The accident greatly excited Silas Dene; it occurred on a Saturday
afternoon, and Nan, who was sewing in her own kitchen, heard upon the
wall the three thumps that were Silas’s usual summons. She found him
with Linnet Morgan, Hambley, and Donnithorne, one of his mates, who had
stopped on his way down the street to bring the news.
Silas wanted Nan to go to the scene of the accident and to bring him
back a first-hand report. She cried out in dismay, appealing with her
eyes to both Morgan and Donnithorne. Hambley she ignored; his very
presence made her shudder, and she knew he would side with Silas.
“But, Silas, I wouldn’t for the world! Those poor horses—what are you
asking me to do? to go and gloat over them?”
“Sentiment!” said Silas, who was angry. “Linnet says the same. God, if I
had eyes to use.... There’s violence and destruction half a mile down
the road, and you won’t go to see it. It maddens me, the way you folk
neglect the gifts and the opportunities God offers you. Sentimentalists!
A fine rough smash-up ... the wind’s a poet. A poet, I say, wasting food
and life for the mischief of it. The food of beasts, and the life of
beasts; wasted! There’s twenty trusses of hay in the floods, so
Donnithorne here tells me,—twenty trusses spoilt for dainty-feeding
cows,—and two fine horses smashed, and a big wagon. They’re lying heaped
at the bottom of the dyke. There’s blood spilt, as red as the heat of
the sun. No man would dare to bring all that about for the sake of the
mischief; but the wind’s a poet, I say—I like the wind—he tears up in a
minute trees that have persevered inch by inch for a thousand years, and
sends to the bottom ships full of a merchant’s careful cargo. Well, you
won’t go down the road and tell a blind man about the smash?”
“Guts spilt, Mrs. Dene!” said Hambley, rubbing his hands together and
provoking her. She turned away from him with repulsion.
“Ye’re morbid, Silas,” said Donnithorne in disgust, his hand on the
latch. He was a red-headed, red-bearded man, with pale but lascivious
blue eyes that once had leered at Hannah, Silas’s wife.
“Morbid, am I? no, it’s you squeamish ones that are morbid, and I that
have the stout fancy. If Heaven had given me eyes! I wouldn’t be such a
one as you. I’d sooner be a fool playing with a bit of string, and
crooning mumble-jumble, or taking off my hat to a scarecrow in the
dusk.”
With that he bundled them all out, and slammed the door.