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A D W E N T U R E S
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CAL E B W II, LIAMS.
BY WILLIAM GODWIN, ESQ.
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MEMOIRS
or
WILLIAM GODWIN,
WILLIAM Godwin was born at Wisbeach, in Cam-
bridgeshire, 3d March, 1756. His grandfather had
been a dissenting minister in London. His father was
also a clergyman. In the year 1760 the father re-
moved with his family to a village about sixteen miles
north of Norwich, where he presided over a congre-
gation. William was one of many children, neither
the eldest nor the youngest among them. Very early,
even in childhood, he developed that love of acquire-
ment and knowledge which stamped his future career.
In the year 1767 he was placed with a private tutor at
Norwich, for the purposes of classical education. Mr.
Godwin has very recently publisheda work, “Thoughts
on Man, his Nature, Productions, and Discoveries,”
which contains various interesting particulars respect-
ing himself. From this we learn that he had in youth
“a prominent vein of docility.” He adds, “Whatever
it was proposed to teach me that was in any degree
accordant with my constitution and capacity, I was
willing to learn.” He continues, “I was ambitious
to be a leader, and to be regarded by others with feel-
ings of complacency.” From these circumstances, it
is evident that Mr. Godwin was not one of those
youths who, strenuously active and eager in the pur-
suit of some peculiar knowledge of their own selec-
tion, rebel against authority, and are tortured by the
regular application required to the commonplace
routine of education. Reason and a love of investi-
gation were the characteristics of Godwin, even in


8 MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM GODWIN.
boyhood, added to what he himself describes as “a
sort of constitutional equanimity and imperturbable-
ness of temper.”
In the year 1773 Mr. Godwin was placed at a col-
lege for dissenters at Hoxton, for the purpose of being
educated for the church. Dr. Kippis and Dr. Rees
were two of the principal professors at this college;
and the tenets in vogue there inclined to Unitarian-
ism. Mr. Godwin had been bred a Calvinist, and was
the farthest in the world from that temper of mind
which is blown about by every new .*of opinion.
Opposition made him more tenaciously cling to his
own turn of thinking, and adhere to the persuasion in
which he had been brought up. In the year 1778 he
became minister to a congregation not far from the
metropolis. He continued in the exercise of the du-
ties of a clergyman for five years; after which he
gave it up in the year 1783, and came to reside in
London, where he became an author, at once subsist-
ing by the fruits of his pen, and educating himself by
its exercise for those works of genius and immortality
which he was destined to produce. He soon became
distinguished among his contemporaries, and fre-
quented the society of many of the political leaders
of the day, among whom Fox and Sheridan held the
first rank. Added to this was a literary circle formed
of men of talent and genius. W\ile at college, Mr.
Godwin describes himself as r - ºng “all sorts of
books, on every side of any important question, that
were thrown in his way;” among these he was pecu-
liarly attracted by the Roman historians, and in par-
ticular by Livy. These works made him early in life
a republican in theory. The French Revolution which
broke out in 1789, when he was already engaged in
his career as an author, turned his attention still more
definitely to political subjects. Discussion on various
points—discussion animated by the living drama of
change enacted in France, and warmed by the ani-
mated hopes and fears of the parties—was, far more
than now, the order of the day in society; and God-
win, intimately connected with the whigs of this coun
try, found himself more than ever roused to investi


MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM GodWIN. 9
gate the momentous topic of the liberty of nations.
The result of his meditations and his labours was
“Political Justice,” published early in the year 1793.
At once the book and its author rose to a place of emi-
mence in the public eye. The daring nature of his
tenets, the energetic, yet unaffected flow of his elo-
quence,—the heartfelt sincerity and love of truth that
accompanied his disquisitions,—seemed as by magic
to throw down a thousand barriers, and to level a
thousand fortifications which had hitherto defended
and kept secure the inner fortresses of public preju-
dices or opinions. Mild and benevolent of aspect,
gentle and courteous of manner, the author himself
presented a singular contrast in appearance to the
boldness of his speculations. But beneath this appa-
rent quiescence there was a latent fire; his intellect
was all animation; he never receded from contest, or
declined argument; and he derived extreme pleasure
from this exercise of the powers of his mind.
Early in the following year Mr. Godwin again a
peared as an author; “Caleb Williams” was º:
lished—a novel, which, in spite of the brilliant works
of the same species which have since adorned our
literature, still holds its place, and has been frequently,
and we are apt to believe irrevocably, pronounced the
best in our language. It raised Godwin’s reputation
to the pinnacle. All that might have offended, as
hard and republican in his larger work, was obliterated
by the splendour and noble beauty of the character of
Falkland.
Towards the end of this year Mr. Godwin's talents
were called forth on a still more conspicuous arena.
Several of his friends or associates were arrested by
the policy of Mr. Pitt, and accused of high-treason,
Boldly speculative, and frankly avowing his opinions,
Mr. Godwin was nevertheless practically attached to
moderate measures, and adhered to the party of the
whigs in preference to that of the agitators of the day.
He believed that amelioration was more facile than
reconstruction, and loved reformation better than de-
struction. It was not so with his familiars. Societies
were formed for the Pºe of disseminating his
3 -


10 MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM GODWIN.
opinions, and holding up the equalizing principles of
the French revolution. Holcroft was one of the most
sturdy among these ; a man of singular integrity and
talent, but unrefined and self-educated. He had be-
sides a violence of temper which hurt the cause he
fancied himself energetically advancing. He, to-
ether with Horne Tooke, Thelwal, Hardy, and others,
ormed the Constitutional and the London Correspond-
ing Societies; and these men, with eight more of their
associates, were imprisoned in the Tower and ar-
raigned as traitors. As Godwin did not belong to
their societies, he was exempted; but if Pitt had suc-
ceeded in convicting these men, he would scarcely
have escaped. In October, 1794, Judge Eyre gave
the charge to the grand jury. This excited consider-
able attention, and was followed instantly by God-
win’s “Cursory Strictures” upon it. He sent the first
half of this to his friend Perry of the Morning Chroni-
cle, for insertion in that paper. Perry requested to
have it entire, and printed the whole in one day's
paper. It appeared afterward as a pamphlet, and is a
composition of the most animated and conclusive na-
ture. It was supposed to have greatly influenced the
event of the prosecutions, and to have contributed
mainly to the acquittal of the accused.
Hardy, Horne Tooke, and Thelwal were put on their
trial, and found “Not guilty.” Government then
abandoned the rest of the prosecutions. It was on
this occasion, when Holcroft, being liberated, left the
dock, and, crossing the court, took his seat beside
Godwin, that Sir Thomas Lawrence made a spirited
sketch of them in profile (now in the possession of
Francis Broderip, Esq.), which is one of his hap-
piest efforts, and is a singularly interesting record;
the bending, meditative figure of Godwin contrasting
most happily with the upright, stern, and “knock-me-
down” attitude and expression of his friend.”
* Lawrence very much valued this sketch, and wished to repurchase
it from its possessor. Besides this, he drew another portrait of Godwin,
now in the possession of Dr. Batty. . But the best portrait of the author,
and one of the best among modern pictures, is one painted by Northcote
in 1800. It is strikingly like and characteristic, with an air of mildness
and contemplation, yet ſervour. This portrait is in the possession of Mr.
Godwin himself.


MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM GODWIN. 11
After this period, Mr. Godwin was chiefly occupied
in literature, by preparing the various editions of
“Political Justice.” He frequented still more con-
stantly the society of Lord Lauderdale, Fox, and
Sheridan. It was not until 1797 that he published
“The Enquirer,” a work consisting of essays, devel-
oping under various aspects the tenets of his greater
work. In one thing, from his very first outset as an
author, Godwin held himself fortunate: this was in
his publisher. Robinson has often been mentioned as
a man of extreme liberality; towards Mr. Godwin he
always acted in a way at once to encourage, facilitate,
and recompense his labours.
Towards the beginning of the year 1797, Godwin
married Mary Wollstonecraft. The writings of this
celebrated woman are monuments of her moral and
intellectual superiority. Her lofty spirit, her eager
assertion of the claims of her sex, animate the “Win-
dication of the Rights of Woman;” while the sweet-
ness and taste displayed in her “Letters from Norway”
depict the softer qualities of her admirable character.
Even now, those who have survived her so many years
never speak of her but with uncontrollable enthu-
siasm. Her unwearied exertions for the benefit of
others, her rectitude, her independence, joined to a
warm, affectionate heart, and the most refined softness
of manners, made her the idol of all who knew her.
Mr. Godwin was not allowed long to enjoy the happi-
ness he reaped from this union. Mary Wollstonecraft
died the 10th September, 1797, having given birth to
a daughter, the present Mrs. Shelley.
The next work of Mr. Godwin was the romance of
“St. Leon,” published in 1799. The domestic happi-
ness he had enjoyed colours and adorns the scenes of
this book; and the high idea of the feminine character
which naturally resulted from his intercourse with the
ornament of her sex, imparted dignity and grandeur
to the character of the heroine of this work. In elo-
quence, and interest, and deep knowledge of human
nature, St. Leon takes a first place among imaginative
productions.
In 1800 Mr. Godwin visited Ireland. He resided


12 MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM GODWIN,
while there principally with Curran, and associated
intimately with Grattan, and all the other illustrious
Irish patriots. In 1801, Mr. Godwin again married a
widow lady of considerable personal attractions and
accomplishments. The sole offspring of this mar-
riage was a son, born in 1803. In the same year he
published the “Life of Chaucer,” a work displaying
accurate research and refined taste, and presenting at
once a correct and animated picture of the times of
the poet. This was followed in 1804 by a third novel,
entitled “Fleetwood,” characterized by elegance of
style and force of passion; less striking, perhaps,
than his former works of imagination, yet not less full
of beauty and interest.
After this period, Mr. Godwin rested for a consider-
able interval from his literary labours, being chiefly
occupied by various exertions and speculations for the
maintenance of his family. The “Essay on Sepul-
chres,” published in 1808, stands a solitary record that
the fire still burnt pure and undiminished, though con-
cealed. In 1816 he visited Edinburgh, where he
formed an acquaintance with Walter Scott and other
celebrated Scotch writers; and here also he entered
into a treaty with Mr. Constable, the bookseller, for
the composition of a new novel. “Mandeville,” pub-
lished in 1817, was the result. We here trace the
mellowness of ripened years; the reading, the study,
the careful polish of maturity, adorning, but not
diminishing the untamed energy and eloquence of his
earlier works. Solemn and tragic as is the ground-
work of “Mandeville,” it surpasses, we almost ven-
ture to say, all Mr. Godwin's productions in grace of
diction and forcible development of human feeling.
About this time Mr. Godwin sustained a great per-
sonal loss in the death of Mr. Curran. Their friend-
ship was of many years' standing; and since Curran's
retirement from public life and residence in London,
they had been drawn closer together than ever.
In 1820, his work in opposition to and refuting the
opinions of Malthus appeared. Fervently attached to
all that is lofty, independent, and elevating in his
speculations on human society, Godwin strenuously
.*


MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM GoDWIN. 13
controverted the degrading, hard, and demoralizing
tenets of the author of the Essay on Population. His
book, exact in logic and powerful in eloquence, would
probably have been considered as a complete answer
to his adversary, did not Malthus's notions favour so
memorably the vices of the great and all that is rotten
in our institutions. After this, Mr. Godwin was oc-
cupied several years in writing “The History of the
Commonwealth of England.” The four volumes of
which this work is composed were published in the
years 1824, 1826, 1827, and 1828. It is accurate, which,
in an historical work, is a quality that deserves pri-
mary consideration. It is besides eloquent, philo-
sophical, and, above all, abounds in new and valuable
research. As a real and true detail of events as they
occurred, and a tracing of events to their primary
causes, it far excels any other English historical work
that we possess. *
In 1830 Mr. Godwin published “Cloudesley,” his
last novel, a book whose charm goes to the heart.
The spirit of virtue and love is its soul. It breathes
peace to all men, and a fervid attachment to all that
bears the human form. Nothing can excite greater
interest, emanating, as it does, from one who has spent
a -long life in this centre of civilization, and who,
amid all the trials, experiences, and attendant disap-
pointments which must have checkered his intercourse
with his species, still sees in man all that is noble,
'inspiriting, and worthy to be loved.
This, too, is the spirit that animates the work to
which we have before alluded as of recent publication.
Humanity may cite his “Thoughts on Man,” and so
answer the aspersions of Swift and others of his
school, proudly founding upon the sentiments of that
book the tower of their hope. The divine charity of
the Sermon on the Mount finds a human echo in its
pages, which breathe such admiration and love for
man as must elevate the desponding, confound the
misanthrope, and add for ever dignity and grace to our
species.
Perhaps it may be averred, that since the days of
the ancient Greek philosophers, no man has imbodied


14 MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM GoDWIN.
so entirely the idea we conceive of those heroes of
mind as the subject of this Memoir. Like them, he
has forgotten the grandeur of the world in the more
elevating contemplation of the immaterial universe.
The universe of thought has been that in which he
had ambition to reign; and many and various are the
conquests he has made in that eternal country. He
has bestowed on us a whole creation of imaginary ex-
istences, among whom, when we name Falkland, we
select the being of fancy which is at once the most
real and the most grand that has appeared since
Shakspeare gave a “local habitation” to the name of
Hamlet. As a speculative writer, he is the mighty
parent of all that the reformers of the day advance and
uphold. As an historian, he is deeply imbued with the
dignity of his subject, and unwearied in his endeavours
to ascertain the truth. As an essayist (his latest
labour of authorship), he is unequalled for novelty of
thought, closeness of reasoning, and purity, vigour,
and elegance of style. As a moral character, his
reputation is unblemished. He stands, in simplicity
of wisdom and consistency of principle, the monument
of the last generation, extending into this the light of
a long experience, and ornamenting our young and
changeful literature with the profounder and loftier
views of a more contemplative era.


CRITICISM
on
THE NOVELS OF GODwiN.
* FEw authors have the faculty of awakening and
arresting the attention like Mr. Godwin. He never
fails to excite in us the emotion he wishes, and that
without resorting to marvellous or overstrained inci-
dents or language. He has a might almost magical
over our sympathies. . He describes a damp and com-
fortless morning, and we are out under the cold,
drizzly dawn. He talks of Switzerland—of the lake
of Uri–and the mountains and the waters are before
us. He tells a tale of injustice and oppression, and
every feeling of indignant resistance stirs within us.
He holds up to our unmitigated hatred and contempt
the wanton and brutal tyrant; and unlocks the sacred
fountain of our tears for the helpless and the orphan,
for the unresisting, the neglected, and the misused.
Mr. Godwin does not deal much in imagination, and
is seldom purely descriptive; though we repeat, that
when he is so his power does not desert him, as may
be seen (to best advantage, we think) in “Fleetwood.”
The principal object of his study and contemplation
is man the enemy of man. Do we not remember to
have seen an edition of “Caleb Williams” with these
lines for a motto!-
Amid the woods the tiger knows his kind;.
The panther preys not on the panther brood;
Man only is the common foe of man.”
Life seems to have been but the instrumént to burn
this truth into the soul of our author. He reads Fox's


16 CRITICISM ON THE
Book of Martyrs, and the History of the Inquisition;
and imagines himself now torturer, and now sufferer.
He gets up, goes abroad into “the throng miscalled
society,” sees only its errors and its vices, its knaves
and its dupes; and writes as if little or nothing else
was in existence. He has visions of misery, from de-
serted childhood starving in strange streets, to the
head that has become white in the solitude of a dun-
geon. We always thought a great deal of the bru-
tality even of Mr. Tyrrel gratuitous, in spite of the
morbid irritability of spirit under which he suffers;
though certainly the character is imbodied with ter-
rible power, and might stand for a real personage. It
is an attribute, indeed, of Mr. Godwin, that he tells
you his tale like one who remembers, not invents.
Thus his story becomes not the relation of a looker-
on, however acute and powerful, but is “compact” of
words hot from the burnt and branded heart of the
miserable sufferer. It is this quality which makes
Gines, the thief and Bow-street runner, a terrific
being; Williams himself, not Mr. Godwin, talks to
you about him; and, good God! how awful is his om-
nipresence to the poor fellow ! Noiseless, swift, in-
visible, he seems to ride upon the clouds, and blast
his victim like the blight which falls upon vegetation
from the air.
We have said that Mr. Godwin seldom resorts to
“marvellous or overstrained incidents or language;”
once, however, he has imagined and placed a charac-
ter in “impossible situations.” St. Leon becomes the
possessor of the philosopher's stone, the inheritor of
exhaustless wealth, and of the power of renewing his
age. He is himself, of course, an impossibility; but
the want of truth is confined purely to the character;
for every thing which befalls him is human, natural,
and possible. How minute, how pathetic, how tragi-
cal is the detail of the gradual ruin which falls on this
weak, devoted man, up to its heart-breaking consum-
mation in the death of the noble Marguerite de Dam-
ville! How tremendous and perfect is his desolation
after voluntarily leaving his daughters, and cutting
the last thread which binds him to his kind . “I saw


NOVELS OF GODWIN, 17
my dear children set forward on their journey, and I
knew not that I should ever behold them more. I was
determined never to see them again to their injury;
and I could not take to myself the consolation, on
such a day, in such a month, or even after such a lapse
of years, I shall again have the joy to embrace them.
In a little while they were out of sight, and I was
alone.” How complete is the description of his escape
from the procession of the Auto-da-Fé; of his entrance
into the Jew's house; his fears; his decaying strength,
just serving to make up the life-restoring elixir; the
dying taper; the insensibility; the resurrection to new
life, and the dayspring of his young manhood! How
shall we speak of the old man, the bequeather of the
fatal legacy to St. Leon, and his few fearful words:
“Friendless, friendless—alone, alone!” Alas! how
terrible to imagine a being in possession of such en-
dowments, who could bring himself to think of death!
able to turn back upon his path and meet immortal
youth, to see again the morning of his day, and find in
renewed life and beauty a disguise impenetrable to his
former enemies; yet, in the sadness of his experience,
so dreading the mistakes and persecution of his fel-
low-men, as to choose rather to lie down with the
worm, and seek oblivion in the seats of rottenness
and corruption.
One of the most remarkable ways in which the
faculty of Mr. Godwin is evinced is the “magnitude
and wealth” of his detail. No single action or event
that could possibly, in such circumstances as he ima-
gines, heighten the effect, is omitted. In this he re-
sembles Hogarth; but he is always tragical, producing
his end altogether without ludicrous contrasts, or the
intervention of any thing bordering on the humorous.
Mere mental imbecility is not to be found in the pic-
tures of Mr. Godwin; his characters are people who
analyze their own minds, and who never act from
want of understanding, right or wrong. Indeed, they
are too conscious, like that young rogue Charles de
St. Leon, for instance, who seems to do every thing
with a truly French eye to effect.
If we were asked to name the work of this writer


18 CRITICISM ON THE Novels of GoDw1N.
-
which had pleased us the most, we should say “Fleet-
wood.” This will appear strange to the majority of
readers, no doubt; but with many beauties, it has
fewer defects. In “Fleetwood” we have no draw-
backs. The story of Ruffigny is a sort of epitome of
our author; it contains all that he can do. And then
the JMacneils—we mourn for them as for dear friends.
JMary Fleetwood is the best feminine delineation to be
found in the works of fictitious narration. She is a
copy of Desdemona, with a husband much farther ad-
vanced in life than herself, made jealous of a youthful
cousin by an elder and designing one. Young, beau-
tiful, loving, confiding, she would be all that the heart
of man could desire in a wife; but then she is a little
over-conscious of her own excellences, and a little too
ready, not only to think, but to say, how very unrea-
sonable her husband is, when he becomes uneasy and
jealous of her “innocent sallies” with younger men.
“Alas, my love, let me assure you that you do not
know what you want. I am young. Fleetwood, you
might have married an old woman if you had pleased.”
The same objection might be urged, indeed, against
all this gentleman's female creations. They have too
keen a sense of the “Rights of Woman.” They
waste away, it is true, and even die, from the irritation
brought on by the behaviour of their husbands; but
they take care to let him feel that they are not igno-
rant of the cause of their disease. They are very
different, and, in our opinion, very inferior beings to
Helen, or Imogen, or Desdemona. -
In the general style of his novels, particularly in
those parts which are descriptive of mental suffering,
Godwin puts on a tone of apathy and unconcern, as
though he feared to urge you into a state of feeling
that would “hear no more”—as though he wished not
to “cancel the bond” that “keeps you pale” and im-
moveable—till the agony of his heart, repressed, but
# * was poured out, and the wretched recital
1Siled.


PREFACE
BY THE AUTHoR.
~
THE following narrative is intended to answer a
purpose more general and important than imme-
diately appears upon the face of it. The question
now afloat in the world respecting THINGs As THEY
ARE is the most interesting that can be presented to
the human mind. While one party pleads for reform-
ation and change, the other extols in the warmest
terms the existing constitution of society. It seemed
as if something would be gained for the decision of
this question, if that constitution were faithfully de-
veloped in its practical effects. What is now pre-
sented to the public is no refined and abstract
speculation; it is a study and delineation of things
passing in the moral world. It is but of late that
the inestimable importance of political principles has
been adequately apprehended. It is now known to
philosophers, that the spirit and character of the
government intrudes itself into every rank of society.
But this is a truth highly worthy to be communicated
to persons whom books of philosophy and science
are never likely to reach. Accordingly, it was pro-
posed, in the invention of the following work, to
comprehend, as far as the progressive nature of a
single story would allow, a general review of the
modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism by
which man becomes the destroyer of man. If the
author shall have taught a valuable lesson, without


20 PREFACE,
subtracting from the interest and passion by which
a performance of this sort ought to be characterized,
he will have reason to congratulate himself upon
the vehicle he has chosen.
May 12, 1794.
THIS Preface was withdrawn in the original edi-
tion, in compliance with the alarms of booksellers.
“Caleb Williams” made his first appearance in the
world in the same month in which the sanguinary
plot broke out against the liberties of Englishmen,
which was happily terminated by the acquittal of its
first intended victims, in the close of that year.
Terror was the order of the day; and it was feared
that even the humble novelist might be shown to be
constructively a traitor.
October 29, 1795. - -


ADVENTURES
op
OALEB WILLIAMS.
CHAPTER I.
My life has for several years been a theatre of
calamity. I have been a mark for the vigilance of
tyranny, and I could not escape. My fairest pros-
pects have been blasted. My enemy has shown
himself inaccessible to entreaties, and untired in
ersecution. My fame, as well as my happiness,
as become its victim. Every one, as far as my
story has been known, has refused to assist me in
my distress, and has execrated my name. I have
not deserved this treatment. My own conscience
witnesses in behalf of that innocence, my preten-
sions to which are regarded in the world as incredi-
ble. There is now, however, little hope that I
shall escape from the toils that universally beset
me. I am incited to the penning of these memoirs
only by a desire to divert my mind from the deplo-
rableness of my situation, and a faint idea that pos-
terity may by their means be induced to render me
a justice which my contemporaries refuse. My
story will, at least, appear to have that consistency
which is seldom attendant but upon truth.
I was born of humble parents, in a remote county
of England. Their occupations were such as usu-


22 CALEB WILLIAMS,
*
ally fall to the lot of peasants, and they had no por-
tion to give me, but an education free from the usual
sources of depravity, and the inheritance, long
since lost by their unfortunate progeny of an hon-
est fame. I was taught the rudiments of no sci-
ence, except reading, writing, and arithmetic. But
I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means
of information from conversation or books. My im-
provement was greater than my condition in life
afforded room to expect.
There are other circumstances deserving to be
mentioned as having influenced the history of my
future life. I was somewhat above the middle stat-
ure. Without being particularly athletic in appear-
ance, or large in my dimensions, I was uncommonly
vigorous and active. My joints were supple, and
I was formed to excel in youthful sports. The
habits of my mind, however, were to a certain de-
gree at war with the dictates of boyish vanity. I
had considerable aversion to the boisterous gayety
of the village gallants, and contrived to satisfy my
love of praise with an unfrequent apparition at their
amusements. My excellence in these respects,
however, gave a turn to my meditations. I delighted
to read of feats of activity, and was particularly
interested by tales in which corporeal ingenuity or
strength are the means resorted to for supplying
resources and conquering difficulties. I inured
myself to mechanical pursuits, and devoted much
of my time to an endeavour after mechanical in-
vention.
The spring of action which, perhaps more than
any other, characterized the whole train of my life,
was curiosity. It was this that gave me my me-
chanical turn; I was desirous of tracing the variety
of effects which might be produced from given
causes. It was this that made me a sort of natural


CALEB WILLIAMS, 23
philosopher; I could not rest till I had acquainted
myself with the solutions that had been invented
for the phenomena of the universe. In fine, this
produced in me an invincible attachment to books
of narrative and romance. I panted for the un-
ravelling of an adventure with an anxiety perhaps
almost equal to that of the man whose future hap-
piness or misery depended on its issue. I read, I
devoured compositions of this sort. They took pos-
session of my soul; and the effects they produced
were frequently discernible in my external appear-
ance and my health. My curiosity, however, was
not entirely ignoble: village anecdotes and scandal
had no charms for me: my imagination must be
excited; and when that was not done, my curiosity
was dormant. i
The residence of my parents was within the
manor of Ferdinando Falkland, a country squire of
considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted
the favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentle-
man's steward, who used to call in occasionally
at my father's. He observed the particulars of my
progress with approbation, and made a favourable
report to his master of my industry and genius.
In the summer of the year , Mr. Falkland
visited his estate in our county after an absence of
several months. This was a period of misfortune
to me. I was then eighteen years of age. My
father lay dead in our cottage. I had lost my mo-
ther some years before. In this forlorn situation I
was surprised with a message from the squire, or-
dering me to repair to the mansion-house the morn-
ing after my father's funeral.
Though I was not a stranger to books, I had no
practical acquaintance with men. I had never had
occasion to address a person of this elevated rank,
and I felt no small uneasiness and awe on the


24 CALEB WILLIAMS,
present occasion. I found Mr. Falkland a man of
small stature, with an extreme delicacy of form and
appearance. In place of the hard-favoured and in-
flexible visages I had been accustomed to observe,
every muscle and petty line of his countenance
Beemed to be in an inconceivable degree pregnant
with meaning. His manner was kind, attentive,
and humane. His eye was full of animation; but
there was a grave and sad solemnity in his air,
which, for want of experience, I imagined was the
inheritance of the great, and the instrument by
which the distance between them and their inferiors
was maintained. His look bespoke the unquiet-
ness of his mind, and frequently wandered with an
expression of disconsolateness and anxiety.
My reception was as gracious and encouraging
as I could possibly desire. Mr. Falkland question-
ed me respecting my learning, and my conceptions
of men and things, and listened to my answers with
condescension and approbation. This kindness
soon restored to me a considerable part of my self-
possession, though I still felt restrained by the
aceful, but unaltered dignity of his carriage.
When Mr. Falkland had satisfied his curiosity, he
proceeded to inform me that he was in want of a
secretary, that I appeared to him sufficiently quali-
fied for that office, and that, if, in my present change
of situation, occasioned by the death of my father,
I approved of the employment, he would take me
into his family.
I felt. highly flattered by the proposal, and was
warm in the expression of my acknowledgments.
I set eagerly about the disposal of the little property
my father had left, in which I was assisted by Mr.
Collins. I had not now a relation in the world
upon whose kindness and interposition I had any
direct claim. But, far from regarding this deserted


CALEB WILLIAMS, 25
situation with terror, I formed golden visions of the
station I was about to occupy. I little suspected
that the gayety and lightness of heart I had hither-
to enjoyed were upon the point of leaving me for
ever, and that the rest of my days were devoted to
misery and alarm.
My employment was easy and agreeable. It
consisted partly in the transcribing and arranging
certain papers, and partly in writing from my
master's dictation letters of business, as well as
sketches of literary composition. Many of these
latter consisted of an analytical survey of the plans
of different authors and conjectural speculations
upon hints they afforded, tending either to the detec-
tion of their errors, or the carrying forward their
discoveries. All of them bore powerful marks of a
profound and elegant mind, well stored with litera-
ture, and possessed of an uncommon share of
activity and discrimination.
My station was in that part of the house which
was appropriated for the reception of books, it being
my duty to perform the functions of librarian as
well as secretary. Here my hours would have
glided in tranquillity and peace, had not my situa-
tion included in it circumstances totally different
from those which attended me in my father's
cottage. In early life my mind had been much en-
grossed by reading and reflection; my intercourse
with my fellow-mortals was occasional and short.
But, in my new residence, I was excited by every
motive of interest and novelty to study my master's
character; and I found in it an ample field for
speculation and conjecture.
His mode of living was in the utmost degree re-
cluse and solitary. He had no inclination to scenes
of revelry and mirth. He avoided the busy haunts
of men; nor did he seem desirous to compensate
Vol. I.-B


26 CALEB williams,
for this privation by the confidence of friendship.
He appeared a total stranger to every thing which
usually bears the appellation of pleasure. His
features were scarcely ever relaxed into a smile, nor
did that air which spoke the unhappiness of his
mind at any time forsake them : yet his manners
were by no means such as denoted moroseness and
misanthropy. He was compassionate and consid-
erate for others, though the stateliness of his car-
riage and the reserve of his temper were at no
time interrupted. His appearance and general be-
haviour might have strongly interested all persons in
his favour: but the coldness of his address, and the
impenetrableness of his sentiments, seemed to
forbid those demonstrations of kindness to which
one might otherwise have been prompted.
Such was the general appearance of Mr. Falk-
land: but his disposition was extremely unequal.
The distemper which afflicted him with incessant
gloom had its paroxysms. Sometimes he was
hasty, peevish, and tyrannical; but this proceeded
rather from the torment of his mind than an un-
feeling disposition; and when reflection recurred he
appeared willing that the weight of his misfortune
should fall wholly upon himself. Sometimes he
entirely lost his self-possession. and his behaviour
was changed into phrensy: he would strike his fore-
head, his brows became knit, his features distorted,
and his teeth ground one against the other. When
he felt the approach of these symptoms, he would
suddenly rise, and, leaving the occupation, what-
ever it was, in which he was engaged, hasten into a
solitude upon which no person dared to intrude.
It must not be supposed that the whole of what I
am describing was visible to the persons about him;
nor, indeed, was I acquainted with it in the extent
here stated but after a considerable time, and in


CALEB WILLIAMS. 27
gradual succession. With respect to the domestics
in general, they saw but little of their master. None
of them, except myself, from the nature of my
functions, and Mr. Collins, from the antiquity of his
service and the respectableness of his character,
approached Mr. Falkland but at stated seasons and
for a very short interval. They knew him only by
the benevolence of his actions, and the principles
of inflexible integrity by which he was ordinarily
guided; and though they would sometimes indulge
their conjectures respecting his singularities, they
regarded him upon the whole with veneration, as a
being of a superior order.
One day, when I had been about three months in
the service of my patron, I went to a closet, or
small apartment which was separated from the
library by a narrow gallery that was lighted by a
small window near the roof. I had conceived that
there was no person in the room, and intended only
to put any thing in order that I might find out of its
place. As I opened the door, I heard at the same
instant a deep groan, expressive of intolerable an-
guish. The sound of the door in opening seemed
to alarm the person within; I heard the lid of a
trunk hastily shut, and the noise as of fastening a
lock. I conceived that Mr. Falkland was there,
and was going instantly to retire; but at that moment
a voice, that seemed supernaturally tremendous,
exclaimed, “Who is there?” The voice was Mr.
Falkland's. The sound of it thrilled my very vitals.
I endeavoured to answer, but my speech failed, and
being incapable of any other reply, I instinctively
advanced within the door into the room. Mr.
Falkland was just risen from the floor upon which
he had been sitting or kneeling. His face betrayed
strong symptoms of confusion. With a violent
effort, however, these * vanished, and in-
2
º


28 CALEB WILLIAM8.
stantaneously gave place to a countenance sparkling *
with rage. “Villain!” cried he, “what has brought
you here?” I hesitated a confused and irresolute
answer. “Wretch!” interrupted Mr. Falkland,
with uncontrollable impatience, “you want to ruin
me. You set yourself as a spy upon my actions;
but bitterly shall you repent your insolence. Do
you think you shall watch my privacies with impu-
nity?” I attempted to defend myself. “Begone,
devil!” rejoined he. “Quit the room, or I will
trample you into atoms.” Saying this, he advanced
towards me. But I was already sufficiently ter-
rified, and vanished in a moment. I heard the door
shut after me with violence; and thus ended this
extraordinary scene.
I saw him again in the evening, and he was then
tolerably composed. His behaviour, which was
always kind, was now doubly attentive and soothing.
He seemed to have something of which he wished
to disburthen his mind, but to want words in which
to convey it. I looked at him with anxiety and
affection. He made two unsuccessful efforts, shook
his head, and then putting five guineas into my hand,
pressed it in a manner that I could feel proceeded
from a mind pregnant with various emotions, though
I could not interpret them. Having done this, he
seemed immediately to recollect himself, and to
take refuge in the usual distance and solemnity of
his manner.
I easily understood that secrecy was one of the
things expected from me; and, indeed, my mind was
too much disposed to meditate upon what I had
heard and seen, to make it a topic of indiscriminate
communication. Mr. Collins, however, and myself
happened to sup together that evening, which was
but seldom the case, his avocations obliging him to
be much abroad. He could not help observing an


CALEB WILLIAMS, 29
uncommon dejection and anxiety in my counte-
nance, and affectionately inquired into the reason.
I endeavoured to evade his questions, but my youth
and ignorance of the world gave me little advantage
for that purpose. Besides this, I had been accus-
tomed to view Mr. Collins with considerable attach-
ment, and I conceived from the nature of his situa-
tion that there could be small impropriety in making
him my confidant in the present instance. I re-
peated to him minutely everything that had passed,
and concluded with a solemn declaration, that,
though treated with caprice, I was not anxious for
myself; no inconvenience or danger should ever
lead me to a pusillanimous behaviour; and I felt
only for my patron, who, with every advantage for
happiness, and being in the highest degree worthy
of it, seemed destined to undergo unmerited distress.
In answer to my communication, Mr. Collins
informed me that some incidents, of a nature similar
to that which I related, had fallen under his own
knowledge, and that from the whole he could not
help concluding that our unfortunate patron was at
times disordered in his intellects. “Alas!” con-
tinued he, “it was not always thus ! Ferdinando
Falkland was once the gayest of the gay. Not
indeed of that frothy sort who excite contempt
instead of admiration, and whose levity argues
thoughtlessness rather than felicity. His gayety
was always accompanied with dignity. It was the
gayety of the hero and the scholar. It was chas-
tened with reflection and sensibility, and never lost
sight either of good taste or humanity. Such as it
was, however, it denoted a genuine hilarity of
heart, imparted an inconceivable brilliancy to his
company and conversation, and rendered him the
perpetual delight of the diversified circles he then
willingly frequented. You see nothing of him, my


30 CALEB WILLIAMS,
dear Williams, but the ruin of that Falkland who
was courted by sages and adored by the fair. His
youth, distinguished in its outset by the most unusual
promise, is tarnished. His sensibility is shrunk up
and withered by events the most disgustful to his
feelings. His mind was fraught with all the rhap-
sodies of visionary honour; and, in his sense, no-
thing but the grosser part, the mere shell of Falkland,
was capable of surviving the wound that his pride
has sustained.”
These reflections of my friend Collins strongly
tended to inflame my curiosity, and Irequested him to
enter into a more copious explanation. With this re-
questhereadily complied; as conceiving that whatever
delicacy it became him to exercise in ordinary cases,
it would be out of place in my situation; and think-
ing it not improbable that Mr. Falkland, but for the
disturbance and inflammation of his mind, would be
disposed to a similar communication. I shall inter-
weave with Mr. Collins's story various information
which I afterward received from other quarters, that
I may give all possible perspicuity to the series of
events. To avoid confusion in my narrative, I shall
drop the person of Collins, and assume to be myself
the historian of our patron. To the reader it may
appear at first sight as if this detail of the preceding
life of Mr. Falkland were foreign to my history.
Alas! I know from bitter experience that it is other-
wise. My heart bleeds at the recollection of his
misfortunes, as if they were my own. How can it
fail to do so? To his story the whole fortune of my
life was linked; because he was miserable, my hap-
piness, my name, and my existence have been irre-
trievably blasted.


