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

by G. P. R. James

There were various of his progenitors, indeed, whose names were but lightly touched upon in the family history; they were not omitted, as that would have caused a breach in the line, but belonging to that numerous class of persons who may be best described by saying, the less said about them the better, those who compiled the genealogy had been cautious in dealing with them. Deeper investigations, however, would have shown that these members, who met with scanty mention, had generally encountered fates more or less tragical; one had been killed by a blow of an axe received from a woodman; another had been almost torn to pieces by a mob at the end of the reign of James II., and died of the injuries received; three or four of them had been killed in duels, and one had been shot by a soldier under his command, who was afterward executed for the offence.

All these were certainly mentioned by the genealogist, and, in some instances, their lamentable fate was commented on with praises of their virtues, &c. But the causes of those duels, the provocation given to the soldier, the woodman, and the mob, were not mentioned. There were three in the line whose birth and death alone were recorded; and it was shrewdly suspected by those who understood such matters, that one, if not two, of these had perished by the hands of a functionary of the law, while the other, or others, were supposed to have taken their departure unsummoned to their long account.

On looking nearer still, it was found that, in the whole race, there was a fierce and furious disposition, an impetuous and ungovernable temper, which, combined with a general fearlessness of character and heedlessness of consequences, formed that very moral constitution which was best calculated to lead them into dangers, difficulties, and even crimes. The man who had been killed by the axe had been proved to have exasperated the unfortunate woodman to such a degree by his intemperate violence and domineering pride, that a jury could not be found to condemn the slayer, though an inquest had brought in a verdict of murder upon the slain.

The same conduct was shown to have been the case in regard to him who was torn to pieces by the mob, he having, in his magisterial capacity, done anything but attempt to calm and quiet the sedition, but, on the contrary, had done all that he could to exasperate, to irritate, and to drive into madness. This was put forth, indeed, by his biographer as a bold and valiant proceeding on his part; but there were others who thought that it was only an evidence of the same furious, irritable, scornful disposition which had made itself so remarkable in the race.

The father of Sir Francis Tyrrell had differed very little from his ancestors. He had been a bold, fearless, overbearing, and tyrannical man; a soldier in his youth, a fox-hunter in his latter days; a despot in his magisterial capacity, an irritating neighbour, and an insufferable master of his house. He had been a very handsome man withal; and, in order to prove his disregard for personal beauty, he had married a young lady of the neighbourhood of considerable fortune, but who certainly possessed few personal attractions. As a girl, she had been silent, calm, unobtrusive, apparently thoughtful; in person, little, dark, pale, with small, keen black eyes, and a somewhat pointed nose. Her voice had been sharp, but not very musical; and there was something in her whole demeanour which made the old clergyman of the parish, who had known her from her youth, and who was, moreover, somewhat waggishly disposed, declare, when he heard of the marriage about to take place, that he was excessively glad of it, for that she was just the wife for Sir John Tyrrell.

When they were once fairly married, more of the lady's character appeared; not that she ever became more loquacious or loud-tongued than she had been before; but Sir John very soon found that she had always ready for any of his furious breakings forth of passion a calm, quiet, stinging reply, in which she seemed to combine with diabolical ingenuity everything that was most disagreeable for him to hear, and to compress it into the fewest possible words. She had a particular art, too, of modulating her voice, so that, in the midst of one of his most furious and noisy fits of rage, her low, quiet tones made themselves distinctly heard, and not one biting word was lost to his ear.

Sir John was not a man to be frustrated even by this sort of warfare, and he carried it on with his lady through the whole of his life; but he was a candid man, and used occasionally to acknowledge that his furious speeches and behaviour, compared with the quiet words and demeanour of his wife, were as a drubbing with a crabstick to a cut with a scythe.

The offspring of this hopeful union was Sir Francis Tyrrell, and well might his biographer declare that he combined in his own person all the virtues and qualities of his father and his mother: for, to an ungovernable temper, such as had descended to him from his ancestors, he added a sarcastic bitterness peculiarly his own.

Sir Francis Tyrrell was a learned and a literary man; in person somewhat below the middle size, dark in complexion, with sharp features and overhanging eyebrows, which, at the time I choose for opening this tale, were grizzled with some long gray hairs, which from time to time he industriously pulled out with tweezers, while they, with a pertinacity worthy of him from whom they sprang, regularly grew up again, longer, and grayer, and more prominent than ever. He wrote a good deal at various times, and produced works marked by very superior talents; and he also formed frequent theories, which were by no means always correct, but which all displayed genius of a certain kind, and considerable originality, if not perversity of thought. Of these works and these theories Sir Francis was not a little vain, and this was one of the most irritable points in his character. He could bear to be touched upon almost all other subjects but those; or rather we might say, that though it was not without danger that any one touched him upon any subject, upon these he became quite furious.

His family were totally without what the phrenologists call the organ of veneration. They had little respect for anything, and set out with having no respect for themselves. This they concealed in their own case, of course, as far as possible; but this want of respect never failed to make itself manifest both in words and deeds, when it referred to any member of their own family. Thus, Sir Francis was heard to declare that his father was one of the greatest fools that ever lived, and on being asked why, replied, "For marrying my mother."