The Vampire from Berwik

In Berwik, England, there was once a vampire known as the Berwik vampire.  There once lived a religious man who everyone looked up to, but when he died, it was discovered that he had lived a life full of sin, and everyone disliked him afterwards.  The man died, possibly as a result of a plague, and since no one was too fond of the sins that he committed, he was denied to be buried in a normal graveyard, therefore his grave stood alone on unconsecrated grounds.

Soon after the man was buried, a pale apparition which resembled the man, was seen roaming the streets at night and attracting the attention of many dogs who followed him around, and barked endlessly all night long.  Residents were too afraid to walk outside at night, in case they crossed paths with the wicked creature and its hellhounds.  Disease began to spread around and some people thought that it was caused by the vile man getting revenge and spreading a plague.  A group of people eventually decided to try and fix the problem, therefore they went to the man’s grave during the day, dug him out, chopped his body into numerous pieces, then finally burned the body, in hope that this would destroy the undead phantom for good.  After all of this took place, the man ceased to wander the streets at night, and the loud barking of dogs also stopped, thus assuring the residents that evil had been vanquished and once again, they were free to walk the streets at night.  All did not go to well afterwards, because the plague returned to Berwik and many of its population perished, but many believed that it was caused by the previous presence of the vampire.

Some people classed the apparition as a ghost, while others thought that it was a vampire, and some people even thought that it was the man being controlled by Satan himself.  What do you think it was? Let me know in the comments.