I
started up in bed and listened, as you may well suppose, not in the most
tranquil state of mind, and then I heard an odd, gnawing sort of noise,
and then another dab upon one of the stairs." "How dreadful!" "It was. What to do I knew not, or what to think, except that the
vampyre had, by some means, got in at the attic window, and was coming
down stairs to my room. That seemed the most likely. Then there was
another groan, and then another heavy step; and, as they were evidently
coming towards my door, I felt accordingly, and got out of bed, not
knowing hardly whether I was on my head or my heels, to try and lock my
door." "Ah, to be sure." "Yes; that was all very well, if I could have done it; but a man in such
a state of mind as I was in is not a very sharp hand at doing anything. I shook from head to foot. The room was very dark, and I couldn't, for a
moment or two, collect my senses sufficient really to know which way the
door lay." "What a situation!" "It was. Dab, dab, dab, came these horrid footsteps, and there was I
groping about the room in an agony. I heard them coming nearer and
nearer to my door. Another moment, and they must have reached it, when
my hand struck against the lock." "What an escape!" "No, it was not." "No?" "No, indeed. The key was on the outside, and you may well guess I was
not over and above disposed to open the door to get at it." "No, no." "I felt regularly bewildered, I can tell you; it seemed to me as if the
very devil himself was coming down stairs hopping all the way upon one
leg." "How terrific!" "I felt my senses almost leaving me; but I did what I could to hold the
door shut just as I heard the strange step come from the last stair on
to the landing. Then there was a horrid sound, and some one began trying
the lock of my door." "What a moment!" "Yes, I can tell you it was a moment. Such a moment as I don't wish to
go through again. I held the door as close as I could, and did not
speak. I tried to cry out help and murder, but I could not; my tongue
stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my strength was fast failing me." "Horrid, horrid!" "Take a drop of ale." "Thank you. Well, I don't think this went on above two or three minutes,
and all the while some one tried might and main to push open the door. My strength left me all at once; I had only time to stagger back a step
or two, and then, as the door opened, I fainted away." "Well, well!" "Ah, you wouldn't have said well, if you had been there, I can tell
you." "No; but what become of you. What happened next? How did it end? What
was it?" "Why, what exactly happened next after I fainted I cannot tell you; but
the first thing I saw when I recovered was a candle." "Yes, yes." "And then a crowd of people." "Ah, ah!" "And then Dr. Web." "Gracious!" "And. Mrs. Bulk, my housekeeper. I was in my own bed, and when I opened
my eyes I heard Dr. Webb say,--

"'He will be better soon. Can no one form any idea of what it is all
about. Some sudden fright surely could alone have produced such an
effect.'" "'The Lord have mercy upon me!' said I. "Upon this everybody who had been called in got round the bed, and
wanted to know what had happened; but I said not a word of it; but
turning to Mrs. Bulk, I asked her how it was she found out I had
fainted. "'Why, sir,' says she, 'I was coming up to bed as softly as I could,
because I knew you had gone to rest some time before. The clock was
striking twelve, and as I went past it some of my clothes, I suppose,
caught the large weight, but it was knocked off, and down the stairs it
rolled, going with such a lump from one to the other, and I couldn't
catch it because it rolled so fast, that I made sure you would be
awakened; so I came down to tell you what it was, and it was some time
before I could get your room door open, and when I did I found you out
of bed and insensible.'" There was a general look of disappointment when this explanation was
given, and one said,--

"Then it was not the vampire?" "Certainly not." "And, after all, only a clock weight." "That's about it." "Why didn't you tell us that at first?" "Because that would have spoilt the story." There was a general murmur of discontent, and, after a few moments one
man said, with some vivacity,--

"Well, although our friend's vampyre has turned out, after all, to be
nothing but a confounded clock-weight, there's no disputing the fact
about Sir Francis Varney being a vampyre, and not a clock-weight." "Very true--very true." "And what's to be done to rid the town of such a man?" "Oh, don't call him a man." "Well, a monster." "Ah, that's more like. I tell you what, sir, if you had got a light,
when you first heard the noise in your room, and gone out to see what it
was, you would have spared yourself much fright." "Ah, no doubt; it's always easy afterwards to say, if you had done this,
and if you had done the other, so and so would have been the effect; but
there is something about the hour of midnight that makes men tremble." "Well," said one, who had not yet spoken, "I don't see why twelve at
night should be a whit more disagreeable than twelve at day." "Don't you?" "Not I." "Now, for instance, many a party of pleasure goes to that old ruin where
Sir Francis Varney so unaccountably disappeared in broad daylight. But
is there any one here who would go to it alone, and at midnight?" "Yes." "Who?" "I would." "What! and after what has happened as regards the vampyre in connection
with it?" "Yes, I would." "I'll bet you twenty shilling you won't." "And I--and I," cried several. "Well, gentlemen," said the man, who certainly shewed no signs of fear,
"I will go, and not only will I go and take all your bets, but, if I do
meet the vampyre, then I'll do my best to take him prisoner." "And when will you go?" "To-night," he cried, and he sprang to his feet; "hark ye all, I don't
believe one word about vampyres. I'll go at once; it's getting late, and
let any one of you, in order that you may be convinced I have been to
the place, give me any article, which I will hide among the ruins; and
tell you where to find it to-morrow in broad daylight." "Well," said one, "that's fair, Tom Eccles. Here's a handkerchief of
mine; I should know it again among a hundred others." "Agreed; I'll leave it in the ruins." The wagers were fairly agreed upon; several handkerchiefs were handed to
Tom Eccles; and at eleven o'clock he fairly started, through the murky
darkness of the night, to the old ruin where Sir Francis Varney and
Marchdale were holding their most unholy conference. It is one thing to talk and to accept wagers in the snug parlour of an
inn, and another to go alone across a tract of country wrapped in the
profound stillness of night to an ancient ruin which, in addition to the
natural gloom which might well be supposed to surround it, has
superadded associations which are anything but of a pleasant character. Tom Eccles, as he was named, was one of those individuals who act
greatly from impulse.