"Which, of course, I shall do," replied Charles Tyrrell; "but most willingly, and most thankfully, do I pledge you my word of honour; for you may easily conceive that the custody of a constable, or the confinement of a prison, can afford but too little consolation, under circumstances already too painful." CHAPTER XXIII. We must now return, with the reader's good leave, to the spot from which we first set out, and to an individual whom we have not spoken of for some time--the desolate mansion of Harbury Park, and the unprincipled, but not altogether heartless friend of its last proprietor. The sad and awful funeral of Sir Frances Tyrrell took place while his son was still a prisoner within the walls of the county jail, accused, upon strong presumptive evidence, of the murder of his own father. As Sir Francis had no near relation living but his son, Mr. Driesen acted the part of chief mourner. An immense number of the country gentlemen, from the neighbouring parts of the different counties, however, attended; and, as was very customary, in those times, a large body of the tenantry of the deceased. A peculiar and painful feeling, totally independent and distinct from the general sensation of awe which is experienced by all men of feeling, in committing to the dust the remains of one of our frail brethren of earth, pervaded the whole assembly. It approached the bounds of superstition, and derived intensity and grandeur from the very indistinctness which no one present would suffer his thoughts or his reason to fathom and remove. There seemed to be a fate about the family to which the dead man belonged--a sort of dark and painful destiny, which produced in all minds a gloomy, and, if we may so term it, an anxious feeling. That feeling was expressed in a few words, by an old and wealthy farmer, who could well-nigh remember three generations in that house, when, on arriving to attend the funeral, he met a neighbour of nearly the same age as himself. "Ay," he said, "ay, another of these Tyrrells gone down to a bloody grave!" Such was the feeling of every one there present. It was, that the fate which dogged the family, had taken another victim; that it was only the working out of some dark, unseen combination of causes, which ever had, and ever would produce horrible catastrophes in the devoted race. When the funeral was over, and the coffin deposited in the vault, the principal gentry returned to the house to be present at the opening of the will. The farmers in general separated at the door of the churchyard; but the two old yeomen whom we have mentioned, remained, conversing over the event, while an aged man, whom we have already once before brought to the notice of the reader, named Smithson, sat, on a tombstone hard by, listening to their discourse. "Ay," said one of the farmers, "there is but one of them left now. They seldom go beyond one."