most he loved to look across
it when the light fell. The palest solitary gleam along its course spoke
to him rich promise. The faint blue beam of a star chained all his
longings, charmed his sorrows to sleep. Rose like a fairy had breathed
her spirit here, and it was a delight to the silly luxurious youth to lie
down, and fix some image of a flower bending to the stream on his brain,
and in the cradle of fancies that grew round it, slide down the tide of
sleep.

From the image of a flower bending to the stream, like his own soul to
the bosom of Rose, Evan built sweet fables. It was she that exalted him,
that led him through glittering chapters of adventure. In his dream of
deeds achieved for her sake, you may be sure the young man behaved
worthily, though he was modest when she praised him, and his limbs
trembled when the land whispered of his great reward to come. The longer
he stayed at Beckley the more he lived in this world within world, and if
now and then the harsh outer life smote him, a look or a word from Rose
encompassed him again, and he became sensible only of a distant pain.

At first his hope sprang wildly to possess her, to believe, that after he
had done deeds that would have sent ordinary men in the condition of
shattered hulks to the hospital, she might be his. Then blow upon blow
was struck, and he prayed to be near her till he died: no more. Then she,
herself, struck him to the ground, and sitting in his chamber, sick and
weary, on the evening of his mishap, Evan's sole desire was to obtain the
handkerchief he had risked his neck for. To have that, and hold it to his
heart, and feel it as a part of her, seemed much.

Over a length of the stream the red round harvest-moon was rising, and
the weakened youth was this evening at the mercy of the charm that
encircled him. The water curved, and dimpled, and flowed flat, and the
whole body of it rushed into the spaces of sad splendour. The clustered
trees stood like temples of darkness; their shadows lengthened
supernaturally; and a pale gloom crept between them on the sward. He had
been thinking for some time that Rose would knock at his door, and give
him her voice, at least; but she did not come; and when he had gazed out
on the stream till his eyes ached, he felt that he must go and walk by
it. Those little flashes of the hurrying tide spoke to him of a secret
rapture and of a joy-seeking impulse; the pouring onward of all the blood
of life to one ill