CALEB WILLIAMS, 31
CHAPTER II.
AMoNG the favourite authors of his early years
were the heroic poets of Italy. From them he
imbibed the love of chivalry and romance. He had
too much good sense to regret the times of Charle-
magne and Arthur. But while his imagination was
purged by a certain infusion of philosophy, he con-
ceived that there was in the manners depicted by
these celebrated poets something to imitate, as well
as something to avoid. He believed that nothing
was so well calculated to make men delicate, gallant,
and humane, as a temper perpetually alive to the
sentiments of birth and honour. The opinions he
entertained upon these topics were illustrated in his
conduct, which was assiduously conformed to the
model of heroism that his fancy suggested.
With these sentiments he set out upon his travels,
at the age at which the grand tour is usually made;
and they were rather confirmed than shaken by the
adventures that befell him. By inclination he was
led to make his longest stay in Italy; and here he
fell into company with several young noblemen
whose studies and principles were congenial to his
own. By them he was assiduously courted, and
treated with the most distinguished applause. They.
were delighted to meet with a foreigner who had
imbibed all the peculiarities of the most liberal and
honourable among themselves. Nor was he less
favoured and admired by the softer sex. Though
his stature was small, his person had an air of un-
common dignity. His dignity was then heightened


32 CALEB WILLIAMS.
by certain additions which were afterward obliterated,
—an expression of frankness, ingenuity, and unre-
serve, and a spirit of the most ardent enthusiasm.
Perhaps no Englishman was ever in an equal degree
idolized by the inhabitants of Italy.
It was not possible for him to have drunk so
deeply of the fountain of chivalry without being
engaged occasionally in affairs of honour, all of
which were terminated in a manner that would not
have disgraced the Chevalier Bayard himself. In
Italy, the young men of rank divide themselves into
two classes, those who adhere to the pure princi-
ples of ancient gallantry, and those who, being actu-
ated by the same acute sense of injury and insult,
accustom themselves to the employment of hired
bravoes as their instruments of vengeance: The
whole difference, indeed, consists in the precarious
application of a generally received distinction. The
most generous Italian conceives that there are
certain persons whom it would be contamination for
him to call into the open field. He nevertheless
believes that an indignity cannot be expiated but with
blood, and is persuaded that the life of a man is a
trifling consideration, in comparison of the indemni-
fication to be made to his injured honour. There is,
therefore, scarcely any Italian that would upon some
occasions scruple assassination. Men of spirit
among them, notwithstanding the prejudices of their
education, cannot fail to have a secret conviction of
its baseness, and will be desirous of extending as
far as possible the cartel of honour. Real or affected
arrogance teaches others to regard almost the whole
species as their inferiors, and of consequence incites
them to gratify their vengeance without danger to
their persons. Mr. Falkland met with some of these.
But his undaunted spirit and resolute temper gave
him a decisive advantage even in such perilous ren-


CALEB WILLIAMS, 33
counters. One instance, among many, of his manner
of conducting himself among this proud and high-
spirited people it may be proper to relate. Mr.
Falkland is the principal agent in my history; and
Mr. Falkland in the autumn and decay of his vigour,
such as I found him, cannot be completely under-
stood without a knowledge of his previous character,
as it was in all the gloss of youth, yet unassailed
by adversity, and unbroken in upon by anguish or
remorSe.
At Rome he was received with particular distinc-
tion, at the house of Marquis Pisani, who had an
only daughter, the heiress of his immense fortune, and
the admiration of all the young nobility of that me-
tropolis. Lady Lucretia Pisani was tall, of a dig-
nified form, and uncommonly beautiful. She was
not deficient in amiable qualities, but her soul was
haughty, and her carriage not unfrequently con-
temptuous. Her pride was nourished by the con-
sciousness of her charms, by her elevated rank, and
the universal adoration she was accustomed to
receive.
Among her numerous lovers, Count Malvesi was
the individual most favoured by her father, nor did
his addresses seem indifferent to her. The count
was a man of considerable accomplishments, and
of great integrity and benevolence of disposition.
But he was too ardent a lover to be able always to
preserve the affability of his temper. The admirers
whose addresses were a source of gratification to
his mistress, were a perpetual uneasiness to him.
Placing his whole happiness in the possession
of this imperious beauty, the most trifling cir-
cumstances were capable of alarming him for the
security of his pretensions. But most of all he was
jealous of the English cavalier. Marquis Pisani,
who had spent many 7. in France, was by no
3


34 CALEB WILLIAMS,
means partial to the suspicious precautions of Italian
fathers, and indulged his daughter in considerable
freedoms. His house and his daughter, within
certain judicious restraints, were open to the resort
of male visitants. But, above all, Mr. Falkland, as
a foreigner, and a person little likely to form pre-
tensions to the hand of Lucretia, was received upon
a footing of great familiarity. The lady herself,
conscious of innocence, entertained no scruple about
trifles, and acted with the confidence and frankness
of one who is superior to suspicion,
Mr. Falkland, after a residence of several week
at Rome, proceeded to Naples. Meanwhile, certain
incidents occurred that delayed the intended nuptials
of the heiress of Pisani. When he returned to
Rome, Count Malvesi was absent. Lady Lucretia,
who had been considerably amused before with the
conversation of Mr. Falkland, and who had an active
and inquiring mind, had conceived, in the interval
between his first and second residence at Rome, a
desire to be acquainted with the English language,
inspired by the lively and ardent encomiums of our
best authors that she had heard from their country-
man. She had provided herself with the usual
materials for that purpose, and had made some pro-
gress during his absence. But upon his return she
was forward to make use of the opportunity, which,
if missed, might never occur again with equal ad-
vantage, of reading select passages of our poets
with an Englishman of uncommon taste and capacity.
This proposal necessarily led to a more frequent
intercourse. When Count Malvesi returned, he
- found Mr. Falkland established almost as an inmate
of the Pisani palace. His mind could not fail to be
struck with the criticalness of the situation. He was
perhaps secretly conscious that the qualifications of
the Englishman were superior to his own; and he


CALEB WILLIAMS, 35
trembled for the progress that each party might
have made in the affection of the other, even before
they were aware of the danger. He believed that
the match was in every respect such as to flatter
the ambition of Mr. Falkland; and he was stung
even to madness by the idea of being deprived of
the object dearest to his heart by this tramontane
upstart.
He had, however, sufficient discretion first to de-
mand an explanation of Lady Lucretia. She, in
the gayety of her heart, trifled with his anxiety.
His patience was already exhausted, and he pro-
ceeded in his expostulation, in language that she
was by no means prepared to endure with apathy.
Lady Lucretia had always been accustomed to de-
ference and submission; and, having got over some-
thing like terror, that was at first inspired by the
imperious manner in which she was now catechised,
her next feeling was that of the warmest resent-
ment. She disdained to satisfy so insolent a ques-
tioner, and even indulged herself in certain oblique
hints calculated to strengthen his suspicions. For
some time she described his folly and presumption
in terms of the most ludicrous sarcasm, and then,
suddenly changing her style, bade him never let her
see him more except upon the footing of the most
distant acquaintance, as she was determined never
again to subject herself to so unworthy a treatment.
She was happy that he had at length disclosed to
her his true character, and would know how to
profit of her present experience to avoid a repetition
of the same danger. All this passed in the full ca-
reer of passion on both sides, and Lady Lucretia
had no time to reflect upon what might be the con: - .
sequence of thus exasperating her lover. *
Count Malvesi left her in all the torments ºf .
phrensy. He believed that this was a premeditated


36 CALEB WILLIAM8.
scene, to find a pretence for breaking off an engage-
ment that was already all but concluded; or, ra-
ther, his mind was racked with a thousand conjec-
tures: he alternately thought that the injustice
might be hers or his own; and he quarrelled with
Lady Lucretia, himself, and the whole world. In
this temper he hastened to the hotel of the English
cavalier. The season of expostulation was now
over, and he found himself irresistibly impelled to
justify his precipitation with the lady, by taking for
granted that the subject of his suspicion was be-
yond the reach of doubt.
Mr. Falkland was at home. The first words of
the count were an abrupt accusation of duplicity in
the affair of Lady Lucretia, and a challenge. The
Englishman had an unaffected esteem for Malvesi,
who was in reality a man of considerable merit, and
who had been one of Mr. Falkland's earliest Italian
acquaintance, they having originally met at Milan.
But, more than this, the possible consequence of a
duel in the present instance burst upon his mind.
He had the warmest admiration for Lady Lucretia,
though his feelings were not those of a lover; and
he knew that, however her haughtiness might en-
deavour to disguise it, she was impressed with a
tender regard for Count Malvesi. He could not
bear to think that any misconduct of his should in-
terrupt the prospects of so deserving a pair. Guided
by these sentiments, he endeavoured to expostu-
late with the Italian. But his attempts were in-
effectual. His antagonist was drunk with choler,
and would not listen to a word that tended to check
the impetuosity of his thoughts. He traversed the
room with perturbed steps, and even foamed with
anguish and fury. Mr. Falkland, finding that all
was to no purpose, told the count that, if he would
return to-morrow at the same hour, he would attend


CALEB WILLIAMS. 37
him to any scene of action he should think proper
to select.
From Count Malvesi Mr. Falkland immediately
proceeded to the palace of Pisani. Here he found
considerable difficulty in appeasing the indignation
of Lady Lucretia. His ideas of honour would by
no means allow him to win her to his purpose by
disclosing the cartel he had received; otherwise
that disclosure would immediately have operated as
the strongest motive that could have been offered
to this disdainful beauty. But, though she dreaded
such an event, the vague apprehension was not
strong enough to induce her instantly to surrender
all the stateliness of her resentment. Mr. Falk-
land, however, drew so interesting a picture of the
disturbance of Count Malvesi's mind, and accounted
in so flattering a manner for the abruptness of his
conduct, that this, together with the arguments he
adduced, completed the conquest of Lady Lucretia's
resentment. Having thus far accomplished his
purpose, he proceeded to disclose to her everything
that had passed.
The next day Count Malvesi appeared, punctual
to his appointment, at Mr. Falkland's hotel. Mr.
Falkland came to the door to receive him, but re-
quested him to enter the house for a moment, as he
had still an affair of three minutes to despatch.
They proceeded to a parlour. Here Mr. Falkland
left him, and presently returned leading in Lady
Lucretia herself, adorned in all her charms, and
those charms heightened upon the present occasion
by a consciousness of the spirited and generous con-
descension she was exerting. Mr. Falkland led
her up to the astonished count; and she, gently
laying her hand upon the arm of her lover, ex-
claimed with the most attractive grace, “Will you
allow me to retract the precipitate haughtiness into


88 CALEB WILLIAMS,
which I was betrayed 7”. The enraptured count,
scarcely able to believe his senses, threw himself
upon his knees before her, and stammered out his
reply, signifying that the precipitation had been all
his own, that he only had any forgiveness to de-
mand, and, though they might pardon, he could never
pardon himself for the sacrilege he had committed
against her and this godlike Englishman. As soon
as the first tumults of his joy had subsided, Mr. Falk-
land addressed him thus:–
“Count Malvesi, I feel the utmost pleasure in
having thus by peaceful means disarmed your re-
sentment, and effected your happiness. But I must
confess, you put me to a severe trial. My temper
is not less impetuous and fiery than your own, and
it is not at all times that I should have been thus
able to subdue it. But I considered that in reality
the original blame was mine. Though your sus-
picion was groundless, it was not absurd. We have
been trifling too much in the face of danger. I
ought not, under the present weakness of our na-
ture and forms of society, to have been so assiduous
in my attendance upon this enchanting woman. It
would have been little wonder, if, having so many
opportunities, and playing the preceptor with her as
I have done, I had been entangled before I was
aware, and harboured a wish which I might not af.
terward have had courage to subdue. I owed you
an atonement for this imprudence.
“But the laws of honour are in the utmost de-
gree rigid; and there was reason to fear that, how-
ever anxious I were to be your friend, I might be
obliged to be your murderer. Fortunately, the
reputation of my courage is sufficiently established,
not to expose it to any impeachment by my declin-
ing your present defiance. It was lucky, however,
that in our interview of yesterday you found me


CALEB WILLIAMS. 39
alone, and that accident by that means threw the
management of the affair into my disposal. If the
transaction should become known, the conclusion
will now become known along with the provocation,
and I am satisfied. But if the challenge had been
public, the proofs I had formerly given of cour-
age would not have excused my present modera-
tion; and, though desirous to have avoided the
combat, it would not have been in my power. Let
us hence, each of us, learn to avoid haste and indis-
cretion, the consequences of which may be inexpia-
ble but with blood; and may Heaven bless you in
a consort of whom I deem you every way worthy!”
I have already said that this was by no means
the only instance, in the course of his travels, in
which Mr. Falkland acquitted himself in the most
brilliant manner as a man of gallantry and virtue.
He continued abroad during several years, every
one of which brought some fresh accession to the
estimation in which he was held, as well as to his
own impatience of stain or dishonour. At length
he thought proper to return to England, with the
intention of spending the rest of his days at the resi-
dence of his ancestors.
CHAPTER III.
FROM the moment he entered upon the execution
of this purpose, dictated, as it probably was, by an
unaffected principle of duty, his misfortunes took
their commencement. All I have further to state
of his history is the uninterrupted persecution of a -
malignant destiny, a series of adventures that seemed


40 CALEB WILLIAMS,
to take their rise in various accidents, but pointing
to one termination. Him they overwhelmed with
an anguish he was of all others least qualified to
bear; and these waters of bitterness, extending
beyond him, poured their deadly venom upon
others, I being myself the most unfortunate of their
WICtlmS.
The person in whom these calamities originated
was Mr. Falkland's nearest neighbour, a man of
estate equal to his own, by name Barnabas Tyrrel.
This man one might at first have supposed of all
others least qualified from instruction, or inclined
by the habits of his life, to disturb the enjoyments
of a mind so richly endowed as that of Mr. Falk-
land. Mr. Tyrrel might have passed for a true
model of the English squire. He was early left
under the tuition of his mother, a woman of narrow
capacity, and who had no other child. The only
remaining member of the family it may be neces-
sary to notice was Miss Emily Melville, the orphan
daughter of Mr. Tyrrel's paternal aunt; who now
resided in the family mansion, and was wholly de-
pendent on the benevolence of its proprietors.
Mrs. Tyrrel appeared to think that there was
nothing in the world so precious as her hopeful
Barnabas. Every thing must give way to his ac-
commodation and advantage; every one must yield
the most servile obedience to his commands. He
must not be teased or restricted by any forms of in-
struction; and of consequence his proficiency, even
in the arts of writing and reading, was extremely
slender. From his birth he was muscular and
sturdy; and, confined to, the ruelle of his mother, he
made much such a figure as the whelp-lion that a
barbarian might have given for a lapdog to his
mistress.
But he soon broke loose from these trammels,


CALEB WILLIAMS, 41
and formed an acquaintance with the groom and the
gamekeeper." Under their instruction he proved as
ready a scholar, as he had been indocile and restive
to the pedant who held the office of his tutor. It
was now evident that his small proficiency in litera-
ture was by no means to be ascribed to want of
capacity. He discovered no contemptible sagacity
and quick-wittedness in the science of horseflesh,
and was eminently expert in the arts of shooting,
fishing, and hunting. Nor did he confine himself
- to these, but added the theory and practice of box-
ing, cudgel play, and quarter-staff. These exer-
cises added tenfold robustness and vigour to his
former qualifications. -
His stature, when grown, was somewhat more
than five feet ten inches in height, and his form might
have been selected by a painter as a model for that
hero of antiquity whose prowess consisted in fell-
ing an ox with his fist, and devouring him at a meal.
Conscious of his advantage in this respect, he was
insupportably arrogant, tyrannical- to his inferiors,
and insolent to his equals. The activity of his
mind being diverted from the genuine field of utility
and distinction, showed itself in the rude tricks of
an overgrown lubber. Here, as in all his other
qualifications, he rose above his competitors; and
if it had been possible to overlook the callous and
unrelenting disposition which they manifested, one
could scarcely have denied his applause to the in-
vention these freaks displayed, and the rough, sar-
castic wit with which they were accompanied.
Mr. Tyrrel was by no means inclined to permit
these extraordinary merits torustin oblivion. There
was a weekly assembly at the nearest market-town,
theresort of all the rural gentry. Here he had hitherto
figured to the greatest advantage as grand-master
of the coterie, no one having an equal share of opu-
**


42 CALEB WILLIAMS,
lence, and the majority, though still pretending to ſ
the rank of gentry, greatly his inferior?m this essen-
tial article. The young men in this circle looked
up to this insolent bashaw with timid respect, con-
-scious of the comparative eminence that unques-
tionably belonged to the powers of his mind; and
he well knew how to maintain his rank with an in- .
flexible hand. Frequently indeed he relaxed his
features, and assumed a temporary appearance of
affableness and familiarity; but they found by ex-
perience that if any one, encouraged by his conde- .
scension, forgot the deference which Mr. Tyrrel
considered as his due, he was soon taught to repent º
his presumption. It was a tiger that thought proper -
to toy with a mouse, the little animal every moment
in danger of being crushed by the fangs of his fero-
cious associate. As Mr. Tyrrel had considerable
copiousness of speech, and a rich, but undisciplined -
imagination, he was always sure of an audience.
His neighbours crowded round, and joined in the
ready laugh, partly from obsequiousness, and partly
from unfeigned admiration. It frequently happened,
however, that in the midst of his good-humour, a
characteristic refinement of tyranny would suggest
itself to his mind. When his subjects, encouraged
by his familiarity, had discarded their precaution,
the wayward fit would seize him, a sudden cloud º
overspread his brow, his voice transform from the
pleasant to the terrible, and a quarrel of a straw z
immediately ensue with the first man whose face he
did not like. The pleasure that resulted to others
from the exuberant sallies of his imagination was,
therefore, not unalloyed with sudden qualms of a
rehension and terror. It may be believed that this
espotism did not gain its final ascendency without |
being contested in the outset. But all opposition
was quelled with a high hand by this rural Antaeus,


CALEB WILLIAMS. 43
By the ascendency of his fortune and his character
among his neighbours, he always reduced his adver-
sary to the necessity of encountering him at his
own weapons, and did not dismiss him without
making him feel his presumption through every joint
in his frame. The tyranny of Mr. Tyrrel would
not have been so patiently endured, had not his col-
loquial accomplishments perpetually come in aid of
that authority which his rank and prowess originally
obtained.
The situation of our squire with the fair was still
more enviable than that which he maintained among
persons of his own sex. Every mother taught her
daughter to consider the hand of Mr. Tyrrel as the
highest object of her ambition. Every daughter
regarded his athletic form and his acknowledged
prowess with a favourable eye. A form eminently
athletic is, perhaps, always well-proportioned; and
one of the qualifications that women are early taught
to look for in the male sex is that of a protector.
As no man was adventurous enough to contest his
superiority, so scarcely any woman in this provin-
cial circle would have scrupled to prefer his ad-
dresses to those of any other admirer. His boiste-
rous wit had peculiar charms for them; and there
was no spectacle more flattering to their vanity, than
seeing this Hercules exchange his club for a distaff.
It was pleasing to them to consider, that the fangs
of this wild beast, the very idea of which inspired
trepidation into the boldest hearts, might be played
with by them with the utmost security.
Such was the rival that Fortune, in her caprice,
had reserved for the accomplished Falkland. This
untamed, though not undiscerning brute, was found
capable of destroying the prospects of a man the most
eminently qualified to enjoy and to communicate
happiness. The feud that sprung up between them


44 - CALEB WILLIAMS,
was nourished by concurring circumstances, till it
attained a magnitude difficult to be paralleled; and,
because they regarded each other with a deadly
hatred, I have become an object of misery and ab-
horrence. -
The arrival of Mr. Falkland gave an alarming
shock to the authority of Mr. Tyrrel in the village
assembly, and in all scenes of indiscriminate resort.
His disposition by no means inclined him to with-
hold himself from scenes of fashionable amusement;
and he and his competitor were like two stars fated
never to appear at once above the horizon. The
advantages Mr. Falkland possessed in the compari-
son are palpable; and had it been otherwise, the
subjects of his rural neighbour were sufficiently
disposed to revolt against his merciless dominion.
They had hitherto submitted from fear, and not
from love; and if they had not rebelled, it was
only for want of a leader. Even the ladies regarded
Mr. Falkland with particular complacency. His
polished manners were peculiarly in harmony with
feminine delicacy. The sallies of his wit were far
beyond those of Mr. Tyrrel in variety and vigour;
in addition to which they had the advantage of hav.
ing their spontaneous exuberance guided and re-
strained by the sagacity of a cultivated mind. The
graces of his person were enhanced by the elegance
of his deportment; and the benevolence and libe-
rality of his temper were upon all occasions con-
spicuous. It was common indeed to Mr. Tyrrel, to-
gether with Mr. Falkland, to be little accessible to
sentiments of awkwardness and confusion. But for
this Mr. Tyrrel was indebted to a self-satisfied
effrontery, and a boisterous and overbearing elocu-
tion, by which he was accustomed to discomfit his
assailants; while Mr. Falkland, with great inge-
nuity and candour of mind, was enabled by his ex-


* CALEB WILLIAMS, 45
tensive knowledge of the world, and acquaintance
with his own resources, to perceive almost instanta-
neously the proceeding it most became him to
adopt.
Mr. Tyrrel contemplated the progress of his rival
with uneasiness and aversion. He often commented
upon it to his particular confidants as a thing alto-
gether inconceivable. Mr. Falkland he described
as an animal that was beneath contempt. Diminu-
tive and dwarfish in his form, he wanted to set up a
new standard of human nature, adapted to his mis-
erable condition. He wished to persuade people
that the human species were made to be mailed to a
chair, and to pore over books. He would have
them exchange those robust exercises which make -
us joyous in the performance, and vigorous in the
consequences, for the wise labour of scratching our
heads for a rhyme and counting our fingers for a
verse. Monkeys were as good men as these. A
nation of such animals would have no chance with
a single regiment of the old English votaries of
beef and pudding. He never saw anything come
of learning but to make people foppish and imper-
tinent; and a sensible man would not wish a worse
calamity to the enemies of his nation, than to see
them run mad after such pernicious absurdities. It
was impossible that people could seriously feel any
liking for such a ridiculous piece of goods as this
outlandish foreign-made Englishman. But he knew
very well how it was: it was a miserable piece of
mummery that was played only in spite of him.
But might his soul be for ever blasted if he were
not bitterly revenged upon them all !
If such were the sentiments of Mr. Tyrrel, his
patience found ample exercise in the language which
was held by the rest of his neighbours on the same
subject. While he saw nothing in Mr. Falkland


46 CALEB WILLIAMS,
but matter of contempt, they appeared to be never
weary of recounting his praises. Such dignity, such
affability, so perpetual an attention to the happiness
of others, such delicacy of sentiment and expres-
sion 1 Learned without ostentation, refined without
foppery, elegant without effeminacy Perpetually
anxious to prevent his superiority from being pain-
fully felt, it was so much the more certainly felt to
be real, and excited congratulation instead of envy
in the spectator. It is scarcely necessary to re-
mark, that the revolution of sentiment in this rural
vicinity belongs to one of the most obvious features
of the human mind. The rudest exhibition of art
is at first admired, till a nobler is presented, and we
are taught to wonder at the facility with which be-
fore we had been satisfied. Mr. Tyrrel thought
there would be no end to the commendation; and
expected when their common acquaintance would
fall down and adore the intruder. The most inad-
vertent expression of applause inflicted upon him
the torment of demons. He writhed with agony,
his features became distorted, and his looks inspired
terror. Such suffering would probably have soured
the kindest temper; what must have been its effect
upon Mr. Tyrrel's, always fierce, unrelenting, and
abrupt”
The advantages of Mr. Falkland seemed by no
means to diminish with their novelty. Every new
sufferer from Mr. Tyrrel's tyranny immediately
went over to the standard of his adversary. The
ladies, though treated by their rustic swain with
more gentleness than the men, were occasionally
exposed to his capriciousness and insolence. They
could not help remarking the contrast between these
two leaders in the fields of chivalry, the one of whom
paid no attention to any one's pleasure but his own,
while the other seemed all good-humour and benevo-
*


CALEB WILLIAMS, 47
lence. It was in vain that Mr. Tyrrel endeavoured
to restrain the ruggedness of his character. His
motive was impatience, his thoughts were gloomy,
and his courtship was like the pawings of an ele-
phant. It appeared as if his temper had been more
human while he indulged in its free bent, than now
that he sullenly endeavoured to put fetters upon its
exceSSes.
* Among the ladies of the village-assembly already
mentioned there was none that seemed to engage
more of the kindness of Mr. Tyrrel than Miss Hard-
ingham. She was also one of the few that had
not yet gone over to the enemy, either because she
really preferred the gentleman who was her oldest
acquaintance, or that she conceived from calcula-
tion this conduct best adapted to ensure her success
in a husband. One day, however, she thought
proper, probably only by way of experiment, to
show Mr. Tyrrel that she could engage in hostili-
ties, if he should at any time give her sufficient
provocation. She so adjusted her manoeuvres as to
be engaged by Mr. Falkland as his partner for the
dance of the evening, though without the smallest
intention on the part of that gentleman (who was
unpardonably deficient in the sciences of anecdote
and match-making) of giving offence to his country
neighbour. Though the manners of Mr. Falkland
were condescending and attentive, his hours of
retirement were principally occupied in contempla-
tions too dignified for scandal, and too large for the
altercations of a vestry, or the politics of an election-
borough.
A short time before the dances began, Mr. Tyrrel
went up to his fair inamorata, and entered into
some trifling conversation with her to fill up the
time, as intending in a few minutes to lead her for-
ward to the field. He had accustomed himself to


48 CALEB WILLIAMS,
neglect the ceremony of soliciting beforehand a
promise in his favour, as not supposing it possible
that any one would dare dispute his behests; and,
had it been otherwise, he would have thought the
formality unnecessary in this case, his general
preference to Miss Hardingham being notorious.
While he was thus engaged Mr. Falkland came
up. Mr. Tyrrel always regarded him with aversion
and loathing. Mr. Falkland, however, slided in a
graceful and unaffected manner into the conversa-
tion already begun; and the animated ingenuous-
ness of his manner was such as might for the time
have disarmed the devil of his malice. Mr. Tyrrel
probably conceived that his accosting Miss Hard-
ingham was an accidental piece of general cere-
mony, and expected every moment when he would
withdraw to another part of the room.
The company now began to be in motion for the
dance, and Mr. Falkland signified as much to Miss
Hardingham. “Sir” interrupted Mr. Tyrrel ab-
ruptly, “that lady is my partner.”—“I believe not,
sir; that lady has been so obliging as to accept my
invitation.”—“I tell you, sir, no. Sir, I have an
interest in that lady's affections; and I will suffer
no man to intrude upon my claims.”—“The lady's
affections are not the subject of the present ques-
tion.”—“Sir, it is to no purpose to parley. Make
room, sir!”—Mr. Falkland gently repelled his an-
tagonist. “Mr. Tyrrel !” returned he, with some
firmness, “let us have no altercation in this busi-
ness: the master of the ceremonies is the proper
person to decide in a difference of this sort, if we
cannot adjust it: we can neither of us intend to ex-
hibit our valour before the ladies, and shall there-
fore cheerfully submit to his verdict.”—“Damn me,
sir, if I understand—” “Softly, Mr. Tyrrel; I in-
tended you no offence. But, sir, no man shall


CALEB WILLIAMS. 49
prevent my asserting that to which I have once
acquired a claim 1"
Mr. Falkland uttered these words with the most
unruffled temper in the world. The tone in which
he spoke had acquired elevation, but neither rough-
ness nor impatience. There was a fascination in
his manner that made the ferociousness of his an-
tagonist subside into impotence. Miss Hardingham
had begun to repent of her experiment, but her
alarm was speedily quieted by the dignified com-
posure of her new partner. Mr. Tyrrel walked
away without answering a word. He muttered
curses as he went, which the laws of honour did
not oblige Mr. Falkland to overhear, and which in-
deed it would have been no easy task to have over-
heard with accuracy. Mr. Tyrrel would not, per-
haps, have so easily given up his point, had not his
own good sense presently taught him, that, however
eager he might be for revenge, this was not the
ground he should desire to occupy. But, though
he could not openly resent this rebellion against his
authority, he brooded over it in the recesses of a
malignant mind; and it was evident enough that he
was accumulating materials for a bitter account, to
which he trusted his adversary should one day be
brought.
CHAPTER IV.
This was only one out of innumerable instances,
that every day seemed to multiply, of petty mortifi-
cations which Mr. Tyrrel was destined to endure
on the part of Mr. Falkland. In all of them Mr.
Wol. I.-C


50 CALEB WILLIAMS.
Falkland conducted himself with such unaffected
propriety, as perpetually to add to the stock of his
reputation. The more Mr. Tyrrel struggled with
his misfortune, the more conspicuous and inveterate
it became. A thousand times he cursed his stars,
which took, as he apprehended, a malicious plea-
sure in making Mr. Falkland, at every turn, the in-
strument of his humiliation. Smarting under a suc-
cession of untoward events, he appeared to feel, in
the most exquisite manner, the distinctions paid to
his adversary, even in those points in which he had
not the slightest pretensions. An instance of this
now occurred.
Mr. Clare, a poet whose works have done im-
mortal honour to the country that produced him,
had lately retired, after a life spent in the sublimest
efforts of genius, to enjoy the produce of his econo-
my, and the reputation he had acquired, in this very
neighbourhood. Such an inmate was looked up to
by the country gentlemen with a degree of adora-
tion. They felt a conscious pride in recollecting
that the boast of England was a native of their
vicinity; and they were by no means deficient in
gratitude when they saw him, who had left them an
adventurer, return into the midst of them, in the
close of his days, crowned with honours and opu-
lence. The reader is acquainted with his works:
he has, probably, dwelt upon them with transport;
and I need not remind him of their excellence: but
he is, perhaps, a stranger to his personal qualifica-
tions; he does not know that his productions were
scarcely more admirable than his conversation. In
º he seemed to be the only person ignorant
of the greatness of his fame. To the world his
writings will long remain a kind of specimen of
what the human mind is capable of performing; but
no man perceived their defects so acutely as he, or


CALEB WILLIAMS, 51
saw so distinctly how much yet remained to be
effected: he alone appeared to look upon his works
with superiority and indifference. One of the fea-
tures that most eminently distinguished him was a
perpetual suavity of manners, a comprehensiveness
of mind, that regarded the errors of others without
a particle of resentment, and made it impossible for
any one to be his enemy. He pointed out to men
their mistakes with frankness and unreserve: his
remonstrances produced astonishment and convic-
tion, but without uneasiness, in the party to whom
they were addressed: they felt the instrument that
was employed to correct their irregularities, but it
never mangled what it was intended to heal. Such
were the moral qualities that distinguished him
among his acquaintance. The intellectual accom-
plishments he exhibited were, principally, a tranquil
and mild enthusiasm, and a richness of conception
which dictated spontaneously to his tongue, and
flowed with so much ease, that it was only by retro-
spect you could be made aware of the amazing
variety of ideas that had been presented.
Mr. Clare certainly found few men in this remote
situation that were capable of participating in his
ideas and amusements. It has been among the
weaknesses of great men to fly to solitude, and con-
verse with woods and groves, rather than with a
circle of strong and comprehensive minds like their
own. From the moment of Mr. Falkland's arrival
in the neighbourhood, Mr. Clare distinguished him
in the most flattering manner. To so penetrating
a genius there was no need of long experience and
patient observation to discover the merits and de-
fects of any character that presented itself. The
materials of his judgment had long since been accu-
mulated; and, at the close of so illustrious a life,
he might almost be said § see through nature at a
2


52 CALEB WILLIAMS,
glance. What wonder that he took some interest
in a mind in a certain degree congenial with his
own But to Mr. Tyrrel's diseased imagination,
every distinction bestowed on his neighbour seemed
to be expressly intended as an insult to him. On
the other hand, Mr. Clare, though gentle and be-
nevolent in his remonstrances to a degree that made
the taking offence impossible, was by no means
parsimonious of praise, or slow to make use of the
deference that was paid him for the purpose of pro-
curing justice to merit.
It happened at one of those public meetings at
which Mr. Falkland and Mr. Tyrrel were present,
that the conversation, in one of the most numerous
sets into which the company was broken, turned
upon the poetical talents of the former. A lady,
who was present, and was distinguished for the
acuteness of her understanding, said, she had been
favoured with a sight of a poem he had just written,
entitled An Ode to the Genius of Chivalry, which
appeared to her of exquisite merit. The curiosity
of the company was immediately excited, and the
lady added, she had a copy in her pocket, which
was much at their service, provided its being thus
produced would not be disagreeable to the author.
The whole circle immediately entreated Mr. Falk-
land to comply with their wishes, and Mr. Clare,
who was one of the company, enforced their pe-
tition. Nothing gave this gentleman so much pleas-
ure as to have an opportunity of witnessing and
doing justice to the exhibition of intellectual excel-
lence. Mr. Falkland had no false modesty or affec-
tation, and therefore readily yielded his consent.
Mr. Tyrrel accidentally sat at the extremity of
this circle. It cannot be supposed that the turn the
conversation had taken was by any means agree-
able to him. He appeared to wish to withdraw


CALEB WILLIAMS, 53
himself, but there seemed to be some unknown
power that, as it were, by enchantment, retained
him in his place, and made him consent to drink
to the dregs the bitter potion which envy had pre-
pared for him.
The poem was read to the rest of the company
by Mr. Clare, whose elocution was scarcely inferior
to his other accomplishments. Simplicity, discrimi-
nation, and energy constantly attended him in the
act of reading, and it is not easy to conceive a more
refined delight than fell to the lot of those who had
the good fortune to be his auditors. The beauties
of Mr. Falkland's poem were accordingly exhibited
with every advantage. The successive passions of
the author were communicated to the hearer. What
was impetuous, and what was solemn, were de-
livered with a responsive feeling, and a flowing and
umlaboured tone. The pictures conjured up by the
creative fancy of the poet were placed full to view,
at one time overwhelming the soul with supersti-
tious awe, and at another transporting it with luxu-
riant beauty.
The character of the hearers upon this occasion
has already been described. They were, for the
most part, plain, unlettered, and of little refine-
ment. Poetry in general they read, when read at
all, from the mere force of imitation, and with few
sensations of pleasure; but this poem had a pecu-
liar vein of glowing inspiration. This very poem
would probably have been seen by many of them
with little effect; but the accents of Mr. Clare car-
ried it home to the heart. He ended: and as the
countenances of his auditors had before sympa-
thized with the passions of the composition, so now
they emulated each other in declaring their appro-
bation. Their sensations were of a sort to which
they were little accustomed. One spoke, and


54 * CALEB WILLIAMS,
another followed by a sort of uncontrollable im-
pulse; and the rude and broken manner of their
commendations rendered them the more singular
and remarkable. But what was least to be endured
was the behaviour of Mr. Clare. He returned the
manuscript to the lady from whom he had received
it, and then, addressing Mr. Falkland, said, with
emphasis and animation, “Ha! this is as it should
be. It is of the right stamp. I have seen too many
hard essays strained from the labour of a pedant,
and pastoral ditties distressed in lack of a meaning.
They are such as you, sir, that we want. Do not
forget, however, that the Muse was not given to
add refinements to idleness, but for the highest and
most invaluable purposes. Act up to the magnitude
of your destiny.”
A moment after Mr. Clare quitted his seat, and
with Mr. Falkland and two or three more withdrew.
As soon as they were gone, Mr. Tyrrel edged far-
ther into the circle. He had sat silent so long that
he seemed ready to burst with gall and indignation.
“Mighty pretty verses" said he, half talking to
himself, and not addressing any particular person:
“why, ay, the verses are well enough. Damna-
tion! I should like to know what a ship-load of
- such stuff is good for.”
“Why, surely,” said the lady who had introduced
Mr. Falkland's ode on the present occasion, “you
must allow that poetry is an agreeable and elegant
amusement.”
“Elegant, quothal—Why, look at this Falkland!
A puny bit of a thing! In the devil's name, madam,
do you think he would write poetry if he could do
any thing better?”
The conversation did not stop here. The lady
expostulated. Several other persons, fresh from
the sensation they had felt, contributed their share,


CALEB WILLIAMS, - 55
Mr. Tyrrel grew more violent in his invectives, and
found ease in uttering them. The persons who
were able in any degree to check his vehemence
were withdrawn. One speaker after another shrunk
back into silence, too timid to oppose, or too indo-
lent to contend with the fierceness of his passion.
He found the appearance of his old ascendency;
but he felt its deceitfulness and uncertainty, and was
gloomily dissatisfied.
In his return from this assembly he was accom-
panied by a young man, whom similitude of man-
ners had rendered one of his principal confidants,
and whose road home was in part the same as his
own. One might have thought that Mr. Tyrrel had
sufficiently vented his spleen in the dialogue he had
just been holding. But he was unable to dismiss
from his recollection the anguish he had endured.
“Damn Falkland!” said he. “What a pitiful
scoundrel is here to make all this bustle about !
But women and fools always will be fools; there
is no help for that ' Those that set them on have
most to answer for; and most of all, Mr. Clare.
He is a man that ought to know something of the
world, and past being duped by gewgaws and tinsel.
He seemed, too, to have some notion of things: I
should not have suspected him of hallooing to a
cry of mongrels without honesty or reason. But
the world is all alike. Those that seem better than
their neighbours are only more artful. They mean
the same thing, though they take a different road.
He deceived me for a while, but it is all out now.
They are the makers of the mischief. Fools might
blunder, but they would not persist, if people that
ought to set them right did not encourage them to
go wrong.”
A few days after this adventure Mr. Tyrrel was
surprised to receive a visit from Mr. Falkland. Mr.


56 CALEB WILLIAMS,
Falkland proceeded, without ceremony, to explain
the motive of his coming.
“Mr. Tyrrel,” said he, “I am come to have an
amicable explanation with you.”
“Explanation? What is my offence?”
“None in the world, sir; and for that reason I
conceive this the fittest time to come to a right un-
derstanding.”
“You are in a devil of a hurry, sir. Are you
clear that this haste will not mar, instead of make
an understanding”
“I think I am, sir. I have great faith in the pu-
rity of my intentions, and I will not doubt, when
you perceive the view with which I come, that you
will willingly co-operate with it.”
“Mayhap, Mr. Falkland, we may not agree
about that. One man thinks one way, and another
man thinks another. Mayhap I do not think I have
any great reason to be pleased with you already.”
“It may be so. I cannot, however, charge my-
self with having given you reason to be displeased.”
“Well, sir, you have no right to put me out of
humour with myself. If you come to play upon
me, and try what sort of a fellow you shall have to
deal with, damn me if you shall have any reason to
hug yourself upon the experiment.”
“Nothing, sir, is more easy for us than to quar-
rel. If you desire that, there is no fear that you
will find opportunities.” -
“Damn me, sir, if I do not believe you are come
to bully me.” -
“Mr. Tyrrell sir—have a care!”
“Of what, sir?—Do you threaten me? Damn
my soul! who are you? what do you come here
for 7”
The fieriness of Mr. Tyrrel brought Mr. Falk-
land to his recollection.


CALEB WILLIAMS, 57
“I am wrong,” said he. “I confess it. I came
for purposes of peace. With that view I have
taken the liberty to visit you. Whatever therefore
might be my feelings upon another occasion, I am
bound to suppress them now.”
“Ho!—Well, sir; and what have you further to
offer º’”
“Mr. Tyrrel,” proceeded Mr. Falkland, “you will
readily imagine that the cause that brought me was
not a slight one. I would not have troubled you
with a visit, but for important reasons. My com-
ing is a pledge how deeply I am myself impressed
with what I have to communicate.
“We are in a critical situation. We are upon
the brink of a whirlpool which, if once it get hold of
us, will render all further deliberation impotent.
An unfortunate jealousy seems to have insinuated
itself between us, which I would willingly remove;
and I come to ask your assistance. We are both
of us nice of temper; we are both apt to kindle,
and warm of resentment. Precaution in this stage
can be dishonourable to neither; the time ma
come when we shall wish we had employed it, and
find it too late. Why should we be enemies? Our
tastes are different; our pursuits need not interfere.
We both of us amply possess the means of hap-
piness; we may be respected by all, and spend a
long life of tranquillity and enjoyment. Will it be
wise in us to exchange this prospect for the fruits
of strife? A strife between persons with our pecu-
liarities and our weaknesses includes consequences
that I shudder to think of. I fear, sir, that it is
pregnant with death at least to one of us, and with
misfortune and remorse to the survivor.”
“Upon my soul, you are a strange man! Why
trouble me with your prophecies and forebodings?”
“Because it is necessary to your happiness!
C 3


58 CALEB WILLIAMS,
Because it becomes me to tell you of our danger
now, rather than wait till my character will allow
this tranquillity no longer! -
“By quarrelling we shall but imitate the great
mass of mankind, who could easily quarrel in our
place. Let us do better. Let us show that we
have the magnanimity to contemn petty misunder-
standings. By thus judging we shall do ourselves
most substantial honour. By a contrary conduct
we shall merely present a comedy for the amuse-
ment of our acquaintance.”
“Do you think so? there may be something in
that. Damn me if I consent to be the jest of any
man living.”
“You are right, Mr. Tyrrel. Let us each act in
a manner best calculated to excite respect. We
neither of us wish to change roads; let us each
suffer the other to pursue his own track unmolested.
Be this our compact; and by mutual forbearance
let us preserve mutual peace.”
Saying this, Mr. Falkland offered his hand to
Mr. Tyrrel, in token of fellowship. But the gesture
was too significant. The wayward rustic, who
seemed to have been somewhat impressed by what
had preceded, taken as he now was by surprise,
shrunk back. Mr. Falkland was again ready to
take fire upon this new slight, but he checked
himself.
“All this is very unaccountable,” cried Mr. Tyr-
rel. “What the devil can have made you so for-
ward, if you had not some sly purpose to answer,
by which I am to be overreached?”
“My purpose,” replied Mr. Falkland, “is a manly
and an honest purpose. Why should you refuse a
proposition dictated by reason and an equal regard
to the interest of each?”


