Vintage Vampire Stories Read Free

that close to the town there is a long shallow lake, which in those days was a wide extending marsh, fell of tall reeds and surrounded by a thick underwood.
    Pedro Pacheco lived in a cottage of his own, with his wife and several children, whom he looked upon as paragons of perfection, in which sentiment Senhora Gertrudes, his better half, evidently joined him, as is not unusual in married couples with respect to their own handy work; though greater, according to the importance of the subject—that is to say, the more trifling the matter the louder they talked and the more they wrangled, as if their whole existence depended on the result; indeed the neighbours whispered that Senhora Gertrudes, whose voice was none of the sweetest, invariably had the best of the argument, if she was not in truth the better horse of the two. Notwithstanding their slight disagreements, Pedro loved his wife. He was a jovial fellow, of an excellent disposition, rather short and very fat, with well-filled cheeks and black rolling eyes. He was a welcome guest at every Romaria, or merry-making, when his ringing laugh was sure to be heard above all the others, or the sound of his voice as he touched his tinkling viola.
    One day it happened that, leaving his wife at home to take care of the children, he joined a fiesta which took place in honour of the marriage of one of his friends, who lived on the opposite side of the marsh to where his cottage was situated. Pedro enjoyed himself to the utmost. He laughed and talked, and ate and drank enough for everybody; he cracked his best jokes, he told his best story, and sang his best song. There was nothing to damp his spirits; when the dance began he snapped his fingers, nodded his head, and toed and heeled it with the youngest of them, every now and then taking a pull at the wine-skin just to prevent his mouth from getting dry. At last, the shades of evening coming on, the guests began to separate, and at the same time it struck Pedro that if he did not make haste to return home, he would receive rather a warmer reception than might agree with his ears when he got there. For some part of the way a considerable number of the revelers accompanied him, he walking at their head as proud as a peacock with open tail, with his guitar in hand, improvising songs in honour of the newly-made bride, the rest of the party taking up the chorus. One by one, however, dropped off on the road as they proceeded, till at last he was left to find his way home by himself as best he could. But that mattered little to friend Pedro; he knew the way perfectly, as well he might, for he had traversed it frequently, both day and night; his heart was stout, and he had a tough bow at his back, with plenty of arrows, and a sword by his side, for those were not times when a man could walk abroad without arms. On he went for some time, caring little for the stones and puddle in his way, singing at the top of his voice, though there was nobody to hear him except the frogs, who kept up a not very melodious concert in the neighbouring marsh. At last he remembered that there as, for his sins it might be said, such a person as the Senhora Gertrudes, his wife, who, it was more than probable, would make his ears tingle if he were not at home at the time she desired him to return. In those good old days, watches, steam-engines, political economy, and most other of the wicked inventions of the free-masons, were unknown, so he could only guess that he had no time to spare, and just as he arrived at this conclusion, he came to a path which made a short cut across the marsh, by which he should save a quarter of a league at the least. That there were several very soft places in it he knew, but he felt so light, airy, and active, that he fancied he could easily skip over them as he had often seen a daddy-long-legs do over a stagnant pond. The sky was clear, the moon was bright, so that he could not by any possibility, miss the path. One thing, though,