"It is so, sir," said Charles. "I wish we could make you a partaker in our walks."
"I wish you could with all my heart," said Varney.
"Sir Francis," said Flora, "must be a prisoner for some short time longer yet."
"I ought not to consider it in any such light. It is not imprisonment. I have taken sanctuary. It is the well spring of life to me," said Varney.
"I hope it may prove so; but how do you find yourself this evening, Sir Francis Varney?"
"Really, it is difficult to say--I fluctuate. At times, I feel as though I should drop insensible on the earth, and then I feel better than I have done for some time previously."
"Doctor Chillingworth will be here bye and bye, no doubt; and he must see what he can do for you to relieve you of these symptoms," said Flora.
"I am much beholden to you--much beholden to you; but I hope to be able to do without the good doctor's aid in this instance, though I must admit I may appear ungrateful."
"Not at all--not at all."
"Have you heard any news abroad to-day?" inquired Varney.
"None, Sir Francis--none; there is nothing apparently stirring; and now, go out when you would, you would find nothing but what was old, quiet, and familiar."
"We cannot wish to look upon anything with mere charms for a mind at ease, than we can see under such circumstances; but I fear there are some few old and familiar features that I should find sad havoc in."
"You would, certainly, for the burnings and razings to the ground of some places, have made some dismal appearances; but time may efface that, and then the evil may die away, and the future will become the present, should we be able to allay popular feeling."
"Yes," said Sir Francis; "but popular prejudices, or justice, or feeling, are things not easily assuaged. The people when once aroused go on to commit all kinds of excess, and there is no one point at which they will step short of the complete extirpation of some one object or other that they have taken a fancy to hunt."
"The hubbub and excitement must subside."
"The greater the ignorance the more persevering and the more brutal they are," said Sir Francis; "but I must not complain of what is the necessary consequence of their state."
"It might be otherwise."
"So it might, and no mischief arise either; but as we cannot divert the stream, we may as well bend to the force of a current too strong to resist."
"The moon is up," said Flora, who wished to turn the conversation from that to another topic. "I see if yonder through the trees; it rises red and large--it is very beautiful--and yet there is not a cloud about to give it the colour and appearance it now wears."
"Exactly so," said Sir Francis Varney; "but the reason is the air is filled with a light, invisible vapour, that has the effect you perceive. There has been much evaporation going on, and now it shows itself in giving the moon that peculiar large appearance and deep colour."
"Ay, I see; it peeps through the trees, the branches of which cut it up into various portions. It is singular, and yet beautiful, and yet the earth below seems dark."
"It is dark; you would be surprised to find it so if you walked about. It will soon be lighter than it is at this present moment."
"What sounds are those?" inquired Sir Francis Varney, as he listened attentively.
"Sounds! What sounds?" returned Henry.
"The sounds of wheels and horses' feet," said Varney.
"I cannot even hear them, much less can I tell what they are," said Henry.
"Then listen. Now they come along the road. Cannot you hear them now?" said Varney.
"Yes, I can," said Charles Holland; "but I really don't know what they are, or what it can matter to us; we don't expect any visitors."
"Certainly, certainly," said Varney. "I am somewhat apprehensive of the approach of strange sounds."
"You are not likely to be disturbed here," said Charles.
"Indeed; I thought so when I had succeeded in getting into the house near the town, and so far from believing it was likely I should be discovered, that I sat on the house-top while the mob surrounded it."
"Did you not hear them coming?"
"I did."
"And yet you did not attempt to escape from them?"
"No, I could not persuade them I was not there save by my utter silence. I allowed them to come too close to leave myself time to escape--besides, I could hardly persuade myself there could be any necessity for so doing."