Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood, Prest and Rymer [a book to read txt] 📗

four guineas a week will be too much, perhaps."

"I told you to name your own charge. Let it be four guineas; if you had said eight I should have paid it."

"Good God!" said the publican, "here's a damned fool that I am. I beg your pardon, sir, I didn't mean you. Now I could punch my own head—will you have breakfast at once, sir, and then we shall begin regular, you know, sir?"

"Have what?"

"Breakfast, breakfast, you know, sir; tea, coffee, cocoa, or chocolate; ham, eggs, or a bit of grilled fowl, cold sirloin of roast beef, or a red herring—anything you like, sir."

"I never take breakfast, so you may spare yourself the trouble of providing anything for me."

"Not take breakfast, sir! not take breakfast! Would you like to take anything to drink then, sir? People say it's an odd time, at eight o'clock in the morning, to drink; but, for my part, I always have thought that you couldn't begin a good thing too soon."

"I live upon drink," said the stranger; "but you have none in the cellar that will suit me."

"Indeed, sir."

"No, no, I am certain."

"Why, we've got some claret now, sir," said the landlord.

"Which may look like blood, and yet not be it."

"Like what, sir?—damn my rags!"

"Begone, begone."

The stranger uttered these words so peremptorily that the landlord hastily left the room, and going into his own bar, he gave himself so small a tap on the side of the head, that it would not have hurt a fly, as he said,—

"I could punch myself into bits, I could tear my hair out by the roots;" and then he pulled a little bit of his hair, so gently and tenderly that it showed what a man of discretion he was, even in the worst of all his agony of passion.

"The idea," he added, "of a fellow coming here, paying four guineas a week for board and lodging, telling me he would not have minded eight, and then not wanting any breakfast; it's enough to aggravate half a dozen saints; but what an odd fish he looks."

At this moment the ostler came in, and, standing at the bar, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve, as he said,—

"I suppose you'll stand a quart for that, master?"

"A quart for what, you vagabond? A quart because I've done myself up in heaps; a quart because I'm fit to pull myself into fiddlestrings?"

"No," said the ostler; "because I've just put up the gentleman's horse."

"What gentleman's horse?"

"Why, the big-looking fellow with the white face, now in the parlour."

"What, did he come on a horse, Sam? What sort of a looking creature is it? you may judge of a man from the sort of horse-company he keeps."

"Well, then, sir, I hardly know. It's coal black, and looks as knowing as possible; it's tried twice to get a kick at me, but I was down upon him, and put the bucket in his way. Howsomdever, I don't think it's a bad animal, as a animal, mind you, sir, though a little bit wicious or so."

"Well," said the publican, as he drew the ostler half a pint instead of a quart, "you're always drinking; take that."

"Blow me," said the ostler, "half a pint, master!"

"Plague take you, I can't stand parleying with you, there's the parlour bell; perhaps, after all, he will have some breakfast."

While the landlord was away the ostler helped himself to a quart of the strongest ale, which, by a singular faculty that he had acquired, he poured down his throat without any effort at swallowing, holding his head back, and the jug at a little distance from his mouth.

Having accomplished this feat, he reversed the jug, giving it a knowing tap with his knuckles as though he would have signified to all the world that it was empty, and that he had accomplished what he desired.

In the meantime, the landlord had made his way to his strange guest, who said to him, when he came into the room,

"Is there not one Sir Francis Varney residing in this town?"

"The devil!" thought the landlord; "this is another of them, I'll bet a guinea. Sir Francis Varney, sir, did you say? Why, sir, there was a Sir Francis Varney, but folks seem to think as how he's no better than he should be—a sort of vampyre, sir, if you know what that is."

"I have, certainly, heard of such things; but can you not tell me Varney's address? I wish to see him."

"Well, then, sir, I cannot tell it to you, for there's really been such a commotion and such a riot about him that he's taken himself off, I think, altogether, and we can hear nothing of him. Lord bless you, sir, they burnt down his house, and hunted him about so, that I don't think that he'll ever show his face here again."

"And cannot you tell me where he was seen last?"

"That I cannot, sir; but, if anybody knows anything about him, it's Mr. Henry Bannerworth, or perhaps Dr. Chillingworth, for they have had more to do with him than anybody else."

"Indeed; and can you tell me the address of the former individual?"

"That I can't, sir, for the Bannerworths have left the Hall. As for the doctor, sir, you'll see his house in the High-street, with a large brass plate on the door, so that you cannot mistake it. It's No. 9, on the other side of the way."

"I thank you for so much information," said the stranger, and rising, he walked to the door. Before, however, he left, he turned, and added,—"You can say, if you should by chance meet Mr. Bannerworth, that a Hungarian nobleman wishes to speak to him concerning Sir Francis Varney, the vampyre?"

"A what, sir?"

"A nobleman from Hungary," was the reply.

"The deuce!" said the landlord, as he looked after him. "He don't seem at all hungry here, not thirsty neither. What does he mean by a nobleman from Hungary? The idea of a man talking about hungry, and not taking any breakfast. He's queering me. I'll be hanged if I'll stand it. Here I clearly lose four guineas a week, and then get made game of besides. A nobleman, indeed! I think I see him. Why, he isn't quite so big as old Slaney, the butcher. It's a do. I'll have at him when he comes back."

Meanwhile, the unconscious object of this soliloquy passed down the High-street, until he came to Dr. Chillingworth's, at whose door he knocked.

Now Mrs. Chillingworth had been waiting the whole night for the return of the doctor, who had not yet made his appearance, and, consequently, that lady's temper had become acidulated to an uncommon extent and when she heard a knock at the door, something possessed her that it could be no other than her spouse, and she prepared to give him that warm reception which she considered he had a right, as a married man, to expect after such conduct.

She hurriedly filled a tolerably sized hand-basin with not the cleanest water in the world, and then, opening the door hurriedly with one hand, she slouced the contents into the face of the intruder, exclaiming,—

"Now you've caught it!"

"D—n!" said the Hungarian nobleman, and then Mrs. Chillingworth uttered a scream, for she feared she had made a mistake.

"Oh, sir! I'm very sorry: but I thought it was my husband."

"But if you did," said the stranger, "there was no occasion to drown him with a basin of soap-suds. It is your husband I want, madam, if he be Dr. Chillingworth."

"Then, indeed, you must go on wanting him, sir, for he's not been to his own home for a day and a night. He takes up all his time in hunting after that beastly vampyre."

"Ah! Sir Francis Varney, you mean."

"I do; and I'd Varney him if I caught hold of him."

"Can you give me the least idea of where he can be found?"

"Of course I can."

"Indeed! where?" said the stranger, eagerly.

"In some churchyard, to be sure, gobbling up the dead bodies."

With this Mrs. Chillingworth shut the door with a bang that nearly flattened the Hungarian's nose with his face, and he was fain to walk away, quite convinced that there was no information to be had in that quarter.

He returned to the inn, and having told the landlord that he would give a handsome reward to any one who would discover to him the retreat of Sir Francis Varney, he shut himself up in an apartment alone, and was busy for a time in writing letters.

Although the sum which the stranger offered was an indefinite one, the landlord mentioned the matter across the bar to several persons; but all of them shook their heads,