I gave it loud enough, I am sure. I never spoke plainer in my life; did I ever, Jack?”

“Yes, often,” said Jack Pringle; “what’s the use of your asking such yarns as them? you know you have done so often enough when you wanted grog.”

“You d—d rascal, I’ll—I’ll have your back scored, I will.”

“So you will, when you are afloat again, which you never will be—you’re paid off, that’s certain.”

“You lubberly lout, you ain’t a seaman; a seaman would never mutiny against his admiral; howsomever, do you hear, Sir Francis, I’ll give the matter up, if you don’t pay some attention to me.”

Henry looked steadily at Varney, expecting every moment to feel his bullet. Mr. Marchdale hastily exclaimed that this was not according to usage.

Sir Francis Varney took no notice, but went on elevating his weapon; when it was perpendicular to the earth he fired in the air.

“I had not anticipated this,” said Marchdale, as he walked to Henry. “I thought he was taking a more deadly aim.”

“And I,” said Henry.

“Ay, you have escaped, Henry; let me congratulate you.”

“Not so fast; we may fire again.”

“I can afford to do that,” he said, with a smile.

“You should have fired, sir, according to custom,” said the admiral; “this is not the proper thing.”

“What, fire at your friend?”

“Oh, that’s all very well! You are my friend for a time, vampyre as you are, and I intend you shall fire.”

“If Mr. Henry Bannerworth demands another fire, I have no objection to it, and will fire at him; but as it is I shall not do so, indeed, it would be quite useless for him to do so—to point mortal weapons at me is mere child’s play, they will not hurt me.”

“The devil they won’t,” said the admiral.

“Why, look you here,” said Sir Francis Varney, stepping forward and placing his hand to his neckerchief; “look you here; if Mr. Henry Bannerworth should demand another fire, he may do so with the same bullet.”

“The same bullet!” said Marchdale, stepping forward—“the same bullet! How is this?”

“My eyes,” said Jack; “who’d a thought it; there’s a go! Wouldn’t he do for a dummy—to lead a forlorn hope, or to put among the boarders?”

“Here,” said Sir Francis, handing a bullet to Henry Bannerworth—“here is the bullet you shot at me.”

Henry looked at it—it was blackened by powder; and then Marchdale seized it and tried it in the pistol, but found the bullet fitted Henry’s weapon.

“By heavens, it is so!” he exclaimed, stepping back and looking at Varney from top to toe in horror and amazement.

“D——e,” said the admiral, “if I understand this. Why Jack Pringle, you dog, here’s a strange fish.”

“On, no! there’s plenty on ’um in some countries.”

“Will you insist upon another fire, or may I consider you satisfied?”

“I shall object,” said Marchdale. “Henry, this affair must go no further; it would be madness—worse than madness, to fight upon such terms.”

“So say I,” said the admiral. “I will not have anything to do with you, Sir Francis. I’ll not be your second any longer. I didn’t bargain for such a game as this. You might as well fight with the man in brass armour, at the Lord Mayor’s show, or the champion at a coronation.”

“Oh!” said Jack Pringle; “a man may as well fire at the back of a halligator as a wamphigher.”

“This must be considered as having been concluded,” said Mr. Marchdale.

“No!” said Henry.

“And wherefore not?”

“Because I have not received his fire.”

“Heaven forbid you should.”

“I may not with honour quit the ground without another fire.”

“Under ordinary circumstances there might be some shadow of an excuse for your demand; but as it is there is none. You have neither honour nor credit to gain by such an encounter, and, certainly, you can gain no object.”

“How are we to decide this affair? Am I considered absolved from the accusation under which I lay, of cowardice?” inquired Sir Francis Varney, with a cold smile.

“Why, as for that,” said the admiral, “I should as soon expect credit for fighting behind a wall, as with a man that I couldn’t hit any more than the moon.”

“Henry; let me implore you to quit this scene; it can do no good.”

At this moment, a noise, as of human voices, was heard at a distance; this caused a momentary pause, and, the whole party stood still and listened.

The murmurs and shouts that now arose in the distance were indistinct and confused.

