The door of the house creaked, and Robert Godwin came out; they rose and met him. He said that he should not require Martial’s services further that evening—would he come the day after next? Martial agreed, and went to fetch Ruy from the stable. Both of them accompanied Felise some way towards her home, then wished her “good evening,” and parted.
The same scene occurred on the next occasion of Barnard’s visit to Godwin; Martial and Felise sat in the scanty shade of the poplars on the white-green lawn, thinking of one thing, and talking of another.
That the altered position of their affairs might be thrown into relief, it seemed best to delineate the circumstances first before explaining them; just as actors come on the stage and begin to tell their story afterwards. Robert Godwin had contrived this, and every other evening Felise and Martial, in the shade of the tall poplar, sat on his lawn, idle, side by side, till the glow of the sunset touched her cheek.
XIV
If our old habits are suspended, how rapidly the touch of living hands disappears from our inanimate surroundings. Almost the instant the living hand is withdrawn, dust settles on the furniture and the room.
Dust thickens in the ink; the pen corrodes; papers become gritty; the moisture of the air or the heat of the sun curls photographs; desolation dwells in every nook and corner.
The smooth surface of the polished table is strewn with the fine particles deposited by the atmosphere; it is sown with dust. Time so soon asserts his reign. But a day or two is sufficient; the flowers left in the vase wither, and the air becomes dull and lifeless let but the door be closed for three days.
When I return to my chamber and find it thus, I hasten to push the books aslant from the positions in which they have been lying, to upset some of the papers and give them a new aspect, to flick the dust from the table, to open the window. The change is instant; immediately the chairs appear comfortable, and the room a habitation for the living. Yet it is sorrowful to reflect how soon—but a day or two—and already the dust has gathered over the place we filled.
Robert Godwin was sitting at his desk in his bedroom—his desk you will remember was the washstand, and stood by the narrow window. Half the embrasure of the window—deep in the thick wall—was lit by the slant rays of the evening sun. Cobwebs had grown in the corner of the casement, and stretched out over the piles of papers.
They were gritty with dust; they had not been touched lately. Dust was thickening the ink; the pen was corroding; fragments of a torn-up envelope lay on the floor. He sat there, but the desk and the window were full of desolation. Old habits were suspended; the touch of the living hand was withdrawn. The pen was not dipped in the ink, the papers remained unmoved, and dust collected in the folds, and spiders spun threads about them.
He sat with his left arm on the washstand in such a position that he could see what was doing in the garden underneath. He was watching Felise and Martial, whom he had himself set there to be watched.
The slow sun scarcely moved in the western sky, and the lines of shade cast by the bars of the casement dragged upwards. Flies buzzed against the pane—buzzed and crawled and buzzed again—the only sound in the still room.
Fixed and intent upon the pair in the shade of the grey poplar-tree, Robert Godwin sat and watched and watched, and held this thing up close and closer to his mind to see and understand it.
He had worked it out in this way: so soon as Felise had purchased Ruy she ceased to walk over; that was reasonable enough, because there was nothing to attract her. But what had become of the horse? She did not ride him, and Godwin could not hear that it was at Mr. Goring’s. There were plenty to bring him information, for although they hated him they hastened to serve his will.
This is man. Not man as he would be if his aspirations were encouraged instead of being beaten out of him, but man as he exists on sufferance, the slave-man. His meanest and basest parts are encouraged, his servility rewarded, his treachery accounted a merit. This is the slave-man.
No tyrant, however evil, has yet lacked ready hands to execute his most abominable will. To read how eagerly men have rushed to serve the despot is the bitterest, the saddest matter of history; it is the saddest sight in our own day.
Godwin had mean tools enough ready to serve him with hand or tongue; yet he never paid them. They received no reward, to serve him was its own reward—to such a depth of degradation does the slave-man descend.
These miserable village wretches, from whom this despot took away the spring, from whom he had tried to take their common, over whom he had domineered so long, were only too proud and glad if they could do him some mean service. He paid his labourers the lowest of all the farmers, yet he never wanted for ploughman or carter. They would work for him sixpence cheaper than for any other, and overtime for nothing; they would submit to be driven and hectored; they clung to his employment as a glad thing.
The meanness of man—slave-man—is inexpressible. Some, I verily believe, delight to be slave-men; it is a joy to them,
