Vampire Books Online / A Vampire

"Oh! now the forest trees may sigh,
The ash, the poplar tall,
The elm, the beech, the drooping birch,
The aspens—one and all,
With solemn groan
And hollow moan,
Lament a comrade's fall!

"A goodly elm, of noble girth,
That, thrice the human span—
While on their variegated course
The constant seasons ran—
Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt,
Had stood erect as man."
Hood.

"WE like ghost stories best, Cousin André."

"Yes, give us a ghost story!" cried three chubby-faced urchins, as they jostled each other to get closer to the tall stripling they addressed as Cousin André.

"Don't maul him so, Dick. I am sure you bother him enough to wish himself back on board ship," remonstrated the first speaker, a bright-eyed girl of some twelve summers.

"Thank you, my little cousin protectress; as you are the only lady amongst us we must do the gallant, and give you the place of honour, so come round here on my right side; and you, Charlie, move on, and let Toby hold my hand. In all civilized countries men who are men give the positions of honour and protection to the gentle and the youngest. Remember that, you rough young rascals."

"All right, Cousin André; but you can't quite call Elsie the youngest, as she's older than Dick, or Toby, or me, and an awful tomboy into the bargain—nurse only said so this morning," replied Charlie.

"You irrepressible urchin," answered Cousin André, "I shall have to take you off to sea; that's where the wild and unmanageable boys are packed off to; and a choice crew of spirits they are, I can tell you."

"Which were you, eh?" asked Dick, roguishly, as he dodged out of the way of Cousin André's long arm.

"Neither, my sharp young spark," laughed the young man; "there are exceptions to all rules. I see I must teach you to revere me as a splendid ornament to any calling or profession I had chosen to adopt, on land or sea!"

"He's a very rude boy, I'm afraid, Cousin André," said Elsie, as she nestled up to the young man, and put her arm in his.

"Well, we'll postpone his punishment this time," answered Cousin André; "but"—shaking his fist at the curly-headed boy—"don't let the score accumulate, I warn you!"

Cousin André was no relation to these children who clustered round him affectionately; no relation, that is, as the world holds relationship, not even by the strong tie of nationality, but related by the closer bond of kind and tender brotherly hearts, and a loving and lasting gratitude. Cousin André was an orphan. He had never known his mother, through whom he inherited the dark, soft, dreamy eyes, and languid temperament of the Spaniard. His father, the son of a French political refugee, was educated in England, and his fortunes drove him to Paris the year before the great Franco-German war broke out.

To his little motherless boy, who had accompanied him in all his wanderings, he was devotedly attached, and rarely found his pleasures and pursuits in the society which is so dear to most Frenchmen.

The child was then about eight years old, and had developed into a delicate, dreamy boy, much spoiled by an indulgent father, and devoted to books, which he devoured curled up in his father's studio for hours together.

"All reading and no play will make him a very dull boy, as we say in England," remarked his father's old schoolfellow, Charlie Archer, who had accidentally come across his old chum in the French capital in the early summer of 1870.

"He is quite happy, and he has no one else in the world to care for him but his doting and foolish father. I think, sometimes, it would be better for him if he had playfellows, poor little lad! and sometimes I wish he had relations to care for; but I don't know that there is a single living soul belonging to me; and as for his mother's kith and kin, they are as good as dead to both of us." And M. André looked mournfully out of the window, as his thoughts wandered away from the bustle of the gay city to the far-off mound of earth beside the rippling waters of the blue Mediterranean, beneath which lay all that was mortal of his young and loved Térèse.

After a few minutes' silence, during which Captain Archer, with a curious sensation of choking, unconsciously disarranged the drapery of a lay figure in his efforts to "make her tidy," M. André turned from the window impulsively.

"Archer," he said, "what's to become of my boy if anything happens to me?"

"Old fellow!"—and the soldier grasped the Frenchman's hand with a true British grasp— "don't fret yourself about that while I am above ground. But cheer up; you are going to launch the boy in life, while I perhaps shall get a bullet through me in some inglorious and petty war."

Towards the end of the ghastly and awful siege of the proud city of Paris, the young French artist was found one evening on the threshold of his studio, killed by the bursting of a shell.

And thus it came to pass, that Captain Charles Archer fulfilled the vow he made to his friend. He was amongst the first batch of England's sympathizing sons bringing relief to the famished and starving city, where he sought out and discovered the son of his old comrade, a lonely and destitute orphan.

In England the boy was reared, educated, and looked upon as one of themselves in Captain Archer's family, and was always called Cousin André by his children.

