Penny Dreadful Multipack Vol. 1 (Illustrated. Annotated. 'Wagner The Wehr-Wolf,' 'Varney The Vampire,' 'The Mysteries of London Vol. 1' + Bonus Features) (Penny Dreadful Multipacks) (2 page)

PART I

IT
 
was the month of January, 1516.

The night was dark and
tempestuous; the thunder growled around; the lightning flashed at short
intervals: and the wind swept furiously along in sudden and fitful gusts.

The streams of the great Black
Forest of Germany babbled in playful melody no more, but rushed on with
deafening din, mingling their torrent roar with the wild creaking of the huge
oaks, the rustling of the firs, the howling of the affrighted wolves, and the
hollow voices of the storm.

The dense black clouds were
driving restlessly athwart the sky; and when the vivid lightning gleamed forth
with rapid and eccentric glare, it seemed as if the dark jaws of some hideous
monster, floating high above, opened to vomit flame.

And as the abrupt but furious
gusts of wind swept through the forest, they raised strange echoes—as if the
impervious mazes of that mighty wood were the abode of hideous fiends and evil
spirits, who responded in shrieks, moans, and lamentations to the fearful din
of the tempest.

It was, indeed, an appalling
night!

An old—old man sat in his cottage
on the verge of the Black Forest.

He had numbered ninety years; his
head was completely bald—his mouth was toothless—his long beard was white as
snow, and his limbs were feeble and trembling.

He was alone in the world; his
wife, his children, his grandchildren, all his relations, in fine,
 
save
one
, had preceded him on that long, last voyage, from which no
traveler returns.

And that
 
one
 
was a grand-daughter, a beauteous girl
of sixteen, who had hitherto been his solace and his comfort, but who had
suddenly disappeared—he knew not how—a few days previously
 
 to the time when we discover him
seated thus lonely in his poor cottage.

But perhaps she also was dead! An
accident might have snatched her away from him, and sent her spirit to join
those of her father and mother, her sisters and her brothers, whom a terrible
pestilence—
the Black Death
—hurried
to the tomb a few years before.

No: the old man could not believe
that his darling granddaughter was no more—for he had sought her throughout the
neighboring district of the Black Forest, and not a trace of her was to be
seen. Had she fallen down a precipice, or perished by the ruthless murderer’s
hand, he would have discovered her mangled corpse: had she become the prey of
the ravenous wolves, certain signs of her fate would have doubtless somewhere
appeared.

The sad—the chilling conviction
therefore, went to the old man’s heart, that the only being left to solace him
on earth, had deserted him; and his spirit was bowed down in despair.

Who now would prepare his food,
while he tended his little flock? who was there to collect the dry branches in
the forest, for the winter’s fuel, while the aged shepherd watched a few sheep
that he possessed? who would now spin him warm clothing to protect his weak and
trembling limbs?

“Oh! Agnes,” he murmured, in a
tone indicative of a breaking heart, “why couldst thou have thus abandoned me?
Didst thou quit the old man to follow some youthful lover, who will buoy thee
up with bright hopes, and then deceive thee? O Agnes—my darling! hast thou left
me to perish without a soul to close my eyes?”

It was painful how that ancient
shepherd wept.

Suddenly a loud knock at the door
of the cottage aroused him from his painful reverie; and he hastened, as fast
as his trembling limbs would permit him, to answer the summons.

He opened the door; and a tall
man, apparently about forty years of age, entered the humble dwelling. His
light hair would have been magnificent indeed, were it not sorely neglected;
his blue eyes were naturally fine and intelligent, but fearful now to meet, so
wild and wandering were their glances: his form was tall and admirably
symmetrical, but prematurely bowed by the weight of sorrow, and his attire was
of costly material, but indicative of inattention even more than it was
travel-soiled.

The old man closed the door, and
courteously drew a stool near the fire for the stranger who had sought in his
cottage a refuge against the fury of the storm.

He also placed food before him;
but the stranger touched it not—horror and dismay appearing to have taken
possession of his soul.

Suddenly the thunder which had
hitherto growled at a distance, burst above the humble abode; and the wind
swept by with so violent a gust, that it shook the little tenement to its
foundation, and filled the neighboring forest with strange, unearthly noises.

 Then the countenance of the
stranger expressed such ineffable horror, amounting to a fearful agony, that
the old man was alarmed, and stretched out his hand to grasp a crucifix that
hung over the chimney-piece; but his mysterious guest made a forbidding sign of
so much earnestness mingled with such proud authority, that the aged shepherd
sank back into his seat without touching the sacred symbol.

The roar of the thunder past—the
shrieking, whistling, gushing wind became temporarily lulled into low moans and
subdued lamentations, amid the mazes of the Black Forest; and the stranger grew
more composed.

“Dost thou tremble at the storm?”
inquired the old man.

“I am unhappy,” was the evasive
and somewhat impatient reply. “Seek not to know more of me—beware how you
question me. But you, old man, are
 
not
 
happy! The traces of care seem to
mingle with the wrinkles of age upon your brow!”

The shepherd narrated, in brief
and touching terms, the unaccountable disappearance of his much-beloved
granddaughter Agnes.

The stranger listened
abstractedly at first; but afterward he appeared to reflect profoundly for
several minutes.

“Your lot is wretched, old man,”
said he at length: “if you live a few years longer, that period must be passed
in solitude and cheerlessness:—if you suddenly fall ill you must die the
lingering death of famine, without a soul to place a morsel of food, or the cooling
cup to your lips; and when you shall be no more, who will follow you to the
grave? There are no habitations nigh; the nearest village is half-a-day’s
journey distant; and ere the peasants of that hamlet, or some passing traveler,
might discover that the inmate of this hut had breathed his last, the wolves
from the forest would have entered and mangled your corpse.”

