It was not long before I took my everlasting leave of this detested and
miserable scene. My heart was for the present too full of astonishment
and exultation in my unexpected deliverance, to admit of anxiety about
the future. I withdrew from the town; I rambled with a slow and
thoughtful pace, now bursting with exclamation, and now buried in
profound and undefinable reverie. Accident led me towards the very heath
which had first sheltered me, when, upon a former occasion, I broke out
of my prison. I wandered among its cavities and its valleys. It was a
forlorn and desolate solitude. I continued here I know not how long.
Night at length overtook me unperceived, and I prepared to return for
the present to the town I had quitted.
It was now perfectly dark, when two men, whom I had not previously
observed, sprung upon me from behind. They seized me by the arms, and
threw me upon the ground. I had no time for resistance or recollection.
I could however perceive that one of them was the diabolical Gines. They
blindfolded, gagged me, and hurried me I knew not whither. As we passed
along in silence, I endeavoured to conjecture what could be the meaning
of this extraordinary violence. I was strongly impressed with the idea,
that, after the event of this morning, the most severe and painful part
of my history was past; and, strange as it may seem, I could not
persuade myself to regard with alarm this unexpected attack. It might
however be some new project, suggested by the brutal temper and
unrelenting animosity of Gines.
I presently found that we were returned into the town I had just
quitted. They led me into a house, and, as soon as they had taken
possession of a room freed me from the restraints they had before
imposed. Here Gines informed me with a malicious grin that no harm was
intended me, and therefore I should show most sense in keeping myself
quiet. I perceived that we were in an inn; I overheard company in a room
at no great distance from us, and therefore was now as thoroughly aware
as he could be, that there was at present little reason to stand in fear
of any species of violence, and that it would be time enough to resist,
when they attempted to conduct me from the inn in the same manner that
they had brought me into it. I was not without some curiosity to see the
conclusion that was to follow upon so extraordinary a commencement.
The preliminaries I have described were scarcely completed, before Mr.
Falkland entered the room. I remember Collins, when he first
communicated to me the particulars of our patron's history, observed
that he was totally unlike the man he had once been. I had no means of
ascertaining the truth of that observation. But it was strikingly
applicable to the spectacle which now presented itself to my eyes,
though, when I last beheld this unhappy man, he had been a victim to the
same passions, a prey to the same undying remorse, as now. Misery was at
that time inscribed in legible characters upon his countenance. But now
he appeared like nothing that had ever been visible in human shape. His
visage was haggard, emaciated, and fleshless. His complexion was a dun
and tarnished red, the colour uniform through every region of the face,
and suggested the idea of its being burnt and parched by the eternal
fire that burned within him. His eyes were red, quick, wandering, full
of suspicion and rage. His hair was neglected, ragged, and floating.
His whole figure was thin, to a degree that suggested the idea rather of
a skeleton than a person actually alive. Life seemed hardly to be the
capable inhabitant of so woe-begone and ghost-like a figure. The taper
of wholesome life was expired; but passion, and fierceness, and frenzy,
were able for the present to supply its place.
I was to the utmost degree astonished and shocked at the sight of
him.--He sternly commanded my conductors to leave the room.
"Well, sir, I have this day successfully exerted myself to save your
life from the gallows. A fortnight ago you did what you were able to
bring my life to that ignominious close.
"Were you so stupid and undistinguishing as not to know that the
preservation of your life was the uniform object of my exertions? Did
not I maintain you in prison? Did not I endeavour to prevent your being
sent thither? Could you mistake the bigoted and obstinate conduct of
Forester, in offering a hundred guineas for your apprehension, for mine?
"I had my eye upon you in all your wanderings. You have taken no
material step through their whole course with which I have not been
acquainted. I meditated to do you good. I have spilt no blood but that
of Tyrrel: that was in the moment of passion; and it has been the
subject of my uninterrupted and hourly remorse. I have connived at no
man's fate but that of the Hawkinses: they could no otherwise have been
saved, than by my acknowledging myself a murderer. The rest of my life
has been spent in acts of benevolence.
"I meditated to do you good. For that reason I was willing to prove you.
