“Who’d ha’ thought it?” said Nat; “and he looks so rough.”
But Jill would not even admit now that Silas was rough.
“You don’t know what a tender ’eart he has, Nat!” she exclaimed. “Ef he has a roughness, it’s only jest on the surface, and what matters that? Oh, Nat, I’m quite positive sure that I’ll allers love Silas next best in the world to mother and you.”
For Silas himself, he stood at that moment by the porch in his little garden; his arms were folded, his head was bare, the flowers lay sleeping at his feet, and the great glory and peace of the summer heavens surrounded him. There had been a tempest in his soul; but even the fiercest storms have their limits, and this storm, though it might rend him again, was for the present succeeded by calm. It is true that his heart felt sadly bruised and sore.
“I’m sort o’ empty,” he said to himself. “I ain’t sorry, in course, as I done it. I might ha’ guessed that the sweet little cuttin’ couldn’t take root yere,” and he struck his breast with his great hand; “but all the same I’m sort o’ empty.”
He went back into the house, and shut the door behind him and sat down in the chair which he had bought for Jill; but the moonbeams still followed him, and shone all over him as he sat near his lattice window.
“I ain’t sorry I ha’ done it,” he repeated. “Lord, I’m willin’; I’m a poor sort o’ critter at best, but I’m willin’ to do Thy will.”
He sighed heavily several times, and at last, worn out from many emotions, fell asleep where he sat in Jill’s chair.
There are compensations for all; and, although Silas did not know it, he had risen out of the commonplace that day and was enrolled in heaven as one of God’s heroes.