by Oscar Wilde
“Yes,” said the impertinent boy who had before received the knock on the head, “I think we ought to have that read backwards.”
This ingenious idea was recompensed by a great many kicks and cuffs, which ought to have been sufficient to have warned him of the great danger of being a little before his age in wit.
“Where’s the use of shirking the job?” cried he who had been so active in shoveling the mud upon the multitude; “why, you cowardly sneaking set of humbugs, you’re half afraid, now.”
“Afraid—afraid!” cried everybody: “who’s afraid.”
“Ah, who’s afraid?” said a little man, advancing, and assuming an heroic attitude; “I always notice, if anybody’s afraid, it’s some big fellow, with more bones than brains.”
At this moment, the man to whom this reproach was more particularly levelled, raised a horrible shout of terror, and cried out, in frantic accents—
“He’s a-coming—he’s a-coming!”
The little man fell at once into the grave, while the mob, with one accord, turned tail, and fled in all directions, leaving him alone with the coffin. Such a fighting, and kicking, and scrambling ensued to get over the wall of the grave-yard, that this great fellow, who had caused all the mischief, burst into such peals of laughter that the majority of the people became aware that it was a joke, and came creeping back, looking as sheepish as possible.
Some got up very faint sorts of laugh, and said “very good,” and swore they saw what big Dick meant from the first, and only ran to make the others run.
“Very good,” said Dick, “I’m glad you enjoyed it, that’s all. My eye, what a scampering there was among you. Where’s my little friend, who was so infernally cunning about bones and brains?”
With some difficulty the little man was extricated from the grave, and then, oh, for the consistency of a mob! they all laughed at him; those very people who, heedless of all the amenities of existence, had been trampling upon each other, and roaring with terror, actually had the impudence to laugh at him, and call him a cowardly little rascal, and say it served him right.
But such is popularity!
“Well, if nobody won’t open the coffin,” said big Dick, “I will, so here goes. I knowed the old fellow when he was alive, and many a time he’s damned me and I’ve damned him, so I ain’t a-going to be afraid of him now he’s dead. We was very intimate, you see, ‘cos we was the two heaviest men in the parish; there’s a reason for everything.”
“Ah, Dick’s the fellow to do it,” cried a number of persons; “there’s nobody like Dick for opening a coffin; he’s the man as don’t care for nothing.”
“Ah, you snivelling curs,” said Dick, “I hate you. If it warn’t for my own satisfaction, and all for to prove that my old friend, the butcher, as weighed seventeen stone, and stood six feet two and-a-half on his own sole, I’d see you all jolly well—”
“Damned first,” said the boy; “open the lid, Dick, let’s have a look.”
“Ah, you’re a rum un,” said Dick, “arter my own heart. I sometimes thinks as you must be a nevy, or some sort of relation of mine. Howsomdever, here goes. Who’d a thought that I should ever had a look at old fat and thunder again?—that’s what I used to call him; and then he used to request me to go down below, where I needn’t turn round to light my blessed pipe.”
“Hell—we know,” said the boy; “why don’t you open the lid, Dick?”
“I’m a going,” said Dick; “kim up.”
He introduced the corner of a shovel between the lid and the coffin, and giving it a sudden wrench, he loosened it all down one side.
A shudder pervaded the multitude, and, popularly speaking, you might have heard a pin drop in that crowded churchyard at that eventful moment.
Dick then proceeded to the other side, and executed the same manoeuvre.
“Now for it,” he said; “we shall see him in a moment, and we’ll think we seed him still.”
“What a lark!” said the boy.
“You hold yer jaw, will yer? Who axed you for a remark, blow yer? What do you mean by squatting down there, like a cock-sparrow, with a pain in his tail, hanging yer head, too, right over the coffin? Did you never hear of what they call a fluvifium coming from the dead, yer ignorant beast, as is enough to send nobody to blazes in a minute? Get out of the way of the cold meat, will yer?”
“A what, do you say, Dick?”
“Request information from the extreme point of my elbow.”
Dick threw down the spade, and laying hold of the coffin-lid with both hands, he lifted it off, and flung it on one side.
There was a visible movement and an exclamation among the multitude. Some were pushed down, in the eager desire of those behind to obtain a sight of the ghastly remains of the butcher; those at a distance were frantic, and the excitement was momentarily increasing.
They might all have spared themselves the trouble, for the coffin was empty—here was no dead butcher, nor any evidence of one ever having been there, not even the grave-clothes; the only thing at all in the receptacle of the dead was a brick.
Dick’s astonishment was so intense that his eyes and mouth kept opening together to such an extent, that it seemed doubtful when they would reach their extreme point of elongation. He then took up the brick and looked at it curiously, and turned it over and over, examined the ends and the sides with a critical eye, and at length he said—
“Well, I’m blowed, here’s a transmogrification; he’s consolidified himself into a blessed brick—my eye, here’s a curiosity.”
“But you don’t mean to say that’s the butcher, Dick?” said the boy.
Dick reached over, and gave him a tap on the head with the brick.
“There!” he said, “that’s what I calls occular demonstration. Do you believe it now, you blessed infidel? What’s more natural? He was an out-and-out brick while he was alive; and he’s turned to a brick now he’s dead.”
