Thought was arrested by utter bewilderment, now its old narrow
pathway was closed, and affection seemed to have died under the bruise
that had fallen on its keenest nerves.
But at last Mrs Osgood's table-linen was finished, and Silas was
paid in gold. His earnings in his native town, where he worked for a
wholesale dealer, had been after a lower rate; he had been paid
weekly, and of his weekly earnings a large proportion had gone to
objects of piety and charity. Now, for the first time in his life,
he had five bright guineas put into his hand; no man expected a
share of them, and he loved no man that he should offer him a share.
But what were the guineas to him who saw no vista beyond countless
days of weaving? It was needless for him to ask that, for it was
pleasant to him to feel them in his palm, and look at their bright
faces, which were all his own: it was another element of life, like
the weaving and the satisfaction of hunger, subsisting quite aloof
from the life of belief and love from which he had been cut off. The
weaver's hand had known the touch of hard-won money even before the
palm had grown to its full breadth; for twenty years, mysterious money
had stood to him as the symbol of earthly good, and the immediate
object of toil. He had seemed to love it little in the years when
every penny had its purpose for him; for he loved the purpose then.
But now, when all purpose was gone, that habit of looking towards
the money and grasping it with a sense of fulfilled effort made a loam
that was deep enough for the seeds of desire; and as Silas walked
homeward across the fields in the twilight, he drew out the money, and
thought it was brighter in the gathering gloom.
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