CALEB WILLIAMS, 59
Mr. Tyrrel had had an opportunity for pause, and
fell back into his habitual character.
“Well, sir, in all this I must own there is some
frankness. Now I will return you like for like. It
is no matter how I came by it, my temper is rough,
and will not be controlled. Mayhap you may think
it is a weakness, but I do not desire to see it altered.
Till you came, I found myself very well: I liked
my neighbours, and my neighbours humoured me.
But now the case is entirely altered; and, as long
as I cannot stir abroad without meeting with some
mortification in which you are directly or remotely
concerned, I am determined to hate you. Now,
sir, if you will only go out of the county or the
kingdom, to the devil, if you please, so as I may
never hear of you any more, I will promise never
to quarrel with you as long as I live. Your rhymes
and your rebusses, your quirks and your conun-
drums, may then be every thing that is grand for
what I care.”
“Mr. Tyrrel, be reasonable ! Might not I as well
desire you to leave the county, as you desire me?
I come to you, not as to a master, but an equal.
In the society of men we must have something to
endure, as well as to enjoy. No man must think
that the world was made for him. Let us take
things as we find them; and accommodate ourselves
as we can to unavoidable circumstances.”
“True, sir; all this is fine talking. But I return
to my text: we are as God made us. I am neither
a philosopher nor a poet, to set out upon a wild-
goose chase of making myself a different man from
what you find me. As for consequences, what must
be must be. As we brew we must bake. And so,
do you see? I shall not trouble myself about what
is to be, but stand up to it with a stout heart when
it comes. Only this I can tell you, that as long as


60 CALEB WILLIAMs.
I find you thrust into my dish every day, I shall
hate you as bad as senna and valerian. And damn
me if I do not think I hate you the more for com-
ing to-day in this pragmatical way, when nobody
sent for you, on purpose to show how much wiser
you are than all the world besides.”
“Mr. Tyrrel, I have done. I foresaw conse-
quences, and came as a friend. I had hoped that,
by mutual explanation, we should have come to a
better understanding. I am disappointed; but, per-
haps, when you coolly reflect on what has passed,
you will give me credit for my intentions, and think
that my proposal was not an unreasonable one.”
Having said this Mr. Falkland departed. Through
the interview he, no doubt, conducted himself in a
way that did him peculiar credit. Yet the warmth
of his temper could not be entirely suppressed:
and even when he was most exemplary, there was
an apparent loftiness in his manner that was cal-
culated to irritate; and the very grandeur with
which he suppressed his passions operated indi-
rectly as a taunt to his opponent. The interview
was prompted by the noblest sentiments; but it un-
questionably served to widen the breach it was in-
tended to heal.
For Mr. Tyrrel, he had recourse to his old expe-
dient, and unburthened the tumult of his thoughts
to his confidential friend. “This,” cried he, “is a
new artifice of the fellow to prove his imagined
superiority. We knew well enough that he had the
gift of the gab. To be sure, if the world were to
be governed by words, he would be in the right
box. Oh yes, he had it all hollow ! But what
signifies prating 2 Business must be done in an-
other guess way than that. I wonder what pos-
sessed me that I did not kick him But that is all
to come. This is only a new debt added to the


CALEB WILLIAMs. 61
score, which he shall one day richly pay. This
Falkland haunts me like a demon. I cannot wake
but I think of him. I cannot sleep but I see him.
He poisons all my pleasures. I should be glad to
see him torn with tenter-hooks, and to grind his
heartstrings with my teeth. I shall know no joy
till I see him ruined. There may be some things
right about him; but he is my perpetual torment.
The thought of him hangs like a dead weight upon
my heart, and I have a right to shake it off. Does
he think I will feel all that I endure for nothing?”
In spite of the acerbity of Mr. Tyrrel's feelings,
it is probable, however, he did some justice to his
rival. He regarded him, indeed, with added dislike;
but he no longer regarded him as a despicable foe.
He avoided his encounter; he forbore to treat him
with random hostility; he seemed to lie in wait for
his victim, and to collect his venom for a mortal
assault.
CHAPTER W.
It was not long after that a malignant distemper
broke out in the neighbourhood, which proved fatal
to many of the inhabitants, and was of unexampled
rapidity in its effects. One of the first persons that
was seized with it was Mr. Clare. It may be con-
ceived what grief and alarm this incident spread
through the vicinity. Mr. Clare was considered by
them as something more than mortal. The equa-
nimity of his behaviour, his unassuming carriage,
his exuberant benevolence and goodness of heart,
joined with his talents, his inoffensive wit, and the


62 CALEB WILLIAMS,
comprehensiveness of his intelligence, made him
the idol of all that knew him. In the scene of
his rural retreat, at least, he had no enemy. All
mourned the danger that now threatened him. He
appeared to have had the prospect of long life, and
of going down to his grave full of years and of
honour. Perhaps these appearances were deceitful.
Perhaps the intellectual efforts he had made, which
were occasionally more sudden, violent, and unin-
termitted than a strict regard to health would have
dictated, had laid the seed of future disease. But a
sanguine observer would infallibly have predicted,
that his temperate habits, activity of mind, and
unabated cheerfulness, would be able even to keep
death at bay for a time, and baffle the attacks of
distemper, provided their approach were not uncom-
monly rapid and violent. The general affliction,
therefore, was doubly pungent upon the presen
occasion. -
But no one was so much affected as Mr. Falkland.
Perhaps no man so well understood the value of
the life that was now at stake. He immediately
hastened to the spot; but he found some difficulty in
gaining admission. Mr. Clare, aware of the infec-
tious nature of his disease, had given directions that
... as few persons as possible should approach him.
Mr. Falkland sent up his name. He was told that
he was included in the general orders. He was not,
however, of a temper to be easily repulsed; he
persisted with obstinacy, and at length carried his
point, being only reminded, in the first instance, to
employ those precautions which experience has
proved most effectual for counteracting infection.
He found Mr. Clare in his bed-chamber, but not
in bed. He was sitting in his night-gown at a
bureau near the window. His appearance was
composed and cheerful, but death was in hia
-


CALEB WILLIAMS. 63
countenance. “I had a great inclination, Falk-
land,” said he, “not to have suffered you to come
in ; and yet there is not a person in the world it
would give me more pleasure to see. But, upon
second thoughts, I believe there are few people
that could run into a danger of this kind with a
better prospect of escaping. In your case, at least,
the garrison will not, I trust, be taken through the
treachery of the commander. I cannot tell how it
is that I, who can preach wisdom to you, have
myself been caught. But do not be discouraged by
my example. I had no notice of my danger, or I
would have acquitted myself better.”
Mr. Falkland, having once established himself in
the apartment of his friend, would upon no terms
consent to retire. Mr. Clare considered that there
was perhaps less danger in this choice than in the
frequent change from the extremes of a pure to a
tainted air, and desisted from expostulation. “Falk-
land,” said he, “when you came in, I had just
finished making my will. I was not pleased with
what I had formerly drawn up upon that subject,
and I did not choose in my present situation to call
in an attorney. In fact, it would be strange if a man
of sense, with pure and direct intentions, should not
be able to perform such a function for himself.”
Mr. Clare continued to act in the same easy and
disengaged manner as in perfect health. To judge
from the cheerfulness of his tone and the firmness
of his manner, the thought would never once have
occurred that he was dying. He walked, he rea-
soned, he jested, in a way that argued the most
perfectself-possession. But his appearance changed
perceptibly for the worse every quarter of an hour.
Mr. Falkland kept his eye perpetually fixed upon
him, with mingled sentiments of anxiety and admi-
ration,


64 CALEB WILLIAMS,
“Falkland,” said he, after having appeared for
a short period absorbed in thought, “I feel that I
am dying. This is a strange distemper of mine,
Yesterday I seemed in perfect health, and to-morrow
I shall be an insensible corpse. How curious is the
line that separates life and death to mortal men I
To be at one moment active, gay, penetrating, with
stores of knowledge at one's command, capable of
delighting, instructing, and animating mankind, and
the next, lifeless and loathsome, an encumbrance
upon the face of the earth! Such is the history of
many men, and such will be mine.
“I feel as if I had yet much to do in the world;
but it will not be. I must be contented with what
is past. It is in vain that I muster all my spirits to
my heart. The enemy is too mighty and too mer-
ciless for me; he will not give me time so much as
to breathe. These things are not yet at least in our
power: they are parts of a great series that is per-
petually flowing. The general welfare, the great
business of the universe, will go on, though I bear
no further share in promoting it. That task is
reserved for younger strengths, for you, Falkland,
and such as you. We should be contemptible
indeed if the prospect of human improvement did
not yield us a pure and perfect delight, independ-
ently of the question of our existing to partake of it.
Mankind would have little to envy to future ages, if
they had all enjoyed a serenity as perfect as mine
has been for the latter half of my existence.”
Mr. Clare sat up through the whole day, indulging
himself in easy and cheerful exertions, which were
perhaps better calculated to refresh and invigorate
the frame than if he had sought repose in its direct
form. Now and then he was visited with a sudden
pang; but it was no sooner felt, than he seemed to
rise above it, and smiled at the impotence of these


CALEB WILLIAMS, 65
attacks. They might destroy him, but they could
not disturb. Three or four times he was bedeved
with profuse sweats; and these again were suc-
ceeded by an extreme dryness and burning heat of
the skin. He was next covered with small livid
spots: symptoms of shivering followed, but these
he drove away with a determined resolution. He
then became tranquil and composed, and after some
time decided to go to bed, it being already night.
“Falkland,” said he, pressing his hand, “the
task of dying is not so difficult as some imagine.
When one looks back from the brink of it, one
wonders that so total a subversion can take place at
so easy a price.”
He had now been some time in bed, and, as every
thing was still, Mr. Falkland hoped that he slept;
but in that he was mistaken. Presently Mr.
Clare threw back the curtain, and looked in the
countenance of his friend. “I cannot sleep,” said
he. “No, if I could sleep, it would be the same
thing as to recover; and I am destined to have the
worst in this battle.
“Falkland, I have been thinking about you. I do
not know any one whose future usefulness I con-
template with greater hope. . Take care of yourself.
Do not let the world be defrauded of your virtues,
I am acquainted with your weakness as well as your
strength. You have an impetuosity, and an impa-
tience of imagined dishonour, that, if once set
wrong, may make you as eminently mischievous as
you will otherwise be useful. Think seriously of
exterminating this error!
“But if I cannot, in the brief expostulation my
present situation will allow, produce this desirable
change in you, there is at least one thing I can do.
I can put you upon your guard against a mischief I
foresee to be imminent. Beware of Mr. Tyrrel.


66 CALEB WILLIAMS,
Do not commit the mistake of despising him as an
unequal opponent. Petty causes may produce
great mischiefs. Mr. Tyrrel is boisterous, rugged,
and unfeeling; and you are too passionate, too
acutely sensible of injury. It would be truly to be
lamented, if a man so inferior, so utterly unworthy
to be compared with you, should be capable of
changing your whole history into misery and guilt.
I have a painful presentiment upon my heart, as if
something dreadful would reach you from that
quarter. Think of this. I exact no promise from
you. I would not shackle you with the fetters of
superstition; I would have you governed by justice
and reason.” -
Mr. Falkland was deeply affected with this ex-
postulation. His sense of the generous attention
of Mr. Clare, at such a moment, was so great as
almost to deprive him of utterance. He spoke in
short sentences, and with visible effort. “I will
behave better,” replied he. “Never fear me! Your
admonitions shall not be thrown away upon me.”
Mr. Clare adverted to another subject. “I have
made you my executor; you will not refuse me this
last office of friendship. It is but a short time that
I have had the happiness of knowing you; but in
that short time I have examined you well, and seen
you thoroughly. Do not disappoint the sanguine
hope I have entertained
“I have left some legacies. My former connex-
ions, while I lived amid the busy haunts of men,
as many of them as were intimate, are all of them
dear to me. I have not had time to summon them
about me upon the present occasion, nor did I desire
it. The remembrance of me will, I hope, answer
a better purpose than such as are usually thought of
on similar occasions.”
Mr Clare, having thus unburthened his mind,


CALEB WILLIAMS, 67
spoke no more for several hours. Towards morning
Mr. Falkland quietly withdrew the curtain, and
looked at the dying man. His eyes were open, and
were now gently turned towards his young friend.
His countenance was sunk, and of a deathlike ap-
pearance. “I hope you are better,” said Falkland
in a half-whisper, as if afraid of disturbing him.
Mr. Clare drew his hand from the bedclothes, and
stretched it forward; Mr. Falkland advanced, and
took hold of it. “Much better,” said Mr. Clare, in
a voice inward and hardly articulate; “the struggle
is now over; I have finished my part; farewell ?
remember 1” These were his last words. He
lived still a few hours; his lips were sometimes
seen to move; he expired without a groan.
Mr. Falkland had witnessed the scene with much
anxiety. His hopes of a favourable crisis, and his
fear of disturbing the last moments of his friend, had
held him dumb. For the last half-hour he had
stood up, with his eyes intently fixed upon Mr.
Clare. He witnessed the last gasp, the last little
convulsive motion of the frame. He continued to
look; he sometimes imagined that he saw life
renewed. At length he could deceive himself no
longer, and exclaimed, with a distracted accent,
“And is this all?” He would have thrown himself
upon the body of his friend; the attendants withheld,
and would have forced him into another apartment.
But he struggled from them, and hung fondly over
the bed. “Is this the end of genius, virtue, and ex-
cellence 2 Is the luminary of the world thus for
ever gone? Oh, yesterday! yesterday! Clare, why
could not I have died in your stead? Dreadful
moment 1 Irreparable loss | Lost in the very ma-
turity and vigour of his mind! Cut off from a use-
fulness ten thousand times greater than any he had
already exhibited Oh, his was a mind to have


68 CALEB WILLIAMS.
instructed sages, and guided the moral world! This
is all we have left of him! The eloquence of those
lips is gone ! The incessant activity of that heart
is still ! The best and wisest of men is gone, and
the world is insensible of its loss 1"
Mr. Tyrrel heard the intelligence of Mr. Clare's
death with emotion, but of a different kind. He
avowed that he had not forgiven him his partial
attachment to Mr. Falkland, and therefore could not
recall his remembrance with kindness. But if he
could have overlooked his past injustice, sufficient
care, it seems, was taken to keep alive his resentment.
“Falkland, forsooth, attended him on his deathbed,
as if nobody else were worthy of his confidential
communications.” But what was worst of all was
this executorship. “In everything this pragmatical
rascal throws me pehind. Contemptible wretch,
that has nothing of the man about him ' Must he
perpetually trample upon his betters? Is every-
body incapable of saying what kind of stuff a man
is made off caught with mere outside choosing
the flimsy before the substantial : And upon his
deathbed too!—[Mr. Tyrrel, with his uncultivated
brutality, mixed, as usually happens, certain rude
notions of religion.]—Sure the sense of his situa-
tion might have shamed him. Poor wretch! his
soul has a great deal to answer for. He has made
my pillow uneasy; and, whatever may be the con-
sequences, we have to thank him for them.” .
The death of Mr. Clare removed the person who
could most effectually have moderated the animosi-
ties of the contending parties, and took away the
great operative check upon the excesses of Mr.
Tyrrel. This rustic tyrant had been held in in-
voluntary restraint by the intellectual ascendency of
his celebrated neighbour; and, notwithstanding the
general ferocity of his temper, he did not appear till


CALEB WILLIAMS, 69
lately to have entertained a hatred against him. In
the short time that had elapsed from the period in
which Mr. Clare had fixed his residence in the
neighbourhood to that of the arrival of Mr. Falk-
land from the Continent, the conduct of Mr. Tyrrel
had even shown tokens of improvement. He would
indeed have been better satisfied not to have had
even this intruder into a circle where he had been
accustomed to reign. But with Mr. Clare he could
have no rivalship; the venerable character of Mr.
Clare disposed him to submission: this great man
seemed to have survived all the acrimony of con-
tention, and all the jealous subtleties of a mistaken
honour.
The effects of Mr. Clare's suavity, however, so
far as related to Mr. Tyrrel, had been in a certain
degree suspended by considerations of rivalship
between this gentleman and Mr. Falkland. And,
now that the influence of Mr. Clare's presence and
virtues was entirely removed, Mr. Tyrrel's temper
broke out into more criminal excesses than ever.
The added gloom which Mr. Falkland's neighbour-
hood inspired overflowed upon all his connexions;
and the new examples of his sullenness and tyranny
which every day afforded reflected back upon this
accumulated and portentous feud.


70 CALEB WILLIAMS,
CHAPTER WI.
THE consequences of all this speedily manifested
themselves. The very next incident in the story
was in some degree decisive of the catastrophe.
Hitherto I have spoken only of preliminary matters,
seemingly unconnected with each other, though
leading to that state of mind in both parties which
had such fatal effects. But all that remains is rapid
and tremendous. The death-dealing mischief ad-
vances with an accelerated motion, appearing to
defy human wisdom and strength to obstruct its
operation.
The vices of Mr. Tyrrel, in their present state of
augmentation, were peculiarly exercised upon his
domestics and dependants. But the principal suf-
ferer was the young lady mentioned on a former
occasion, the orphan daughter of his father's sister.
Miss Melville's mother had married imprudently, or
rather unfortunately, against the consent of her rela-
tions, all of whom had agreed to withdraw their
countenance from her in consequence of that precipi-
tate step. Her husband had turned out to be no
better than an adventurer; had spent her fortune,
which, in consequence of the irreconcilableness of
her family, was less than he expected, and had
broken her heart. Her infant daughter was left
without any resource. In this situation the repre-
sentations of the people with whom she happened to
be placed prevailed upon Mrs. Tyrrel, the mother
of the squire, to receive her into her family. In
equity, perhaps, she was entitled to that portion of


CALEB WILLIAMS. 71
fortune which her mother had forfeited by her impru-
dence, and which had gone to swell the property of
the male representative. But this idea had never
entered into the conceptions of either mother or son.
Mrs. Tyrrel conceived that she performed an act
of the most exalted benevolence in admitting Miss
Emily into a sort of equivocal situation, which
was neither precisely that of a domestic, nor yet
marked with the treatment that might seem due to
one of the family.
She had not, however, at first been sensible of all
the mortifications that might have been expected
from her condition. Mrs. Tyrrel, though proud and
imperious, was not ill-natured. The female who
lived in the family in the capacity of housekeeper
was a person who had seen better days, and whose
disposition was extremely upright and amiable. She
early contracted a friendship for the little Emily,
who was indeed for the most part committed to her
care. Emily, on her side, fully repaid the affection
of her instructress, and learned with great docility
the few accomplishments Mrs. Jakeman was able to
communicate. But, most of all, she imbibed her
cheerful and artless temper, that extracted the
agreeable and encouraging from all events, and
prompted her to communicate her sentiments, which
were never of the cynical cast, without modification
or disguise. Besides the advantages Emily derived
from Mrs. Jakeman, she was permitted to take
lessons from the masters who were employed at
Tyrrel Place for the instruction of her cousin; and,
indeed, as the young gentleman was most frequently
indisposed to attend to them, they would commonly
have had nothing to do, had it not been for the for-
tunate presence of Miss Melville. Mrs. Tyrrel
therefore encouraged the studies of Emily on that
score; in addition to which she imagined that this


72 CALEB WILLIAMs.
living exhibition of instruction might operate as an
indirect allurement to her darling Barnabas, the only
species of motive she would suffer to be presented.
Force she absolutely forbade; and of the intrinsic
allurements of literature and knowledge she had no
conception.
Emily, as she grew up, displayed an uncommon
degree of sensibility, which under her circumstances
would have been a source of perpetual dissatisfac-
tion, had it not been qualified with an extreme
sweetness and easiness of temper. She was far
from being entitled to the appellation of a beauty.
Her person was petite and trivial; her complexion
savoured of the brunette; and her face was marked
with the small-pox, sufficiently to destroy its even-
ness and polish, though not enough to destroy its
expression. But though her appearance was not
beautiful, it did not fail to be in a high degree en-
gaging. Her complexion was at once healthful and
delicate; her long dark eyebrows adapted themselves
with facility to the various conceptions of her mind;
and her looks bore the united impression of an active
discernment and a good-humoured frankness. The
instruction she had received, as it was entirely of a
casual nature, exempted her from the evils of untu-
tored ignorance, but not from a sort of native wild-
ness, arguing a mind incapable of guile itself, or of
suspecting it in others. She amused, without seem-
ing conscious of the refined sense which her observa-
tions contained; or rather, having never been de-
bauched with applause, she set light by her own
qualifications, and talked from the pure gayety of a
youthful heart acting upon the stores of a just under-
standing, and not with any expectation of being
distinguished and admired.
The death of her aunt made very little change
in her situation. This prudent lady, who would


CALEB WILLIAMS. 73
have thought it little less than sacrilege to have con-
sidered Miss Melville as a branch of the stock of
the Tyrrels, took no more notice of her in her will
than barely putting her down for one hundred pounds
in a catalogue of legacies to her servants. She had
never been admitted into the intimacy and confidence
of Mrs. Tyrrel; and the young squire, now that she
was left under his sole protection, seemed inclined
to treat her with even more liberality than his mother
had done. He had seen her grow up under his eye,
and therefore, though there were but six years dif-
ference in their ages, he felt a kind of paternal
interest in her welfare. Habit had rendered her in
a manner necessary to him, and in every recess
from the occupations of the field and the pleasures
of the table, he found himself solitary and forlorn
without the society of Miss Melville. Nearness of
kindred, and Emily's want of personal beauty, pre-
vented him from ever looking on her with the eyes
of desire. Her accomplishments were chiefly of
the customary and superficial kind, dancing and
music. Her skill in the first led him sometimes to
indulge her with a vacant corner in his carriage,
when he went to the neighbouring assembly; and,
in whatever light he might himself think proper to
regard her, he would have imagined his chamber-
maid, introduced by him, entitled to an undoubted
place in the most splendid "circle. Her musical
talents were frequently employed for his amusement.
She had the honour occasionally of playing him to
sleep after the fatigues of the chase; and, as he had
some relish for harmonious sounds, she was fre-
quently able to sooth him by their means from the
perturbations of which his gloomy disposition was
so eminently a slave. Upon the whole, she might
be considered as in some sort his favourite. She
was the mediator to whom his tenants and domes-
Vol. I.-D


74 CALEB WILLIAMS.
tics, when they had incurred his displeasure, were
accustomed to apply; the privileged companion,
that could approach this lion with impunity in the
midst of his roarings. She spoke to him without
fear; her solicitations were always good-natured
and disinterested; and when he repulsed her, he
disarmed himself of half his terrors, and was con-
tented to smile at her presumption.
Such had been for some years the situation of
Miss Melville. Its precariousness had been be-
guiled by the uncommon forbearance with which she
was treated by her savage protector. But his dispo.
sition, always brutal, had acquired a gradual acces-
sion of ferocity since the settlement of Mr. Falkland
in his neighbourhood. He now frequently forgot
the gentleness with which he had been accustomed
to treat his good-natured cousin. Her little playful
arts were not always successful in softening his
rage; and he would sometimes turn upon her bland-
ishments with an impatient sternness that made her
tremble. The careless ease of her disposition,
however, soon effaced these impressions, and she
fell without variation into her old habits. A circum-
stance occurred about this time which gave peculiar
strength to the acrimony of Mr. Tyrrel, and ulti-
mately brought to its close the felicity that Miss
Melville, in spite of the frowns of fortune, had
hitherto enjoyed. Emily was exactly seventeen
when Mr. Falkland returned from the Continent. At
this age she was peculiarly susceptible of the charms
of beauty, grace, and moral excellence, when united
in a person of the other sex. She was imprudent,"
precisely because her own heart was incapable of
guile. She had never yet felt the sting of the
poverty to which she was condemned, and had not
reflected on the insuperable distance that custom
has place between the opulent and the poorer


CALEB WILLIAMS. 75
classes of the community. She beheld Mr. Falk-
land, whenever he was thrown in her way at any
of the public meetings, with admiration; and, with-
out having precisely explained to herself the senti-
ments she indulged, her eyes followed him through
all the changes of the scene with eagerness and
impatience. She did not see him, as the rest of the
assembly did, born to one of the amplest estates in
the county, and qualified to assert his title to the
richest heiress. She thought only of Falkland, with
those advantages which were most intimately his
own, and of which no persecution of adverse for-
tune had the ability to deprive him. In a word, she
was transported when he was present; he was the
perpetual subject of her reveries and her dreams;
but his image excited no sentiment in her mind
beyond that of the immediate pleasure she took in
his idea.
The notice Mr. Falkland bestowed on her in
return appeared sufficiently encouraging to a mind
so full of prepossession as that of Emily. There
was a particular complacency in his looks when
directed towards her. He had said in a company,
of which one of the persons present repeated his
remarks to Miss Melville, that she appeared to him
amiable and interesting; that he felt for her unpro-
vided and destitute situation; and that he should
have been glad to be more particular in his attention
to her, had he not been apprehensive of doing her a
prejudice in the suspicious mind of Mr. Tyrrel. All
this she considered as the ravishing condescension
of a superior nature; for, if she did not recollect
with sufficient assiduity his gifts of fortune, she was,
on the other hand, filled with reverence for his
unrivalled accomplishments. But, while she thus
seemingly disclaimed all comparison between Mr.
Falkland and herself, she probably cherished a con-
T) 2


76 CALEB WILLIAMS,
fused feeling as if some event, that was yet in the
womb of fate, might reconcile things apparently the
most incompatible. Fraught with these prepos-
sessions, the civilities that had once or twice occurred
in the bustle of a public circle, the restoring her fan
which she had dropped, or the disembarrassing her
of an empty teacup, made her heart palpitate, and
gave birth to the wildest chimeras in her deluded
imagination.
About this time an event happened that helped to
give a precise determination to the fluctuations of
Miss Melville's mind. One evening, a short time
after the death of Mr. Clare, Mr. Falkland had been
at the house of his deceased friend in his quality of
executor, and, by some accidents of little intrinsic
importance, had been detained three or four hours
later than he expected. He did not set out upon his
return till two o'clock in the morning. At this
time, in a situation so remote from the metropolis,
every thing is as silent as it would be in a region
wholly uninhabited. The moon shone bright; and
the objects around being marked with strong varia-
tions of light and shade, gave a kind of sacred so-
lemnity to the scene. Mr. Falkland had taken
Collins with him, the business to be settled at Mr.
Clare's being in some respects similar to that to
which this faithful domestic had been accustomed in
the routine of his ordinary service. They had entered
into some conversation, for Mr. Falkland was not
then in the habit of obliging the persons about him
by formality and reserve to recollect who he was.
The attractive solemnity of the scene made him
break off the talk somewhat abruptly, that he might
enjoy it without interruption. They had not ridden
far before a hollow wind seemed to rise at a distance,
and they could hear the hoarse roarings of the sea.
Presently the sky on one side assumed the appear-
.


CALEB WILLIAMS. 77
... ance of a reddish brown, and a sudden angle in the
road placed this phenomenon directly before them.
As they proceeded it became more distinct, and it
was at length sufficiently visible that it was occa-
sioned by a fire. Mr. Falkland put spurs to his
horse; and, as they approached, the object presented
every instant a more alarming appearance. The
flames ascended with fierceness; they embraced a
large portion of the horizon; and, as they carried up
with them numerous little fragments of the materials
that fed them, impregnated with fire, and of an ex-
tremely bright and luminous colour, they presented
some feeble image of the tremendous eruption of a
volcano.
The flames proceeded from a village directly in
their road. There were eight or ten houses already
on fire, and the whole seemed to be threatened with
immediate destruction. The inhabitants were in the
utmost consternation, having had no previous expe-
rience of a similar calamity. They conveyed with
haste their moveables and furniture into the adjoining
fields. When any of them had effected this as far
as it could be attempted with safety, they were unable
to conceive any further remedy, but stood wringing
their hands, and contemplating the ravages of the
fire in an agony of powerless despair. The water
that could be procured, in any mode practised in that
place, was but as a drop contending with an element
in arms. The wind in the mean time was rising,
and the flames spread with more and more rapidity.
Mr. Falkland contemplated this scene for a few
moments, as if ruminating with himself as to what
could be done. He then directed some of the coun-
try people about him to pull down a house, next to
one that was wholly on fire, but which itself was
yet untouched. They seemed astonished at a di-
rection which implied a voluntary destruction of
-


78 CALEB WILLIAMS.
property, and considered the task as too much in-
the heart of the danger to be undertaken. Observ-
ing that they were motionless, he dismounted from
his horse, and called upon them in an authoritative
voice to follow him. He ascended the house in an
instant, and presently appeared upon the top of it,
as if in the midst of the flames. Having, with the
assistance of two or three of the persons that fol-
lowed him most closely, and who by this time had
supplied themselves with whatever tools came next
to hand, loosened the support of a stack of chim-
neys, he pushed them headlong into the midst of
the fire. He passed and repassed along the roof;
and, having set people to work in all parts, de-
scended in order to see what could be done in any
other quarter. -
At this moment an elderly woman burst from the
midst of a house in flames: the utmost consterna-
tion was painted in her looks; and, as soon as she
could recollect herself enough to have a proper idea
of her situation, the subject of her anxiety seemed,
in an instant, to be totally changed. “Where is my
child?” cried she, and cast an anxious and piercing
look among the surrounding crowd. “Oh, she is
lost! she is in the midst of flames | Save her
save her my child " She filled the air with heart-
rending shrieks. She turned towards the house.
The people that were near endeavoured to prevent
her, but she shook them off in a moment. She
entered the passage; viewed the hideous ruin; and
was then going to plunge into the blazing staircase.
Mr. Falkland saw, pursued, and seized her by the
arm; it was Mrs. Jakeman. “Stop!” he cried,
with a voice of grand yet benevolent authority.
“Remain you in the street ! I will seek, and will
save her!” Mrs. Jakeman obeyed. He charged
the persons who were near to detain her; he in-


CALEB WILLIAMS, 79.
quired which was the apartment of Emily. Mrs.
Jakeman was upon a visit to a sister who lived in
the village, and had brought Emily along with her.
Mr. Falkland ascended a neighbouring house, and
entered that in which Emily was by a window in
the roof.
He found her already awaked from her sleep;
and, becoming sensible of her danger, she had that
instant wrapped a loose gown round her. Such is
the almost irresistible result of feminine habits; but,
having done this, she examined the surrounding
objects with the wildness of despair. Mr. Falkland
entered the chamber. She flew into his arms with
the rapidity of lightning. She embraced and clung
to him, with an impulse that did not wait to consult
the dictates of her understanding. Her emotions
were indescribable. In a few short moments she
had lived an age in love. In two minutes Mr.
Falkland was again in the street with his lovely
half-naked burthen in his arms. Having restored
her to her affectionate protector, snatched from the
immediate grasp of death, from which, if he had
not, none would have delivered her, he returned to
his former task. By his presence of mind, by his
indefatigable humanity and incessant exertions, he
saved three-fourths of the village from destruction.
The conflagration being at length abated, he sought
again Mrs. Jakeman and Emily, who by this time
had obtained a substitute for the garments she had
lost in the fire. He displayed the tenderest solici-
tude for the young lady's safety, and directed Collins
to go with as much speed as he could, and send his
chariot to attend her. More than an hour elapsed
in this interval. Miss Melville had never seen so
much of Mr. Falkland upon any former occasion;
and the spectacle of such humanity, delicacy, firm-
ness, and justice in the form of man, as he crowded
º


80 CALEB WILLIAMS,
into this small space, was altogether new to her,
and in the highest degree fascinating. She had a
confused feeling as if there had been something in-
decorous in her behaviour or appearance when Mr.
Falkland had appeared to her relief; and this com-
bined with her other emotions to render the whole
critical and intoxicating.
Emily no sooner arrived at the family mansion
than Mr. Tyrrel ran out to receive her. He had
just heard of the melancholy accident that had taken
place at the village, and was terrified for the safety
of his good-humoured cousin. He displayed those
unpremeditated emotions which are common to
almost every individual of the human-race. He
was greatly shocked at the suspicion that Emily
º might possibly have become the victim of a catas-
trophe which had thus broken out in the dead of
night. His sensations were of the most pleasing
sort when he folded her in his arms, and fearful
apprehension was instantaneously converted into
joyous certainty. Emily no sooner entered under
the well-known roof than her spirits were brisk, and
her tongue incessant in describing her danger and
her deliverance. Mr. Tyrrel had formerly been tor-
tured with the innocent eulogiums she pronounced
of Mr. Falkland. But these were tameness itself,
compared with the rich and various eloquence that
now flowed from her lips. Love had not the same
effect upon her, especially at the present moment,
which it would have had upon a person instructed
to feign a blush, and inured to a consciousness of
wrong. She described his activity and resources,
the promptitude with which every thing was con-
ceived, and the cautious but daring wisdom with
which it was executed. All was fairy-land and en-
chantment in the tenor of her artless tale; you
saw a beneficent genius surveying and controlling
º


CALEB WILLIAMS, - 81
the whole, but could have no notion of any human
means by which his purposes were effected.
Mr. Tyrrel listened for a while to these innocent
effusions with patience; he could even bear to hear
the man applauded by whom he had just obtained
so considerable a benefit. But the theme by am-
plification became nauseous, and he at length with
some roughness put an end to the tale. Probably,
upon recollection, it appeared still more insolent
and intolerable than while it was passing; the sen-
sation of gratitude wore off, but the hyperbolical
praise that had been bestowed still haunted his
memory, and sounded in his ear;-Emily had en-
tered into the confederacy that disturbed his repose.
For herself, she was wholly unconscious of offence,
and upon every occasion quoted Mr. Falkland as
the model of elegant manners and true wisdom.
She was a total stranger to dissimulation; and she
could not conceive that any one beheld the subject
of her admiration with less partiality than herself.
Her artless love became more fervent than ever.
She flattered herself that nothing less than a recip-
rocal passion could have prompted Mr. Falkland
to the desperate attempt of saving her from the
flames; and she trusted that this passion would
speedily declare itself, as well as induce the object
of her adoration to overlook her comparative un-
worthiness.
Mr. Tyrrel endeavoured at first with some modera-
tion to check Miss Melville in her applauses, and
to convince her by various tokens that the subject
was disagreeable to him. He was accustomed to
treat her with kindness. Emily, on her part, was
disposed to yield an unreluctant obedience, and
therefore it was not difficult to restrain her. But
upon the very next occasion her favourite topic
would force its way to her lips. Her obedience
D 3


82 CALEB WILLIAMS,
was the acquiescence of a frank and benevolent
heart; but it was the most difficult thing in the
world to inspire her with fear. Conscious herself
that she would not hurt a worm, she could not con-
ceive that any one would harbour cruelty and ran-
cour against her. Her temper had preserved her
from obstinate contention with the persons under
whose protection she was placed; and, as her com-
pliance was unhesitating, she had no experience of
a severe and rigorous treatment. As Mr. Tyrrel's
objection to the very name of Falkland became
more palpable and uniform, Miss Melville increased
in her precaution. She would stop herself in the
half-pronounced sentences that were meant to his
praise. This circumstance had necessarily an un-
gracious effect; it was a cutting satire upon the
imbecility of her kinsman. Upon these occasions
she would sometimes venture upon a good-humoured
expostulation:-"Dear sir! well, I wonder how
you can be so ill-natured 1 I am sure Mr. Falkland
would do you any good office in the world:”—till
she was checked by some gesture of impatience
and fierceness. -
At length she wholly conquered her heedlessness
and inattention. But it was too late. Mr. Tyrrel
already suspected the existence of that passion
which she had thoughtlessly imbibed. His imagina-
tion, ingenious in torment, suggested to him all the
different openings in conversation, in which she
would have introduced the praise of Mr. Falkland,
had she not been placed under this unnatural re-
straint. Her present reserve upon the subject was
even more insufferable than her former loquacity.
All his kindness for this unhappy orphan gradually
subsided. Her partiality for the man who was the
object of his unbounded abhorrence appeared to
him as the last persecution of a malicious destiny.
º


CALEB WILLIAMS, 83
He figured himself as about to be deserted by every
creature in human form; all men, under the influ-
ence of a fatal enchantment, approving only what
was sophisticated and artificial, and holding the
rude and genuine offspring of nature in mortal an-
tipathy. Impressed with these gloomy presages,
he saw Miss Melville with no sentiments but those
of rancorous aversion; and, accustomed as he was
to the uncontrolled indulgence of his propensities,
he determined to wreak upon her a signal revenge.
CHAPTER VII.
MR. TYRREL consulted his old confidant respect-
ing the plan he should pursue; who, sympathizing
as he did in the brutality and insolence of his friend,
had no idea that an insignificant girl, without either
wealth or beauty, ought to be allowed for a moment
to stand in the way of the gratifications of a man of
Mr. Tyrrel's importance. The first idea of her
now unrelenting kinsman was to thrust her from his
doors, and leave her to seek her bread as she could.
But he was conscious that this proceeding would
involve him in considerable obloquy; and he at
length fixed upon a scheme which, at the same time
that he believed it would sufficiently shelter his
reputation, would much more certainly secure her
mortification and punishment.
For this purpose he fixed upon a young man of
twenty, the son of one Grimes, who occupied a
small farm, the property of his confidant. This
fellow he resolved to impose as a husband on Miss


84 CALEB WILLIAMS,
MeMille, who, he shrewdly suspected, guided by the
tender sentiments she had unfortunately conceived
for Mr. Falkland, would listen with reluctance to
any matrimonial proposal. Grimes he selected as
being in all respects the diametrical reverse of Mr.
Falkland. He was not precisely a lad of vicious
propensities, but in an inconceivable degree boorish
and uncouth. His complexion was scarcely human;
his features were coarse, and strangely discordant
and disjointed from each other. His lips were thick,
and the tone of his voice broad and unmodulated.
His legs were of equal size from one end to the
other, and his feet misshapen and clumsy. He had
nothing spiteful or malicious in his disposition, but
he was a total stranger to tenderness; he could not
feel for those refinements in others of which he
had no experience in himself. He was an expert
boxer: his inclination led him to such amusements
as were most boisterous; and he delighted in a sort
of manual sarcasm, which he could not conceive to
be very injurious, as it left no traces behind it. His
general manners were noisy and obstreperous; in-
attentive to others; and obstinate and unyielding,
not from any cruelty and ruggedness of temper, but
from an incapacity to conceive those finer feelings
that make so large a part of the history of persons
who are cast in a gentler mould.
Such was the uncouth and half-civilized animal
which the industrious malice of Mr. Tyrrel fixed
upon as most happily adapted to his purpose. Emily
had hitherto been in an unusual degree exempted
from the oppression of despotism. Her happy in-
significance had served her as a protection. No
one thought it worth his while to fetter her with
those numerous petty restrictions with which the
daughters of opulence are commonly tormented.
She had the wildness, as well as the deliqate frame,


CALEB WILLIAMs. 85
of the bird that warbles unmolested in its native
roves.
When, therefore, she heard from her kinsman
the proposal of Mr. Grimes for a husband, she was
for a moment silent with astonishment at so unex-
pected a suggestion. But as soon as she recovered
her speech, she replied, “No, sir, I do not want a
husband.”
“You do | Are not you always hankering after
the men? It is high time you should be settled.”
“Mr. Grimes | No, indeed! when I do have a
husband, it shall not be such a man as Mr. Grimes
neither.”
“Be silent! How dare you give yourself such
unaccountable liberties 7"
“Lord, I wonder what I should do with him.
You might as well give me your great rough water-
dog, and bid me make him a silk cushion to lie in
my dressing-room. Besides, sir, Grimes is a com-
mon labouring man, and I am sure I have always
heard my aunt say that ours is a very great family.”
“It is a lie! Our family have you the impu-
dence to think yourself one of our family?”
“Why, sir, was not your grandpapa my grand-
papa? How then can we be of a different
family?”
“From the strongest reason in the world. You
are the daughter of a rascally Scotchman, who spent
every shilling of my aunt Lucy's fortune, and left
you a beggar. You have got a hundred pounds,
and Grimes's father promises to give him as much.
How dare you look down upon your equals?”
“Indeed, sir, I am not proud. But, indeed, and
indeed, I can never love Mr. Grimes. I am very
happy as I am : why should I be married?” -
“Silence your prating! Grimes will be here this
afternoon. Look that you behave well to him. If


86. CALEB WILLIAMS,
i. do not, he will remember and repay, when you
east like it.”
“Nay, I am sure, sir—you are not in earnest?”
“Not in earnest! Damn me, but we will see
that. I can tell what you would be at. You
had rather be Mr. Falkland's miss, than the wife of
a plain downright yeoman. But I shall take care
of you.-Ay, this comes of indulgence. You must
be taken down, miss. You must be taught the
difference between high-flown notions and realities.
Mayhap you may take it a little in dudgeon or so;
but never mind that. Pride always wants a little
smarting. If you should be brought to shame, it is
I that shall bear the blame of it.”
The tone in which Mr. Tyrrel spoke was so dif-
ferent from anything to which Miss Melville had been
accustomed, that she felt herself wholly unable to
determine what construction to put upon it. Some-
times he thought she had really formed a plan for
imposing upon her a condition that she could not
bear so much as to think of. But presently she
rejected this idea as an unworthy imputation upon
her kinsman, and concluded that it was only his
way, and that all he meant was to try her. To be
resolved, however, she determined to consult her
constant adviser, Mrs. Jakeman, and accordingly
repeated to her what had passed. Mrs. Jakeman
saw the whole in a very different light from that in
which Emily had conceived it, and trembled for the
future peace of her beloved ward.
“Lord bless me, my dear mamma!” cried Emily
(this was the appellation she delighted to bestow
upon the good housekeeper), “you cannot think so :
But I do not care. I will never marry Grimes,
happen what will.”
“But how will you help yourself? My master
will oblige you.”
*


CALEB WILLIAMS, 87
“Nay, now you think you are talking to a child
indeed. It is I am to have the man, not Mr. Tyrrel.
Do you think I will let anybody else choose a
husband for me? I am not such a fool as that
neither.”
“Ah, Emily you little know the disadvantages
of your situation. Your cousin is a violent man,
and perhaps will turn you out of doors, if you
oppose him.”
“Oh, mamma! it is very wicked of you to say
so. I am sure Mr. Tyrrel is a very good man,
though he be a little cross now and then. He
knows very well that I am right to have a will of
my own in such a thing as this, and nobody is pun-
ished for doing what is right.”
“Nobody ought, my dear child. But there are
very wicked and tyrannical men in the world.”
“Well, well, I will never believe my cousin is one
of these.” -
“I hope he is not.” -
“And if he were, what then To be sure I should
be very sorry to make him angry.”
“What then? Why then my poor Emily would
be a beggar ! Do you think I could bear to see that?”
“No, no. Mr. Tyrrel has just told me that I
have a hundred pounds. But if I had no fortune, is
not that the case with a thousand other folks? Why
should I grieve, for what they bear and are merry?
Do not make yourself uneasy, mamma. I am de-
termined that I will do any thing rather than marry
Grimes; that is what I will.”
Mrs. Jakeman could not bear the uneasy state of
suspense in which this conversation left her mind,
and went immediately to the squire to have her
doubts resolved. The manner in which she pro-
posed the question sufficiently indicated the judg-
ment she had formed of the match.


