“My poor friend, your sorrow has thrown you off your balance,” said the
clergyman as he came forward and laid his hand upon Silas’s shoulder.
“That’s you, Mr. Medhurst?” said Silas, instantly recognising the voice,
which indeed was unmistakable. “You’ve prayed over her; well, I hope
she’s the better for it. Heaven send me a parson to pray over me when my
turn comes, that’s all I say.”
“My poor friend,” the clergyman said again, “pray rather to Heaven now
that you be not embittered by your affliction. Let us call forth our
courage when the test comes upon the soul; let us pray to be of those
whose courage is steadfast even unto death. The lot of man is trouble
and affliction, and He in His Mercy hath appointed our courage as the
weapon wherewith to meet it.”
“That’s a help, isn’t it, Mr. Calthorpe?” said Silas, “that’s a great
help, that thought. Is that what you say, Mr. Medhurst, to a man that’s
going to the gallows? What do you tell him—to feel kindly towards his
jailers, the judge who condemned him, the jury that found him guilty,
the police that arrested him, the man or woman he murdered, the teacher
that taught him, the mother that bore him, and the father that begot
him? You tell him not to curse them all,—eh? You tell him to feel kindly
and charitable like you’ve told me to be long-suffering under my
blindness and to have courage now my wife’s dead,—eh? you tell him
that?”
“I am not a prison chaplain, Dene,” said Mr. Medhurst, stiffly, removing
his hand which, however, he immediately replaced, saying with
compassion, “My poor friend, my poor friend! you are sorely tried.”
“There’s worse things than death, Mr. Medhurst,” Silas exclaimed, and he
sprang up as though the clergyman’s touch were unendurable to him, and
stood in front of the range, having felt his way rapidly across the
room. Mr. Medhurst followed him, but Silas heard him coming, and moved
away again, behind the table. Mr. Medhurst turned to Calthorpe with a
gesture of resignation, saying in a low voice, “These poor fellows! we
must be tolerant, Calthorpe,” and Gregory continued to watch the
movements and gestures, which he could understand, although he could not
hear their speech. “Look here, sir,” Silas began again, “I didn’t know
of the accident, not till hours afterwards, as I’ve been telling Mr.
Calthorpe,—is Mr. Calthorpe still here?”
“Yes, Silas, I’m still here,” said the overseer.
“Ah, I thought I hadn’t heard the door. Well, I was in the shops, and
they told me at five o’clock. When they came to tell me, I asked what
time it was, and they told me, five o’clock. Now it was two o’clock when
I finished my dinner; I asked Hannah, and she told me, two o’clock.
That’s three hours, sir. Mark that. She’d been on that line three hours
before her husband knew it. Is that right, when husband and wife should
be one?”
“They told you directly she was found, Dene,” said the clergyman. “No
one is to blame.”
“I’m blaming no one,” said Silas sullenly, “I only ask you to mark it,
sir: three hours. Three hours before I knew.”
“Why does he insist on that point?” thought Calthorpe.
“I’m alone now, a lonely man and a blind one. The inquest now,—must you
have an inquest?”
“We are all equal before the law,” said Mr. Medhurst in a gentle and
reproving voice.
“And I have to go to it?”
“I am afraid so, Dene.”
“Well, I’ll tell them what I told you: it was three hours before I knew.
She was alive at two o’clock, when she left me,” said Silas with great
violence, striking his fist upon the table and glaring round the room
with his sightless eyes; “you’ve all heard: three hours,—you, Mr.
Medhurst, and you, Mr. Calthorpe, and you, Hambley, and you, Nan. Come
here, Nan.”
Gregory’s wife went to him, like a dog to a cruel master; he had thrust
his fingers through his black hair, and looked wild. He groped for her
shoulder; clutched it firmly.
“Tell Gregory, Nan; tell him she had been dead three hours before I
knew.”
Gregory’s wife made swift passes with her fingers to her husband, who
read the signs and answered in the same language.
“He says you told him that when you first came in, Silas.” She had a
clear and gentle voice.
“You hear that, Mr. Medhurst? you hear, Mr. Calthorpe? I told my brother
that when I came in. I’m alone now; I had a son, but I don’t know where
he is; I had a daughter too, but she went soon after her brother. I
stand alone; I don’t count on nobody.”
“Come, Dene; I respect your sorrow, but I cannot hear you imply that
your children deserted you: you were always, I am afraid, a harsh
father.” Mr. Medhurst spoke in the reprimanding tone that he could
assume at a moment’s notice; it was shaded with regret, as though he
spoke thus not from a natural inclination to find fault, but from a
pressure of duty.
“Why don’t you say that I was harsh to Hannah?” demanded Silas. Mr.
Medhurst made a deprecatory movement with his hands; he would not
willingly bring charges against a man already in trouble. “Why don’t you
say so?” repeated the blind man, upon whom the movement was naturally
lost.
“Since you insist,” said the clergyman, “I must say that the whole
village knew you were not always very kind to your wife; in fact, I have
spoken to you myself on the subject.”
