CHAPTER I.

Among all the many fine and beautiful figures and modes of reasoning that the universe in which we dwell has afforded for the illustration of the bright hope that is within us of a life renewed beyond the tomb, there is none more beautiful or more exquisite, that I know of, than that which is derived from the seasons; from the second life that bursts forth in spring in objects apparently dead, and from the shadowing forth in the renovation of everything around us of that after destiny which divine revelation calls upon our faith to believe shall yet be ours. The trees, that have faded and remained dark and gray through the long, dreary lapse of winter, clothe themselves again in green in the spring sunshine, and every leaf and every hue speaks of life. The birds that were mute sing again as tunefully as ever; the flowers that were trampled down and faded burst forth once more, in freshness and in beauty; the streams break from the icy chains that held them, and the glorious sun himself comes wandering back from his far journey, giving summer and warmth, and fertility and magnificence

to everything around. All that we see breathes of the same hope; everything that we see rekindles into life.

But, on the other hand, there are things within us that awake no more; there are feelings in our hearts that, passed away, return not; there are thoughts that can never be thought again: there are hopes that, once put out, are put out for ever. These are the things that speak to us of death! These are the things that would darken our hopes of immortality, were we not to draw from them inferences of a higher state of being, where love, and confidence, and happiness are not delusions; where the plant of enjoyment has not its root in the earth, and where the flowers of life wither not away. There are certainly changes in our very nature which would fill our bosoms with many dark and awful doubts, did we not find that, in the well-regulated mind, the bright and intoxicating dreams of early youth, the love that has been crushed or thwarted, the confidence that has been a thousand times betrayed, may give place to firmer and more solid things, feelings not so exquisite, but more deep and powerful; thoughts not so brilliant, but more just and true, did we not find that, with proper

cultivation, the flowers made way for fruit; did we not find that every stage of existence would have, but for our own faults, its proper class of enjoyments, and that every stage but leads us on towards an appreciation of that last noblest state of being, for which all the rest are but a preparation. If we are immortal, is it not well that we should find earth's flowers fade? If we are immortal, is it not well that we should find earth's hopes deceive us? If we are immortal, is it not well that we should learn to regret the passing away of bright capabilities in our own nature, which are sure to be renewed extended, multiplied in heaven?

The flowers that have been torn up can never take root again on earth; but, nevertheless, there does occasionally come a time, there do occasionally occur events, by which all the pain and agony that our heart has suffered in disappointment of trust or expectation, is more, far more than made up; and though, perhaps, the same flower is not to be refreshed, brighter plants blossom in its stead, and give us back our confidence.

In a pleasant part of Hampshire, where I have passed many of the bright and sunshiny days of my early existence, not very far from the seacoast, there stands a house with which is connected three or four legends, each of a very interesting character, but from which I choose one as having reference to times and events within my own remembrance. It is a very large and convenient house, without any pretensions to architectural decoration, with no relationship to any style whatsoever, and constructed upon no principles except those implanted by nature, which teaches man to construct for himself a dwelling the best adapted to his own wants and conveniences. It had, in fact, at one time been a small house, built indeed with regard to no economy of space, but only with regard to the comfort of its first owners, who required but few apartments, yet made them as roomy as could be desired. It had been added to by about three generations, who, increasing in wealth and luxury, demanded more accommodation; and thus, though on one side of the building some degree of order and

regularity was still preserved—that is to say, the windows were all in a line, and of the same number in each of the stories—on the other side they had been posted wherever pleasure or convenience suggested; so that the northern front was like a child's first drawing of a house, in which a window and a door are put in wherever a place is found open for them.

At the time I knew the building it was covered with stucco on the outside, and in appearance was as unlike a place in which tragedy or romance ever had been, or ever was likely to be enacted, as it is possible to conceive. There was a cheerfulness about its aspect, a bright, whitewashed, unsentimental gayety of appearance that spoke of blithe and joyful things; but, at the same time, it was relieved from the harshness and vulgarity with which whitewashed buildings are generally invested by the scenery that surrounded it, by the pleasant irregularity of its aspect, and by a number of old chimneys that came peeping over the parapets in odd places where nobody expected them. It was imbosomed, too, in a deep wood, which came up to three out of the four angles of the building, leaving long sunshiny lawns—only broken here and there by a fine tree with a garden-seat beneath it—sweeping up to the three principal fronts of the house.

The fourth front had once been the principal one; but, according to the plan of modern improvement, which in so many instances conceives that it produces all that can be desired by turning the back part of things foremost, that front had now been dedicated to the offices. From it wound away a long wide avenue of fine old elm-trees, like that which we see so frequently leading up to an antique French chateau; and I remember, in my young days, I used to dispute with myself in the summer and the winter, as I rode up the broad green road between the two rows, which looked the best and most congenial to the scene, those fine trees in the dark green fulness of their midsummer clothing, or in the cold, gray, solemn bareness of the winter, when all the bright things that had decorated them through the rest of the year were cast down withering at their feet, like the passing pleasures of existence cast off from a mind preparing for a tomb. I believe I then preferred the summer aspect, perhaps I might now find more harmony in the winter.