88 CALEB WILLIAMS,
“That is true,” said Mr. Tyrrel, “I wanted to
speak to you about this affair. The girl has got
unaccountable notions in her head, that will be the
ruin of her. You perhaps can tell where she had
them. But, be that as it will, it is high time some-
thing should be done. The shortest way is the best,
and to keep things well while they are well. In
short, I am determined she shall marry this lad; you
do not know any harm of him, do you? You have
a good deal of influence with her, and I desire, do
you see, that you will employ it to lead her to her
good; you had best, I can tell you. She is a pert
vixen' By-and-by she would become a whore, and
at last no better than a common trull, and rot upon a
dunghill, if I were not at all these pains to save her
from destruction. I would make her an honest
farmer's wife, and my pretty miss cannot bear the
thoughts of it!”
In the afternoon Grimes came according to ap-
pointment, and was left alone with the young lady.
“Well, miss,” said he, “it seems the squire has
a mind to make us man and wife. For my part,
I cannot say I should have thought of it. But,
being as how the squire has broke the ice, if so be
as you like of the match, why I am your man.
Speak the word; a nod is as good as a wink to a
blind horse.”
Emily was already sufficiently mortified at the
unexpected proposal of Mr. Tyrrel. She was con-
founded at the novelty of the situation, and still more
at the uncultivated rudeness of her lover, which
even exceeded her expectation. This confusion was
interpreted by Grimes into diffidence.
“Come, come, never be cast down. Put a good
face upon it. What though My first sweetheart
was Bet Butterfield; but what of that ? What must
be must be; grief will never fill the belly. She
*
*
º-


CALEB willLAMs. 89
was a fine strapping wench, that is the truth of it!
five foot ten inches, and as stout as a trooper. Oh,
she would do a power of work Up early and
down late; milked ten cows with her own hands;
on with her cardinal, rode to market between her
panniers, fair weather and foul, hail, blow, or snow.
It would have done your heart good to have seen her
frost-bitten cheeks, as red as a beefen from her own
orchard Ah! she was a maid of mettle; would
romp with the harvestmen, slap one upon the back,
Wrestle with another, and had a rogue's trick and a
joke for all round. Poor girl! she broke her neck
down-stairs at a christening. To be sure I shall
never meet her fellow ! But never you mind that;
I do not doubt that I shall find more in you upon
further acquaintance. As coy and bashful as you
seem, I dare say you are rogue enough at bottom.
When I have touzled and rumpled you a little, we
shall see. I am no chicken, miss, whatever you
may think. I know what is what, and can see as
far into a millstone as another. Ay, ay; you will
come to. The fish will snap at the bait, never
doubt it. Yes, yes, we shall rub on main well
together.” i
Emily by this time had in some degree mustered
up her spirits, and began, though with hesitation, to
thank Mr. Grimes for his good opinion, but to con-
fess that she could never be brought to favour his
addresses. She therefore entreated him to desist
from all further application. This remonstrance on
her part would have become more intelligible, had it
not been for his boisterous manners and extravagant
cheerfulness, which indisposed him to silence, and
made him suppose that at half a word he had suffi-
cient intimation of another's meaning. Mr. Tyrrel,
in the mean time, was too impatient not to interrupt
the scene before they could have time to proceed far


90 CALEB WILLIAMS,
in explanation: and he was studious in the sequel
to prevent the young folks from being too intimately
acquainted with each other's inclinations. Grimes,
of consequence, attributed the reluctance of Miss
Melville to maiden coyness and the skittish shyness
of an unbroken filly. Indeed, had it been otherwise,
it is not probable that it would have made any effec-
tual impression upon him; as he was always accus-
tomed to consider women as made for the recreation
of the men, and to exclaim against the weakness of
people who taught them to imagine they were to
judge for themselves.
As the suit proceeded, and Miss Melville saw
more of her new admirer, her antipathy increased.
But, though her character was unspoiled by those
false wants, which frequently make people of family
miserable while they have every thing that nature
‘requires within their reach, yet she had been little
used to opposition, and was terrified at the growing
sternness of her kinsman. Sometimes she thought
of flying from a house which was now become her
dungeon; but the habits of her youth, and her igno-
rance of the world, made her shrink from this
project, when she contemplated it more nearly.
Mrs. Jakeman, indeed, could not think with patience
of young Grimes as a husband for her darling
Emily; but her prudence determined her to resist
with all her might the idea on the part of the young
lady of proceeding to extremities. She could not
believe that Mr. Tyrrel would persist in such an
unaccountable persecution, and she exhorted Miss
Melville to forget for a moment the unaffected inde-
pendence of her character, and pathetically to depre-
cate her cousin's obstinacy. She had great confi-
dence in the ingenuous eloquence of her ward. Mrs.
Jakeman did not know what was passing in the
breast of the tyrant, -


CALEB WILLIAMS. 91
Miss Melville complied with the suggestion of her
mamma. One morning, immediately after breakfast,
she went to her harpsichord, and played one after
another several of those airs that were most the
favourites of Mr. Tyrrell. Mrs. Jakeman had
retired; the servants were gone to their respective
employments. Mr. Tyrrel would have gone also ;
his mind was untuned, and he did not take the plea-
sure he had been accustomed to take in the musical
performances of Emily. But her finger was now
more tasteful than common. Her mind was prob-
ably wrought up to a firmer and bolder tone, by the
recollection of the cause she was going to plead;
at the same time that it was exempt from those inca-
pacitating tremors which would have been felt by one
that dared not look poverty in the face. Mr. Tyrrel
was unable to leave the apartment. Sometimes he
traversed it with impatient steps; then he hung over'
the poor innocent whose powers were exerted to
please him; at length he threw himself in a chair
opposite, with his eyes turned towards Emily. It
was easy to trace the progress of his emotions.
The furrows into which his countenance was con-
tracted were gradually relaxed; his features were
brightened into a smile; the kindness with which he
had upon former occasions contemplated Emily
seemed to revive in his heart.
Emily watched her opportunity. As soon as she
had finished one of the pieces, she rose and went to
Mr. Tyrrel.
“Now, have not I done it nicely? and after this
will not you give me a reward?”
“A reward Ay, come here, and I will give you
a kiss.” --
“No, that is not it. And yet you have not kissed
me this many a day. Formerly, you said you loved
me, and called me your Emily. I am sure you did


92 CALEB WILLIAMS,
not love me better than I loved you. You have not
forgotten all the kindness you once had for me?”
added she, anxiously.
“Forgot? No, no. How can you ask such a
question ? You shall be my dear Emily still !”
“Ah, those were happy times " she replied, a
little mournfully. “Do you know, cousin, I wish I
could wake, and find that the last month—only
about a month—was a dream f"
“What do you mean by that?” said Mr. Tyrrel,
with an altered voice. “Have a care! Do not put
me out of humour. Do not come with your ro-
mantic notions now.”
“No, no: I have no romantic notions in my head.
I speak of something upon which the happiness of
my life depends.”
“I see what you would be at. Be silent. You
know it is to no purpose to plague me with your
stubbornness. You will not let me be in a good
humour with you for a moment. What my mind is
determined upon about Grimes all the world shall
not move me to give up.”
“Dear, dear cousin! why, but consider now.
Grimes is a rough, rustic lout, like Orson in the
story-book. He wants a wife like himself. He
would be as uneasy and as much at a loss with me,
as I with him. Why should we both of us be
forced to do what neither of us is inclined to ? I
cannot think what could ever have put it into your
head. But now, for goodness' sake, give it up!
Marriage is a serious thing. You should not think
of joining two people for a whim, who are neither
of them fit for one another in any respect in the
world. We should feel mortified and disappointed
all our lives. Month would go after month, and year
after year, and I could never hope to be my own,
but by the death of a person I ought to love. I am


CALEB WILLIAMS, 93
sure, sir, you cannot mean me all this harm. What
have I done, that I should deserve to have you for
an enemy?”
“I am not your enemy. I tell you that it is neces-
sary to put you out of harm's way. But, if I were
your enemy, I could not be a worse torment to you
than you are to me. Are not you continually singing
the praises of Falkland? Are you in love with
Falkland? That man is a legion of devils to me !
I might as well have been a beggar ! I might as
well have been a dwarf or a monster | Time
was when I was thought entitled to respect. But
now, debauched by this Frenchified rascal, they
call me rude, surly, a tyrant! It is true that I cannot
talk in finical phrases, flatter people with hypo-
critical praise, or suppress the real feelings of my
mind. The scoundrel knows his pitiful advantages,
and insults me upon them without ceasing. He is
my rival and my persecutor; and, at last, as if all
this were not enough, he has found means to spread
the pestilence in my own family. You, whom we
took up out of charity, the chance-born brat of a
stolen marriage! you must turn upon your bene-
factor, and wound me in the point that of all others
I could least bear. If I were your enemy, should
not I have reason? Could I ever inflict upon you
such injuries as you have made me suffer? And
who are you? The lives of fifty such cannot atone
for an hour of my uneasiness. If you were to
linger for twenty years upon the rack, you would
never feel what I have felt. But I am your friend.
I see which way you are going; and I am deter-
mined to save you from this thief, this hypocritical
destroyer of us all. Every moment that the mis-
chief is left to itself, it does but make bad worse;
and I am determined to save you out of hand.”
The angry expostulations of Mr. Tyrrel sug-


94 CALEB WILLIAMS,
gested new ideas to the tender mind of Miss Mel-
ville. He had never confessed the emotions of his
soul so explicitly before; but the tempest of his
thoughts suffered him to be no longer master of him-
self. She saw with astonishment that he was the
irreconcilable foe of Mr. Falkland, whom she had
fondly imagined it was the same thing to know and
admire; and that he harboured a deep and rooted
resentment against herself. She recoiled, without
well knowing why, before the ferocious passions of
her kinsman, and was convinced that she had nothing
to hope from his implacable temper. But her alarm
was the prelude of firmness, and not of cowardice.
“No, sir,” replied she, “indeed I will not be driven
any way that you happen to like. I have been used
to obey you, and in all that is reasonable I will
obey you still. But you urge me too far. What
do you tell me of Mr. Falkland? Have I ever
done any thing to deserve your unkind suspicions?
I am innocent, and will continue innocent. Mr.
Grimes is well enough, and will no doubt find
women that like him; but he is not fit for me, and
torture shall not force me to be his wife.”
Mr. Tyrrel was not a little astonished at the
spirit which Emily displayed upon this occasion.
He had calculated too securely upon the general
mildness and suavity of her disposition. He now
endeavoured to qualify the harshness of his former
sentiments.
“God damn my soul! And so you can scold,
can you? You expect everybody to turn out of his
way, and fetch and carry, just as you please ? I
could find in my heart—but you know my mind. I
insist upon it that you ket Grimes court you, and
that you lay aside your sulks, and give him a fair
hearing. Will you do that? If then you persist
in your wilfulness, why there, I suppose, is an end


CALEB WILLIAMS. 95
e
of the matter. Do not think that anybody is going
to marry you, whether you will or not. You are
no such mighty prize, I assure you. If you knew
your own interest, you would be glad to take the
young fellow while he is willing.”
Miss Melville rejoiced in the prospect, which the
last words of her kinsman afforded her, of a termi-
nation at no great distance to her present perse-
cutions. Mrs. Jakeman, to whom she communi-
cated them, congratulated Emily on the returning
moderation and good sense of the squire, and her-
self on her prudence in having urged the young lady
to this happy expostulation. But their mutual feli-
citations lasted not long. Mr. Tyrrel informed
Mrs. Jakeman of the necessity in which he found
himself of sending her to a distance, upon a busi-
ness which would not fail to detain her several
weeks; and, though the errand by no means wore
an artificial or ambiguous face, the two friends drew
a melancholy presage from this ill-timed separation.
Mrs. Jakeman, in the mean time, exhorted her
ward to persevere, reminded her of the com-
punction which had already been manifested by her
kinsman, and encouraged her to hope every thing
from her courage and good temper. Emily, on her
part, though grieved at the absence of her protector
and counsellor at so interesting a crisis, was unable
to suspect Mr. Tyrrel of such a degree either of
malice or duplicity as could afford ground for seri-
ous alarm. She congratulated herself upon her
delivery from so alarming a persecution, and drew
a prognostic of future success from this happy
termination of the first serious affair of her life.
She exchanged a state of fortitude and alarm for
her former pleasing dreams respecting Mr. Falk-
land. These she bore without impatience. She
was even taught by the uncertainty of the event to


96 CALEB WILLIAMS,
desire to prolong, rather than abridge, a situation
which might be delusive, but which was not without
its pleasures.
CHAPTER VIII.
NoTHING could be further from Mr. Tyrrel's in-
tention than to suffer his project to be thus termi-
nated. No sooner was he freed from the fear of his
housekeeper's interference, than he changed the
whole system of his conduct. He ordered Miss
Melville to be closely confined to her apartment, and
deprived of all means of communicating her situa-
tion to any one out of his own house. He placed
over her a female servant, in whose discretion he
could confide, and who, having formerly been hon-
oured with the amorous notices of the squire, con-
sidered the distinctions that were paid to Emily at
Tyrrel Place as a usurpation upon her more rea-
sonable claims. The squire himself did everything
in his power to blast the young lady's reputation,
and represented to his attendants these precautions
as necessary, to prevent her from eloping to his
neighbour, and plunging herself in total ruin.
As soon as Miss Melville had been twenty-four
hours in durance, and there was some reason to
suppose that her spirit might be subdued to the
emergency of her situation, Mr. Tyrrel thought
proper to go to her, to explain the grounds of her
present treatment, and acquaint her with the only
means by which she could hope for a change.
Emily no sooner saw him than she turned towards
him with an air of greater firmness than perhaps


CALEB WILLIAMS, 97
she had ever assumed in her life, and accosted him
thus:—
“Well, sir, is it you? I wanted to see you. It
seems I am shut up here by your orders. What
does this mean? What right have you to make a
prisoner of me? What do I owe you? Your mo-
ther left me a hundred pounds: have you ever
offered to make any addition to my fortune? But,
if you had, I do not want it. I do not pretend to
be better than the children of other poor parents;
I can maintain myself as they do. I prefer liberty
to wealth. I see you are surprised at the resolution
I exert. But ought I not to turn again when I am
trampled upon? I should have left you before now,
if Mrs. Jakeman had not over-persuaded me, and
if I had not thought better of you than by your
present behaviour I find you deserve. But now, sir,
I intend to leave your house this moment, and insist
upon it that you do not endeavour to prevent me.”
Thus saying, she rose, and went towards the
door, while Mr. Tyrrel stood thunderstruck at her
magnanimity. Seeing, however, that she was upon
the point of being out of the reach of his power,
he recovered himself, and pulled her back.
“What is in the wind now? Do you think,
strumpet, that you shall get the better of me by
sheer impudence? Sit down rest you satisfied 1–
So you want to know by what right you are here,
do you? By the right of possession. This house
is mine, and you are in my power. There is no
Mrs. Jakeman now to spirit you away; no, nor no
Falkland to bully for you. I have countermined
you, damn me! and blown up your schemes. ... Do
you think I will be contradicted and opposed for
nothing? When did you ever know anybody re-
sist my will without being made to repent' And
shall I now be browbeaten by a chitty-faced girl?
Vol. I.-E


98 CALEB WILLIAMS,
3.
—I have not given you a fortune 1 Damn you!
who brought you up 7 I will make you a bill for
clothing and lodging. Do not you know that every
creditor has a right to stop his runaway debtor'ſ
You may think as you please; but here you are till
you marry Grimes. Heaven and earth shall not
prevent but I will get the better of your obstimacy."
“ Ungenerous, unmerciful man! and so it is
enough for you that I have nobody to defend me !
But I am not so helpless as you imagine. You
may imprison my body, but you cannot conquer my
mind. Marry Mr. Grimes' And is this the way
to bring me to your purpose? Every hardship I
suffer puts still farther distant the end for which I
am thus unjustly treated. You are not used to have
your will contradicted When did I ever contra-
dict it? And, in a concern that is so completely
my own, shall my will go for nothing? Would you
lay down this rule for yourself, and suffer no other
creature to take the benefit of it? I want nothing
of you: how dare you refuse me the privilege of a
reasonable being, to live unmolested in poverty and
innocence? What sort of a man do you show
yourself; you that lay claim to the respect and ap-
plause of every one that knows you?”
The spirited reproaches of Emily had at first the
effect to fill Mr. Tyrrel with astonishment, and
make him feel abashed and overawed in the pres-
ence of this unprotected innocent. But his confu-
sion was the result of surprise. When the first
emotion wore off, he cursed himself for being moved
by her expostulations; and was ten times more ex-
asperated against her, for daring to defy his resent-
ment at a time when she had every thing to fear.
His despotic and unforgiving propensities stimulated .
him to a degree little short of madness. At the
same time his habits, which were pensive and


UAI, EB WILLIAMS, 99
gloomy, led him to meditate a variety of schemes
to punish her obstinacy. He began to suspect that
there was little hope of succeeding by open force,
and therefore determined to have recourse to trea-
chery.
He found in Grimes an instrument sufficiently
adapted to his purpose. This fellow, without an
atom of intentional malice, was fitted, by the mere
coarseness of his perceptions, for the perpetration
of the greatest injuries. He regarded both injury
and advantage merely as they related to the gratifi-
cations of appetite; and considered it an essential
in true wisdom, to treat with insult the effeminacy
of those who suffer themselves to be tormented
with ideal misfortunes. He believed that no hap-
ier destiny could befall a young woman than to be
#. wife; and he conceived that that termination
would amply compensate for any calamities she
might suppose herself to undergo in the interval.
He was therefore easily prevailed upon, by certain
temptations which Mr. Tyrrel knew how to em-
ploy, to take part in the plot into which Miss Mel-
ville was meant to be betrayed.
Matters being thus prepared, Mr. Tyrrel pro-
ceeded, through the means of the jailer (for the
experience he already had of personal discussion
did not incline him to repeat his visits), to play
upon the fears of his prisoner. This woman, some-
times under the pretence of friendship, and some-
times with open malice, informed Emily, from time
to time, of the preparations that were making for
her marriage. One day, “the squire had rode over
to look at a neat little farm which was destined for
the habitation of the new-married couple;” and at
another, “a quantity of live-stock and household-
Turniture was procured, that every thing might be
ready for their reception.” She then told her “of
F 2


100 CALEB WILLIAMS,
a license that was bought, a parson in readiness,
and a day fixed for the nuptials.” When Emily
endeavoured, though with increased misgivings, to
ridicule these proceedings as absolutely nugatory
without her consent, her artful gouvernante related
several stories of forced marriages, and assured her
that neither protestations, nor silence, nor fainting
would be of any avail, either to suspend the cere-
mony or to set it aside when performed.
The situation of Miss Melville was in an emi-
nent degree pitiable. She had no intercourse but
with her persecutors. She had not a human being
with whom to consult, who might afford her the
smallest degree of consolation and encouragement.
She had fortitude; but it was neither confirmed nor
directed by the dictates of experience. It could
not therefore be expected to be so inflexible, as with
better information it would, no doubt, have been
found. She had a clear and noble spirit; but she
had some of her sex’s errors. Her mind sunk un-
der the uniform terrors with which she was assailed,
and her health became visibly impaired.
Her firmness being thus far undermined, Grimes,
in pursuance of his instructions, took care in his
next interview to throw out an insinuation that, for
his own part, he had never cared for the match, and
since she was so averse to it, would be better pleased
that it should never take place. Between one and
the other, however, he was got into a scrape, and
now he supposed he must marry, will he, mill he.
The two squires would infallibly ruin him upon the
least appearance of backwardness on his part, as
they were accustomed to do every inferior that re-
sisted their will. Emily was rejoiced to find her
admirer in so favourable a disposition; and ear-
nestly pressed him to give effect to this humane
declaration. Her representations were full of elo-


CALEB WILLIAMS, 101
quence and energy. Grimes appeared to be moved
at the fervency of her manner; but objected the re-
sentment of Mr. Tyrrel and his landlord. At length,
however, he suggested a project, in consequence of
which he might assist her in her escape, without its
ever coming to their knowledge, as, indeed, there
was no likelihood that their suspicions would fix
upon him. “To be sure,” said he, “you have re-
fused me in a disdainful sort of a way, as a man
may say. Mayhap you thought I was no better
'an a brute: but I bear you no malice, and I will
show you that I am more kind-hearted 'an you have
been willing to think. It is a strange sort of a
vagary you have taken, to stand in your own light,
and disoblige all your friends. But if you are reso-
lute,_do you see ?—I scorn to be the husband of a
lass that is not every bit as willing as I; and so I
will even help to put you in a condition to follow
vour own inclinations.”
Emily listened to these suggestions at first with
eagerness and approbation. But her fervency some-
what abated when they came to discuss the minute
parts of the undertaking. It was necessary, as
Grimes informed her, that her escape should be
effected in the dead of the night. He would conceal
himself for that purpose in the garden, and be pro-
vided with false keys, by which to deliver her from
her prison. These circumstances were by no means
adapted to calm her perturbed imagination. To
throw herself into the arms of the man whose in-
tercourse she was employing every method to avoid,
and whom, under the idea of a partner for life, she
eould least of all men endure, was, no doubt, an
extraordinary proceeding. The attendant circum-
stances of darkness and solitude aggravated the
picture. The situation of Tyrrel Place was un-
commonly lonely; it was three miles from the


102 CALEB WILLIAMS,
nearest village, and not less than seven from that
in which Mrs. Jakeman's sister resided, under
whose protection Miss Melville was desirous of
placing herself. The ingenuous character of Emily
did not allow her once to suspect Grimes of in-
tending to take an ungenerous and brutal advan-
tage of these circumstances; but her mind invol-
untarily revolted against the idea of committing
herself, alone, to the disposal of a man whom she
had lately been accustomed to consider as the in-
strument of her treacherous relation.
After having for some time revolved these con-
siderations, she thought of the expedient of de-
siring Grimes to engage Mrs. Jakeman's sister to
wait for her at the outside of the garden. But
this Grimes peremptorily refused. He even flew
into a passion at the proposal. It showed very lit-
tle gratitude, to desire him to disclose to other peo-
ple his concern in this dangerous affair. For his
part, he was determined, in consideration of his
own safety, never to appear in it to any living soul.
If miss did not believe him, when he made this
proposal out of pure good-nature, and would not
trust him a single inch, she might even see to the
consequences herself. He was resolved to conde-
scend no further to the whims of a person who, in
her treatment of him, had shown herself as proud
as Lucifer himself.
Emily exerted herself to appease his resent-
ment; but all the eloquence of her new confederate
could not prevail upon her instantly to give up her
objection. She desired till the next day to consider
of it. The day after was fixed by Mr. Tyrrel for
the marriage ceremony. . In the mean time she
was pestered with intimations, in a thousand forms,
of the fate that so nearly awaited her. The prepa-
rations were so continued, methodical, and regu.


CALEB WILLIAMS, 103
lar, as to produce in her the most painful and aching
anxiety. If her heart attained a moment's inter-
mission upon the subject, her female attendant was
sure, by some sly hint or sarcastical remark, to put
a speedy termination to her tranquillity. She felt
herself, as she afterward remarked, alone, unin-
structed, just broken loose, as it were, from the
trammels of infancy, without one single creature to
concern himself in her fate. She, who till then
never knew an enemy, had now, for three weeks,
not seen the glimpse of a human countenance that
she had not good reason to consider as wholly
estranged to her at least, if not unrelentingly bent
on her -destruction. She now, for the first time,
experienced the anguish of never having known her
parents, and being cast upon the charity of people
with whom she had too little equality to hope to
receive from them the offices of friendship.
The succeeding night was filled with the most
anxious thoughts. When a momentary oblivion
stole upon her senses, her distempered imagination
conjured up a thousand images of violence and
falsehood; she saw herself in the hands of her
determined enemies, who did not hesitate by the
most daring treachery to complete her ruin. Her
waking thoughts were not more consoling. The
struggle was too great for her constitution. As
morning approached, she resolved, at all hazards,
to put herself into the hands of Grimes. This .
determination was no sooner made than she felt
her heart sensibly lightened. She could not con-
ceive any evil which could result from this pro-
ceeding, that deserved to be put in the balance
against those which, under the roof of her kinsman,
appeared unavoidable.
When she communicated her determination to
Grimes, it was not possible to say whether he


104 CALEB WILLIAMS,
received pleasure or pain from the intimation. He
smiled indeed; but his smile was accompanied by
a certain abrupt ruggedness of countenance, so that
it might equally well be the smile of sarcasm or of
congratulation. He, however, renewed his as-
surances of fidelity to his engagements and punctu-
ality of execution. Meanwhile the day was inter-
spersed with nuptial presents and preparations, all
indicating the firmness as well as security of the
directors of the scene. Emily had hoped that, as
the crisis approached, they might have remitted
something of their usual diligence. She was re-
solved, in that case, if a fair opportunity had offered,
to give the slip both to her jailers and to her new
and reluctantly chosen confederate. But, though
extremely vigilant for that purpose, she found the
execution of the idea impracticable.
At length the night, so critical to her happiness,
approached. The mind of Emily could not fail, on
this occasion, to be extremely agitated. She had
first exerted all her perspicacity to elude the vigi-
lance of her attendant. This insolent and unfeel-
ing tyrant, instead of any relentings, had only
sought to make sport of her anxiety. Accordingly,
in one instance she hid herself, and, suffering
Emily to suppose that the coast was clear, met
her at the end of the gallery, near the top of the
staircase. “How do you do, my dear?” said she,
with an insulting tone. “And so the little dear
thought itself cunning enough to outwit me, did
it? Oh, it was a sly little gipsy' Go, go back,
love; troopſ” Emily felt deeply the trick that
was played upon her. She sighed, but disdained
to return any answer to this low vulgarity. Being
once more in her chamber, she sat down in a chair,
and remained buried in revery for more than two
hours. After this she went to her drawers, and


CALEB WILLIAMS, 105
turned over, in a hurrying, confused way, her linen
and clothes, having in her mind the provision it
would be necessary to make for her elopement.
Her jailer officiously followed her from place to
place, and observed what she did for the present in
silence. It was now the hour of rest. “Good
night, child,” said this saucy girl, in the act of re-
tiring. “It is time to lock up. For the few next
hours, the time is your own. Make the best use
of it! Do’ee think ee can creep out at the key-
hole lovey? At eight o'clock you see me again.
And then, and then,” added she, clapping her hands,
“ it is all over. The sun is not surer to rise, than
you and your honest man to be made one.”
There was something in the tone with which this
slut uttered her farewell, that suggested the ques-
tion to Emily, “What does she mean? Is it possi-
ble that she should know what has been planned
for the few next hours ?”—This was the first mo-
ment that suspicion had offered itself, and its con-
tinuance was short. With an aching heart she
folded up the few necessaries she intended to take
with her. She instinctively listened, with an anx-
iety that would almost have enabled her to hear
the stirring of a leaf. From time to time she
thought her ear was struck with the sound of feet;
but the treading, if treading it were, was so soft,
that she could never ascertain whether it were a
real sound, or the mere creature of the fancy.
Then all was still, as if the universal motion had
been at rest. By-and-by she conceived she over-
heard a noise as of buzzing and low-muttered
speech. Her heart palpitated; for a second time
she began to doubt the honesty of Grimes. The
suggestion was now more anxious than before; but
it was too late. Presently she heard the sound of
a key in her chamber-door, and the rustic made his
E 3


106 CALEB WILLIAMs.
appearance. She started, and cried, “Are we dis-
covered? did not I hear you speak?” Grimes ad-
vanced on tiptoe with his finger to his lip. “No,
no,” replied he, “all is safe!” He took her by the
hand, led her in silence out of the house, and then
across the garden. Emily examined with her eye
the doors and passages as they proceeded, and
looked on all sides with fearful suspicion; but
every thing was as vacant and still as she herself
could have wished. Grimes opened a back-door of
the garden already unlocked, that led into an un-
frequented lane. There stood two horses ready
equipped for the journey, and fastened by their
bridles to a post not six yards distant from the gar-
den. Grimes pushed the door after them. “By
Gemini,” said he, “my heart was in my mouth.
As I comed along to you, I saw Mun, coachey, pop
along from the back-door to the stables. He was
within a hop, step, and jump of me. But he had a
lantern in his hand, and he did not see me, being
as I was darkling.” Saying this, he assisted Miss
Melville to mount. He troubled her little during
the route; on the contrary, he was remarkably silent
and contemplative, a circumstance by no means
disagreeable to Emily, to whom his conversation
had never been acceptable.
After having proceeded about two miles, they
turned into a wood, through which the road led to
the place of their destination. The night was ex-
tremely dark, at the same time that the air was soft
and mild, it being now the middle of summer. Un-
der pretence of exploring the way, Grimes con-
trived, when they had already penetrated into the
midst of this gloomy solitude, to get his horse
abreast with that of Miss Melville, and then, sud-
denly reaching out his hand, seized hold of her


CALEB WILLIAMS. 107
bridle. “I think we may as well stop here a bit,”
said he.
“Stop!” exclaimed Emily with surprise; “why
should we stop? Mr. Grimes, what do you mean?”
“Come, come,” said he, “never trouble your-
self to wonder. Did you think I were such a goose,
to take all this trouble merely to gratify your whim?
I'faith, nobody shall find me a pack-horse, to go of
other folks' errands, without knowing a reason
why. I cannot say that I much minded to have
you at first; but your ways are enough to stir the
blood of my granddad. Far-fetched and dear-
bought is always relishing. Your consent was so
hard to gain, that squire thought it was surest ask-
ing in the dark. A’ said, however, a’ would have
no such doings in his house, and so, do ye see, we
are comed here.”
“For God's sake, Mr. Grimes, think what you
are about ! You cannot be base enough to ruin a
poor creature who has put herself under your pro-
tection l’”
“Ruin l No, no, I will make an honest woman
of you, when all is done. Nay, none of your airs;
no tricks upon travellers! I have you here as safe
as a horse in a pound; there is not a house nor a
shed within a mile of us; and if I miss the oppor-
tunity, call me spade. Faith, you are a delicate
morsel, and there is no time to be lost!”
Miss Melville had but an instant in which to
collect her thoughts. She felt that there was little
hope of softening the obstinate and insensible brute
in whose power she was placed. But the presence
of mind and intrepidity annexed to her character
did not now desert her. Grimes had scarcely
finished his harangue, when, with a strong and unex-
pected jerk, she disengaged the bridle from his grasp,
and at the same time put her horse upon full speed.


108 CALEB WILLIAMs.
She had scarcely advanced twice the length of her
horse, when Grimes recovered from his surprise, and
pursued her, inexpressibly mortified at being so
easily overreached. The sound of his horse behind
served but to rouse more completely the mettle of
that of Emily; whether by accident or sagacity, the
animal pursued without a fault the narrow and
winding way; and the chase continued the whole
length of the wood.
At the extremity of this wood there was a gate.
The recollection of this softened a little the cutting
disappointment of Grimes, as he thought himself
secure of putting an end, by its assistance, to the
career of Emily; nor was it very probable that any-
body would appear to interrupt his designs, in such
a place, and in the dead and silence of the night.
By the most extraordinary accident, however, they
found a man on horseback in wait at this gate.
“Help, help!” exclaimed the affrighted Emily;
“thieves | murder! help !” The man was Mr.
Falkland. Grimes knew his voice; and therefore,
though he attempted a sort of sullen resistance, it
was feebly made. Two other men, whom, by
reason of the darkness, he had not at first seen, and
who were Mr. Falkland's servants, hearing the bustle
of the rencounter, and alarmed for the safety of their
master, rode up ; and then Grimes, disappointed at
the loss of his gratification, and admonished by
conscious guilt, shrunk from further parley, and rode
off in silence.
It may seem strange that Mr. Falkland should
thus a second time have been the saviour of Miss
Melville, and that under circumstances the most
unexpected and singular. But in this instance it is
easily to be accounted for. He had heard of a man
who lurked about this wood for robbery or some
other bad design, and that it was conjectured this


CALEB WILLIAMS, 109
man was Hawkins, another of the victims of Mr.
Tyrrel's rural tyranny, whom I shall immediately
have occasion to introduce. Mr. Falkland's com-
passion had already been strongly excited in favour
of Hawkins; he had in vain endeavoured to find
him, and do him good; and he easily conceived, that
if the conjecture which had been made in this
instance proved true, he might have it in his power
not only to do what he had always intended, but
further, to save from a perilous offence against the
laws and society a man who appeared to have
strongly imbibed the principles of justice and virtue.
He took with him two servants, because, going with
the express design of encountering robbers, if rob-
bers should be found, he believed he should be inex-
cusable if he did not go provided against possible
accidents. But he had directed them, at the same
time that they kept within call, to be out of the reach .
of being seen; and it was only the eagerness of
their zeal that had brought them up thus early in the
present encounter.
This new adventure promised something extraor-
dinary. Mr. Falkland did not immediately recog-
nise Miss Melville; and the person of Grimes was
that of a total stranger, whom he did not recollect
to have ever seen. But it was easy to understand
the merits of the case, and the propriety of inter-
fering. The resolute manner of Mr. Falkland,
combined with the dread which Grimes, oppressed
with a sense of wrong, entertained of the opposition
of so elevated a personage, speedily put the ravisher
to flight. Emily was left alone with her deliverer.
He found her much more collected and calm than
could reasonably have been expected from a person
who had been, a moment before, in the most alarming
situation. She told him of the place to which she
desired to be conveyed, and he immediately under-


110 CALEB WILLIAMS,
took to escort her. As they went along, she recov-
ered that state of mind which inclined her to make
a person to whom she had such repeated obligations,
and who was so eminently the object of her admira-
tion, acquainted with the events that had recently
befallen her. Mr. Falkland listened with eager-
ness and surprise. Though he had already known
various instances of Mr. Tyrrel's mean jealousy
and unfeeling tyranny, this surpassed them all; and
he could scarcely credit his ears while he heard the
tale. His brutal neighbour seemed to realize all
that has been told of the passions of fiends. Miss -
Melville was obliged to repeat, in the course of her
tale, her kinsman's rude accusation against her, of
entertaining a passion for Mr. Falkland; and this
she did with the most bewitching simplicity and
charming confusion. Though this part of the tale
was a source of real pain to her deliverer, yet it is
not to be supposed but that the flattering partiality
of this unhappy girl increased the interest he felt in
her welfare, and the indignation he conceived against
her infernal kinsman.
They arrived without accident at the house of the
good lady under whose protection Emily desired to
place herself. Here Mr. Falkland willingly lefther
as in a place of security. Such conspiracies as that
of which she was intended to have been the victim
depend for their success upon the person against
whom they are formed being out of the reach of
help; and the moment they are detected, they are
annihilated. Such reasoning will, no doubt, be
generally found sufficiently solid; and it appeared
to Mr. Falkland perfectly applicable to the present
case. But he was mistaken.


CALEB WILLIAMS, 111’
CHAPTER IX.
MR. FALKLAND had experienced the nullity of all
expostulation with Mr. Tyrrel, and was therefore
content in the present case with confining his atten-
tion to the intended victim. The indignation with
which he thought of his neighbour's character was
now grown to such a height, as to fill him with re-
luctance to the idea of a voluntary interview. There
was indeed another affair which had been contem-
porary with this, that had once more brought these
mortal enemies into a state of contest, and had
contributed to raise into a temper little short of
madness, the already inflamed and corrosive bitter-
ness of Mr. Tyrrel.
There was a tenant of Mr. Tyrrel, one Hawkins;
—I cannot mention his name without recollecting
the painful tragedies that are annexed to it! This
Hawkins had originally been taken up by Mr. Tyrrel,
with a view of protecting him from the arbitrary
proceedings of a neighbouring squire, though he had
now in his turn become an object of persecution to
Mr. Tyrrel himself. The first ground of their con-
nexion was this:—Hawkins, besides a farm which
he rented under the above-mentioned squire, had a
small freehold estate that he inherited from his
father. This of course entitled him to a vote in the
county elections; and a warmly contested election
having occurred, he was required by his landlord to
vote for the candidate in whose favour he had himself
engaged. Hawkins refused to obey the mandate,


112 CALEB WILLIAMS,
and soon after received notice to quit the farm he at
that time rented.
It happened that Mr. Tyrrel had interested himself
strongly in behalf of the opposite candidate; and,
as Mr. Tyrrel's estate bordered upon the seat of
Hawkins's present residence, the ejected country-
man could think of no better expedient than that of
riding over to this gentleman's mansion, and relating
the case to him. Mr. Tyrrel heard him through
with attention. “Well, friend,” said he, “it is very
true that I wished Mr. Jackman to carry his election;
but you know it is usual in these cases for tenants
to vote just as their landlords please. I do not think
proper to encourage rebellion.”—“All that is very
right, and please you,” replied Hawkins, “and I
would have voted at my landlord's bidding for any
other man in the kingdom but Squire Marlow. You
must know, one day his huntsman rode over my
fence, and so through my best field of standing corn.
It was not above a dozen yards about if he had kept
the cart-road. The fellow had served me the same
sauce, an it please your honour, three or four
times before. So I only asked him what he did that
for, and whether he had not more conscience than
to spoil people's crops o' that fashion? Pres-
ently the squire came up. He is but a poor,
weasen-face chicken of a gentleman, saving your
honour's reverence. And so he flew into a woundy
passion, and threatened to horsewhip me. I will do
as much in reason to pleasure my landlord as arr
a tenant he has ; but I will not give my vote to a
man that threatens to horsewhip me. And so, your
honour, I and my wife and three children are to be
turned out of house and home, and what I am to do
to maintain them God knows. I have been a hard-
working man, and have always lived well, and I do
think the case is main hard. Squire Underwood


CALEB WILLIAMS, 113
turns me out of my farm; and if your honour do not
take me in, I know none of the neighbouring gentry
will, for fear, as they say, of encouraging their own
tenants to run rusty too.”
This representation was not without its effect upon
Mr. Tyrrel. “Well, well, man,” replied he, “we
will see what can be done. Order and subordina-
tion are very good things; but people should know
how much to require. As you tell the story, I.
cannot see that you are greatly to blame. Marlow
is a coxcombical prig, that is the truth on't ; and if a
man will expose himself, why, he must even take
what follows. I do hate a Frenchified fop with all
my soul; and I cannot say that I am much pleased
with my neighbour Underwood for taking the part
of such a rascal. Hawkins, I think, is your name?
You may call on Barnes, my steward, to-morrow,
and he shall speak to you.”
While Mr. Tyrrel was speaking, he recollected
that he had a farm vacant, of nearly the same value
as that which Hawkins at present rented under Mr.
Underwood. He immediately consulted his steward,
and finding the thing suitable in every respect,
Hawkins was installed out of hand in the catalogue
of Mr. Tyrrel's tenants. Mr. Underwood extremely
resented this proceeding, which indeed, as being con-
trary to the understood conventions of the country
gentlemen, few people but Mr. Tyrrel would have
ventured upon. There was an end, said Mr. Under-
wood, to all regulation, if tenants were to be
encouraged in such disobedience. It was not a
question of this or that candidate, seeing that any
gentleman, who was a true friend to his country,
would rather lose his election than do a thing which,
if once established into a practice, would deprive
them for ever of the power of managing any elec.
tion. The labouring people were sturdy and resolute


114 CALEB WILLIAMS.
enough of their own accord; it became every day
more difficult to keep them under any subordination;
and, if the gentlemen were so ill advised as to
neglect the public good, and encourage them in their
insolence, there was no foreseeing where it would
end. -
Mr. Tyrrel was not of a stamp to be influenced
by these remonstrances. Their general spirit was
sufficiently conformable to the sentiments he himself
entertained; but he was of too vehement a temper
to maintain the character of a consistent politician;
and, however wrong his conduct might be, he would
by no means admit of its being set right by the sug-
gestions of others. The more his patronage of
Hawkins was criticised, the more inflexibly he ad-
hered to it; and he was at no loss in clubs and other
assemblies to overbear and silence, if not to confute,
his censurers. Besides which, Hawkins had cer-
tain accomplishments which qualified him to be a
favourite with Mr. Tyrrel. The bluntness of his
manner and the ruggedness of his temper gave him
some resemblance to his landlord; and, as these
qualities were likely to be more frequently exercised
on such persons as had incurred Mr. Tyrrel's dis-
pleasure than upon Mr. Tyrrel himself, they were
not observed without some degree of complacency.
In a word, he every day received new marks of
distinction, from his patron, and after some time was
appointed coadjutor to Mr. Barnes under the de-
nomination of bailiff. It was about the same period
that he obtained a lease of the farm of which he was
tenant.
Mr. Tyrrel determined, as occasion offered, to
promote every part of the family of this favoured
dependant. Hawkins had a son, a lad of seventeen,
of an agreeable person, a ruddy complexion, and of
quick and lively parts. This lad was in an uncom-


CALEB Williams. 115
mon degree the favourite of his father, who seemed
to have nothing so much at heart as the future wel-
fare of his son. Mr. Tyrrel had noticed him two
or three times with approbation; and the boy, being
fond of the sports of the field, had occasionally
followed the hounds, and displayed various instances
both of agility and sagacity in presence of the squire.
One day in particular he exhibited himself with
uncommon advantage; and Mr. Tyrrel without fur-
ther delay proposed to his father to take him into
his family, and make him whipper-in to his hounds,
till he could provide him with some more lucrative
appointment in his service.
This proposal was received by Hawkins with
various marks of mortification. He excused him-
self with hesitation for not accepting the offered
favour; said the lad was in many ways useful to
him; and hoped his honour would not insist upon
depriving him of his assistance. This apology
might perhaps have been sufficient with any other
man than Mr. Tyrrel; but it was frequently ob-
served of this gentleman that when he had once
formed a determination, however slight, in favour
of any measure, he was never afterward known
to give it up, and that the only effect of opposition
was to make him eager and inflexible in pursuit of
that to which he had before been nearly indifferent.
At first he seemed to receive the apology of Haw-
kins with good humour, and to see nothing in it but
what was reasonable; but afterward, every time
he saw the boy his desire of retaining him in his
service was increased, and he more than once re-
peated to his father the good disposition in which
he felt himself towards him. At length he observed
that the lad was no more to be seen mingling in his
favourite sports, and he began to suspect that this


116 CALEB WILLIAMS,
originated in a determination to thwart him in his
projects.
Roused by this suspicion, which, to a man of Mr.
Tyrrel's character, was not of a nature to brook
delay, he sent for Hawkins to confer with him.
“Hawkins,” said he, in a tone of displeasure, “I
am not satisfied with you. I have spoken to you
two or three times about this lad of yours, whom I
am desirous of taking into favour. What is the
reason, sir, that you seem unthankful and averse to
my kindness : You ought to know that I am not
to be trifled with. I shall not be contented when I
offer my favours to have them rejected by such fel-
lows as you. I made you what you are ; and, if I
please, can make you more helpless and miserable
than you were when I found you. Have a care "
“An it please your honour,” said Hawkins, “you
have been a very good master to me, and I will tell
you the whole truth. I hope you will na be angry.
This lad is my favourite, my comfort, and the stay
of my age.”
“Well, and what then? Is that a reason you
should hinder his preferment?”
“Nay, pray, your honour, hear me. I may be
very weak for aught I know in this case, but I can-
not help it. My father was a clergyman. We have
all of us lived in a creditable way; and I cannot
bear to think that this poor lad of mine should go to
service. For my part I do not see any good that
comes by servants. I do not know, your honour,
but I think I should not like my Leonard to be such
as they. God forgive me, if I wrong them | But
this is a very dear case, and I cannot bear to risk
my poor boy's welfare, when I can so easily, if you
please, keep him out of harm's way. At present
he is sober and industrious, and, without being pert
or surly, knows what is due to him. I know, your


CALEB WILLIAMS, 117
honour, that it is main foolish of me to talk to you
thus; but your honour has been a good master to
me, and I cannot bear to tell you a lie.”
Mr. Tyrrel had heard the whole of this harangue
in silence, because he was too much astonished to
open his mouth. If a thunderbolt had fallen at his
feet he could not have testified greater surprise.
He had thought that Hawkins was so foolishly fond
of his son that he could not bear to trust him out
of his presence; but had never in the slightest de-
gree suspected what he now found to be the truth.
“Oh, ho, you are a gentleman, are you? A
pretty gentleman, truly 1 your father was a clergy-
man' Your family is too good to enter into my
service Why, you impudent rascal! was it for
this that I took you up, when Mr. Underwood dis-
missed you for your insolence to him? Have I
been nursing a viper in my bosom? Pretty mas-
ter's manners will be contaminated, truly He will
not know what is due to him, but will be accustomed
to obey orders' You insufferable villain! Get out
of my sight! Depend upon it, I will have no gen-
tlemen on my estateſ I will off with them, root
and branch, bag and baggage | So, do you hear,
sir? come to me to-morrow morning, bring your
son, and ask my pardon; or, take my word for it,
I will make you so miserable you shall wish you
had never becn born.” -
This treatment was too much for Hawkins's pa-
tience. “There is no need, your honour, that I
should come to you again about this affair. I have
taken up my determination, and no time can make
any change in it. I am main sorry to displease
your worship, and I know that you can do me a
great deal of mischief. But I hope you will not be
so hardhearted as to ruin a father only for being
fond of his child, even if so be that his fondness


118 CALEB WILLIAM8.
should make him do a foolish thing. But I cannot
help it, your honour: you must do as you please.
The poorest neger, as a man may say, has some
point that he will not part with. I will lose all that
I have, and go to day-labour, and my son too, if
needs must; but I will not make a gentleman's ser-
vant of him.”
“Very well, friend; very well!” replied Mr.
Tyrrel, foaming with rage. “Depend upon it, I will
remember you! Your pride shall have a downfall!
God damn it! is it come to this Shall a rascal
that farms his forty acres pretend to beard the lord
of the manor I will tread you into paste! Let me .
advise you, scoundrel, to shut up your house and
fly as if the devil was behind you! You may think
yourself happy, if I be not too quick for you yet, if
you escape in a whole skin ' I would not suffer such
a villain to remain upon my land a day longer, if I
could gain the Indies by it!”
“Not so fast, your honour,” answered Hawkins,
sturdily. “I hope you will think better of it, and
see that I have not been to blame. But if you
should not, there is some harm that you can do me,
and some harm that you cannot. Though I am a
plain working man, your honour, do you see? yet I
am a man still. No ; I have got a lease of my
farm, and I shall not quit it o' thaten. I hope there
is some law for poor folk, as well as for rich.”
Mr. Tyrrel, unused to contradiction, was pro-
voked beyond bearing at the courage and inde-
pendent spirit of his retainer. There was not a
tenant upon his estate, or at least not one of Haw-
kins's mediocrity of fortune, whom the general
policy of landowners, and still more the arbitrary
and uncontrollable temper of Mr. Tyrrel, did not
effectually restrain from acts of open defiance.
“Excellent, upon my soul! Damn my blood!


