and attended him many miles on
his return to his own habitation. It seemed as if a public examination upon a
criminal charge, which had hitherto been considered in every event as a brand of
disgrace, was converted in the present instance into an occasion of enthusiastic
adoration and unexampled honour.
    Nothing could reach the heart of Mr. Falkland. He was not insensible to the
general kindness and exertions; but it was too evident that the melancholy that
had taken hold of his mind was invincible.
    It was only a few weeks after this memorable scene that the real murderer
was discovered. Every part of this story was extraordinary. The real murderer
was Hawkins. He was found with his son under a feigned name at a village at
about thirty miles distance, in want of all the necessaries of life. He had
lived here from the period of his flight in so private a manner, that all the
enquiries that had been set on foot by the benevolence of Mr. Falkland or the
insatiable malice of Mr. Tyrrel had been insufficient to discover him. The first
thing that had led to the detection was a parcel of clothes covered with blood
that were found in a ditch, and that, when drawn out, were known by the people
of the village to belong to this man. The murder of Mr. Tyrrel was not a
circumstance that could be unknown, and suspicion was immediately roused. A
diligent search being made, the rusty handle with part of the blade of a knife
was found thrown in a corner of his lodging, which being applied to a piece of
the point of a knife that had been broken in the wound, appeared exactly to
correspond. Upon farther enquiry two rustics, who had been accidentally on the
spot, remembered to have seen Hawkins and his son in the town that very evening,
and to have called after them, and received no answer, though they were sure of
their persons. Upon this accumulated evidence both Hawkins and his son were
tried, condemned and afterwards executed. In the interval between the sentence
and execution Hawkins confessed his guilt with many marks of compunction; though
there are persons by whom this is denied; but I have taken some pains to enquire
into the fact, and am persuaded that their disbelief is precipitate and
groundless.
    The cruel injustice that this man had suffered from his village tyrant was
not forgotten upon the present occasion. It was by a strange fatality that the
barbarous proceedings of Mr. Tyrrel seemed never to fall short of their
completion; and even his death served eventually to consummate the ruin of a man
he hated, a circumstance, which,