pected circumstance,
and the more especially too as he appeared in that costume which they
had been accustomed to regard with a reverence almost amounting to
veneration. He saw the favourable effect he had produced, and anxious to
follow it up, he added,--

"Let this little ebullition of feeling pass away, my friends; and,
believe me, when I assure you upon my sacred word, that whatever ground
there may be for complaint or subject for inquiry, shall be fully and
fairly met; and that the greatest exertions shall be made to restore
peace and tranquillity to all of you."

"It's all about the vampyre!" cried one fellow--"Mr. Leigh, how should
you like a vampyre in the pulpit?"

"Hush, hush! can it be possible that you know so little of the works of
that great Being whom you all pretend to adore, as to believe that he
would create any class of beings of a nature such as those you ascribe
to that terrific word! Oh, let me pray of you to get rid of these
superstitions--alike disgraceful to yourselves and afflicting to me."

The clergyman had the satisfaction of seeing the crowd rapidly thinning
from before the gates, and he believed his exhortations were having all
the effect he wished. It was not until he heard a loud shout behind him,
and, upon hastily turning, saw that the churchyard had been scaled at
another place by some fifty or sixty persons, that his heart sunk within
him, and he began to feel that what he had dreaded would surely come to
pass.

Even then he might have done something in the way of pacific exertion,
but for the interference of Waggles, the beadle, who spoilt everything.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE OPEN GRAVES.--THE DEAD BODIES.--A SCENE OF TERROR.

[Illustration]

We have said Waggles spoilt everything, and so he did, for before Mr.
Leigh could utter a word more, or advance two steps towards the rioters,
Waggles charged them staff in hand, and there soon ensued a riot of a
most formidable description.

A kind of desperation seemed to have seized the beadle, and certainly,
by his sudden and unexpected attack, he achieved wonders. When, however,
a dozen hands got hold of the staff, and it was wrenched from him, and
he was knocked down, and half-a-dozen people rolled over him, Waggles
was not near the man he had been, and he would have been very well
content to have lain quiet where he was; this, however, he was not
permitted to do, for two or three, who had felt what a weighty
instrument of w