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SILAS MARNER

GEORGE ELIOT,

pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans ^ was
bom near Nuneaton on November
22nd ^ 18 ig^ and her early years were
passed in the country. In 18^1 the
family moved to Coventry^ where she
studied a good deal^ and when she
moved to London in i84g she was
an accomplished scholar. Her evan-
gelical faith gave place to agnosti-
cism. In 18^1 she was appointed
assistant editor of'''' The Westminster
Review f^^ which led to her meeting
and association with Henry Lewes.
Lewes died in i8j8 and in 1880 she
married John W. Cross. She died
on December 22nd of that year.
This book wasfrst published in i860.

Printed in Great Britain

" IVe'vc hi'cn used to he happy together:

S.M. Frotitis.

Page I'ilC.

LIBRARY OF CLASSICS

SILAS
MARNER

GEORGE
ELIOT

LONDON AND GLASGOW
COLLINS CLEAR-TYPE PRESS

INTRODUCTION.^

Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the pen-name of
George Ehot, was one of the great novelists of the
nineteenth century.

She was bom at Arbury Farm, Coltbn, in Warwick-
shire, in 1819, the daughter of a land agent, Robert
Evans, and her knowledge and understanding of
country characters, and her vivid and faithful descrip-
tions of country life, are doubtless due to her observa-
tion and study of the people among whom she was
brought up, and among whom later she lived.

A few months after she was bom the family moved
to Griff Farm, and there she lived till she was five
years old, when she went to school at Attleboro.
Four years later she went to a boarding-school at
Nuneaton, where she seems to have been a popular
student — at least with her teachers— ^f or she formed
a lasting friendship with the Principal, Miss Lewis. To
this friendship is possibly due the deep interest Mary
Ann Evans always took in the Higher Education of
Women, though, indeed, she was interested in all the
movements of her time which concerned women.

In 1836 her mother died, and the seventeen-year-old
girl came home to manage her father's house. But in
spite of this she was able to continue her studies.
Music was her greatest joy, but she also loved lan-
guages ; masters came from Coventry to teach her
German and Italian, of both of which she soon had a
scholarly knowledge. She read enormously, but only
literature.

When, in 1841, her father moved to Foleshill, near
Coventry, Marian Evans, as she was now signing
herself, met Charles Bray, the philosophical writer,

INTRODUCTION

and his brother-in-law Charles Hennel, author of the
Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity. These
two writers, who soon became her close friends,
influenced Marian Evans's religious ideas. She became
a sceptic, and it was only with the greatest of difficulty
that her father could persuade her to go to church.
This must have been a sore trial to a middle- Victorian
parent with strong views on the proper position and
duties of women.

It was during this time that she translated several
philosophical and religious books from the German
and Italian under the pen-name of George Eliot : a
concession, one supposes, to Victorianism.

Her next literary venture was as Assistant Editor
of the Westminster Review. This was in 185 1 after her
father's death (1849), ^^^ ^ period of foreign travel
with the Brays. Her articles in the Westminster
Review were signed " Marian Evans," but when she
turned to fiction in 1856 she resumed the name of
George Eliot. In this year The Sad Fortunes of the
Reverend Amos Barton appeared in Blackwood's
Magazine as the first of a series of stories called Scenes
from Clerical Life. This sketch, which was delicately
written and of an appealing pathos, aroused tre-
mendous interest in literary circles : it is, indeed, for
skill and artistry of style, the best of her writings.

She followed it in 1859 with Adam Bede, her first
novel. This has been the most popular and widely
read of her books, and had, immediately on publica-
tion, an unparalleled success. The chief character,
Adam Bede — as also Caleb Garth, one of the most
striking characters in Middlemarch, a later book —
reflects the strength of will and virile qualities of her
father, from whom doubtless Marian Evans herself
inherited her intellectual power and forceful personality.

The next year The Mill on the Floss appeared, a book
noteworthy for its tragic scenes and skilful character
drawing. And here again the author has drawn on her

INTRODUCTION

family for inspiration, for her brother Isaac, thinly-
veiled, can be found in the book.

Silas Marner belongs to the year 1861 and is perhaps
the most beautiful of her books. It closes the early
period of Marian Evans's literary career.

The most famous books of her middle period are
Romola, a story of Italian life, and The Spanish Gipsy,
her first poetic effort. But though the author was
pleased with the latter the critics condemn her poetry
as lacking in fire and spontaneity \ yet even they
grant it perfection of form. But perfection of form
does not make for immortality, and it is as novelist,
not poet, that the name of George Eliot will be
remembered.

By 1872 she had returned to studies of English life,
with Middlemarch, a novel of literary brilliance and
philosophic tone and profound study of character. Later,
in 1876, appeared Daniel Deronda, the last of her
novels, a study of Jewish life, inferior, it is true, to
Middlemarch, but still a notable book.

The last of George Eliot's works to be published was
a volume of essays, including one on Debasing the
Moral Currency. The volume as a whole, however, is
laboured and not to be compared with her previous
work. Her contributions to the Westminster Review
were collected and published five years after her
death, which occurred in 1880, soon after her marriage,
very late in life, to Mr. John Walter Cross.

Thus the literary works of George Eliot fall into
three periods, to the earliest of which Silas Marner
belongs. The qualities of this book are typical of all
her writings : observation, deep insight into, and
clever portrayal of, character, humour and a gift for
pathos all expressed in an easy flowing style perfect
in the simplicity of its technique and powerfully
gripping in the tenser scenes. As a writer of prose
she has been ranked with Scott, Thackeray, and
Dickens, for character drawing and intellectual force,

INTRODUCTION

and fiir above the other women of her time. But as a
story-teller she falls below them. Silas Marner, for
example, is at llie beginnint? more a series of descriptixe
sketches of country life and country people, strikingly
and faithfully drawn, than a story in the modern
sense. The threads of the story are woven together
slowly ; one is not swept along as in a modern novel,
but this in no way lessens the charm of the book, which
gravely and melodiously leads us through old England
in such a way that the understanding reader feels
that it would somehow be an unpardonable discourtesy
to hurry it or skip a single page.

The slow thinking, slow speaking folk who gather
at the Rainbow Inn of nights are truly drawn : the
writer sees the humour of their behaviour, but of her
understanding does not mock them. The lonely old
weaver who loses his golden treasure only to find it
again in the heart of a child and whose whole life is
transformed at her coming is a masterpiece of artistic
character drawing. One by one the other people in
the story fall into their proper places, the unhappy
Godfrey and his sweetly obstinate Victorian wile, the
golden-hearted practical Dolly Winthrop and Aaron
her son ; then the story flows on with quiet, graved
beauty to an idyllic conclusion among the lilacs and
laburnums.

This story of the weaver of Raveloe is in itself a
skilful piece of weaving, and the finished cloth is
perfect in its artistry. There is indeed more powerful
writing in Adam Bede or Middlemarch than in Silas
Marner, but they lack the charm and pathos of this
idyll of an old man's love for a child. Those who love
the minuet will love this book, but those who long for
jazz had better pass it by.

Winifred Mulley, M.A. (Cantab).

PART FIRST

CHAPTER I

[n the days when the spinning-wheels hummed
Dusily in the farm-houses — and even great ladies,
:lothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy
;pinning-wheels of polished oak — there might
De seen in districts far away among the lanes,
)r deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid,
indersized men, who, by the side of the brawny
:ountry-folk, looked like the remnants of a dis-
nherited race. The shepherd's dog barked
iercely when one of these alien-looking men
ippeared on the upland, dark against the early
vinter sunset ; for what dog likes a figure bent
mder a heavy bag? — and these pale men rarely
itirred abroad without that mysterious burden,
rhe shepherd himself, though he had good
eason to believe that the bag held nothing but
laxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong
inen spun from that thread, was not quite sure
hat this trade of weaving, indispensable though
t was, could be carried on entirely without the
lelp of the Evil One.

In that far-off time superstition clung easily
round every person or thing that was at all
unwonted, or even intermittent and occasional
merely, like the visits of the pedlar or the knife-
grinder. No one knew where wandering men
had their homes or their origin ; and how was
a man to be explained unless you at least knew
somebody who knew his father and mother?
To the peasants of old times, the world outside
their own direct experience was a region of
vagueness and mystery ; to their untravelled
thought a state of wandering was a conception
as dim as the winter life of the swallows that
came back with the spring ; and even a settler,
if he came from distant parts, hardly ever ceased
to be viewed with a remnant of distrust, which
would have prevented any surprise if a long
course of inoffensive conduct on his part had
ended in the commission of a crime ; especially
if he had any reputation for knowiedge, or
showed any skill in handicraft. All cleverness,
whether in the rapid use of that difficult instru-
ment the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar
to villagers, was in itself suspicious : honest folk,
born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly
not overwise or clever — at least, not beyond such
a matter as knowing the signs of the weather ;
and the process by which rapidity and dexterity
of any kind were acquired was so wholly hidden,
that they partook of the nature of conjuring

In this way it came to pass that those scattered
linen-weavers — emigrants from the town into the
country — were to the last regarded as aliens by
their rustic neighbours, and usually contracted
the eccentric habits which belong to a state of
loneliness.

In the early years of this century, such a
linen-weaver, named Silas Marner, worked at
his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among
the nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe,
and not far from the edge of a deserted stone-
pit. The questionable sound of Silas's loom,'
so unlike the natural cheerful trotting of the
wttmowihg machine, or the simpler rhythm of
the flail, had a half-fearful fascination for the
Raveloe boys, who would often leave off their
nutting or birds'-nesting to peep in at the window
of the stone cottage, counterbalancing a certain
awe at the mysterious action of the loom, by a
.pleasanF sense of scornful superiority, drawn from
the mockery of its alternating^'noises, along with
the bent, treadmill attitude of the weaver. But
sometimes it happened that Marner, pausing to
adjust an irregularity in his thread, became
aware of the small scoundrels, and, though
chary of his time, he liked their intrusion so
ill that he would descend from his loom, and,
opening the door, would fix on them a gaze
that was always enough^Tojmiake them take to.
their less in terFoK

For how was It possible to believe that those
large brown protuberant eyes in Silas Marner's
pale face really saw nothing very distinctly that
was not close to them, and not rather that their
dreadful stare could dart cramp, or rickets, or a
wry moutij^at any boy who happened to be in
-—the rear? J They had, perhaps, heard their fathers
and mothers hint that Silas Marner could cure
folk's rheumatism if he had a mind, and add,
still more darkly, that if you could only speak
the devil fair enough, he might save you the
cost of the doctor./ Such strange, lingering
echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps
even now be caught by the diligent listener
among the gray-haired peasantry ; for the_rude
mind with difficulty associates the ideas of power
and benignity. A shadowy conception of power
that by much persuasion can be induced to
refrain from inflicting harm, is the shape most
easily taken by the sense of the Invisible in the
minds of men who have always been pressed
close by primitive wants, and to whom a life of
hard toil has never been illuminated by any
enthusiastic religious faith. To them pain and
mishap present a far wider range of possibilities
than gladness and enjoyment : their imagination
is almost barren of the images that feed desire
and hope, but is all overgrown by recollections
that are a perpetual pasture to fear. *'Is there
anvthing you can fancy that you would like to

sat?" I once said to an old labouring man,
who was in his last illness, and who had refused
all the food his wife had offered him. ^^No,'*
he answered ; '* I've never been used to nothing
but common victual, and I can't eat that."
Experience had bred no fancies in him that
could raise the phantasm of appetite.

And Raveloe was a village where many of the
old echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices.
Not that it was one of those barren parishes
lying on the outskirts of civilisation— inhabited
by meagre sheep and thinly-scattered shepherds :
on the contrary, it lay in the' rich, central plain
of what we are pleased to call Merry England,,
and held farms which, speaking from a spiritual
point of view, paid highly-desirable tithes. But
it was nestled in a snug, well-wooded hollow,
quTte^an hou~r's~journey bnr~Eorseback from any"'
turnpike, where it was never reached by the
vibrations of the coach-horn, or of public opinion^s
It was an Tm p6rt"an t-fooki ng vi 1 lage, with a fine ^
old ch u rch /and~Targe cTiurchyj. rd in the heart of
it, and two or three large brick-and-stone home-
steads, with well-walled orchards and ornamental
weathercocks, standing close upon the road, and
lifting more imposing fronts than the rectory,

which peeped from among the trees on the

other side~of the churchyard — a village which
showed at once the summits of its social life,__
and told the practised ey-e that there was no great

park and manor-house in the vicinity, but that
there were several chiefs in Raveloe who could
farm badiy quite at their ease, drawing enougji
money from their bad farming, in those war_
times, to live in^a rolhcking fashi^, and keep
a jolly Christmas, Whitsun, and Eastertide.

It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had
first come to Raveloe; he""was then simply a
pallid young man,\vrth prominent, short-sighted
brown eyes, whose appearance would have had
nothing strange for people of average culture and
experience, but for the villagers near whom he
had come to settle, it had mysterj^us pecuHarities
which corresponded with the exceptional nature
of his occupation, and his advent, frojm__an_ un-
known region called ** North'ard." So had his
way of life: he invited no comer to step across
his door-sill, and he never strolled into the
village to drink a pint at the Rainbow, or to
gossip at the w^heelwright's ; he sought no man
or woman, save for the purposes of his calling,
or in order to supply himself with necessaries ;
and it was soon clear to the Raveloe lasses that
he would never urge one of them to accept him
against her will — quite as if he had heard them
declare that they would never marry a dead man
come to life again.

This view of Marner's personality was not
without another ground than his pale face
and unexampled eyes ; for Jem Rodney, the

mole-catcher, averred that one evening as he was
returning homeward he saw Silas Marner leaning
against a stile with a heavy bag on his back,
instead of resting the bag on the stile as a
man in his senses would have done ; and that,
on coming up to him, he saw that Marner's eyes
were set like a dead man's, and he spoke to
him, and shook him, and his limbs were stiff,
and his hands clutched the bag as if they'd
been made of iron ; but just as he had made
up his mind that the weaver was dead, he came
all right again, like, as you might say, in the
winking of an eye, and said ** Good-night," and
walked off. All this Jem swore he had seen,
more by token that it was the very day he had
been mole-catching on Squire Cass's land, down
by the old saw-pit. Some said Marner must
have been in a^Uit," a word which seemed to
explain things otherwise incredible ; but the
argumentative Mr. Macey, clerk of the parish,
shook his head, and asked if anybody was ever
known to go off in a fit and not fall down. A
fit was a stroke, wasn't it? and it was in the
nature of a stroke to partly take away the use
of a man's limbs and throw him on the parish,
if he'd got no children to look to. No, no ; it
was no stroke that would let a man stand on
his legs, like a horse between the shafts, and
then walk off as soon as you can say *' Gee ! "
But there might be such a thing as a man^s

soul being loose from his body, and going- out
and in, like a bird out of ils nest and back ;
and that was how folks got overwise, for they
went to school in this shell-less state to those
who could teach them more than their neighbours
could learn with their five senses and the parson.
And where did Master Marner get his knowledge
of herbs from — and charms too, if he liked to
give them away? Jem Rodney's story was no
more than what might have been expected by
anybody who had seen how Marner had cured
Sally Oates, and made her sleep like a baby,
when her heart had been beating enough to
burst her body, for two months and more, while
she had been under the doctor's care. He might
cure more folks if he would ; but he was worth
speaking fair, if it was only Jo k^ep_iiim from
doing you a mischief.

It was partly to this vague fear that Marner
was indebted for protecting him from the per-
secution that his singularities might have drawn
upon him, but still more to the fact that, the
old linen-weaver in the neighbouring parish of
Tarley being dead, his handicraft made him a
highly welcome settler to the richer housewives
of the district, and even to the more provident
cottagers, who had their little stock of yarn at
the year's end. Their sense of his usefulness
would have counteracted any repugnance or
suspicion which was not confirmed by a

deficiency in the quality or the tale of the cloth
he wove for them. And the years had rolled
on without producing any change in the im-
pressions of the neighbours concerning Marner,
except the change from novelty to habit. At
the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said
just the same things about Silas Marner as at
the beginning : they did not say them quite
so often, but they believed them much more
strongly when they did say them. There was
only one important addition which the years
had brought : it was that Master Marner had
laid by a fine sight of money somewhere, and
that he could buy up '* bigger men "than himself.
But while opinion concerning him had re-
mained nearly stationary, and his daily habits
had presented scarcely any visible change,
Marner's inward life had been a history and
a metamorphosis, as that of every fervid nature
must be when it has fled, or been condemned
to solitude. His life, before he came to Raveloe,
had been filled with the movement, the mental
activity, and the close fellowship which, in
that day as in this, marked the life of an
artisan early incorporated in a narrow religious
sect, where the poorest layman has the chance
of distinguishing himself by gifts of speech,
and has, at the very least, the weight of a
silent voter in the government of his community.
Marner was highly thought of in that little

hidden world, known to itself as the church
assembling in Lantern Yard ; he was believed
to be a young man of exemplary life and
ardent faith ; and a peculiar interest had been
centred in him ever since he had fallen, at a
prayer-meeting, into a mysterious rigidity and
suspension of consciousness which, lasting for
an hour or more, had been mistaken for death.
To have sought a medical explanation for this
phenomenon would have been held by vSilas
himself, as well as by his minister and fellow-
members, a wilful self-exclusion from the spiritual
significance that might lie therein.
I Silas was evidently a brother selected for a
peculiar discipline ; and though the effort to
interpret this discipline was discouraged by
the absence, on his part, of any spiritual vision
during his outward trance, yet it was believed^
by himself and others that its effect was seen
in an accession of light and fervour. A less
truthful man than he might have been tempted
into the subsequent creation of a vision in the
form of resurgent memory ; a less sane man
might have believed in such a creation ; but
Silas was both sane and honest, though, as
with many honest and fervent men, culture had
not defined any channels for his sense of mystery,
and so it spread itself over the proper pathway
of inquiry and knowledge. He had inherited
from his mother some acquaintance with medicinal .

lerbs and their preparation — a little store of
visdom which she had imparted to him as a
lolemn bequest — but of late years he had had
ioubts about the lawfulness of applying this
mowledge, believing that herbs could have no
fficacy without prayer, and that prayer might
uffice without herbs ; so that his inherited
lelight to wander through the fields in search
►f foxglove and dandelion and coltsfoot began
0 wear to him the character of a temptation.

Among the members of his church there was
me young man, a little older than himself, with
irhom he had long lived in such close friendship
hat it was the custom of their Lantern Yard
)rethren to call them David and Jonathan. The
eal name of the friend was William Dane, and
le, too, was regarded as a shining instance of
outhful piety, though somewhat given to over-
everity towards weaker brethren, and to be so
azzled by his own light as to hold himself
nser than his teachers. But whatever blemishes
thers might discern in William, to his friend's
lind he was faultless ; for Marner had one of
lose impressible, self-doubting natures which,
t an inexperienced age, admire imperativeness,
nd lean on contradiction. The expression of
'usting simplicity in Marner's face, heightened
y that absence of special observation, that
efenceless, deer-like gaze which belongs to large,
rominent eyes, was strongly contrasted by the

self-complacent suppression of inward triumph
that lurked in the narrow, slanting eyes and
compressed lips of William Dane. One of the
most frequent topics of conversation between
the two friends was Assurance of salvation :
Silas confessed that he could never arrive at
anything higher than hope mingled with fear,
and listened with longing wonder when William
declared that he had possessed unshaken assur-
ance ever since, in the period of his conversion,
he had dreamed that he saw the words ** calling
and election sure" standing by themselves on a
white page in the open Bible. Such colloquies
have occupied many a pair of pale-faced weavers,
whose unnurtured souls have been like young
winged things, fluttering forsaken in the twilight.
It had seemed to the unsuspecting Silas that
the friendship had suffered no chill even from
his formation of another attachment of a closer
kind. For some months he had been engaged
to a young servant-woman, waiting only for a
little increase to their mutual savings in order
to their marriage ; and it was a great delight
to him that Sarah did not object to William's
occasional presence in their Sunday interviews.
It was at this point in their history that Silas's
cataleptic fit occurred during the prayer-meeting ;
and amidst the various queries and expressions
of interest addressed to him by his fellow-
members, William's suggestion alone jarred with

he general sympathy towards a brother thus

jingled out for special dealings. He observed

hat, to him, this trance looked more like a

visitation of Satan than a proof of divine favour,

md exhorted his friend to see that he hid no

iccursed thing within his soul. Silas, feeling

Dound to accept rebuke and admonition as a

brotherly office, felt no resentment, but only

3ain, at his friend's doubts concerning him ;

md to this was soon added some anxiety at

he perception that Sarah's manner towards him

Degan to exhibit a strange fluctuation between

m effort at an increased manifestation of regard

md involuntary signs of shrinking and dislike.

^e asked her if she wished to break off their

mgagement ; but she denied this . their engage-

nent was known to the church, and had been

•ecognised in the prayer-meetings ; it could not

3e broken off without strict investigation, and

5arah could render no reason that would be

;anctioned by the feeling of the community.

At this time the senior deacon was taken

iangerously ill, and, being a childless widower,

le was tended night and day by some of the

/■ounger brethren or sisters. Silas frequently

;ook his turn in the night-watching with

William, the one relieving the other at two in

;he morning. The old man, contrary to expecta-

ion, seemed to be on the way to recovery, when

Dne night Silas, sitting up by his bedside,

observed that his usual audible breathing had

ceased. The candle was burning low, and he

had to lift it to see the patient's face distinctly.

