, miserable and frantic, but even in frenzy I can preserve my presence of
mind and discretion.
 
Such was the story I had been so earnestly desirous to know. Though my mind had
brooded upon the subject for months, there was not a syllable of it that did not
come to my ear with the most perfect sense of novelty. Mr. Falkland is a
murderer! said I, as I retired from the conference. This dreadful appellative a
murderer, made my very blood run cold within me. He killed Mr. Tyrrel, for he
could not control his resentment and anger: he sacrificed Hawkins the elder and
Hawkins the younger, because he could upon no terms endure the public loss of
honour: how can I expect that a man thus passionate and unrelenting will not
sooner or later make me his victim?
    But, notwithstanding this terrible application of the story, an application
to which perhaps in some form or other mankind are indebted for nine tenths of
their abhorrence against vice, I could not help occasionally recurring to
reflections of an opposite nature. Mr. Falkland is a murderer! resumed I. He
might yet be a most excellent man, if he did but think so. It is the thinking
ourselves vicious then, that principally contributes to make us vicious?
    Amidst the shock I received from finding, what I had never suffered myself
constantly to believe, that my suspicions were true; I still discovered new
cause of admiration for my master. His menaces indeed were terrible. But, when I
recollected the offence I had given, so contrary to every received principle of
civilized society, so insolent and rude, so intolerable to a man of Mr.
Falkland's elevation and in Mr. Falkland's peculiarity of circumstances, I was
astonished at his forbearance. There were indeed sufficiently obvious reasons
why he might not choose to proceed to extremities with me. But how different
from the fearful expectations I had conceived were the calmness of his behaviour
and the regulated mildness of his language! In this respect I for a short time
imagined that I was emancipated from the mischiefs which had appalled me, and
that in having to do with a man of Mr. Falkland's liberality I had nothing
rigorous to apprehend.
    It is a miserable prospect, said I, that he holds up to me. He imagines that
I am restrained by no principles, and deaf to the claims of personal excellence.
But he shall find himself mistaken. I will never become an informer. I will
never injure my patron; and therefore he will not be my enemy. With all his
misfortunes and all his errors