magistrate, with an air of affected
moderation, "to ask you two questions. Were you any way aiding,
abetting, or contributing to this murder?"

"No."

"And pray, sir, who is this Mr. Falkland? and what may have been the
nature of your connection with him?"

"Mr. Falkland is a gentleman of six thousand per annum. I lived with him
as his secretary."

"In other words, you were his servant?"

"As you please."

"Very well, sir; that is quite enough for me. First, I have to tell you,
as a magistrate, that I can have nothing to do with your declaration. If
you had been concerned in the murder you talk of, that would alter the
case. But it is out of all reasonable rule for a magistrate to take an
information from a felon, except against his accomplices. Next, I think
it right to observe to you, in my own proper person, that you appear to
me to be the most impudent rascal I ever saw. Why, are you such an ass
as to suppose, that the sort of story you have been telling, can be of
any service to you, either here or at the assizes, or any where else? A
fine time of it indeed it would be, if, when gentlemen of six thousand a
year take up their servants for robbing them, those servants could trump
up such accusations as these, and could get any magistrate or court of
justice to listen to them! Whether or no the felony with which you stand
charged would have brought you to the gallows, I will not pretend to
say: but I am sure this story will. There would be a speedy end to all
order and good government, if fellows that trample upon ranks and
distinctions in this atrocious sort were upon any consideration suffered
to get off."

"And do you refuse, sir, to attend to the particulars of the charge I
allege?"

"Yes, sir, I do.--But, if I did not, pray what witnesses have you of the
murder?"

This question staggered me.

"None. But I believe I can make out a circumstantial proof, of a nature
to force attention from the most indifferent hearer."

"So I thought.--Officers, take him from the bar!"

Such was the success of this ultimate resort on my part, upon which I
had built with such undoubting confidence. Till now, I had conceived
that the unfavourable situation in which I was placed was prolonged by
my own forbearance; and I had determined to endure all that human nature
could support, rather than have recourse to this extreme recrimination.
That idea secretly consoled me under all my calamities: it was a
voluntary sacrif