Examination convinced him that the deacon was

dead — had been dead some time, for the limbs

were rigid. Silas asked himself if he had been

asleep, and looked at the clock : it was already

four in the morning. How was it that William

had not come? In much anxiety he went to

seek for help, and soon there were several friends

assembled in the house, the minister among

them, while Silas went away to his work,

wishing he could have met William to know

the reason of his non-appearance. But at six

o'clock, as he was thinking of going to seek

his friend, William came, and with him the

minister. They came to summon him to Lantern

Yard, to meet the church members there ; and

to his inquiry concerning the cause of the

summons the only reply was, ^'You will hear.'*

Nothing further was said until Silas was seated

in the vestry, in front of the minister, with the

eyes of those who to him represented God's

people fixed solemnly upon him. Then the

minister, taking out a pocket-knife, showed it

to Silas, and asked him if he knew where he

had left that knife? Silas said he did not know

that he had left it anywhere out of his own

pocket — but he was trembling at this strange

interrogation. j

l8 I

He was then exhorted not to hide his sin,
but to confess and repent. The knife had been
found in the bureau by the departed deacon's
bedside — found in the place where the little bag
of church money had lain, which the minister
himself had seen the day before. Some hand
had removed that bag ; and whose hand could
it be, if not that of the man to whom the knife
belonged? For some time Silas was mute with
astonishment: then he said, ^'God will clear
me : I know nothing about the knife being
there, or the money being gone. Search me
and my dwelling ; you will find' nothing but
three pound five of my own savings, which
William Dane knows I have had these six
months." At this William groaned, but the
minister said, ^*The proof is heavy against you,
brother Marner. The money was taken in the
night last past, and no man was with our
departed brother but you, for William Dane
declares to us that he was hindered by sudden
sickness from going to take his place as usual,
and you yourself said that he had not come ;
and, moreover, you neglected the dead body.'*

** I must have slept," said Silas. Then, after
a pause, he added, '* Or I must have had another
visitation like that which you have all seen me
under, so that the thief must have come and
gone while I was not yet in the body, but out
of the body. But, I say again, search me

and my dwelling, for I have been nowhere
else."

The search was made, and it ended — in
William Dane's finding the well-known bag,
empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in
Silas's chamber. On this William exhorted his
friend to confess, and not to hide his sin any
longer. Silas turned a look of keen reproach
on him, and said, '* William, for nine years that
we have gone in and out together, have you
ever known me tell a lie? But God will clear
me."

"Brother," said William, "how do I know
what you may have done in the secret chambers
of your heart, to give Satan an advantage over
you ? "

Silas was still looking at his friend. Suddenly
a deep flush came over his face, and he was about
to speak impetuously, when he seemed checked
again by some inward shock, that sent the flush
back and made him tremble. But at last he
spoke feebly, looking at William.

" I remember now — the knife wasn't in my
pocket."

William said, " I know nothing of what you
mean." The other persons present, however,
began to inquire where Silas meant to say that
the knife was, but he would give no further
explanation : he only said, " I am sore stricken ;
I can say nothing. God will clear me."

On their return to the vestry there was further
deliberation. Any resort to legal measures for
ascertaining the culprit was contrary to the
principles of the church in Lantern Yard,
according to which prosecution was forbidden
to Christians, even had the case held less
scandal to the community. But the members
were bound to take other measures for finding
out the truth, and they resolved on praying and
drawing lots. This resolution can be a ground
of surprise only to those who are unacquainted
with that obscure religious life which has gone
on in the alleys of our towns. Silas knelt with
his brethren, relying on his own innocence being
certified by immediate divine interference, but
feeling that there was sorrow and mourning
behind for him even then — that his trust in
rnan had been cruelly bruised. The lots declared
that Silas Marner was guilty. He was solemnly
suspended from church-membership, and called
apon to render up the stolen money : only on
:onfession, as the sign of repentance, could he
be received once more within the fold of the
:hurch. Marner listened in silence. At last,
when every one rose to depart, he went towards
William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by
agitation —

*'The last time I remember using my knife,
was when I took it out to cut a strap for you.
I don't remember putting it in my pocket again.

You stole the money, and you have woven a
l)lot to lay the sin at my door. But you may
prosper, for all that : \;there is no just God that
governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies,
that bears witness against the innocent.')

There was a general shudder at this blasphemy.

William said meekly, " I leave our brethren
to judge whether this is the voice of Satan
or not. I can do nothing but pray for you,
Silas."

Poor Marner went out with that despair in
his soul — that shaken trust in God and man,
which is little short of madness to a loving
nature. In the bitterness of his wounded spirit,
he said to himself, " She will cast me off too."
And he reflected that, if she did not believe the
testimony against him, her whole faith must be
upset as his was. To people accustomed to
reason about the forms in which their religious
feeling has incorporated itself, it is difficult to
enter into that simple, untaught state of mind
in which the form and the feeling have never
been severed by an act of reflection. We are
apt to think it inevitable that a man in Marner's
position should have begun to question the
validity of an appeal to the divine judgment
by drawing lots ; but to him this would have
been an effort of independent thought such as
he had never known ; and he must have made
the effort at a moment when all his energies

vere 'turned into the anguish of disappointed
aith. If there is an angel who records the
lorrows of men as well as their sins, he knows
low many and deep are the sorrows that spring
rom false ideas for which no man is culpable.

Marner went home, and for a whole day sat
ilone, stunned by despair, without any impulse
o go to Sarah and attempt to win her belief in
lis innocence. The second day he took refuge
rom benumbing unbelief, by getting into his
oom and working away as usual ; and before
nany hours were past, the minister and one of
he deacons came to him with the message from
5arah, that she held her engagement to him at
m end. Silas received the message mutely, and
hen turned away from the messengers to work
it his loom again. In little more than a month
rom that time, Sarah was married to William
Dane ; and not long afterwards it was known
o the brethren in Lantern Yard that Silas
Vlarner had departed from the town.

CHAPTER II

Even people whose lives have been made various

by learning, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast

hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith

in the Invisible, nay, on the sense that their past

joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they

are suddenly transported to a new land, where

the beings around them know nothing of their

history, and share none of their ideas — where

their mother earth shows another lap, and human

life has other forms than those on which their

souls have been nourished. Minds that have

been unhinged from their old faith and love

have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of

exile in which the past becomes dreamy because

its symbols have all vanished, and the present

too is dreamy because it is linked with no

memories. But even their experience may hardly

enable them thoroughly to imagine what was

the effect on a simple weaver like Silas Marner,

when he left his own country and people and

came to settle in Raveloe.

Nothing could be more unlike his native town,

set within sight of the widespread hillsides, than

this low, wooded region, where he felt hidden

even from the heavens by the screening trees

and hedgerows. There was nothing here, when

he rose in the deep morning quiet and looked
out on the dewy brambles and rank tufted grass,
that seemed to have any relation with that life
centring in Lantern Yard, which had once been
to him the altar-place of high dispensations.
The white-washed walls ; the little pews where
well-known figures entered with a subdued
rustling, and where first one w^ell-known voice
and then another, pitched in a peculiar key of
petition, uttered phrases at once occult and
familiar, like the amulet worn on the heart ; the
pulpit where the minister delivered unquestioned
doctrine, and swayed to and fro, and handled
the book in a long-accustomed manner ; the
very pauses between the couplets of the hymn,
as it was given out, and the recurrent swell of
voices in song : these things had been the
channel of divine influence to Marner — they
were the fostering home of his religious emotions
— they were Christianity and God's kingdom
upon earth. A weaver who finds hard words
in his hymn-book knows nothing of abstractions ;
as the little child knows nothing of parental love,
but only knows one face and one lap towards
which it stretches its arms for refuge and nurture.
And what could be more unlike that Lantern
Yard world than the world in Raveloe? —
orchards looking lazy with neglected plenty ;
the large church in the wide churchyard, which
men gazed at lounging at their own doors in

service-time; the purple-faced farmers jo<Tf^ing|tc
along the lanes or turning in at the Rainbow ; -"
homesteads, where men supped heavily and slept
in the light of the evening hearth, and where
women seemed to be laying up a stock of linen
for the life to come. There were no lips in
Raveloe from which a word could fall that would
stir Silas Marner's benumbed faith to a sense of
pain. In the early ages of the world, we know,
it was believed that each territory was inhabited
and ruled by its own divinities, so that a man
could cross the bordering heights and be out of
the reach of his native gods, whose presence was
confined to the streams and the groves and the
hills among which he had lived from his birth.
And poor Silas was vaguely conscious of some-
thing not unlike the feeling of primitive men,
when they fled thus, in fear or in suUenness,
from the face of an unpropitious deity. It
seemed to him that the Power he had vainly
trusted in among the streets and at the prayer-
meetings was very far away from this land in
which he had taken refuge, where men lived
in careless abundance, knowing and needing
nothing of that trust, which, for him, had
been turned to bitterness. The little light he
possessed spread its beams so narrowly that
frustrated belief was a curtain broad enough to
create for him the blackness of night.

His first movement after the shock had been

:o work in his loom ; and he went on with this

inremittingly, never asking himself why, now

le was come to Raveloe, he worked far on

nto the night to finish the tale of Mrs. Osgood*s

able-linen sooner than she expected — without

;ontemplating beforehand the money she would

)ut into his hand for the work. He seemed to

veave, like the spider, from pure impulse, with-

)ut reflection. Every man's work, pursued

teadily, tends in this way to become an end

n itself, and so to bridge over the loveless

hasms of his life. Silas's hand satisfied itself

^ith throwing the shuttle, and his eye with

eeing the little squares in the cloth complete

hemselves under his effort. Then there were

he calls of hunger ; and Silas, in his solitude,

lad to provide his own breakfast, dinner, and

upper, to fetch his own water from the well,

nd to put his own kettle on the fire ; and all

tiese immediate promptings helped, along with

tie weaving, to reduce his life to the unquestion-

ig activity of a spinning insect. He hated the J

tiought of the past ; there was nothing that '

ailed out his love and fellowship toward the

trangers he had come amongst ; and the future

rsis all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that

ared for him. Thought was arrested by utter

lewilderment, now its old narrow pathway was

losed, and affection seemed to have died under

tie bruise that had fallen on its keenest nerves.

But at last Mrs. Osg-ood's tal)le-lin(Mi was
finished, and vSilas was paid in gold. I lis!
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 liim i
who saw no vista beyond countless days of
Tweaving? It was needless for him to ask that,
I 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
w^hen 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 ful
filled effort made a loam that was deep enoug)

»r the seeds of desire ; and as Silas walked

Dmeward across the fields in the twilight, he

rew out the money and thought it was brighter

I the gathering gloom.

About this time an incident happened which

jemed to open a possibility of some fellowship

ith his neighbours. One day, taking a pair

' shoes to be mended, he saw the cobbler's

ife seated by the fire, suff"ering from the terrible

/mptoms of heart-disease and dropsy, which he

ad witnessed as the precursors of his mother's

eath. He felt a rush of pity at the mingled

ght and remembrance, and, recalling the relief

is mother had found from a simple preparation

f foxglove, he promised Sally Oates to bring

er something that would ease her, since the

octor did her no good. In this office of charity,

ilas felt, for the first time since he had

3me to Raveloe, a sense of unity between his

ast and present life, which might have been

le beginning of his rescue from the insect-like

scistence into which his nature had shrunk. But

ally Oates's disease had raised her into a per-

)nage of much interest and importance among

le neighbours, and the fact of her having found

lief from drinking Silas Marner's *' stuff"

icame a matter of general discourse. When

octor Kimble gave physic, it was natural that

should have an effect ; but when a weaver,

lo came from nobody knew where, worked
s.M. 29 B

wonders with a boltle of brown waters, the occult
cliaracter of the process was evident.

Such a sort of thin^^ had not been known
since the Wise Woman at Tarley died ; and
she had charms as well as "stuff": everybody
went to her when their children had fits. Silas
Marner must be a person of the same sort, for
how did he know what would bring back Sally
Gates's breath if he didn't know a fine sight
more than that? The Wise Woman had words
that she muttered to herself, so that you couldn't
hear what they were, and if she tied a bit of
red thread round the child's toe the while, it
would keep off the water in the head. There
were women in Raveloe, at the present time,
who had worn one of the Wise Woman's little
bags round their necks, and, in consequence,
had never had an idiot child, as Ann Coultei
had. Silas Marner could very likely do a*
much, and more ; and now it was all clear hoM
he should have come from unknown parts, anc
be so "comical-looking." But Sally Gates mus
mind and not tell the doctor, for he would b<
sure to set his face against Marner : he wa
always angry about the Wise Woman, an(
used to threaten those who went to her tha
they should have none of his h^lp any more.

Silas now found himself and his cotta
suddenly beset by mothers who wanted him
charm away the whooping-cough, or bring bac

30 j

le milk, and by men who wanted stuff against

le rheumatics or the knots in the hands ; and,

> secure themselves against a refusal, the ap-

[icants brought silver in their palms. Silas

ight have driven a profitable trade in charms

; well as in his small list of drugs ; but money

1 this condition was no temptation to him.

e had never known an impulse towards falsity,

id he drove, one after another away with grow-

g irritation, for the news of him as a wise

an had spread even to Tarley, and it was

ng before people ceased to take long walks

r the sake of asking his aid. But the hope

his wisdom was at length changed into

■ead, for no one believed him when he said

J knew no charms and could work no cures,

id every man and woman who had an accident

• a new attack after applying to him, set the

isfortune down to Master Marner's ill-will and

ritated glances. Thus it came to pass that

s movement of pity towards Sally Oates,

hich had given him a transient sense of

•otherhood, heightened the repulsion between

m and his neighbours, and made his isolation

ore complete.

Gradually the guineas, the crowns, and the

ilf-crowns grew to a heap, and Marner drew

ss and less for his own wants, trying to solve

e problem of keeping himself strong enough

work sixteen hours a day on as small an
1 31

outlay as possible. Have not men, shut up irt
solitary imprisonment, found an interest in
markiiiij^ the moments by straight strokes of a
certain length on the ^vall, until the growth oi
the sum of straight strokes, arranged in triangles,
has become a mastering purpose? Do we not
while away moments of inanity or fatigued wait-
ing by repeating some trivial movement or
sound, until the repetition has bred a want,
which is incipient habit? That will help us
to understand how the love of accumulating
money grows an absorbing passion in men
whose imaginations, even in the very beginning
of their hoard, showed them no purpose beyond
it. Marner wanted the heaps of ten to grow
into a square, and then into a larger square ;
and every added guinea, while it was itself a
satisfaction, bred a new desire. In this strange
world, made a hopeless riddle to him, he mi
if he had had a less intense nature, have
weaving, weaving — looking towards the en
his pattern, or towards the end of his web, till
he forgot the riddle, and everything else bu|
his immediate sensations ; but the money ha^
come to mark off his weaving into periods, and
the money not only grew, but it remained with
him. i

He began to think it was conscious of him,
his loom was, and he would on no account ha

exchanged those coins, which had become hi

familiars, for other coins with unknown faces.
He handled them, he counted them, till their
form and colour were like the satisfaction of a
thirst to him ; but it was only in the night,
when his work was done, that he drew them
out to enjoy their companionship. He had
taken up some bricks in his floor underneath
his loom, and here he had made a hole in
which he set the iron pot that contained his
guineas and silver coins, covering the bricks
with sand whenever he replaced them. Not
that the idea of being robbed presented itself
often or strongly to his mind ; hoarding was
common in country districts in those days;
there were old labourers in the parish of
Raveloe who were known to have their savings
by them, probably inside their flock-beds ; but
their rustic neighbours, though not all of them
as honest as their ancestors in the days of King
Alfred, had not imaginations bold enough to
lay a plan of burglary. How could they have
spent the money in their own village without
betraying themselves? They would be obliged
to '* run away" — a course as dark and dubious
as a balloon journey.

So, year after year, Silas Marner had lived in
this solitude, his guineas rising in the iron pot,
and his life narrowing and hardening itself more
and more into a mere pulsation of desire and
satisfaction that had no relation to any other

being. His life had reduced itself to the

functions of weaving and hoarding, witliout

any contemplation of an end towards which

the functions tended. The same sort of process

has perhaps been undergone by wiser men,

when they have been cut off from faith and

love — only, instead of a loom and a heap of

guineas, they have had some erudite research^

some ingenious project, or some well-knit

theory. Strangely, Marner's face and figure

shrank and bent themselves into a constant

mechanical relation to the objects of his life, so

that he produced the same sort of impression

as a handle or a crooked tube, which has no

meaning standing apart. The prominent eyes,

that used to look trusting and dreamy, now

looked as if they had been made to see only

one kind of thing that was very small, like tiny

grain, for which they hunted everywhere : and

he was so withered and yellow, that, though he

was not yet forty, the children always called

him ''Old Master Marner."

Yet even in this stage of withering a little

incident happened, which showed that the sap

of affection was not all gone. It was one of

his daily tasks to fetch his water from a well

a couple of fields off, and for this purpose, ever

since he came to Raveloe, he had had a brown

earthenware pot. which he held as his most

precious utensil among the very few conveniences

he had granted himself. It had been his com-
panion for twelve years, always standing on
the same spot, always lending its handle to
him in the early morning, so that its form had
an expression for him of willing helpfulness,
and the impress of its handle on his palm gave
a satisfaction mingled with that of having the
fresh clear water. One day, as he was returning
from the well, he stumbled against the step of
the stile, and his brown pot, falling with force
against the stones that over-arched the ditch
below him, was broken in three pieces. Silas
picked up the pieces and carried them home
with grief in his heart. The brown pot could
never be of use to him any more, but he stuck
the bits together and propped the ruin in its
old place for a memorial.

This is the history of Silas Marner until the
fifteenth year after he came to Raveloe. The
livelong day he sat in his loom, his ear filled
with its monotony, his eyes bent close down on
the slow growth of sameness in the brownish
web, his muscles moving with such even repeti-
tion that their pause seemed almost as much a
constraint as the holding of his breath. But
at night came his revelry : at night he closed
his shutters, and made fast his doors, and drew
forth his gold. Long ago the heap of coins
had become too large for the iron pot to hold.

them, and he had made for them two thick

leather ba^s, which wasted no room in their
restintr-place, but lent themselves Hexibly to
every corner. How the guineas shone as they
came pouring- out of the dark leatlier mouth !
The silver bore no large proportion in amount
to the gold, because the long pieces of linen
which formed his chief work were always
partly paid for in gold, and out of the silver
he supplied his own bodily wants, choosing
always the shillings and sixpences to spend in
this way.

He loved the guineas best, but he would not
change the silver — the crowns and half-crowns
that were his own earnings, begotten by his
labour ; he loved them all. He spread them
out in heaps and bathed his hands in them ;
then he counted them and set them up in
regular piles, and felt their rounded outline
between his thumb and fingers, and thought
fondly of the guineas that were only half
earned by the work in his loom, as if they had
been unborn children — thought of the guineas
that were coming slowly through the coming
years, through all his life, which spread far
away before him, the end quite hidden by
countless days of weaving. No wonder his
thoughts were still with his loom and his
money when he made the journeys through
the fields and the lanes to fetch and carry
home his work, so that his steps never wandered i

36 J

to the hedgre-banks and the lane-side in search
of the once familiar herbs ; these too belonged
to the past, from which his life had shrunk
away, like a rivulet that had sunk far down
from the grassy fringe of its old breadth into a
little shivering thread, that cuts a groove for
itself in the barren sand.

But about the Christmas of that fifteenth year,
a second great change came over Marner's life,
and his history became blent in a singular
manner with the life of his neighbours.

CHAPTER III

The greatest man in Raveloe was Squire Cass,
who lived in the large red house with the hand-
some flight of stone steps in front and the high
stables behind it, nearly opposite the church. He
was only one among several landed parishioners,
but he alone was honoured with the title of Squire ;
for though Mr. Osgood's family was also under-
stood to be of timeless origin — the Raveloe im-
agination having never ventured back to that
fearful blank when there were no Osgoods — still,
he merely owned the farm he occupied ; whereas
Squire Cass had a tenant or two, who complained
of the game to him quite as if he had been a lord.
It was still that glorious war-time which was
felt to be a peculiar favour of Providence towards
the landed interest, and the fall of prices had not
yet come to carry the race of small squires and
yeomen down that road to ruin for which extrava-
gant habits and bad husbandry were plentifully
anointing their wheels. I am speaking now in
relation to Raveloe and the parishes that resembled
it ; for our old-fashioned country life had many
different aspects, as all life must have when it
is spread over a various surface, and breathed
on variously by multitudinous currents, from
the winds of heaven to the thoughts of men,

which are for ever moving and crossing each
other with incalculable results. Raveloe lay
low among the bushy trees and the rutted
lanes, aloof from the currents of industrial
energy and Puritan earnestness : the rich ate
and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy
as things that ran mysteriously in respectable
families, and the poor thought that the rich
were entirely in the right of it to lead a jolly
life ; besides, their feasting caused a multi-
plication of orts, which were the heirlooms of
the poor.

