The Hillyars and the Burtons by Henry Kingsley

GOLDEN hours, which can never come back any more. Hours as peaceful and happy as the close of a summer Sabbath, among dark whispering elm- woods, or on quiet downs, aloft above the murmuring village. Was it on that evening only, or was it on many similar evenings, that we all sat together, in a twilight which seemed to last for hours, before the fire, talking quietly together? Why, when at this distance of time I recall those gatherings before the fire, in the quaint draughty old room, do I always think of such things as these?--of dim, vast cathedrals, when the service is over, and the last echoes of the organ seem still rambling in the roof, trying to break away after their fellows towards heaven, --of quiet bays between lofty chalk headlands, where one lies and basks the long summer day before the gently murmuring surf, --of very quiet old churches, where the monuments of the dead are crowded thick together, and the afternoon sun slopes in on the kneeling and lying effigies of men who have done their part in the great English work, and are waiting, without care, without anxiety, for their wages? Why does my rambling fancy, on these occasions, ever come back again to the long series of peaceful and quiet images, --to crimson sunsets during a calm in mid ocean, --to high green capes, seen from the sea, the sides of whose long--drawn valleys are ribbed with gray rocks, --to curtains of purple dolomite, seen from miles away across the yellow plain, cut in the centre by a silver waterfall, --to great icebergs floating on the calm blue sea, --to everything, in short, which I have seen in my life which speaks of peace? And why, again, do I always come at last to the wild dim blue promontory, whose wrinkled downs are half obscured by clouds of wind- driven spray?

How many of these evenings were there? There must have been a great many, because I remember that Reuben came home for the winter one dead drear November night, and Erne accompanied him and stayed for an hour. I cannot say how long they lasted. A year or two, first and last.