serve 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 always 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 accusation, whatever it be, shall appear
premature, depend 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 ignorant 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 instructed individual to be
the party accused and suffering, 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 possess, of bringing the object
of his persecution within the sphere of his authority; a reflection
attended with some check to that eagerness and boldness 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
irresistible 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 contemplative 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.

CHAPTER X.

He began: "It has been the principle of my life, never to inflict a
wilful injury upon any thing that lives; I need not express my regret,
when I find myself obliged to be the promulgator of a criminal charge.