CALEB WILLIAMS. | 19
but you are a rare fellow. You have a lease, have
you? You will not quit, not you! a pretty pass
things are come to, if a lease can protect such
fellows as you against the lord of a manor But
you are for a trial of skill? Oh, very well, friend,
very well ! With all my soul! Since it is come to
that, we will show you some pretty sport before we
have done ! But get out of my sight, you rascal'
I have not another word to say to you ! Never
darken my doors again.”
Hawkins (to borrow the language of the world)
was guilty in this affair of a double imprudence.
He talked to his landlord in a more peremptory
manner than the constitution and practices of this
country allow a dependant to assume. But, above
all, having been thus hurried away by his resent-
ment, he ought to have foreseen the consequences.
It was mere madness in him to think of contesting
with a man of Mr. Tyrrel's eminence and fortune.
It was a fawn contending with a lion. Nothing could
have been more easy to predict, than that it was of
no avail for him to have right on his side, when his
• adversary had influence and wealth, and therefore
could so victoriously justify any extravagances that
he might think proper to commit. This maxim was
completely illustrated in the sequel. Wealth and
despotism easily know how to engage those laws
as the coadjutors of their oppression which were
perhaps at first intended [withess and miserable pre-
caution!] for the safeguards of the poor.
From this moment Mr. Tyrrel was bent upon
Hawkins's destruction ; and he left no means unem-
ployed that could either harass or injure the object
of his persecution. He deprived him of his ap-
pointment of bailiff, and directed Barnes and his
other dependants to do him ill offices upon all occa-
sions. Mr. Tyrrel, by the tenure of his manor,


*
120 - CALEB WILLIAMS,
was impropriator of the great tithes, and this cir-
cumstance afforded him frequent opportunities of
[. altercation. The land of one part of Haw-
ins's farm, though covered with corn, was lower
than the rest; and consequently exposed to occa-
sional inundations from a river by which it was
bounded. Mr. Tyrrel had a dam belonging to this
river privately cut, about a fortnight before the season
of harvest, and laid the whole under water. He
ordered his servants to pull away the fences of the
higher ground during the night, and to turn in his
cattle, to the utter destruction of the crop. These
expedients, however, applied to only one part of the
property of this unfortunate man. But Mr. Tyrrel
did not stop here. A sudden mortality took place
among Hawkins's live stock, attended with very sus-
picious circumstances. Hawkins's vigilance was
strongly excited by this event, and he at length suc-
ceeded in tracing the matter so accurately, that he
conceived he could bring it home to Mr. Tyrrel
himself.
Hawkins had hitherto carefully avoided, notwith-
standing the injuries he had suffered, the attempting
to right himself by legal process; being of opinion
that law was better adapted for a weapon of tyranny
in the hands of the rich, than for a shield to protect
the humbler part of the community against their
usurpations. In this last instance, however, he con-
ceived that the offence was so atrocious as to make
it impossible that any rank could protect the culprit
against the severity of justice. In the sequel, he
saw reason to applaud himself for his former inac-
tivity in this respect, and to repent that any motive
had been strong enough to persuade him into a con-
trary system.
This was the very point to which Mr. Tyrrel
wanted to bring him, and he could scarcely credit


CALEB WILLIAMS, 121
his good fortune, when he was told that Hawkins
had entered an action. His congratulation upon
this occasion was immoderate, as he now conceived
that the ruin of his late favourite was irretrievable.
He consulted his attorney, and urged him by every
motive he could devise to employ the whole series
of his subterfuges in the present affair. The direct
repelling of the charge exhibited against him was
the least part of his care; the business was, by affi-
davits, motions, pleas, demurrers, flaws, and appeals,
to protract the question from term to term, and from
court to court. It would, as Mr. Tyrrel argued, be
the disgrace of a civilized country, if a gentleman,
when insolently attacked in law by the scum of the
earth, could not convert the cause into a question of
the longest purse, and stick in the skirts of his ad-
versary till he had reduced him to beggary.
Mr. Tyrrel, however, was by no means so far en-
grossed by his lawsuit as to neglect other methods
of proceeding offensively against his tenant. Among
the various expedients that suggested themselves,
there was one, which, though it tended rather to
torment than irreparably injure the sufferer, was not
rejected. This was derived from the particular situa-
tion of Hawkins's house, barns, stacks, and out-
houses. They were placed at the extremity of a
slip of land connecting them with the rest of the
farm, and were surrounded on three sides by fields,
in the occupation of one of Mr. Tyrrel's tenants
most devoted to the pleasures of his landlord. The
road to the market-town ran at the bottom of the
largest of these fields, and was directly in view of
the front of the house. No inconvenience had yet
arisen from that circumstance, as there had always
been a broad path, that intersected this field, and led
directly from Hawkins's house to the road. This
path, or private road, was now, by concert of Mr.
Vol. I.-F -



º
d
* -
-
122 CALEB WILLIAMS.
Tyrrel and his obliging tenant, shut up, so as to
make Hawkins a sort of prisoner in his own do-
mains, and oblige him to go near a mile about for the
purposes of his traffic.
Young Hawkins, the lad who had been the
original subject of dispute between his father and
the squire, had much of his father's spirit, and felt
an uncontrollable indignation against the successive
acts of despotism of which he was a witness. His
resentment was the greater, because the sufferings
to which his parent was exposed, all of them, flowed
from affection to him; at the same time that he
could not propose removing the ground of dispute,
as by so doing he would seem to fly in the face of
his father's paternal kindness. Upon the present
occasion, without asking any counsel but of his own
impatient resentment, he went in the middle of the
night and removed all the obstructions that had been
placed in the way of the old path, broke the pad-
locks that had been fixed, and threw open the gates.
In these operations he did not proceed unob-
served, and the next day a warrant was issued for
apprehending him. He was accordingly carried
before a meeting of justices, and by them com-
mitted to the county jail, to take his trial for the
felony at the next assizes. Mr. Tyrrel was deter-
mined to prosecute the offence with the greatest
severity; and his attorney, having made the proper
inquiries for that purpose, undertook to bring it under
that clause of the act 9 Geo. I. commonly called
the Black Act, which declares that “any person,
armed with a sword, or other offensive weapon, and
having his face blackened, or being otherwise dis-
guised, appearing in any warren or place where
hares or conies have been or shall be usually kept,
and being thereof duly convicted, shall be adjudged
guilty of felony, and shall suffer death, as in cases


CALEB WILLIAMS. 123
of felony, without benefit of clergy.” Young Haw-
kins, it seemed had buttoned the cape of his great
coat over his face, as soon as he perceived himself
to be observed, and he was furnished with a wrench-
ing-iron for the purpose of breaking the padlocks.
The attorney further undertook to prove, by suf-
ficient witnesses, that the field in question was a
warren in which hares were regularly fed. Mr.
Tyrrel seized upon these pretences with inexpres-
sible satisfaction. He prevailed upon the justices,
by the picture he drew of the obstinacy and inso-
lence of the Hawkinses, fully to commit the lad
upon this miserable charge : and it was by no means
so certain as paternal affection would have desired,
that the same overpowering influence would not .
cause in the sequel the penal clause to be executed
in all its strictness. -
This was the finishing stroke to Hawkins's
miseries; as he was not deficient in courage, he had
stood up against his other persecutions without
flinching. He was not unaware of the advantages
which our laws and customs give to the rich over the
poor in contentions of this kind. But being once
involved, there was a stubbornness in his nature that
would not allow him to retract, and he suffered
himself to hope, rather than expect, a favourable
issue. But in this last event he was wounded in the
point that was nearest his heart. He had feared to
have his son contaminated and debased by a servile
station, and he now saw him transferred to the semi-
nary of a jail. He was even uncertain as to the
issue of his imprisonment, and trembled to think
what the tyranny of wealth might effect to blast his
hopes for ever.
From this moment his heart died within him. He
had trusted to persevering industry and skill, to
save the wreck of his little property from the vulgar
- F 2


124 CALEB WILLIAMS,
tº
spite of his landlord. But he had now no longer
any spirit to exert those efforts which his situation
more than ever required. Mr. Tyrrel proceeded
without remission in his machinations; Hawkins's
affairs every day grew more desperate, and the
squire, watching the occasion, took the earliest op-
portunity of seizing upon his remaining property in
the mode of a distress for rent. -
It was precisely in this stage of the affair that
Mr. Falkland and Mr. Tyrrel accidentally met, in a
private road near the habitation of the latter. They
were on horseback, and Mr. Falkland was going to
the house of the unfortunate tenant, who seemed
upon the point of perishing under his landlord's
malice. He had been just made acquainted with
the tale of this persecution. It had indeed been an
additional aggravation of Hawkins's calamity, that
Mr. Falkland, whose interference might otherwise
have saved him, had been absent from the neigh-
bourhood for a considerable time. He had been
three months in London, and from thence had gone
to visit his estates in another part of the island. .
The proud and self-confident spirit of this poor
fellow always disposed him to depend, as long as
possible, upon his own exertions. He had avoided
applying to Mr. Falkland, or indeed indulging
himself in any manner in communicating and be-
wailing his hard hap, in the beginning of the conten-
tion; and when the extremity grew more urgent,
and he would have been willing to recede in some
degree from the stubbornness of his measures, he
found it no longer in his power. After an absence
of considerable duration, Mr. Falkland at length
returned somewhat unexpectedly; and having
learned, among the first articles of country intelli-
gence, the distresses of this unfortunate yeoman, he
resolved to ride over to his house the next morning,


CALEB WILLIAMS, 125
and surprise him with all the relief it was in his
power to bestow. -
At sight of Mr. Tyrrel in this unexpected ren-
counter, his face reddened with indignation. His
first feeling, as he afterward said, was to avoid him;
but finding that he must pass him, he conceived that
it would be want of spirit not to acquaint him with
his feelings on the present occasion.
“Mr. Tyrrel,” said he, somewhat abruptly, “I am
sorry for a piece of news which I have just heard.”
“And pray, sir, what is your sorrow to me?”
“A great deal, sir; it is caused by the distresses
of a poor tenant of yours, Hawkins. If your
steward have proceeded without your authority, I
think it right to inform you what he has done ; and
if he have had your authority, I would gladly per-
suade you to think better of it.”
“Mr. Falkland, it would be quite as well if you
would mind your own business, and leave me to
mind mine. I want no monitor, and I will have none.”
“You mistake, Mr. Tyrrel; I am minding my
own business. If I see you fall into a pit, it is my
business to draw you out and save your life. If I
see you pursuing a wrong mode of conduct, it is my
business to set you right and save your honour.”
“Zounds, sir, do not think to put your conun-
drums upon me ! Is not the man my tenant? Is
not my estate my own: What signifies calling it
mine, if I am not to have the direction of it? Sir,
I pay for what I have: Iowe no man a penny; and
I will not put my estate to nurse to you, nor the best
he that wears a head.”
“It is very true,” said Mr. Falkland, avoiding any
direct notice of the last words of Mr. Tyrrel, “that
there is a distinction of ranks. I believe that dis-
tinction is a good thing, and necessary to the peace
of mankind. But, however necessary it may be,


126 CALEB WILLIAMS.
we must acknowledge that it puts some hardship
upon the lower orders of society. It makes one's
heart ache to think, that one man is born to the
inheritance of every superfluity, while the whole
share of another, without any demerit of his, is
drudgery and starving; and that all this is indis-
pensable. We that are rich, Mr. Tyrrel, must do
everything in our power to lighten the yoke of these
unfortunate people. We must not use the advantage
that accident has given us with an unmerciful hand.
Poor wretches they are pressed almost beyond
bearing as it is; and if we unfeelingly give another
turn to the machine, they will be crushed into atoms.”
This picture was not without its effect, even upon
the obdurate mind of Mr. Tyrrel.-‘‘Well, sir, I
am no tyrant, I know very well that tyranny is a
bad thing. But you do not infer from thence that
these people are to do as they please, and never
meet with their deserts *
“Mr. Tyrrel, I see that you are shaken in your
animosity. Suffer me to hail the new-born benevo-
lence of your nature. Go with me to Hawkins.
Do not let us talk of his deserts | Poor fellow ! he
has suffered almost all that human nature can endure.
Let your forgiveness upon this occasion be the
earnest of good neighbourhood and friendship be-
tween you and me.” -
“No, sir, I will not go. I own there is some-
thing in what you say. I always knew you had the
wit to make good your own story, and tell a plau-
sible tale. But I will not be come over thus. It
has been my character, when I had once conceived
a scheme of vengeance never to forego it; and I
will not change that character. I took up Hawkins
when everybody forsook him, and made a man of
him; and the ungrateful rascal has only insulted
me for my pains. Curse me, if I ever forgive him!


CALEB WILLIAMS. 127
It would be a good jest indeed, if I were to forgive
the insolence of my own creature at the desire of a
man like you that has been my perpetual plague.”
“For God's sake, Mr. Tyrrel, have some reason
in your resentment | Let us suppose that Hawkins
has behaved unjustifiably, and insulted you: is that
an offence that never can be expiated Must the
father be ruined, and the son hanged, to glut your
resentment” --
“Damn me, sir, but you may talk your heart out;
you shall get nothing of me. I shall never forgive
myself for having listened to you for a moment. I
will suffer nobody to stop the stream of my resent-
ment; if I ever were to forgive him, it should be at
nobody's entreaty but my own. But, sir, I never
will. If he and all his family were at my feet, I
would order them all to be hanged the next minute,
if my power were as good as my will.”
“And this is your decision, is it? Mr. Tyrrel, I
am ashamed of you! Almighty God! to hear you
talk gives one a loathing for the institutions and
regulations of society, and would induce one to fly
the very face of man! But, no! society casts you
out; man abominates you. No wealth, no rank, can
buy out your stain. You will live deserted in the
midst of your species; you will go into crowded
societies, and no one will deign so much as to salute
you. They will fly from your glance as they would
from the gaze of a basilisk. Where do you expect
to find the hearts of flint that shall sympathize with
yours? You have the stamp of misery, incessant,
undivided, unpitied misery ſ”
Thus saying, Mr. Falkland gave spurs to his
horse, rudely pushed beside Mr. Tyrrel, and was
presently out of sight. Flaming indignation anni-
hilated even his favourite sense of honour, and he
regarded his neighbour as a wretch, with whom it
t


128 CALEB WILLIAMS.
was impossible even to enter into contention. For
the latter, he remained for the present motionless
and petrified. The glowing enthusiasm of Mr.
Falkland was such as might well have unnerved the
stoutest foe. Mr. Tyrrel, in spite of himself, was
blasted with the compunctions of guilt, and unable
to string himself for the contest. The picture Mr.
Falkland had drawn was prophetic. It described
what Mr. Tyrrel chiefly feared; and what in its
commencement he thought he already felt. It was
responsive to the whispering of his own medita-
tions; it simply gave body and voice to the spectre
that haunted him, and to the terrors of which he
was an hourly prey. -
By-and-by, however, he recovered. The more
he had been temporarily confounded, the fiercer was
his resentment when he came to himself. Such
hatred never existed in a human bosom without
marking its progress with violence and death. Mr.
Tyrrel, however, felt no inclination to have recourse
to personal defiance. He was the furthest in the
world from a coward; but his genius sunk before
the genius of Falkland. He left his vengeance to
the disposal of circumstances. He was secure that
his animosity would never be forgotten nor dimin-
ished by the interposition of any time or events.
Vengeance was his nightly dream, and the upper-
most of his waking thoughts. -
Mr. Falkland had departed from this conference
with a confirmed disapprobation of the conduct of
his neighbour, and an unalterable resolution to do
every thing in his power to relieve the distresses of
Hawkins. But he was too late. When he arrived
he found the house already evacuated by its master.
The family was removed nobody knew whither;
Hawkins had absconded, and, what was still more
extraordinary, the boy Hawkins had escaped on the


cALEB WILLIAMS. 129
very same day from the county jail. The inquiries
Mr. Falkland set on foot after them were fruitless;
no traces could be found of the catastrophe of these
unhappy people. That catastrophe I shall shortly
have occasion to relate, and it will be found pregnant
with horror, beyond what the blackest misanthropy
could readily have suggested.
I go on with my tale. I go on to relate those
incidents in which my own fate was so mysteriously
involved. I lift the curtain, and bring forward the
last act of the tragedy.
CHAPTER X.
It may easily be supposed, that the ill temper
cherished by Mr. Tyrrel in his contention with
Hawkins, and the increasing animosity between him
and Mr. Falkland, added to the impatience with
which he thought of the escape of Emily.
Mr. Tyrrel heard with astonishment of the mis-
carriage of an expedient, of the success of which
he had not previously entertained the slightest sus-
picion. He became frantic with vexation. Grimes
had not dared to signify the event of his expedition
in person, and the footman whom he desired to an-
nounce to his master that Miss Melville was lost, the
moment after fled from his presence with the most
dreadful apprehensions. Presently he bellowed for
Grimes, and the young man at last appeared before
him, more dead than alive. Grimes he compelled
to repeat the particulars of the tale; which he had
no sooner done than he once again slunk away,
shocked at the execrations with which Mr. Tyrrel
F3 -


$30 CALEB WILLIAMS.
overwhelmed him. Grimes was no coward; but he
reverenced the inborn divinity that attends upon ,
rank, as Indians worship the Devil. Nor was this
all. The rage of Mr. Tyrrel was so ungovernable
and fierce, that few hearts could have been found so
stout as not to have trembled before it with a sort
of unconquerable inferiority. - f
He no sooner obtained a moment's pause than he
began to recall to his tempestuous mind the various
circumstances of the case. His complaints were
bitter; and, in a tranquil observer, might have pro-
duced the united feeling of pity for his sufferings,
and horror at his depravity. He recollected all the
precautions he had used; he could scarcely find a
flaw in the process ; and he cursed that blind and
malicious power which delighted to cross his most
deep-laid schemes. “Of this malice he was beyond
all other human beings the object. He was mocked
with the shadow of power, and when he lifted his
hand to smite, it was struck with sudden palsy. [In
the bitterness of his anguish, he forgot his recent
triumph over Hawkins, or perhaps he regarded it less
as a triumph than an overthrow, because it had
failed of coming up to the extent of his malice.]
To what purpose had Heaven given him a feeling of
injury, and an instinct to resent, while he could in no
case make his resentment felt! It was only neces-
sary for him to be the enemy of any person, to ensure
that person's being safe against the reach of misfor-
tune. What insults, the most shocking and re-
peated, had he received from this paltry girl! And
by whom was she now torn from his indignation?
By that devil that haunted him at every moment, that
crossed him at every step, that fixed at pleasure his
arrows in his heart, and made mows and mockery at
his insufferable tortures.”
There was one other reflection that increased his


‘CALEB WILLIAMS. I31
tanguish, and made him careless and desperate as to
, his future conduct. It was in vain to conceal from
himself that his reputation would be cruelly wounded
by this event. He had imagined, that while Emily
was forced into this odious marriage, she would be
obliged by decorum, as soon as the event was de-
cided, to draw a veil over the compulsion she had
suffered. But this security was now lost, and Mr.
Falkland would take a pride in publishing his dis-
honour. Though the provocations he had received
from Miss Melville would, in his own opinion, have
justified him in any treatment he should have
thought proper to inflict, he was sensible the world
would see the matter in a different light. This re-
flection augmented the violence of his resolutions,
and determined him to refuse no means by which he
could transfer the anguish that now preyed upon his
own mind to that of another.
Meanwhile the composure and magnanimity of
Emily had considerably subsided, the moment she
believed herself in a place of safety. While danger
and injustice assailed her with their menaces, she
found in herself a courage that disdained to yield.
The succeeding appearance of calm was more fatal
to her. There was nothing now powerfully to
foster her courage or excite her energy. She looked
back at the trials she had passed, and her soul sick-
ened at the recollection of that which, while it was
in act, she had had the fortitude to endure. Till the
period at which Mr. Tyrrel had been inspired with
this cruel antipathy, she had been in all instances a
stranger to anxiety and fear. Uninured to misfor-
tune, she had suddenly and without preparation
been made the subject of the most infernal malig-
nity. When a man of robust and vigorous consti-
rtution has a fit of sickness, it produces a more pow-
kerful effect than the same indisposition upon a deli-


132 CALEB WILLIAMS.
cate valetudinarian. Such was the case with Miss
Melville. She passed the succeeding night sleepless
and uneasy, and was found in the morning with a
high ſever. Her distemper resisted for the present
all attempts to assuage it, though there was reason
to hope that the goodness of her constitution, as-
sisted by tranquillity and the kindness of those about
her, would ultimately surmount it. On the second
day she was delirious. On the night of that day
she was arrested at the suit of Mr. Tyrrel, for a
debt contracted for board and necessaries for the
last fourteen years.
The idea of this arrest, as the reader will perhaps
recollect, first occurred in the conversation between
Mr. Tyrrel and Miss Melville, soon after he had
thought proper to confine her to her chamber. But
at that time he had probably no serious conception
of ever being induced to carry it into execution.
It had merely been mentioned by way of threat, and
as the suggestion of a mind whose habits had long
been accustomed to contemplate every possible
instrument of tyranny and revenge. But now that
the unlooked-for rescue and escape of this poor
kinswoman had wrought up his thoughts to a degree
of insanity, and that he revolved in the gloomy re-
cesses of his mind how he might best shake off the
load of disappointment which oppressed him, the
idea recurred with double force. He was not long
in forming his resolution; and calling for Barnes
his steward, immediately gave him directions in what
manner to proceed.
Barnes had been for several years the instrument
of Mr. Tyrrel's injustice. His mind was hardened
by use, and he could, without remorse, officiate as
the spectator, or even as the author and director, of
a scene of vulgar distress. But even he was some-
what startled upon the present occasion. The char-


CALEB WILLIAMS. 133
acter and conduct of Emily in Mr. Tyrrel's family
had been without a blot. She had not a single
enemy; and it was impossible to contemplate her
youth, her vivacity, and her guileless innocence
without emotions of sympathy and compassion.
“Your worship !—I do not understand you!—
Arrest Miss—Miss Emily ſ”
“Yes, I tell you !—What is the matter with
you?—Go instantly to Swineard, the lawyer, and
bid him finish the business out of hand l’”
“Lord love your honour ! Arrest her | Why she
does not owe you a brass farthing: she always
lived upon your charity ſ”
“Ass! Scoundrel ! I tell you she does owe me,
owes me eleven hundred pounds.-The law justifies
it.—What do you think laws were made for 2 I do
nothing but right, and right I will have.”
“Your honour, I never questioned your orders in
my life; but I must now. I cannot see you ruin
Miss Emily, poor girl! nay, and yourself too, for
the matter of that, and not say which way you are
going. I hope you will bear with me. Why, if
she owed you ever so much, she cannot be arrested.
She is not of age.”
“Will you have done?—Do not tell me of It
cannot, and it can. It has been done before, and
it shall be done again. Let him dispute it that
dares' I will do it now, and stand to it afterward.
Tell Swineard, if he makes the least boggling, it
is as much as his life is worth;-he shall starve by
inches.”
“Pray, your honour, think better of it. Upon
my life, the whole country will cry shame of it.”
“Barnes | What do you mean? I am not
used to be talked to, and I cannot bear it ! You
have been a good fellow to me upon many occa-
sions.—But if I find you out for making one with


134 CALEB WILLIAMS.
them that dispute my authority, damn my soul, if I
do not make you sick of your life ſ”
“I have done, your honour. I will not say
another word except this, I have heard as how
that Miss Emily is sick a-bed. You are determined,
you say, to put her in jail. You do not mean to
kill her, I take it.”
“Let her die I will not spare her for an hour.
—I will not always be insulted. She had no con-
sideration for me, and I have no mercy for her.—I
am in for it ! They have provoked me past bearing,
—and they shall feel me! Tell Swineard, in bed
or up, day or night, I will not hear of an instant's
delay.”
Such were the directions of Mr. Tyrrel, and in
strict conformity to his directions were the proceed-
ings of that respectable limb of the law he employed
upon the present occasion. Miss Melville had
been delirious through a considerable part of the
day on the evening of which the bailiff and his fol-
lower arrived. By the direction of the physician
whom Mr. Falkland had ordered to attend her, a
composing draught was administered; and, ex-
hausted as she was by the wild and distracted im-
ages that for several hours had haunted her fancy,
she was now sunk into a refreshing slumber. Mrs.
Hammond, the sister of Mrs. Jakeman, was sitting
by her bedside, full of compassion for the lovely
sufferer, and rejoicing in the calm tranquillity that
had just taken possession of her, when a little girl,
the only child of Mrs. Hammond, opened the street-
door to the rap of the bailiff. He said he wanted
to speak to Miss Melville, and the child answered
that she would go tell her mother. So saying, she
advanced to the door of the back-room upon the
ground-floor, in which Emily lay; but the moment
it was opened, instead of waiting for the appear-


CALEB WILLIAMS. 135
ance of the mother, the bailiff entered along with
the girl.
Mrs. Hammond looked up. “Who are you!”
said she. “Why do you come in here? Hush!
be quiet!”
“I must speak with Miss Melville.”
“Indeed, but you must not. Tell me your busi-
ness. The poor child has been light-headed all
day. She has just fallen asleep, and must not be
disturbed.”
“That is no business of mine. I must obey
orders.”
“Orders ? Whose orders ? What is it you
mean?”
At this moment Emily opened her eyes. “What
noise is that ? Pray let me be quiet.”
“Miss, I want to speak with you. I have got a
writ against you for eleven hundred pounds at the
suit of Squire Tyrrel.”
At these words both Mrs. Hammond and Emily
were dumb. The latter was scarcely able to annex
any meaning to the intelligence; and though Mrs.
Hammond was somewhat better acquainted with
the sort of language that was employed, yet in this
strange and unexpected connexion it was almost
as mysterious to her as to poor Emily herself.
“A writ? How can she be in Mr. Tyrrel's
debt? A writ against a child !”
“It is no signification putting your questions to
us. We only do as we are directed. There is
our authority. Look at it.”
“Lord Almighty 1" exclaimed Mrs. Hammond,
“what does this mean? It is impossible Mr. Tyr-
rel should have sent you.”
“Good woman, none of your jabber to us! Can-
not you read?” :
“This is all a trick! The paper is forged . It


136 CALEB WILLIAMS,
is a vile contrivance to get the poor orphan out of
the hands of those with whom only she can be
afe. Proceed upon it at your peril 1”
“Rest you content; that is exactly what we
mean to do. Take my word, we know very well
what we are about.”
“Why, you would not tear her from her bed! I
tell you, she is in a high fever; she is light-headed;
it would be death to remove her | You are bailiffs,
are not you? You are not murderers?”
“The law says nothing about that. We have
orders to take her sick or well. We will do her
no harm; except so far as we must perform our
office, be it how it will.”
“Where would you take her ? What is it you
mean to do?”
“To the county jail. Bullock, go order a post-
chaise from the Griffin'"
“Stay, I say! Give no such orders! Wait
only three hours; I will send off a messenger ex-
press to Squire Falkland, and I am sure he will
satisfy you as to any harm that can come to you,
without its being necessary to take the poor child
to jail.”
“We have particular directions against that.
We are not at liberty to lose a minute. Why are
not you gone? Order the horses to be put to im-
mediately ſ”
Emily had listened to the course of this conversa-
tion, which had sufficiently explained to her what-
ever was enigmatical in the first appearance of the
bailiffs. The painful and incredible reality that
was thus presented effectually dissipated the illu-
sions of phrensy to which she had just been a prey.
“My dear Madam,” said she to Mrs. Hammond,
“do not harass yourself with useless efforts. I
am very sorry for all the trouble I have given you.


CALEB WILLIAMS, 137
But my misfortune is inevitable. Sir, if you will
step into the next room, I will dress myself, and
attend you immediately.”
Mrs. Hammond began to be equally aware that
her struggles were to no purpose; but she could
not be equally patient. At one moment she raved
upon the brutality of Mr. Tyrrel, whom she affirmed
to be a devil incarnate, and not a man. At another
she expostulated with bitter invective against the
hard-heartedness of the bailiff, and exhorted him to
mix some humanity and moderation with the dis-
charge of his function; but he was impenetrable to
all she could urge. In the mean while Emily yielded
with the sweetest resignation to an inevitable evil.
Mrs. Hammond insisted that, at least, they should
permit her to attend her young lady in the chaise;
and the bailiff, though the orders he had received
were so peremptory that he dared not exercise his
discretion as to the execution of the writ, began to
have some apprehensions of danger, and was willing
to admit of any precaution that was not in direct
hostility to his functions. For the rest, he under-
stood that it was in all cases dangerous to allow
sickness, or apparent unfitness for removal, as a
sufficient cause to interrupt a direct process; and
that, accordingly, in all doubtful questions and pre-
sumptive murders, the practice of the law inclined,
with a laudable partiality, to the vindication of its
own officers. In addition to these general rules, he
was influenced by the positive injunctions and
assurances of Swineard, and the terror which,
through a circle of many miles, was annexed to the
name of Tyrrel. Before they departed, Mrs. Ham-
mond despatched a messenger with a letter of three
lines to Mr. Falkland, informing him of this extra-
ordinary event. Mr. Falkland was from home
when the messenger arrived, and not expected to


138 CALEB WILLIAMS.
return till the second day; accident seemed in this
instance to favour the vengeance of Mr. Tyrrel, for
he had himself been too much under the dominion
of an uncontrollable fury to take a circumstance of
this sort into his estimate.
The forlorn state of these poor women, who were
conducted, the one by compulsion, the other a vol-
unteer, to a scene so little adapted to their accom-
modation as that of a common jail, may easily be
imagined. Mrs. Hammond, however, was endowed
with a masculine courage and impetuosity of spirit,
eminently necessary in the difficulties they had to
encounter. She was in some degree fitted by a
sanguine temper, and an impassioned sense of in-
justice, for the discharge of those very offices which
sobriety and calm reflection might have prescribed.
The health of Miss Melville was materially affected
by the surprise and removal she had undergone at
the very time that repose was most necessary for
her preservation. Her fever became more violent;
her delirium was stronger; and the tortures of her
imagination were proportioned to the unfavourable-
ness of the state in which the removal had been
effected. It was highly improbable that she could
recoVer.
In the moments of suspended reason she was
perpetually calling on the name of Falkland. Mr.
Falkland, she said, was her first and only love, and
he should be her husband. A moment after she
exclaimed upon him, in a disconsolate yet reproach-
ful tone, for his unworthy deference to the preju-
dices of the world. It was very cruel of him to
show himself so proud, and tell her that he would
never consent to marry a beggar. But if he were
proud, she was determined to be proud too. He
should see that she would not conduct herself like
a slighted maiden, and that, though he could reject


CALEB WILLIAMS, 139
her, it was not in his power to break her heart. At
another time she imagined she saw Mr. Tyrrel and
his engine Grimes, their hands and garments drop-
ping with blood; and the pathetic reproaches she
vented against them might have affected a heart of
stone. Then the figure of Falkland presented itself
to her distracted fancy, deformed with wounds, and
of a deadly paleness; and she shrieked with agony,
while she exclaimed that such was the general
hard-heartedness, that no one would make the small-
est exertion for his rescue. In such vicissitudes of
pain, perpetually imagining to herself unkindness,
insult, conspiracy, and murder, she passed a con-
siderable part of two days.
On the evening of the second Mr. Falkland ar-
rived, accompanied by Doctor Wilson, the physician
by whom she had previously been attended. The
scene he was called upon to witness was such as to
be most exquisitely agonizing to a man of his acute
sensibility. The news of the arrest had given him
an inexpressible shock; he was transported out of
himself at the unexampled malignity of its author.
But when he saw the figure of Miss Melville, hag-
gard, and a warrant of death written in her counte-
nance, a victim to the diabolical passions of her
kinsman, it seemed too much to be endured. When
he entered, she was in the midst of one of her fits
of delirium, and immediately mistook her visiters
for two assassins. She asked where they had hid
her Falkland, her lord, her life, her husband l and
demanded that they should restore to her his man-
gled corpse, that she might embrace him with her
dying arms, breathe her last upon his lips, and be
buried in the same grave. She reproached them
with the sordidness of their conduct in becoming
the tools of her vile cousin, who had deprived her
•of her reason, and would never be contented till he


140 CALEB WILLIAMS,
had murdered her. Mr. Falkland tore himself away
from this painful scene, and leaving Doctor Wilson
with his patient, desired him, when he had given
the necessary directions, to follow him to his inn.
The perpetual hurry of spirits in which Miss
Melville had been kept for several days by the na-
ture of her indisposition was extremely exhausting
to her; and in about an hour from the visit of Mr.
Falkland, her delirium subsided, and left her in so
low a state as to render it difficult to perceive any
signs of life. Doctor Wilson, who had withdrawn,
to sooth, if possible, the disturbed and impatient
thoughts of Mr. Falkland, was summoned afresh
upon this change of symptoms, and sat by the bed-
side during the remainder of the night. The situa-
tion of his patient was such as to keep him in
momentary apprehension of her decease. While
Miss Melville lay in this feeble and exhausted con
dition, Mrs. Hammond betrayed every token of the
tenderest anxiety. Her sensibility was habitually
of the acutest sort, and the qualities of Emily were
such as powerfully to fix her affection. She loved
her like a mother. Upon the present occasion every
sound, every motion, made her tremble. Doctor
Wilson had introduced another nurse, in considera-
tion of the incessant fatigue Mrs. Hammond had
undergone; and he endeavoured by representations,
and even by authority, to compel her to quit the
apartment of the patient. But she was uncontroll-
able; and he at length found that he should proba-
bly do her more injury by the violence that would
be necessary to separate her from the suffering
innocent, than by allowing her to follow her incli-
nation. Her eye was a thousand times turned, with
the most eager curiosity, upon the countenance of
Doctor Wilson, without her daring to breathe a
question respecting his opinion, lest he should


CALEB WILLIAMs. 141
answer her by a communication of the most fatal
tidings. In the mean time she listened with the
deepest attention to every thing that dropped either
from the physician or the nurse, hoping to collect,
as it were, from some oblique hint, the intelligence
which she had not courage expressly to require.
Towards morning the state of the patient seemed
to take a favourable turn. She dozed for near two
hours, and, when she awoke, appeared perfectly
calm and sensible. Understanding that Mr. Falk-
land had brought the physician to attend her, and
was himself in her neighbourhood, she requested to
see him. Mr. Falkland had gone, in the mean
time, with one of his tenants, to bail the debt, and
now entered the prison to inquire whether the young
lady might be safely removed from her present mis-
erable residence to a more airy and commodious
apartment. When he appeared, the sight of him
revived in the mind of Miss Melville an imperfect
recollection of the wanderings of her delirium. She
covered her face with her fingers, and betrayed the
most expressive confusion, while she thanked him,
with her usual unaffected simplicity, for the trouble
he had taken. She hoped she should not give him
much more; she thought she should get better. It
was a shame, she said, if a young and lively girl
as she was could not contrive to outlive the trifling
misfortunes to which she had been subjected. But
while she said this she was still extremely weak.
She tried to assume a cheerful countenance; but it
was a faint effort, which the feeble state of her
frame did not seem sufficient to support. Mr. Falk-
land and the doctor joined to request her to keep
herself quiet, and avoid for the present all occasions
of exertion.
Encouraged by these appearances, Mrs. Ham-
mond ventured to follow the two gentlemen out of


142 CALEB WILLIAMS.
the room, in order to learn from the physician what
hopes he entertained. Doctor Wilson acknowledged
that he found his patient at first in a very unfavour-
able situation, that the symptoms were changed for
the better, and that he was not without some ex-
pectation of her recovery. He added, however,
that he could answer for nothing; that the next
twelve hours would be exceedingly critical, but that
if she did not grow worse before morning, he would
then undertake for her life. Mrs. Hammond, who
had hitherto seen nothing but despair, now became
frantic with joy. She burst into tears of transport,
blessed the physician in the most emphatic and im-
passioned terms, and uttered 4 thousand extrava-
gancies. Doctor Wilson seized this opportunity to
press her to give herself a little repose, to which
she consented, a bed being first procured for her in
the room next to Miss Melville's, she having charged
the nurse to give her notice of any alteration in the
state of the patient.
Mrs. Hammond enjoyed an uninterrupted sleep
of several hours. It was already night, when she
was awaked by an unusual bustle in the next room.
She listened for a few moments, and then deter-
mined to go and discover the occasion of it. As
she opened her door for that purpose, she met the
nurse coming to her. The countenance of the mes-
senger told her what it was she had to communi-
cate, without the use of words. She hurried to the
bedside, and found Miss Melville expiring. The
appearances that had at first been so encouraging
were of short duration. The calm of the morning
proved to be only a sort of lightening before death.
In a few hours the patient grew worse. The bloom
of her countenance faded; she drew her breath with
difficulty; and her eyes became fixed. Doctor Wil-
son came in at this period, and immediately per-


CALEB WILLIAMS. 143
º
ceived that all was over. She was for some time
in convulsions; but these subsiding, she addressed
the physician with a composed, though feeble voice.
She thanked him for his attention; and expressed
the most lively sense of her obligations to Mr. Falk-
land. She sincerely forgave her cousin, and hoped
he might never be visited by too acute a recollec-
tion of his barbarity to her. She would have been
contented to live. Few persons had a sincerer
relish of the pleasures of life; but she was well
pleased to die, rather than have become the wife of
Grimes. As Mrs. Hammond entered, she turned
her countenance towards her, and with an affec-
tionate expression repeated her name. This was
her last word; in less than two hours from that
time she breathed her last in the arms of this faith-
ful friend.
CHAPTER XI.
Such was the fate of Miss Emily Melville. Per-
haps tyranny never exhibited a more painful memo-
rial of the detestation in which it deserves to be
held. The idea irresistibly excited in every spec-
tator of the scene was that of regarding Mr. Tyrrel
as the most diabolical wretch that had ever dis-
honoured the human form. The very attendants
upon this house of oppression, for the scene was
acted upon too public a stage not to be generally
understood, expressed their astonishment and dis-
gust at his unparalleled cruelty.
If such were the feelings of men bred to the com-
mission of injustice, it is difficult to say what must


144 CALEB WILLIAMS.
have been those of Mr. Falkland. He raved, he
swore, he beat his head, he rent up his hair. He
was unable to continue in one posture, and to remain
in one place. He burst away from the spot with
vehemence, as if he sought to leave behind him his
recollection and his existence. He seemed to tear
up the ground with fierceness and rage. He
returned soon again. He approached the sad re-
mains of what had been Emily, and gazed on them
with such intentness, that his eyes appeared ready
to burst from their sockets. Acute and exquisite
as were his notions of virtue and honour, he could
not prevent himself from reproaching the system of
nature, for having given birth to such a monster as
Tyrrel. He was ashamed of himself for wearing
the same form. He could not think of the human
species with patience. He ſoamed with indignation
against the laws of the universe, that did not permit
him to crush such reptiles at a blow, as we would
crush so many noxious insects. It was necessary
to guard him like a madman.
The whole office of judging what was proper to
be done under the present circumstances devolved
upon Doctor Wilson. The doctor was a man of
cool and methodical habits of acting. One of the
first ideas that suggested itself to him was, that Miss
Melville was a branch of the family of Tyrrel. He
did not doubt of the willingness of Mr. Falkland to
discharge every expense that might be further inci-
dent to the melancholy remains of this unfortunate
victim ; but he conceived that the laws of fashion
and decorum required some notification of the event
to be made to the head of the family. Perhaps, too,
he had an eye to his interest in his profession, and
was reluctant to expose himself to the resentment
of a person of Mr. Tyrrel's consideration in the
neighbourhood. But, with this weakness, he had


CALEB WILLIAMS, 145
nevertheless some feelings in common with the rest
of the world, and must have suffered considerable
violence before he could have persuaded himself
to be the messenger; besides which he did not think
it right in the present situation to leave Mr. Falk-
land.
Doctor Wilson no sooner mentioned these ideas,
than they seemed to make a sudden impression on
Mrs. Hammond, and she earnestly requested that
she might be permitted to carry the intelligence.
The proposal was unexpected; but the doctor did
not very obstinately refuse his assent. She was
determined, she said, to see what sort of impression
the catastrophe would make upon the author of it;
and she promised to comport herself with modera-
tion and civility. The journey was soon performed.
“I am come, sir,” said she to Mr. Tyrrel, “to
inform you that your cousin, Miss Melville, died
this afternoon.”
“ Died ?”
“Yes, sir. I saw her die. She died in these
arms.”
“Died? Who killed her ? What do you mean?”
“Who? Is it for you to ask that question ?
Your cruelty and malice killed her "
“Me?—my?—Poh ! she is not dead—it cannot
be—it is not a week since she left this house.”
“Do not you believe me? I say she is dead!”
“Have a care, woman this is no matter for
jesting. No: though she used me ill, I would not
believe her dead for all the world!”
Mrs. Hammond shook her head in a manner ex-
pressive at once of grief and indignation.
“No, no, no, no! I will never believe that l—No,
never !” -
“Will you come with me, and convince your
eyes? It is a sight worthy of you; and will be a
Vol. I.—G


146 CALEB WILLIAMS,
feast to such a heart as yours"—Saying this, Mrs.
Hammond offered her hand as if to conduct him to
the spot.
Mr. Tyrrel shrunk back.
“If she be dead, what is that to me? Am I to
answer for everything that goes wrong in the world?
—What do you come here for Why bring your
messages to me?”
“To whom should I bring them but to her kins-
man,—and her murderer.”
“Murderer?—Did I employ knives or pistols :
Did I give her poison? I did nothing but what the
law allows. If she be dead, nobody can say that I
am to blame !”
“To blame?—All the world will abhor and curse
you. Were you such a fool as to think, because
men pay respect to wealth and rank, this would ex-
tend to such a deed? They will laugh at so bare-
faced a cheat. The meanest beggar will spurn and
spit at you. Ay, you may well stand confounded
at what you have done. I will proclaim you to the
whole world, and you will be obliged to fly the very
face of a human creature ''' ~
“Good woman,” said Mr. Tyrrel, extremely hum-
bled, “talk no more in this strain —Emmy is not
dead! I am sure—I hope—she is not dead!—
Tell me that you have only been deceiving me,
and I will forgive you every thing—I will forgive
her—I will take her into favour—I will do anything
you please !—I never meant her any harm ſ”
“I tell you she is dead! You have murdered
the sweetest innocent that lived ! Can you bring
her back to life, as you have driven her out of it?
If you could, I would kneel to you twenty times a
day! What is it you have done!—Miserable wretch!
did you think you could do and undo, and change
things this way and that, as you. pleased ?”


