His large estate could not purchase civility
from the gentry, the peasantry, scarcely from his own servants. In the
indignation of all around him he found a ghost that haunted him with
every change of place, and a remorse that stung his conscience, and
exterminated his peace. The neighbourhood appeared more and more every
day to be growing too hot for him to endure, and it became evident that
he would ultimately be obliged to quit the country. Urged by the
flagitiousness of this last example, people learned to recollect every
other instance of his excesses, and it was, no doubt, a fearful
catalogue that rose up in judgment against him. It seemed as if the
sense of public resentment had long been gathering strength unperceived,
and now burst forth into insuppressible violence.
There was scarcely a human being upon whom this sort of retribution
could have sat more painfully than upon Mr. Tyrrel. Though he had not a
consciousness of innocence prompting him continually to recoil from the
detestation of mankind as a thing totally unallied to his character, yet
the imperiousness of his temper and the constant experience he had had
of the pliability of other men, prepared him to feel the general and
undisguised condemnation into which he was sunk with uncommon emotions
of anger and impatience.
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