Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood by Prest and Rymer (most recommended books .txt) 📕

Charles Holland followed Jack Pringle for some time in silence from Bannerworth Hall; his mind was too full of thought concerning the past to allow him to indulge in much of that kind of conversation in which Jack Pringle might be fully considered to be a proficient.

As for Jack, somehow or another, he had felt his dignity offended in the garden of Bannerworth Hall, and he had made up his mind, as he afterwards stated in his own phraseology, not to speak to nobody till somebody spoke to him.

A growing anxiety, however, to ascertain from one who had seen her lately, how Flora had borne his absence, at length induced Charles Holland to break his self-imposed silence.

"Jack," he said, "you have had the happiness of seeing her lately, tell me, does Flora Bannerworth look as she was wont to look, or have all the roses faded from her cheeks?"

"Why, as for the roses," said Jack, "I'm blowed if I can tell, and seeing as how she don't look at me much, I doesn't know nothing about her; I can tell you something, though, about the old admiral that will make you open your eyes."

"Indeed, Jack, and what may that be?"

"Why, he's took to drink, and gets groggy about every day of his life, and the most singular thing is, that when that's the case with the old man, he says it's me."

"Indeed, Jack! taken to drinking has my poor old uncle, from grief, I suppose, Jack, at my disappearance."

"No, I don't think it's grief," said Jack; "it strikes me it's rum-and-water."

"Alas, alas, I never could have imagined he could have fallen into that habit of yours; he always seemed so far from anything of this kind."

"Ay, ay, sir," said Jack, "I know'd you'd be astonished. It will be the death of him, that's my opinion; and the idea, you know, Master Charles, of accusing me when he gets drunk himself."

"I believe that is a common delusion of intemperate persons," said Charles.

"Is it, sir; well, it's a very awkward I thing, because you know, sir, as well as most people, that I'm not the fellow to take a drop too much."

"I cannot say, Jack, that I know so much, for I have certainly heard my uncle accuse you of intoxication."

"Lor', sir, that was all just on account of his trying it hisself; he was a thinking on it then, and wanted to see how I'd take it."

"But tell me of Flora; are you quite certain that she has had no more alarms from Varney?"

"What, that ere vampyre fellow? not a bit of it, your honour. Lor' bless you, he must have found out by some means or another that I was on the look out, and that did the business. He'll never come near Miss Flora again, I'll be bound, though to be sure we moved away from the Hall on account of him; but not that I saw the good of cruising out of one's own latitude, but somehow or another you see the doctor and the admiral got it into their heads to establish a sort of blockade, and the idea of the thing was to sail away in the night quite quiet, and after that take up a position that would come across the enemy on the larboard tack, if so be as he made his appearance."

"Oh, you allude to watching the Hall, I presume?"

"Ay, ay, sir, just so; but would you believe it, Master Charlie, the admiral and the doctor got so blessed drunk that I could do nothing with 'em."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, they did indeed, and made all kinds of queer mistakes, so that the end of all that was, that the vampyre did come; but he got away again."

"He did come then; Sir Francis Varney came again after the house was presumed to be deserted?"

"He did, sir."

"That is very strange; what on earth could have been his object? This affair is most inexplicably mysterious. I hope the distance, Jack, is not far that you're taking me, for I'm incapable of enduring much fatigue."

"Not a great way, your honour; keep two points to the westward, and sail straight on; we'll soon come to port. My eye, won't there be a squall when you get in. I expect as Miss Flora will drop down as dead as a herring, for she doesn't think you're above the hatches."

"A good thought, Jack; my sudden appearance may produce alarm. When we reach the place of abode of the Bannerworths, you shall precede me, and prepare them in some measure for my reception."

"Very good, sir; do you see that there little white cottage a-head, there in the offing?"

"Yes, yes; is that the place?"

"Yes, your honour, that's the port to which we are bound."

"Well, then, Jack, you hasten a-head, and see Miss Flora, and be sure you prepare her gently and by degrees, you know, Jack, for my appearance, so that she shall not be alarmed."

"Ay, ay, sir, I understand; you wait here, and I'll go and do it; there would be a squall if you were to make your appearance, sir, all at once. She looks upon you as safely lodged in Davy's locker; she minds me, all the world, of a girl I knew at Portsmouth, called Bet Bumplush. She was one of your delicate little creatures as don't live long in this here world; no, blow me; when I came home from a eighteen months' cruise, once I seed her drinking rum out of a quart pot, so I says, 'Hilloa, what cheer?' And only to think now of the wonderful effect that there had upon her; with that very pot she gives the fellow as was standing treat a knobber on the head as lasted him three weeks. She was too good for this here world, she was, and too rummantic. 'Go to blazes,' she says to him, 'here's Jack Pringle come home.'"

"Very romantic indeed," said Charles.

"Yes, I believe you, sir; and that puts me in mind of Miss Flora and you."

"An extremely flattering comparison. Of course I feel much obliged."

"Oh, don't name it, sir. The British tar as can't oblige a feller-cretor is unworthy to tread the quarter-deck, or to bear a hand to the distress of a woman."

"Very well," said Charles. "Now, as we are here, precede me, if you please, and let me beg of you to be especially cautious in your manner of announcing me."

"Ay, ay, sir," said Jack: and away he walked towards the cottage, leaving Charles some distance behind.

Flora and the admiral were sitting together conversing. The old man, who loved