CALEB Wit, LIAMS, 147
The reproaches of Mrs. Hammond were the first
instance in which Mr. Tyrrel was made to drink
the full cup of retribution. This was, however, only
a specimen of a long series of contempt, abhorrence,
and insult, that was reserved for him. The words
of Mrs. Hammond were prophetic. It evidently
appeared, that though wealth and hereditary eleva-
tion operate as an apology for many delinquencies,
there are some which so irresistibly address them-
selves to the indignation of mankind, that, like
death, they level all distinctions, and reduce their
perpetrator to an equality with the most indigent
and squalid of his species. Against Mr. Tyrrel,
as the tyrannical and unmanly murderer of Emily,
those who dared not venture the unreserved avowal
of their sentiments muttered curses, deep, not loud;
while the rest joined in a universal cry of abhor-
rence and execration. He stood astonished at the
novelty of his situation. Accustomed as he had
been to the obedience and trembling homage of
mankind, he had imagined they would be perpetual,
and that no excess on his part would ever be potent
enough to break the enchantment. Now he looked
round, and saw sullen detestation in every face,
which with difficulty restrained itself, and upon the
slightest provocation broke forth with an impetuous
tide, and swept away the mounds of subordination
and fear. His large estate could not purchase
civility from the gentry, the peasantry, scarcely from
his own servants. In the indignation of all around
him he found a ghost that haunted him with every
change of place, and a remorse that stung his con-
science, and exterminated his peace. The neigh-
bourhood appeared more and more every day to be
growing too hot for him to endure, and it became
evident that he would ultimately be obliged to quit
the country. Urged g the flagitiousness of this
2
--&-


148 CALEB WILLIAMS,
last example, people learned to recollect every other
instance of his excesses, and it was, no doubt, a
fearful catalogue that rose up in Judgment against
him. It seemed as if the sense of public resent-
ment had long been gathering strength unperceived,
and now burst forth into insuppressible violence.
There was scarcely a human being upon whom
this sort of retribution could have sat more painfully
than upon Mr. Tyrrel. Though he had not a con-
sciousness of innocence prompting him continually
to recoil from the detestation of mankind as a thing
totally unallied to his character, yet the imperious-
ness of his temper, and the constant experience he
had had of the pliability of other men, prepared him
to feel the general and undisguised condemnation
into which he was sunk with uncommon emotions
of anger and impatience. That he, at the beam of
whose eye every countenance fell, and to whom in
the fierceness of his wrath no one was daring enough
to reply, should now be regarded with avowed dis-
like, and treated with unceremonious censure, was
a thing he could not endure to recollect or believe.
Symptoms of the universal disgust smote him at
every instant, and at every blow he writhed with
intolerable anguish. His rage was unbounded and
raving. He repelled every attack with the fiercest
indignation; while the more he struggled, the more
desperate his situation appeared to become. At
length he determined to collect his strength for a
decisive effort, and to meet the whole tide of public
opinion in a single scene. -
In pursuance of these thoughts he resolved to
repair, without delay, to the rural assembly which
I have already mentioned in the course of my story.
Miss Melville had now been dead one month. Mr.
Falkland had been absent the last week in a dis-
tant part of the country, and was not expected to


CALEB WILLIAMS, 149
return for a week longer. Mr. Tyrrel willingly
embraced the opportunity, trusting if he could now
effect his re-establishment, that he should easily
preserve the ground he had gained, even in the face
of his formidable rival. Mr. Tyrrel was not de-
ficient in courage; but he conceived the present to
be too important an epoch in his life to allow him
to make any unnecessary risk in his chance for
future ease and importance.
There was a sort of bustle that took place at his
entrance into the assembly,–it having been agreed
by the gentlemen of the assembly that Mr. Tyrrel
was to be refused admittance, as a person with
whom they did not choose to associate. This vote
had already been notified to him by letter by the
master of the ceremonies, but the intelligence was
rather calculated, with a man of Mr. Tyrrel's dis-
position, to excite defiance than to overawe. At
the door of the assembly he was personally met by
the master of the ceremonies, who had perceived
the arrival of an equipage, and who now endea-
voured to repeat his prohibition: but he was thrust
aside by Mr. Tyrrel with an air of native authority
and ineffable contempt. As he entered, every eye
was turned upon him. Presently all the gentlemen
in the room assembled round him. Some endea-
voured to hustle him, and others began to expostu-
late. But he found the secret effectually to silence
the one set, and to shake off the other. His mus-
cular form, the well-known eminence of his intel-
lectual powers, the long habits to which every man
was formed of acknowledging his ascendency, were
all in his favour. He considered himself as playing
a desperate stake, and had roused all the energies
he possessed, to enable him to do justice to so in-
teresting a transaction. Disengaged from the insects
that at first pestered him, he paced up and down


150 CALEB WILLIAMS.
the room with a magisterial stride, and flashed an
angry glance on every side. He then broke silence.
“If any one had any thing to say to him, he should
know where and how to answer him. He would
advise any such person, however, to consider well
what he was about. If any man imagined he had
any thing 'personally to complain of, it was very
well. But he did expect that nobody there would
be ignorant and raw enough to meddle with what
was no business of theirs, and intrude into the con-
cerns of any man's private family.”
This being a sort of defiance, one and another
gentleman advanced to answer it. He that was
first began to speak; but Mr. Tyrrel, by the ex-
pression of his countenance and a peremptory tone,
by well-timed interruptions and pertinent insinua-
tions, caused him first to hesitate, and then to be
silent. He seemed to be fast advancing to the
triumph he had promised himself. The whole
company were astonished. They felt the same ab-
horrence and condemnation of his character; but
they could not help admiring the courage and re-
sources he displayed upon the present occasion.
They could without difficulty have concentered
afresh their indignant feelings, but they seemed to
want a leader.
At this critical moment Mr. Falkland entered the
room. Mere accident had enabled him to return
sooner than he expected. -
Both he and Mr. Tyrrel reddened at sight of
each other. He advanced towards Mr. Tyrrel
without a moment's pause, and in a peremptory
voice asked him what he did there !
“Here? What do you mean by that? This
place is as free to me as you, and you are the last
person to whom I shall deign to give an account of
myself.”


CALEB WILLIAMS. 151
*
“Sir, the place is not free to you. Do not you
know you have been voted out? Whatever were
your rights, your infamous conduct has forfeited
them.”
“Mr. what do you call yourself, if you have any
thing to say to me, choose a proper time and place.
Do not think to put on your bullying airs under
shelter of this company I will not endure it.”
“You are mistaken, sir. This public scene is
the only place where I can have any thing to say
to you. If you would not hear the universal indig-
nation of mankind, you must not come into the
society of men.—Miss Melville !—Shame upon
you, inhuman, unrelenting tyrant! Can you hear
her name, and not sink into the earth? Can you
retire into solitude, and not see her pale and patient
ghost rising to reproach you? Can you recollect
her virtues, her innocence, her spotless manners,
her unresentful temper, and not run distracted with
remorse? Have you not killed her in the first bloom
of her youth Can you bear to think that she now
lies mouldering in the grave through your cursed
contrivance, that deserved a grown, ten thousand
times more than you deserve to live? And do you
expect that mankind will ever forget, or forgive such
a deed? Go, miserable wretch; think yourself too
happy that you are permitted to fly the face of man!
Why, what a pitiful figure do you make at this mo-
ment: Do you think that any thing could bring
so hardened a wretch as you are to shrink from re-
proach, if your conscience were not in confederacy
with them that reproached you? And were you
fool enough to believe that any obstinacy, however
determined, could enable you to despise the keen
rebuke of justice? Go, shrink into your miserable
self! Begone, and let me never be blasted with
your sight again!”


152 CALEB WILLIAMS.
And here, incredible as it may appear, Mr. Tyr-
rel began to obey his imperious censurer. His
looks were full of wildness and horror; his limbs
trembled; and his tongue refused its office. He
felt no power of resisting the impetuous torrent of
reproach that was poured upon him. He hesi-
tated ; he was ashamed of his own defeat; he
seemed to wish to deny it. But his struggles were
ineffectual; every attempt perished in the moment
it was made. The general voice was eager to
abash him. As his confusion became more visible,
the outcry increased. It swelled gradually to hoot-
ings, tumult, and a deafening noise of indignation. At
length he willingly retired from the public scene, un-
able any longer to endure the sensations it inflicted.
Jn about an hour and a half he returned. No
precaution had been taken against this incident, for
nothing could be more unexpected. In the inter-
val he had intoxicated himself with large draughts
of brandy. In a moment he was in a part of the
room where Mr. Falkland was standing, and with
one blow of his muscular arm levelled him with the
earth. The blow, however, was not stunning, and
Mr. Falkland rose again immediately. It is ob-
vious to perceive how unequal he must have been
in this species of contest. He was scarcely risen,
before Mr. Tyrrel repeated his blow. Mr. Falk-
land was now upon his guard, and did not fall. But
the blows of his adversary were redoubled with a
rapidity difficult to conceive, and Mr. Falkland was
once again brought to the earth. In this situation
Mr. Tyrrel kicked his prostrate enemy, and stooped
apparently with the intention of dragging him
along the floor. All this passed in a moment, and
the gentlemen present had not time to recover their
surprise. They now interfered, and Mr. Tyrrel
once more quitted the apartment, -
s


CALEB WILLIAMS. 153
It is difficult to conceive any event more terrible
to the individual upon whom it fell than the treat-
ment which Mr. Falkland in this instance expe-
rienced. Every passion of his life was calculated
to make him feel it more acutely. He had repeat-
edly exerted an uncommon energy and prudence,
to prevent the misunderstanding between Mr. Tyr-
rel and himself from proceeding to extremities; but
in vain It was closed with a catastrophe, exceed-
ing all that he had feared, or that the most pene-
trating foresight could have suggested. To Mr.
Falkland disgrace was worse than death. The
slightest breath of dishonour would have stung him
to the very soul. What must it have been with this
complication of ignominy, base, humiliating, and
public 3 Could Mr. Tyrrel have understood the
evil he inflicted, even he, under all his circum-
stances of provocation, could scarcely have perpe-
trated it. Mr. Falkland's mind was full of uproar
like the war of contending elements, and of such
suffering as casts contempt on the refinements of
inventive cruelty. He wished for annihilation, to
lie down in eternal oblivion, in an insensibility,
which, compared with what he experienced, was
scarcely less enviable than beatitude itself. Hor-
ror, detestation, revenge, inexpressible longings to
shake off the evil, and a persuasion that in this
case all effort was powerless, filled his soul even
to bursting.
One other event closed the transactions of this
memorable evening. Mr. Falkland was baffled of
the vengeance that yet remained to him. Mr. Tyr-
rel was found by some of the company dead in the
street, having been murdered at the distance of a
few yards from the assembly house.
G 3


154 CALEB WILLIAMS.
CHAPTER XII.
I shall endeavour to state the remainder of this
narrative in the words of Mr. Collins. The reader
has already had occasion to perceive that Mr. Col-
lºns was a man of no vulgar order; and his reflec-
tions on the subject were uncommonly judicious.
“This day was the crisis of Mr. Falkland's his-
tory. From hence took its beginning that gloomy
and unsociable melancholy, of which he has since
been the victim. No two characters can be in cer-
taili respects more strongly contrasted, than the
Mr. Falkland of a date prior and subsequent to these
events. Hitherto he had been attended by a for-
tune perpetually prosperous. His mind was san-
guine; full of that undoubting confidence in its own
powers which prosperity is qualified to produce.
Though the habits of his life were those of a se-
rious and sublime visionary, they were nevertheless
full of cheerfulness and tranquillity. But from this
moment, his pride and the lofty adventurousness of
his spirit were effectually subdued. From an ob-
ject of envy he was changed into an object of com-
passion. Life, which hitherto no one had more ex-
quisitely enjoyed, became a burden to him. No
more self-complacency, no more rapture, no more
self-approving and heart-transporting benevolence .
He who had lived beyond any man upon the grand
and animating reveries of the imagination, seemed
now to have no visions but of anguish and despair.
His case was peculiarly worthy of sympathy, since


CALEB WILLIAMS. 155
no doubt, if rectitude and purity of disposition could
give a title to happiness, few men could exhibit a
more consistent and powerful claim than Mr. Falk-
land.
“He was too deeply pervaded with the idle and
groundless romances of chivalry ever to forget the
situation, humiliating and dishonourable according
to his ideas, in which he had been placed upon this
occasion. There is a mysterious sort of divinity
annexed to the person of a true knight, that makes
any species of brute violence committed upon it in-
delible and immortal. To be knocked down, cuffed,
kicked, dragged along the floor! Sacred Heaven,
the memory of such a treatment was not to be en-
dured! No future lustration could ever remove the
stain: and, what was perhaps still worse in the
present case, the offender having ceased to exist,
the lustration which the laws of knight-errantry
prescribe was rendered impossible. -
“In some future period of human improvement,
it is probable, that that calamity will be in a manner
unintelligible, which in the present instance con-
tributed to tarnish and wither the excellence of one
of the most elevated and amiable of human minds.
If Mr. Falkland had reflected with perfect accuracy
upon the case, he would probably have been able
to look down with indifference upon a wound which,
as it was, pierced to his very vitals. How much
more dignity, than in the modern duellist, do we
find in Themistocles, the most gallant of the Greeks;
who, when Eurybiades, his commander-in-chief, in
answer to some of his remonstrances, lifted his
cane over him with a menacing air, accosted him
in that noble apostrophe, “Strike, but hear!”
“How would a man of true discernment in such
a case reply to his brutal assailant? ‘I make it
my boast that I can endure calamity and pain:


156 CALEB WILLIAMS,
shall I not be able to endure the trifling inconve-
nience that your folly can inflict upon me? Per-
haps a human being would be more accomplished,
if he understood the science of personal defence;
but how few would be the occasions upon which
he would be called to exert it? How few persons
would he encounter so unjust and injurious as you,
if his own conduct were directed by the principles
of reason and benevolence 2 Besides, how narrow
would be the use of this science when acquired 2
It will scarcely put the man of delicate make and
petty stature upon a level with the athletic pugilist;
and if it did in some measure secure me against
the malice of a single adversary, still my person
and my life, so far as mere force is concerned,
would always be at the mercy of two. Further
than immediate defence against actual violence, it
could never be of use to me. The man who can
deliberately meet his adversary for the purpose of
exposing the person of one or ºoth of them to in-
jury tramples upon every principle of reason and
equity. Duelling is the vilest of all egotism, treat-
ing the public, who has a claim to all my powers
and exertions, as if it were nothing, and myself, or
rather an untelligible chimera I annex to myself, as
if it were entitled to my exclusive attention. I am
unable to cope with you: what then 2 Can that
circumstance dishonour me? No; I can only be
dishonoured by perpetrating an unjust action. My
honour is in my own keeping, beyond the reach of
all mankind. Strike! I am passive. No injury
that you can inflict shall provoke me to expose you
or myself to unnecessary evil. I refuse that; but
I am not therefore pusillanimous: when I refuse
any danger or suffering by which the general good
may be promoted, then brand me for a cowardſ’
“These reasonings, however simple and irre-


158 CALEB WILLIAMS.
“The neighbouring magistrates at length con-
ceived it necessary to take some steps upon the
subject. Without causing Mr. Falkland to be ap-
prehended, they sent to desire he would appear
before them at one of their meetings. The pro-
ceeding being thus opened, Mr. Falkland expressed
his hope that, if the business were likely to stop
there, their investigation might at least be rendered
as solemn as possible. The meeting was numerous;
every person of a respectable class in society was
admitted to be an auditor; the whole town, one of
the most considerable in the county, was apprized
of the nature of the business. Few trials, invested
with all the forms of judgment, have excited so
general an interest. A trial, under the present cir-
cumstances, was scarcely attainable; and it seemed
to be the wish both of principal and umpires, to
give to this transaction all the momentary notoriety
and decisiveness of a trial.
“The magistrates investigated the particulars of
the story. Mr. Falkland, it appeared, had left the
rooms immediately after his assailant; and though
..he had been attended by one or two of the gentle-
men to his inn, it was proved that he had left them
upon some slight occasion as soon as he arrived at
it; and that, when they inquired for him of the
waiters, he had already mounted his horse and rid-
den home.
“By the nature of the case, no particular facts
could be stated in balance against these. As soon
as they had been sufficiently detailed, Mr. Falkland
therefore proceeded to his defence. Several copies
of his defence were made, and Mr. Falkland
seemed, for a short time, to have had the idea of
sending it to the press, though, for some reason or
other, he afterward suppressed it. I have one of the
copies in my possession, and I will read it to you.”


CALEB WILLIAMS. 159
|
Saying this, Mr. Collins rose, and took it from a
private drawer in his escritoire. During this action
he appeared to recollect himself. He did not, in the
strict sense of the word, hesitate ; but he was
prompted to make some apology for what he was
doing.
“You seem never to have heard of this memora-
ble transaction; and, indeed, that is little to be won-
dered at, since the good-nature of the world is
interested in suppressing it, and it is deemed a
disgrace to a man to have defended himself from a
criminal imputation, though with circumstances the
most satisfactory and honourable. It may be sup-
posed that this suppression is particularly accept-
able to Mr. Falkland; and I should not have acted
in contradiction to his modes of thinking in commu-
nicating the story to you, had there not been cir-
cumstances of peculiar urgency that seemed to ren-
der the communication desirable.” Saying this, he
proceeded to read from the paper in his hand.
“‘Gentlemen,
“‘I stand here accused of a crime, the most black
that any human creature is capable of perpetrating.
I am innocent. I have no fear that I shall fail to
make every person in this company acknowledge
my innocence. In the mean time, what must be
my feelings' Conscious as I am of deserving ap-
probation and not censure, of having passed my life
in acts of justice and philanthropy, can any thing
be more deplorable than for me to answer to a
charge of murder So wretched is my situation,
that I cannot accept your gratuitous acquittal, if you
should be disposed to bestow it. I must answer to
an imputation, the very thought of which is ten
thousand times worse to me than death. I must
exert the whole energy of my mind, to prevent my
being ranked with the vilest of men.


160 CALEB WILLIAMS,
“‘Gentlemen, this is a situation in which a man
may be allowed to boast. Accursed situation 1 No
man need envy me the vile and polluted triumph I
am now to gain! I have called no witnesses to my
character. Great God! what sort of character is
that which must be supported by witnesses But,
if I must speak, look round the company, ask of
every one present, inquire of your own hearts | Not
one word of reproach was ever whispered against
me. I do not hesitate to call upon those who have
known me most, to afford me the most honourable
testimony.
“‘My life has been spent in the keenest and most
unintermitted sensibility to reputation. I am almost
indifferent as to what shall be the event of this day.
I would not open my mouth upon the occasion, if
my life were the only thing that was at stake. It
is not in the power of your decision to restore to
me my unblemished reputation, to obliterate the dis-
grace I have suffered, or to prevent it from being
remembered that I have been brought to examina-
tion upon a charge of murder. Your decision can
never have the efficacy to prevent the miserable re-
mains of my existence from being the most intole-
rable of all burthens.
“‘I am accused of having committed murder upon
the body of Barnabas Tyrrel. I would most joy-
fully have given every farthing I possess, and de-
voted myself to perpetual beggary, to have preserved
his life. His life was precious to me, beyond that
of all mankind. In my opinion, the greatest injus-
tice committed by his unknown assassin was that
of defrauding me of my just revenge. I confess
that I would have called him out to the field, and
that our encounter should not have been terminated
but by the death of one or both of us. This would
have been a pitiful and inadequate compensation


CALEB WILLIAMS. 161
ſ'
for his unparalleled insult, but it was all that re-
mained.
“I ask for no pity, but I must openly declare
that never was any misfortune so horrible as mine.
I would willingly have taken refuge from the recol-
lection of that night in a voluntary death. Life was
now stripped of all those recommendations for the
sake of which it was dear to me. But even this
consolation is denied me. I am compelled to drag
for ever the intolerable load of existence, upon pen-
alty, if at any period, however remote, I shake it
off, of having that impatience regarded as confirm-
ing a charge of murder. Gentlemen, if by your
decision you could take away my life, without that
act being connected with my disgrace, I would bless
the cord that stopped the breath of my existence for
ever.
“You all know how easily I might have fled from
this purgation. If I had been guilty, should I not
have embraced the opportunity? But, as it was, I
could not. Reputation has been the idol, the jewel
of my life. I could never have borne to think that
a human creature, in the remotest part of the globe,
should believe that I was a criminal. Alas! what
a deity it is that I have chosen for my worship ! I
have entailed upon myself everlasting agony and
despairſ
“‘I have but one word to add. Gentlemen, I
charge you to do me the imperfect justice that is in
your power My life is a worthless thing. But
my honour, the empty remains of honour I have now
to boast, is in your judgment, and you will each of
you, from this day, have imposed upon yourselves
the task of its vindicators. It is little that you can
do for me; but it is not less your duty to do that
little. May that God who is the fountain of honour
and good prosper and protect you ! The man who


162 CALEB WILLIAMS,
now stands before you is devoted to perpetual bar-
renness and blast ! He has nothing to hope for .
beyond the feeble consolation of this day!”
“You will easily imagine that Mr. Falkland was
discharged with every circumstance of credit. No-
thing is more to be deplored in human institutions,
than that the ideas of mankind should have annexed
a sentiment of disgrace to a purgation thus satisfac-
tory and decisive. No one entertained the shadow
of a doubt upon the subject, and yet a mere con-
currence of circumstances made it necessary that
the best of men should be publicly put on his de-
fence, as if really under suspicion of an atrocious
crime. It may be granted, indeed, that Mr. Falk-
land had his faults, but those very faults placed him
at a still farther distance from the criminality in
question. He was the fool of honour and fame: a
man whom, in the pursuit of reputation, nothing
could divert; who would have purchased the char-
acter of a true, gallant, and undaunted hero, at the
expense of worlds, and who thought every calamity
nominal but a stain upon his honour. How atro-
ciously absurd to suppose any motive capable of
inducing such a man to play the part of a lurking
assassin . How unfeeling to oblige him to defend
himself from such an imputation | Did any man,
and, least of all, a man of the purest honour, ever
pass in a moment from a life unstained by a single
act of injury, to the consummation of human de-
pravity ?
“When the decision of the magistrates was de-
clared, a general murmur of applause and involun-
tary transport burst forth from every one present.
It was at first low, and gradually became louder.
As it was the expression of rapturous delight, and
an emotion disinterested and divine, so there was an
indescribable something in the very sound, that car-
S


CALEB WILLIAMS. 163
#
ried it home to the heart, and convinced every spec-
tator that there was no merely personal pleasure
which ever existed that would not be foolish and
feeble in the comparison. Every one strove who
should most express his esteem of the amiable ac-
cused. Mr. Falkland was no sooner withdrawn
than the gentlemen present determined to give a still
further sanction to the business, by their congratu-
lations. They immediately named a deputation to
wait upon him for that purpose. Every one con-
curred to assist the general sentiment. It was a
sort of sympathetic feeling that took hold upon all
ranks and degrees. The multitude received him
with huzzas ; they took his horses from his car-
riage, dragged him along in triumph, 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 melan-
choly 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 about thirty
miles distant, in want of all the necessaries of life.
He had lived there from the period of his flight, in
so private a manner that all the inquiries that had
been set on foot by the benevolence of Mr. Falk-
land 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


164 CALEB WILLIAMS,
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 fur-
ther inquiry, 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 accu-
mulated evidence both Hawkins and his son were
tried, condemned, and afterward executed. In the
interval between the sentence and execution Haw-
kins confessed his guilt, with many marks of com-
punction; though there are persons by whom this is
denied ; but I have taken some pains to inquire
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, if it could
have come to his knowledge, would perhaps have
in some measure consoled him for his untimely end.
This poor Hawkins was surely entitled to some
pity, since his being finally urged to desperation,
and brought, together with his son, to an ignominious
fate, was originally owing to the sturdiness of his
virtue and independence. But the compassion of


CALEB WILLIAMs. 165
the public was in a great measure shut against him,
as they thought it a piece of barbarous and unpar-
donable selfishness, that he had not rather come
boldly forward to meet the consequences of his own
conduct than suffer a man of so much public worth
as Mr. Falkland, and who had been so desirous of
doing him good, to be exposed to the risk of being
tried for a murder that he had committed.
“From this time to the present Mr. Falkland has
been nearly such as you at present see him. Though
it be several years since these transactions, the im-
pression they made is for ever fresh in the mind of
our unfortunate patron. From thenceforward his
habits became totally different. He had before
been fond of public scenes, and acting a part in the
midst of the people among whom he immediately
resided. He now made himself a rigid recluse.
He had no associates, no friends. Inconsolable
himself, he yet wished to treat others with kind-
ness. There was a solemn sadness in his manner,
attended with the most perfect gentleness and hu-
manity. Everybody respects him, for his benevo-
lence is unalterable; but there is a stately coldness
and reserve in his behaviour, which makes it diffi-
cult for those about him to regard him with the
familiarity of affection. These symptoms are un-
interrupted, except at certain times when his suffer-
ings become intolerable, and he displays the marks
of a furious insanity. At those times his language
is fearful and mysterious, and he seems to figure to
himself by turns every sort of persecution and
alarm which may be supposed to attend upon an
accusation of murder. But, sensible of his own
weakness, he is anxious at such times to withdraw
into solitude: and his domestics in general know
nothing of him, but the uncommunicative and
haughty, but mild, dejection that accompanies every
thing he does.”
;


166 CALEB WILLIAMS,
CHAPTER XIII.
I HAVE stated the narrative of Mr. Collins, inter-
spersed with such other information as I was able
to collect, with all the exactness that my memory,
assisted by certain memorandums I made at the
time, will afford. I do not pretend to warrant the
authenticity of any part of these memoirs, except
so much as fell under my own knowledge, and that
part shall be given with the same simplicity and
accuracy that I would observe towards a court
which was to decide in the last resort upon every
thing dear to me. The same scrupulous fidelity
restrains me from altering the manner of Mr. Col-
lins's narrative to adapt it to the precepts of my
own taste; and it will soon be perceived how
essential that narrative is to the elucidation of my
history.
The intention of my friend in this communica-
tion was to give me ease; but he in reality added
to my embarrassment. Hitherto I had had no in-
tercourse with the world and its passions; and,
though I was not totally unacquainted with them as
they appear in books, this proved of little service
to me when I came to witness them myself. The
case seemed entirely altered, when the subject of
those passions was continually before my eyes, and
the events had happened but the other day, as it
were, in the very neighbourhood where I lived.
There was a connexion and progress in this narra-
tive, which made it altogether unlike the little vil-
lage incidents I had hitherto known. My feelings


CALEB WILLIAMS, 167
were successively interested for the different per-
sons that were brought upon the scene. My vene-
ration was excited for Mr. Clare, and my applause
for the intrepidity of Mrs. Hammond. I was aston-
ished that any human creature should be so shock-
ingly perverted as Mr. Tyrrel. I paid the tribute
of my tears to the memory of the artless Miss Mel-
ville. I found a thousand fresh reasons to admire
and love Mr. Falkland.
At present I was satisfied with thus considering
every incident in its obvious sense. But the story
I had heard was for ever in my thoughts, and I was
peculiarly interested to comprehend its full import.
I turned it a thousand ways, and examined it in
every point of view. In the original communica-
tion it appeared sufficiently distinct and satisfactory;
but as I brooded over it, it gradually became mys-
terious. There was something strange in the char-
acter of Hawkins. So firm, so sturdily honest
and just, as he appeared at first ; all at once to be-
come a murderer! His first behaviour under the
prosecution, how accurately was it calculated to
prepossess one in his favour ! To be sure, if he
were guilty, it was unpardonable in him to permit
a man of so much dignity and worth as Mr. Falk-
land to suffer under the imputation of his crime !
And yet I could not help bitterly compassionating
the honest fellow, brought to the gallows, as he
was, strictly speaking, by the machinations of that
devil incarnate, Mr. Tyrrel. His son, too, that son
for whom he voluntarily sacrificed his all, to die with
him at the same tree; surely never was a story
more affecting!
Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Falkland
should be the murderer? The reader will scarcely
believe, that the idea, suggested itself to my mind
that I would ask him. It was but a passing thought;


168 CALEB WILLIAMS.
but it serves to mark the simplicity of my character.
Then I recollected the virtues of my master, almost
too sublime for human nature; I thought of his suffer-
ings so unexampled, so unmerited; and chid myself
for the suspicion. The dying confession of Hawkins
recurred to my mind; and I felt that there was
no longer a possibility of doubting. And yet what
was the meaning of all Mr. Falkland's agonies and
terrors In fine, the idea having once occurred to
my mind, it was fixed there for ever. My thoughts
fluctuated from conjecture to conjecture, but this
was the centre about which they revolved. I deter-
mined to place myself as a watch upon my patron.
The instant I had chosen this employment for
myself, I found a strange sort of pleasure in it. To
do what is forbidden always has its charms, because
we have an indistinct apprehension of something
arbitrary and tyrannical in the prohibition. To be
a spy upon Mr. Falkland ' That there was danger
in the employment served to give an alluring pun-
gency to the choice. I remembered the stern repri-
mand I had received, and his terrible looks; and
the recollection gave a kind of tingling sensation,
not altogether unallied to enjoyment. The further
I advanced, the more the sensation was irresistible.
I seemed to myself perpetually upon the brink of
being countermined, and perpetually roused to guard
my designs. The more impenetrable Mr. Falkland
was determined to be, the more uncontrollable was
my curiosity. Through the whole, my alarm and
apprehension of personal danger had a large mix-
ture of frankness and simplicity, conscious of
meaning no ill, that made me continually ready to
say every thing that was upon my mind, and would
not suffer me to believe that, when things were
brought to the test, any one could be seriously angry
with me.


CALEB WILLIAMSs 169
These reflections led gradually to a new state of
my mind. When I had first removed into Mr.
Falkland's family, the novelty of the scene rendered
me cautious and reserved. The distant and solemn
manners of my master seemed to have annihilated
my constitutional gayety. But the novelty by de-
grees wore off, and my constraint in the same de-
gree diminished. The story I had now heard, and
the curiosity it excited, restored to me activity,
eagerness, and courage. I had always had a pro-
pensity to communicate my thoughts; my age was,
of course, inclined to talkativeness; and I ventured
occasionally, in a sort of hesitating way, as if ques-
tioning whether such a conduct might be allowed,
to express my sentiments as they arose, in the pres-
ence of Mr. Falkland.
The first time I did so, he looked at me with an
air of surprise, made me no answer, and presently
took occasion to leave me. The experiment was
soon after repeated. My master seemed half-in-
clined to encourage me, and yet doubtful whether
he might venture. He had long been a stranger to
pleasure of every sort, and my artless and untaught
remarks appeared to promise him some amusement.
Could an amusement of this sort be dangerous?
In this uncertainty he could not probably find it
in his heart to treat with severity my innocent effu-
sions. I needed but little encouragement; for the
perturbation of my mind stood in want of this re-
lief. My simplicity, arising from my being a total
stranger to the intercourse of the world, was ac-
companied with a mind in some degree cultivated
with reading, and perhaps not altogether destitute
of observation and talent. My remarks were
therefore perpetually unexpected, at one time im-
plying extreme ignorance, and at another some
ortion of acuteness, but at all times having an air
Wol. I.-H.


170 CALEB WILLIAMS,
of innocence, frankness, and courage. There was
still an apparent want of design in the manner,
even after I was excited accurately to compare my
observations, and study the inferences to which they
led ; for the effect of old habit was more visible
than that of a recently conceived purpose which
was yet scarcely mature.
Mr. Falkland's situation was like that of a fish
that plays with the bait employed to entrap him.
By my manner he was in a certain degree encou-
raged to lay aside his usual reserve, and relax
his stateliness; till some abrupt observation or in-
terrogatory stung him into recollection, and brought
back his alarm. Still it was evident that he bore
about him a secret wound. Whenever the cause
of his sorrows was touched, though in a manner
the most indirect and remote, his countenance altered,
his distemper returned, and it was with difficulty
that he could suppress his emotions, sometimes
conquering himself with painful effort, and some-
times bursting into a sort of paroxysm of insanity,
and hastening to bury himself in solitude.
These appearances I too frequently interpreted into
grounds of suspicion, though I might with equal pro-
bability and more liberality have ascribed them to the
cruel mortifications he had encountered in the objects
of his darling ambition. Mr. Collins had strongly
urged me to secrecy; and Mr. Falkland, whenever
my gesture or his consciousness impressed him with
the idea of my knowing more than I expressed, looked
at me with wistful earnestness, as questioning what
was the degree of information I possessed, and how
it was obtained. But again at our next interview
the simple vivacity of my manner restored his tran-
quillity, obliterated the emotion of which I had been
the cause, and placed things afresh in their former
situation.


CALEB WILLIAMS, 171
The longer this humble familiarity on my part
had continued, the more effort it would require to
suppress it; and Mr. Falkland was neither willing
to mortify me by a severe prohibition of speech,
nor even perhaps to make me of so much conse-
quence as that prohibition might seem to imply.
Though I was curious, it must not be supposed
that I had the object of my inquiry for ever in my
mind, or that my questions and innuendoes were per-
petually regulated with the cunning of a gray-
headed inquisitor. The secret wound of Mr. Falk-
land's mind was much more uniformly present to
his recollection than to mine; and a thousand times
he applied the remarks that occurred in conversa-
tion; when I had not the remotest idea of such an
application, till some singularity in his manner
brought it back to my thoughts. The conscious-
ness of this morbid sensibility, and the imagination
that its influence might perhaps constitute the whole
of the case, served probably to spur Mr. Falkland
again to the charge, and connect a sentiment of
shame with every project that suggested itself for
interrupting the freedom of our intercourse.
I will give a specimen of the conversations to
which I allude; and as it shall be selected from
those which began upon topics the most general
and remote, the reader will easily imagine the dis-
turbance that was almost daily endured by a mind
so tremblingly alive as that of my patron.
“Pray, sir,” said I, one day, as I was assisting
Mr. Falkland in arranging some papers, previously
to their being transcribed into his collection, “how
came Alexander of Macedon to be surnamed the
Great 7”
“How came it? Did you never read his his-
tory º
“Yes, sir.”
H 2


172 CALEB WILLIAMS.
“Well, Williams, and could you find no reasons
there 7°
“Why, I do not know, sir. I could find reasons
why he should be so famous; but every man that
is talked of is not admired. Judges differ about
the merits of Alexander. Doctor Prideaux says in
his Connexions that he deserves only to be called the
Great Cut-throat; and the author of Tom Jones
has written a volume, to prove that he and all other
conquerors ought to be classed with Jonathan Wild.”
Mr. Falkland reddened at these citations.
“Accursed blasphemy I Did these authors think
that, by the coarseness of their ribaldry, they could
destroy his well-earned fame? Are learning, sen-
sibility, and taste no securities to exempt their pos-
sessor from this vulgar abuse? Did you ever read,
Williams, of a man more gallant, generous, and
free? Was ever mortal so completely the reverse'
of every thing engrossing and selfish He formed
to himself a sublime image of excellence, and his
only ambition was to realize it in his own story.
Remember his giving away every thing when he
set out upon his grand expedition, professedly re-
serving for himself nothing but hope. Recollect
his heroic confidence in Philip the physician, and
his entire and unalterable friendship or Hephestion.
He treated the captive family of Darius with the
most cordial urbanity, and the venerable Sysigam-
bis with all the tenderness and attention of a son
to his mother. Never take the judgment, Williams,
upon such a subject of a clerical pedant, or a West-
minster justice. Examine for yourself, and you will
find in Alexander a model of honour, generosity,
and disinterestedness, a man who, for the culti-
vated liberality of his mind, and the unparalleled
grandeur of his projects, must stand alone the spec-
tacle and admiration of all ages of the world.”


