attempting to right himself by legal process, being of opinion
that law was better adapted for a weapon of tyranny in the hands of the rich,
than for a shield to protect the humbler part of the community against their
usurpations. In this last instance however he conceived that the offence was so
atrocious as to make it impossible that any rank could protect the culprit
against the severity of justice. In the sequel he saw reason to applaud himself
for his former inactivity in this respect, and to repent that any motive had
been strong enough to persuade him into a contrary system.
    This was the very point to which Mr. Tyrrel wanted to bring him, and he
could scarcely credit his good fortune, when he was told that Hawkins had
entered an action. His congratulation upon this occasion was immoderate, as he
now conceived that the ruin of his late favourite was irretrievable. He
consulted his attorney, and urged him by every motive he could devise to employ
the whole series of his subterfuges in the present affair. The direct repelling
of the charge exhibited against him was the least part of his care; the business
was, by affidavits, motions, pleas, demurrers, flaws and appeals, to protract
the question from term to term and from court to court. It would, as Mr. Tyrrel
argued, be the disgrace of a civilized country, if a gentleman, when insolently
attacked in law by the scum of the earth, could not convert the cause into a
question of the longest purse, and stick in the skirts of his adversary till he
had reduced him to beggary.
    Mr. Tyrrel however was by no means so far engrossed by his law-suit, as to
neglect other methods of proceeding offensively against his tenant. Among the
various expedients that suggested themselves there was one, which, though it
tended rather to torment than irreparably injure the sufferer, was not rejected.
This was derived from the particular situation of Hawkins's house, barns, stacks
and out-houses. They were placed at the extremity of a slip of land connecting
them with the rest of the farm, and were surrounded on three sides by fields in
the occupation of one of Mr. Tyrrel's tenants most devoted to the pleasures of
his landlord. The road to the market town ran at the bottom of the largest of
these fields, and was directly in view of the front of the house. No
inconvenience had yet arisen from that circumstance, as there had always been a
broad path, that intersected this field, and led directly from Hawkins's house
to the road. This path, or