You pretended to act towards me with consideration and forbearance. If
you had persisted in that to the end, I would yet have found a way to
reward you. I left you to your own discretion. You might show the
impotent malignity of your own heart; but, in the circumstances in which
you were then placed, I knew you could not hurt me. Your forbearance has
proved, as I all along suspected, empty and treacherous. You have
attempted to blast my reputation. You have sought to disclose the select
and eternal secret of my soul. Because you have done that, I will never
forgive you. I will remember it to my latest breath. The memory shall
survive me, when my existence is no more. Do you think you are out of
the reach of my power, because a court of justice has acquitted you?"
While Mr. Falkland was speaking a sudden distemper came over his
countenance, his whole frame was shaken by an instantaneous convulsion,
and he staggered to a chair. In about three minutes he recovered.
"Yes," said he, "I am still alive. I shall live for days, and months,
and years; the power that made me, of whatever kind it be, can only
determine how long. I live the guardian of my reputation. That, and to
endure a misery such as man never endured, are the only ends to which I
live. But, when I am no more, my fame shall still survive. My character
shall be revered as spotless and unimpeachable by all posterity, as long
as the name of Falkland shall be repeated in the most distant regions of
the many-peopled globe."
Having said this, he returned to the discourse which more immediately
related to my future condition and happiness.
"There is one condition," said he, "upon which you may obtain some
mitigation of your future calamity. It is for that purpose that I have
sent for you. Listen to my proposal with deliberation and sobriety.
Remember, that the insanity is not less to trifle with the resolved
determination of my soul, than it would be to pull a mountain upon your
head that hung trembling upon the edge of the mighty Apennine!
"I insist then upon your signing a paper, declaring, in the most solemn
manner, that I am innocent of murder, and that the charge you alleged at
the office in Bow-street is false, malicious, and groundless. Perhaps
you may scruple out of a regard to truth. Is truth then entitled to
adoration for its own sake, and not for the sake of the happiness it is
calculated to produce? Will a reasonable man sacrifice to barren truth,
when benevolence, humanity, and every consideration that is dear to the
human heart, require that it should be superseded? It is probable that I
may never make use of this paper, but I require it, as the only
practicable reparation to the honour you have assailed. This is what I
had to propose. I expect your answer."
"Sir," answered I, "I have heard you to an end, and I stand in need of
no deliberation to enable me to answer you in the negative. You took me
up a raw and inexperienced boy, capable of being moulded to any form you
pleased. But you have communicated to me volumes of experience in a very
short period. I am no longer irresolute and pliable. What is the power
you retain over my fate I am unable to discover. You may destroy me; but
you cannot make me tremble. I am not concerned to enquire, whether what
I have suffered flowed from you by design or otherwise; whether you were
the author of my miseries, or only connived at them. This I know, that I
have suffered too exquisitely on your account, for me to feel the least
remaining claim on your part to my making any voluntary sacrifice.
"You say that benevolence and humanity require this sacrifice of me. No;
it would only be a sacrifice to your mad and misguided love of fame,--to
that passion which has been the source of all your miseries, of the most
tragical calamities to others, and of every misfortune that has happened
to me. I have no forbearance to exercise towards that passion. If you be
not yet cured of this tremendous and sanguinary folly, at least I will
do nothing to cherish it. I know not whether from my youth I was
destined for a hero; but I may thank you for having taught me a lesson
of insurmountable fortitude.
"What is it that you require of me? that I should sign away my own
reputation for the better maintaining of yours. Where is the equality of
that? What is it that casts me at such an immense distance below you, as
to make every thing that relates to me wholly unworthy of consideration?
You have been educated in the prejudice of birth. I abhor that
prejudice. You have made me desperate, and I utter what that desperation
suggests.
"You will tell me perhaps that I have no reputation to lose; that, while
you are esteemed faultless and unblemished, I am universally reputed a
thief, a suborner, and a calumniator. Be it so. I will never do any
thing to countenance those imputations. The more I am destitute of the
esteem of mankind, the more careful I will be to preserve my own. I will
never from fear, or any other mistaken motive, do any thing of which I
ought to be ashamed.
"You are determined to be for ever my enemy. I have in no degree
deserved this eternal abhorrence. I have always esteemed and pitied you.
For a considerable time I rather chose to expose myself to every kind
of misfortune, than disclose the secret that was so dear to you. I was
not deterred by your menaces--(what could you make me suffer more than
I actually suffered?)--but by the humanity of my own heart; in which,
and not in means of violence, you ought to have reposed your confidence.
