"But I have never needed it!" interrupted the other. "The time has not come! When it does, I will."
"You trifle with me Franklin," rejoined his companion; "if you betake yourself to rash acts and dangerous enterprises, as your words admit----"
"I may be moved," said Franklin Gray, again interrupting him, "by a thousand other causes than the need of money; the love of activity, the restlessness of my nature, habits of danger and enterprise--"
"And is not the love of such a being as you have spoken of," demanded his companion, "is it not sufficient to calm down such a nature, to restrain you from all that may hurt or injure her? Think Franklin, think, if you were to fail in some of these attempts--if--if--you are moved!--think what would be her fate--think what would be her feelings;--nay, listen to me--share what I have, Franklin. It is enough for us both, if we be but humble in our thoughts and----"
But the other broke away from him with a sudden start, and something like a tear in his eye. "No, no!" he cried, "no, no!" but then again he turned, ere he had reached the top of the bank, and said, in a low, but distinct voice, "Harry, if I succeed in this enterprise for you, and in your favour, you shall have your way."
"But no violence!" replied the angler, "remember, I will have no violence."
"None," rejoined Franklin Gray, "none; for I will take means to overawe resistance; and we will, as we well and justly may, enforce your rights and laugh those to scorn who have so long opposed them: and all without violence, if possible!" But the latter words were uttered in a low tone, and were unheard by his companion.
[CHAPTER III.]
Perhaps the sweetest hour of a sweet season is that which precedes the setting of the sun upon a May day. All the world is taking holiday, from the lowing herd that winds slowly o'er the lea to the shard-born beetle and the large white moth. The aspect of the sky and earth too--clear, calm, and tranquil--are full of repose. The mistiness of the mid-day sunshine is away; and the very absence of a portion of the full daylight, and the thin, colourless transparency of the evening air, afford that contemplative, but no way drowsy charm which well precedes, by thought tending to adoration, the hour when, in darkness and forgetfulness, we trust ourselves unconscious to the hands of God. The heart of man is but as an instrument from which the great musician, Nature, produces grand harmonies; and the most soothing anthem that rises within the breast is surely elicited by the soft touch of that evening hour.
It had shone calmly over the world in those scenes we have lately described, and the last moments of the sun's stay above the horizon, were passing away, while, within one of the rooms of the old Manor House of Moorhurst Park, the father and the daughter were sitting tranquilly in the seat of a deep window, gazing over the beautiful view before their eyes, and marking all the wonderful changes of colouring which the gradual descent of the sun and the slow passing of a few light evening clouds brought each moment over the scene. There is in almost every heart some one deep memory, some one powerful feeling, which has its harmonious connexion with a particular hour, and with a particular scene; and as the father and the daughter gazed, and marked the sun sinking slowly in the far west, one remembrance, one image, one sensation, took possession of both their bosoms. The daughter thought of the mother, the father of the wife, that was lost to them for ever. Neither spoke--both tried to suppress the feeling, or rather to indulge the feeling, while they suppressed its expression. But such efforts are vain, at least with hearts untutored by the cold policies of a superficial world. A tear glistened in the daughter's eye, and she dared not wipe it away lest it should be remarked. The father's eye, indeed, was tearless, but his brow was sad; and as he withdrew his gaze from the scene before him, and turned his looks upon his daughter, it was with a sigh. He marked, too, the bright drop that still hung trembling on her eyelid, catching the last ray of the setting sun; and, knowing the spring whence that drop arose, he cast his arms around her, and pressed her in silence to his breast.