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.

From that day Falkland was a changed man.  His cheerfulness and tranquillity gave way to gloomy and unsociable melancholy, and, filled with the ideas of chivalry, the humiliating and dishonourable situation in which he had been placed could never be forgotten.  To add to his misfortunes, it was presently whispered that he was no other than the murderer of his antagonist, and even the magistrates at length decided that the matter must be investigated, and requested Falkland to appear before them.

Mr. Falkland attended, and easily convinced the magistrates of his innocence, pointing out that his one desire was to have called out the man who had insulted him so horribly, and to have fought him to the death.  He was not only acquitted, but a public demonstration of sympathy was arranged at once to show the esteem in which he was held.

A few weeks, and the real murderer was discovered.  This was a man named Hawkins, who, with his son, had been reduced from an honest livelihood to beggary and ruin by Tyrrel.  On circumstantial evidence, Hawkins and his son were condemned and executed.

This was the story Mr. Collins told me in order that I might understand Mr. Falkland’s unhappy state.  In reality it only added to my embarrassment.