“I knocked her about; I’d do the same to any woman, if I was fool and
dupe enough to take up with another one,” Silas said.
His pronouncement left the room in silence; his blind glare checked the
words on the lips of both the clergyman and the overseer; he still stood
entrenched behind the table, his sinewy hand gripping Nan’s small
shoulder, for she dared do nothing but remain motionless, neither
cowering away nor moving closer to him, but keeping her eyes bent upon
the floor. An oil-lamp swung from the ceiling above the table. Gregory
watched them all in turn, from his chair beside the oven; he was really
grinning now, and seemed more in the mood to defend his brother’s
quarrels with his fist than to take any interest in the visible terror
of his wife. Nor did she appear to expect championship from him. She had
not thrown him so much as one appealing glance. Living between the two
brothers, she might almost have forgotten which of the two was her
husband and which her brother-in-law; in fact, it had been whispered in
the village that the mode of life in the Denes’ cottage was such as to
lead the woman into that kind of confusion,—but those who spoke so were
the ignorant, who disregarded or else knew nothing of the pride and
jealousy of the Denes.
“I didn’t knock her about so cruelly as the train,” said Silas, laughing
wildly.
“O Lord!” Mr. Medhurst began, clasping his hands, “look with mercy upon
this Thy servant, that in the hour of his trial....”
“Trial? what’s that?” cried Silas. “An inquest isn’t a trial, that I’m
aware?”
“... that in the hour of his trial he may rise above the sorrows of the
flesh to a more perfect understanding of Thy clemency....”
“It’s just babble,” said Silas, who was shaking now with rage from head
to foot.
“Save him, O Lord, from the mortal sin of profanity; endow him with
strength righteously to live, bringing him at the last out of the sea of
peril into the calm waters of that perfect peace....”
“You so smooth and righteous, sir, I wonder it doesn’t shock you to see
a woman battered in like Hannah’s battered now; yet you went and said
your prayers over her; fairly gloated over her, perhaps?”
“Look, O Lord, with mercy upon this Thy poor distraught but faithful
servant. Consider him with leniency; mercifully pardon....”
“Look here,” Silas cried, “the Lord’ll hear your prayers just as well if
they’re put up from your parsonage. This is my cottage, and my affairs
are my affairs; what I do, or what’s sent to me, and how I take it, is
my affair. I’ve always held that a man was a thing by himself, specially
when he’s in trouble; he isn’t forced to be the toy of sympathy, and of
help he doesn’t want. Let me alone. I don’t want your prayers, Mr.
Medhurst. I don’t want your holiday, Mr. Calthorpe. I’ll be at my work
to-morrow morning same as I always am—same as I was to-day after my wife
died, though, mark you, I didn’t know it. I don’t whine, so I don’t want
you to do my whining for me. No. I never missed a day at my work yet,
and though I’m blind I work to keep myself, and I’ll look after myself,
and my rights, blind as I am,—I’ll not be deceived, not I. ‘Poor blind
Silas.’ Don’t let me hear you say that. Perhaps I know more than you
think, and guess the rest.” He went off into a string of mumblings, and
a slight foam of saliva appeared at the corners of his mouth.
“It’s no good staying here, Mr. Medhurst,” said Calthorpe, trying to get
the clergyman away.
“You speak to him, Calthorpe.”
“I’ll try.—Here, Silas, you don’t hate me?” said Calthorpe, going up to
the blind man.
“No; you’re a well-meaning, ordinary sort of chap,” replied Silas.
“Yes, I don’t want to be anything else. Now see here, if you think work
will keep your mind off things, you must come to work; but if you want
to stop away, you can stop away for a week. Is that clear?”
“I’ll come to work. A man’s got a right to decide for himself, hasn’t
he?”
“Of course he has; but don’t be too hard on yourself. Don’t get mulish.
You don’t look right somehow. You’re all out of gear; small wonder just
now, but you know as well as I do that you’re a bit ill-balanced at the
best of times. Take it easy, Silas.”
“You mean well, I dare say.”
“Yes, I swear I do; don’t say it so grudgingly. See here: cling on to
your political grievances, man; they’ll take your mind off your own
troubles.”
“I know how to bear my own troubles.”
“I’m only giving you a hint; get angry over something. Go down and make
one of your speeches to the debating society. I don’t share your views,
and I disapprove of your methods, because they stir up trouble amongst
the men, but I’d like to think that something was helping you.”
“Chatter!” said Silas suddenly.
“You’re too damned scornful,” said Calthorpe flushing. “All right then;
fight it out with yourself. Snarl at your mates, and scare the women.
Make yourself lonelier than you already are, you poor lonely devil.”
Silas laughed at that, and some of the hostility went out of his face.
“Thanks, Mr. Calthorpe. I’ll be at work to-morrow. Going now?”
“Mr. Medhurst and I are both going—unless you want us to stay?”
“No, I don’t want you to stay.”
“No ill-feeling, Silas?”
“None, if you mean because you mislaid a bit of your temper.”