e petty larceny, if they got into trouble on
account of the riot.

These persons, infuriated by drink, were capable of anything, and to
them, accordingly, the more sober parties gladly surrendered the
disagreeable job of rendering the supposed vampyre perfectly innoxious,
by driving a hedge-stake through his body--a proceeding which, it was
currently believed, inflicted so much physical injury to the frame, as
to render his resuscitation out of the question.

The cries of alarm from below, joined now to the shouts of those mad
rioters, produced a scene of dreadful confusion.

We cannot, for we revolt at the office, describe particularly the
dreadful outrage which was committed upon the corpse; suffice it that
two or three, maddened by drink, and incited by the others, plunged the
hedge-stake through the body, and there left it, a sickening and
horrible spectacle to any one who might cast his eyes upon it.

With such violence had the frightful and inhuman deed been committed,
that the bottom of the coffin was perforated by the stake so that the
corpse was actually nailed to its last earthly tenement.

Some asserted, that at that moment an audible groan came from the dead
man, and that this arose from the extinguishment of that remnant of life
which remained in him, on account of his being a vampyre, and which
would have been brought into full existence, if the body had been placed
in the rays of the moon, when at its full, according to the popular
superstition upon that subject.

Others, again, were quite ready to swear that at the moment the stake
was used there was a visible convulsion of all the limbs, and that the
countenance, before so placid and so calm, became immediately distorted,
as if with agony.

But we have done with these horrible surmises; the dreadful deed has
been committed, and wild, ungovernable superstition has had, for a time,
its sway over the ignorant and debased.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE MOB'S ARRIVAL AT SIR FRANCIS VARNEY'S.--THE ATTEMPT TO GAIN
ADMISSION.

[Illustration]

The soldiery had been sent for from their principal station near the
churchyard, and had advanced with some degree of reluctance to quell
what they considered as nothing better nor worse than a drunken brawl at
a public-house, which they really considered they ought not to be called
to interfere with.

When, however, the party reached the spot, and heard what a confusion
there was, and saw in what numbers the