It was towards the close of a very hot summer's day that young André and his rollicking little cousins went strolling in the dark forest that skirted the garden, enclosing the retired captain's small house.

"Well, I am sure by this time you have exhausted all the tales, with and without morals, that I ever knew," said Cousin André, in answer to the importunities of the children; "from the thrilling adventures of 'the frog who would a-wooing go,' to the awful story of the immortal 'Frankenstein.'"

"Oh, sailors always know lots of stories," said Elsie.

"Spin us a yarn of your own."

"Oh, make one up, then, Cousin André," chimed in the boys.

"Only just let it be something awfully thrilling; let us have mysterious ghosts or creeping vampires."

"You bloodthirsty creatures! Has not your appetite been satiated with tigers and jackals? I don't think such a tale as you revel in would suit Elsie's taste, or Toby's nerves, in this dark wood. Vampires, indeed! Do you know what a vampire really is, eh, Charlie?" asked Cousin André.

"Well, as I've never seen one, I'm not sure that I can describe it," answered the boy roguishly.

"You really have not seen one? Well, then, I have!" said Cousin André, lowering his voice, and trying to look solemn and awed.

"Come, Cousin André, that's impossible, you know," retorted Dick, with an incredulous twinkle of his bright eye, "for there are not really such things. You're stuffing us now. We're not to be crammed quite so easily, you know."

"Honour bright, I have; and if I must tell you a tale, it shall be about a vampire I have seen."

Toby drew closer to Cousin André, and clasped his hand tightly in anticipation of something weird and uncanny, and Elsie put her arm further through that of the young man.

"Now, then, young gentlemen, you'll be disappointed to hear that the vampires with which I am acquainted are no awful, ghastly spectre from an unknown world; nor any imagination conjured up by an uneasy conscience, or a fit of indigestion; but a real, real, earthly living thing!" and Cousin André's face assumed a befitting awe as he looked round upon the boys.

"Ah! I know; you mean the blood-sucking bat," exclaimed Charlie, wisely.

"No, I don't, Master Charlie."

"Well, then, Cousin André," said Dick, solemnly, "if it's no make-believe—if it's a real true vampire, and you have seen it with your own eyes, well——"

"Well! what?" asked the young man, bursting into a hearty laugh.

"Well, of course it would be very nice to hear about it. But hadn't we better wait," continued Dick, "till another time, when Elsie and Toby are not with us? You know Toby has nightmares sometimes; he had one the night after our hay-party."

"You're funky yourself," burst in Charlie.

"Well, we will put it down to a kindly consideration for the youthful, and the delicate," laughed Cousin André. "But I promise you, Dick, my story shall be nothing to induce nightmares; I doubt, indeed, whether it will be good enough to interest you, and certainly not enough to make Toby's hair stand on end, although my vampire is worse than the vampire of nursery lore, who only dares to seize his victims by night. Mine never loses his grasp day or night, winter or summer, and grows daily fatter and fatter upon the blood of his victim."

"Please go on, Cousin André. He must be a very horrid creature."

"So all kinds of vampires are, my little cousin, and we little know how many surround our daily path," said Cousin André, as a shadow flitted across his face, "and how one has no need of waiting till the mysterious hour of midnight to become acquainted with them. Nature's lessons are clear and unerring, if one will only attend to them."

Cousin André paused to collect his thoughts, and then began:

"Well, my story lies in the corner of a large forest, something like this one, with grand old trees—Oaks, Elms, Beeches, and Yews—all veteran monarchs, perfect patriarchs of the wood, side by side with youthful Pines, Maples, Birches, and Larches, and even seedlings of only two or three autumns.

"'Hi, you up there!' exclaimed a jolly little Woodpecker to one of the finest of the Elms; 'you don't look quite so flourishing as when I last saw you.'

"'I don't feel altogether quite up to what I used to be; thank you for your kind inquiries,' answered the noble tree languidly.

"'What ails you, then, old fellow?' asked the little bird, perching himself on one of the Elm's spreading fatherly arms.

"'Well, I feel somehow—nohow—or anyhow—just as you like.'

"'So sorry, poor old chappie. What can we do for you, eh? I've been making a thorough inspection the last few days, with a view to taking a house in your neighbourhood, and I am sorry to notice some of our old friends looking so decidedly seedy. There's a fine young Sycamore at the other side of the forest—as fine and manly a young fellow as ever shot up, he was a year ago; and now he's just going into a rapid decline. Yonder, too—you can just see her by stretching your topmost branch a bit—is the lady of the wood; as sweet and graceful a creature as may be seen; she's beginning to droop and pine away, and all from no cause that I can see. We've had no storms to speak of; nothing to account for this, though young Sycamore tells me he feels the first gale that comes will knock him over. Ha! there's my mate. Do you know we found such a jolly ash-tree to make our home in, just three doors off, and she's begun to hammer already, so I must go and relieve her now, for we want to get in soon;' and down hopped the little fellow.

