"Ready sir," said the round man, taking up his pint and finishing it off at a draught, at the same moment he thrust the remains of some bread and cheese into his pocket.
Jacob, too, took his pot, and, having finished it, with great gravity followed the example of his more jocose companion, and they all left the kitchen for the room above, where the corpse was lying ready for interment.
There was an unusual bustle; everybody was on the tip-top of expectation, and awaiting the result in a quiet hurry, and hoped to have the first glimpse of the coffin, though why they should do so it was difficult to define. But in this fit of mysterious hope and expectation they certainly stood.
"Will they be long?" inquired a man at the door of one inside,--"will they be long before they come?"--"They are coming now," said the man. "Do you all keep quiet; they are knocking their heads against the top of the landing. Hark! There, I told you so."
The man departed, hearing something, and being satisfied that he had got some information.
"Now, then," said the landlord, "move out of the way, and allow the corpse to pass out. Let me have no indecent conduct; let everything be as it should be."
The people soon removed from the passage and vicinity of the doorway, and then the mournful procession--as the newspapers have it--moved forward. They were heard coming down stairs, and thence along the passage, until they came to the street, and then the whole number of attendants was plainly discernible.
How different was the funeral of one who had friends. He was alone; none followed, save the undertaker and his attendants, all of whom looked solemn from habit and professional motives. Even the jocose man was as supernaturally solemn as could be well imagined; indeed, nobody knew he was the same man.
"Well," said the landlord, as he watched them down the street, as they slowly paced their way with funereal, not sorrowful, solemnity--"well, I am very glad that it is all over."
"It has been a sad plague to you," said one.
"It has, indeed; it must be to any one who has had another such a job as this. I don't say it out of any disrespect to the poor man who is dead and gone--quite the reverse; but I would not have such another affair on my hands for pounds."
"I can easily believe you, especially when we come to consider the disagreeables of a mob."
"You may say that. There's no knowing what they will or won't do, confound them! If they'd act like men, and pay for what they have, why, then I shouldn't care much about them; but it don't do to have other people in the bar."
"I should think not, indeed; that would alter the scale of your profits, I reckon."
"It would make all the difference to me. Business," added the landlord, "conducted on that scale, would become a loss; and a man might as well walk into a well at once."
"So I should say. Have many such occurrences as these been usual in this part of the country?" inquired the stranger.
"Not usual at all," said the landlord; "but the fact is, the whole neighbourhood has run distracted about some superhuman being they call a vampyre."
"Indeed!"--"Yes; and they suspected the unfortunate man who has been lying up-stairs, a corpse, for some days."
"Oh, the man they have just taken in the coffin to bury?" said the stranger.
"Yes, sir, the same."
"Well, I thought perhaps somebody of great consequence had suddenly become defunct."--"Oh, dear no; it would not have caused half the sensation; people have been really mad."
"It was a strange occurrence, altogether, I believe, was it?" inquired the stranger.--"Indeed it was, sir. I hardly know the particulars, there have been so many tales afloat; though they all concur in one point, and that is, it has destroyed the peace of one family."
"Who has done so?"--"The vampyre."
"Indeed! I never heard of such an animal, save as a fable, before; it seems to me extraordinary."
"So it would do to any one, sir, as was not on the spot, to see it; I'm sure I wouldn't."
* * * * *
In the meantime, the procession, short as it was of itself, moved along in slow time through a throng of people who ran out of their houses on either side of the way, and lined the whole length of the town.
Many of these closed in behind, and followed the mourners until they were near the church, and then they made a rush to get into the churchyard.
As yet all had been conducted with tolerable propriety, the funeral met with no impediment. The presence of death among so many of them seemed some check upon the licence of the mob, who bowed in silence to the majesty of death.