CHAPTER CLXXX.
[Chapter 197]
THE OLD MANOR HOUSE. —THE RESCUE. —VARNEY'S DESPAIR.
At about ten o'clock on that same night on which Varney the Vampyre
plunged into the sea with hopes of getting rid of the world of troubles that
oppressed him, a small fishing boat might have been seen a distance of about
twenty-five miles from the Suffolk coast, trying to make for land, and baffled
continually by the wind that blew off shore.
In this boat were two young men, and from their appearance they evidently
belonged to the wealthier class of society. They were brothers.
From their conversation we shall gather the circumstances that threw them
into such situation, not by any means divested of peril as it was.
"Well, Edwin," said one, "here we have been beating about for five hours,
trying to get in shore, and all our little bark permits us to do is I think
not materially to increase our distance from home."
"That is about the truth, Charles," said the other, "and it was my
fault."
"Come, Edwin, don't talk in that way. There is no fault in the matter;
how could you know that the wind would stiffen into such a breeze as it has,
so that we cannot fight out against it; or if there be fault, of course it's
as much mine as yours, for am not I here, and do I not know full well what an
amount of consternation there will be at the Grange?"
"There will indeed!"
"Well, their joy when we get back will be all the greater."
"Shall we get back?"
"Can you ask? Look at our little boat, is she not sea-worthy? Does she
not dance on the waves merrily? It is only the wind after all that baffles
us, if it would drop a little, we could, I think make head against it with the
oars.
The brothers were silent now for a few moments, for they were each
looking at the weather. At length Edwin spoke, saying, —
"We shall have the moon up, and that may make a change."
"Very likely—very likely. There is not, I think, quite so much sea as
there was; suppose we try the oars again?"
The other assented, and the two young men exerted themselves very much to
decrease their distance from the Suffolk coast by pulling away right manfully,
but it was quite evident to them that they did no good, and that they had just
as well dropped westward as they had been doing, by keeping the sail set, and
steering as near as possible to the wind.
"Why, if this goes on, Charles, where shall we get to by the morning?"
"To Northumberland, perhaps."
"Or further."
"Well, if we go far enough, what say you to attempting the vexata
questio of the north-west passage?"
"Nay, I cannot jest—it's a sad thing this—more sad a good deal for
those who are at home, than for us. To-morrow is Clara's wedding day, and
what a damper it will be upon all to suppose that we have perished at sea."
"They will never suppose that we would do anything so ridiculous. Why,
at the worst, you know, we could go before the wind and run on to Holland."
"Yes, if no storm arises or such a gale as might founder our boat.
There, there is the moon."
"Yes, and she will soon be overtaken by yon bank of clouds that seem to
be scudding after her in the blue heavens. Ha! a sail, by Jove!"
"Where? where?"
"Not I think above four miles there to the east, by our little compass
which it is a thousand mercies we have with us. Look, you may see her sails
against that light cloud—there."
"I see her. Think you she will see us?"
"There is every chance, for her swell of canvass will be all the other
way. Fire your fowling-piece and the sound may reach her, the wind is good
for carrying it."
Charles took a fowling-piece from the bottom of the boat. The brothers
had merely gone out at sunset or a little before it, to shoot gulls, and he
tried to discharge the piece, but several seas that they had shipped, while
they were thinking of other things than keeping the gun dry, had, for the time
being, most effectively prevented it from being discharged.
"Ah!" said Edwin as he heard the click of the lock, "that hope is lost."
"It is indeed, and to my thinking the ship is distancing us rapidly. You
see our mast and sail, will, at even this distance, lie so low in the horizon
that they will hardly see us unless they are sweeping the sky with a night
glass."
"And that is not likely."
"Certainly not, so we have nothing for it but to hold on our way. I am
getting hungry if you are not."
"I certainly am not getting hungry, for I have felt half famished these
last two hours; but I suppose we may hold out against the fiend hunger some
hours yet. What are you looking at so earnestly, eh?"
"I hardly know."
"You hardly know? Let me see—why—why what is it?"
"There seems to me to be something now and that much darker than the
waves, tiding on their tops; there, do you not see it? There it is again.
There!"
"Yes, yes."
"What on earth can it be?"
"A dead body."
"Indeed! ah! it drifts towards us. There is some current hereabouts, for
you see it comes to us against the wind."
"Dont deceive yourself, brother. It is we who are going with the
wind towards it, and now you can see there is no doubt about what it is. Some
poor fellow, who has been drowned. Get out the boat-hook, get it out."
"Why, you would not take in such a cargo, Edwin."
"God forbid! but I feel some curiosity to see who and what sort of a
personage it is. Here we have him. What a length he is to be sure."
The body was nearly alongside the boat, and one of the brothers detained
it with a boat-hook, while they both looked earnestly at it.
It was the body of a man, remarkably well dressed, and had no appearance
of having been under the water long. The features, as far as they could see
them, were calm and composed. The hands were clenched, and some costly
looking rings glittered on the fingers through the salt spray that foamed and
curled around the insensible form.
"Charles," said Edwin; "what we shall do?"
Edwin shook his head.
"I—I don't like."
"Like what?"
"I don't like to cast it adrift again, and not take it ashore, where it
can rest in an honest man's grown if he be one. Fancy it being one of us,
would it not be a consolation to those who love us to know that we rested in
peace among our ancestors, in preference to rotting in the sea, tossed and
mangled by every storm that blows. I do not like to cast the body adrift
again."
"It's a ghastly passenger."
"It is, but that ghastliness is only an idea, and we should remember that
we ourselves-—"
"Stop, brother, stop. Do not fancy that I oppose your wish to convey
this body to the shore, and place it in some sanctified spot. What I
expressed concerning it was merely the natural feeling that must arise on such
an occasion, nothing more."
"Then you are willing?"
"I am."
The two brothers now, without further doubts or remarks upon the subject,
got the body into the boat, and laid it carefully down. Then Edwin folded and
tied a handkerchief over the face, for as he truly enough said, —
"There is no occasion to have to encounter that dead face each moment
that one turns one's eyes in that direction; it is sufficient that we have,
by taking the body in at all done, all that humanity can dictate to us."
To this Charles agreed, and it was remarked by them both as a strange
thing that from the moment of their taking in the dead body to the boat, the
wind dropped, and finally there was almost a calm, after which there came soft
gentle air from the south-east, which enabled them with scarcely any exertion
on their own parts to make great progress towards their own home, from which
they found they had not by any means been driven so far northward as they had
at first thought.
The brothers looked at each other, and it was Edwin who broke the
silence, and put into words what both thought, by saying, —
"Charles, there is something more i[n] this whole affair than what lies
just upon its surface."
"Yes, it seems as if we were driven out to sea by some special providence
to do this piece of work, and that having done it, the winds and the waves
obeyed the hand of their mighty Master, and allowed of our return."
"It does seem so," said the other.
—