Betty Jay scented the boiling of Squire Cass's
hams, but her longing was arrested by the
unctuous liquor in which they were boiled ;
and when the seasons brought round the great
merry-makings, they were regarded on all hands
as a fine thing for the poor. For the Raveloe
feasts were like the rounds of beef and the barrels
of ale — they were on a large scale, and lasted a
good while, especially in the winter-time. After
ladies had packed up their best gowns and top-
knots in bandboxes, and had incurred the risk
of fording streams on pillions with the precious
burden in rainy or snowy weather, Avhen there
was no knowing how high the water would rise,
it was not to be supposed that they looked forward
to a brief pleasure. On this ground it was always
contrived in the dark seasons, when there was
little work to be done, and the hours were long,

that several neighbours should keep open house
in succession. So soon as Squire Cass's standing
dishes diminished in plenty and freshness, his
guests had nothing to do but to walk a little
higher up the village to Mr. Osgood's, at the
Orchards, and they found hams and chines
uncut, pork-pies with the scent of the fire in
them, spun butter in all its freshness — every-
thing, in fact, that appetites at leisure could
desire, in perhaps greater perfection, though not
in greater abundance, than at Squire Cass's.

For the Squire's wife had died long ago, and
the Red House was without that presence ol
the wife and mother which is the fountain of
wholesome love and fear in parlour and kitchen ;
and this helped to account not only for there
being more profusion than finished excellence
in the holiday provisions, but also for the
frequency with which the proud Squire conde-
scended to preside in the parlour of the
Rainbow rather than under the shadow of his
own dark wainscot ; perhaps, also, for the fact
that his sons had turned out rather ill. Raveloe
was not a place where moral censure was severe,
but it was thought a weakness in the Squire that
he had kept all his sons at home in idleness ; and
though some licence was to be allowed to young
men whose fathers could afford it, people shook
their heads at the courses of the second son,

Dunstan, commonly called Dunsey Cass, whose

taste for swopping and betting might turn out
to be a sowing of something worse than wild
oats.

To be sure, the neighbours said, it was no
matter what became of Dunsey — a spiteful,
jeering fellow, who seemed to enjoy his drink
the more when other people went dry — always
provided that his doings did not bring trouble
on a family like Squire Cass's, with a monument
in the church, and tankards older than King
George. But it would be a thousand pities
if Mr. Godfrey, the eldest, a fine open-faced,
good-natured young man, who was to come into
the land some day, should take to going along
the same road with his brother, as he had seemed
to do of late. If he went on in that way, he
would lose Miss Nancy Lammeter ; for it was
well known that she had looked very shyly on
him ever since last Whitsuntide twelvemonth,
when there was so much talk about his being
away from home, days and days together. There
was something wrong, more than common —
that was quite clear ; for Mr. Godfrey didn't
look half so fresh-coloured and open as he used
to do.

At one time everybody was saying, What a
handsome couple he and Miss Nancy Lammeter
would make I and if she could come to be
mistress at the Red House, there would be a
fine change, for the Lam meters had been brought

Lip in that way, that they never suffered a pinch
of salt to be wasted, and yet everybody in their
household had of the best, according to his
place. Such a dau^rhter-in-law would be a
saving to the old Squire, if she never brought
a penny to her fortune ; for it was to be feared
that, notwithstanding his incomings, there were
more holes in his pocket than the one where
he put his own hand in. But if Mr. Godfrey
didn't turn over a new leaf, he might say
*' Good-bye" to Miss Nancy Lammeter.

It was the once hopeful Godfrey who was
standing, with his hands in his side-pockets
and his back to the fire, in the dark wainscoted
parlour, one late November afternoon in that
fifteenth year of Silas Marner's life at Raveloe.
The fading gray light fell dimly on the walls
decorated with guns, whips, and foxes' brushes,
on coats and hats flung on the chairs, on tank-
ards sending forth a scent of fiat ale, and on
a half-choked fire, with pipes propped up in
the chimney-corners : signs of a domestic life
destitute of any hallowing charm, with which
the look of gloomy vexation on Godfrey's blonde
face was in sad accordance. He seemed to be
waiting and listening for some one's approach,
and presently the sound of a heavy step, with
an accompanying whistle, was heard across the
large empty entrance-hall.

The door opened, and a thick-set, heavy-looking

young man entered, with the flushed face and the
gratuitously elated bearing which mark the first
stage of intoxication. It was Dunsey, and at the
sight of him Godfrey's face parted with some of
its gloom to take on the more active expression
of hatred. The handsome brown spaniel that
lay on the hearth retreated under the chair in the
ch i m n ey-co rn e r.

*'Well, Master Godfrey, what do you want
with me?" said Dunsey, in a mocking tone.
** You're my elders and betters, you know; I
was obliged to corne when you sent for me."

** Why, this is what I want — and just shake
yourself sober and listen, will you?" said
Godfrey savagely. He had himself been drink-
ing more than was good for him, trying to
turn his gloom into uncalculating anger. *' I
want to tell you, I must hand over that rent of
Fowler's to the Squire, or else tell him I gave
it you ; for he's threatening to distrain for it,
and it'll all be out soon, whether I tell him or
not. He said, just now, before he went out,
he should send word to Cox to distrain, if
Fowler didn't come and pay up his arrears this
week. The Squire's short of cash, and in no
humour to stand any nonsense ; and you know
what he threatened if ever he found you making
away with his money again. So, see and get
the money, and pretty quickly, will you?"

*'OhI" said Dunsey sneeringly, coming

nearer to his brother and looking in his face.
*' Suppose, now, you get the money yourself,
and save nie the trouble, eh? Since you was
so kind as to hand it over to me, you'll not
refuse me the kindness to pay it back for me ;
it was your brotherly love made you do it,
you know."

Godfrey bit his lips and clenched his fist.
" Don't come near me with that look, else I'll
knock you down."

'*Oh no, you won't," said Dunsey, turniniij;^
away on his heel, however. " Because I'm such
a good-natured brother, you know. I might get
you turned out of house and home, and cut off
with a shilling any day. I might tell the Squire
how his handsome son was married to that
nice young woman, Molly Farren, and was
very unhappy because he couldn't live with his
drunken wife, and I should slip into your place
as comfortable as could be. But you see, I
don't do it — I'm so easy and good-natured.
You'll take any trouble for me. You'll get the
hundred pounds for me — I know you will."

*'How can I get the money?" said Godfrey,
quivering. ** I haven't a shilling to bless myself
with. And it's a lie that you'd slip into my
place : you'd get yourself turned out too, that's
all. For if you begin telling tales, I'll follow.
Bob's my father's favourite — you know that very
well. He'd only think himself well rid of you."

** Never mind," said Dunsey, nodding his
head sideways as he looked out of the window.
" It 'ud be very pleasant to me to go in your
::ompany — you're such a handsome brother,
and we've always been so fond of quarrelling
with one another, I shouldn't know what to do
without you. But you'd like better for us both
to stay at home together ; I know you would.
So you'll manage to get that little sum o'
money, and I'll bid you good-bye, though I'm
sorry to part."

Dunstan was moving off, but Godfrey rushed
after him and seized him by the arm, saying,
with an oath —

** I tell you, I have no money : I can get no
money."

*' Borrow of old Kimble."

** I tell you, he won't lend me any more, and
I shan't ask him."

'' Well, then, sell Wildfire."

**Yes, that's easy talking. I must have the
money directly."

*'Well, you've only got to ride him to the
hunt to-morrow. There'll be Bryce and Keating
there, for sure. You'll get more bids than one."

"I daresay, and get back home at eight
o'clock, splashed up to the chin. I'm going to
Mrs. Osgood's birthday dance.'*

**Oho!" said Dunsey, turning his head on
one side, and trying to soeak in a small, mincing

treble. *' And there's sweet Miss Nancy coming ;
and we shall dance with her, and promise never
to be naughty again, and be taken into favour,
and "

" Hold your tongue about Miss Nancy, you
fool," said Godfrey, turning red, '*else I'll
throttle you."

"What for?" said Dunsey, still in an artificial
tone, but taking a whip from the table and beat-
ing the butt-end of it on his palm. ** You've a
very good chance. I'd advise you to creep up
her sleeve again : it 'ud be saving time, if Molly
should happen to take a drop too much laudanum
some day, and makea widower of you. Miss Nancy
wouldn't mind being a second, if she didn't know
it. And you've got a good-natured brother, who'll
keep your secret well, because you'll be so very
obliging to him.*'

*' I'll tell you what it is," said Godfrey, quiver-
ing, and pale again, "my patience is pretty near
at an end. If you'd a little more sharpness in
you, you might know that you may urge a man
a bit too far, and make one leap as easy as
another. I don't know but what it is so now :
I may as well tell the Squire everything myself
— I should get you off my back, if I got nothing
else. And, after all, he'll know some time. She's
been threatening to come herself and tell him.
So, don't flatter yourself that your secrecy's worth
any price you choose to ask. You drain me of

money till I have got nothing to pacify her with,
and she'll do as she threatens some day. It's all
one. I'll tell my father everything myself, and
you may go to the devil."

Dunsey perceived that he had overshot his
mark, and that there was a point at which
even the hesitating Godfrey might be driven
into decision. But he said, with an air of
unconcern —

**As you please; but I'll have a draught of
ale first." And ringing the bell, he threw
himself across two chairs, and began to rap
the window-seat with the handle of his whip.

Godfrey stood, still with his back to the fire,
uneasily moving his fingers among the contents
Df his side-pockets, and looking at the floor.
That big muscular frame of his held plenty of
mimal courage, but helped him to no decision
ivhen the dangers to be braved were such as
:ould neither be knocked down nor throttled.
His natural irresolution and moral cowardice
ivere exaggerated by a position in which dreaded
:onsequences seemed to press equally on all
sides, and his irritation had no sooner provoked
lim to defy Dunstan and anticipate all possible
Detrayals, than the miseries he must bring on
limself by such a step seemed more unendurable
:o him than the present evil. The results of con-
cession were not contingent, they were certain ;
ivhereas betrayal was not certain. From the

near vision of that certainty he fell back on
suspense and vacilhition with a sense of repose.
The disinherited son of a small squire, equally
disinclined to dig and to beg, was almost as
helpless as an uprooted tree, which, by the
Icivour of earth and sky, has grown to a
handsome bulk on the spot where it first shot
upward.

Perhaps it would have been possible to think
of digging with some cheerfulness if Nancy
Lammeter were to be won on those terms ;
but, since he must irrevocably lose her as well
as the inheritance, and must break every tie but
the one that degraded him and left him w^ithout
motive for trying to recover his better self, he
could imagine no future for himself on the
other side of confession but that of '''listing
for a soldier" — the most desperate step, short
of suicide, in the eyes of respectable families.
No ! he would rathex trust to casualties than
to his own resolve — rather go on sitting at the
'feast and sipping the wine he loved, though
with the sword hanging over him and terror
in his heart, than rush away into the cold
darkness where there was no pleasure left. The
utmost concession to Dunstan about the horse
began to seem easy, compared with the fulfil-
ment of his own threat. But his pride would
not let him recommence the conversation other-
wise than by continuing the quarrel. Dunstan

'as waiting for this, and took his ale in shorter
raughts than usual.

''It's just like you," Godfrey burst out, in a
itter tone, *'to talk about my selling Wildfire
1 that cool way — the last thing I've got to call
ly own, and the best bit of horse-flesh I ever
ad in my life. And if you'd got a spark of
ride in you, you'd be ashamed to see the
:ables emptied, and everybody sneering about
But it's my belief you'd sell yourself, if it
as only for the pleasure of making somebody
;el he'd got a bad bargain."

**Ay, ay," said Dunstan very placably, **you
o me justice, I see I You know I'm a jewel
)r 'ticing people into bargains. For which
;ason I advise you to let vie sell Wildfire,
d ride him to the hunt to-morrow for you,
'ith pleasure. I shouldn't look so handsome
5 you in the saddle, but it's the horse they'll
id for, and not the rider."

'' Yes, I daresay — trust my horse to you ! "

*'As you please," said Dunstan, rapping the
indow-seat again with an air of great un-
Dncern. '* It's yoii have got to pay Fowler's
loney ; it's none of my business. You re-
eived the money from him when you went
) Bramcote, and you told the Squire it wasn't
aid. I'd nothing to do with that ; you chose
D be so obliging as give it me, that was
11. If you don't want to pay the money, let

it alone ; it's all one to me. But I was willing
to accommodate you by undcrtakinfT^ to sell the
horse, seeing- it's not convenient to you to go
so far to-morrow.'*

Godfrey was silent for some moments. He
would have liked to spring on Dunstan, wrench
the whip from his hand, and flog him to within
an inch of his life ; and no bodily fear could
have deterred him ; but he was mastered by
another sort of fear, which was fed by feelings
stronger even than his resentment. When he
spoke again, it was in a half-conciliatory tone.

'^Well, you mean no nonsense about the
horse, eh? You'll sell him all fair, and hand
over the money? If you don't, you know,
everything 'ull go to smash, for I've got
nothing else to trust to. And you'll have
less pleasure in pulling the house over my
head, when your own skull's to be broken too."

*' Ay, ay," said Dunstan, rising, **all right. I
thought you'd come round. I'm the fellow to
bring old Bryce up to the scratch. I'll get you
a hundred and twenty for him, if I get you a
penny."

" But it'll perhaps rain cats and dogs to-
morrow, as it did yesterday, and then you can't
go," said Godfrey, hardly knowing whether he
wished for that obstacle or not*

**Not it" said Dunstan. ^M'm always lucky
in my weather. It might rain if you wanted to

50 ,

^o yourself. You never hold trumps, you know
— I always do. You've got the beauty, you see,
md I've got the luck, so you must keep me by
^ou for your crooked sixpence ; you'll ne-v^r get
ilong without me."

** Confound you, hold your tongue!" said
Godfrey impetuously. "And take care to keep
sober to-morrow, else you'll get pitched on your
lead coming home, and Wildfire might be the
ivorse for it."

** Make your tender heart easy," said Dunstan,
Dpening the door. " You never knew me see
double when I'd ofot a bars^ain to make : it 'ud
spoil the fun. Besides, whenever I fall, I'm
warranted to fall on my legs."

With that, Dunstan slammed the door behind
iiim, and left Godfrey to that bitter rumination on
bis personal circumstances which -was now un-
broken from day to day save by the excitement
Df sporting, drinking, card-playing, or the rarer
and less oblivious pleasure of seeing Miss Nancy
Lammeter. The subtle and varied pains spring-
ing from the higher sensibility that accompanies
iiigher culture, are perhaps less pitiable than that
dreary absence of impersonal enjoyment and con-
solation which leaves ruder minds to the perpetual
urgent companionship of their own griefs and
discontents. The lives of those rural forefathers,
whom we are apt to think very prosaic figures-^
men whose only work was to ride round their

land, g^etting heavier and heavier in their saddles,
and who passed tlie rest of their days in the half-
listless gratification of senses dulled by monotony
— had a certain pathos in them nevertheless.
Calamities came to ifiem too, and their early
errors carried hard consequences : perhaps th(;
love of some sweet maiden, the image of purity,
order, and calm, had opened their eyes to the
vision of a life in which the days would not seem
too long, even without rioting ; but the maiden
was lost, and the vision passed away, and then
what was left to them, especially when they had
become too heavy for the hunt, or for carrying a
gun over the furrows, but to drink and get merry,
or to drink and get angry, so that they might be
independent of variety, and say over again with
eager emphasis the things they had said already
any time that twelvemonth?

Assuredly, among these flushed and dull-eyed
men there were some whom — thanks to their
native human kindness — even riot could never
drive into brutality ; men who, when their cheeks
were fresh, had felt the keen point of sorrow or
remorse, had been pierced by the reeds they
leaned on, or had lightly put their limbs in fetters
from which no struggle could loose them ; and
under these sad circumstances, common to us all,
their thoughts could find no resting-place outside
the ever-trodden round of their own petty history.

That, at least, was the condition of Godfrey

^ass, in tins six-anu-twentietn year ot ins lire. A
novement of compunction, helped by those small
ndefinable influences which every personal i
-elation exerts on a pliant nature, had urged him j
into a secret marriage, which was a blight on his
ife. It was an ugly story of low passion, delusion,
md waking from delusion, which needs not to
De dragged from the privacy of Godfrey's bitter
nemory. He had long known that the delusion
ivas partly due to a trap laid for him by Dunstan,
kvho saw in his brother's degrading marriage the
neans of gratifying at once his jealous hate and
lis cupidity. And if Godfrey could have felt him-
self simply a victim, the iron bit that destiny had
Dut into his mouth would have chafed him less
ntolerably. If the curses he muttered half aloud
ivhen he was alone had had no other object than
Dunstan's diabolical cunning, he might have
shrunk less from the consequences of avowal.
But he had something else to curse — his own
i^icious folly, which now seemed as mad and
unaccountable to him as almost all our follies
and vices do when their promptings have long
passed away.

For four years he had thought of Nancy
Lammeter, and wooed her with tacit, patient
worship, as the woman who made him think
of the future with joy : she would be his wife,
and would make home lovely to him, as his
father's home had never been ; and it would

be easy, when she was always near, to shake
off those foolish habits that were no pleasures,
but only a feverish way of annuling vacancy.
Godfrey's was an essentially domestic nature,
bred up in a home where the hearth had no
smiles, and where the daily habits were not
chastised by the presence of household order.
His easy disposition made him fall in unresist-
ingly with the family courses, but the need of-
some tender, permanent affection, the longing
for some influence that would make the good
ne preferred easy to pursue, caused the neatness,
purit ', and liberal orderliness of the Lammeter
hcusehold, sunned by the smile of Nancy, to
seem like those fresh, bright hours of the
morning when temptations go to sleep and
leave the ear open to the voice of the good
angel, inviting to industry, sobriety, and peace.

And yet the hope of this paradise had not
been enough to save him from a course which
shut him out of it for ever. Instead of keeping
fast hold of the strong silken rope by which
Nancy would have drawn him safe to the green
banks where it was easy to step firmly, he had
let himself be dragged back into mud and
slime, in which it was useless to struggle. He
had made ties for himself which robbed him
of all wholesome motive, and were a constant
exasperation.

Still, there was one position worse than the

present : it was the position he would be in
when the ugly secret was disclosed ; and the
desire that continually triumphed over every
other was that of warding off the evil day,
when he would have to bear the consequences
of his father's violent resentment for the wound
inflicted on his family pride — would have,
perhaps, to turn his back on that hereditary
ease and dignity which, after all, was a sort
of reason for living, and would carry with him
the certainty that he was banished for ever
from the sight and esteem of Nancy Lammeter.
The longer the interval, the more chance there
was of deliverance from some, at least, of the
hateful consequences to which he had sold him-
self; the more opportunities remained for him
to snatch the strange gratification of seeing
Nancy, and gathering some faint indications
of her lingering regard. Towards this gratifi-
cation he was impelled, fitfully, every now and
:hen, after having passed weeks in which he
bad avoided her as the far-off, bright-winged
prize that only made him spring forward and
[ind his chain all the more galling.

One of those fits of yearning was on him now,
ind it would have been strong enough to have
persuaded him to trust Wildfire to Dunstan
rather than disappoint the yearning, even if
:ie had not had another reason for his disinclina-
:ion towards the morrow's hunt. That other

reason was the fact that the morning's moet
^vas near Hatherley, the market-town where the
unhappy woman lived whose ima^e became
more odious to him every day ; and to his
tliought the whole vicinage was haunted by
her. The yoke a man creates for himself by
/ Avrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest
nature ; and tlie good-humoured, affectionate-
liearted Godfrey Cass was fast becoming a bitter
man, visited by cruel wishes, that seemed to
enter, and depart, and enter again, like demons
who had found in him a ready garnished-home.

What was he to do this evening to pass the
time? He might as well go to the Rainbow,
and hear the talk about the cock-lighting:
everybody was there, and what else was there
to be done? Though, for his own part, he did
not care a button for cock-fighting. Snuff, the
brown spaniel, who had placed herself in front
of him, and had been watching him for some
time, now jumped up in impatience for the
expected caress. But Godfrey thrust her away
without looking at her, and left the room,
followed humbly by the unresenting Snuff-^
perhaps because she saw no other career open
to her.

CHAPTER IV

DuNSTAN Cass, setting off in the raw morning,
at the judiciously quiet pace of a man who is
obliged to ride to cover on his hunter, had to
take his way along the lane, which at its farther
extremity passed by the piece of uninclosed
ground called the Stone-pit, where stood the
cottage, once a stone-cutter's shed, now for
fifteen years inhabited by Silas Marner. The
spot looked very dreary at this season, with
the moist, trodden clay about it, and the red,
muddy water high up in the deserted quarry.
That was Dunstan's first thought as he ap-
proached it ; the second was, that the old fool
of a weaver, whose loom he heard rattling
already, had a great deal of money hidden
somewhere. How was it that he, Dunstan Cass,
who had often heard talk of Marner's miserliness,
had never thought of suggesting to Godfrey
that he should frighten or persuade the old
fellow into lending the money on the excellent
security of the young squire's prospects? The
resource occurred to him now as so easy and
agreeable, especially as Marner's hoard was
likely to be large enough to leave Godfrey a
handsome surplus beyond his immediate needs,
and enable him to accommodate his faithtul

brother, that ho had almost turned the horse's
head towards home again. Godfrey would be
ready enough to accept the suggestion : he
would snatch eagerly at a plan that might save
him from parting with Wildfire.

But when Dunstan's meditation reached this
point, the inclination to go on grew strong and
prevailed. He didn't want to give Godfrey that
pleasure : he preferred that Master Godfrey
should be vexed. Moreover, Dunstan enjoyed
the self-important consciousness of having a
horse to sell, and the opportunity of driving
a bargain, swaggering, and possibly taking
somebody in. He might have all the satisfac-
tion attendant on selling his brother's horse,
and not the less have the further satisfaction
of setting Godfrey to borrow Marner's money.
So he rode on to cover.