What is the mysterious vengeance that you can yet execute against me?
You menaced me before; you can menace no worse now. You are wearing out
the springs of terror. Do with me as you please; you teach me to hear
you with an unshrinking and desperate firmness. Recollect yourself! I
did not proceed to the step with which you reproach me, till I was
apparently urged to the very last extremity. I had suffered as much as
human nature can suffer; I had lived in the midst of eternal alarm and
unintermitted watchfulness; I had twice been driven to purposes of
suicide. I am now sorry however, that the step of which you complain was
ever adopted. But, urged to exasperation by an unintermitted rigour, I
had no time to cool or to deliberate. Even at present I cherish no
vengeance against you. All that is reasonable, all that can really
contribute to your security, I will readily concede; but I will not be
driven to an act repugnant to all reason, integrity, and justice."
Mr. Falkland listened to me with astonishment and impatience. He had
entertained no previous conception of the firmness I displayed. Several
times he was convulsed with the fury that laboured in his breast. Once
and again he betrayed an intention to interrupt; but he was restrained
by the collectedness of my manner, and perhaps by a desire to be
acquainted with the entire state of my mind. Finding that I had
concluded, he paused for a moment; his passion seemed gradually to
enlarge, till it was no longer capable of control.
"It is well!" said he, gnashing his teeth, and stamping upon the ground.
"You refuse the composition I offer! I have no power to persuade you to
compliance! You defy me! At least I have a power respecting you, and
that power I will exercise; a power that shall grind you into atoms. I
condescend to no more expostulation. I know what I am, and what I can
be. I know what you are, and what fate is reserved for you!"
Saying this he quitted the room.
Such were the particulars of this memorable scene. The impression it has
left upon my understanding is indelible. The figure and appearance of
Mr. Falkland, his death-like weakness and decay, his more than mortal
energy and rage, the words that he spoke, the motives that animated him,
produced one compounded effect upon my mind that nothing of the same
nature could ever parallel. The idea of his misery thrilled through my
frame. How weak in comparison of it is the imaginary hell, which the
great enemy of mankind is represented as carrying every where about with
him!
From this consideration, my mind presently turned to the menaces he had
vented against myself. They were all mysterious and undefined. He had
talked of power, but had given no hint from which I could collect in
what he imagined it to consist. He had talked of misery, but had not
dropped a syllable respecting the nature of the misery to be inflicted.
I sat still for some time, ruminating on these thoughts. Neither Mr.
Falkland nor any other person appeared to disturb my meditations. I
rose, went out of the room, and from the inn into the street. No one
offered to molest me. It was strange! What was the nature of this
power, from which I was to apprehend so much, yet which seemed to leave
me at perfect liberty? I began to imagine that all I had heard from this
dreadful adversary was mere madness and extravagance, and that he was at
length deprived of the use of reason, which had long served him only as
a medium of torment. Yet was it likely in that case that he should be
able to employ Gines and his associate, who had just been his
instruments of violence upon my person?
I proceeded along the streets with considerable caution. I looked before
me and behind me, as well as the darkness would allow me to do, that I
might not again be hunted in sight by some men of stratagem and violence
without my perceiving it. I went not, as before, beyond the limits of
the town, but considered the streets, the houses, and the inhabitants,
as affording some degree of security. I was still walking with my mind
thus full of suspicion and forecast, when I discovered Thomas, that
servant of Mr. Falkland whom I have already more than once had occasion
to mention. He advanced towards me with an air so blunt and direct, as
instantly to remove from me the idea of any thing insidious in his
purpose; besides that I had always felt the character of Thomas, rustic
and uncultivated as it was, to be entitled to a more than common portion
of esteem.
"Thomas," said I, as he advanced, "I hope you are willing to give me
joy, that I am at length delivered from the dreadful danger which for
many months haunted me so unmercifully."
"No," rejoined Thomas, roughly; "I be not at all willing. I do not know
what to make of myself in this affair. While you were in prison in that
miserable fashion, I felt all at one almost as if I loved you: and now
that that is over, and you are turned out loose in the world to do your
worst, my blood rises at the very sight of you. To look at you, you are
almost that very lad Williams for whom I could with pleasure, as it
were, have laid down my life; and yet, behind that smiling face there
lie robbery, and lying, and every thing that is ungrateful and
murderous. Your last action was worse than all the rest. How could you
find in your heart to revive that cruel story about Mr. Tyrrel, which
every body had agreed, out of regard to the squire, never to mention
again, and of which I know, and you know, he is as innocent as the child
unborn? There are causes and reasons, or else I could have wished from
the bottom of my soul never to have set eyes on you again."
