It is quite needless for me to inquire how you
became possessed of the information that a dreadful suspicion hangs over
the person of Sir Francis Varney; but if, in consequence of hearing such
news, you fancy this public demonstration will be agreeable to me, or
likely to relieve those who are nearest or dearest to me from the state
of misery and apprehension into which they have fallen, you are much
mistaken." "Hear him, hear him!" cried Mr. Marchdale; "he speaks both wisdom and
truth." "If anything," pursued Henry, "could add to the annoyance of vexation
and misery we have suffered, it would assuredly be the being made
subjects of every-day gossip, and every-day clamour." "You hear him?" said Mr. Marchdale. "Yes, we does," said a man; "but we comes out to catch a vampyre, for
all that." "Oh, to be sure," said the humane woman; "nobody's feelings is nothing
to us. Are we to be woke up in the night with vampyres sucking our
bloods while we've got a stake in the country?" "Hurrah!" shouted everybody. "Down with the vampyre! where is he?" "You are wrong. I assure you, you are all wrong," said Mr.
Chillingworth, imploringly; "there is no vampyre here, you see. Sir
Francis Varney has not only escaped, but he will take the law of all of
you." This was an argument which appeared to stagger a few, but the bolder
spirits pushed them on, and a suggestion to search the wood having been
made by some one who was more cunning than his neighbours, that measure
was at once proceeded with, and executed in a systematic manner, which
made those who knew it to be the hiding-place of Sir Francis Varney
tremble for his safety. It was with a strange mixture of feeling that Henry Bannerworth waited
the result of the search for the man who but a few minutes before had
been opposed to him in a contest of life or death. The destruction of Sir Francis Varney would certainly have been an
effectual means of preventing him from continuing to be the incubus he
then was upon the Bannerworth family; and yet the generous nature of
Henry shrank with horror from seeing even such a creature as Varney
sacrificed at the shrine of popular resentment, and murdered by an
infuriated populace. He felt as great an interest in the escape of the vampyre as if some
great advantage to himself had been contingent upon such an event; and,
although he spoke not a word, while the echoes of the little wood were
all awakened by the clamorous manner in which the mob searched for their
victim, his feelings could be well read upon his countenance. The admiral, too, without possessing probably the fine feelings of Henry
Bannerworth, took an unusually sympathetic interest in the fate of the
vampyre; and, after placing himself in various attitudes of intense
excitement, he exclaimed,--

"D--n it, Jack, I do hope, after all, the vampyre will get the better of
them. It's like a whole flotilla attacking one vessel--a lubberly
proceeding at the best, and I'll be hanged if I like it. I should like
to pour in a broadside into those fellows, just to let them see it
wasn't a proper English mode of fighting. Shouldn't you, Jack?" "Ay, ay, sir, I should." "Shiver me, if I see an opportunity, if I don't let some of those
rascals know what's what." Scarcely had these words escaped the lips of the old admiral than there
arose a loud shout from the interior of the wood. It was a shout of
success, and seemed at the very least to herald the capture of the
unfortunate Varney. "By Heaven!" exclaimed Henry, "they have him." "God forbid!" said Mr. Marchdale; "this grows too serious." "Bear a hand, Jack," said the admiral: "we'll have a fight for it yet;
they sha'n't murder even a vampyre in cold blood. Load the pistols and
send a flying shot or two among the rascals, the moment they appear." "No, no," said Henry; "no more violence, at least there has been
enough--there has been enough." Even as he spoke there came rushing from among the trees, at the corner
of the wood, the figure of a man. There needed but one glance to assure
them who it was. Sir Francis Varney had been seen, and was flying before
those implacable foes who had sought his life. He had divested himself of his huge cloak, as well as of his low
slouched hat, and, with a speed which nothing but the most absolute
desperation could have enabled him to exert, he rushed onward, beating
down before him every obstacle, and bounding over the meadows at a rate
that, if he could have continued it for any length of time, would have
set pursuit at defiance. "Bravo!" shouted the admiral, "a stern chase is a long chase, and I wish
them joy of it--d----e, Jack, did you ever see anybody get along like
that?" "Ay, ay, sir." "You never did, you scoundrel." "Yes, I did." "When and where?" "When you ran away off the sound." The admiral turned nearly blue with anger, but Jack looked perfectly
imperturbable, as he added,--

"You know you ran away after the French frigates who wouldn't stay to
fight you." "Ah! that indeed. There he goes, putting on every stitch of canvass,
I'll be bound." "And there they come," said Jack, as he pointed to the corner of the
wood, and some of the more active of the vampyre's pursuers showed
themselves. It would appear as if the vampyre had been started from some
hiding-place in the interior of the wood, and had then thought it
expedient altogether to leave that retreat, and make his way to some
more secure one across the open country, where there would be more
obstacles to his discovery than perseverance could overcome. Probably,
then, among the brushwood and trees, for a few moments he had been again
lost sight of, until those who were closest upon his track had emerged
from among the dense foliage, and saw him scouring across the country at
such headlong speed. These were but few, and in their extreme anxiety
themselves to capture Varney, whose precipate and terrified flight
brought a firm conviction to their minds of his being a vampyre, they
did not stop to get much of a reinforcement, but plunged on like
greyhounds in his track. "Jack," said the admiral, "this won't do. Look at that great lubberly
fellow with the queer smock-frock." "Never saw such a figure-head in my life," said Jack. "Stop him." "Ay, ay, sir." The man was coming on at a prodigious rate, and Jack, with all the
deliberation in the world, advanced to meet him; and when they got
sufficiently close together, that in a few moments they must encounter
each other, Jack made himself into as small a bundle as possible, and
presented his shoulder to the advancing countryman in such a way, that
he flew off it at a tangent, as if he had run against a brick wall, and
after rolling head over heels for some distance, safely deposited
himself in a ditch, where he disappeared completely for a few moments
from all human observation. "Don't say I hit you," said Jack. "Curse yer, what did yer run against
me for? Sarves you right. Lubbers as don't know how to steer, in course
runs agin things."