by Oscar Wilde
“I will do the best I can, as Heaven is, my judge,” said the magistrate, “to produce a peaceable recall—more no man can do.”
“Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted the mob, “down with the Vampire! down with the Hall!” and then one, more candid than his fellows, shouted—“Down with everything and everybody!”
“Ah!” remarked the officer; “that fellow now knows what he came about.”
A great number of torches and links were lighted by the mob, but the moment the glare of light fell upon the helmets and accoutrements of the military, there was a pause of consternation on the part of the multitude, and Mr. Adamson, urged on by the officer, who, it was evident, by no means liked the service he was on, took advantage of the opportunity, and, stepping forward, he said—
“My good people, and fellow townsmen, let me implore you to listen to reason, and go to your homes in peace. If you do not, but, on the contrary, in defiance of law and good order, persist in attacking this house, it will become my painful duty to read the riot act, and then the military and you will have to fight it out together, which I beg you will avoid, for you know that some of you will be killed, and a lot more of you receive painful wounds. Now disperse, let me beg of you, at once.”
There seemed for a moment a disposition among the mob to give up the contest, but there were others among them who were infuriated with drink, and so regardless of all consequences. Those set up a shout of “Down with the red coats; we are Englishmen, and will do what we like.” Some one then threw a heavy stone, which struck one of the soldiers, and brought blood from his cheek. The officer saw it, but he said at once—
“Stand firm, now, stand firm. No anger—steady.”
“Twenty pounds for the man who threw that stone,” said the magistrate.—“Twenty pound ten for old Adamson, the magistrate,” cried a voice in the crowd, which, no doubt came from him who had cast the missile.
Then, at least fifty stones were thrown, some of which hit the magistrate, and the remainder came rattling upon the helmets of the dragoons, like a hail shower.
“I warn you, and beg of you to go,” said Mr. Adamson; “for the sake of your wives and families, I beg of you not to pursue this desperate game.”
Loud cries now arose of “Down with the soldiers; down with the vampire. He’s in Bannerworth Hall. Smoke him out.” And then one or two links were hurled among the dismounted dragoons. All this was put up with patiently; and then again the mob were implored to leave, which being answered by fresh taunts, the magistrate proceeded to read the riot act, not one word of which was audible amid the tumult that prevailed.
“Put out all the lights,” cried a voice among the mob. The order was obeyed, and the same voice added; “they dare not fire on us. Come on:” and a rush was made at the garden wall.
“Make ready—present,” cried the officer. And then he added, in an under tone, “above their heads, now—fire.”
There was a blaze of light for a moment, a stunning noise, a shout of dismay from the mob, and in another moment all was still.
“There,” said Dr. Chillingworth, “that this is, at all events, a bloodless victory.”
“You may depend upon that,” said his companion; “but is not there some one yet remaining? Look there, do you not see a figure clambering over the fence?”
“Yes, I do, indeed. Ah, they have him a prisoner, at all events. Those two dragoons have him, fast enough; we shall now, perhaps, hear from this fellow who is the actual ringleader in such an affair, which, but for the pusillanimity of the mob, might have turned out to be really most disastrous.”
It was strange how one man should think it expedient to attack the military post after the mob had been so completely routed at the first discharge of fire-arms, but so it was. One man did make an attempt to enter the garden, and it was so rapid and so desperate an one, that he rather seemed to throw himself bodily at the fence, which separated it from the meadows without, than to clamber over it, as any one under ordinary circumstances, who might wish to effect an entrance by that means, would have done.
He was no sooner, however, perceived, than a couple of the dismounted soldiers stepped forward and made a prisoner of him.
“Good God!” exclaimed Mr. Chillingworth, as they approached nearer with him. “Good God! what is the meaning of that? Do my eyes deceive me, or are they, indeed, so blessed?”
“Blessed by what?” exclaimed the hangman.
“By a sight of the long lost, deeply regretted Charles Holland. Charles—Charles, is that indeed you, or some unsubstantial form in your likeness?”
Charles Holland, for it was, indeed, himself, heard the friendly voice of the doctor, and he called out to him.
“Speak to me of Flora. Oh, speak to me of Flora, if you would not have me die at once of suspense, and all the torture of apprehension.”
“She lives and is well.”
“Thank Heaven. Do with me what you please.”
Dr. Chillingworth sprang forward, and addressing the magistrate, he said—
“Sir, I know this gentleman. He is no one of the rioters, but a dear friend of the family of the Bannerworths. Charles Holland, what in the name of Heaven had become of you so long, and what brought you here at such a juncture as this?”
“I am faint,” said Charles; “I—I only arrived as the crowd did. I had not strength to fight my way through them, and was compelled to pause until they had dispersed Can—can you give me water?”
“Here’s something better,” said one of the soldiers, as he handed a flask to Charles, who partook of some of the contents, which greatly revived him, indeed.
“I am better now,” he said. “Thank you kindly. Take me into the house. Good God! why is it made a point of attack? Where are Flora and Henry? Are they all well? And my uncle? Oh! what must you all have thought of my absence! But you cannot have endured a hundredth part of what I have suffered. Let me look once again upon the face of Flora. Take me into the house.”