CALEB WILLIAMS. 173
“Ah, sir! it is a fine thing for us to sit here and
compose his panegyric. But shall I forget what a
vast expense was bestowed in erecting the monu-
ment of his fame : Was not he the common dis-
turber of mankind ; Did not he overrun nations
that would never have heard of him but for his de-
vastations ! How many hundred thousands of lives
did he sacrifice in his career? What must I think
of his cruelties; a whole tribe massacred for a
crime committed by their ancestors one hundred
and fifty years before; fifty thousand sold into
slavery ; two thousand crucified for their gallant
defence of their country? Man is surely a strange
sort of creature, who never praises any one more
heartily than him who has spread destruction and
ruin over the face of nations !”
“The way of thinking you express, Williams, is
natural enough, and I cannot blame you for it. But
let me hope that you will become more liberal.
The death of a hundred thousand men is at first
sight very shocking; but what in reality are a hun-
dred thousand such men, more than a hundred thou-
sand sheep? It is mind, Williams, the generation
of knowledge and virtue, that we ought to love.
This was the project of Alexander; he set out in a
great undertaking to civilize mankind; he delivered
the vast continent of Asia from the stupidity and
degradation of the Persian monarchy; and though
he was cut off in the midst of his career, we may
easily perceive the vast effects of his project.
Grecian literature and cultivation, the Seleucidae,
the Antiochuses, and the Ptolemies followed, in na-
tions which before had been sunk to the condition
of brutes. Alexander was the builder, as noto-
riously as the destroyer, of cities.”
“And yet, sir, I am afraid that the pike and the
battle-axe are not the right instruments for making
-


174 CALEB WILLIAMS,
men wise. Suppose it were admitted that the lives
of men were to be sacrificed without remorse if a
paramount good were to result, it seems to me as
if murder and massacre were but a very left-handed
way of producing civilization and love. But pray,
do not you think this great hero was a sort of a
madman? What now will you say to his firing the
palace of Persepolis, his weeping for other worlds
to conquer, and his marching his whole army over
the burning sands of Libya, merely to visit a tem-
ple, and persuade mankind that he was the son of
Jupiter Ammon 7" -
“Alexander, my boy, has been much misunder-
stood. Mankind have revenged themselves upon
him by misrepresentation, for having so far eclipsed
the rest of his species. It was necessary to the
realizing his project, that he should pass for a god.
It was the only way by which he could get a firm
hold upon the veneration of the stupid and bigoted
Persians. It was this, and not a mad vanity, that was
the source of his proceeding. And how much had
he to struggle with in this respect, in the unappre-
hending obstinacy of some of his Macedonians?”
“Why then, sir, at last Alexander did but employ
means that all politicians profess to use, as well as
he. He dragooned men into wisdom, and cheated
them into the pursuit of their own happiness. But
what is worse, sir, this Alexander, in the paroxysm
of his headlong rage, spared neither friend nor foe.
You will not pretend to justify the excesses of his
ungovernable passion. It is impossible, sure, that
a word can be said for a man whom a momentary
provocation can hurry into the commission of
murders—”
The instant I had uttered these words I felt what
it was that I had done. There was a magnetical
sympathy between me and my patron, so that theirãº."


0ALEB WILLIAMS, I75
effect was not sooner produced upon him, than my
own mind reproached me with the inhumanity of the
allusion. Our confusion was mutual. The blood
forsook at once the transparent complexion of Mr.
Falkland, and then rushed back again with rapidity
and fierceness. I dared not utter a word, lest I
should commit a new error, worse than that into
which I had just fallen. After a short but severe
struggle to continue the conversation, Mr. Falkland
began with trepidation, but afterward became
calmer:-
“You are not candid, Alexander—you must
learn more clemency—Alexander, I say, does not
deserve this rigour. Do you remember his tears,
his remorse, his determined abstinence from food,
which he could scarcely be persuaded to relinquish :
Did not that prove acute feeling and a rooted prin-
ciple of equity ?—Well, well, Alexander was a true
and judicious lover of mankind, and his real merits
have been little comprehended.”
I know not how to make the state of my mind at
that moment accurately understood. When one
idea has got possession of the soul, it is scarcely
possible to keep it from finding its way to the lips.
Error, once committed, has a fascinating power, like
that ascribed to the eyes of the rattlesnake, to draw
us into a second error. It deprives us of that proud
confidence in our own strength, to which we are
indebted for so much of our virtue. Curiosity is a
restless propensity, and often does but hurry us
forward the more irresistibly, the greater is the .
danger that attends its indulgence.
“Clitus,” said I, “was a man of very coarse and
provoking manners, was he not ?”
Mr. Falkland felt the full force of this appeal.
He gave me a penetrating look, as if he would see
my very soul. His eyes were then in an instant


176 CALEB WILLIAMS.
withdrawn. I could perceive him seized with a con-
vulsive shuddering, which, though strongly counter-
acted, and therefore scarcely visible, had I know not
what of terrible in it. He left his employment,
strode about the room in anger, his visage gradually
assumed an expression as of supernatural barbarity,
he quitted the apartment abruptly, and flung the
door with a violence that seemed to shake the house.
“Is this,” said I, “the fruit of conscious guilt, or
of the disgust that a man of honour conceives at
guilt undeservedly imputed?”
CHAPTER XIV.
THE reader will feel how rapidly I was advancing
to the brink of the precipice. I had a confused ap-
prehension of what I was doing, but I could not stop
myself. “Is it possible,” said I, “that Mr. Falk-
land, who is thus overwhelmed with a sense of the
unmerited dishonour that has been fastened upon
him in the face of the world, will long endure the
presence of a raw and unfriended youth, who is per-
petually bringing back that dishonour to his recollec-
tion, and who seems himself the most forward to
entertain the accusation ?”
I felt indeed that Mr. Falkland would not hastily
incline to dismiss me, for the same reason that re-
strained him from many other actions, which might
seem to savour of a too tender and ambiguous sensi-
bility. But this reflection was little adapted to
comfort me. That he should cherish in his heart a
growing hatred against me, and that he should think
*:
*


CALEB WILLIAMS, 177
himself obliged to retain me a continual thorn in his
side, was an idea by no means of favourable augury
to my future peace.
It was some time after this that, in clearing out a
case of drawers, I found a paper that, by some acci-
dent, had slipped behind one of the drawers, and
been overlooked. At another time, perhaps, my
curiosity might have given way to the laws of
decorum, and I should have restored it unopened to
my master, its owner. But my eagerness for infor-
mation had been too much stimulated by the pre-
ceding incidents, to allow me at present to neglect
any occasion of obtaining it. The paper proved to
be a letter written by the elder Hawkins, and from its
contents seemed to have been penned when he had
first been upon the point of absconding from the per-
secutions of Mr. Tyrrel. It was as follows:—
“Honourable Sir,
“I have waited some time in daily hope of your
honour's return into these parts. Old Warnes and
his dame, who are left to take care of your house,
tell me they cannot say when that will be, nor justly
in what part of England you are at present. For
my share, misfortune comes so thick upon me, that
I must determine upon something (that is for
certain), and out of hand. Our squire, who I must
own at first used me kindly enough, though I am
afraid that was partly out of spite to Squire Under-
wood, has since determined to be the ruin of me.
Sir, I have been no craven; I fought it up stoutly;
for after all, you know, God bless your honour! it
is but a man to a man; but he has been too much
for me.
“Perhaps if I were to ride over to the market-
town and inquire of Munsle, your lawyer, he could
tell me how to direct to #: But having hoped and
3


178 CALEB WILLIAMS.
waited o' this fashion, and all in vain, has put me
upon other thoughts. I was in no hurry, sir, to
apply to you; for I do not love to be a trouble to
anybody. I kept that for my last stake. Well,
sir, and now that has failed me like, I am ashamed,
as it were, to have thought of it. Have not I,
thinks I, arms and legs as well as other people?
I am driven out of house and home. Well, and
what then : Sure I arn’t a cabbage, that if you
pull it out of the ground it must die. I am penni-
less. True; and how many hundreds are there
that live from hand to mouth all the days of their
life? (Begging your honour's pardon) thinks I, if
we little folks had but the wit to do for ourselves,
the great folks would not be such maggoty change-
lings as they are. They would begin to look about
them. -
“But there is another thing that has swayed with
me more than all the rest. I do not know how to
tell you, sir, my poor boy, my Leonard, the pride
of my life, has been three weeks in the county jail.
It is true indeed, sir. Squire Tyrrel put him there.
Now, sir, every time that I lay my head upon my
pillow under my own little roof, my heartsmites me
with the situation of my Leonard. I do not mean
so much for the hardship; I do not so much matter
that. I do not expect him to go through the world
upon velvet; I am not such a fool. But who can
tell what may hap in a jail! I have been three
times to see him; and there is one man in the same
quarter of the prison that looks so wicked! I do
not much fancy the looks of the rest. To be sure,
Leonard is as good a lad as ever lived. I think he
will not give his mind to such. But come what will,
I am determined he shall not stay among them
twelve hours longer. I am an obstinate old fool
perhaps; but I have taken it into my head, and I


CALEB WILLIAMS. 179
will do it. Do not ask me what. But if I were to
write to your honour, and wait for your answer, it
might take a week or ten days more. I must not
think of it!
‘Squire Tyrrel is very headstrong, and you, your
honour, might be a little hottish, or so. No, I
would not have anybody quarrel for me. There
has been mischief enough done already; and I will
get myself out of the way. So I write this, your
honour, merely to unload my mind. I feel myself
equally as much bound to respect and love you as
if you had done every thing for me, that I believe
you would have done if things had chanced dif-
ferently. It is most likely you will never hear of
me any more. If it should be so, set your worthy
heart at rest. I know myself too well ever to be
tempted to do any thing that is really bad. I have
now my fortune to seek in the world. I have been
used ill enough, God knows. But I bear no malice;
my heart is at peace with all mankind; and I forgive
everybody. It is like enough that poor Leonard
and I may have hardship enough to undergo among
strangers, and being obliged to hide ourselves like
housebreakers or highwaymen. But I defy all the
malice of fortune to make us do an ill thing. That
consolation we will always keep against all the
crosses of a heart-breaking world.
“God bless you!
“So prays,
“Your honour's humble servant to command,
“BENJAMIN HAwkINs.”
I read this letter with considerable attention, and
it occasioned me many reflections. To my way of
thinking it contained a very interesting picture of a
blunt, downright, honest mind. “It is a melancholy
consideration,” said I to myself; “but such is man!


180 CALEB WILLIAMS.
To have judged from appearances one would have
said, this is a fellow to have taken fortune's buffets
and rewards with an incorruptible mind. And yet
see where it all ends ! This man was capable of
afterward becoming a murderer, and finished his
life at the gallows. O poverty thou art indeed
omnipotent! Thou grindest us into desperation;
thou confoundest all our boasted and most deep-
rooted principles; thou fillest us to the very brim
with malice and revenge, and renderest us capable
of acts of unknown horror 1 May I never be visited
by thee in the fulness of thy power!”
Having satisfied my curiosity with respect to this
paper, I took care to dispose of it in such a manner
as that it should be found by Mr. Falkland; at the
same time that, in obedience to the principle which
at present governed me with absolute dominion, I
was willing that the way in which it offered itself to
his attention should suggest to him the idea that it
had possibly passed through my hands. The next
morning I saw him, and I exerted myself to lead the
conversation, which by this time I well knew how
to introduce, by insensible degrees to the point I
desired. After several previous questions, remarks,
and rejoinders, I continued:—
“Well, sir, after all, I cannot help feeling very
uncomfortably as to my ideas of human nature,
when I find that there is no dependence to be placed
upon its perseverance, and that, at least among the
illiterate, the most promising appearances may end
in the foulest disgrace.”
“You think, then, that literature and a cultivated
mind are the only assurance from the constancy of
our principles 1"
“Humph!—why, do you suppose, sir, that learn-
ing and ingenuity do not often serve people rather to
hide their crimes than to restrain them from com-
ſ


CALEB WILLIAMS, 181
-
º
mitting them? History tells us strange things in
that respect.”
“Williams,” said Mr. Falkland, a little disturbed,
“you are extremely given to censure and severity.”
“I hope not. I am sure I am most fond of
looking on the other side of the picture, and con-
sidering how many men have been aspersed, and
even at some time or other almost torn to pieces by
their fellow-creatures, whom, when properly under-
stood, we find worthy of our reverence and love.”
“Indeed,” replied Mr. Falkland, with a sigh,
“when I consider these things I do not wonder at
the dying exclamation of Brutus, “O Virtue, I sought
thee as a substance, but I find thee an empty name !’
I am too much inclined to be of his opinion.”
“Why, to be sure, sir, innocence and guilt are
too much confounded in human life. I remember
an affecting story of a poor man in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, who would have infallibly been
hanged for murder upon the strength of circum-
stantial evidence, if the person really concerned had
not been himself upon the jury and prevented it.”
In saying this I touched the spring that wakened
madness in his mind. He came up to me with a
ferocious countenance, as if determined to force me
into a confession of my thoughts. A sudden pang,
however, seemed to change his designſ he drew
back with trepidation, and exclaimed, “Detested be
the universe, and the laws that govern it! Honour,
justice, virtue, are all the juggle of knaves | If it
were in my power I would instantly crush the whole
system into nothing!”
I replied, “Oh, sir! things are not so bad as
you imagine. The world was made for men of
sense to do what they will with. Its affairs cannot
be better than in the direction of the genuine heroes;
and as in the end they will be found the truest


182 CALEB WILLIAMS,
friends of the whole, so the multitude have nothing
to do but to look on, be fashioned, and admire.”
Mr. Falkland made a powerful effort to recover
his tranquillity. “Williams,” said he, “you instruct
me well. You have a right notion of things, and I
have great hopes of you. I will be more of a man;
I will forget the past, and do better for the time to
come. The future, the future is always our own.”
“I am sorry, sir, that I have given you pain.
I am afraid to say all that I think. But it is my
opinion that mistakes will ultimately be cleared up,
justice done, and the true state of things come to
light, in spite of the false colours that may for a
time obscure it.”
The idea I suggested did not give Mr. Falkland
the proper degree of delight. He suffered a tem-
porary relapse. “Justice!”—he muttered. “I do
not know what is justice. My case is not within
the reach of common remedies; perhaps of none.
I only know that I am miserable. I began life with
the best intentions and the most fervid philanthropy;
and here I am—miserable—miserable beyond ex
pression or endurance.”
Having said this, he seemed suddenly to recol-
lect himself, and reassumed his accustomed dig-
nity and command. “How came this conversa-
tion?” cried he. “Who gave you a right to be my
confidant? Base, artful wretch that you are l learn
to be more respectfull Are my passions to be
wound and unwound by an insolent domestic 3
Do you think I will be an instrument to be played
on at your pleasure, till you have extorted all the
treasures of my soul? Begone, and fear lest you
be made to pay for the temerity you have already
committed "
There was an energy and determination in the
gestures with which these words were accompanied,


CALEB williams. 183
that did not admit of their being disputed. ... My
mouth was closed; I felt as if deprived of all share
of activity, and was only able silently and passively
to quit the apartment.
CHAPTER XV.
Two days subsequent to this conversation, Mr.
Falkland ordered me to be called to him. [I shall
continue to speak in my narrative of the silent as
well as the articulate part of the intercourse be-
tween us. His countenance was habitually ani-
mated and expressive, much beyond that of any
other man I have seen. The curiosity which, as
I have said, constituted my ruling passion, stimu-
lated me to make it my perpetual study. It will
also most probably happen, while I am thus em-
ployed in collecting the scattered incidents of my
history, that I shall upon some occasions annex to
appearances an explanation which I was far from
possessing at the time, and was only suggested to
me through the medium of subsequent events.]
When I entered the apartment, I remarked in Mr.
Falkland's countenance an unwonted composure.
This composure, however, did not seem to result
from internal ease, but from an effort which, while
he prepared himself for an interesting scene, was
exerted to prevent his presence of mind, and power
of voluntary action, from suffering any diminution.
“Williams,” said he, “I am determined, what-
ever it may cost me, to have an explanation with
you. You are a rash and inconsiderate boy, and
have given me much disturbance. You ought to


184 CALEB WILLIAMS,
have known, that though I allow you to talk with
me upon indifferent subjects, it is very improper in
you to lead the conversation to any thing that re-
lates to my personal concerns. You have said
many things lately in a very mysterious way, and
appear to know something more than I am aware
of. I am equally at a loss to guess how you came
by your knowledge, as of what it consists. But I
think I perceive too much inclination on your part
to trifle with my peace of mind. That ought not
to be, nor have I deserved any such treatment from
you. But, be that as it will, the guesses in which
you oblige me to employ myself are too painful. It
is a sort of sporting with my feelings, which, as a
man of resolution, I am determined to bring to an
end. I expect you, therefore, to lay aside all mys-
tery and equivocation, and inform me explicitly
what it is upon which your allusions are built.
What is it you know? What is it you want? I
have been too much exposed already to unparalleled
mortification and hardship, and my wounds will not
bear this perpetual tampering.”
“I feel, sir,” answered I, “how wrong I have
been, and am ashamed that such a one as I should
have given you all this trouble and displeasure. I
felt it at the time; but I have been hurried along,
I do not know how. I have always tried to stop
myself, but the demon that possessed me was too
strong for me. I know nothing, sir, but what Mr.
Collins told me. He told me the story of Mr.
Tyrrel and Miss Melville and Hawkins. I am
sure, sir, he said nothing but what was to your
honour, and proved you to be more an angel than a
man.”
“Well, sir; I found a letter written by that Haw-
kins the other day; did not that letter fall into
your hands? Did not you read it?”


CALEB WHLLIAMS. 185
“For God's sake, sir, turn me out of your house.
Punish me in some way or other, that I may for-
give myself. I am a foolish, wicked, despicable
wretch. I confess, sir, I did read the letter.”
“And how dared you read it? It was indeed
very wrong of you. But we will talk of that by-
and-by. Well, and what did you say to the letter?
You know, it seems, that Hawkins was hanged.”
“I say, sir? why it went to my heart to read it. I
say as I said the day before yesterday, that when I
see a manofso much principle afterward deliberately
proceeding to the very worst of crimes, I can scarcely
bear to think of it.” *
“That is what you say? It seems, too, you know
—accursed remembrance —that I was accused of
this crime?”
I was silent.
“Well, sir. You know, too, perhaps, that from
the hour the crime was committed—yes, sir, that
was the date [and as he said this, there was some-
what frightful, I had almost said diabolical, in his
countenance]—I have not had an hour's peace; I
became changed from the happiest to the most
miserable thing that lives; sleep has fled from my
eyes; joy has been a stranger to my thoughts; and
annihilation I should prefer a thousand times to the
being that I am. As soon as I was capable of a
choice, I chose honour and the esteem of mankind
as a good I preferred to all others. You know, it
seems, in how many ways my ambition has been
disappointed,—I do not thank Collins for having
been the historian of my disgrace,—would to God
that night could be blotted from the memory of
man!—But the scene of that night, instead of perish-
ing, has been a source of ever new calamity to me,
which must flow for ever! Am I then, thus mise-
rable and ruined, a proper subject upon which for


186 CALEB WILLIAMS.
you to exercise your ingenuity, and improve your
power of tormenting? Was it not enough that I
was publicly dishonoured? that I was deprived, by
the pestilential influence of some demon, of the op-
portunity of avenging my dishonour? No: in ad-
dition to this, I have been charged with having in
this critical moment intercepted my own vengeance
by the foulest of crimes. That trial is past. Misery
itself has nothing worse in store for me, except
what you have inflicted; the seeming to doubt of
my innocence, which, after the fullest and most
solemn examination, has been completely estab-
lished. You have forced me to this explanation.
You have extorted from me a confidence which I
had no inclination to make. But it is a part of the
misery of my situation that I am at the mercy of
every creature, however little, who feels himself in-
clined to sport with my distress. Be content. You
have brought me low enough.” -
“Oh, sir, I am not content; I cannot be content!
I cannot bear to think what I have done. I shall
never again be able to look in the face of the best
of masters and the best of men. I beg of you, sir,
to turn me out of your service. Let me go and hide
myself where I may never see you more.”
Mr. Falkland's countenance had indicated great
severity through the whole of this conversation; but
now it became more harsh and tempestuous than
ever. “How now, rascal!” cried he; “you want
to leave me, do you? Who told you that I wished
to part with you? But you cannot bear to live with
such a miserable wretch as I am You are not dis-
posed to put up with the caprices of a man so dis-
satisfied and unjust 1”
“Oh, sir, do not talk to me thus ! Do with me
any thing you will. Kill me, if you please.”
“Kill you!” [Volumes could not describe the


CALEB WILLIAMS. 187
emotions with which this echo of my words was
given and received.]
“Sir, I could die to serve you! I love you more
than I can express. I worship you as a being of
a superior nature. I am foolish, raw, inexperienced,
—worse than any of these;—but never did a thought
of disloyalty to your service enter into my heart.”
Here our conversation ended; and the impres-
sion it made upon my youthful mind it is impos-
sible to describe. I thought with astonishment,
even with rapture, of the attention and kindness to-
wards me I discovered in Mr. Falkland, through all
the roughness of his manner. I could never enough
wonder at finding myself, humble as I was by my
birth, obscure as I had hitherto been, thus suddenly
become of so much importance to the happiness of
one of the most enlightened and accomplished men
in England. But this consciousness attached me
to my patron more eagerly than ever, and made me
swear a thousand times, as I meditated upon my
situation, that I would never prove unworthy of so
generous a protector.
CHAPTER XVI.
Is it not unaccountable, that in the midst of all my
increased veneration for my patron, the first tumult
of my emotion was scarcely subsided, before the
old question that had excited my conjectures re-
curred to my mind, Was he the murderer? It was
a kind of fatal impulse, that seemed destined to
hurry me to my destruction. I did not wonder at
the disturbance that was iven to Mr. Falkland by


188 CALEB WILLIAMS,
any allusion, however distant, to this fatal affair.
That was as completely accounted for from the
consideration of his excessive sensibility in matters
of honour, as it would have been upon the suppo-
sition of the most atrocious guilt. Knowing, as he
did, that such a charge had once been connected
with his name, he would of course be perpetually
uneasy, and suspect some latent insinuation at every
possible opportunity. He would doubt and fear,
lest every man with whom he conversed harboured
the foulest suspicion against him. In my case he
found that I was in possession of some information,
more than he was aware of, without its being pos-
sible for him to decide to what it amounted,—whe-
ther I had heard a just or unjust, a candid or ca-
lumniatory tale. He had also reason to suppose
that I gave entertainment to thoughts derogatory to
his honour, and that I did not form that favourable
judgment which the exquisite refinement of his
ruling passion made indispensable to his peace.
All these considerations would of course maintain
in him a state of perpetual uneasiness. But though
I could find nothing that I could consider as justi-
fying me in persisting in the shadow of a doubt,
yet, as I have said, the uncertainty and restlessness
of my contemplations would by no means depart
from me.
The fluctuating state of my mind produced a
contention of opposite principles, that by turns
usurped dominion over my conduct. Sometimes I
was influenced by the most complete veneration
for my master; I placed an unreserved confidence
in his integrity and his virtue, and implicitly sur-
rendered my understanding for him to set it to
what point he pleased. At other times the confi-
dence which had before flowed with the most plen-
teous tide began to ebb; I was, as I had already
s


CALEB WILLIAMS, 189
been, watchful, inquisitive, suspicious, full of a
thousand conjectures as to the meaning of the most
indifferent actions. Mr. Falkland, who was most
painfully alive to every thing that related to his
honour, saw these variations, and betrayed his con-
sciousness of them now in one manner, and now
in another, frequently before I was myself aware,
sometimes almost before they existed. The situa-
tion of both was distressing; we were each of us
a plague to the other; and I often wondered that
the forbearance and benignity of my master was
not at length exhausted, and that he did not deter-
mine to thrust from him for ever so incessant an
observer. There was indeed one eminent differ-
ence between his share in the transaction and mine.
I had some consolation in the midst of my restless-
ness. Curiosity is a principle that carries its plea-
sures, as well as its pains, along with it. The
mind is urged by a perpetual stimulus; it seems
as if it were continually approaching to the end of
its race; and as the insatiable desire of satisfac-
tion is its principle of conduct, so it promises itself
in that satisfaction an unknown gratification, which
seems as if it were capable of fully compensating
any injuries that may be suffered in the career.
But to Mr. Falkland there was no consolation.
What he endured in the intercourse between us ap-
peared to be gratuitous evil. He had only to wish
that there was no such person as myself in the
world, and to curse the hour when his humanity
led him to rescue me from my obscurity, and place
me in his service.
A consequence produced upon me by the extra-
ordinary nature of my situation it is necessary to
mention. The constant state of vigilance and sus-
picion in which my mind was retained, worked a
very rapid change in my character. It seemed to


CALEB WILLIAMS, 191
way to my ruin. While I recollect or describe past
scenes, which occurred in a more favourable period
of my life, my attention is called off for a short
interval from the hopeless misfortune in which I am
at present involved. The man must indeed possess
an uncommon portion of hardness of heart, who
can envy me so slight a relief—To proceed.
For some time after the explanation which had
thus taken place between me and Mr. Falkland, his
melancholy, instead of being in the slightest degree
diminished by the lenient hand of time, went on
perpetually to increase. His fits of insanity—for
such I must denominate them for want of a distinct
appellation, though it is possible they might not fall
under the definition that either the faculty or the
court of chancery appropriate to the term—became
stronger and more durable than ever. It was no
longer practicable wholly to conceal them from the
family, and even from the neighbourhood. He
would sometimes, without any previous notice,
absent himself from his house for two or three days,
unaccompanied by servant or attendant. This was
the more extraordinary, as it is well known that he
paid no visits, nor kept up any sort of intercourse
with the gentlemen of the vicinity. But it was im-
possible that a man of Mr. Falkland's distinction
and fortune should long continue in such a practice
without its being discovered what was become of
him ; though a considerable part of our county was
among the wildest and most desolate districts that
are to be found in South Britain. Mr. Falkland was
sometimes seen climbing among the rocks, reclining
motionless for hours together upon the edge of a
precipice, or lulled into a kind of nameless lethargy
of despair by the dashing of the torrents. He
would remain for whole nights together under the
naked cope of heaven, inattentive to the considera-


192 cALEB williams.
tion either of place or time; insensible to the varia-
tions of the weather, or rather seeming to be de-
lighted with that uproar of the elements which par-
tially called off his attention from the discord and
dejection that occupied his own mind.
At first, when we received intelligence at any time
of the place to which Mr. Falkland had withdrawn
himself, some person of his household, Mr. Collins
or myself, but most generally myself, as I was
always at home, and always, in the received sense
of the word, at leisure, went to him to persuade him
to return. But, after a few experiments, we thought
it advisable to desist, and leave him to prolong his
absence, or to terminate it, as might happen to suit
his own inclination. Mr. Collins, whose gray hairs
and long services seemed to give him a sort of
right to be importunate, sometimes succeeded;
though even in that case there was nothing that could
sit more uneasily upon Mr. Falkland than this
insinuation as if he wanted a guardian to take care
of him, or as if he were in, or in danger of falling
into, a state in which he would be incapable of de-
liberately controlling his own words and actions.
At one time he would suddenly yield to his humble
venerable friend, murmuring grievously at the con-
straint that was put upon him, but without spirit
enough even to complain of it with energy. At
another time, even though complying, he would sud-
denly burst out in a paroxysm of resentment.
Upon these occasions there was something incon-
ceivably, savagely terrible in his anger, that gave to
the person against whom it was directed the most
humiliating and insupportable sensations. Me he
always treated, at these times, with fierceness, and
drove me from him with a vehemence lofty, em-
F. and sustained, beyond any thing of which
should have thought human nature to be capable.


CALEB WILLIAMS. 193
These sallies seemed always to constitute a sort of
crisis in his indisposition; and whenever he was
induced to such a premature return, he would fall
immediately after into a state of the most melancholy
inactivity, in which he usually continued for two or
three days. It was by an obstinate fatality, that
whenever I saw Mr. Falkland in these deplorable
situations, and particularly when I lighted upon him
after having sought him among the rocks and preci-
pices, pale, emaciated, solitary, and haggard, the
suggestion would continually recur to me, in spite
of inclination, in spite of persuasion, and in spite
of evidence, Surely this man is a murderer!
CHAPTER XVII.
It was in one of the lucid intervals, as I may
term them, that occurred during this period, that a
peasant was brought before him, in his character of
a justice of peace, upon an accusation of having
murdered his fellow. As Mr. Falkland had by this
time acquired the repute of a melancholy valetudi-
narian, it is probable he would not have been called
upon to act in his official character upon the present
occasion, had it not been that two or three of the
neighbouring justices were all of them from home
at once, so that he was the only one to be found in a
circuit of many miles. The reader, however, must
not imagine, though I have employed the word
insanity in describing Mr. Falkland's symptoms,
that he was by any means reckoned for a madman
by the generality of those who had occasion to
observe him. It is true that his behaviour, at
Vol. I.-I


194 CALEB WILLIAMS,
certain times, was singular and unaccountable; but
then, at other times, there was in it so much dignity,
regularity, and economy; he knew so well how to
command and make himself respected; his actions
and carriage were so condescending, considerate and
benevolent, that, far from having forfeited the esteem
of the unfortunate or the many, they were loud and
carnest in his praises.
I was present at the examination of this peasant.
The moment I heard of the errand which had
brought this rabble of visiters, a sudden thought
struck me. I conceived the possibility of rendering
the incident subordinate to the great inquiry which
drank up all the currents of my soul. I said, this
man is arraigned of murder, and murder is the
master-key that wakes distemper in the mind of
Mr. Falkland. I will watch him without remission,
I will trace all the mazes of his thought. Surely,
at such a time his secret anguish must betray itself.
Surely, if it be not my own fault, I shall now be
able to discover the state of his plea before the
tribunal of unerring justice.
I took my station in a manner most favourable to
the object upon which my mind was intent. I could
perceive in Mr. Falkland's features, as he entered,
a strong reluctance to the business in which he was
engaged; but there was no possibility of retreating.
His countenance was embarrassed and anxious;
he scarcely saw anybody. The examination had
not proceeded far before he chanced to turn his eye
to the part of the room where I was. It happened
in this as in some preceding instances—we ex-
changed a silent look, by which we told volumes to
each other. Mr. Falkland's complexion turned from
red to pale and from pale to red. I perfectly under-
stood his feelings, and would willingly have with-
drawn myself. But it was impossible; my passions
r


CALEB WILLIAMS, 197
|
*
The young woman was considerably terrified. The
accused expostulated with their persecutor, and
asked him how he could be so barbarous as to per-
sist in frightening a woman? He replied, with an
insulting tone, “Then the woman should find some
one able to protect her; people that encouraged and
trusted to such a thief as that, deserved no better ‘’”
The accused tried every expedient he could invent;
at length he could endure it no longer; he became
exasperated, and challenged the assailant. The
challenge was accepted; a ring was formed; he
confided the care of his sweetheart to a bystander;
and, unfortunately, the first blow he struck proved
fatal.
The accused added, that he did not care what be-
came of him. He had been anxious to go through
the world in an inoffensive manner, and now he had
the guilt of blood upon him. He did not know but
it would be kindness in them to hang him out of the
way; for his conscience would reproach him as
long as he lived, and the figure of the deceased, as
he had lain senseless and without motion at his feet,
would perpetually haunt him. The thought of this
man, at one moment full of life and vigour, and the
next lifted a helpless corpse from the ground, and
all owing to him, was a thought too dreadful to be
endured. He had loved the poor maiden who had
been the innocent occasion of this with all his
heart; but from this time he should never support
the sight of her. The sight would bring a tribe of
fiends in its rear. One unlucky minute had poi-
soned all his hopes, and made life a burden to him.
Saying this, his countenance fell, the muscles of
his face trembled with agony, and he looked the
statue of despair.
This was the story of which Mr. Falkland was
called upon to be the auditor. Though the incidents


198 CALEB WILLIAMS.
were, for the most part, wide of those which be-
longed to the adventures of the preceding chapters
and there had been much less policy and skill dis-
played on either part in this rustic encounter, yet
there were many points which, to a man who bore
the former strongly in his recollection, suggested a
sufficient resemblance. In each case it was a
human brute persisting in a course of hostility to a
man of benevolent character, and suddenly and
terribly cut off in the midst of his career. These
points perpetually smote upon the heart of Mr.
Falkland. He at one time started with astonish-
ment, and at another shifted his posture, like a man
who is unable longer to endure the sensations that
press upon him. Then he new strung his nerves
to stubborn patience. I could see, while his
muscles preserved an inflexible steadiness, tears of
anguish roll down his cheeks. He dared not trust
his eyes to glance towards the side of the room
where I stood; and this gave an air of embarrass-
ment to his whole figure. But when the accused
came to speak of his feelings, to describe the depth
of his compunction for an involuntary fault, he could
endure it no longer. He suddenly rose, and with
every mark of horror and despair rushed out of the
room.
This circumstance made no material difference in
the affair of the accused. The parties were detained
about half an hour. Mr. Falkland had already heard
the material parts of the evidence in person. At the
expiration of that interval he sent for Mr. Collins
out of the room. The story of the culprit was con-
firmed by many witnesses who had seen the trans-
action. Word was brought that my master was
indisposed; and, at the same time, the accused was
ordered to be discharged. The vengeance of the
brother, however, as I afterward found, did not rest


CALEB WILLIAMS. 199
here, and he met with a magistrate, more scrupulous
or more despotic, by whom the culprit was committed
for trial.
This affair was no sooner concluded, than I hast-
ened into the garden, and plunged into the deepest of
its thickets. My mind was full, almost to bursting.
I no sooner conceived myself sufficiently removed
from all observation, than my thoughts forced their
way spontaneously to my tongue, and I exclaimed, in
a fit of uncontrollable enthusiasm, “This is the mur-
derer; the Hawkinses were innocent 1 I am sure
of it! I will pledge my life for it! It is out! It
is discovered Guilty, upon my soul!”
While I thus proceeded with hasty steps along
the most secret paths of the garden, and from time
to time gave vent to the tumult of my thoughts in
involuntary exclamations, I felt as if my animal sys-
tem had undergone a total revolution. My blood
boiled within me. I was conscious to a kind of
rapture for which I could not account. I was sol-
emn, yet full of rapid emotion, burning with indigna-
tion and energy. In the very tempest and hurricane
of the passions, I seemed to enjoy the most soul-
ravishing calm. I cannot better express the then
state of my mind than by saying, I was never so
perfectly alive as at that moment.
This state of mental elevation continued for seve-
ral hours, but at length subsided, and gave place to
more deliberate reflection. One of the first ques-
tions that then occurred was, what shall I do with
the knowledge I have been so eager to acquire 3 I
had no inclination to turn informer. I felt what I
had had no previous conception of, that it was possi-
ble to love a murderer, and, as I then understood it,
the worst of murderers. I conceived it to be in the
highest degree absurd and iniquitous, to cut off a man
qualified for the most essential and extensive utility,


200 CALEB WILLIAMS.
merely out of retrospect to an act which, whatever
were its merits, could not be retrieved.
This thought led me to another, which had at
first passed unnoticed. If I had been disposed to
turn informer, what had occurred amounted to no
evidence that was admissible in a court of justice.
Well then, added I, if it be such as would not be
admitted at a criminal tribunal, am I sure it is such
as I ought to admit? There were twenty persons
besides myself present at the scene from which I
pretend to derive such entire conviction. Not one
of them saw it in the light that I did. It either ap-
peared to them a casual and unimportant circum-
stance, or they thought it sufficiently accounted for
by Mr. Falkland's infirmity and misfortunes. Did
it really contain such an extent of arguments and
application, that nobody but I was discerning enough
to see ?
But all this reasoning produced no alteration in
my way of thinking. For this time I could not get
it out of my mind for a moment: “Mr. Falkland is
the murderer! He is guilty I see it ! I feel
it ! I am sure of it!” Thus was I hurried along
by an uncontrollable destiny. The state of my pas-
sions in their progressive career, the inquisitiveness
and impatience of my thoughts, appeared to make
this determination unavoidable.
An incident occurred while I was in the garden
that seemed to make no impression upon me at the
time, but which I recollected when my thoughts
were got into somewhat of a slower motion. In the
midst of one of my paroxysms of exclamation, and
when I thought myself most alone, the shadow of a
man as avoiding me passed transiently by me at a
small distance. Though I had scarcely caught a
faint glimpse of his person, there was something in
*...* the occurrence that persuaded me it was Mr. Falk-
* tº
'a-


CALEB WILLIAMS. 201
land. I shuddered at the possibility of his having
overheard the words of my soliloquy. But this
idea, alarming as it was, had not power immediately
to suspend the career of my reflections. Subse-
quent circumstances, however, brought back the ap-
prehension to my mind. I had scarcely a doubt of
its reality, when dinner-time came, and Mr. Falk-
land was not to be found. Supper and bedtime
passed in the same manner. The only conclusion
made by his servants upon this circumstance was,
that he was gone upon one of his accustomed mel-
ancholy rambles.
CHAPTER XVIII,
THE period at which my story is now arrived,
seemed as if it were the very crisis of the fortune
of Mr. Falkland. Incident followed upon incident,
in a kind of breathless succession. About nine
o'clock the next morning an alarm was given that
one of the chimneys of the house was on fire. No
accident could be apparently more trivial; but pres-
ently it blazed with such fury as to make it clear
that some beam of the house, which in the first build-
ing had been improperly placed, had been reached
by the flames. Some danger was apprehended for
the whole edifice. The confusion was the greater,
in consequence of the absence of the master, as well
as of Mr. Collins, the steward. While some of the
domestics were employed in endeavouring to extin-
guish the flames, it was thought proper that others
should busy themselves in removing the most valu-
able moveables to a º in the garden. I took
3


202 CALEB WILLIAMS,
º
some command in the affair, to which indeed my
station in the family seemed to entitle me, and for
which I was judged qualified by my understanding
and mental resources.
Having given some general directions, I con-
ceived that it was not enough to stand by and super-
intend, but that I should contribute my personal
labour in the public concern. I set out for that pur-
pose; and my steps, by some mysterious fatality,
were directed to the private apartment at the end of
the library. Here, as I looked round, my eye was
suddenly caught by the trunk mentioned in the first
pages of my narrative.
My mind was already raised to its utmost pitch.
In a window-seat of the room lay a number of chis-
els and other carpenter's tools. I know not what
infatuation instantaneously seized me. The idea
was too powerful to be resisted. I forgot the busi-
ness upon which I came, the employment of the
servants, and the urgency of general danger. I
should have done the same if the flames that seemed
to extend as they proceeded, and already surmounted
the house, had reached this very apartment. I
snatched a tool suitable for the purpose, threw my-
self upon the ground, and applied with eagerness to
a magazine which enclosed all for which my heart
panted. After two or three efforts, in which the
energy of uncontrollable passion was added to my
bodily strength, the fastenings gave way, the trunk
opened, and all that I sought was at once within
my reach.
I was in the act of lifting up the lid, when Mr.
Falkland entered, wild, breathless, distracted in his
looks! He had been brought home from a considera-
ble distance by the sight of the flames. At the mo-
ment of his appearance the lid dropped down from
my hand. He no sooner saw me than his eyes.


