We know quite enough of Sir Francis Varney to feel assured that he would
rather consider it as a good jest than otherwise of his footman, so that
with the suffering he endured at the Bannerworths', and the want of
sympathy he was likely to find at home, that individual had certainly
nothing to congratulate himself upon but the melancholy reminiscence of
his own cleverness. But were the mob satisfied with what had occurred in the churchyard? They were not, and that night was to witness the perpetration of a
melancholy outrage, such as the history of the time presents no parallel
to. The finding of a brick in the coffin of the butcher, instead of the body
of that individual, soon spread as a piece of startling intelligence all
over the place; and the obvious deduction that was drawn from the
circumstance, seemed to be that the deceased butcher was unquestionably
a vampyre, and out upon some expedition at the time when his coffin was
searched. How he had originally got out of that receptacle for the dead was
certainly a mystery; but the story was none the worse for that. Indeed,
an ingenious individual found a solution for that part of the business,
for, as he said, nothing was more natural, when anybody died who was
capable of becoming a vampyre, than for other vampyres who knew it to
dig him up, and lay him out in the cold beams of the moonlight, until he
acquired the same sort of vitality they themselves possessed, and joined
their horrible fraternity. In lieu of a better explanation--and, after all, it was no bad one--this
theory was generally received, and, with a shuddering horror, people
asked themselves, if the whole of the churchyard were excavated, how
many coffins would be found tenantless by the dead which had been
supposed, by simple-minded people, to inhabit them. The presence, however, of a body of dragoons, towards evening,
effectually prevented any renewed attack upon the sacred precincts of
the churchyard, and it was a strange and startling thing to see that
country town under military surveillance, and sentinels posted at its
principal buildings. This measure smothered the vengeance of the crowd, and insured, for a
time, the safety of Sir Francis Varney; for no considerable body of
persons could assemble for the purpose of attacking his house again,
without being followed; so such a step was not attempted. It had so happened, however, that on that very day, the funeral of a
young man was to have taken place, who had put up for a time at that
same inn where Admiral Bell was first introduced to the reader. He had
become seriously ill, and, after a few days of indisposition, which had
puzzled the country practitioners, breathed his last. He was to have been buried in the village churchyard on the very day of
the riot and confusion incidental to the exhumation of the coffin of the
butcher, and probably from that circumstance we may deduce the presence
of the clergyman in canonicals at the period of the riot. When it was found that so disorderly a mob possessed the churchyard, the
idea of burying the stranger on that day was abandoned; but still all
would have gone on quietly as regarded him, had it not been for the
folly of one of the chamber-maids at the tavern. This woman, with all the love of gossip incidental to her class, had,
from the first, entered so fully into all the particulars concerning
vampyres, that she fairly might be considered to be a little deranged on
that head. Her imagination had been so worked upon, that she was in an
unfit state to think of anything else, and if ever upon anybody a stern
and revolting superstition was calculated to produce direful effects, it
was upon this woman. The town was tolerably quiet; the presence of the soldiery had
frightened some and amused others, and no doubt the night would have
passed off serenely, had she not suddenly rushed into the street, and,
with bewildered accents and frantic gestures shouted,--

"A vampyre--a vampyre--a vampyre!" These words soon collected a crowd around her, and then, with screaming
accents, which would have been quite enough to convince any reflecting
person that she had actually gone distracted upon that point, she
cried,--

"Come into the house--come into the house! Look upon the dead body, that
should have been in its grave; it's fresher now than it was the day on
which it died, and there's a colour in its cheeks! A vampyre--a
vampyre--a vampyre! Heaven save us from a vampyre!" The strange, infuriated, maniacal manner in which these words were
uttered, produced an astonishingly exciting effect among the mob. Several women screamed, and some few fainted. The torch was laid again
to the altar of popular feeling, and the fierce flame of superstition
burnt brightly and fiercely. Some twenty or thirty persons, with shouts and exclamations, rushed into
the inn, while the woman who had created the disturbance still continued
to rave, tearing her hair, and shrieking at intervals, until she fell
exhausted upon the pavement. Soon, from a hundred throats, rose the dreadful cry of "A vampyre--a
vampyre!" The alarm was given throughout the whole town; the bugles of
the military sounded; there was a clash of arms--the shrieks of women;
altogether, the premonitory symptoms of such a riot as was not likely to
be quelled without bloodshed and considerable disaster. It is truly astonishing the effect which one weak or vicious-minded
person can produce upon a multitude. Here was a woman whose opinion would have been accounted valueless upon
the most common-place subject, and whose word would not have passed for
twopence, setting a whole town by the ears by force of nothing but her
sheer brutal ignorance. It is a notorious physiological fact, that after four or five days, or
even a week, the bodies of many persons assume an appearance of
freshness, such as might have been looked for in vain immediately after
death. It is one of the most insidious processes of that decay which appears to
regret with its

     "----------- offensive fingers, To mar the lines where beauty
     lingers." But what did the chamber-maid know of physiology? Probably, she would
have asked if it was anything good to eat; and so, of course, having her
head full of vampyres, she must needs produce so lamentable a scene of
confusion, the results of which we almost sicken at detailing. CHAPTER XLVIII. THE STAKE AND THE DEAD BODY. [Illustration]

The mob seemed from the first to have an impression that, as regarded
the military force, no very serious results would arise from that
quarter, for it was not to be supposed that, on an occasion which could
not possibly arouse any ill blood on the part of the soldiery, or on
which they could have the least personal feeling, they would like to get
a bad name, which would stick to them for years to come.