"And you still persist in your hard thoughts of me?"
"Worse! I think worse of you than ever! Before, I thought you as bad as
man could be. I wonder from my soul what you are to do next. But you
make good the old saying, 'Needs must go, that the devil drives.'"
"And so there is never to be an end of my misfortunes! What can Mr.
Falkland contrive for me worse than the ill opinion and enmity of all
mankind?"
"Mr. Falkland contrive! He is the best friend you have in the world,
though you are the basest traitor to him. Poor man! it makes one's heart
ache to look at him; he is the very image of grief. And it is not clear
to me that it is not all owing to you. At least you have given the
finishing lift to the misfortune that was already destroying him. There
have been the devil and all to pay between him and squire Forester. The
squire is right raving mad with my master, for having outwitted him in
the matter of the trial, and saved your life. He swears that you shall
be taken up and tried all over again at the next assizes; but my master
is resolute, and I believe will carry it his own way. He says indeed
that the law will not allow squire Forester to have his will in this. To
see him ordering every thing for your benefit, and taking all your
maliciousness as mild and innocent as a lamb, and to think of your vile
proceedings against him, is a sight one shall not see again, go all the
world over. For God's sake, repent of your reprobate doings, and make
what little reparation is in your power! Think of your poor soul, before
you awake, as to be sure one of these days you will, in fire and
brimstone everlasting!"
Saying this, he held out his hand and took hold of mine. The action
seemed strange; but I at first thought it the unpremeditated result of
his solemn and well-intended adjuration. I felt however that he put
something into my hand. The next moment he quitted his hold, and
hastened from me with the swiftness of an arrow. What he had thus given
me was a bank-note of twenty pounds. I had no doubt that he had been
charged to deliver it to me from Mr. Falkland.
What was I to infer? what light did it throw upon the intentions of my
inexorable persecutor? his animosity against me was as great as ever;
that I had just had confirmed to me from his own mouth. Yet his
animosity appeared to be still tempered with the remains of humanity. He
prescribed to it a line, wide enough to embrace the gratification of his
views, and within the boundaries of that line it stopped. But this
discovery carried no consolation to my mind. I knew not what portion of
calamity I was fated to endure, before his jealousy of dishonour, and
inordinate thirst of fame would deem themselves satisfied.
Another question offered itself. Was I to receive the money which had
just been put into my hands? the money of a man who had inflicted upon
me injuries, less than those which he had entailed upon himself, but the
greatest that one man can inflict upon another? who had blasted my
youth, who had destroyed my peace, who had held me up to the abhorrence
of mankind, and rendered me an outcast upon the face of the earth? who
had forced the basest and most atrocious falsehoods, and urged them with
a seriousness and perseverance which produced universal belief? who, an
hour before, had vowed against me inexorable enmity, and sworn to entail
upon me misery without end? Would not this conduct on my part betray a
base and abject spirit, that crouched under tyranny, and kissed the
hands that were imbrued in my blood?
If these reasons appeared strong, neither was the other side without
reasons in reply. I wanted the money: not for any purpose of vice or
superfluity, but for those purposes without which life cannot subsist.
Man ought to be able, wherever placed, to find for himself the means of
existence; but I was to open a new scene of life, to remove to some
distant spot, to be prepared against all the ill-will of mankind, and
the unexplored projects of hostility of a most accomplished foe. The
actual means of existence are the property of all. What should hinder me
from taking that of which I was really in want, when, in taking it, I
risked no vengeance, and perpetrated no violence? The property in
question will be beneficial to me, and the voluntary surrender of it is
accompanied with no injury to its late proprietor; what other condition
can be necessary to render the use of it on my part a duty? He that
lately possessed it has injured me; does that alter its value as a
medium of exchange? He will boast, perhaps of the imaginary obligation
he has conferred on me: surely to shrink from a thing in itself right
from any such apprehension, can be the result only of pusillanimity and
cowardice!