Bryce and Keating were there, as Dunstan
was quite sure they would be — he was such
a lucky fellow.

"Heyday," said Bryce, who had long had
his eye on Wildfire, ''you're on your brother's
horse to-day : how's that ? "

**Oh, I've swopped with him," said Dunstan,
whose delight in lying, grandly independent
of utility, was not to be diminished by the
likelihood that his hearer would not believe
him ; " Wildfire's mine now."

** What ! has he swopped v/ith you for that

big-boned hack of yours ? " said Bryce, quite
aware he would get another lie in answer.

" Oh, there was a little account between us,"
said Dunsey carelessly, " and Wildfire made it
even. I accommodated him by taking the
horse, though it was against my will, for I'd
got an itch for a mare o' Jortin's — as rare a
bit o* blood as ever you threw your leg across.
But I shall keep Wildfire, now Fve got him,
though I'd a bid of a hundred and fifty for
him the other day, from a man over at Flitton
— he's buying for Lord Cromleck — a fellow
with a cast in his eye, and a green waistcoat.
But I mean to stick to Wildfire : I shan't get
a better at a fence in a hurry. The mare's
got more blood, but she's a bit too weak in
the hind-quarters."

Bryce, of course, divined that Dunstan wanted
to sell the horse, and Dunstan knew that he
divined it (horse-dealing is only one of many
human transactions carried on in this ingenious
manner) ; and they both considered that the
bargain was in its first stage, when Bryce
replied ironically —

" I wonder at that now ; I wonder you mean
to keep him ; for I never heard of a man v/ho
didn't want to sell his horse getting a bid of
half as much again as the horse was worth.
You'll be lucky if you get a hundred."

Keating rode up now, and the transaction

1 ecame more complicated. It ended in the
purchase of the horse by Bryce for a hundred
and twent3^ to be paid on the delivery ol
Wildfire, safe and sound, at the Batherley
stables. It did occur to Dunsey that it might
be wise for him to give up the day's hunting,
proceed at once to Batherley, and having waited
for Bryce's return, hire a horse to carry him
home with the money in his pocket. But the
inclination for a run, encouraged by confidence
in his luck, and by a draught of brandy from
his pocket-pistol at the conclusion of the bargain,
was not easy to overcome, especially with a
horse under him that would take the fences
to the admiration of the field. Dunstan, how-
ever, took one fence too many, and got his
horse pierced with a hedge-stake. His own
ill-favoured person, which was quite unmarket-
able, escaped without injury ; but poor Wildfire
unconscious of his price, turned on his flank,
and painfully panted his last.

It happened that Dunstan, a short time
before, having had to get down to arrange
his stirrup, had muttered a good many curses
at this interruption, which had thrown him
in the rear of the hunt near the moment of
glory, and under this exasperation had taken
the fences more blindly. He would soon have
been up with the hounds again, when the fatal
accident happened ; and hence he was between

eag-er riders in advance, not troubling" them-
selves about what happened behind them, and
far-off stragglers, who were as likely as not
to pass quite aloof from the line of road in
which Wildfire had fallen. Dunstan, whose
nature it was to care more for immediate
annoyances than for remote consequences, no
sooner recovered his legs, and saw that it was
all over with Wildfire, than he felt a satisfaction
at the absence of witnesses to a position which
no swaggering could make enviable.

Reinforcing himself, after his shake, with a
little brandy and much swearing, he walked
as fast as he could to a coppice on his right
hand, through which it occurred to him that
he could make his way to Batherley without
danger of encountering any member of the
hunt. His first intention was ta hire a horse
there and ride home forthwith, for to walk
many miles without a gun in his hand and
along an ordinary road was as much out of
the question to him as to other spirited young
men of his kind. He did not much mind
about taking the bad news to Godfrey, for
he had to offer him at the same time the
resource of Marner's money ; and if Godfrey
kicked, as he always did, at the notion of
making a fresh debt from which he himself
got the smallest share of advantage, why,

he wouldn't kick long : Dunstan felt sure he
s.M. 6i c

could worry Godfrey into anything'. The idea
of Marner's money kept growing in vividness,
now the want of it had become immediate ;
tlie prospect of having to make his appear-
ance with the muddy boots of a pedestrian
at Batherley, and to encounter the grinning
queries of stablemen, stood unpleasantly in the
way of his impatience to be back at Raveloe
and carry out his felicitous plan; and a casual
visitation of his waistcoat-pocket, as he was
ruminating, awakened his memory to the fact
that the two or three small coins his forefinger
encountered there, were of too pale a colour
to cover that small debt, without payment of
which the stable-keeper had declared he would
never do any more business with Dunsey Cass.

After all, according to the direction in which
the run had brought him, he was not so very
much farther from home than he was from
Batherley ; but Dunsey, not being remarkable
for clearness of head, was only led to this
conclusion by the gradual perception that there
were other reasons for choosing the unpre-
cedented course of walking" home. It was now
nearly four o'clock, and a mist was gathering :
the sooner he got into the road the better.
He remembered having crossed the road and
seen the finger-post only a little w^hile before
Wildfire broke down ; so, buttoning his coat,
twisting the lash of his hunting-whip compactly

round the handle, and rapping the tops of his
boots with a self-possessed air, as if to assure
himself that he was not at all taken by
surprise, he set off with the sense that he was
undertaking a remarkable feat of bodily exertion,
which somehow and at some time he should be
able to dress up and magnify to the admiration
of a select circle at the Rainbow.

When a young gentleman like Dunsey is re-
duced to so exceptional a mode of locomotion
as walking, a whip in his hand is a desirable
corrective to a too bewildering, dreamy sense
of unwontedness in his position ; and Dunstan,
as he went along through the gathering mist,
was always rapping his whip somewhere. It
was Godfrey's whip, which he had chosen to take
without leave because it had a gold handle ; of
course no one could see, when Dunstan held it,
that the name Godfrey Cass was cut in deep letters
on that gold handle — they could only see that it
was a very handsome whip. Dunsey was not
without fear that he might meet some acquaint-
ance in whose eyes he would cut a pitiable figure,
for mist is no screen when people get close to
each other ; but when he at last found himself
in the well-known Raveloe lanes without having
met a soul, he silently remarked that that was
part of his usual good-luck. But now the mist,
helped by the evening darkness, was more of a
screen than he desired, for it hid the ruts into

which liis feet were lialjle to slip — liid evcrythinf^,
so that he had to guide his steps by dragti^inf>-
his whip along the low bushes in advance of
the hedgerow. He must soon, he thought,
be getting near the opening at the Stone-
pits : he should find it out by the break in the
hedgerow.

He found it out, however, by another circum-
stance which he had not expected — namely, by
certain gleams of light, which he presently guessed
to proceed from Silas Marner's cottage. That
cottage and the money hidden within it had been
in his mind continually during his walk, and
he had been imagining ways of cajoling and
tempting the weaver to part with the immediate
possession of his money for the sake of receiving
interest. Dunstan felt as if there must be a little
frightening added to the cajolery, for his own
arithmetical convictions were not clear enough to
afford him any forcible demonstration as to the
advantages of interest ; and as for security, he
regarded it vaguely as a means of cheating a man
by making him believe that he would be paid.
Altogether, the operation on the miser's mind
\vas a task that Godfrey would be sure to hand
over to his more daring and cunning brother :
Dunstan had made up his mind to that ; and by
the time he saw the light gleaming through the
chinks of Marner's shutters, the idea of a dialogue

with the weaver had become so familiar to him,

t)4

that It occurred to him as quite a natural thing- to
make the acquaintance forthwith.

There might be several conveniences attending
this course : the weaver had possibly got a lantern,
and Dunstan was tired of feeling his way. He
was still nearly three-quarters of a mile from home,
and the lane was becoming unpleasantly slippery,
for the mist was passing into rain. He turned
up the bank, not without some fear lest he might
miss the right way, since he was not certain
whether the light were in front or on the side of
the cottage. But he felt the ground before him
cautiously with his whip-handle, and at last arrived
safely at the door. He knocked loudly, rather
enjoying the idea that the old fellow would
be frightened at the sudden noise. He heard
no movement in reply : all was silent in the
cottage. Was the weaver gone to bed, then ?
If so, why had he left a light? That was a
strange forgetfulness in a miser. Dunstan
knocked still more loudly, and, without paus-
ing for a reply, pushed his fingers through
the latch-hole, intending to shake the door
and pull the latch-string up and down, not
doubting that the door was fastened. But, to
his surprise, at this double motion the door opened,
and he found himself in front of a bright fire
which lit up every corner of the cottage — the bed,
the loom, the three chairs, and the table — and
showed him that Marner was not there.

Nothing at that moment could be much more
inviting to Dunsey than the bright fire on the
l)rick hearth : he walked in and seated himself by
it at once. There was something in front of the
lire, too, that would have been inviting to a
hungry man, if it had been in a different stage of
cooking. It was a small bit of pork suspended
from the kettle-hanger by a string passed through
a large door-key, in a way known to primitive
housekeepers unpossessed of jacks. But the pork
had been hung at the farthest extremity of the
hanger, apparently to prevent the roasting from
proceeding too rapidly during the owner's absence.
The old staring simpleton had hot meat for his
supper, then? thought Dunstan. People had
always said he had lived on mouldy bread, on
purpose to check his appetite. But where could
he be at this time, and on such an evening, leav-
ing his supper in this stage of preparation, and
his door unfastened? Dunstan's own recent
difficulty in making his way suggested to him
that the weaver had perhaps gone outside his
cottage to fetch in fuel, or for some such brief
purpose, and had slipped into the Stone-pit.

That was an interesting idea to Dunstan,
carrying consequences of entire novelty. If the
weaver was dead, who had a right to his money ?
Who would know where his money was hidden ?
Who "woidd know that anybody had come to take
it away ? He went no further into the subtleties

)f evidence : the pressing question, ** Where is
:he money?" now took such entire possession
)f him as to make him quite forget that the
weaver's death was not a certainty. A dull
nind, once arriving at an inference that flatters
I desire, is rarely able to retain the impression
hat the notion from which the inference started
vas purely problematic. And Dunstan's mind
vas as dull . as the mind of a possible felon
isually is. There were only three hiding-places
vhere he had ever heard of cottagers' hoards
)eing found : the thatch, the bed, and a hole
n the floor. Marner's cottage had no thatch ;
md Dunstan's first act, after a train of thought
nade rapid by the stimulus of cupidity, was to
^o up to the bed ; but while he did so, his eyes
ravelled eagerly over the floor, where the bricks,
listinct in the fire-light, were discernible under
he sprinkling of sand. But not everywhere;
or there was one spot, and one only, which
v^as quite covered with sand, and sand showing
he marks of fingers, which had apparently
)een careful to spread it over a given space. It
V2is near the treddles of the loom.

In an instant Dunstan darted to that spot,
wept away the sand with his whip, and, in-
erting the thin end of the hook between the
)ricks found that they were loose. In haste
le lifted up two bricks, and saw what he had
lo doubt was the object of his search ; for what

could there be but money in those two leathern
bai^s? And, from their weiglit, they must be
filled with guineas. Dunstan felt round tlie
hole, to be certain that it held no more ; then
hastily replaced the bricks, and spread ilie sand
over them. Hardly more than five minutes had
passed since he entered the cottage, but it seemed
Lo Dunstan like a long while ; and though he
was without any distinct recognition of the
possibility that Marner might be alive, and
might re-enter the cottage at any moment, he
felt an undefinable dread laying hold on him,
as he rose to his feet with the bags in his
hand. He would hasten out into the darkness,
and then consider what he should do with the
bags. He closed the door behind him im-
mediately, that he might shut in the stream of
light : a few steps would be enough to carry
him beyond betrayal by the gleams from the
shutter-chinks and the latch-hole. The rain and
darkness had got thicker, and he was glad of
it ; though it was awkward walking with both
hands filled, so that it was as much as he could
do to grasp his whip along with one of the
bags. But when he had gone a yard or two,
he might take his time. So he stepped forward
into the darkness.

CHAPTER V

IVhen Dunstan Cass turned his back on the
cottage, Silas Marner was not more than a
lundred yards away from it, plodding along
rom the village with a sack thrown round his
ihoulders as an overcoat, and with a horn lantern
n his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind
vas at ease, free from the presentiment of
:hange. The sense of security more frequently
iprings from habit than from conviction, and
or this reason it often subsists after such a
;hange in the conditions as might have been
jxpected to suggest alarm. The lapse of time
luring which a given event has not happened,
s, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged as
I reason why the event should never happen,
;ven when the lapse of time is precisely the
idded condition which makes the event imminent.
\ man will tell you that he has worked in a
nine for forty years unhurt by an accident as
I reason why he should apprehend no danger,
hough the roof is beginning to sink ; and it is
)ften observable, that the older a man gets, the
nore difficult it is to him to retain a believing
conception of his own death.

This influence of habit was necessarily strong
n a man whose life was so monotonous as

Marner*s — who saw no new people and lieard of
no new events to keep alive in him the idea of
the unexpected and the changeful ; and it ex-
plains, simply enough, why his mind could be
at ease, though he had left his house and his
treasure more defenceless than usual. Silas
was thinking with double complacency of his
supper : first, because it would be hot and
savoury ; and secondly, because it would cost
him nothing. For the little bit of pork was a
present from that excellent housewife. Miss
Priscilla Lammeter, to whom he had this day
carried home a handsome piece of linen ; and it
was only on occasion of a present like this that
Silas indulged himself with roast-meat. Supper
was his favourite meal, because it came at his
time of revelry, when his heart warmed over
his gold ; whenever he- had roast-meat, he
always chose to have it for supper.

But this evening, he had no sooner ingeniously
knotted his string fast round his bit of pork,
twisted the string according to rule over his
door-key, passed it through the handle, and
made it fast on the hanger, than he remembered
that a piece of very fine twine was indispens-
able to his "setting up" a new piece of work
in his loom early in the morning. It had
slipped his memory, because, in coming from
Mr. Lammeter's, he had not had to pass through
the village ; but to lose time by going on errands

70 .

in the morning- was out of the question. It was
a nasty fog to turn out into, but there were things
Silas loved better than his own comfort; so,
drawing his pork to the extremity of the hanger,
and arming himself with his lantern and his old
sack, he set out on what, in ordinary weather,
would have been a twenty minutes' errand. He
could not have locked his door without undoing
his well-knotted string and retarding his supper ;
it was not worth his while to make that sacrifice.
What thief would find his way to the Stone-pits
on such a night as this? and why should he
come on this particular night, when he had
never come through all the fifteen years before?
These questions were not distinctly present in
Silas's mind ; they merely serve to represent
the vaguely-felt foundation of his. freedom from
anxiety.

He reached his door in much satisfaction that
his errand was done : he opened it, and to
his short-sighted eyes everything remained as
he had left it, except that the fire sent out a
welcome increase of heat. He trod about the
floor while putting by his lantern and throwing
aside his hat and sack, so as to merge the
marks of Dunstan's feet on the sand in the
marks of his own nailed boots. Then he moved
his pork nearer to the fire, and sat down to the
agreeable business of tending the meat and
warming himself at the same time.

Anyone who had looked at him as the rod
light shone upon his pale face, strange, straining
eyes, and meagre form, would perhaps have
understood the mixture of contemptuous pity,
dread, and suspicion with which he was regarded
by his neighbours in Raveloe. Yet few men
could be more harmless than poor IMarncr. In
his truthful, simple soul, not even the growing
greed and worship of gold could beget any
vice directly injurious to others. The light of
his faith quite put out, and his affections made
desolate, he had clung with all the force of his
nature to his work and his money ; and like
all objects to which a man devotes himself,
they had fashioned him into correspondence
with themselves. His loom, as he wrought in
it without ceasing, had in its turn wrought onf
him, and confirmed more and more the mono-
tonous craving for its monotonous response.
His gold, as he hung over it and saw it grow,
gathered his power of loving together into a
hard isolation like its own.

As soon as he was warm he began to think

it would be a long while to wait till after supper

before he drew out his guineas, and it would

be pleasant to see them on the table before

him as he ate his unwonted feast. For joy is

the best of wine, and Silas's guineas were a

golden wine of that sort.

He rose and placed his candle unsuspectingly

on the floor near his loom, swept away the
sand without noticing any change, and removed
the bricks. The sight of the empty hole made
his heart leap violently, but the belief that his
gold was gone could not come at once — only
terror, and the eager effort to put an end to
the terror. He passed his trembling hand all
about the hole, trying to think it possible that
his eyes had deceived him ; then he held the
candle in the hole and examined it curiously,
trembling more and more. At last he shook
so violently that he let fall the candle, and
lifted his hands to his head, trying to steady
himself, that he might think. Had he put his
gold somewhere else, by a sudden resolution
last night, and then forgotten it? A man falling
into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even
on sliding stones ; and Silas, by acting as if
he believed in false hopes, warded off the moment
of despair. He searched in every corner, he
turned his bed over, and shook it, and kneaded
it ; he looked in his brick oven where he laid
his sticks. When there was no other place to
be searched, he kneeled down again and felt
once more all round the hole. There was no
untried refuge left for a moment's shelter from
the terrible truth.

Yes, there was a sort of refuge which always
comes with the prostration of thought under an
overpowering passion : it was that expectation

of impossibilities, that belief in contradictory
imaores, which is still distinct from madness,
because it is capable of being dissipated by the
external fact. Silas ^ot up from his knees
trembling, and looked round at the table : didn't
the gold lie there after all? The table was bare.
Then he turned and looked behind him — looked
all round his dwelling, seeming to strain his
brown eyes after some possible appearance of
the bags where he had already sought them in
vain. He could see every object in his cottage —
and his gold was not there.

Again he put his trembling hands to his head,
and gave a wild, ringing scream, the cry of
desolation. For a few moments after he stood
motionless ; but the cry had relieved him from
the first maddening pressure of the truth. He
turned, and tottered towards his loom, and got
into the seat where he worked, instinctively
seeking this as the strongest assurance of reality.

And now that all the false hopes had vanished,

and the first shock of certainty was past, the

idea of a thief began to present itself, and he

entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be

caught and made to restore the gold. The

thought brought some new strength with it,

and he started from his loom to the door. As

he opened it the rain beat in upon him, for it

was falling more and more heavily. There were

no footsteps to be tracked on such a night —

footsteps? When had the thief come? During
Silas's absence in the daytime the door had
been locked, and there had been no marks of
any inroad on his return by daylight. And in
the evening, too, he said to himself, everything
was the same as when he had left it. The sand
and bricks looked as if they had not been moved.
Was it a i±Lief-who had taken the bags? or was

it a cruel power that no hands could reach,

wHIch had delighted in making him a second
time desolate? He shrank from this vaguer
dread, and fixed his mind with struggling
effort on the robber with hands, who could
be reached by hands. His thoughts glanced
at all the neighbours who had made any
remarks, or asked any questions which he
might now regard as a ground of suspicion.
There was Jem Rodney, a known poacher,
and otherwise disreputable : he had often met
Marner in his journeys across the fields, and
had said something jestingly about the weaver's
money ; nay, he had once irritated Marner,
by lingering at the lire when he called to
light his pipe, instead of going about his
business. Jem Rodney was the man — there
was ease in the thought.

Jem could be found and made to restore the
money : Marner did not want to punish him,
but only to get back his gold which had gone
from him, and left his soul like a forlorn traveller

on an unknown desert. The robber must be
laid hold of. Marner's ideas of legal authority
were confused, bul he felt tliat he must go and
proclaim his loss ; and the great people in the
village — the clergyman, the constable, and
Squire Cass — would make Jem Rodney, or
somebody else, deliver up the stolen money,
lie rushed out in the rain, under the stimulus
of this hope, forgetting to cover his head, not
caring to fasten his door; for he felt as if he
had nothing left to lose, lie ran swiftly, till
want of breath compelled him to slacken his
pace as he was entering the village at the
turning close to the Rainbow.

The Rainbow, in Marner's view, was a place
of luxurious resort for rich and stout husbands,
whose wives had superfluous stores of linen ;
it was the place where he was likely to find
the powers and dignities of Raveloe, and
where he could most speedily make his loss
public. He lifted the latch, and turned into
the bright bar or kitchen on the right hand,
where the less lofty customers of the house
w^ere in the habit of assembling, the parlour
on the left being reserved for the more select
society in which Squir€ Cass frequently enjoyed
the double pleasure of conviviality and conde-
scension. But the parlour w^as dark to-night,
the chief personages who ornamented its circle
being all at Mrs. Osgood's birthday dance,

IS Godfrey Cass was. And in consequence
>f this, the party on the high-screened seats
n the kitchen was more numerous than usual ;
everal personages, who would otherwise have
)een admitted into the parlour and enlarged
he opportunity of hectoring and condescension
or their betters, being content this evening to
'ary their enjoyment by taking their spirits-and-
i^ater where they could themselves hector and
ondescend in company that called for beer.

CHAPTER VI

The conversation, which was at a high pitch
of animation when Silas approached the door
of the Rainbow, had, as usual, been slow and
intermittent when the company first assembled.
The pipes began to be puffed in a silence which
had an air of severity ; the more important
customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest
the fire, staring at each other as if a bet were
depending on the first man who winked ; while
the beer-drinkers, chiefly men in fustian jackets
and smock-frocks, kept their eyelids down and
rubbed their hands across their mouths, as if
their draughts of beer were a funereal duty
attended with embarrassing sadness. At last,
Mr. Snell, the landlord, a man of a neutral
disposition, accustomed to stand aloof from
human differences as those of beings who were
all alike in need of liquor, broke silence, by
saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the
butcher — 4

*' Some folks 'ud say that was a fine beast you
druv in yesterday. Bob?"