“What can all this mean?” said Marchdale; “there is something very strange about it. I cannot imagine a cause for so unusual an occurrence.”

“Nor I,” said Sir Francis Varney, looking suspiciously at Henry Bannerworth.

“Upon my honour I know neither what is the cause nor the nature of the sounds themselves.”

“Then we can easily see what is the matter from yonder hillock,” said the admiral; “and there’s Jack Pringle, he’s up there already. What’s he telegraphing about in that manner, I wonder?”

The fact was, Jack Pringle, hearing the riot, had thought that if he got to the neighbouring eminence he might possibly ascertain what it was that was the cause of what he termed the “row,” and had succeeded in some degree.

There were a number of people of all kinds coming out from the village, apparently armed, and shouting. Jack Pringle hitched up his trousers and swore, then took off his hat and began to shout to the admiral, as he said,—

“D——e, they are too late to spoil the sport. Hilloa! hurrah!”

“What’s all that about, Jack?” inquired the admiral, as he came puffing along. “What’s the squall about?”

“Only a few horse-marines and bumboat-women, that have been startled like a company of penguins.”

“Oh! my eyes! wouldn’t a whole broadside set ’em flying, Jack?”

“Ay; just as them Frenchmen that you murdered on board the Big Thunderer, as you called it.”

“I murder them, you rascal?”

“Yes; there was about five hundred of them killed.”

“They were only shot.”

“They were killed, only your conscience tells you it’s uncomfortable.”

“You rascal—you villain! You ought to be keel-hauled and well payed.”

“Ay; you’re payed, and paid off as an old hulk.”

“D——e—you—you—oh! I wish I had you on board ship, I’d make your lubberly carcass like a union jack, full of red and blue stripes.”

“Oh! it’s all very well; but if you don’t take to your heels, you’ll have all the old women in the village a whacking on you, that’s all I have to say about it. You’d better port your helm and about ship, or you’ll be keel-hauled.”

“D—n your——”

“What’s the matter?” inquired Marchdale, as he arrived.

“What’s the cause of all the noise we have heard?” said Sir Francis; “has some village festival spontaneously burst forth among the rustics of this place?”

“I cannot tell the cause of it,” said Henry Bannerworth; “but they seem to me to be coming towards this place.”

“Indeed!”

“I think so too,” said Marchdale.

“With what object?” inquired Sir Francis Varney.

“No peaceable one,” observed Henry; “for, as far I can observe, they struck across the country, as though they would enclose something, or intercept somebody.”

“Indeed! but why come here?”

“If I knew that I could have at once told the cause.”

“And they appear armed with a variety of odd weapons,” observed Sir Francis; “they mean an attack upon some one. Who is that man with them? he seems to be deprecating their coming.”

“That appears to be Mr. Chillingworth,” said Henry; “I think that is he.”

“Yes,” observed the admiral; “I think I know the build of that craft; he’s been in our society before. I always know a ship as soon as I see it.”

“Does you, though?” said Jack.

“Yea; what do you mean, eh? let me hear what you’ve got to say against your captain and your admiral, you mutinous dog; you tell me, I say.”

“So I will; you thought you were fighting a big ship in a fog, and fired a dozen broadsides or so, and it was only the Flying Dutchman, or the devil.”

“You infernal dog——”

“Well, you know it was; it might a been our own shadow for all I can tell. Indeed, I think it was.”

“You think!”

“Yes.”

“That’s mutiny; I’ll have no more to do with you, Jack Pringle; you’re no seaman, and have no respect for your officer. Now sheer off, or I’ll cut your yards.”

“Why, as for my yards, I’ll square ’em presently if I like, you old swab; but as for leaving you, very well; you have said so, and you shall be accommodated, d—e; however, it was not so when your nob was nearly rove through with a boarding pike; it wasn’t ‘I’ll have no more to do with Jack Pringle’ then, it was more t’other.”

“Well, then, why be so mutinous?”

“Because you aggrawates me.”

The cries of the mob became more distinct as they drew nearer to the party, who began to evince some uneasiness as to their object.

“Surely,” said Marchdale, “Mr. Chillingworth has not named anything respecting the duel that has taken place.”

