My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. My fairest prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to entreaties and untired in persecution. I was born of humble parents, in a remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall to the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me. I was taught the rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic. But I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information from conversation or books.
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 gentleman's steward, who used to call in occasionally at my father's.
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, and I had lost my mother some years before. In this forlorn situation I received a message from the squire, ordering me to repair to the manor house.
My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire. Mr. Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conceptions of men and things, and listened to my answers with condescension and approbation. He then informed me that he was in want of a secretary, and that if I approved of the employment he would take me into his house.
I felt highly flattered by the proposal, and found my employment--which included the duties of librarian as well as those of a secretary--easy and agreeable.
Mr. Falkland's mode of living was in the utmost degree recluse and solitary. His features were scarcely ever relaxed in a smile, and the distemper which afflicted him with incessant gloom had its paroxysms. None of the domestics, except myself and Mr. Collins approached Mr. Falkland but at stated seasons and then only for a very short interval.
Once after I had seen my patron in a strange fit of intolerable anguish, I could not help confiding in Mr. Collins that I feared Mr. Falkland had some secret trouble, and in answer to my communication Mr. Collins told me the story of Tyrrel's murder.
Barnabas Tyrrel had been a neighbouring squire insupportably brutish and arrogant, tyrannical to his inferiors, and insolent to his equals. From the first he hated Falkland, whose dignity and courtesy were a constant rebuke to the other's boorish ill-humours, and rejected with scorn all proposals for civil intercourse.
The crisis came when Tyrrel, who had been expelled from the rural assembly which met every week at the market-town, forced his way in. He was intoxicated, and at once attacked Falkland, knocking him down, and then kicking his prostrate enemy before anyone had time to interfere.
To Mr. Falkland disgrace was worse than death. This complication of ignominy, base, humiliating, and public, stung him to the very soul, and filled his mind with horror and uproar. One other event closed that memorable evening. Mr. Tyrrel was found dead in the street, having been murdered a few yards from the assembly-house.