“Release him,” said the officer, as he pointed to his head, and looked significantly, as much as to say, “Some mad patient of yours, I suppose.”
“You are much mistaken, sir,” said Dr. Chillingworth; “this gentleman has been cruelly used, I have no doubt. He has, I am inclined to believe, been made the victim, for a time, of the intrigues of that very Sir Francis Varney, whose conduct has been the real cause of all the serious disturbances that have taken place in the country.”
“Confound Sir Francis Varney,” muttered the officer; “he is enough to set a whole nation by the ears. However, Mr. Magistrate, if you are satisfied that this young man is not one of the rioters, I have, of course, no wish to hold him a prisoner.”
“I can take Mr. Chillingworth’s word for more than that,” said the magistrate.
Charles Holland was accordingly released, and then the doctor, in hurried accents, told him the principal outlines of what had occurred.
“Oh! take me to Flora,” he said; “let me not delay another moment in seeking her, and convincing her that I could not have been guilty of the baseness of deserting her.”
“Hark you, Mr. Holland, I have quite made up my mind that I will not leave Bannerworth Hall yet; but you can go alone, and easily find them by the directions which I will give you; only let me beg of you not to go abruptly into the presence of Flora. She is in an extremely delicate state of health, and although I do not take upon myself to say that a shock of a pleasurable nature would prove of any paramount bad consequence to her, yet it is as well not to risk it.”
“I will be most careful, you may depend.”
At this moment there was a loud ringing at the garden bell, and, when it was answered by one of the dragoons, who was ordered to do so by his officer, he came back, escorting no other than Jack Pringle, who had been sent by the admiral to the Hall, but who had solaced himself so much on the road with divers potations,
that he did not reach it till now, which was a full hour after the reasonable time in which he ought to have gone the distance.
Jack was not to say dumb, but he had had enough to give him a very jolly sort of feeling of independence, and so he came along quarrelling with the soldier all the way, the latter only laughing and keeping his temper admirably well, under a great deal of provocation.
“Why, you land lubbers,” cried Jack, “what do you do here, all of you, I wonder! You are all wamphighers, I’ll be bound, every one of you. You mind me of marines, you do, and that’s quite enough to turn a proper seaman’s stomach, any day in the week.”
The soldier only laughed, and brought Jack up to the little group of persons consisting of Dr. Chillingworth, the hangman, Charles Holland, and the officer.
“Why, Jack Pringle,” said Dr. Chillingworth, stepping before Charles, so that Jack should not see him—“why, Jack Pringle, what brings you here?”
“A slight squall, sir, to the nor’west. Brought you something to eat.”
Jack produced a bottle.
“To drink, you mean?”
“Well, it’s all one; only in this here shape, you see, it goes down better, I’m thinking, which does make a little difference somehow.”
“How is the admiral?”
“Oh, he’s as stupid as ever; Lord bless you, he’d be like a ship without a rudder without me, and would go swaying about at the mercy of winds and waves, poor old man. He’s bad enough as it is, but if so be I wasn’t to give the eye to him as I does, bless my heart if I thinks as he’d be above hatches long. Here’s to you all.”
Jack took the cork from the bottle he had with him, and there came from it a strong odour of rum. Then he placed it to his lips, and was enjoying the pleasant gurgle of the liquor down his throat, when Charles stepped up to him, and laying hold of the lower end of the bottle, he dragged it from his mouth, saying—
“How dare you talk in the way you have of my uncle, you drunken, mutinous rascal, and behind his back too!”
The voice of Charles Holland was as well known to Jack Pringle as that of the admiral, and his intense astonishment at hearing himself so suddenly addressed by one, of whose proximity he had not the least idea, made some of the rum go, what is popularly termed, the wrong way, and nearly choked him.
He reeled back, till he fell over some obstruction, and then down he sat on a flower bed, while his eyes seemed ready to come out of his head.
“Avast heavings,” he cried, “Who’s that?”
“Come, come,” said Charles Holland, “don’t pretend you don’t know me; I will not have my uncle spoken of in a disrespectful manner by you.”
“Well, shiver my timbers, if that ain’t our nevey. Why, Charley, my boy, how are you? Here we are in port at last. Won’t the old commodore pipe his eye, now. Whew! here’s a go. I’ve found our nevey, after all.”
“You found him,” said Dr. Chillingworth; “now, that is as great a piece of impudence as ever I heard in all my life. You mean that he has found you, and found you out, too, you drunken fellow. Jack, you get worse and worse every day.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“What, you admit it?”
“Ay, ay, sir. Now, Master Charley, I tell you what it is, I shall take you off to your old uncle, you shore going sneak and you’ll have to report what cruise you’ve been upon all this while, leaving the ship to look after itself. Lord love you all, if it hadn’t been for me I don’t know what anybody would have done.”
