This was rather a coarse mode of
estimating Silas's relation to Eppie; but we must remember that many
of the impressions which Godfrey was likely to gather concerning the
labouring people around him would favour the idea that deep affections
can hardly go along with callous palms and scant means; and he had not
had the opportunity, even if he had had the power, of entering
intimately into all that was exceptional in the weaver's experience.
It was only the want of adequate knowledge that could have made it
possible for Godfrey deliberately to entertain an unfeeling project:
his natural kindness had outlived that blighting time of cruel wishes,
and Nancy's praise of him as a husband was not founded entirely on a
wilful illusion.
'I was right,' she said to herself, when she had recalled all their
scenes of discussion- 'I feel I was right to say him nay, though it
hurt me more than anything; but how good Godfrey has been about it!
Many men would have been very angry with me for standing out again
their wishes; and they might have thrown out that they'd had
ill-luck in marrying me; but Godfrey has never been the man to say
me an unkind word. It's only what he can't hide: everything seems so
blank to him, I know; and the land- what a difference it 'ud make to
him, when he goes to see after things, if he'd children growing up
that he was doing it all for! But I won't murmur; and perhaps if
he'd married a woman who'd have had children, she'd have vexed him
in other ways.
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