been home in the meantime, brought word of what had taken place, and
that great commotion was still in the town, and that the civil
authorities, finding themselves by far too weak to contend against the
popular will, had sent for assistance to a garrison town, some twenty
miles distant.

It was a great grief to the Bannerworth family to hear these tidings,
not that they were in any way, except as victims, accessory to creating
the disturbance about the vampyre, but it seemed to promise a kind of
notoriety which they might well shrink from, and which they were just
the people to view with dislike.

View the matter how we like, however, it is not to be considered as at
all probable that the Bannerworth family would remain long in ignorance
of what a great sensation they had created unwittingly in the
neighbourhood.

The very reasons which had induced their servants to leave their
establishment, and prefer throwing themselves completely out of place,
rather than remain in so ill-omened a house, were sure to be bruited
abroad far and wide.

And that, perhaps, when they came to consider of it, would suffice to
form another good and substantial reason for leaving the Hall, and
seeking a refuge in obscurity from the extremely troublesome sort of
popularity incidental to their peculiar situation.

Mr. Chillingworth felt uncommonly chary of telling them all that had
taken place; although he was well aware that the proceedings of the
riotous mob had not terminated with the little disappointment at the old
ruin, to which they had so effectually chased Varney the vampyre, but to
lose him so singularly when he got there.

No doubt he possessed the admiral with the uproar that was going on in
the town, for the latter did hint a little of it to Henry Bannerworth.

"Hilloa!" he said to Henry, as he saw him walking in the garden; "it
strikes me if you and your ship's crew continue in these latitudes,
you'll get as notorious as the Flying Dutchman in the southern ocean."

"How do you mean?" said Henry.

"Why, it's a sure going proverb to say, that a nod's as good as a wink;
but, the fact is, it's getting rather too well known to be pleasant,
that a vampyre has struck up rather a close acquaintance with your
family. I understand there's a precious row in the town."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; bother the particulars, for I don't know them; but, hark ye, by
to-morrow I'll have found a place for you to go to, so pack up the
sticks, get a