“No, no.”

“But he was to have been here this morning,” said the admiral. “I understood he was to be here in his own character of a surgeon, and yet I have not seen him; have any of you?”

“No,” said Henry.

“Then here he comes in the character of conservator of the public peace,” said Varney, coldly; “however, I believe that his errand will be useless since the affair is, I presume, concluded.”

“Down with the vampyre!”

“Eh!” said the admiral, “eh, what’s that, eh? What did they say?”

“If you’ll listen they’ll tell you soon enough, I’ll warrant.”

“May be they will, and yet I’d like to know now.”

Sir Francis Varney looked significantly at Marchdale, and then waited with downcast eyes for the repetition of the words.

“Down with the vampyre!” resounded on all sides from the people who came rapidly towards them, and converging towards a centre. “Burn, destroy, and kill the vampyre! No vampyre; burn him out; down with him; kill him!”

Then came Mr. Chillingworth’s voice, who, with much earnestness, endeavoured to exhort them to moderation, and to refrain from violence.

Sir Francis Varney became very pale and agitated; he immediately turned, and without taking the least notice, he made for the wood, which lay between him and his own house, leaving the people in the greatest agitation.

Mr. Marchdale was not unmoved at this occurrence, but stood his ground with Henry Bannerworth, the admiral, and Jack Pringle, until the mob came very near to them, shouting, and uttering cries of vengeance, and death of all imaginable kinds that it was possible to conceive, against the unpopular vampyre.

Pending the arrival of these infuriated persons, we will, in a few words, state how it was that so suddenly a set of circumstances arose productive of an amount of personal danger to Varney, such as, up to that time, had seemed not at all likely to occur.

We have before stated there was but one person out of the family of the Bannerworths who was able to say anything of a positive character concerning the singular and inexplicable proceedings at the Hall; and that that person was Mr. Chillingworth, an individual not at all likely to become garrulous upon the subject.

But, alas! the best of men have their weaknesses, and we much regret to say that Mr. Chillingworth so far in this instance forgot that admirable discretion which commonly belonged to him, as to be the cause of the popular tumult which had now readied such a height.

In a moment of thoughtlessness and confidence, he told his wife. Yes, this really clever man, from whom one would not have expected such a piece of horrible indiscretion, actually told his wife all about the vampyre. But such is human nature; combined with an amount of firmness and reasoning power, that one would have thought to be invulnerable safeguards, we find some weakness which astonishes all calculation.

Such was this of Mr. Chillingworth’s. It is true, he cautioned the lady to be secret, and pointed to her the danger of making Varney the vampyre a theme for gossip; but he might as well have whispered to a hurricane to be so good as not to go on blowing so, as request Mrs. Chillingworth to keep a secret.

Of course she burst into the usual fervent declarations of “Who was she to tell? Was she a person who went about telling things? When did she see anybody? Not she, once in a blue moon;” and then, when Mr. Chillingworth went out, like the King of Otaheite, she invited the neighbours round about to come to take some tea.

Under solemn promises of secrecy, sixteen ladies that evening were made acquainted with the full and interesting particulars of the attack of the vampyre on Flora Bannerworth, and all the evidence inculpating Sir Francis Varney as the bloodthirsty individual.

When the mind comes to consider that these sixteen ladies multiplied their information by about four-and-twenty each, we become quite lost in a sea of arithmetic, and feel compelled to sum up the whole by a candid assumption that in four-and-twenty hours not an individual in the whole town was ignorant of the circumstances.

On the morning before the projected duel, there was an unusual commotion in the streets. People were conversing together in little knots, and using rather violent gesticulations. Poor Mr. Chillingworth! he alone was ignorant of the causes of the popular commotion, and so he went to bed wondering that an unusual bustle pervaded the little market town, but not at all guessing its origin.

Somehow or another, however, the populace, who had determined to make a demonstration on the following morning against the vampyre, thought it highly necessary first to pay some sort of compliment to Mr. Chillingworth, and, accordingly, at an early hour, a great mob assembled outside his house, and gave three terrific applauding shouts, which roused him most unpleasantly from his sleep; and induced the greatest astonishment at the cause of such a tumult.