"'My dear,' said Master Woodpecker to his helpmate, 'I'm sure you're tired to death. I'll go on at the excavation of the new home whilst you take it easy;' and the little Woodpecker's long, straight, and powerful beak chipped away diligently at the wood of the tree, while his short and stiff tail acted as a prop as it pressed against the rough bark.

"Whilst the quiet wood resounded with the sharp tattoo of her mate's beak, Mistress Woodpecker took a little tour around. Presently she returned, and seating herself on a twig close to her industrious husband, she began chattering incessantly after the manner of her species.

"'Isn't it a pity to see our old friend the big Elm going off as he is?'

"'Yes; poor fellow!' answered her husband between the taps of his vigorous beak; 'he does not look half so well as he used, does he? Isn't it odd? He's been telling me he just feels as if his strength were being sapped.'

"'My dear, it's my belief that the reason is not far to be sought for either;' and the little bird nodded her head knowingly.

"'You wiseacre,' replied the Woodpecker, 'let me into the secret, then.'

"'Well, it is an open secret, my dear,' answered his spouse. 'Just look up there on that big branch, quite close to the trunk; ever since that thing began to grow bigger and bigger, so has the poor Elm grown more and more seedy. I shall just put a few questions to him, and ask what impudence brings him there.' And before the little Woodpecker could get in a word, his mate was shouting into the thick and bushy Elm tree, 'Well, I am sure I would not be always dining at some one else's expense; an uninvited guest, too. Well, to be sure, some people have calm ways and unlimited cheek.'

"'My love,' interposed her husband, 'you're using very strong language to somebody.'

"'My dear,' his better-half replied loftily, 'I can use stronger;' and raising her voice so that half the wood might hear, she continued: 'I must and will speak when I see the very life-blood literally sucked from the veins of an old friend. Here has the Elm done his best; he has sent out rootlets here and there to gather up every drop of moisture, passing it on through his stem to his branches, when down comes the—the——.' Here the excited little bird seemed at a loss for an epithet suitable for the outburst of her ruffled feelings—'the monster, and taps the poor fellow, his victim, of his life-blood as it passes up to his leaves.'

"'My love, my love, calm yourself,' said Master Woodpecker, who, though a bold and somewhat reckless fellow himself, felt rather abashed at his better-half's sudden outburst in the presence of the whole wood.

"Some young Maples and Birches turned, and shook their delicate foliage with suppressed merriment.

"'Dear me!' exclaimed a rollicking little Squirrel, who had stopped short in his mad career through the thick branches of a large fir. 'Whoever is catching it so hot, and strong, and sweet from Mistress Woodpecker? By the hairs of my tail, she's trying to make some one ashamed of his bad manners. Hope she'll succeed as she's making such an effort;' and raising his voice he inquired, 'Pray, madam, who incurred your heavy displeasure?'

"'Look up for yourself, Master Squirrel,' answered the irate lady, 'and give me your opinion, whether you would like to sponge upon a friend, as that heartless young Mistletoe under the stout branch of our old and valued acquaintance here is doing?'

"'Oh, and it's upon me you've been exhausting your artillery!' said the Mistletoe, looking scornfully down upon the tiny Woodpecker; 'much you know about what you're talking. What do you call yourself, to talk like that at me? Do you know what I am?'

"'A parasite,' boldly answered the little bird; 'and though you may not be so bad as some I know, still you are one. Ugh!'

"'Pray explain yourself,' asked the Squirrel, who, with a few stray denizens of the wood, had collected at the foot of the grand old Elm. 'What has he been doing?'

"'Where did he come from?'

"'Nobody knows but himself, I guess; yet here he comes uninvited, fastens his fangs into our old friend, and grows literally through the sound branch of his poor victim, and feeds upon his vitals. Who ever heard of such inhumanity?'

"'Well, that is quite too shocking, if it be true!' sighed a young Beech, waving her arms reproachfully towards her neighbour's uninvited guest.

"'Not so fast, not so fast, young madam,' said the Mistletoe, smiling cynically upon the bold little Woodpecker. 'There may be something to be said as to your appearance here, and it is possible some of your soi-disant friends, our noble trees, look upon you and your mate as an enemy and a scourge to this forest.'

