ployment; none could be found,
and the world seemed to have conspired together to throw me back to the
gaming-table.
"But this I would not. At last employment was offered; but what was it?
The situation of common hangman was offered me. The employment was
disgusting and horrible; but, at the same time, it was all I could get,
and that was a sufficient inducement for me to accept of it. I was,
therefore, the common executioner; and in that employment for some time
earned a living. It was terrible; but necessity compelled me to accept
the only thing I could obtain. You now know the reason why I became what
I have told you."
CHAPTER LXXIII.
THE VISIT OF THE VAMPIRE.--THE GENERAL MEETING.
[Illustration]
The mysterious friend of Mr. Chillingworth finished his narrative, and
then the doctor said to him,--
"And that, then, is the real cause why you, a man evidently far above
the position of life which is usually that of those who occupy the
dreadful post of executioner, came to accept of it."--"The real reason,
sir. I considered, too, that in holding such a humiliating situation
that I was justly served for the barbarity of which I had been guilty;
for what can be a greater act of cruelty than to squander, as I did, in
the pursuit of mad excitement, those means which should have rendered my
home happy, and conduced to the welfare of those who were dependant upon
me?"
"I do not mean to say that your self-reproaches are unjust altogether,
but--What noise is that? do you hear anything?"--
"Yes--yes."
"What do you take it to be?"--"It seemed like the footsteps of a number
of persons, and it evidently approaches nearer and nearer. I know not
what to think."
"Shall I tell you?" said a deep-toned voice, and some one, through the
orifice in the back of the summer-house, which, it will be recollected,
sustained some damage at the time that Varney escaped from it, laid a
hand upon Mr. Chillingworth's shoulder. "God bless me!" exclaimed the
doctor; "who's that?" and he sprang from his seat with the greatest
perturbation in the world.
"Varney, the vampyre!" added the voice, and then both the doctor and his
companion recognised it, and saw the strange, haggard features, that now
they knew so well, confronting them. There was a pause of surprise, for
a moment or two, on the part of the doctor, and then he said, "Sir
Francis Varney, what brings you here? I conjure you to tell me, in the
name of common justi
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