Charles Tyrrell; or, The Bitter Blood. Volumes I and II

by G. P. R. James

They rode on along the sands, however, for a considerable way, enjoying themselves much; and if Charles Tyrrell was at all angry that a man, whose real character and views he understood so completely as he did those of Mr. Driesen, should set himself in a different light towards Lucy Effingham to that which he really merited, the worthy gentleman soon contrived to cure the evil himself. The conversation gradually turned to the subject of human motives in general. It was one of which Mr. Driesen was remarkably fond, and he could by no means resist his inclination to plunge at once into his usual course of reasoning on the subject. He was something more than even a disciple of La Rochefoucault. With him selfishness was everything. It was the great predominant spirit which moved all nature. There was nothing he did not refer to it, nothing that he did not derive from it.

Lucy was now silent in turn. She neither liked the doctrine nor believed it. She saw there must be sophistry, though she could not see where. She believed that there was either a confusion or a laxity of terms, which enabled Mr. Driesen to confound one thing with another; and as she could not detect where it existed, she wisely held her tongue.

Charles Tyrrell, who had heard the same doctrines before, did not choose to enter into a dispute upon the subject, but contented himself with throwing in a word or two every now and then to counteract Mr. Driesen's reasonings by reducing them to an absurdity. He broke in upon them too, from time to time, to call Lucy's attention to some beautiful spot or some curious object, and for almost all of them he had some little anecdote to tell, some little legend to narrate, or some observation to make, which showed that he had not frequented the scenes of his youth with eyes or ears shut, or heart or mind idle.

When they had passed the martello tower some way, and as the day was beginning to decline, he pointed out a road which led between two of the cliffs to the left, saying, "Now, which way shall we go? That takes us back to the Park, and is about two miles shorter than the way we came; but I do not know that it is so pleasant."

"Oh, the longest way, by all means, Mr. Tyrrell," replied Lucy Effingham, looking up in his face with a bright smile. "Such a pleasant ride as this can hardly be too long."

Often have we harangued upon the important results which spring from the smallest trifles. Those few words decided the fate of Charles Tyrrell and Lucy Effingham for ever. It was not that the bright smile with which they were accompanied lighted up in Charles Tyrrell's bosom any feelings which were not there before; for he fully believed afterward, as he had previously thought, that the first affections of her heart were given to another; but it was, that the very moment in which they stood there to decide on the one road or the other, was the very critical moment of their fate; that every after-moment through all time and eternity was affected by it; and that the consequences of Lucy's decision, by the concatenation of a thousand fine, small incidents, brought events to pass that no one then did calculate or ever could have calculated.

This is, in fact, the place where our story should have begun; but, notwithstanding the maxim of the poet of old Rome, we cannot help thinking that it is better to begin a little too soon than a little too late, in histories as in other things.

Charles Tyrrell instantly turned his horse's head on the road for which Lucy had decided; but they rode back more slowly than they had come; for it seemed as if the two younger of the party, at all events, wished to linger on as long as possible by the side of that calm grand sea. More than once they pulled in the rein and stood to gaze, though the ocean presented little for their contemplation beyond the sublime of its own immensity; except, indeed, where a distant sail skimmed along the waters, or a white bird dipped its long pinions in the dark bosom of the deep.

They had returned very nearly to the spot where they had first reached the seashore, when they came to a little cottage at about the distance of a mile from the martello tower, and about twenty yards apart from another, which stood close to the cliff. There was nobody visible at the cottage-door, and a boat, which had lain high and dry as they had passed before, was now beginning to float with the tide, which was rolling rapidly in. The sea on that part of the coast, as I have often witnessed, goes out as gently and softly as a fine summer's day; but, even in the calmest weather, rushes in with great rapidity and force. There was no other boat near, though, from the appearance of the ground, and a spar or two which lay upon the beach, there appeared to have been a larger one somewhat higher up not long before, and it was natural to conclude that the fishermen, on that fine day, had put out to sea.

Charles and Lucy drew up their horses not far from the boat to gaze once more over the sea; but at that moment Charles Tyrrell saw the little bark begin to slip down the sand as the water flowed round it, and it instantly struck him that by some accident it had become detached from whatever it had been moored to.