“Give it to me, Dick,” said the boy; “I should like to have that brick, just for the fun of the thing.”
“I’ll see you turned into a pantile first. I sha’n’t part with this here, it looks so blessed sensible; it’s a gaining on me every minute as a most remarkable likeness, damned if it ain’t.”
By this time the bewilderment of the mob had subsided; now that there was no dead butcher to look upon, they fancied themselves most grievously injured; and, somehow or other, Dick, notwithstanding all his exertions in their service, was looked upon in the light of a showman, who had promised some startling exhibition and then had disappointed his auditors.
The first intimation he had of popular vengeance was a stone thrown at him, but Dick’s eye happened to be upon the fellow who threw it, and collaring him in a moment, he dealt him a cuff on the side of the head, which confused his faculties for a week.
“Hark ye,” he then cried, with a loud voice, “don’t interfere with me; you know it won’t go down. There’s something wrong here; and, as one of yourselves, I’m as much interested in finding out what it is as any of you can possibly be. There seems to be some truth in this vampire business; our old friend, the butcher, you see, is not in his grave; where is he then?”
The mob looked at each other, and none attempted to answer the question.
“Why, of course, he’s a vampire,” said Dick, “and you may all of you expect to see him, in turn, come into your bed-room windows with a burst, and lay hold of you like a million and a half of leeches rolled into one.”
There was a general expression of horror, and then Dick continued—
“You’d better all of you go home; I shall have no hand in pulling up any more of the coffins—this is a dose for me. Of course you can do what you like.”
“Pull them all up!” cried a voice; “pull them all up! Let’s see how many vampires there are in the churchyard.”
“Well, it’s no bu
siness of mine,” said Dick; “but I wouldn’t, if I was you.”
“You may depend,” said one, “that Dick knows something about it, or he wouldn’t take it so easy.”
“Ah! down with him,” said the man who had received the box on the ears; “he’s perhaps a vampire himself.”
The mob made a demonstration towards him, but Dick stood his ground, and they paused again.
“Now, you’re a cowardly set,” he said; “cause you’re disappointed, you want to come upon me. Now, I’ll just show what a little thing will frighten you all again, and I warn beforehand it will, so you sha’n’t say you didn’t know it, and were taken by surprise.”
The mob looked at him, wondering what he was going to do.
“Once! twice! thrice!” he said, and then he flung the brick up into the air an immense height, and shouted “heads,” in a loud tone.
A general dispersion of the crowd ensued, and the brick fell in the centre of a very large circle indeed.
“There you are again,” said Dick; “why, what a nice act you are!”
“What fun!” said the boy. “It’s a famous coffin, this, Dick,” and he laid himself down in the butcher’s last resting-place. “I never was in a coffin before—it’s snug enough.”
“Ah, you’re a rum ‘un,” said Dick; “you’re such a inquiring genius, you is; you’ll get your head into some hole one day, and not be able to get it out again, and then I shall see you a kicking. Hush! lay still—don’t say anything.”
“Good again,” said the boy; “what shall I do?”
“Give a sort of a howl and a squeak, when they’ve all come back again.”
“Won’t I!” said the boy; “pop on the lid.”
“There you are,” said Dick; “damned if I don’t adopt you, and bring you up to the science of nothing.”
“Now, listen to me, good people all,” added Dick; “I have really got something to say to you.”
At this intimation the people slowly gathered again round the grave.
“Listen,” said Dick, solemnly; “it strikes me there’s some tremendous do going on.”
“Yes, there is,” said several who were foremost.
“It won’t be long before you’ll all of you be most damnably astonished; but let me beg of all you not to accuse me of having anything to do with it, provided I tell you all I know.”
“No, Dick; we won’t—we won’t—we won’t.”
“Good; then, listen. I don’t know anything, but I’ll tell you what I think, and that’s as good; I don’t think that this brick is the butcher; but I think, that when you least expect it—hush! come a little closer.”
“Yes, yes; we are closer.”
“Well, then, I say, when you all least expect it, and when you ain’t dreaming of such a thing, you’ll hear something of my fat friend as is dead and gone, that will astonish you all.”
Dick paused, and he gave the coffin a slight kick, as intimation to the boy that he might as well be doing his part in the drama, upon which that ingenious young gentleman set up such a howl, that even Dick jumped, so unearthly did it sound within the confines of that receptacle of the dead.
But if the effect upon him was great, what must it have been upon those whom it took completely unawares? For a moment or two they seemed completely paralysed, and then they frightened the boy, for the shout of terror that rose from so many throats at once was positively alarming.
This jest of Dick’s was final, for, before three minutes had elapsed, the churchyard was clear of all human occupants save himself and the boy, who had played his part so well in the coffin.
“Get out,” said Dick, “it’s all right—we’ve done ’em at last; and now you may depend upon it they won’t be in a hurry to come here again. You keep your own counsel, or else somebody will serve you out for this. I don’t think you’re altogether averse to a bit of fun, and if you keep yourself quiet, you’ll have the satisfaction of hearing what’s said about this affair in every pot-house in the village, and no mistake.”
