“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.”