He espoused her cause with his whole soul,
whatever it might be.
The young woman in the stress of her fears had clasped Harry's arm, as if
to restrain him, and he felt the soft agitation of her gentle bosom with
a new emotion that weakened his tense thews, and stirred the first doubt;
but he fought it down. His revenge had become almost a necessity within
the last three days. Nothing he had heard offered the faintest hope for
his brother's cause; he was baffled and infuriated by the general
unquestioning belief in Frank's guilt, and a dozen times had been
compelled to sit biting on his bitterness, when every instinct impelled
him to square up and teach the fools better with all the force of his
pugilistic knowledge. Of late years he had been schooled in a class that
accepted 'a ready left' as the most convincing argument, and, being
beyond the immediate province of law and order, repaired immediately with
all its grievances to a twenty-four-foot 'ring' and an experienced
referee. But whilst there was a little diffidence amongst the men in
expressing their opinions about Frank, there was no reserve when they
came to tell of Ephraim Shine's method of improving the occasion with
prayer and preachment; and for a considerable time Harry had collected
bitterness till it threatened to choke him and bade him defy all his
mother's cautious principles.
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