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 outhouses.
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.
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