A cry from Nan brought him to his feet, chattering. “What it it? what is it?” in a renewed access of fear. “Oh, Silas!” she exclaimed, coming close to him, “there’s Hambley looking in through the window; tell him to go away, oh, please tell him to go away! He does what you tell him always.”
Hambley was indeed pressing his face against the window, and the shape of his head was dark against the red sky. He was so small that he was only just able to reach the window by climbing to the outside sill with the tips of his fingers, and the end of his nose was flattened white upon the pane. Nan could see the grin on his evil little face. Silas strode to the door, flung it open, and summoned the little man. At the end of the street the night was torn by flames.
As soon as Hambley was inside he seized the little man by his collar. “Now what were you doing, peeping into my house when you thought you wouldn’t be found out? You little skunk, I’ve always called you, and so you are. You frightened Nan, you little skunk. You meant to spy upon me. Well, you’ll see what you get!” Holding him easily with one hand, sometimes swinging him clean off his feet, so that he twirled and dangled in mid-air, Silas thrashed him with his fist, and Hambley shrieked and appealed to Nan, and tried, but quite vainly, to kick Silas. Nan got into a corner, out of the way of the blows. When he had finished, Silas carried him over to the door and threw him regardlessly out into the street.
XII
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.