“Very true—­very true.”

“And what’s to be done to rid the town of such a man?”

“Oh, don’t call him a man.”

“Well, a monster.”

“Ah, that’s more like.  I tell you what, sir, if you had got a light, when you first heard the noise in your room, and gone out to see what it was, you would have spared yourself much fright.”

“Ah, no doubt; it’s always easy afterwards to say, if you had done this, and if you had done the other, so and so would have been the effect; but there is something about the hour of midnight that makes men tremble.”

“Well,” said one, who had not yet spoken, “I don’t see why twelve at night should be a whit more disagreeable than twelve at day.”

“Don’t you?”

“Not I.”

“Now, for instance, many a party of pleasure goes to that old ruin where Sir Francis Varney so unaccountably disappeared in broad daylight.  But is there any one here who would go to it alone, and at midnight?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“I would.”

“What! and after what has happened as regards the vampyre in connection with it?”

“Yes, I would.”

“I’ll bet you twenty shilling you won’t.”

“And I—­and I,” cried several.

“Well, gentlemen,” said the man, who certainly shewed no signs of fear, “I will go, and not only will I go and take all your bets, but, if I do meet the vampyre, then I’ll do my best to take him prisoner.”

“And when will you go?”

“To-night,” he cried, and he sprang to his feet; “hark ye all, I don’t believe one word about vampyres.  I’ll go at once; it’s getting late, and let any one of you, in order that you may be convinced I have been to the place, give me any article, which I will hide among the ruins; and tell you where to find it to-morrow in broad daylight.”

“Well,” said one, “that’s fair, Tom Eccles.  Here’s a handkerchief of mine; I should know it again among a hundred others.”

“Agreed; I’ll leave it in the ruins.”

The wagers were fairly agreed upon; several handkerchiefs were handed to Tom Eccles; and at eleven o’clock he fairly started, through the murky darkness of the night, to the old ruin where Sir Francis Varney and Marchdale were holding their most unholy conference.

It is one thing to talk and to accept wagers in the snug parlour of an inn, and another to go alone across a tract of country wrapped in the profound stillness of night to an ancient ruin which, in addition to the natural gloom which might well be supposed to surround it, has superadded associations which are anything but of a pleasant character.

Tom Eccles, as he was named, was one of those individuals who act greatly from impulse.  He was certainly not a coward, and, perhaps, really as free from superstition as most persons, but he was human, and consequently he had nerves, and he had likewise an imagination.