it was in the year 1600, or thereabouts, that the family of gyde first took its place in the history of cumberland.
a family may be likened to a thistle; plant it here or there, and, if left, it grows and flourishes, it casts its spores, like thistle-down on the wind of chance, and the spores blown here or there fade or flourish, as the case may be.
the wind of chance in the year 1600, blew sir john gyde to the wilds of cumberland, from the original home of the family in pembrokeshire.
how splendidly they built in those old days may still be seen in the house he made for himself.
sir john was a gentleman of a very old school; had he lived in the present day, and did the law take cognizance of his pleasantries and way of life, he would have found himself, within twenty-four hours, in the gaol of carlisle, and he would have been hanged, to a certainty, after the lapse of three clear sundays following his conviction at the next assizes.
in 1600, however, he was respected with that unalloyed respect which fear of a bloody-minded and powerful scoundrel inspired in the medieval mind.
for cumberland, in 1600, was medieval to the core, and the core is tinged, though ever so slightly, with medievalism still.
sir john gyde’s spirits, wine and tobacco, never paid duty, the smugglers of ravenglass knew why. he was the friend and protector of all lawless scoundrels who put money in his pocket, and he hanged and imprisoned all backsliders who didn’t. he had seduced other men’s wives, betrayed other men’s daughters, he had killed three men in duel with his red right hand, and he was a justice of the peace. throstle hall was the name of the house he had built for himself, and throstle hall it remains to this day, a formidable old pile, standing close up to the fells of blencarn like an ancient malefactor, miraculously preserved for our inspection; walls twenty-feet thick, a courtyard full of echoes, dungeon-like cellars, interminable passages, intricate, like the convolutions of a thief’s brain; little secret rooms, a picture gallery, where the dead and gone gydes stand still, despite the rigor of death, confessing their sins by the expressions on their faces; their loves, their hates, and, the fact, despite the beauty peeping here and there from the gloom of a dusty canvas, that the gydes were a sinister race.
a scarlet thread ran through the history of the family; there was something appalling in the rapidity that marked the history of their succession. death had had a lot of dealings with the gydes, and the gydes had dealt largely with death.
sir lionel gyde had killed sir thomas fiennes in a duel, and had been killed in turn by sir thomas’s son. he stands, still, in effigy, does sir lionel, dressed in faded violet velvet and mechlin lace, staring from the canvas straight before him, at the poplar trees waving in the wind before the gallery windows. he has every point that goes to the making of a handsome and debonair cavalier, but he has the pale blue eyes of a murderer.
near him there is a canvas blackened out. it has a history not to be repeated. beyond, another canvas exhibits a portly old gentleman. “fox hunter” is written upon his face across “port wine,” and that was his history.
they were not all bad, the gydes; the scarlet thread only appeared in the family texture here and there, but when it did appear it was vivid.
the fortunes of the family had been varied; the estates had been confiscated once and given back, it had cast spores as far as london, where aldermanic gydes had bloomed with great splendour.
in the overend and gurney business the family had, as nearly as possible, come to ruin; it was saved only by the genius of finance displayed by the present sir anthony gyde’s father.
when sir anthony, the man we have to deal with in this extraordinary story, came to his own, he found himself the possessor of half a million of money—a poor enough heritage in these days—throstle hall in cumberland, a house in piccadilly, and the reputation of being a fool.
he had gained the reputation at christ church.
the reputations gained and discarded at oxford would make a very quaint museum, could they be preserved, labelled and classified, and when plain anthony gyde became sir anthony, and succeeded to the banking business, founded by his grandfather, he left his reputation behind him at the university in more senses than one.
the thing was as surprising as the bursting of a dragon fly from its sheath.
it was in november that the university lost an undergraduate, noted chiefly for a handsome face, effeminacy and a taste for collecting first editions.
in the following january, lombard street became aware of a new hand in the game of finance.
as a matter of fact oxford had let loose, without knowing it (as she sometimes does), a very great genius.
the young sir anthony had the gift of seeing the inwardness of a thing; he had the gift of knowing what was going to appreciate; he had a nose that could scent rotten security through all the rose leaves and figments heaped upon it by the wiliest promoters of companies.
he would have succeeded as a small tradesman in a country town, but he never would have made such a success as he did, with half a million of money at his back, good credit and a hand in the european treacle-pot.
he was twenty-two when he succeeded to the banking business, and he was forty-four at the date of this story. twenty years, and he had done a great deal in twenty years. he had made himself a name in finance, not so great as the name of rothschild or schwab, but equally as great as hirsch.
he had a house in the avenue malakoff, in paris, as well as his house in london. paris and london were the two foci of his business orbit.
it is impossible for an ordinary person to estimate the power and influence that lie in the hands of a man like sir anthony gyde; millions do not, of a necessity, confer power upon their possessor, except the power of spending; but a man of genius, with seven million in cash and credit at his elbow, can command events.
of the private life of this banker-millionaire, the least said the better. he was a patron of art, he was many things besides. as a man of the world, that is to say, a man capable of fighting the world, he was all but flawless.
he had one weak point, his temper. he rarely lost his temper, but when he did, he quite lost control of himself and a demon, carefully hidden at all other times, arose and spoke and acted.
a terrible and familiar spirit.
when under its influence the man was appalling.
