Linnet Morgan followed Nan back into her own kitchen.
“Oh, Mr. Morgan, is Silas mad?” she said, turning to him at once.
“I sometimes don’t know what to make of him.”
“Would he go to look at the accident, do you think, if he could see?”
“Not he!” said Morgan, “not he! But he’s safe to say so. He turned pale
when Donnithorne told him about it, but next minute he was pretending to
be all eager, like you heard him.”
They remained standing, occupied with their own thoughts. Gregory
glanced up from his drawings as they came in, but otherwise took no
notice of them. Morgan sat down before the range, and began prodding a
piece of firewood between the small open bars.
“I lose my bearings, living with Silas,” he said presently; “amongst all
his manias, he’s got this mania for destruction. Perhaps the long and
short of it is, that he likes talking loud about big noisy things, when
he’s certain they won’t come near him to hurt him. Being blind keeps him
safe.... Mrs. Dene, come for a turn with me. You look right white and
scared. Come out, and let the wind blow away bad thoughts?”
“I’ll ask Gregory to come with us.” She went over to her husband,
touched him on the arm to attract his attention, and spoke to him on her
fingers. “He says he’s busy with his drawings, but will we go without
him.”
V
They took the road that led in the opposite direction from the accident,
and uncharitable eyes watched them go past the windows of the houses in
the village. But they walked all unconscious, feeling relieved and with
a gay sense of holiday, almost a sense of truancy; and when the wind
caught them as they left the shelter of the village, and forced them to
a breathless standstill, they laughed, and struggled on again,
exhilarated by their fight against so clean and natural a foe. They were
soon in the open country, having left the village behind; they breasted
the wind, and breathed it deeply, tasting, or fancying that they tasted,
upon their lips the salt of the flying spray. The road which they
followed lost the monotony of its straightness when they conquered it
yard by yard, and remembered that, did they but follow it far enough, it
would lead them eventually to the sea.
There was indeed a regal splendour about the day, about the embattled
sky and driven clouds. The northern forces had been recklessly
unleashed. The sea would be beaten into a tumult full of angry majesty.
How wild a day, how arrogant a storm!