“I only know of the result,” said Dr Chillingworth, “that would ensue, if it were not for you, and that would consist in a great injury to the revenue, in consequence of the much less consumption of rum and other strong liquors.”
“I’ll be hanged up at the yard if I understands what you mean,” said Jack; “as if I ever drunk anything—I, of all people in the world. I am ashamed of you. You are drunk.”
Several of the dragoons had to turn aside to keep themselves from laughing, and the officer himself could not forbear from a smile as be said to the doctor—
“Sir, you seem to have many acquaintances, and by some means or another they all have an inclination to come here tonight. If, however, you consider that you are bound to remain here from a feeling that the Hall is threatened with any danger, you may dismiss that fear, for I shall leave a picquet here all night.”
“No, sir,” replied Dr. Chillingworth, “it is not that I fear now, after the manner in which they have been repulsed, any danger to the Hall from the mob; but I have reasons for wishing to be in it or near it for some time to come.”
“As you please.”
“Charles, do not wait for or accept the guidance of that drunken fellow, but go yourself with a direction which I will write down for you in a leaf of my pocket-book.”
“Drunken fellow,” exclaimed Jack, who had now scrambled to his feet, “who do you call a drunken fellow?”
“Why you, unquestionably.”
“Well, now, that is hard. Come along, nevey; I’ll shew you where they all are. I could walk a plank on any deck with any man in the service, I could. Come along, my boy, come along.”
“You can accept of him as a guide if you like, of course,” said the doctor; “he may be sober enough to conduct you.”
“I think he can,” said Charles. “Lead on, Jack; but mark me, I shall inform my uncle of this intemperance, as well as of the manner in which you let your tongue wag about him behind his back, unless you promise to reform.”
“He is long past all reformation,” remarked Dr. Chillingworth; “it is out of the question.”
“And I am afraid my uncle will not have courage to attempt such an ungrateful task, when there is so little chance of success,” replied Charles Holland, shaking the worthy doctor by the hand. “Farewell, for the present, sir; the next time I see you, I hope we shall both be more pleasantly situated.”
“Come along, nevey,” interrupted Jack Pringle; “now you’ve found your way back, the first thing you ought to do, is to report yourself as having come aboard. Follow me, and I’ll soon show yer the port where the old hulk’s laid hisself up.”
Jack walked on first, tolerably steady, if one may take into account his divers deep potations, and Charles Holland, anticipating with delight again looking upon the face of his much loved Flora, followed closely behind him.
We can well imagine the world of delightful thoughts that came crowding upon him when Jack, after rather a long walk, announced that they were now very near the residence of the object of his soul’s adoration.
We trust that there is not one of our readers who, for one moment, will suppose that Charles Holland was the sort of man to leave even such a villain and double-faced hypocrite as Marchdale, to starve amid the gloomy ruins where he was immured.
Far from Charles’s intentions was any such thing; but he did think that a night passed there, with no other company than his own reflections, would do him a world of good, and was, at all events, no very great modicum of punishment for the rascality with which he had behaved.
Besides, even during that night there were refreshments in the shape of bread and water, such as had been presented to Charles himself, within Marchdale’s reach as they had been within his.
That individual now, Charles thought, would have a good opportunity of testing the quality of that kind of food, and of finding out what an extremely light diet it was for a strong man to live upon.
But in the morning it was Charles’s intention to take Henry Bannerworth and the admiral with him to the ruins, and then and there release the wretch from his confinement, on condition that he made a full confession of his villanies before those persons.
Oh, how gladly would Marchdale have exchanged the fate which actually befell him for any amount of personal humiliation, always provided that it brought with it a commensurate amount of personal safety.
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But that fate was one altogether undreamt of by Charles Holland, and wholly without his control.
It was a fate which would have been his, but for the murderous purpose which had brought Marchdale to the dungeon, and those happy accidents which had enabled Charles to change places with him, and breathe the free, cool, fresh air; while he left his enemy loaded with the same chains that had encumbered his limbs so cruelly, and lying on that same damp dungeon floor, which he thought would be his grave.
We mentioned that as Charles left the ruins, the storm, which had been giving various indications of its coming, seemed to be rapidly approaching.
It was one of these extremely local tempests which expend all their principal fury over a small space of country; and, in this instance, the space seemed to include little more than the river, and the few meadows which immediately surrounded it, and lent it so much of its beauty.
Marchdale soon found that his cries were drowned by the louder voices of the elements. The wailing of the wind among the ancient ruins was much more full of sound than his cries; and, now and then, the full-mouthed thunder filled the air with such a volume of roaring, and awakened so many echoes among the ruins, that, had he possessed the voices of fifty men, he could not have hoped to wage war with it.
And then, although we know that Charles Holland would have encountered death himself, rather than he would have willingly left anything human to expire of hunger in that dungeon, yet Marchdale, judging of others by himself, felt by no means sure of any such thing, and, in his horror of apprehension, fancied that that was just the sort of easy, and pleasant, and complete revenge that it was in Charles Holland’s power to take, and just the one which would suggest itself, under the circumstances, to his mind.