"'It's false,' replied the bird hotly; 'it's false; we've always been fast friends, and who dares to breathe otherwise?'

"'Well, I do,' answered the plant, delighted to have turned the tables on his accuser; 'and, what's more, I have no doubt everybody of any sense whatever agrees with me,' he added, in a cool and taunting tone. 'Just consider calmly, little bird; what is your mate doing this very moment? Why, nothing less than inflicting a positive injury upon that poor ash-tree; as if you could not build sensible nests like other birds, or make a decent sort of home like the squirrels! But no, you must perforate the trunk of one of the handsomest and most picturesque trees in our forest.'

"Master Woodpecker here left off his work, interrupting his better-half, whose wrath was fairly roused at this unfair accusation, and who was about to reply.

"'I really cannot allow so serious an imputation on our character to go unchallenged, and I am bound to enter into that controversy. Truly, sir,' he continued, hopping on to the branch beneath which the Misletoe had fixed his fangs—'truly, sir, you show great ignorance when you presume to say we woodpeckers are deadly foes to the forest trees. I regret to say you are not the only ignoramuses of that sort, and that to the eye of men many a noble tree has seemed perfectly sound, when in truth its very heart is being slowly eaten away.' The little bird seemed wound up, and as the plant had no answer ready, he continued: 'Instinct and a keen perception lead us to the spot best fitted for the settlement of our homes; and when we find a tree damaged and decaying, we select it, and are never guilty of injuring a healthy one.'*

"Here the bold bird was interrupted by his lady, who was not inclined to let him have all the talking to himself.

"'You may as well tell him, my dear, how it is we find so many poor trees decaying, when to all outward appearance they are strong and well,' she said, with a knowing nod. 'As he is so very ignorant, he may as well be enlightened, I think.'

"'Sometimes,' her obedient mate continued; now more addressing the Squirrel and the general congregation than the obnoxious plant; 'sometimes we find the rain has soaked and eaten its way into the trunk of a tree just where a branch has been blown off, and so rot it at the core; but oftener,' here he faced about to the culprit, —'yes, oftener, we find that you and your relations—a sponging lot you are—have to answer for the premature decay of the noble and graceful trees of our forests.'

"'You're a—you're a vampire! that's what you are!' exclaimed the Woodpecker's spouse. She thought her husband's language much too mild and studied. 'You're a vampire from the vegetable world, and nothing less.'

"'My love, my love; no doubt he thinks he's very friendly; but most certainly I should be inclined to draw a line between the friend who dined with me and the friend who dined upon me!'

"The graceful silver Birch, the lady of the wood, to whom Master Woodpecker had drawn the noble Elm's attention, here raised her drooping head; she had heard much of the passing conversation, but felt too weak and feeble to do more than wave her feathery arms languidly.

"'Dear little Woodpecker,' she murmured faintly, 'I should be glad of your sympathy, too. I know there's nothing to be done; I feel that mine is a hopeless case, but sympathy is so sweet, and goes a long way towards real comfort.'

"The two little birds looked round upon the graceful tree, whose outward appearance, with the exception of a certain lassitude, surely betokened no fatal malady.

"'Lovely lady,' said the gallant little pecker, 'I am quite sure you are not feeling well, by the weakness of your sweet voice, though your grace and elegance never fail you; yet I'm bothered if I can make out what ails you!'

"'There's nothing to be seen now, pretty creature,' remarked the Squirrel, for once becoming sobered and solemn; 'there's nothing to be seen now; but I saw your vampire drop off, and I've watched you drooping through many a long day.'

"'Ah, kind little Squirrel, next year you will have to make your summer residence in some other friendly bough, for my loving arms have rocked you and your little brothers for the last time, I ween. I have been robbed of my life-essence by a deadly fungus; and I feel my days are numbered.'

"The impetuous Squirrel rushed up into the embrace of the graceful silver Birch, into the boughs where his parents had made their first summer home, and where he himself had spent his happy early days.

"Nay, kindest and gentlest lady, do not say so,' he cried, 'I'm a merry, careless, little fellow; but it would break my heart to think you would not hold up your head again.'

"'You will find many as willing to nurse and shelter you, as I have ever been, if you will but try them, and I advise you to look for one soon; ah! very soon, for even this summer breeze which has been getting up all day tries me sadly,' murmured the tender silver-barked Birch, bowing her head weakly to the strong breeze, which had risen since the sun had sunk in a bank of crimson and black clouds, sweeping off a few half-dried Elm leaves. It sighed among the Beeches, and sent a cold shudder through the delicate branches of the lady of the wood.

