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