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

by G. P. R. James

He prepared, however, instantly to obey the summons he had received, and certainly did not suppose that his father, who had always been an advocate for duelling, would now entertain any very serious wrath at what had occurred, if the matter were properly explained to him. Making his preparations, therefore, with as much quickness as possible, he set out, on the morning after the receipt of his father's note, upon a journey destined to prove the most important of his life. He followed the same course that he had pursued on his preceding journey, going first to London, and then making his way onward by the heavy nightcoach.

During the former part of the journey, namely, from Oxford to London, Charles Tyrrell's thoughts were principally employed in endeavouring, by one effort of imagination or another, to divine who could be the person that had given Sir Francis Tyrrell information of an event which had been so carefully concealed as to be perfectly unknown to the members of the university, within twenty miles of the spot where it took place. But the only person whom he could fix upon was Lieutenant Hargrave himself, as he felt perfectly sure that that officer's second would not mention the matter: it having been represented to him beforehand that very serious consequences might ensue if it became known, by any chance, to the heads of the colleges, that a duel had been fought by one of the gentlemen commoners.

The irritation which he felt, under these circumstances, was very great; and it was fortunate that Lieutenant Hargrave himself was not near at hand at the moment when Charles came to the above conclusion, as it is not improbable that he would speedily have resorted to some sharp measure for chastising what he conceived to be an unwarrantable breach of confidence. However, as we have said, it luckily so happened that Lieutenant Hargrave was not in the coach, and, even more, that there was nobody in it at all: for Charles Tyrrell was certainly in an irritable mood, and there are few men, let their dispositions be what they will, who are not disagreeable companions when such is the case. Thus he had plenty of opportunity to torment himself with his own fancies, and in the course of that journey he learned one of the most valuable secrets of the human heart, by long and solitary commune with his own in a state of excitement.

People of an eager and impetuous nature, when by chance they fall into the sin and folly of anger, are apt to declare, that other people or other things have put them in a passion, when, in truth--even if others have had any share in the business at all, which is not always the case--those angry people have been themselves the principals, and others only the accessories. It generally happens that others may throw down for us a little smouldering straw, but it is our own thoughts and imagination that toss it up into a flame.

Charles Tyrrell felt that such was the case in his own instance; that he had worked himself up into a fit of anger upon very unreasonable grounds. He detected the habit of doing so in his own mind, and he had sufficient firmness and resolution, as soon as he had detected that habit, vigorously to set about rooting it out.

As the first effort so to do, he resolved to think upon Lieutenant Hargrave no farther; gazing forth from the window, he revolved with pleasure upon a thousand other things; remembered that the shooting season had already commenced; laid out a plan for being absent from home the greater part of the day, either occupied in the healthful sports of the field, or passing the hours in the society of her he loved best; and devising with her schemes for future happiness, building on foundations laid by imagination with materials from the abundant storehouses of hope.

At length, however, he reached the great metropolis of smoke and industry, and then once more set out in the Old Blue for the park of his father. At a little distance from London, however, the coach stopped, and a woman and a little girl, seemingly both out of health, and probably proceeding to the seaside for its recovery, applied to the coachman to be admitted. There was one place vacant in the vehicle, and the guard represented that the little girl was young and small, and would occupy but little space, if the passengers would consent to her sitting on her mother's knee.

Against this proposal a fat lady, who, if equity ruled stagecoaches, should have paid for two places instead of one, opposed her veto most vehemently, declaring that she would get out and take a chaise, and make the coachman pay, if any more than the legal proportion of passengers was admitted into the favoured vehicle in which she travelled. The poor woman stood by the coachside, with her child in her hand, waiting the event of the discussion, and pleading by no other means than a look of care, and anxiety, and ill health. The little girl was a frail, delicate child, like a flower of the early spring, that the first frost might wither, and she looked up first to her mother's face, and then to the vehicle, as if asking what they were to do.

After listening for a moment or two to the fat woman's objections, Charles Tyrrell put his foot out of the coach, saying, "My good lady, I will soon settle the matter; you sha'n't be put to the trouble of seeking a postchaise to-night by having too many in the inside. Coachman, I will go on the top, and then there will be plenty of room."

The fat woman had nothing to say, but, "Well, I declare!" but the poor woman by the coach side dropped him a low and grateful courtesy, and thanked him in a tone which could not be mistaken.