Oh, that artful Mrs. Chillingworth! too well she knew what was the matter; yet she pretended to be so oblivious upon the subject.

“Good God!” cried Mr. Chillingworth, as he started up in bed, “what’s all that?”

“All what?” said his wife.

“All what! Do you mean to say you heard nothing?”

“Well, I think I did hear a little sort of something.”

“A little sort of something? It shook the house.”

“Well, well; never mind. Go to sleep again; it’s no business of ours.”

“Yes; but it may be, though. It’s all very well to say ‘go to sleep.’ That happens to be a thing I can’t do. There’s something amiss.”

“Well, what’s that to you?”

“Perhaps nothing; but, perhaps, everything.”

Mr. Chillingworth sprang from his bed, and began dressing, a process which he executed with considerable rapidity, and in which he was much accelerated by two or three supplementary shouts from the people below.

Then, in a temporary lull, a loud voice shouted,—

“Down with the vampyre—down with the vampyre!”

The truth in an instant burst over the mind of Mr. Chillingworth; and, turning to his wife, he exclaimed,—

“I understand it now. You’ve been gossipping about Sir Francis Varney, and have caused all this tumult.”

“I gossip! Well, I never! Lay it on me; it’s sure to be my fault. I might have known that beforehand. I always am.”

“But you must have spoken of it.”

“Who have I got to speak to about it?”

“Did you, or did you not?”

“Who should I tell?”

Mr. Chillingworth was dressed, and he hastened down and entered the street with great desperation. He had a hope that he might be enabled to disperse the crowd, and yet be in time to keep his appointment at the duel.

His appearance was hailed with another shout, for it was considered, of course, that he had come to join in the attack upon Sir Francis Varney. He found assembled a much more considerable mob than he had imagined, and to his alarm he found many armed with all sorts of weapons of offence.

“Hurrah!” cried a great lumpy-looking fellow, who seemed half mad with the prospect of a disturbance. “Hurrah! here’s the doctor, he’ll tell us all about it as we go along. Come on.”

“For Heaven’s sake,” said Mr. Chillingworth, “stop! What are you about to do all of you?”

“Burn the vampyre—burn the vampyre!”

“Hold—hold! this is folly. Let me implore you all to return to your homes, or you will get into serious trouble on this subject.”

This was a piece of advice not at all likely to be adopted; and when the mob found that Mr. Chillingworth was not disposed to encourage and countenance it in its violence, it gave another loud shout of defiance, and moved off through the long straggling streets of the town in a direction towards Sir Francis Varney’s house.

It is true that what were called the authorities of the town had become alarmed, and were stirring, but they found themselves in such a frightful minority, that it became out of the question for them to interfere with any effect to stop the lawless proceedings of the rioters, so that the infuriated populace had it all their own way, and in a straggling, disorderly-looking kind of procession they moved off, vowing vengeance as they went against Varney the vampyre.

Hopeless as Mr. Chillingworth thought it was to interfere with any degree of effect in the proceedings of the mob, he still could not reconcile it to himself to be absent from a scene which he now felt certain had been produced by his own imprudence, so he went on with the crowd, endeavouring, as he did so, by every argument that could be suggested to him to induce them to abstain from the acts of violence they contemplated. He had a hope, too, that when they reached Sir Francis Varney’s, finding him not within, as probably would be the case, as by that time he would have started to meet Henry Bannerworth on the ground, to fight the duel, he might induce the mob to return and forego their meditated violence.

And thus was it that, urged on by a multitude of persons, the unhappy surgeon was expiating, both in mind and person, the serious mistakes he had committed in trusting a secret to his wife.

Let it not be supposed that we for one moment wish to lay down a general principle as regards the confiding secrets to ladies, because from the beginning of the world it has become notorious how well they keep them, and with what admirable discretion, tact, and forethought this fairest portion of humanity conduct themselves.

We know how few Mrs. Chillingworths there are in the world, and have but to regret that our friend the doctor should, in his matrimonial adventure, have met with such a specimen.

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