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE PREPARATIONS FOR LEAVING BANNERWORTH HALL, AND THE MYSTERIOUS CONDUCT OF THE ADMIRAL AND MR. CHILLINGWORTH.
It seemed now, that, by the concurrence of all parties, Bannerworth Hall was to be abandoned; and, notwithstanding Henry was loth—as he had, indeed, from the first shown himself—to leave the ancient abode of his race, yet, as not only Flora, but the admiral and his friend Mr. Chillingworth seemed to be of opinion that it would be a prudent course to adopt, he felt that it would not become him to oppose the measure.
He, however, now made his consent to depend wholly upon the full and free acquiescence of every member of the family.
“If,” he said, “there be any among us who will say to me ‘Continue to keep open the house in which we have passed so many happy hours, and let the ancient home of our race still afford a shelter to us,’ I shall feel myself bound to do so; but if both my mother and my brother agree to a departure from it, and that its hearth shall be left cold and desolate, be it so. I will not stand in the way of any unanimous wish or arrangement.”
“We may consider that, then, as settled,” said the admiral, “for I have spoken to your brother, and he is of our opinion. Therefore, my boy, we may all be off as soon as we can conveniently get under weigh.”
“But my mother?
“Oh, there, I don’t know. You must speak to her yourself. I never, if I can help it, interfere with the women folks.”
“If she consent, then I am willing.”
“Will you ask her?”
“I will not ask her to leave, because I know, then, what answer she would at once give; but she shall hear the proposition, and I will leave her to decide upon it, unbiased in her judgment by any stated opinion of mine upon the matter.”
“Good. That’ll do; and the proper way to put it, too. There’s no mistake about that, I can tell you.”
Henry, although he went through the ceremony of consulting his mother, had no sort of doubt before he did so that she was sufficiently aware of the feelings and wishes of Flora to be prepared to yield a ready assent to the proposition of leaving the Hall.
Moreover, Mr. Marchdale had, from the first, been an advocate of such a course of proceeding, and Henry well knew how strong an influence he had over Mrs. Bannerworth’s mind, in consequence of the respect in which she held him as an old and valued friend.
He was, therefore, prepared for what his mother said, which was—
“My dear Henry, you know that the wishes of my children, since they have been grown up and capable of coming to a judgment for themselves, have ever been laws to me. If you, among you all, agree to leave this place, do so.”
“But will you leave it freely, mother?”
“Most freely I go with you all; what is it that has made this house and all its appurtenances pleasant in my eyes, but the presence in it of those who are so dear to me? If you all leave it, you take with you the only charms it ever possessed; so it becomes in itself as nothing. I am quite ready to accompany you all anywhere, so that we do but keep together.”
“Then, mother, we may consider that as settled.”
“As you please.”
“‘It’s scarcely as I please. I must confess that I would fain have clung with a kind of superstitious reverence to this ancient abiding-place of my race, but it may not be so. Those, perchance, who are more practically able to come to correct conclusions, in consequence of their feelings not being sufficiently interested to lead them astray, have decided otherwise; and, therefore, I am content to leave.”
“Do not grieve at it, Henry. There has hung a cloud of misfortune over us all since the garden of this house became the scene of an event which we can none of us remember but with terror and shuddering.”
“Two generations of our family must live and die before the remembrance of
that circumstance can be obliterated. But we will think of it no more.”
There can no doubt but that the dreadful circumstance to which both Mrs. Bannerworth and Henry alluded, was the suicide of the father of the family in the gardens which before has been hinted at in the course of this narration, as being a circumstance which had created a great sensation at the time, and cast a great gloom for many months over the family.
The reader will, doubtless, too, recollect that, at his last moments, this unhappy individual was said to have uttered some incoherent words about some hidden money, and that the rapid hand of death alone seemed to prevent him from being explicit upon that subject, and left it merely a matter of conjecture.
As years had rolled on, this affair, even as a subject of speculation, had ceased to occupy the minds of any of the Bannerworth family, and several of their friends, among whom was Mr. Marchdale, were decidedly of opinion that the apparently pointed and mysterious words uttered, were but the disordered wanderings of an intellect already hovering on the confines of eternity.
Indeed, far from any money, of any amount, being a disturbance to the last moments of the dissolute man, whose vices and extravagances had brought his family, to such ruin, it was pretty generally believed that he had committed suicide simply from a conviction of the impossibility of raising any more supplies of cash, to enable him to carry on the career which he had pursued for so long.
But to resume.
Henry at once communicated to the admiral what his mother had said, and then the whole question regarding the removal being settled in the affirmative, nothing remained to be done but to set about it as quickly as possible.
The Bannerworths lived sufficiently distant from the town to be out of earshot of the disturbances which were then taking place; and so completely isolated were they from all sort of society, that they had no notion of the popular disturbance which Varney the vampire had given rise to.
It was not until the following morning that Mr. Chillingworth, who had been home in the meantime, brought word of what had taken place, and that great commotion was still in the town, and that the civil authorities, finding themselves by far too weak to contend against the popular will, had sent for assistance to a garrison town, some twenty miles distant.