The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man,
was not disposed to answer rashly. He gave a
few puffs before he spat and replied, '* And they

wouldn't be fur wrong, John."

After this feeble, delusive thaw, the silence set
n as severely as before.

^'Was it a red Durham?'* said the farrier,
aking- up the thread of discourse after the lapse
)f a few minutes.

The farrier looked at the landlord, and the
andlord looked at the butcher, as the person
vho must take the responsibility of answering.

*'Red it was," said the butcher, in his good-
lumoured, husky treble, "and a Durham it
vas." »

** Then you needn't tell me who you bought it
)f," said the farrier, looking round with some
riumph ; ** I know who it is has got the red
3urhams o' this country-side. And she'd a white
tar on her brow, I'll bet a penny ?'* The farrier
eaned forward with his hands on his knees as
le put this question, and his eyes twinkled
mowingly.

**Well; yes — she might," said the butcher
lowly, considering that he was giving a decided
iffirmative. *' I don't say contrair}^"

** I knew that very well," said the farrier,
hrowing himself backward again, and speaking
lefiantly ; ^*if / don't know Mr. Lammeter's
;ows, I should like to know who does — that's
ill ! And as for the cow you've bought, bargain
)r no bargaio, I've been at the drenching of
ler — contradick me who will."

The farrier looked fierce, and the mild

butcher's conversational spirit was roused a
liiile.

** Vm not for contradicking no man," he said ;
"I'm for peace and quietness. Some are for
cutting long ribs — I'm for cutting 'em short
myself; but / don't quarrel with 'em. All I
say is, it's a lovely carkiss — and anybody as
was reasonable, it 'ud bring tears into their
eyes to look at it."

" Well, it's the cow as I drenched, whatever
it is," pursued the farrier angrily; ''and it was
Mr. Lammeter's cow, else you told a lie when
you said it was a red Durham."

" I tell no lies," said the butcher, with the
same mild huskiness as before, **and I con-
tradick none — not if a man was to swear himself
black : he's no meat o' mine, nor none o' my
bargains. Ail I say is, it's a lovely carkiss.
And what I say I'll stick to ; but I'll quarrel

wi' no man."

*' No," said the farrier, with bitter sarcasm,
looking at the company generally ; " and p'rhaps
you aren't pig-headed ; and p'rhaps you didn't
say the cow was a red Durham ; and p'rhaps
you didn't say she'd got a star on her brow — •
stick to that, now you're at it."

"Come, come," said the landlord; "let the
cow alone. The truth lies atween you : you're
both right and both wrong, as I allays say.
And as for the cowl's being Mr. Lammeter's, I

say nothing to that ; but this I say, as the
Rainbow's the Rainbow. And for the matter o'
that, if the talk is to be o' the Lammeters, you
know the most upo' that head, eh, Mr. Macey?
You remember when first Mr. Lam meter's father
:ome into these parts, and took the Warrens?"

Mr. Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter
3f which functions rheumatism had of late
Dbliered him to share with a small-featured
y^oung man who sat opposite him, held his
kvhite head on one side, and twirled his thumbs
mih. an air of complacency, slightly seasoned
kvith criticism. He smiled pityingly, in answer
:o the landlord's appeal, and said —

*'Ay, ay; I know, I know; but I let other
blks talk. I've laid by now, and gev up to
;he young uns. Ask them as have been to
school at Tarley : they've learnt pernouncing ;
;hat's come up since my day."

*' If you're pointing at me, Mr. Macey," said

;he deputy-clerk, with an air of anxious propriety,

' I'm nowise a man to speak out of my place.

A.S the psalm says —

* I know what's right, nor only so,
But also practise what I know.'"

**Well, then, I wish you'd keep hold o* the
:une, when it's set for you ; if you're for
3rac/2^ing, I wish you'd ^V3.ctise that," said a
arge, jocose-looking man, an excellent wheel-
wright in his week-day capacity, but on Sundays

leador of the clioir. He v. inked, as he spoke,
at two of the company, who were known oOicially
as the *' bassoon " and the '* key-bugle," in the
confidence that he was expressing the sense of
the musical profession in l^aveloe.

Mr. Tookey, the deputy-clerk, who shared
the unpopularity common to deputies, turned
very red, but replied, with careful moderation :
"Mr. Winthrop, if you'll bring me any proof
as I'm in the wrong, I'm not the man to say
I won't alter. But there's people set up their
own ears for a standard, and expect the whole
choir to follow 'em. There may be two opinions,
I hope."

''Ay, ay," said Mr. Macey, who felt very
well satisfied with this attack on youthful pre-
sumption ; ''you're right there, Tookey: there's
allays two 'pinions ; there's the 'pinion a man
has of himsen, and there's the 'pinion other
folks have on him. There'd be two 'pinions
about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear
itself."

" Well, Mr. Macey," said poor Tookey, serious
amidst the general laughter, " I undertook to
partially fill up the office of parish-clerk by
Mr. Crackenthorp's desire, whenever your in-
firmities should make you unfitting ; and it's
one of the rights thereof to sing in the choir —
else why have you done the same yourself? "

"Ah! but the old gentleman and you are

two folks," said Ben Winthrop. **The old
gentleman's got a gift. Why, the Squire used
to invite him to take a glass, only to hear him
sing the 'Red Rovier'; didn't he, Mr. Macey?
It's a nat'ral gift. There's my little lad Aaron,
he's got a gift — he can sing a tune off straight,
like a throstle. But as for you, Master Tookey,
you'd better stick to your ' Amens ' : your voice
is well enough when you keep it up in your
nose. It's your inside as isn't right made for
music : it's no better nor a hollow stalk."

This kind of unflinching frankness was the
most piquant form of joke to the company at
the Rainbow, and Ben Winthrop's insult was
felt by everybody to have capped Mr. Macey 's
epigram.

'' I see what it is plain enough," said
Mr. Tookey, unable to keep cool any longer.
** There's a consperacy to turn me out o' the
choir, as I shouldn't share the Christmas money
— that's where it is. But I shall speak to Mr.
Crackenthorp ; I'll not be put upon by no man."

*'Nay, nay, Tookey," said Ben Winthrop.
*' We'll pay you your share to keep out of it
—that's what we'll do. There's things folks
'ud pay to be rid on, besides varmin.'*

''Come, come," said the landlord, who felt
that paying people for their absence was a
principle dangerous to society; "a joke's a
joke. We're all good friends here, I hope.

We must give and take. You're both right
and you're both wrong, as I say. 1 agree wi*
Mr. Macey here, as there's two opinions ; and
if mine was asked, I should say they're both
right. Tookey's right and Winthrop's right,
and they've only got to split the difference
and make themselves even."

The farrier was puffing his pipe rather fiercely,
in some contempt at this trivial discussion. He
had no ear for music himself, and never went
to church, as being of the medical profession,
and likely to be in requisition for delicate cows.
But the butcher, having music in his soul, had
listened with a divided desire for Tookey's defeat,
and for the preservation of the peace.

*'To be sure," he said, following up the
landlord's conciliatory view, ** we're fond of our
old clerk ; it's nat'ral, and him used to be such
a singer, and got a brother as is known for the
first fiddler in this country-side. Eh, it's a pity
but what Solomon lived in our village, and could
give us a tune when we liked; eh, Mr. Macey?
I'd keep him in liver and lights for nothing —
that I would."

*'Ay, ay," said Mr. Macey, in the height of

complacency; "our family's been known for

musicianers as far back as anybody can tell.

But them things are dying out, as I tell Solomon

every time he comes round ; there's no voices

like what there used to be, and there's nobody

remembers what we remember, if it isn't the
old crows."

*' Ay, you remember when first Mr. Lammeter's
father come into these parts, don't you, Mr.
Macey?" said the landlord.

'* I should think I did," said the old man,
who had now gone through that complimentary
process necessary to bring him up to the point
of narration ; *'and a fine old gentleman he was
• — as fine, and finer nor the Mr. Lammeter as
now is. He came from a bit north'ard, so far
as I could ever make out. But there's nobody
rightly knows about those parts : only it couldn't
be far north'ard, nor much different from this
country, for he brought a fine breed o' sheep
with him, so there must be pastures there, and
everything reasonable. We beared tell as he'd
sold his own land to come and take the Warrens,
and that seemed odd for a man as had land of
his own, to come and rent a farm in a strangle
place. But they said it was along of his wife's
dying; though there's reasons in things as
nobody knows on — that's pretty much what I've
made out ; yet some folks are so wise, they'll
find you fifty reasons straight off, and all the
while the real reason's winking at 'em in the
corner, and they niver see't. Howsomever, it
was soon seen as we'd got a new parish'ner as
know'd the rights and customs o' things, and
kep' a good house, and w^as well looked on by

everybody. And the young- man — that's the
Mr. Lammeter as now is, for he'd nivcr a sister
— soon began to court Miss Osgood, that's the
sister o' the Mr. Osgood as now is, and a fine
handsome lass she was — eh, you can't think —
they pretend this young lass is like her, but
that's the way wi' people as don't know what
come before 'em. / should know, for I helped
the old rector, Mr. Drumlow as was, I helped
him marry 'em."

Here Mr. Macey paused ; he always gave
his narrative in instalments, expecting to be
questioned according to precedent.

**Ay, and a partic'lar thing happened, didn't
it, Mr. Macey, so as you were likely to re-
member that marriage?" said the landlord, in
a congratulatory tone.

"I should think there did — a very partic'lar
thing," said Mr. Macey, nodding sideways.
" For Mr. Drumlow — poor old gentleman, I
was fond on him, though he'd got a bit confused
in his head, what wi' age and wi' taking a drop
o' summat warm when the service come of a
cold morning. And young Mr. Lammeter, he'd
have no way but he must be married in Janiwary,
which, to be sure, 's a unreasonable time to be
married in, for it isn't like a christening or a
burying, as you can't help ; and so Mr. Drumlow
• — poor old gentleman, I was fond on him — but

when he come to put the questions, he put 'em

by the rule o* contrairy, like, and he says, * Wilt
thou have this man to thy wedded wife?' says
he, and then he says, * Wilt thou have this
woman to thy wedded husband ? ' says he. But
the partic'larest thing of all is, as nobody took
any notice on it but me, and they answered
straight off ' yes,' like as if it had been me saying
' Amen ' i' the right place, without listening to
what went before."

*' But you knew what was going on well
enough, didn't you, Mr. Macey? You were live
enough, eh?" said the butcher.

*'Lor' bless you !" said Mr. Macey, pausing,

and smiling in pity at the impotence of his

hearer's imagination, "why, I was all of a

tremble : it was as if I'd been a coat pulled by

the two tails, like ; for I couldn't stop the parson,

I couldn't take upon me to do that ; and yet I

said to myself, I says, ' Suppose they shouldn't

be fast married, 'cause the words are contrairy ? '

and my head went working like a mill, for I

ivas allays uncommon for turning things over

a.nd seeing all round 'em ; and I says to myself,

' Is't the meanin' or the words as makes folks '

^ast i' wedlock?' For the parson meant right,

ind the bride and bridegroom meant right. But

hen, when I come to think on it, meanin' goes

out a little waj i' most things, for you may mean

:o stick things together and your glue may be

Dad, and then where are you? And so I says
I 67

to mysen, * It isn't the mcanin', it's the glue.'
And I was worreted as if I'd got three bells to
pull at once, when we went into the vestry, and
they begun to sign their names. But where's
the use o' talking? — you can't think what goes
on in a 'cute man's inside."

**But you held in for all that, didn't you,
Mr. Macey?" said the landlord.

''Ay, I held in tight till I was by mysen wi'
Mr. Drumlow, and then I out wi' everything,
but respectful, as I allays did. And he made
light on it, and he says, ' Pooh, pooh, Macey,
make yourself easy,' he says; Mt's neither the
meaning nor the words — it's the re^^Jter does it
— that's the glue.' So you see he settled it
easy ; for parsons and doctors know everything
by heart, like, so as they aren't worreted wi'
thinking what's the rights and wrongs o' things,
as I'n been many and many's the time. And
sure enough the wedding turned out all right,
on'y poor Mrs. Lammeter — that's Miss Osgood
as was — died afore the lasses was growed up ;
but for prosperity and everything respectable,
there's no family more looked on.'*

Every one of Mr. Macey 's audience had heard
this story many times, but it was listened to as
if it had been a favourite tune, and at certain
points the puffing of the pipes was momentarily
suspended that the listeners might give their
whole minds to the expected w^ords. But there

vas more to come ; and Mr. Snell, the landlord,
luly put the leading question.

" Why, old Mr. Lammeter had a pretty fortin,
iidn't they say, when he come into these parts?"

** Well, yes," said Mr. Macey ; '' but I daresay
t*s as much as this Mr. Lammeter's done to keep
t whole. For there was allays a talk as nobody
ould get rich on the Warrens, though he holds
t cheap, for it's what they call Charity Land."

*'Ay, and there's few folks know so well as
'ou how it come to be Charity Land, eh, Mr.
dacey?" said the butcher.

*' How should they?" said the old clerk, with
ome contempt. *^Why, my grandfather made
he grooms' livery for that Mr. Cliff as came
,nd built the big stables at. the Warrens. Why,
hey're stables four times as big as Squire Cass's,
Dr he thought o' nothing but bosses and hunt-
ag, Cliff didn't — a Lunnon tailor, some folks
aid, as had gone mad wi' cheating. For he
ouldn't ride ; lor' bless you ! they said he'd
;ot no more grip o' the boss than if his legs
ad been cross sticks ; my grandfather beared
Id Squire Cass say so many and many a time.
)Ut ride he would, as if Old Harry had been
-driving him ; and he'd a son, a lad o' sixteen,
nd nothing would his father have him do, but
le must ride and ride — though the lad was
ighted, they said. And it was a common
lying as the father wanted to ride the tailor

out o' the lad, and make a gentleman on him

- — not but what I'm a tailor myself, but in

respect as God made me such, I'm pn^ud on

it, for * Macey, tailor,' 's been wrote up over

our door since afore the Queen's heads went

out on the shillings. But Cliff, he was ashamed

o' being called a tailor, and he was sore vexed

as his riding was laughed at, and nobody o'

the gentlefolks hereabout could abide him.

Howsomever, the poor lad got sickly and died,

and the father didn't live long after him, for

he got queerer nor ever, and they said he used

to go out i' the dead o' the night, wi' a lantern

in his hand, to the stables, and set a lot o' lights

burning, for he got as he couldn't sleep ; and

there he'd stand, cracking his whip and looking

at his bosses ; and they said it was a mercy

as the stables didn't get burned down wi' the

poor dumb creaturs in 'em. But at last he

died raving, and they found as he'd left all his

property, Warrens and all, to a Lunnon Charity,

and that's how the Warrens come to be Charity

Land ; though, as for the stables, Mr. Lammeter

never uses 'em — they're out o' all charicter —

lor' bless you ! if you was to set the doors a-

banging in 'em, it 'ud sound like thunder half

o'er the parish."

'* Ay, but there's more going on in the stables

than what folks see by daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?"

said the landlord.

** Ay, ay ; go that way of a dark night, that's
1," said Mr. Macey, winking mysteriously,
and then make believe, if you like, as you
idn't see lights i' the stables, nor hear the
amping o' the bosses, nor the cracking o*
le whips, and howling, too, if it's tow'rt
aybreak. * Cliff's Holiday ' has been the name
" it ever sin' I were a boy ; that's to say, some
lid as it was the holiday Old Harry gev him
om roasting, like. That's what my father told
le, and he was a reasonable man, though there's
»lks nowadays know what happened afore they
ere born better nor they know their own

Lisiness."

*' What do you say to that, eh. Dowlas?" said
le landlord, turning to the farrier, who was
veiling with impatience for his cue. *' There's
nut for you to crack."

Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the
)mpany, and was proud of his position.

*^Say? I say what a man should say as
3esn't shut his eyes to look at a finger-post.

say, as I'm ready to wager any man ten
.:)und, if he'll stand out wi' me any dry night
I the pasture before the Warren stables, as we
lall neither see lights nor hear noises, if it isn't
le blowing of our own noses. That's what I say,
id I've said it many a time ; but there's nobody
.11 ventur a ten-pun' note on their ghos'es as
ley make so sure of."
i Qi

*' Wliy, Dowlas, that's easy bettiiiff, that is,"
said Ben VViiuhrop. *' You might as well bet
a man as he wouldn't catch the rheumatise if he
iilood up to's neck in the pool of a frosty night.
It 'ud be fine fun for a man to win his bet as
he'd catch the rheumatise. Folks as believe in
Cliff's Holiday aren't a-going to ventur near it
for a matter o' ten pound."

** If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth
on it," said Mr. Macey, with a sarcastic smile,
tapping his thumbs together, " he's no call to
lay any bet — let him go and stan* by himself —
there's nobody 'ull hinder him ; and then he
can let the parish'ners know if they're wrong."

** Thank you! I'm obliged to you," said tiie
farrier, with a snort of scorn. *' If folks are fools,
it's no business o' mine. / don't want to make
out the truth about ghos'es ; I know it already.
But I'm not against a bet — everything fair and
open. Let any man bet me ten pound as I shall
see Cliff's Holiday, and I'll go and stand by
myself. I want no company. I'd as lief do it
as I'd fill this pipe."

"Ah, but who's to watch you. Dowlas, and'
see you do it? That's no fair bet," said the*
butcher.

"No fair bet!" re[>lied Mr. Dowlas angrily.

*' I should like to hear any man stand up and

say I want to bet unfair. Come now, Master

Lundy, I should like to hear you say it."

*'Very like you would," said the butcher.
*' But it's no business o' mine. You're none
o' my bargains, and I aren't a-going to try and
'bate your price. If anybody '11 bid for you at
your own vallying, let him. I'm for peace and
quietness, I am."

'* Yes, that's what every yapping cur is, when
you hold a stick up at him," said the farrier.
*'But I'm afraid o' neither man nor ghost, and
I'm ready to lay a fair bet. / aren't a turntail

cur."

"Ay, but there's this in it, Dowlas," said the
Landlord, speaking in a tone of much candour
and tolerance. *' There's folks, i' my opinion,
they can't see ghos'es, not if they stood as plain
as a pikestaff before 'em. And there's reason

that. For there's my wife, now, can't smell,

not if she'd the strongest o' cheese under her

nose. I never see'd a ghost myself; but then

I says to myself, ' Very like I haven't got the

smell for 'em.' I mean, putting a ghost for a

smell, or else contrairiways. And so, I'm for

holding with both sides ; for, as I say, the truth

lies between 'em. And if Dowlas was to go

and stand, and say he'd never seen a wink o'

Cliff's Holiday all the night through, I'd back

him ; and if anybody said as Cliff's Holiday

wsLS certain sure for all that, I'd back /ii?n too.

For the smell's what I go by."

The landlord's analogical argument was not
S.M. 93 D

well received by the farrier — a man intensely
opposed to compromise.

"Tut, tut," he said, setting" down his glass
with refreshed irritation; ** what's the smell got
to do with it? Did ever a ghost give a man a
black eye? That's what I should like to know.
If ghos'es want me to believe in 'em, let 'em
leave off skulking i' the dark and i' lone places
— let 'em come where there's company and
candles."

"As if ghos'es 'ud want to be believed in by
anybody so ignirant?" said Mr. Macey, in deep
disgust at the farrier's crass incompetence to
apprehend the conditions of ghostly phenomena.

■i.

CHAPTER VII

Yet the next moment there seemed to be some
evidence that ghosts had a more condescending
disposition than Mr. Macey attributed to them ;
for the pale, thin figure of Silas Marner was
suddenly seen standing in the warm light, utter-
ing no word, but looking round at the company
with his strange, unearthly eyes. The long
pipes gave a simultaneous movement, like the
antennae of startled insects, and every man
present, not excepting even the sceptical farrier,
had an impression that he saw, not Silas Marner
in the flesh, but an apparition ; for the door by
which Silas had entered was hidden by the
high -screened seats, and no one had noticed
his approach. Mr. Macey, sitting a long way
off the ghost, might be supposed to have felt
an argumentative triumph, which would tend to
neutralise his share of the general alarm. Had
he not always said that when Silas Marner was
in that strange trance of his, his soul went loose
from his body? Here was the demonstration:
nevertheless, on the whole, he would have been
as well contented without it. For a few moments
there was a dead silence, Marner's want of breath
and agitation not allowing him to speak. The
landlord, under the habitual sense that he was

bound to keep his house open to all company,
and confident in the protection of his unbroken
neutrality, at last took upon himself the task of
adjuring the ghost.

*' Master Marner," he said, in a conciliatory
tone, '' what's lacking to you? What's your
business here?"

** Robbed I " said Silas gaspingly. ** I've been
robbed ! I want the constable — and the Justice
— and Squire Cass — and Mr. Crackenthorp.'*

**Lay hold on him, Jem Rodney," said the
landlord, the idea of a ghost subsiding ; *^ he's
off his head, I doubt. He's wet through."

Jem Rodney was the outermost man, and sat
conveniently near Marner's standing-place ; but
he declined to give his services.

*'Come and lay hold on him yourself, Mr.
Snell, if you've a mind," said Jem rather
sullenly. *' He's been robbed, and murdered
too, for what I know," he added, in a muttering
tone.

*' Jem Rodney ! " said Silas, turning and fixing
his strange eyes on the suspected man.

** Ay, Master Marner, what do ye want wi*
me?" said Jem, trembling a little, and seizing
his drinking-can as a defensive weapon.

