The power of reasoning, the will of acting for himself, which soon became evident in Charles Tyrrell, though not exercised prematurely, insolently, or obstinately, gave his father daily offence. It was with the gradual work of nature that he quarrelled in reality, while he affected to find fault with the conduct of his son. It was that he did not choose to see one, over whom he still thought to keep extended the rule of his iron rod, emancipated gradually, by the development of his corporeal and mental powers, from the authority which is given to parents for the protection and guidance of our immature years.
All this irritated him; but yet we do not mean to say that young Charles Tyrrell entertained any great veneration for his father's character, any love for his person, or any respect for his opinions: but that he did not do so was not his fault. The treatment which he daily experienced himself, and which he saw his mother undergo, had put an end altogether to anything like love and veneration; and the frequent variations of opinion which he daily beheld in his father; the arguing one day on one side of the question, and the next on the other side, as the passion of the moment dictated, left him, whether he would or not, without anything like respect for his judgment.
He had learned at a public school to put some degree of restraint upon himself, and to show some degree of respect, whether he felt it or not, to older persons than himself. Thus, as far as he could, he restrained himself and obeyed; but it was when his mother was concerned that he forgot all deference towards his father. Then the strong passions which he had inherited from him would burst forth; then the indignation, which he smothered in his own case, would find a voice; then the vehement energy of his nature would display itself, employing all the talents he possessed to give fire and point to his angry rejoinders.
Still, however, his father's experience, knowledge of the world, learning, and skill in sarcasm, would furnish him with weapons which almost drove the boy to madness; and more than once, during the first two or three years after he had ventured to oppose his father in regard to his mother, his anger ended in bitter and disappointed tears at being overpowered by arguments and sarcasms which he felt to be wrong and unjust.
After a time, however, as he approached the age of seventeen or eighteen, instead of tears, he fell into deep silence, partly from finding himself unable to express his indignation in words such as he dared to use towards his father; partly from the desire to examine intensely what could be the cause which prevented him from proving himself right when he knew himself to be so. That silence, however, was mortifying to Sir Francis: the tears he had liked very well to see; but when once in the career of passion, he loved to provoke a rejoinder, almost sure that it would throw his opponent open to some new blow. Silence, therefore, was the most irritating thing that could be opposed to him; and twice, when, in some of their violent altercations, his son suddenly ceased and said no more, he was even hurried on to strike him, although the period of life at which such an act from a father to a son is at all justifiable had long passed.
On those two occasions, Charles Tyrrell put both his hands behind his back, and clasped them tight together, till round each of the fingers, as they pressed upon the flesh of the other hand, a deep white space might be seen, showing the stern energy with which he clinched them together. On both these occasions, too, after gazing, with a frowning brow and a quivering lip, on his father's face for two or three moments in deep silence, he rushed suddenly out of the house and plunged into the woods around.
CHAPTER III.
We have dealt long enough in general descriptions, but they were necessary to explain what is to follow. We must now turn to particular incidents and to details of facts, endeavouring to set forth our tale more as a gallery of pictures than as a consecutive narrative.
The period of Charles Tyrrell's schooldays was over, and he was now studying at the University; but with his studies there we, of course, shall not meddle, but take up his history at his first return to his father's house, after having been absent some months at Oxford. His father, though possessed, as we have said, of very large fortune, had made his son no larger allowance at college than mere shame compelled him to do. This, however, proceeded in no degree from parsimony; for, as far as money was concerned, he was a liberal and a generous man; but the latent motive was to have a continual check upon his son, and a subject, at any time that he chose to employ it, for censure and irritation.
Do not let any one suppose that this picture is caricatured; for, on the contrary, it is true, and only drawn with a hand not strong enough to paint it accurately. The sum which he allowed his son was by no means sufficient to maintain him upon a level with young men of his own station, and, ere he had been many months at college, the thoughtlessness natural to youth, joined with a free and generous disposition, had, of course, plunged him into some difficulties. As soon as he found it was so, Charles Tyrrell, well knowing his fathers character, determined to extricate himself without subjecting himself to make a request to his father, which would be granted, he knew, with taunts and reproaches, and held over his head as an obligation incurred, to be frequently alluded to in the future. He therefore applied himself to economize with the most rigid exactness; and at a time when everything that was extravagant and thoughtless was done by all those around him, he devoted himself to study and to thought, making his application to such pursuits an excuse for absenting himself from the society of those with whom he had begun to associate.