TO THE SOUND OF THE
HOLY BELL, AND A VAMPIRE SITS IN THE CHURCH.

The next day the Sabbath bell from the ivied tower of Chapelizod Church
called all good church-folk round to their pews and seats. Sturk's place
was empty--already it knew him no more--and Mrs. Sturk was absent; but
the little file of children, on whom the neighbours looked with an awful
and a tender curiosity, was there. Lord Townshend, too, was in the
viceregal seat, with gentlemen of his household behind, splendid in star
and peruke, and eyed over their prayer-books by many inquisitive
Christians. Nutter's little pew, under the gallery, was void like
Sturk's. These sudden blanks were eloquent, and many, as from time to
time the dismal gap opened silent before their eyes, felt their thoughts
wander and lead them away in a strange and dismal dance, among the
nodding hawthorns in the Butcher's Wood, amidst the damps of night,
where Sturk lay in his leggings, and powder and blood, and the beetle
droned by unheeding, and no one saw him save the guilty eyes that
gleamed back as the shadowy shape stole swiftly away among the trees.

Dr. Walsingham's sermon had reference to the two-fold tragedy of the
week, Nutter's supposed death by drowning, and the murder of Sturk. In
his discourses he sometimes came out with a queer bit of erudition. Such
as, while it edified one portion of his congregation, filled the other
with unfeigned amazement.

'We may pray for rain,' said he on one occasion, when the collect had
been read; 'and for other elemental influence with humble confidence.
For if it be true, as the Roman annalists relate, that their augurs
could, by certain rites and imprecations, produce thunder-storms--if it
be certain that thunder and lightning were successfully invoked by King
Porsenna, and as Lucius Piso, whom Pliny calls a very respectable
author, avers that the same thing had frequently been done before his
time by King Numa Pompilius, surely it is not presumption in a Christian
congregation,' and so forth.

On this occasion he warned his parishioners against assuming that sudden
death is a judgment. 'On the contrary, the ancients held it a blessing;
and Pliny declares it to be the greatest happiness of life--how much
more should we? Many of the Roman worthies, as you are aware, perished
thus suddenly, Quintius AEmilius Lepidus, going out of his house, struck
his great toe against the threshold and expired; Cneius Babius
Pamphilus, a man of pra