** If it was you stole my money," said Silas,
clasping his hands entreatingly, and raising his
voice to a cry, '* give it me back — and I won't
meddle with you. I won't set the constable on

^ou. Give it me back, and I'll let you — I'll let
^ou have a guinea."

*'Me stole your money!" said Jem angrily.
* I'll pitch this can at your eye if you talk o'
ny stealing your money."

"Come, come, Master Marner," said the land-
ord, now rising resolutely, and seizing Marner
3y the shoulder, " if you've got any information
;o lay, speak it out sensible, and show us you're
n your right mind, if you expect anybody to
isten to you. You're as wet as a drowned rat.
Sit down and dry yourself, and speak straight
brrard."

"Ah, to be sure, man," said the farrier, who

)egan to feel that he had not been quite on a par

vith himself and the occasion. " Let's have no

Qore staring and screaming, else we'll have you

trapped for a madman. That was why I didn't

peak at the first — thinks I, the man's run mad."

"Ay, ay, make him sit down," said several

oices at once, well pleased that the reality of

hosts remained still an open question.

The landlord forced Marner to take off his coat,

nd then to sit down on a chair aloof from every

ne else, in the centre of the circle and in the

irect rays of the fire. The weaver, too feeble

) have any distinct purpose beyond that of

etting help to recover his money, submitted un-

jsistingly. The transient fears of the company

ere now forgotten in their strong curiosity,

and all faces were turned towards Silas, wlier
the landlord, having seated himself again,
said —

*' Now then. Master Marner, wliat's this you've
got to say — as you've been robbed? Speak out.'

'' He'd better not say again as it was me
robbed him," cried Jem Rodney hastily. " Whai
could I ha' done with his money? 1 could a«
easy steal the parson's surplice, and wear it."

*' Hold your tongue, Jem, and let's hear whai
he's got to say," said the landlord. *' Now then.
Master Marner.'*

Silas now told his story, under frequeni
questioning as the mysterious character of the
robbery became evident.

This strangely novel situation of opening hi*
trouble to his Raveloe neighbours, of sitting ir
the warmth of a hearth not his own, and feeling
the presence of faces and voices which were hi:
nearest promise of help, had doubtless it;
influence on Marner, in spite of his passional
preoccupation with his loss. Our consciousnes
rarely registers the beginning of a growth withii
us any more than without us : there have bee]
many circulations of the sap before we detec,
the smallest sign of the bud.

The slight suspicion with which his hearer
at first listened to him, gradually melted awa
before the convincing simpHcity of his distress

it was impossible for the neighbours to dout

hat Marner was telling the truth, not because

hey were capable of arguing- at once from the

lature of his statements to the absence of any

notive for making them falsely, but because,

LS Mr. Macey observed, " Folks as had the devil

o back 'em were not likely to be so mushed " as

)Oor Silas was. Rather, from the strange fact

hat the robber had left no traces, and had

lappened to know the nick of time, utterly

ncalculable by mortal agents, when Silas would

^■o away from home without locking his door,

he more probable conclusion seemed to be,

hat his disreputable intimacy in that quarter,

f it ever existed, had been broken up, and

hat, in consequence, this ill turn had been

[one to Marner by somebody it was quite in

ain to set the constable after. Why this preter-

latural felon should be obliged to wait till the

oor was left unlocked, was a question which

id not present itself.

"It isn't Jem Rodney as has done this work,

laster Marner," said the landlord. ** You

lustn't be a-casting your eye at poor Jem.

'here may be a bit of a reckoning against Jem

)r the matter of a hare or so, if anybody was

ound to keep their eyes staring open, and never

) wink ; but Jem's been a-sitting here drinking

is can, like the decentest man i' the parish,

ince before you left your house, Master Marner,

y your own account."
' 99

*'Ay, ay," said Mr. Macey ; *Met's have no
accusing o' the innicent. That isn't the law.
There must be folks to swear again' a man before
he can be ta'en up. Let's have no accusing o'
the innicent, Master Marner."

Memory was not so utterly torpid in Silas that
it could not be wakened by these words. With
a movement of compunction as new and strange
to him as everything else within the last hour,
he started from his chair and went close up to
Jem, looking at him as if he wanted to assure
himself of the expression in his face.

** I was wrong," he said, "yes, yes — I ought
to have thought. There's nothing to witness
against you, Jem. Only you'd been into my
house oftener than anybody else, and so you
came into my head. I don't accuse you — I won't
accuse anybody — only," he added, lifting up
his hands to his head, and turning away with
bewildered misery, " I try — I try to think where
my guineas can be."

"Ay, ay, they're gone where it's hot enough
to melt 'em, I doubt," said Mr. Macey.

" Tchuh ! " said the farrier. And then he
asked, with a cross-examining air, " How much
money might there be in the bags, Master
Marner?"

" Two hundred and seventy-two pounds, twelve
and sixpence, last night when I counted it," said
Silas, seating himself again, with a groan.

100

**Pooh! why, they'd be none so heavy to
:arry. Some tramp's been in, that's all ; and
IS for the no footmarks, and the bricks and the
;and being all right — why, your eyes are pretty
nuch like a insect's. Master Marner ; they're
)blrged to look so close, you can't see much at
I time. It's my opinion as, if I'd been you, or
^ou'd been me — for it c5mes to the same things
^ou wouldn't have thought you'd found every-
hing as you left it. But what I vote is, as two
)f the sensiblest o' the company should go with
^ou to Master Kench, the constable's — ^he's ill i*"
)ed, I know that much — and get him to appoint
)ne of us his deppity ; for that's the law, and I
lon't think anybody 'ull take upon him to
ontradick me there. It isn't much of a walk
o Kench's ; and then, if it's me as is deppity,
'11 go back with you. Master Marner, and
xamine your primises ; and if anybody's got
ny fault to find with that, I'll thank him to
tand up and say it out like a man."

By this pregnant speech the farrier had re-
stablished his self-complacency, and waited
/ith confidence to hear himself named as one
f the superlatively sensible men.

**Let us see how the night is, though," said
le landlord, who also considered himself person-
lly concerned in this proposition. '^ Why, it
iins heavy still," he said, returning from the
oor.

lOI

** Well, I'm not tlie man to be afraid o' the
rain," said the farrier. *' For it'll hxjk bad
when Justice Malam hears as respectable men
like us had a information laid before *em and
took no steps."

The landlord agreed with this view, and
after taking the sense of the company, and
duly rehearsing a small ceremony known in
high ecclesiastical life as the 710I0 episcopari,
he consented to take on himself the chill dignity
of going to Kench's. But to the farrier's strong
disgust, Mr. Macey now started an objection to
his proposing himself as a deputy-constable;
for that oracular old gentleman, claiming to
know the law, stated, as a fact delivered to
him by his father, that no doctor could be a
constable.

*' And you're a doctor, I reckon, though
you're only a cow-doctor — for a fly's a fly,
though it may be a hoss-fly," concluded Mr.
Macey, wondering a little at his own " 'cuteness.**

There was a hot debate upon this, the farriel

being, of course, indisposed to renounce th^

quality of doctor, but contending that a doctof

could be a constable if he liked — the law meani

he needn't be one if he didn't like. Mr. Macej

thought this was nonsense, since the law wai

not likely to be fonder of doctors than of othei

folks. Moreover, if it was in the nature ol

doctors more than of other men not to like

102

being- constables, how came Mr. Dowlas to be
5o eager to act in that capacity?

"/ don't want to act the constable," said the
farrier, driven into a corner by this merciless
reasoning; **and there's no man can say it of
me, if he'd tell the truth. But if there's to
be any jealousy and envying about going to
Kench's in the rain, let them go as like it —
you won't get me to go, I can tell you."

By the landlord's intervention, however, the
dispute was accommodated. Mr. Dowlas con-
sented to go as a second person disinclined to
act officially; and so poor Silas, furnished with
some old coverings, turned out with his two
[companions into the rain again, thinking of the
long night-hours before him, not- as those do
who long to rest, but as those who expect to
** watch for the morning."

103

CHAPTER VIII

When Godfrey Cass returned from Mrs. Os^food's
party at midnicrht, he was not much surprised
to learn that Dunsey had not come home.
Perhaps he had not sold Wildfire, and was wait-
ing for another chance — perhaps, on that foggy
afternoon, he had preferred housing himself at
the Red Lion at Batherley for the night, if the
run had kept him in that neighbourhood ; for
he was not likely to feel much concern about
leaving his brother in suspense. Godfrey's
mind was too full of Nancy Lammeter's looks
and behaviour, too full of the exasperation
against himself and his lot, which the sight of
her always produced in him, for him to give
much thought to Wildfire, or to the probabilities
of Dunstan's conduct.

The next morning the whole village was
excited by the story of the robbery, and Godfrey,
like every one else, was occupied in gathering
and discussing, news about it, and in visiting
the Stone-pits. The rain had washed away
all possibility of distinguishing foot-marks, but
a close investigation of the spot had disclosed,
in the direction opposite to the village, a tinder-
box, with a flint and steel, half sunk in the
mud. It was not Silas's tinder-box, for the

104 I

only one he had ever had was still standing" on
his shelf; and the inference generally accepted
was, that the tinder-box in the ditch was some-
how connected with the robbery. A small
minority shook their heads, and intimated their
opinion that it was not a robbery to have much
light thrown on it by tinder-boxes, that Master
Marner's tale had a queer look with it, and that
such things had been known as a man's doing
himself a mischief, and then setting the justice
to look for the doer. But when questioned
closely as to their grounds for this opinion,
and what Master Marner had to gain by such
false pretences, they only shook their heads as
before, and observed that there was no knowing
what some folks counted gain ; moreover, that
everybody had a right to their own opinions,
grounds or no grounds, and that the weaver,
as everybody knew, was partly crazy. Mr.
Macey, though he joined in the defence of
Marner against all suspicions of deceit, also
pooh-poohed the tinder-box ; indeed, repudiated
it as a rather impious suggestion, tending to
imply that everything must be done by human
hands, and that there was no power which could
make away with the guineas without moving the
bricks. Nevertheless, he turned round rather
sharply on Mr. Tookey, when the zealous deputy,
feeling that this was a view of the case peculiarly
suited to a parish-clerk, carried it still further,

105

and doubted whether it was right to inquire into '
a robbery at all when the circumstances were
so mysterious. ,

"As if," concluded Mr. Tookey, ** as if there I
was nothing but what could be made out by
justices and constables."

**Now, don't you be for overshooting the
mark, Tookey," said Mr. Macey, nodding his
head aside admonishingly. *' That's what you're
allays at ; if I throw a stone and hit, you think |
there's summat better than hitting, and you try
to throw a stone beyond. What I said was
against the tinder-box ; I said nothing against
justices and constables, for they're o' King i
George's making, and it 'ud be ill-becoming
a man in a parish office to fly out again' King '
George."

While these discussions were going on
amongst the group outside the Rainbow, a
higher consultation was being carried on within, ,
under the presidency of Mr. Crackenthorp, the
rector, assisted by Squire Cass and other sub-
stantial parishioners. It had just occurred to
Mr. Snell, the landlord — he being, as he
observed, a man accustomed to put two and
two together — to connect with the tinder-box,
which, as deputy-constable, he himself had had
the honourable distinction of finding, certain
recollections of a pedlar who had called to

drink at the house about a month before, and

io6

about with him to light his pipe. Here, surely,
was a clue to be followed out. And as memory,
when duly impregnated with ascertained facts,
is sometimes surprisingly fertile, Mr. Snell
gradually recovered a vivid impression of the
effect produced on him by the pedlars coun-
tenance and conversation. He had a 'Mook
with his eye" which fell unpleasantly on Mr.
Snell's sensitive organism. To be sure, he
didn't say anything particular — no, except that
about the tinder-box — but it isn't what a man
says, it's the way he says it. Moreover, he had
a swarthy foreignness of complexion which
boded little honesty.

'^ Did he wear earrings?" Mr. Crackenthorp
wished to know, having some acquaintance with
foreign customs.

"Well — stay — let me see," said Mr. Snell,

like a docile clairvoyante, who would really

not make a mistake if she could help it.

After stretching the corners of his mouth and

contracting his eyes, as if he were trying to

see the earrings, he appeared to give up the

effort, and said, *'Well, he'd got earrings in

his box to sell, so it's nat'ral to suppose he

might wear 'em. But he called at every house,

a'most, in the village : there's somebody else,

mayhap, saw 'em in his ears, though I can't

take upon me rightly to say."

107

IMF. v^neii was correct in his surmise that )
somebody else would remember the pedlar's
earrini^s ; for on the spread of inquiry among
the villagers it was stated with gathering
emphasis that the parson had wanted to know
whether the pedlar wore earrings in his ears,
and an impression was created that a great
deal depended on the eliciting of this fact. Of
course, every one who heard the question, not
having any distinct image of the pedlar as
without earrings, immediately had an image of
him with earrings, larger or smaller, as the
case might be ; and the image was presently
taken for a vivid recollection, so that the
glacier's wife, a well-intentioned woman, not
given to lying, and whose house was among
the cleanest in the village, was ready to
declare, as sure as ever she meant to take the
sacrament the very next Christmas that was
ever coming, that she had seen big earrings,
in the shape of the young moon, in the pedlar's
two ears ; while Jinny Oates, the cobbler's
daughter, being a more imaginative person,
stated not only that she had seen them too,
but that they had made her blood creep, as it
did at that very moment while there she stood.

Also, by way of throwing further light on
this clue of the tinder-box, a collection was
made of all the articles purchased from the

pedlar at various houses, and carried to the

io8

rvciiiiuuvv Lu uc cAniuiLcu Liieie. iii lauL, Liiere
was a general feeling in the village that for
the clearing-up of this robbery there must be
a great deal done at the Rainbow, and that no
man need offer his wife an excuse for going
there while it was the scene of severe public
duties.

Some disappointment was felt, and perhaps
a little indignation also, when it became known
that Silas Marner, on being questioned by the
Squire and the parson, had retained no other
recollection of the pedlar than that he had
called at his door, but had not entered his
house, having turned away at once when Silas,
holding the door ajar, had said that he wanted
aothing. This had been Silas's testimony,
:hough he clutched strongly at the idea of the
Dedlar's being the culprit, if only because it
3^ave him a definite image of a whereabout for
|iis gold after it had been taken away from its
liding-place ; he could see it now in the pedlar's
X)x. But it Avas observed with some irritation
n the village that anybody but a ** blind creatur "^
ike Marner would have seen the man prowling
ibout, for how came he to leave his tinder-box
n the ditch close by, if he hadn't been lingering
here? Doubtless, he had made his observations
vhen he saw Marner at the door. Anybody
night know — and only look at him — that the

v^aver was a half-crazy miser. It was a wonder

109

tlie pecllar nadn t murderea mm ; men ot that
sort, with ring^s in their cars, had been known
for murderers often and often ; there bad been
one tried at the 'sizes, not so long ago but
what there were people living who remembered it.

Godfrey Cass, indeed, entering the Rainl)(AV
during one of Mr. Snell's frequently repeated
recitals of his testimony, had treated it lightly,
stating that he himself had bought a penknife
of the pedlar, and thought him a merry, grinning
fellow enough ; it was all nonsense, he said,
about the man's evil looks. But this was spoken
of in the village as the random talk of youth,
*'as if it was only Mr. Snell who had seen
something odd about the pedlar ! " On the
contrary, there were at least half a dozen who
were ready to go before Justice Malam, and givei
in much more striking testimony than any the'
landlord could furnish. It was to be hoped
Mr. Godfrey would not go to Tarley and throw
cold water on what Mr. Snell said there, and so
prevent the justice from drawing up a warrant.
He was suspected of intending this, when, after
mid-day, he was seen setting off on horseback
in the direction of Tarley.

But by this time Godfrey's interest in the
robbery had faded before his growing anxiety
about Dunstan and Wildfire, and he was going,
not to Tarley, but to Batherley, unable to rest
in uncertainty about them any longer. The

110

possibility that Dunstan had played him the
ugly trick of riding away with Wildfire, to
return at the end of a month, when he had
gambled away or otherwise squandered the
price of the horse, was a fear that urged itself
upon him more, even, than the thought of an
accidental injury ; and now that the dance at
Mrs. Osgood's was past, he was irritated with
himself that he had trusted his horse to Dunstan.
Instead of trying to still his fears he encouraged
them, with that superstitious impression which
clings to us all, that if we expect evil very
strongly it is the less likely to come ; and when
he heard a horse approaching at a trot, and
saw a hat rising above a hedge beyond an angle
of the lane, he felt as if his conjuration had
succeeded. But no sooner did the horse come
within sight than his heart sank again. It was
not Wildfire ; and in a few moments more he
discerned that the rider was not Dunstan, but
Bryce, who pulled up to speak, with a face that
implied something disagreeable.

*' Well, Mr. Godfrey, that's a lucky brother of
yours, that Master Dunsey, isn't he?"

*' What do you mean?" said Godfrey hastily.

** Why, hasn't he been home yet?" said Bryce.

**Home? No. What has happened? Be
quick ! What has he done with my horse ?"

**Ah, I thought it was yours, though he

pretended you had parted with it to him."

Ill

** Has he thrown him down and broken his
knees?" said Godfrey, flushed with exasperation.

*' Worse than that," said Bryce. "You see,
I'd made a bargain with him to buy the horse
for a hundred and twenty — a swinging price,
but I always liked the horse. And what does
he do but go and stake him — fly at a hedge
with stakes in it, atop of a bank with a ditch
before it. The horse had been dead a pretty
good while when he was found. So he hasn't
been home since, has he?" |

**Home? no," said Godfrey, **and he'd better
keep away. Confound me for a fool ! I might
have known this would be the end of it.'*

*'WeIl, to tell you the truth," said Bryce,
** after I'd bargained for the horse, it did come
into my head that he might be riding and selling
the horse without your knowledge, for I didn't
believe it was his own. I knew Master Dunsey
was up to his tricks sometimes. But where can
he be gone? He's never been seen at Batherley.
He couldn't have been hurt, for he must have
walked off."

" Hurt?" said Godfrey bitterly. '' He'll never
be hurt — he's made to hurt other people."

"And so you did give him leave to sell the
horse, eh?" said Bryce.

"Yes; I wanted to part with the horse — he
was always a little too hard in the mouth for
me," said Godfrey ; his pride making him wince

112

under the idea that Bryce guessed the sale to
be a matter of necessity. *'I was going to
see after him — I thought some mischief had
happened. I'll go back now," he added, turn-
ing the horse's head, and wishing he could get
rid of Bryce ; for he felt that the long-dreaded
crisis in his life was close upon him. ** You're
coming on to Raveloe, aren't you?"

*'Well, no, not now," said Bryce. **l was
coming round there, for I had to go to Flitton,
and I thought I might as well take you in my
way, and just let you know all I knew myself
about the horse. I suppose Master Dunsey
didn't like to show himself till the ill news had
blown over a bit. He's perhaps gone to pay a
visit at the Three Crowns, by Whitbridge — I
know he's fond of the house."

** Perhaps he is," said Godfrey, rather absently.
Then rousing himself, he said, with an effort at
carelessness, *' We shall hear of him soon enough,
I'll be bound."

''Well, here's my turning," said Bryce, not
surprised to perceive that Godfrey was rather
"down"; ''so I'll bid you good-day, and wish
I may bring you better news another time."

Godfrey rode along slowly, representing to

himself the scene of confession to his father from

which he felt that there was now no longer any

escape. The revelation about the money must

be made the very next morning ; and if he

113

withheld the rest, Duiistan would be sure to come
back shortly, and, iindinnr that he must bear
the brunt of his father's ang^er, would tell the
whole story out of spite, even though he had
nothing to gain by it. There was one step,
perhaps, by w^hich he might still win Dunstan's
silence and put off the evil day : he might tell
his father that he had himself spent the money
paid to him by Fowler ; and as he had never
been guilty of such an offence before, the affair
would blow over after a little storming. But
Godfrey could not bend himself to . this. He
felt that in letting Dunstan have the money, he
had already been guilty of a breach of trust
hardly less culpable than that of spending the
money directly for his own behoof ; and yet
there was a distinction between the two acts
which made him feel that the one was so
mucli more blackening than the other as to be
intolerable to him.

** I don't pretend to be a good fellow," he said
to himself; "but I'm not a scoundrel — at least,
I'll stop short somewhere. I'll bear the conse-
quences of what I have done sooner than make
believe I've done what I never would have done.
I'd never have spent the money for my own
pleasure — I was tortured into it."

Through the remainder of this day, Godfrey,

with only occasional fluctuations, kept his \\\\\

bent in the direction of a complete avowal to

114

his father, and he withheld the story of Wildfire's

loss till the next morning, that it might serve

him as an introduction to heavier matter. The

old Squire was accustomed to his son's frequent

absence from home, and thought neither

Dunstan's nor Wildfire's non-appearance a

matter calling for remark. Godfrey said to

himself again and again, that if he let slip this

one opportunity of confession, he might never

have another ; the revelation might be made

even in a more odious way than by Dunstan's

malignity : she might come as she had threatened

to do. And then he tried to make the scene

easier to himself by rehearsal: he made up his

mind how he would pass from the admission of

his weakness in letting Dunstan have the money

to the fact that Dunstan had a hold on him which

he had been unable to shake off, and how he

would work up his father to expect something

very bad before he told him the fact. The old

Squire was an implacable man : he made

resolutions in violent anger, and he was not to

be moved from them after his anger had subsided

— as fiery volcanic matters cool and harden into

rock. Like many violent and implacable men, he

allowed evils to grow under favour of his own

heedlessness, till they pressed upon him with

exasperating force, and then he turned round

with fierce severity and became unrelentingly

hard.