The woods that surrounded the building on the other sides were, in fact, kept as pleasure-grounds. They were full of winding walks, cleanly and carefully swept, though the extent was very great; while underneath the beeches and the elms, on either side of those paths, grew up an abundance of wild flowers, the plain white strawberry, the graceful and beloved plant of the winds, the columbine, the violet, and the primrose.

One of those walks which led away towards the south, at a distance of half a mile from the house, divided into two. The left-hand branch, which followed the original direction, brought me to another broad walk, which faced the risen sun upon the edge of the wood; and while the fine beech-trees, sweeping down with their long branches like a penthouse, sheltered it entirely from the sun in the summer, and from the rain in the spring and the autumn, they did not at all obstruct the view over some sunny fields to another little wood beyond, over which again rose up Harbury Hill, the chief landmark of the country round about.

The other branch of the road took a direction somewhat to the west, and at the distance of about a quarter of a mile, or a little more, from the place where the two separated, it reached the wall of the kitchen-garden, which lay imbosomed in the deepest part of the wood, containing within itself a space of about two acres, surrounded by high brick walls on all sides. There were two doors in this wall, the one exactly opposite to the path we have mentioned, the other on the other side. Besides this, however, there was a way in and out through the back of one of the two gardeners' cottages, which were built against the wall in the inside.

On the outside of the wall all was fair and smooth, no building of any kind being suffered to deface the external appearance of that high and imposing mass of lichen-covered brickwork, except—alas! that there should be an exception to everything in this world—except one little solitary toolshed, of the ugliest and most anomalous aspect, stuck on like an imposthume on the face of the tall wall, and offending the eye on the very first approach to the garden. Many and many a time have I petitioned that it should be removed; but there was some impediment in the very nature of things, it would seem, which prevented the request from being attended to.

The tools that were kept therein were not, it would seem, a part and parcel of the gardener's utensils. They belonged to the woodmen, and, of course, the gardener would not give them admission within his domain. The place where the great bulk of the woodmen's tools were kept was at the opposite side of the wood, a mile and a half off. It was very handy to have the tools near; and it would seem, that for various reasons, the nature of which I could never find out, or, at least, not understand, there was no place whatsoever in the wood round about which was so convenient as that spot against the garden wall. Such, at least, was the report of the woodman; and, of course, as he was a very veracious person, and somewhat surly withal, I was bound to believe him, and say nothing more upon the subject.

Now let not the reader suppose that either in the long and vague proemium with which this chapter opens, and in which he will find hereafter some reference to the tale; or in this minute and curious description of the house and grounds, especially of the paths leading to the back walk and the garden, that I have been led away by the vain desire of reading homilies to those who will not hear, or of dwelling with a sort of doting pleasure upon scenes which I loved in my youth, and about which few care or are interested besides myself. Every author, whose fingers are worthy to hold a pen, has an object in each sentence that he writes; and—although in the multitude of characters which throng the world, and the difficulty of ascertaining men's real feelings from their outward appearances, it would be impossible to put the right direction upon each epistle—every half page of every book that is worth reading is addressed to some particular person or class of persons, who are supposed by the author to be capable of understanding and appreciating him. The description that we have

given, however, has a more general purpose, and the reader is besought earnestly to remember every word of it, or, at all events, to put a piece of paper in the place, inasmuch as, without having that scene constantly before his eyes, and knowing and comprehending it all as well as if he had walked through it a hundred times, he cannot clearly and distinctly understand the matter that is to follow.

Having given an account of the place, it now behooves us to speak of those who inhabited it; and certainly, at the period I speak of—I do not mean that period within my own personal acquaintance with the spot—it offered anything but an illustration of the beautiful words of Hooker in his description of the celestial dwelling-places. Nevertheless, we shall make the quotation, if it were but for the pleasure of transcribing those beautiful words, independent of the splendid opposition which they afford to all that we are about to describe. "Angels," he says, "are spirits immaterial and intellectual. The glorious inhabitants of those sacred palaces, where there is nothing but light and immortality, no shadow of matter for tears, discontentments, griefs, and uncomfortable passions to work upon; but all joy, tranquillity, and peace, even for ever do dwell."

This may be taken for a grand description of everything which that dwelling was not. Beautiful as was the scene, and pleasant as all the accessories round about, there was seldom anything like peace and tranquillity within. The pheasants came strutting upon the lawns, the timid hare lost a part of her shyness, and scarcely deigned to stand erect and listen with elevated ears for the half-heard sound; the squirrel crossed from one plantation to another within twenty yards of the windows; all the habits of the sylvan world around spoke of peace and tranquillity. But peace was not within. The truth was, that the inmates of that dwelling were too busy in making war upon each other to turn their attacks upon the people of the woods without.

But it is time that we should enter into more specific details, and bring the characters, one by one, before the reader.

Sir Francis Tyrrell, the proprietor of that mansion and of some very large estates in that vicinity, was in possession, besides, of a baronetcy, derived in a direct line by himself from an ancestor who had received it at the time whereat that mixed breed between the baron and the knight was first propagated. His ancestry was also distinctly traceable through several centuries before, producing a great number of very ornamental people in former times, who shone in the tiltyard, the tournament, and the battle-field; and, in later times, more than one who had received the high distinction of swinging in effigy upon a signpost, either as the distinctive mark of the house, or a recommendation to the beer within.

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.