“Talk not thus!” cried the old
man, with a visible shudder; then darting a half-terrified, half-curious glance
at his guest, he said, “but who are you that speak in this awful strain—this
warning voice?”

Again the thunder rolled, with
crashing sound, above the cottage; and once more the wind swept by, laden, as
it seemed, with the shrieks and groans of human beings in the agonies of death.

The stranger maintained a certain
degree of composure only by means of a desperate effort, but he could not
altogether subdue a wild flashing of the eyes and a ghastly change of the
countenance—signs of a profoundly felt terror.

“Again I say, ask me not who I
am!” he exclaimed, when the thunder and the gust had passed. “My soul recoils
from the bare idea of pronouncing my own accursed name! But—unhappy as you see
me—crushed, overwhelmed with deep affliction as you behold me—anxious, but
unable to repent for the past as I am, and filled with appalling dread for the
future as I now proclaim myself to be, still is my power far, far beyond that
limit which hems mortal energies within so small a sphere. Speak, old
man—wouldst thou change thy condition?
 
 For
to me—and to me alone of all human beings—belongs the means of giving thee new
life—of bestowing upon thee the vigor of youth, of rendering that stooping form
upright and strong, of restoring fire to those glazing eyes, and beauty to that
wrinkled, sunken, withered countenance—of endowing thee, in a word, with a
fresh tenure of existence and making that existence sweet by the aid of
treasures so vast that no extravagance can dissipate them!”

A strong though indefinite dread
assailed the old man as this astounding proffer was rapidly opened, in all its
alluring details, to his mind;—and various images of terror presented
themselves to his imagination;—but these feelings were almost immediately
dominated by a wild and ardent hope, which became the more attractive and
exciting in proportion as a rapid glance at his helpless, wretched, deserted
condition led him to survey the contrast between what he then was, and what, if
the stranger spoke truly, he might so soon become.

The stranger saw that he had made
the desired impression; and he continued thus:

“Give but your assent, old man,
and not only will I render thee young, handsome, and wealthy; but I will endow
thy mind with an intelligence to match that proud position. Thou shalt go forth
into the world to enjoy all those pleasures, those delights, and those
luxuries, the names of which are even now scarcely known to thee!”

“And what is the price of this
glorious boon?” asked the old man, trembling with mingled joy and terror
through every limb.

“There are two conditions,”
answered the stranger, in a low, mysterious tone. “The first is, that you
become the companion of my wanderings for one year and a half from the present
time, until the hour of sunset, on the 30th of July, 1517, when we must part
forever, you to go whithersoever your inclinations may guide you, and I—— But
of
 
that
, no matter!” he added, hastily, with a sudden
motion as if of deep mental agony, and with wildly flashing eyes.

The old man shrank back in dismay
from his mysterious guest: the thunder rolled again, the rude gust swept
fiercely by, the dark forest rustled awfully, and the stranger’s torturing
feelings were evidently prolonged by the voices of the storm.

A pause ensued; and the silence
was at length broken by the old man, who said, in a hollow and tremulous tone,
“To the first condition I would willingly accede. But the second?”

“That you prey upon the human
race, whom I hate; because of all the world I alone am so deeply, so terribly
accurst!” was the ominously fearful yet only dimly significant reply.

The old man shook his head,
scarcely comprehending the words of his guest, and yet daring not to ask to be
more enlightened.

“Listen!” said the stranger, in a
hasty but impressive voice: “I require a companion, one who has no human ties,
and who still ministers to my caprices,—who will devote himself wholly and
solely to watch me in my dark hours, and endeavor to recall me
 
 back to enjoyment and pleasure,
who, when he shall be acquainted with my power, will devise new means in which
to exercise it, for the purpose of conjuring up those scenes of enchantment and
delight that may for a season win me away from thought. Such a companion do I
need for a period of one year and a half; and you are, of all men, the best
suited to my design. But the Spirit whom I must invoke to effect the promised
change in thee, and by whose aid you can be given back to youth and comeliness,
will demand some fearful sacrifice at your hands. And the nature of that
sacrifice—the nature of the condition to be imposed—I can well divine!”

“Name the sacrifice—name the
condition!” cried the old man, eagerly. “I am so miserable—so spirit-broken—so
totally without hope in this world, that I greedily long to enter upon that new
existence which you promised me! Say, then, what is the condition?”

“That you prey upon the human
race, whom
 
he
 
hates as well as I,” answered the
stranger.

“Again those awful words!”
ejaculated the old man, casting trembling glances around him.

“Yes—again those words,” echoed
the mysterious guest, looking with his fierce burning eyes into the glazed orbs
of the aged shepherd. “And now learn their import!” he continued, in a solemn
tone. “Knowest thou not that there is a belief in many parts of our native land
that at particular seasons certain doomed men throw off the human shape and
take that of ravenous wolves?”

“Oh, yes—yes—I have indeed heard
of those strange legends in which the Wehr-Wolf is represented in such
appalling colors!” exclaimed the old man, a terrible suspicion crossing his
mind.

“’Tis said that at sunset on the
last day of every month the mortal, to whom belongs the destiny of the
Wehr-Wolf, must exchange his natural form for that of the savage animal; in
which horrible shape he must remain until the moment when the morrow’s sun
dawns upon the earth.”

“The legend that told thee this
spoke truly,” said the stranger. “And now dost thou comprehend the condition
which must be imposed upon thee?”

“I do—I do!” murmured the old man
with a fearful shudder. “But he who accepts that condition makes a compact with
the evil one, and thereby endangers his immortal soul!”

“Not so,” was the reply. “There
is naught involved in this condition which—— But hesitate not,” added the
stranger, hastily: “I have no time to waste in bandying words. Consider all I
offer you: in another hour you shall be another man!”