't have said well, if you had been there, I can tell
you."

"No; but what become of you. What happened next? How did it end? What
was it?"

"Why, what exactly happened next after I fainted I cannot tell you; but
the first thing I saw when I recovered was a candle."

"Yes, yes."

"And then a crowd of people."

"Ah, ah!"

"And then Dr. Web."

"Gracious!"

"And. Mrs. Bulk, my housekeeper. I was in my own bed, and when I opened
my eyes I heard Dr. Webb say,--

"'He will be better soon. Can no one form any idea of what it is all
about. Some sudden fright surely could alone have produced such an
effect.'"

"'The Lord have mercy upon me!' said I.

"Upon this everybody who had been called in got round the bed, and
wanted to know what had happened; but I said not a word of it; but
turning to Mrs. Bulk, I asked her how it was she found out I had
fainted.

"'Why, sir,' says she, 'I was coming up to bed as softly as I could,
because I knew you had gone to rest some time before. The clock was
striking twelve, and as I went past it some of my clothes, I suppose,
caught the large weight, but it was knocked off, and down the stairs it
rolled, going with such a lump from one to the other, and I couldn't
catch it because it rolled so fast, that I made sure you would be
awakened; so I came down to tell you what it was, and it was some time
before I could get your room door open, and when I did I found you out
of bed and insensible.'"

There was a general look of disappointment when this explanation was
given, and one said,--

"Then it was not the vampire?"

"Certainly not."

"And, after all, only a clock weight."

"That's about it."

"Why didn't you tell us that at first?"

"Because that would have spoilt the story."

There was a general murmur of discontent, and, after a few moments one
man said, with some vivacity,--

"Well, although our friend's vampyre has turned out, after all, to be
nothing but a confounded clock-weight, there's no disputing the fact
about Sir Francis Varney being a vampyre, and not a clock-weight."

"Very true--very true."

"And what's to be done to rid the town of such a man?"

"Oh, don't call him a man."

"Well, a monster."

"Ah, that's more like. I tell you what, sir, if you had got a light,
when you first heard the noise in your room, and gone out to see what it
was, you would have spared yourself much fright."

"Ah, no doubt; it's always easy afterwards to say, if you ha