Morgan came back at midnight, and said that the fire was over, not
having spread beyond the sheds. He was rubbing his blackened hands on a
piece of waste. His eyes fell upon the litter of shredded rushes
scattered in witness on the floor near Silas. Nan drooped, pale and
tired. He began to tell her about the fire, trying to brighten her and
to make her feel that she was no longer a prisoner alone with Silas. He
was purposely taking no notice of Silas, but presently looked up to see
the blind man standing above them.
He appeared to be immensely tall and haggard, and upon his face was a
look of suffering, which by the accentuation of furrow and wrinkle gave
the suggestion that he was unkempt. His limbs and torso were hugely,
grotesquely reproduced in shadow upon the walls and ceiling behind him.
Inscrutable to them, he loomed over Nan and Linnet. At last he spoke.
“You’re glad to have him back, Nan. You’re glad to come back to her,
Linnet.”
Their eyes met in tremulous surprise; was Silas to serve as their
interpreter?
“You little, dainty people! Oh, yes. I know. Gentle in your dealings.
Amiable. Indulgent. You don’t criticise—criticism’s uncharitable—might
hurt somebody’s feelings. Let things remain as they are; don’t disturb.
Moderation! That’s your creed. Make terms. Compromise!” He dropped
ejaculations, and swung into his most rhetorical vein, in which he
seemed really possessed by a spirit that released the unfaltering words.
“O pliant ones of the earth! blessed are the meek, and flowers shall
revive at your passage. Wander into the woods; call to the roe-deer to
eat from your hand. Look with envy at the pairing foxes, the nesting
birds; no creature so wild that it may escape the yearly call of home.
If the fox and the vixen together can burrow their earth for shelter and
the whelping of their litter, cannot you two together build a hut of
boughs and branches in a clearing beside the stream? Listen: I covet no
love, I am debarred; and love when it touches men like me is no virtue,
only an indulgence of self and a lapse from strength.” He laughed. “Who
would be weak? or bestial? But in you, love shall attain its highest
purpose of usefulness and steadfastness. To be steadfast in love is
reserved to man; it is the conscious will of love, the sustained reason.
Without it, as well be a dog, and couple in the street. Are you fit? You
are young and your minds are counterparts; you have no business with me
or with Gregory. Leave me to Gregory, and Gregory to me; the dumb shall
lead the blind, and the blind shall speak for the dumb. But you, go out,
where no strife assails, and concern yourselves with labour. You are the
builders, and we are the destroyers; we are the cursed, and you are the
blessed. You and your like must build your security upon the ruins of us
and our like; it’s the natural law. I might have been another man, but
God saw fit to twist me; he wrenched my spirit and upon each of my eyes
in turn he laid a finger.”
They sat absolutely speechless, confused and confounded that he should
thus trumpet out the secret they had hitherto guarded from one another.
They had wondered and suffered and trembled much, but of all outcomes
this was an outcome they had certainly never foreseen. It broke over
them like a natural catastrophe; Silas was making it into something
beyond the diapason of their souls.
“Build!” he said passionately, earnestly, “build with your sanity and
your health. Leave query and destruction to the tormented spirits; there
will always be enough of those; and if you did but know,—oh, world!” he
said, clasping his hands, “if you did but know, you would pity the
precursor, solitary and bold. Then comes the army of the workers, with
honest tools, and their flowing quietness.—Why should you struggle, you
two, beside Gregory and me? You should be side by side, perfectly
matched, amongst children who should resemble you. Tell me,” he said,
bending down to them, “you love?”
When he reduced it to those naked terms, they were ashamed into honesty,
both towards him and towards each other; they assented, as though he
were a priest reading over them a terrible and simple marriage-service.
“Then you shall have the courage to love. You shall go unmolested. You
were intended to fulfil, not to renounce. Who pretends to one law for
all? Not I; I wouldn’t dare utter such a heresy of intolerance. Not in
my sane moments. Who would take a field-bird up into the mountains? His
place is simpler; sweeter....”
He suddenly put his hands over his face, and his voice faltered, as
though he were spent and had nothing more to say.
“Go away now,” he said fretfully, “I’m tired out.”