115

This was his system with his tenants; he
allowed them to get into arrears, neglect their
fences, reduce their stock, sell their straw, and
otherwise go the wrong way — and then, when
he became short of money in consequence of
this indulgence, he took the hardest measures
and would listen to no appeal. Godfrey knew all
this, and felt it with the greater force because
he had constantly suffered annoyance from
witnessing his father's sudden fits of unrelent-
ingness, for which his own- habitual irresolution
deprived him of all sympathy. (He was not
critical on the faulty indulgence which preceded
these fits ; that seemed to him natural enough.)
Still, there was just the chance, Godfrey thought,
that his father's pride might see this marriage
in a light that would induce him to hush it up,
rather than turn his son out and make the
family the talk of the country for ten miles round.

This was the view of the case that Godfrey

managed to keep before him pretty closely till

midnight, and he went to sleep thinking that

he had done with inward debating. But when

he awoke in the still morning darkness he

found it impossible to reawaken his evening

thoughts ; it was as if they had been tired out

and were not to be roused to further work.

Instead of arguments for confession, he could

now feel the presence of nothing but its evil

consequences ; the old dread of disgrace came

Ii6

fjciv^iv uin^ v-»n-t oiii ixirvm i; ii\_fni Lilt; LilWLltlilt KJL

raising a hopeless barrier between himself and
Nancy — the old disposition to rely on chances
which might be favourable to him, and save
him from betrayal. Why, after all, should he
cut off the hope of them by his own act? He
had seen the matter in a wrong light yesterday.
He had been in a rage with Dunstan, and had
thought of nothing but a thorough break-up of
their mutual understanding ; but what it would
be really wisest for him to do, was to try and
soften his father's anger against Dunsey, and
keep things as nearly as possible in their old
condition. If Dunsey did not come back for a
few days (and Godfrey did not know but that
the rascal had enough money in his pocket to
enable him to keep away still longer), everything
might blow over.

117

CHAPTER IX

Godfrey rose and took his own breakfast
earlier than usual, but lin^^cred in the wain-
scoted parlour till his younger brothers had
finished their meal and gone out, awaiting his
father, who always took a walk with his manag-
ing-man before breakfast. Everyone breakfasted
at a different hour in the Red House, and the
Squire was always the latest, giving a long
chance to a rather feeble morning appetite
before he tried it. The table had been spread
with substantial eatables nearly two hours before
he presented himself — a tall, stout man of sixty,
with a face in which the knit brow and rather
hard glance seemed contradicted by the slack
and feeble mouth. His person showed marks
of habitual neglect, his dress was slovenly ;
and yet there was something in the presence
of the old Squire distinguishable from that of
the ordinary farmers in the parish, who were
perhaps every whit as refined as he, but, having
slouched their way through life with a conscious-
ness of being in the vicinity of their '* betters,"
wanted that self-possession and authoritativeness
of voice and carriage which belonged to a man
who thought of superiors as remote existences
with whom he had personally little more to do

ii8

than with America or the stars. The Squire
had been used to parish homage all his life,
used to the presupposition that his family, his
tankards, and everything that was his, were the
oldest and best ; and as he never associated
with any gentry higher than himself, his opinion
was not disturbed by comparison.

He glanced at his son as he entered the room,
and said, **What, sir! haven't you had your
breakfast yet?" but there was no pleasant
morning greeting between them ; not because
of any unfriendliness, but because the sweet
flower of courtesy is not a growth of such homes
as the Red House.

** Yes, sir,'* said Godfrey, ^' I've had my break-
fast, but I was waiting to speak to you."

** Ah ! well," said the Squire, throwing himself
indifferently into his chair, and speaking in a
ponderous coughing fashion, which was felt in
Raveloe to be a sort of privilege of his rank,
while he cut a piece of beef, and held it up before
the deer-hound that had come in with him.
** Ring the bell for my ale, will you? You
youngsters' business is your own pleasure,
mostly. There's no hurry about it for anybody
but yourselves."

The Squire's life was quite as idle as his sons',
but it was a fiction kept up by himself and his
contemporaries in Raveloe that youth was ex-
clusively the period of folly, and that their aged

119

wisdom was constantly in a state of endurance
niitii^atcd by sarcasm. Godfrey waited, before
he spoke ac;-ain, until the ale had been brou^'^ht
and the door closed — an interval during which
Fleet, the deer-hound, had consumed enough
bits of beef to make a poor man's holiday dinner.

''There's been a cursed piece of ill-luck with
Wildfire," he began; "happened the day before
yesterday."

''What! broke his knees?" said the Squire,
after taking a draught of ale. "I thought you
knew how to ride better than that, sir! I never
threw a horse down in my life. If I had, I might
ha' whistled for another, for my father wasn't
quite so ready to unstring as some other fathers
I know of. But they must turn over a new leaf
— they must ! What with mortgages and arrears,
I'm as short o' cash as a roadside pauper. And
that fool Kimble says the newspaper's talking
about peace. Why, the country wouldn't have
a leg to stand on. Prices 'ud run down like a
jack, and I should never get my arrears, not
if I sold all the fellows up. And there's that
damned Fowler, I won't put up with him any
longer ; I've told Winthrop to go to Cox this
very day. The lying scoundrel told me he'd be
sure to pay me a hundred last month. He takes
advantage because he's on that outlying farm,
and thinks I shall forget him."

The Sauire had delivered this speech in a

120

coughing' and interrupted manner, but witl
pause long enough for Godfrey to make iP
pretext for taking up the word again. He fei.
that his father meant to ward off any request for
money on the ground of the misfortune Avith
Wildfire, and that the emphasis he had thus been
led to lay on his shortness of cash and his arrears
was likely to produce an attitude of mind the
most unfavourable for his own disclosure. But
he must go on, now he had begun.

*^ It's worse than breaking the horse's knees —
he's been staked and killed," he said, as soon as
his father was silent, and had begun to cut his
meat. " But I wasn't thinking of asking you to
buy me another horse ; I was only thinking I'd
lost the means of paying you with the price of
Wildfire, as I meant to do. Dunsey took him to
the hunt to sell him for me the other day, and
after he'd made a bargain for a hundred and
twenty with Bryce, he went after the hounds, and
took some fool's leap or other, that did for the
horse at once. ^ If it hadn't been for that, I should
have paid you a hundred pounds this morning."

The Squire had laid down his knife and
fork, and was staring at his son in amazement,
not being sufficiently quick of brain to form a
probable guess as to what could have caused
so strange an inversion of the paternal and filial
relations as this proposition of his son to pay him
a hundred pounds.

121

wisdoflu' truth is, sir — I'm very sorry — I was
niiti'te to blame," said Godfrey. *' Fowler did
he.ay that hundred pounds. He paid it to me,
when I was over there one day last morrth. And
Dunsey bothered me for the money, and I let
him have it, because I hoped I should be able
to pay it you before this."

The Squire was purple with anger before his
son had done speaking, and found utterance
difficult. "You let Dunsey have it, sir? And
how long have you been so thick with Dunsey
that you must collogue with him to embezzle my
money? Are you turning out a scamp? I tell
you I won't have it. I'll turn the w'hole pack of
you out of the house together, and marry again.
I'd have you to remember, sir, my property's got
no entail on it — since my grandfather's time
the Casses can do as they like with their land.
Remember that, sir ! Let Dunsey have the
money ! Why should you let Dunsey have
the money? There's some lie at the bottom
of it."

"There's no lie, sir," said Godfrey. "I
wouldn't have spent the money myself, but
Dunsey bothered me, and I was a fool, and let
him have it. But I meant to pay it, whether he
did or not. That's the whole story. I never
meant to embezzle money, and I'm not the man
to do it. You never knew me to do a dishonest
trick, sir.'*

122

** Where's Dunsey, then? What do you stand
talking there for? Go and fetch Dunsey, as I
tell you, and let him give account of what he
wanted the money for, and what he's done with
it. He shall repent it. I'll turn him out. I
said I would, and I'll do it. He shan't brave
me. Go and fetch him."

'' Dunsey isn't come back, sir."

*' What! did he break his own neck, then?"
said the Squire, with some disgust at the idea
that, in that case, he could not fulfil his threat.

*'No, he wasn't hurt, I believe, for the horse
was found dead, and Dunsey must have walked
off. I daresay we shall see him again by and
by. I don't know where he is."

** And what must you be letting him have my
money for? Answer me that," said the Squire,
attacking Godfrey again, since Dunsey was not
within reach.

** Well, sir, I don't know," said Godfrey
hesitatingly. That was a feeble evasion, but
Godfrey was not fond of lying, and, not being
sufficiently aware that no sort of duplicity can
long flourish without the help of vocal false-
hoods, he was quite unprepared with invented
motives.

"You don't know? I tell you what it is,

sir. You've been up to some trick, and you've

been bribing him not to tell," said the Squire,

with a sudden acuteness which startled Godfrey,

123

who felt his heart beat violently at the nearness
of his father's guess. The sudden alarm pushed
him on to take the next step — a very sli^dit
impulse suffices for that on a downward road.

*'Why, sir," he said, trying to speak with
careless ease, *'it was a little affair between me
and Dunsey ; it's no matter to anybody else.
It's hardly worth w^hile to pry into young men's
fooleries : it wouldn't have made any differ-
ence to you, sir, if I'd not had the bad luck to
lose Wildfire. I should have paid you the
money.'*

"Fooleries! Pshaw! it's time you'd done
with fooleries. And I'd have you know, sir,
you 'must ha' done with 'em," said the Squire,
frowning and casting an angry glance at his
son. *'Your goings-on are not what I shall
find money for any longer. There's my grand-
father had his stables full o' horses, and kept a
good house, too, and in worse times, by what I
can make out; and so might I, if I hadn't four
good-for-nothing fellows to hang on me like
horse-leeches. I've been too good a father to
you all — that's what it is. But I shall pull up,
sir."

Godfrey was silent. He was not likely to be

very penetrating in his judgments, but he had

always had a sense that his father's indulgence

had not been kindness, and had had a vague

longing for some discipline that would have

124

checked his own errant weakness and helped
his better will. The Squire ate his bread and
meat hastily, took a deep draught of ale, then
turned his chair from the table, and began to
speak again.

*' It'll be all the worse for you, you know
— you'd need try and help me keep things
together."

'' Well, sir, I've often offered to take the
management of things, but you know you've
taken it ill always, and seemed to think I wanted
to push you out of your place." ,

" I know nothing o' your offering or o' my

taking it ill," said the Squire, whose memory

consisted in certain strong impressions unmodified

by detail ; *' but I know, one while you seemed to

be thinking o' marrying, and I didn't offer to

put any obstacles in your way, as some fathers

would. I'd as lieve you married Lammeter's

daughter as anybody. I suppose, if I'd said

you nay, you'd ha' kept on with it ; but, for

want o' contradiction, you've changed your

mind. You're a shilly-shally fellow : you take

after your poor mother. She never had a will

of her own ; a woman has no call for one, if

she's got a proper man for her husband. But ^

your wife had need have one, for you hardly

know your own mind enough to make both

your legs walk one way. The lass hasn't said

downright she won't have you, has she? "
s.M- 125 E

^* No," said Godfrey, feeling very hot and
uncomfortable ; ** but I don't think she will."

** Think! why haven't you the courage to
ask her? Do you stick to it, you want to have
her — that's the thing?"

** There's no other woman I want to marry,"
said Godfrey evasively.

'* Well, then, let me make the offer for you,
that's all, if you haven't the pluck to do it
yourself. Lammeter isn't likely to be loath for
his daughter to marry into my family, I should
think. And as for the pretty lass, she wouldn't
have her cousin — and there's nobody else, as I
see, could ha' stood in your way."

**rd rather let it be, please sir, at present,"
said Godfrey, in alarm. " I think she's a little
offended with me just now, and 1 should like
to speak for myself. A man must manage these
things for himself."

*'Well, speak, then, and manage it, and see
if you can't turn over a new leaf. That's what
a man must do when he thinks o' marrying."

" I don't see how I can think of it at present,
sir. You wouldn't like to settle me on one of the
farms, I suppose, and I don't think she'd come
to live in this house with all my brothers. It's a
(different sort of life to what she's been used to."

** Not come to live in this house? Don't tell
me. ,You ask her, that's all," said the Squire,
with a short, scornful laugh.

126

**rd rather let the thing be. at present, sir,"
said Godfrey. *M hope you won't try to hurry
it on by saying anything."

** I shall do what I choose,'* said the Squire,
**and I shall let you know I'm master; else you
may turn out, and find an estate to drop into
somewhere else. Go out and tell Winthrop not
to go to Cox's, but wait for me. And tell 'em
to get my horse saddled. And stop : look out
and get that hack o' Dunsey's sold, and hand
me the money, will you? He'll keep no more
hacks at my expense. And if you know where
he's sneaking — I daresay you do — you may tell
him to spare himself the journey o' coming back
home. Let him turn ostler, and keep himself.
He shan't hang on me any more.'*

*^ I don't know where he is, sir ; and if I did,
it isn't my place to tell him to keep away," said
Godfrey, moving towards the door.

*^ Confound it, sir, don't stay arguing, but go
and order my horse,*' said the Squire, taking up
a pipe.

Godfrey left the room, hardly knowing whether
he were more relieved by the sense that the
interview was ended without having made any
change in his position, or more uneasy that he
had entangled himself still further in prevarica-
tion and deceit. What had passed about his
proposing to Nancy had raised a new alarm,

lest by some after-dinner words of his father's

127

to Mr. T>am meter he should be thrown into the
embarrassment of being obhged absolutely to
decline her when she seemed to be within his
reach. He fled to his usual refuge, that of
hoping for some unforeseen turn of fortune,
some favourable chance which would save him
from unpleasant consequences — perhaps even
justify his insincerity by manifesting its
prudence.

In this point of trusting to some throw of
fortune's dice, Godfrey can hardly be called
old-fashioned. Favourable Chance is the god
of all men who follow their own devices instead
of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a
polished man of these days get into a position
he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be
bent on all the possible issues that may deliver
him from the calculable results of that position.
Let him live outside his income, or shirk the
resolute honest work that brings wages, and he
Avill presently find himself dreaming of a possible
benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be
cajoled into using his interest, a possible state
of mind in some possible person not yet forth-
coming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of
his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself
on the chance, that the thing left undone may
turn out not to be of the supposed importance.
Let him betray his friend's confidence, and he
will adore that same cunning complexity called

128

Chance, which gives him the hope that his
riend will never know. Let him forsake a
decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities
Df a profession to which nature never called
iiim, and his religion will infallibly be the
worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe
in as the mighty creator of success. The evil
principle deprecated in that religion, is the
orderly sequence by which the seed brjngs
forth a crop after its kind.

129

CHAPTER X

Justice Malam was naturally regarded in Tarley
and Raveloe as a man of capacious mind, seeing
that he could draw much wider conclusions with-
out evidence than could be expected of his
neighbours who were not on the Commission
of the Peace. Such a man was not likely to
neglect the clue of the tinder-box, and an
inquiry was set on foot concerning a pedlar,
name unknown, with curly black hair and a
foreign complexion, carrying a box of cutlery
and jewellery, and wearing large rings in his
ears. But either because inquiry was too slow-
footed to overtake him, or because the description
applied to so many pedlars that inquiry did not
know how to choose among them, weeks passed
away, and there was no other result concerning
the robbery than a gradual cessation of the
excitement it had caused in Raveloe. Dunstan
Cass's absence was hardly a subject of remark :
he had once before had a quarrel with his father,
and had gone off, nobody knew whither, to return
at the end of six weeks, take up his old quarters
unforbidden, and swagger as usual.

His own family, who equally expected this
issue, with the sole difference that the Squire

was determined this time to forbid him the old

130

quarters, never mentioned his absence ; and when
his uncle Kimble or Mr. Osgood noticed it, the
story of his having killed Wildfire and committed
some offence against his father was enough to
prevent surprise. To connect the fact of Dunsey's
disappearance with that of the robbery occurring
on the same day, lay quite away from the track
of every one's thought — even Godfrey's, who had
better reason than any one else to know what his
brother was capable of. He remembered no
mention of the weaver between them since the
time, twelve years ago, when it was their boyish
sport to deride him ; and, besides, his imagina-
tion constantly created an alibi for Dunstan ; he
saw him continually in some congenial haunt,
to which he had walked off on leaving Wildfire
— saw him sponging on chance acquaintances,
and meditating a return home to the old amuse-
ment of tormenting his elder brother. Even if
any brain in Raveloe had put the said two facts
together, I doubt Avhether a combination so
injurious to the prescriptive respectability of a
family with a mural monument and venerable
tankards would not have been suppressed as
of unsound tendency. But Christmas puddings,
brawn, and abundance of spirituous liquors,
throwing the mental originality into the channel
of nightmare, are great preservatives against a
dangerous spontaneity of waking thought.

When the robbery was talked of at the Rainbow

131

and elsewhere, in good company, the balance con-
tinucd to waver between the rational explanation
founded on the tinder-box, and the theory of an
impenetrable mystery that mocked investigation. |^
The advocates of the tinder-box-and-pedlar view
considered the other side a muddle-headed and
credulous set, who, because they themselves were
wall-eyed, supposed everybody else to have the
same blank outlook ; and the adherents of the in-
explicable more than hinted that their antagonists
were animals inclined to crow before they had found
any corn — mere skimming-dishes in point of depth
— whose clear-sightedness consisted in supposing
there was nothing behind a barn-door because they
couldn't see through it; so that, though their
controversy did not serve to elicit the fact con-
cerning robbery, it elicited some true opinions
of collateral importance.

But while poor Silas's loss served thus to brush
the slow current of Raveloe conversation, Silas
himself was feeling the withering desolation of
that bereavement about which his neighbours
were arguing at their ease. To any one who
had observed him before he lost his gold, it
might have seemed that so withered and shrunken
a life as his could hardly be susceptible of a
bruise, could hardly endure any subtraction but
such as would put an end to it altogether.
But irt reality it had been an eager life, filled

with immediate purpose which fenced him in

132

Tom the wide, cheerless unknown. It had been

i clinging life ; and though the object round

vvhich its fibres had clung was a dead, dis-

-r.pted thing, it satis fi^d^_the_Qjejed.Jbr-^G^

But now the fence was broken down — the support

ivas snatched away. Marner^s thoughts could

no longer move in their old round, and were

Daffled by a blank like that which meets a

plodding ant when the earth has broken away

on its homeward path. The loom was there,

and the weaving, and the growing pattern in

:he cloth ; but the bright treasure in the hole

Linder his feet was gone ; the prospect of handling

and counting it was gone ; the evening had no

phantasm of delight to still the poor soul's

:raving. The thought of the money he would

::^et by his actual work could bring no joy, for

its meagre image was only a fresh reminder of

nis loss ; and hope was too heavily crushed by

^he sudden blow, for his imagination to dwell

jn the growth of a new hoard from that small

beginning.

He filled up the blank with grief. As he sat

weaving, he every now and then moaned low,

like one in pain ; it was the sign that his

thoughts had come round again to the sudden

chasm — to the empty evening time. And all

the evening, as he sat in his loneliness by

his dull fire, he leaned his elbows on his

knees, and clasped his head with his hands,

133

and moaned very low — not as one who seeks to
be lieard.

And yet he was not utterly forsaken in his
trouble. The repulsion Marnc^r had always
created in his neighbours was partly dissipated
by the new light in which this misfortune had
shown him. Instead of a man who had more
cunning than honest folks could come by, and,
what was worse, had not the inclination to use
that cunning in a neighbourly way, it was now
apparent that Silas had not cunning enough to
keep his own. He was generally spoken of as
a "poor mushed creatur' ; " and that avoidance
of his neighbours, which had before been referred
to his ill-will and to a probable addiction to worse
company, was now considered mere craziness.

This change to a kindlier feeling was shown in
various ways. The odour of Christmas cooking
being on the w^ind, it was the season when super-
fluous pork and black puddings are suggestive
of charity in well-to-do families ; and Silas's
misfortune had brought him uppermost in the
memory of housekeepers like Mrs. Osgood.
Mr. Crackenthorp, too, while he admonished
Silas that his money had probably been taken
from him because he thought too much of it,
and never came to church, enforced the doctrine
by a present of pigs' pettitoes, well calculated
to dissipate unfounded prejudices against the
clerical character. Neighbours who had nothing

134

but verbal consolation to give showed a dis-
position not only to greet Silas and discuss his
misfortune at some leng^th when thev encountered
him in the village, but also to take the trouble
of calling at his cottage and getting him to
repeat all the details on the very spot ; and
then they would try to cheer him by saying,
'' Well, Master Marner, you're no worse off nor
other poor folks, after all ; and if you was to be
crippled, the parish 'ud give you a 'lowance."

I suppose one reason why we are seldom able
to comfort our neighbours with our words is
that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of
ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can
send black puddings and pettitoes without giving
them a flavour of our own egoism ; but language
is a stream that is almost sure to smack of a
mingled soil. There was a fair proportion of
kindness in Raveloe, but it was often of a
beery and bungling sort, and took the shape
least allied to the complimentary and hypocritical.