"'We must make haste,' said the Woodpecker to his better-half; 'I should like to feel that you have a cosy corner if the weather changes, as it bids fair to do.'

"'I only wish it were not in sight of that detestable plant,' answered his mate; 'it makes me feel quite sad to think we are so near to so heartless a robber; one, too, who is bold enough and shameless enough of being caught in the very act. If he would only feel sorry! But there, he treats our old friend in such an off-hand manner, and sits calmly and cynically above. His selfishness and obstinacy know no bounds, and as long as he thrives and prospers, he cares not a button for anybody else's comfort.'

"'What care I for other people's whims and fancies?' laughed the Mistletoe harshly. 'I am not going to truckle to them when my own comfort and convenience are in question, and I simply and flatly decline to argue with any one on the subject.'

"'Hear him!' exclaimed the Woodpecker, pausing for a moment between his sharp tattoos on the decaying wood. 'Hear him! the selfish monster! To think one must endure his insolent swagger without having the means of curing it!'

"'To be venerated and worshipped was the happy lot of my forefathers; and to enjoy life, and to be merry is the motto of our ancient family,' said the Mistletoe loftily. "Every one for himself" is the motto of our race!'

"'I wish he could be made to feel,' murmured Mistress Woodpecker.

"'Ay, my dear, that alone will bring him to his senses. That, perhaps, will come in good time.'

"'And to think that, in the meantime,' chimed in the Squirrel, who had joined the little pair; 'in the meantime, that all around us, abound and flourish vampires in trees, vampires in forests, vampires in fields, and vampires on heaths! To know we must expect vampires everywhere! Vegetable vampires, and human vampires! Those who are born so, and those who become such!'

"'Indeed, I fear it is so, Master Squirrel,' nodded the Woodpecker's mate, sadly. 'If we have not the power of changing their natures, we have at least the power of shunning them, whoever they be, and avoiding their example.'

"The summer breeze rose into half a gale as the night drew on. It roared through the forest trees as though it would break the very strongest among them; the delicate Maples and Beeches bent before the driving storm, and many moaned aloud in their anguish and grief.

"As the morning dawned, the south-westerly wind went down, and the forest trees began to lift up their heads and smile once more. But, when the first fiery streaks of the advancing lord of the day shot across the horizon, a crash of distant thunder rent the air. At one and the same moment the fine, strong Sycamore, in the pride of his manhood, and the delicate lady of the wood, lay snapped and lifeless; and beneath the Birch's silver-barked trunk the affectionate and merry little Squirrel lay dead."

"And what became of the Mistletoe, Cousin André?"

"Well, he discovered, to his cost, the winter following, that he had to contribute to the amusement and enjoyment of others, if not to their comfort and convenience, for he found himself at Yule-tide hanging beneath the gasalier in some lordly English hall; and it was but poor consolation to him to hear that he was 'a most splendid Mistletoe-bough' when he saw his thick fleshy leaves turning brown and stiff, and felt his white, translucent and juicy berries shrivel in premature death."

"The poor Squirrel, Cousin André," said Toby, "I'm so sorry he was killed."

"Ah, Toby! in this world many innocent lives are sacrificed to human vampires. What cares the human vampire who lays a gunpowder-train, or sets a dynamite-machine? Does not he live on the life-essence of others? What matters it to him whether his plots destroy the high and influential of the land, or the labouring, weak, and innocent?

"But it is against vampires of a less pronounced type I would put you on your guard; vampires you are sure to meet some day, and every day.

"A love of reading once led a dreamy and indolent boy—a boy with no ambition and no aims beyond those of idling his life away, dependent on the exertions of those upon whom he had no claim—to peruse the volumes of a well-known author. Therein he learnt the nature and the habits of vampires of the vegetable world, and how they have their counterpart in humanity. The lesson drove itself home, and the lad in dread of developing into one of the numerous family of parasites, left his kind benefactor—who, by the way, was a struggling man himself—suddenly, and making his way to the nearest port, found a berth as steward's boy on board a passenger-boat. He has since risen, and he never fails to thank nature for teaching him the lesson, and making plain the application."

The children were silent for a few moments. Then Toby said—

"I wish all the Mistletoe boughs weren't vampires."

But Elsie only said—

"Thank you very much, Cousin André," and her thoughts ran less on the story of the Mistle-toe, and more of the sequel, for she remembered that when she was a very little girl, papa and mamma were so unhappy for three days because Cousin Andre was lost.

But she never said anything.