CALEB WILLIAMS, 203
i
emitted sparks of rage. He ran with eagerness to
a brace of loaded pistols which hung in the room,
and, seizing one, presented it to my head. I saw
his design, and sprang to avoid it; but, with the
same rapidity with which he had formed his resolu-
tion, he changed it, and instantly went to the win-
dow, and flung the pistol into the court below. He
bade me begone with his usual irresistible energy;
and, overcome as I was already by the horror of
the detection, I eagerly complied.
A moment after, a considerable part of the chim-
ney tumbled with noise into the court below, and a
voice exclaimed that the fire was more violent than
ever. These circumstances seemed to produce a
mechanical effect upon my patron, who, having first
locked the closet, appeared on the outside of the
house, ascended the roof, and was in a moment in
every place where his presence was required. The
flames were at length extinguished.
The reader can with difficulty form a conception
of the state to which I was now reduced. My act
was in some sort an act of insanity; but how
indescribable are the feelings with which I looked
back upon it! It was an instantaneous impulse, a
short-lived and passing alienation of mind; but
what must Mr. Falkland think of that alienation ?
To any man a person who had once shown himself
capable of so wild a flight of the mind must ap-
ear dangerous: how must he appear to a man
under Mr. Falkland's circumstances? I had just
had a pistol held to my head by a man resolved to
put a period to my existence. That indeed was
past; but what was it that fate had yet in reserve
for me? The insatiable vengeance of a Falkland,
of a man whose hands were, to my apprehension,
red with blood, and his thoughts familiar with cruelty
and murder. How great were the resources of his


204 CALEB WILLIAMS,
mind, resources henceforth to be confederated for
my destruction' This was the termination of an
ungoverned curiosity, an impulse that I had repre-
sented to myself as so innocent or so venial.
In the high tide of boiling passion I had over-
looked all consequences. It now appeared to me
like a dream. Is it in man to leap from the high-
raised precipice, or rush unconcerned into the midst
of flames : Was it possible I could have forgotten
for a moment the awe-creating manners of Falk-
land, and the inexorable fury I should awake in his
soul? No thought of future security had reached
my mind. I had acted upon no plan. I had con-
ceived no means of concealing my deed after it had
once been effected. But it was over now. One
short minute had effected a reverse in my situation,
the suddenness of which the history of man, per-
haps, is unable to surpass.
I have always been at a loss to account for my
having plunged thus headlong into an act so mon-
strous. There is something in it of unexplained
and involuntary sympathy. One sentiment flows,
by necessity of nature, into another sentiment of the
same general character. This was the first in-
stance in which I had witnessed a danger by fire.
All was confusion around me, and all changed into
hurricane within. The general situation, to my
unpractised apprehension, appeared desperate, and
I by contagion became alike desperate. At first I
... been in some degree calm and collected, but
that too was a desperate effort; and when it gave
way, a kind of instant insanity became its successor.
I had now every thing to fear. And yet what
was my fault? It proceeded from none of those
errors which are justly held up to the aversion of
mankind; my object had been neither wealth, nor
the means of indulgence, nor the usurpation of


CALEB WILLIAMS, 205
power. No spark of malignity had harboured in
my soul. I had always reverenced the sublime
mind of Mr. Falkland; I reverenced it still. My
offence had merely been a mistaken thirst of know-
ledge. Such, however, it was, as to admit neither
of forgiveness nor remission. This epoch was the
crisis of my fate, dividing what may be called the
offensive part from the defensive, which has been
the sole business of my remaining years. Alas!
my offence was short, not aggravated by any sinis-
ter intention: but the reprisals I was to suffer are
long, and can terminate only with my life'
In the state in which I found myself, when the
recollection of what I had done flowed back upon
my mind, I was incapable of any resolution. All
was chaos and uncertainty within me. My thoughts
were too full of horror to be susceptible of activity.
I felt deserted of my intellectual powers, palsied in
mind, and compelled to sit in speechless expectation
of the misery to which I was destined. To my
own conception I was like a man who, though
blasted with lightning, and deprived for ever of the
power of motion, should yet retain the conscious-
ness of his situation. Death-dealing despair was
the only idea of which I was sensible.
I was still in this situation of mind when Mr.
Falkland sent for me. His message roused me
from my trance. In recovering, I felt those sicken-
ing and loathsome sensations which a man may
be supposed at first to endure who should return
from the sleep of death. Gradually I recovered
the power of arranging my ideas and directing my
steps. I understood that the minute the affair of
the fire was over Mr. Falkland had retired to his
own room. It was evening before he ordered me
to be called.
I found in him every token of extreme distress,


206 CALEB WILLIAMS.
except that there was an air of solemn and sad
composure that crowned the whole. For the pres-
ent, all appearance of gloom, stateliness, and aus-
terity was gone. As I entered he looked up, and,
seeing who it was, ordered me to bolt the door. I
obeyed. He went round the room, and examined
its other avenues. He then returned to where I
stood. I trembled in every joint of my frame. I
exclaimed within myself, “What scene of death has
Roscius now to act?”
“Williams " said he, in a tone which had more
in it of sorrow than resentment, “I have attempted
your life! I am a wretch devoted to the scorn and
execration of mankind " There he stopped.
“If there be one being on the whole earth that
feels the scorn and execration due to such a wretch
more strongly than another, it is myself. I have
been kept in a state of perpetual torture and mad-
ness. But I can put an end to it and its conse-
quences; and, so far at least as relates to you, I
am determined to do it. I know the price, and—I
will make the purchase.
“You must swear,” said he. “You must attest
cvery sacrament, divine and human, never to dis-
close what I am now to tell you.”—He dictated the
oath, and I repeated it with an aching heart. I had
no power to offer a word of remark.
“This confidence,” said he, “is of your seeking,
not of mine. It is odious to me, and is dangerous
to you.” -
Having thus prefaced the disclosure he had to
make, he paused. He seemed to collect himself
as for an effort of magnitude. He wiped his face
with his handkerchief. The moisture that incom-
moded him appeared not to be tears, but sweat.
“Look at me. Observe me. Is it not strange
that such a one as I should retain lineaments of a
* l


CALEB WILLIAM8. 207
!
|
human creature? I am the blackest of villains. I
am the murderer of Tyrrel. I am the assassin of
the Hawkinses.”
I started with terror, and was silent.
“What a story is mine ! Insulted, disgraced,
polluted in the face of hundreds, I was capable of
any act of desperation. I watched my opportunity,
followed Mr. Tyrrel from the rooms, seized a
sharp-pointed knife that fell in my way, came be-
hind him and stabbed him to the heart. My gigan-
tic oppressor rolled at my feet.
“All are but links of one chain. A blow ! A
murder! My next business was to defend myself,
to tell so well-digested a lie as that all mankind
should believe it true. Never was a task so har-
rowing and intolerable !
“Well, thus far fortune favoured me; she fa-
voured me beyond my desire. The guilt was
removed from me, and cast upon another; but this
I was to endure. Whence came the circumstantial
evidence against him, the broken knife and the blood,
I am unable to tell. I suppose, by some miracu-
lous accident, Hawkins was passing by, and en-
deavoured to assist his oppressor in the agonies of
death. You have heard his story; you have read
one of his letters. But you do not know the thou-
sandth part of the proofs of his simple and unal-
terable rectitude that I have known. His son suf-
fered with him; that son for the sake of whose
happiness and virtue he ruined himself, and would
have died a hundred times.—I have had feelings,
but I cannot describe them.
“This it is to be a gentleman' a man of honour!
I was the fool of fame. My virtue, my honesty,
my everlasting peace of mind, were cheap sacri-
fices to be made at the shrine of this divinity. But,
what is worse, there is nothing that has happened


208 CALEB WILLIAMS.
that has in any degree contributed to my cure. I
am as much the fool of fame as ever. I cling to it
to my last breath. Though I be the blackest of
villains, I will leave behind me a spotless and illus-
trious name. There is no crime so malignant, no
scene of blood so horrible, in which that object
cannot engage me. It is no matter that I regard
these things at a distance with aversion;–I am
sure of it; bring me to the test, and I shall yield.
I despise myself, but thus I am; things are gone
too far to be recalled.
“Why is it that I am compelled to this confi-
dence : From the love of fame. I should tremble
at the sight of every pistol or instrument of
death that offered itself to my hands; and perhaps
my next murder may not be so fortunate as those I
have already committed. I had no alternative but
to make you my confidant or my victim. It was
better to trust you with the whole truth under every
seal of secrecy, than to live in perpetual fear of
your penetration or your rashness.
“Do you know what it is you have done? To
gratify a foolishly inquisitive humour, you have
sold yourself. You shall continue in my service,
but can never share my affection. I will benefit
you in respect of fortune, but I shall always hate
you. If ever an unguarded word escape from your
lips, if ever you excite my jealousy or suspicion,
expect to pay for it by your death or worse. It is
a dear bargain you have made. But it is too late
to look back. I charge and adjure you by every
thing that is sacred, and that is tremendous, pre-
serve your faith !
“My tongue has now for the first time for several
years spoken the language of my heart; and the
intercourse from this hour shall be shut for ever.
I want no pity. I desire no consolation. Sur-


CALEB WILLIAMS. 211
But though the terrors which had impressed me
were considerably alleviated, my situation was not-
withstanding sufficiently miserable. The ease and
light-heartedness of my youth were for ever gone.
The voice of an irresistible necessity had com-
manded me to “sleep no more.” I was tormented
with a secret, of which I must never disburthen
myself; and this consciousness was, at my age, a
source of perpetual melancholy. I had made my-
self a prisoner, in the most intolerable sense of that .
term, for years—perhaps for the rest of my life.
Though my prudence and discretion should be inva-
riable, I must remember that I should have an over-
seer, vigilant from conscious guilt, full of resentment
at the unjustifiable means by which I had extorted
from him a confession, and whose lightest caprice
might at any time decide upon every thing that was
dear to me. The vigilance even of a public and
systematical despotism is poor, compared with a
vigilance which is thus goaded by the most anxious
passions of the soul. Against this species of per-
secution I knew not how to invent a refuge. I
dared neither fly from the observation of Mr. Falk-
land, nor continue exposed to its operation. I was
at first indeed lulled in a certain degree to security
upon the verge of the precipice. But it was not
long before I found a thousand circumstances per-
petually reminding me of my true situation. Those
I am now to relate are among the most memorable.


212 CALEB WILLIAMS. -
CHAPTER XIX.
IN no long time after the disclosure Mr. Falkland
had made, Mr. Forester, his elder brother by the
mother's side, came to reside for a short period in
- our family. This was a circumstance peculiarly
adverse to my patron's habits and inclinations. He
had broken off, as I have already said, all inter-
course of visiting with his neighbours. He de-
barred himself every kind of amusement and relaxa-
tion. He shrunk from the society of his fellows,
and thought he could never be sufficiently buried in
obscurity and solitude. This principle was, in
most cases, of no difficult execution to a man of
firmness. But Mr. Falkland knew not how to avoid
the visit of Mr. Forester. This gentleman was
just returned from a residence of several years
upon the Continent; and his demand of an apart-
ment in the house of his half-brother, till his own
house at the distance of thirty miles should be
prepared for his reception, was made with an air
of confidence that scarcely admitted of a refusal.
Mr. Falkland could only allege, that the state of
his health and spirits was such that he feared a
residence at his house would be little agreeable to
his kinsman; and Mr. Forester conceived that this
was a disqualification which would always augment
in proportion as it was tolerated, and hoped that his
society, by inducing Mr. Falkland to suspend his
habits of seclusion, would be the means of essen-
tial benefit. Mr. Falkland opposed him no further.
He would have been sorry to be thought unkind to


* CALEB WILLIAMS, 213
a kinsman for whom he had a particular esteem;
and the consciousness of not daring to assign the
true reason, made him cautious of adhering to his
objection.
The character of Mr. Forester was, in many re-
spects, the reverse of that of my master. His very
appearance indicated the singularity of his disposi-
tion. His figure was short and angular. His eyes
were sunk far into his head, and were overhung
with eyebrows, black, thick, and bushy. His com-
plexion was swarthy, and his lineaments hard. He
had seen much of the world; but, to judge of him
from his appearance and manners, one would have
thought that he had never moved from his fireside.
His temper was acid, petulant, and harsh. He
was easily offended by trifles, respecting which,
previously to the offence, the persons with whom
he had intercourse could have no suspicion of such
a result. When offended, his customary behaviour
was exceedingly rugged. He thought only of set-
ting the delinquent right, and humbling him for his
error; and, in his eagerness to do this, overlooked
the sensibility of the sufferer, and the pains he in-
flicted. Remonstrance in such a case he regarded
as the offspring of cowardice, which was to be ex-
tirpated with a steady and unshrinking hand, and
not soothed with misjudging kindness and indul-
gence. As is usual in human character, he had
formed a system of thinking to suit the current of
his feelings. He held that the kindness we enter-
tain for a man should be veiled and concealed,
exerted in substantial benefits, but not disclosed,
lest an undue advantage should be taken of it by
its object.
With this rugged outside, Mr. Forester had a
warm and generous heart. At first sight all men
were deterred by his manner, and excited to give


214 CALEB WiLLIAMs
him an ill character. But the longer any one knew
him, the more they approved him. His harshness
was then only considered as habit; and strong
sense and active benevolence were uppermost in
the recollection of his familiar acquaintance. His
conversation, when he condescended to lay aside
his snappish, rude, and abrupt half-sentences, be-
came flowing in diction, and uncommonly amusing
with regard to its substance. He combined, with
| weightiness of expression, a dryness of character-
istic humour, that demonstrated at once the vivid-
ness of his observation and the force of his under-
standing.
The peculiarities of this gentleman's character
were not undisplayed in the scene to which he was
now introduced. Having much kindness in his dis-
position, he soon became deeply interested in the
unhappiness of his relation. He did every thing
in his power to remove it; but his attempts were
rude and unskilful. With a mind so accomplished
and a spirit so susceptible as that of Mr. Falkland,
Mr. Forester did not venture to let loose his usual
violence of manner; but, if he carefully abstained
from harshness, he was however wholly incapable
of that sweet and liquid eloquence of the soul
which would perhaps have stood the fairest chance
of seducing Mr. Falkland for a moment to forget
his anguish. He exhorted his host to rouse up his
spirit, and defy the foul fiend; but the tone of his
exhortations found no sympathetic chord in the mind
of my patron. He had not the skill to carry con-
viction to an understanding so well fortified in error.
In a word, after a thousand efforts of kindness to
his entertainer, he drew off his forces, growling and
dissatisfied with his own impotence, rather than
angry at the obstinacy of Mr. Falkland. He felt
no diminution of his affection for him, and was sin-


CALEB WILLIAMS, 215
cerely grieved to find that he was so little capable of
serving him. Both parties in this case did justice to
the merits of the other; at the same time that the
disparity of their humours was such as to prevent
the stranger from being in any degree a dangerous
companion to the master of the house. They had
scarcely one point of contact in their characters.
Mr. Forester was incapable of giving Mr. Falkland
that degree either of pain or pleasure which can
raise the soul into a tumult, and deprive it for a
while of tranquillity and self-command.
Our visiter was a man, notwithstanding appear-
ances, of a peculiarly sociable disposition, and,
where he was neither interrupted nor contradicted,
considerably loquacious. He began to feel himself
painfully out of his element upon the present occa-
sion. Mr. Falkland was devoted to contemplation
and solitude. He put upon himself some degree of
restraint upon the arrival of his kinsman, though
even then his darling habits would break out. But
when they had seen each other a certain number of
times, and it was sufficiently evident that the society
of either would be a burthen rather than a pleasure
to the other, they consented, by a sort of silent
compact, that each should be at liberty to follow his
own inclination. Mr. Falkland was, in a sense, the
greatest gainer by this. He returned to the habits
of his choice, and acted, as nearly as possible, just
as he would have done if Mr. Forester had not been
in existence. But the latter was wholly at a loss.
He had all the disadvantages of retirement, without
being able, as he might have done at his house, to
bring his own associates or his own amusements
about him.
In this situation he cast his eyes upon me. I
was his principle to do everything that his thoughts
suggested, without caring for the forms of the world.
-


CALEB WiLLIAMS, 219
took a nearer and a more alarming view of the cir-
cumstances of the case. Mr. Falkland was not an
old man; he had in him the principles of vigour,
however they might seem to be shaken; he might
live as long as I should. I was his prisoner; and
what a prisoner! All my actions observed ; all
my gestures marked. I could move neither to the
right nor the left, but the eye of my keeper was
upon me. He watched me, and his vigilance was
a sickness to my heart. For me there was no
more freedom, no more of hilarity, of thoughtless-
ness, or of youth. Was this the life upon which I
had entered with such warm and sanguine expecta-
tion? Were my days to be wasted in this cheer-
less gloom; a galley-slave in the hands of the
system of nature, whom death only, the death of
myself or my inexorable superior, could free ?
I had been adventurous in the gratification of an
infantine and unreasonable curiosity; and I resolved
not to be less adventurous, if need were, in the de-
fence of every thing that can make life a blessing.
I was prepared for an amicable adjustment of inter-
ests: I would undertake that Mr. Falkland should
never sustain injury through my means; but I ex-
pected in return that I should suffer no encroach-
ment, but be left to the direction of my own under-
standing.
I went on, then, to seek Mr. Forester's society
with eagerness; and it is the nature of an intimacy
that does not decline, progressively to increase.
Mr. Falkland observed these symptoms with visible
perturbation. Whenever I was conscious of their
being perceived by him, I betrayed tokens of con-
fusion: this did not tend to allay his uneasiness.
One day he spoke to me alone; and, with a look
of mysterious but terrible import, expressed himself
thus:–
K2


220 CALEB WILLIAMs.
“Young man, take warning ! Perhaps this is the
last time you shall have an opportunity to take it!
I will not always be the butt of your simplicity and
inexperience, nor suffer your weakness to triumph
over my strength ! Why do you trifle with me?
You little suspect the extent of my power. At this
moment you are enclosed with the snares of my
vengeance unseen by you, and, at the instant that
you flatter yourself you are already beyond their
reach, they will close upon you. You might as
well think of escaping from the power of the omni
present God, as from mine ! If you could touch
so much as my finger, you should expiate it in
hours and months and years of a torment, of which
as yet you have not the remotest idea. Remember 1
I am not talking at random | I do not utter a word
that, if you provoke me, shall not be executed to
the severest letter!”
It may be supposed that these menaces were not
without their effect. I withdrew in silence. My
whole soul revolted against the treatment I endured,
and yet I could not utter a word. Why could not
I speak the expostulations of my heart, or propose
the compromise I meditated? It was inexperience,
and not want of strength that awed me. Every
act of Mr. Falkland contained something new, and
I was unprepared to meet it. Perhaps it will be
found that the greatest hero owes the propriety of
his conduct to the habit of encountering difficul-
ties, and calling out with promptness the energies
of his mind.
I contemplated the proceedings of my patron with
the deepest astonishment. Humanity and general
kindness were fundamental parts of his character;
but in relation to me they were sterile and inactive.
His own interest required that he should purchase
my kindness; but he preferred to govern me by


CALEB WILLIAMS, 221
terror, and watch me with unceasing anxiety. I
ruminated with the most mournful sensations upon
the nature of my calamity. I believed that no
human being was ever placed in a situation so piti-
able as mine. Every atom of my frame seemed to
have a several existence, and to crawl within me.
I had but too much reason to believe that Mr. Falk-
land's threats were not empty words. I knew his
ability; I felt his ascendency. If I encountered
him, what chance had I of victory? If I were de-
feated, what was the penalty I had to suffer? Well,
then, the rest of my life must be devoted to slavish
subjection. Miserable sentence 1 And, if it were,
what security had I against the injustice of a man,
vigilant, capricious, and criminal? I envied the
condemned wretch upon the scaffold; I envied the
victim of the Inquisition in the midst of his torture.
They know what they have to suffer. I had only
to imagine every thing terrible, and then say, “The
fate reserved for me is worse than this 1”
It was well for me that these sensations were
transient: human nature could not long support
itself under what I then felt. By degrees my mind
shook off its burthen. Indignation succeeded to
emotions of terror. The hostility of Mr. Falkland
excited hostility in me. I determined I would never
calumniate him in matters of the most trivial import,
much less betray the grand secret upon which every
thing dear to him depended. But, totally abjuring
the offensive, I resolved to stand firmly upon the
defensive. The liberty of acting as I pleased I
would preserve, whatever might be the risk. If I
were worsted in the contest, I would at least have
the consolation of reflecting that I had exerted my-
self with energy. In proportion as I thus deter-
mined, I drew off my forces from petty incursions,
and felt the propriety of acting with premeditation


222 CALEB WILLIAMS.
and system. I ruminated incessantly upon plans
of deliverance, but I was anxious that my choice
should not be precipitately made.
It was during this period of my deliberation and
uncertainty that Mr. Forester terminated his visit.
He observed a strange distance in my behaviour,
and, in his good-natured, rough way, reproached me
for it. I could only answer with a gloomy look of
mysterious import, and a mournful and expressive
silence. He sought me for an explanation, but I
was now as ingenious in avoiding as I had before
been ardent to seek him; and he quitted our house,
as he afterward told me, with an impression that
there was some ill destiny that hung over it, which
seemed fated to make all its inhabitants miserable,
without its being possible for a bystander to pene-
trate the reason. -
CHAPTER XX.
MR. For EstER had left us about three weeks,
when Mr. Falkland sent me upon some business to
an estate he possessed in a neighbouring county,
about fifty miles from his principal residence. The
road led in a direction wholly wide of the habitation
of our late visiter. I was upon my return from the
place to which I had been sent, when I began in
fancy to take a survey of the various circumstances
of my condition, and by degrees lost, in the profound-
ness of my contemplation, all attention to the sur-
rounding objects. The first determination of my
mind was to escape from the lynx-eyed jealousy and
despotism of Mr. Falkland; the second to provide,


CALEB WILLIAMS. 223
by every effort of prudence and deliberation I could
devise, against the danger with which I well knew
my attempt must be accompanied.
Occupied with these meditations, I rode many
miles before I perceived that I had totally deviated
from the right path. At length I roused myself,
and surveyed the horizon round me; but I could
observe nothing with which my organ was pre-
viously acquainted. On three sides, the heath
stretched as far as the eye could reach; on the
fourth, I discovered at some distance a wood of no
ordinary dimensions. Before me, scarcely a single
track could be found, to mark that any human be-
ing had ever visited the spot. As the best expe-
dient I could devise, I bent my course towards the
wood I have mentioned, and then pursued, as well
as I was able, the windings of the enclosure. This
led me, after some time, to the end of the heath;
but I was still as much at a loss as ever respecting
the road I should pursue. The sun was hid from
me by a gray and cloudy atmosphere; I was in-
duced to continue along the skirts of the wood, and
surmounted with some difficulty the hedges and
other obstacles that from time to time presented
themselves. My thoughts were gloomy and dis-
consolate; the dreariness of the day, and the soli-
tude which surrounded me, seemed to communicate
a sadness to my soul. I had proceeded a consider-
able way, and was overcome with hunger and fa-
tigue, when I discovered a road and a little inn at
no great distance. I made up to them, and upon
inquiry found that, instead of pursuing the proper
direction, I had taken one that led to Mr. Forester's
rather than to my own habitation. I alighted, and
was entering the house, when the appearance of
that gentleman struck my eyes.
Mr. Forester accosted me with kindness, invited


CALEB WILLIAMS, 225
nance; but I declared my persuasion, that if he
could be acquainted with the whole affair, however
strange my behaviour might at present appear, he
would applaud my reserve.
He appeared to muse for a moment upon what I
had said, and then asked what reason I could have
to complain of Mr. Falkland? I replied, that I en-
tertained the deepest reverence for my patron; I ad-
mired his abilities, and considered him as formed
for the benefit of his species. I should in my own
opinion be the vilest of miscreants if I uttered a
whisper to his disadvantage. But this did not
avail: I was not fit for him; perhaps I was not
good enough for him; at all events, I must be per-
petually miserable so long as I continued to live
with him.
I observed Mr. Forester gaze upon me eagerly
with curiosity and surprise; but this circumstance
I did not think proper to notice. Having recovered
himself, he inquired, why then, that being the case,
I did not quit his service? I answered, what he
now touched upon was that which most of all con-
tributed to my misfortune. Mr. Falkland was not
ignorant of my dislike to my present situation;
perhaps he thought it unreasonable, unjust; but I
knew that he would never be brought to consent to
my giving way to it.
Here Mr. Forester interrupted me, and, smiling,
said, I magnified obstacles, and overrated my own
importance; adding, that he would undertake to re-
move that difficulty, as well as to provide me with
a more agreeable appointment. This suggestion
produced in me a serious alarm. I replied, that I
must entreat him upon no account to think of apply-
ing to Mr. Falkland upon the subject. I added,
that perhaps I was only betraying my imbecility;
but, in reality, unacaº as I was with expe.
-


228 CALEB WILLIAMS.
at least, the result of design. I was totally out of
the road I had been travelling by his direction; I
was in a road that led directly to the house of Mr.
Forester. What must he think of this? How must
he suppose I came to that place? The truth, if
told, that I came there without design, and purely
in consequence of having lost my way, must ap-
pear to be the most palpable lie that ever was de-
vised.
Here then I stood detected in the fact of that
intercourse which had been so severely forbidden.
But in this instance it was infinitely worse than in
those which had already given so much disturbance
to Mr. Falkland. It was then frank and unconcealed;
and therefore the presumption was, that it was
for purposes that required no concealment. But the
present interview, if concerted, was in the most em-
phatical degree clandestine. Nor was it less peril-
ous than it was clandestine: it had been forbidden
with the most dreadful menaces; and Mr. Falkland
was not ignorant how deep an impression those
menaces had mad upon my imagination. Such a
meeting, therefore, could not have been concerted,
under such circumstances, for a trivial purpose, or
for any purpose that his heart did not ache to think
of Such was the amount of my crime, such was
the agony my appearance was calculated to inspire;
and it was reasonable to suppose that the penalty
I had to expect would be proportionable. The
threats of Mr. Falkland still sounded in my ears.
and I was in a transport of terror.
The conduct of the same man in different cir-
cumstances is often so various as to render it very
difficult to be accounted for. Mr. Falkland, in this
to him terrible crisis, did not seem to be in any de-
gree hurried away by passion. For a moment he
was dumb, his eyes glared with astonishment; and


CALEB WiLLIAMS. 229
the next moment, as it were, he had the most per-
fect calmness and self-command. Had it been
otherwise, I have no doubt that I should instantly
have entered into an explanation of the manner in
which I came there, the ingenuousness and consist-
ency of which could not but have been in some degree
attended with a favourable event. But, as it was,
I suffered myself to be overcome; I yielded, as in
a former instance, to the discomfiting influence of
surprise. I dared scarcely breathe; I observed the
appearances with equal anxiety and surprise. Mr.
Falkland quietly ordered me to return home, and
take along with me the groom he had brought with
him. I obeyed in silence.
I afterward understood, that he inquired minutely
of Mr. Forester the circumstances of our meeting;
and that that gentleman, perceiving that the meet-
ing itself was discovered, and guided by habits of
frankness, which, when once rooted in a character,
it is difficult to counteract, told Mr. Falkland every
thing that had passed, together with the remarks it
had suggested to his own mind. Mr. Falkland re-
ceived the communication with an ambiguous and
studied silence, which by no means operated to my
advantage in the already poisoned mind of Mr.
Forester. His silence was partly the direct con-
sequence of a mind watchful, inquisitive, and doubt-
ing; and partly perhaps was adopted for the sake
of the effect it was calculated to produce, Mr. Falk-
land not being unwilling to encourage prejudices
against a character which might one day come in
competition with his own.
As to me, I went home indeed, for this was not a
moment to resist. Mr. Falkland, with a premedi-
tation to which he had given the appearance of
accident, had taken care to send with me a guard
to attend upon his prisoner. I seemed as if con-


232 CALEB WILLIAMS,
I went to bed. It may be imagined that my slum-
bers were neither deep nor refreshing.
The next morning I was informed that my patron
did not come home till late; that he had inquired
for me, and, being told that I was in bed, had said
nothing further upon the subject. Satisfied in this
respect, I went to the breakfasting-parlour, and,
though full of anxiety and trepidation, endeavoured
to busy myself in arranging the books, and a few
other little occupations, till Mr. Falkland should
come down. After a short time I heard his step,
which I perfectly well knew how to distinguish, in
the passage. Presently he stopped, and speaking
to some one in a sort of deliberate but smothered
voice, I overheard him repeat my name as inquiring
for me. In conformity to the plan I had persuaded
myself to adopt, I now laid the letter I had written
upon the table at which he usually sat, and made
my exit at one door as Mr. Falkland entered the
other. This done, I withdrew, with flutterings and
palpitation, to a private apartment, a sort of light
closet at the end of the library, where I was accus-
tomed not unfrequently to sit.
I had not been here three minutes when I heard
the voice of Mr. Falkland calling me. I went to
him in the library. His manner was that of a man
labouring with some dreadful thought, and endeav-
ouring to give an air of carelessness and insensi-
bility to his behaviour. Perhaps no carriage of any
other sort could have produced a sensation of such
inexplicable horror, or have excited in the person
who was its object such anxious uncertainty about
the event.—“That is your letter,” said he, throw-
ing it.
“My lad,” continued he, “I believe now you
have played all your tricks, and the farce is nearly
at an end With your apishness and absurdity,


CALEB WILLIAMS, 233
however, you have taught me one thing; and
whereas before I have winced at them with torture,
I am now as tough as an elephant. I shall crush
you in the end with the same indifference that I
would any other little insect that disturbed my se-
renity.
“I am unable to tell what brought about your
meeting with Mr. Forester yesterday. It might be
design; it might be accident. But I shall not for-
get it. You write me here that you are desirous to
quit my service. To that I have a short answer:
you never shall quit it with life. If you attempt it,
you shall never cease to rue your folly as long as
you exist. That is my will; and I will not have it
resisted. The very next time you disobey me in
that or any other article, there is an end of your
vagaries for ever. Perhaps your situation may be
a pitiable one ; it is for you to look to that. I only
know that it is in your power to prevent its growing
worse; no time nor chance shall ever make it
better.
“Do not imagine I am afraid of you! I wear
an armour against which all your weapons are im-
potent. I have dug a pit for you; and whichever
way you move, backward or forward, to the right or
the left, it is ready to swallow you. Be still ! If
once you fall, call as loud as you will, no man on
earth shall hear your cries; prepare a tale however
plausible, or however true, the whole world shall
execrate you for an impostor. Your innocence shall
be of no service to you; I laugh at so feeble a de-
fence. It is I that say it; you may believe what I
tell you.--Do you not know, miserable wretch!”
added he, suddenly altering his tone, and stamping
upon the ground with fury, “that I have sworn to
preserve my reputation, whatever be the expense;
that I love it more than the whole world and its


CALEB WILLIAMs. 235
which I meditated my escape. The hours usually
observed by our family in this country residence
were regular; and one in the morning was the time
I selected for my undertaking.
In searching the apartment where I slept, I had
formerly discovered a concealed door, which led to
a small apartment of the most secret nature, not
uncommon in houses so old as that of Mr. Falkland,
and which had perhaps served as a refuge from per-
secution, or a security from the inveterate hostilities
of a barbarous age. I believed no person was ac-
quainted with this hidingplace but myself. I felt
unaccountably impelled to remove into it the differ-
ent articles of my personal property. I could not
at present take them away with me. If I were never
to recover them, I felt that it would be a gratification
to my sentiment, that no trace of my existence
should be found after my departure. Having com-
pleted their removal, and waited till the hour I had
previously chosen, I stole down quietly from my
chamber with a lamp in my hand. I went along a
passage that led to a small door opening into the
garden, and then crossed the garden to a gate that
intersected an elm-walk and a private horse-path
on the outside. -
I could scarcely believe my good fortune in having
thus far executed my design without interruption.
The terrible images Mr. Falkland's menaces had
suggested to my mind made me expect impediment
and detection at every step ; though the impassioned
state of my mind impelled me to advance with des-
perate resolution. He probably, however, counted
too securely upon the ascendency of his sentiments,
when imperiously pronounced, to think it necessary
to take precautions against a sinister event. For
myself, I drew a favourable omen as to the final
result of my project, from the smoothness of suc-
cess that attended it in the outset,


236 CALEB WILLIAMS,
CHAPTER XXI.
THE first plan that had suggested itself to me
was, to go to the nearest public road and take the
earliest stage for London. There Ibelieved I should
be most safe from discovery, if the vengeance of Mr.
Falkland should prompt him to pursue me; and I
did not doubt, among the multiplied resources of the
metropolis, to find something which should suggest
to me an eligible mode of disposing of my person
and industry. I reserved Mr. Forester in my ar-
rangement as a last resource, not to be called forth
unless for immediate protection from the hand of
persecution and power. I was destitute of that ex-
perience of the world which can alone render us
fertile in resources, or enable us to institute a just
comparison between the resources that offer them-
selves. I was like the fascinated animal, that is
seized with the most terrible apprehensions at the
same time that he is incapable of adequately con-
sidering for his own safety.
The mode of my proceeding being digested, I
traced, with a cheerful heart, the unfrequented path
it was now necessary for me to pursue. The night
was gloomy, and it drizzled with rain. But these
were circumstances I had scarcely the power to
perceive; all was sunshine and joy with me. I
hardly felt the ground; I repeated to myself a thou-
sand times, “I am free. What concern have I with
danger and alarm! I feel that I am free: I feel
that I will continue so. What power is able to hold
in chains a mind ardent and determined? What
power can cause that man to die whose whole soul


CALEB WILLIAMS, 239
and eagerly yielded myself up to the different
amusements that arose. I rested and went forward
at the impulse of the moment. At one time I re-
clined upon a bank immersed in contemplation, and
at another exerted myself to analyze the prospects
which succeeded each other. The haziness of the
morning was followed by a spirit-stirring and beau-
tiful day. With the ductility so characteristic of a
youthful mind, I forgot the anguish which had lately
been my continual guest, and occupied myself en-
tirely in dreams of future novelty and felicity. I
scarcely ever, in the whole course of my existence,
spent a day of more various or exquisite gratifica-
tion. It furnished a strong, and perhaps not an
unsalutary contrast, to the terrors which had pre-
ceded, and the dreadful scenes that awaited me.
In the evening I arrived at the place of my des-
tination, and inquired for the inn at which the coach
was accustomed to call. A circumstance, however,
had previously excited my attention, and reproduced
in me a state of alarm.
Though it was already dark before I reached the
town, my observation had been attracted by a man,
who passed me on horseback in the opposite direc-
tion, about half a mile on the other side of the town.
There was an inquisitiveness in his gesture that I
did not like; and, as far as I could discern his
figure, I pronounced him an ill-looking man. He
had not passed me more than two minutes before I
heard the sound of a horse advancing slowly be-
hind me. These circumstances impressed some
degree of uneasy sensation upon my mind. I first
mended my pace; and, this not appearing to an-
swer the purpose, I afterward loitered, that the
horseman might pass me. He did so; and, as I
glanced at him, I thought I saw that it was the same
man. He now put his horse into a trot, and en-


CALEB WILLIAMS, 241
me to alter it. I am an Englishman, and it is the
privilege of an Englishman to be sole judge and .
master of his own actions.”
“You are in the devil of a hurry,” replied the
man, “to guess my intentions, and tell your own.
But your guess is right; and mayhap you may
have reason to be thankful that my errand is not
something worse. Sure enough the squire expects
you;-but I have a letter, and when you have read
that, I suppose you will come off a little of your
stoutness. If that does not answer, it will then be
time to think what is to be done next.”
Thus saying, he gave me his letter, which was
from Mr. Forester, whom, as he told me, he had
left at Mr. Falkland's house. I went into a room
of the inn for the purpose of reading it, and was
£º by the bearer. The letter was as fol-
OWS :-
“WILLIAMs,
“My brother Falkland has sent the bearer in
pursuit of you. He expects that, if found, you
will return with him: I expect it too. It is of the
utmost consequence to your future honour and char-
acter. After reading these lines, if you are a vil-
lain and a rascal, you will perhaps endeavour to
fly; if your conscience tells you you are innocent,
you will, out of all doubt, come back. Show me
then whether I have been your dupe; and, while I
was won over by your seeming ingenuousness, have
suffered myself to be made the tool of a designing
knave. If you come, I pledge myself that, if you
clear your reputation, you shall not only be free to
go wherever you please, but shall receive every
assistance in my power to give. Remember, I en-
gage for nothing further than that.
w “WALENTINE FoRESTER."
Wol. I.—L


242 CALEB WILLIAMS,
What a letter was this To a mind like mine,
glowing with the love of virtue, such an address
was strong enough to draw the person to whom it
was addressed from one end of the earth to the
other. My mind was full of confidence and energy,
I felt my own innocence, and was determined to
assert, it. I was willing to be driven out a fugitive;
I even rejoiced in my escape, and cheerfully went
out into the worldwilestitute of every provision, and
depending for my future prospects upon my own
ingenuity.
Thus much, said I, Falkland' you may do. Dis-
pose of me as you please with respect to the goods
of fortune; but you shall neither make prize of my
liberty, nor sully the whiteness of my name. I re-
passed in my thoughts every memorable incident
that had happened to me under his roof. I could
recollect nothing, except the affair of the mysterious
trunk, out of which the shadow of a criminal accu-
sation could be extorted. In that instance my con-
duct had been highly reprehensible, and I had never
looked back upon it without remorse and self-con-
demnation. But I did not believe that it was of the
nature of those actions which can be brought under
legal censure. I could still less persuade myself
that Mr. Falkland, who shuddered at the very pos-
sibility of detection, and who considered himself as
completely in my power, would dare to bring for-
ward a subject so closely connected with the inter-
nal agony of his soul. In a word, the more I re-
flected on the phrases of Mr. Forester's billet, the
less could I imagine the nature of those scenes to
which they were to serve as a prelude.
The inscrutableness, however, of the mystery they
eontained did not suffice to overwhelm my courage.
My mind seemed to undergo an entire revolution.
Timid and embarrassed as I had felt myself, when


CALEB WILLIAMS. 243
-
I regarded Mr. Falkland as my clandestine and do-
mestic foe, I now conceived that the case was
entirely altered. “Meet me,” said I, “as an open
accuser: if we must contend, let us contend in the
face of day; and then, unparalleled as your re-
sources may be, I will not fear you.” Innocence
and guilt were, in my apprehension, the things in
the whole world the most opposite to each other.
I would not suffer myself to believe that the former
could be confounded with the latter, unless the in-
nocent man first allowed himself to be subdued in
mind, before he was defrauded of the good opinion
of mankind. Virtue rising superior to every ca-
lamity, defeating by a plain unvarnished tale all the
stratagems of vice, and throwing back upon her
adversary the confusion with which he had hoped
to overwhelm her, was one of the favourite subjects
of my youthful reveries. I determined never to
prove an instrument of destruction to Mr. Falk-
land; but I was not less resolute to obtain justice
to myself.
The issue of all these confident hopes I shall
immediately have occasion to relate. It was thus,
with the most generous and undoubting spirit, that
I rushed upon irretrievable ruin.
“Friend,” said I to the bearer, after a consider-
able interval of silence, “you are right. This is,
indeed, an extraordinary letter you have brought
me; but it answers its purpose. I will certainly
go with you now, whatever be the consequence,
No person shall ever impute blame to me, so long
as I have it in my power to clear myself.”
I felt, in the circumstances in which I was placed
by Mr. Forester's letter, not merely a willingness,
but an alacrity and impatience to return. We pro-
cured a second horse. We proceeded on our jour-
ney in silence. My mind was occupied again in


244 CALEB WILLIAMS,
endeavouring to account for Mr. Forester's letter.
I knew the inflexibility and sternness of Mr. Falk-
land's mind in accomplishing the purposes he had
at heart; but I also knew that every virtuous and
magnanimous principle was congenial to his char-
acter.
When we arrived, midnight was already past,
and we were obliged to waken one of the servants
to give us admittance. I found that Mr. Forester
had left a message for me, in consideration of the
possibility of my arrival during the night, directing
me immediately to go to bed, and to take care that
I did not come weary and exhausted to the business
of the following day. I endeavoured to take his
advice; but my slumbers were unrefreshing and
disturbed. I suffered, however, no reduction of
courage : the singularity of my situation, my con-
jectures with respect to the present, my eagerness
for the future, did not allow me to sink into a lan-
guid and inactive state.
Next morning the first person I saw was Mr.
Forester. He told me that he did not yet know
what Mr. Falkland had to allege against me, for that
he had refused to know. He had arrived at the
house of his brother by appointment on the preced-
ing day to settle some indispensable business, his
intention having been to depart the moment the busi-
ness was finished, as he knew that conduct on his
part would be most agreeable to Mr. Falkland.
But he was no sooner come than he found the whole
house in confusion, the alarm of my elopement
having been given a few hours before. Mr. Falk-
land had despatched servants in all directions in
pursuit of me; and the servant from the market-
town arrived at the same moment with Mr. For-
ester, with intelligence that a person answering
the description he gave had been there very early


CALEB WILLIAMS, 245
in the morning, inquiring respecting the stage to
London.
Mr. Falkland seemed extremely disturbed at this
information, and exclaimed on me with acrimony,
as an unthankful and unnatural villain.
Mr. Forester replied, “Have more command of
yourself, sir! Willain is a serious appellation, and
must not be trifled with. Englishmen are free;
and no man is to be charged with villany because
he changes one source of subsistence for another.”
Mr. Falkland shook his head, and with a smile
expressive of acute sensibility, said, “Brother,
brother, you are the dupe of his art. I always
considered him with an eye of suspicion, and was
aware of his depravity. But I have just discov-
ered—”
“Stop, sir!” interrupted Mr. Forester, “I own I
thought that, in a moment of acrimony, you might
be employing harsh epithets in a sort of random
style. But if you have a serious accusation to
state, we must not be told of that till it is known
whether the lad is within reach of a hearing. I
I am indifferent myself about the good opinion of
others. It is what the world bestows and retracts
with so little thought, that I can make no account
of its decision. But that does not authorize me
lightly to entertain an ill opinion of another. The
slenderest allowance I think I can make to such as
I consign to be the example and terror of their spe-
cies, is that of being heard in their own defence.
It is a wise principle that requires the judge to
"come into court uninformed of the merits of the
cause he is to try; and to that principle I am de-
termined to conform as an individual. I shall
always think it right to be severe and inflexible in
my treatment of offenders; but the severity I exer-


246 CAL-B WILLIAMs.
cise in the sequel, must be accompanied with im-
partiality and caution in what is preliminary.”
While Mr. Forester related to me these particu-
lars, he observed me ready to break out into some
of the expressions which the narrative suggested;
but he would not suffer me to speak. “No,” said
he ; “I would not hear Mr. Falkland against you;
and I cannot hear you in your defence. I come to
you at present to speak, and not to hear. I thought
it right to warn you of your danger, but I have no-
thing more to do now. Reserve what you have to .
say to the proper time. Make the best story you
can for yourself—true, if truth, as I hope, will
serve your purpose; but, if not, the most plausible
and ingenious you can invent. That is what self-
defence requires from every man, where, as it al-
ways happens to a man upon his trial, he has the
whole world against him, and has his own battle to
fight against the world. Farewell; and God send
you a good deliverance If Mr. Falkland's accu-
sation, whatever it be, shall appear premature, de-
pend upon having me more zealously your friend
than ever. If not, this is the last act of friendship
you will ever receive from me!”
It may be believed that this address, so singular,
so solemn, so big with conditional menace, did not
greatly tend to encourage me. I was totally igno-
rant of the charge to be advanced against me; and
not a little astonished, when it was in my power to
be in the most formidable degree the accuser of
Mr. Falkland, to find the principles of equity so
completely reversed, as for the innocent but in---
structed individual to be the party accused and suf.
fering, instead of having, as was natural, the real
criminal at his mercy. I was still more astonished
at the superhuman power Mr. Falkland seemed to


CALEB WILLIAMS, . 247
possess, of bringing the object of his persecution
within the sphere of his authority; a reflection at-
tended with some check to that eagerness and bold-
ness of spirit which now constituted the ruling
passion of my mind.
But this was no time for meditation. To the
sufferer the course of events is taken out of his
direction, and he is hurried along with an irresist-
ible force, without finding it within the compass of
his efforts to check their rapidity. I was allowed
ºnly a short time to recollect myself, when my trial
commenced. I was conducted to the library, where
I had passed so many happy and so many contem-
plative hours, and found there Mr. Forester and
three or four of the servants already assembled, in
expectation of me and my accuser. Every thing
was calculated to suggest to me that I must trust
only in the justice of the parties concerned, and
had nothing to hope from their indulgence. Mr.
"Falkland entered at one door, almost as soon as I
entered at the other.
END OF WOL, i.