Mr. Macey, for example, coming one evening
expressly to let Silas know that recent events
had given him the advantage of standing more
favourably in the opinion of a man whose
judgment was not formed lightly, opened the
conversation by saying, as soon as he had
seated himself and adjusted his thumbs^

*^Come, Master Marner, why, you've no call

to sit a-moaning. You're a deal better off to ha'

135

lost your money, nor to ha' kcp it by foul means.
I used to think, when you first come into these
parts, as you were no better nor you should be ;
you were younger a deal than what you are now,
but you were allays a staring-, white-faced creatur',
partly like a bald-faced calf, as I may say. But
there's no knowing ; it isn't every queer-looksed
thing as Old Harry's had the making of — I mean,
speaking o' toads and such, for they're often
harmless and useful against varmin. And it's
pretty much the same wi' you, as fur as I can see.
Though as to the yarbs and stuff to cure the
breathing, if you brought that sort o' knowledge
from distant parts, you might ha' been a bit freer
of it. And if the knowledge wasn't well come
by, why, you might ha' made up for it by coming
to church reg'lar, for, as for the children as the
Wise Woman charmed, I've been at the christen-
ing of 'em again and again, and they took the
water just as well. And that's reasonable ; for if
Old Harry's a mind to do a bit o' kindness for
a holiday, like, who's got anything against it?
That's my thinking ; and I've been clerk o' this
parish forty year, and I know when the parson
and me does the cussing of a Ash Wednesday,
there's no cussing o' folks as have a mind to be
cured w^ithout a doctor, let Kimble say what he
will. And so. Master Marner, as I was saying —
for there's windings i* things as they may carry

you to the fur end o' the Prayer-book afore you

136

get back to 'em — my advice is, as you keep up
your sperrits, for as for thinking you're a deep
un, and ha' got more inside you nor 'ull bear
dayhght, I'm not o' that opinion at all, and so I
tell the neighbours. For, says I, you talk o'
Master Marner making out a tale — Avhy, it's
nonsense, that is : it 'ud take a 'cute man to make
a tale like that ; and, says I, he looked as scared
as a rabbit."

During this discursive address Silas had con-
tinued motionless in his previous attitude, leaning
his elbows on his knees, and pressing his hands
against his head. Mr. Macey, not doubting that
he had been listened to, paused in the expectation
of some appreciatory reply, but Marner remained
silent. He had a sense that the old man meant
to be good-natured and neighbourly ; but the
kindness fell on him as sunshine falls on the
wretched — he had no heart to taste it, and felt
that it was very far off him.

*'Come, Master Marner, have you got nothing
to say to that?" said Mr. Macey at last, with a
slight accent of impatience.

*'Oh," said Marner slowly, shaking his head
between his hands, '^ I thank you — thank you
.-kindly."

** Ay, ay, to be sure ; I thought you would,"
said Mr. Macey; ''and my advice is — have you
got a Sunday suit?"

*'No," said Marner.

" I doubted it was so," said Mr. Macey.
** Now, let me advise you to get a Sunday suit :
there's Tookey, he's a poor creatur, but he's got
my tailoring business, and some o' my money in
it, and he shall make a suit at a low price, and
give you trust, and then you can come to church,
and be a bit neighbourly. Why, you've never
beared me say ^ Amen ' since you come into these
parts, and I recommend you to lose no time, for
it'll be poor work when Tookey has it all to
himself, for I mayn't be equil to stand i' the desk
at all, come another winter." Here Mr. Macey
paused, perhaps expecting some sign of emotion
in his hearer ; but not observing any, he went
on. ** And as for the money for the suit o'
clothes, why, you get a matter of a pound a week
at your weaving, Master Marner, and you're a
young man, eh, for all you look so mushed.
Why, you couldn't ha' been five-and-twenty when
you come into these parts, eh ? "

Silas started a little at the change to a question-
ing tone, and answered mildly, " I don't know ;
I can't rightly say — it's a long while since."

After receiving such an answer as this, it is

not surprising that Mr. Macey observed, later on

in the evening at the Rainbow, that Marner's

head was ''all of a muddle," and that it was to

be doubted if he ever knew when Sunday came

round, which showed him a worse heathen than

many a dog.

13S

Another of Silas's comforters, besides Mr.
Macey, came to him with a mind highly charged
on the same topic. This was Mrs. Winthrop,
the wheelwright's wife. The inhabitants of
Raveloe were not severely regular in their
church-going, and perhaps there was hardly
a person in the parish who would not have
held that to go to church every Sunday in the
calendar would have shown a greedy desire to
stand well with Heaven, and get an undue
advantage over their neighbours — a wish to be
better than the '' common run," that would have
implied a reflection on those who had had god-
fathers and godmothers as well as themselves,
and had an equal right to the burying service.
At the same time it was understood to be requisite
for all who were not household servants, or young
men, to take the sacrament at one of the great
festivals. Squire Cass himself took it on
Christmas Day ; while those who were held to
be **good livers" went to church with greater,
though still with moderate, frequency.

Mrs. Winthrop was one of these : she was, in
all respects, a woman of scrupulous conscience,
so eager for duties, that life seemed to offer them
too scantily unless she rose at half-past four,
though this threw a scarcity of work over the
more advanced hours of the morning, which it
was a constant problem with her to remove.
Yet she had not the vixenish temper which is

139

sometimes supposed to be a necessary condition
of such habits ; she was a very mild, patient
woman, whose nature it was to seek out all the
sadder and more serious elements of life, and
pasture her mind upon them. She was the
person always first thought of in Raveloe when
there was illness or death in a family, when
leeches were to be applied, or there was a
sudden disappointment in a monthly nurse.
She was a *' comfortable woman " — good-looking,
fresh-complexioned, having her lips always
slighdy screwed, as if she felt herself in a sick-
room, with the doctor or the clergyman present.
But she was never whimpering ; no one had
seen her shed tears ; she was simply grave and
inclined to shake her head and sigh, almost
imperceptibly, like a funereal mourner who is
not a relation. It seemed surprising that Ben
Winthrop, who loved his quart-pot and his joke,
got along so well with Dolly ; but she took
her husband's jokes and joviality as patiently
as everything else, considering that '* men would
be so," and viewing the stronger sex in the
light of animals whom it had pleased Heaven
to make naturally troublesome, like bulls and
turkey-cocks.

This good, w^holesome woman could hardly
fail to have her mind drawn strongly towards
Silas Marner, now that he appeared in the

light of a sufferer ; and one Sunday afternoon

140

she took her little boy Aaron with her, and
went to call on Silas, carrying in her hand
some small lard-cakes, flat paste-like articles
much esteemed in Raveloe. Aaron, an apple-
cheeked youngster of seven, with a clean
starched frill which looked like a plate for the
apples, needed all his adventurous curiosity to
embolden hirn against the possibility that the
big-eyed weaver might do him some bodily
injury ; and his dubiety was much increased
when, on arriving at the Stone-pits, they heard
the mysterious sound of the loom.

^' Ah ! it is as I thought," said Mrs. Winthrop
sadly.

They had to knock loudly before Silas heard
them ; but when he did come to the door he
showed no impatience, as he would once have
done at a visit that had been unasked for and
unexpected. Formerly, his heart had been a 'I
locked casket with its treasure inside ; but now /
the casket was empty, and the lock was broken. /
Left groping in darkness, with his prop utterly/
gone, Silas had inevitably a sense, though al
dull and half-despairing one, that if any help
came to him it must come from without ; and
there was a slight stirring of expectation at the
sight of his fellow-men, a faint consciousness
of dependence on their goodwill. He opened
the door wide to admit Dolly, but without
otherwise returning her greeting than by moving

141

the arm-chair a f(*\v inches as a si^n that she
was to sit down in it. Dolly, as soon as she
was seated, removed the white cloth that covered
her lard-cakes, and said in her gravest way —

** I'd a baking yisterday, Master Marner, and
the lard-cakes turned out better nor common,
and I'd ha' asked you to accept some, if you'd
thought well. I don't eat such things myself,
for a bit o' bread's what I like from one year's
end to the other ; but men's stomichs are made
so comical, they want a change — they do, I
know, God help 'em."

Dolly sighed gently as she held out the cakes
to Silas, who thanked her kindly, and looked
very close at them, absently, being accustomed
to look so at everything he took into his hand,
eyed all the while by the wondering bright
orbs of the small Aaron, who had made an
outwork of his mother's chair, and was peeping
round from behind it.

''There's letters pricked on *em," said Dolly.
*' I can't read 'em myself, and there's nobody,
not Mr. Macey himself rightly knows what
they mean ; but they've a good meaning, for
they're the same as is on the pulpit-cloth at
church. What are they, Aaron, my dear?"

Aaron retreated completely behind his outwork.

''Oh go, that's naughty," said his mother

mildly. "Well, whativer the letters are, they've

a good meaning ; and it's a stamp as has been

142

In our house, Ben says, ever since he was a *'
little un, and his mother used to put it on the
cakes, and I've allays put it on too ; for if there's
any good, we've need of it i' this world."

*' It's I. H. S.," said Silas, at which proof of
learning Aaron peeped round the chair again.

*' Well, to be sure, you can read 'em off," said
Dolly. '* Ben's read 'em to me many and many
a time, but they slip out o' my mind again ;
the more's the pity, for they're good letters,
else they wouldn't be in the church ; and so
I prick 'em on all the loaves and all the cakes,
though sometimes they won't hold, because o'
the rising — for, as I said, if there's any good
to be got, we've need of it i' this world — that
we have ; and I hope they'll bring good to you.
Master Marner, for it's wi' that will I brought
you the cakes ; and you see the letters have
held better nor common."

Silas was as unable to interpret the letters as
Dolly, but there was no possibility of misunder-
standing the desire to give comfort that made
itself heard in her quiet tones. He said, with
more feeling than before, ''Thank you — thank
you kindly." But he laid down the cakes and
seated himself absently — drearily unconscious
of any distinct benefit towards which the cakes
and the letters, or even Dolly's kindness, could
tend for him.

** Ah, if there's good anywhere, we've need of

143

it,** repeated Dolly, who did not li<^htly forsake
a serviceable phrase. She looked at Silas pity-
ingly as she went on. '* But you didn't hear
the church-bells this morning-. Master Marner?
1 doubt you didn't know it was Sunday. Living
so lone here, you lose your count, I daresay ;
and then, when your loom makes a noise, you
can't hear the bells, more partic'lar now the
frost kills the sound."

**Yes, I did; I heard 'em," said Silas, to
whom Sunday bells were a mere accident of the
day, and not part of its sacredness. There had
been no bells in Lantern Yard,

*' Dear heart ! " said Dolly, pausing before she

spoke again. ** But what a pity it is you should

work of a Sunday, and not clean yourself— if

you didn't go to church ; for if you'd a roasting

bit, it might be as you couldn't leave it, being

a lone man. But there's the bakehus, if you

could make up your mind to spend a twopence

on the oven now and then — not every week, in

course — I shouldn't like to do that myself — you

might carry your bit o' dinner there, for it's

nothing but right to have a bit o' summat hot

of a Sunday, and not to make it as you can't

know your dinner from Saturday. But now,

upo' Christmas Day, this blessed Christmas as

is ever coming, if you was to take your dinner

to the bakehus, and go to church, and see

the holly and the yew, and hear the anthim,

'144

and then take the sacramen^ you'd be a deal
the better, and you'd know which end you
stood on, and you could put your trust i' Them
as knows better nor we do, seein' you ha' done
what it lies on us all to do."

Dolly's exhortation, which was an unusually
long effort of speech for her, was uttered in
the soothing, persuasive tone with which she
would have tried to prevail on a sick man to
take his medicine, or a basin of gruel for which
he had no appetite. Silas had never before been
closely urged on the point of his absence from
church, which had only been thought of as a
part of his general queerness ; and he was too
direct and simple to evade Dolly's appeal.

*'Nay, nay," he said, ''I know nothing o*
church. I've never been to church."

*^ No ! " said Dolly, in a low tone of wonder-
ment. Then bethinking herself of Silas's advent
from an unknown country, she said, ^* Could it ha'
been as they'd no church where you was born ? '*

**Oh yes," said Silas meditatively, sitting in
his usual posture of leaning on his knees, and
supporting his head. *' There was churches —
a many — it was a big town. But I knew nothing
of 'em — I went to chapel."

Dolly was much puzzled at this new word, but
she was rather afraid of inquiring further, lest
**chapel" might mean some haunt of wickedness.
After a little thought she said—

145

*' Well, Master Manner, it's niver too lat-e to
turn over a new leaf, and if you've niver had
no church, there's no telling the good it'll do
you. For I feel so set up and comfortable as
niver was, when I've been and heard the prayers,
and the singing to the praise and glory o' God,
as Mr. Macey gives out — and Mr. Crackenthorp
saying good words, and more partic'lar on
Sacramen' Day ; and if a bit o' trouble comes,
I feel as I can put up wi' it, for I've looked
for help i' the right quarter, and gev myself
up to Them as we must all give ourselves up
to at the last ; and if we'n done our part, it
isn't to be believed as Them as are above us
'ull be worse nor we are, and come short o'
Their'n."

Poor Dolly's exposition of her simple Raveloe
theology fell rather unmeaningly on Silas's ears,
for there was no word in it that could rouse
a memory of what he had known as religion,
and his comprehension was quite baffled by
the plural pronoun, which was no heresy of
Dolly's, but only her way of avoiding a pre-
sumptuous familiarity. He remained silent, not
feeling inclined to assent to the part of Dolly's
speech which he fully understood — her recom-
mendation that he should go to church. Indeed,
Silas was so unaccustomed to talk beyond the
brief questions and answers necessary for the

transaction of his simple business, that words

146

did not easily come to him without the urgency
of a distinct purpose.

But now, little Aaron, having become used
to the weaver's awful presence, had advanced
to his mother's side, and Silas, seeming to
notice him for the first time, tried to return
Dolly's signs of goodwill by offering the lad
a bit of lard-cake. Aaron shrank back a little,
and rubbed his head against his mother's
shoulder, but still thought the piece of cake
"worth the risk of putting his hand out for it.

*^ Oh, for shame, Aaron," said his mother,
taking him on her lap, however; *^why, you
don't want cake again yet awhile. He's wonderful
hearty," she went on, with a little sigh, ^'that
he is, God knows. He's my youngest, and
we spoil him sadly, for either me or the father
must allays hev him in our sight — that we

must."

She stroked Aaron's brown head, and thought
it must do Master Marner good to see such a
*'pictur of a child." But Marner, on the other
side of the hearth, saw the neat-featured, rosy
face as a mere dim round, with two dark spots
in it.

** And he's got a voice like a bird — you

wouldn't think," Dolly went on; **he can sing

a Christmas carril as his father's taught him ;

and I take it for a token as he'll come to good,

as he can learn the good tunes so quick. Come,

147

Aaron, stan' up and sing" the carril to Master
IMarner, come."

Aaron replied by rubbing his forehead against
his mother's shoulder.

*'Oh, that's naughty,'* said Dolly gently.
"Stan' up, when mother tells you, and let me
hold the cake till you've done."

Aaron was not indisposed to display his talents,
even to an ogre, under protecting circumstances ;
and after a few more signs of coyness, consisting
chiefly in rubbing the backs of his hands over
his eyes, and then peeping between them at
Master Marner, to see if he looked anxious for
the *' carril," he at length allowed his head to
be duly adjusted, and standing behind the table,
which let him appear above it only as far as
his broad frill, so that he looked like a cherubic
head untroubled with a body, he began with a
clear chirp, and in a melody that had the rhythm
of an industrious hammer —

*' God rest you, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day."

Dolly listened with a devout look, glancing at
Marner in some confidence that this strain would
help to allure him to church,

"That's Christmas music,'* she said, when

Aaron had ended, and had secured his piece

of cake again. "There's no other music equil

148

to the Christmas music — * Hark the erol angils
sing.' And you may judge what it is at church,
Master Marner, with the bassoon and the voices,
as you can't help thinking you've got to a better
place a'ready — for I wouldn't speak ill o' this
world, seeing as Them put us in it as knows
best — but what wi' the drink, and the quarrel-
ling, and the bad illnesses, and the hard dying,
as I've seen times and times, one's thankful to
hear -of a better. The boy sings pretty, don't
he, Master Marner?"

** Yes," said Silas absently, **very pretty."
The Christmas carol, with its hammerlike
rhythm, had fallen on his ears as strange music,
quite unlike a hymn, and could have none of
the effect Dolly contemplated. But he wanted
to show her that he was grateful, and the only
mode that occurred to him was to offer Aaron
a bit more cake.

**Oh no, thank you. Master Marner," said
Dolly, holding down Aaron's willing hands.
**We must be going home now. And so I
wish you good-bye. Master Marner ; and if you
ever feel anyways bad in your inside, as you
can't fend for yourself, I'll come and clean up
for you, and get you a bit o' victual, and willing.
But I beg and pray of you to leave off weaving
of a Sunday, for it's bad for soul and body —
and the money as comes i' that way 'ull be a
bad bed to lie down on at the last, if it doesn't

149

fly away, nobody knows where, like the whke
frost. And you'll excuse me bein^ that free
with you, Master Marner, for I wish you well
— I do. Make your bow, Aaron."

Silas said "Good-bye, and thank you kindly,"
as he opened the door for Dolly, but he couldn't
help feeling relieved when she was gone — re-
lieved that he might weave again and moan
at his ease. Her simple view of life and its
comforts, by which she had tried to cheer, him,
was only like a report of unknown objects, which
his imagination could not fashion. The fountains
of human love and faith in a divine love had not
yet been unlocked, and his soul was still the
shrunken rivulet, with only this difference that
its little groove of sand was blocked up, and
it wandered confusedly against dark obstruction.

And so, notwithstanding the honest persuasions
of Mr. Macey and Dolly Winthrop, Silas spent
his Christmas Day in loneliness, eating his meat
in sadness of heart, though the meat had come
to him as a neighbourly present. In the morning
he looked out on the black frost that seemed to
press cruelly on every blade of grass, while the
half-icy red pool shivered under the bitter wind ;
but towards evening the snow began to fall,
and curtained from him even that dreary outlook,
shutting him close up with his narrow grief.
And he sat in his robbed home through the
livelong evening, not caring to close his shutters

250

or lock his door, pressing his head between his
hands and moaning, till the cold grasped him
and told him that his fire was gray.

Nobody in this world but himself knew that he
was the same Silas Marner who had once loved
his fellow Avith tender love, and trusted in an /
unseen goodness. Even to himself that past/
experience had become dim.

But in Raveloe village the bells rang merrily,
and the church was fuller than all through the
rest of the year, with red faces among the
abundant dark-green boughs — faces prepared
for a longer service than usual by an odorous
breakfast of toast and ale. Those green boughs,
the hymn and anthem never heard but at
Christmas — even the Athanasian Creed, which
was discriminated from the others only as being
longer and of exceptional virtue, since it was
only read on rare occasions — brought a vague,
exulting sense, for which the grown men could
as little have found words as the children, that
something great and mysterious had been done
for them in heaven above and in earth below,
which they were appropriating by their presence.
And then the red faces made their way through
the black, biting frost to their own homes, feeling
themselves free for the rest of the day to eat,
drink, and be merry, and using that Christian
freedom without diffidence.

At Squire Cass's family party that day nobody

151

mentioned Dunstan — nobody was sorry for his
absence, or feared it would be too long. The
doctor and his wife, uncle and aunt Kimble,
were there, and the annual Christmas talk was
carried through without any omissions, rising
to the climax of Mr. Kimble's experience when
he walked the London hospitals thirty years
back, together with striking professional anec-
dotes then gathered. Whereupon cards followed,
with aunt Kimble's annual failure to follow suit,
and uncle Kimble's irascibility concerning the
odd trick which was rarely explicable to him,
when it was not on his side, without a general
visitation of tricks to see that they were formed
on sound principles : the whole being ac-
companied by a strong steaming odour of
spirits-and-water.

But the party on Christmas Day, being a
strictly family party, was not the pre-eminently
brilliant celebration of the season at the Red
House. It was the great dance on New Year's
Eve that made the glory of Squire Cass's
hospitality, as of his forefathers', time out of
m.ind. This was the occasion when all the society
of Raveloe and Tarley, whether old acquaint-
ances separated by long rutty distances, or cooled
acquaintances separated by misunderstandings
concerning runaway calves, or acquaintances
founded on intermittent condescension, counted
on meeting and on comporting themselves with

152

mutual appropriateness. This was the occasion
on which fair dames who came on pillions sent
their bandboxes before them, supplied with more
than their evening- costume ; for the feast was
not to end with a single evening, like a paltry
town entertainment, where the whole supply of
eatables is put on the table at once, and bedding-
is scanty. The Red House was provisioned as
if for a siege ; and as for the spare feather-beds
ready to be laid on floors, they were as plentiful
as might naturally be expected in a. family that
had killed its own geese for many generations.

Godfrey Cass was looking forward to this New
Year's Eve with a foolish, reckless longing, that
made him half deaf to his importunate companion,
Anxiety.

*' Dunsey will be coming home soon : there
will be a great blow-up, and how will you bribe
his spite to silence?" said Anxiety.

*' Oh, he won't come home before New Year's
Eve, perhaps," said Godfrey; ''and I shall sit
by Nancy then, and dance with her, and get a
kind look from her in spite of herself."

'* But money is wanted in another quarter,"
said Anxiety, in a louder voice, '*and how will
you get it without selling your mother's diamond
pin ? And if you don't get it ? '*

** Well, but something may happen to make
things easier. At anyrate, there's one pleasure
for me close at hand : Nancy is coming."

153

**Yes, and suppose your father should bring
matters to a pass that will oblige you to decline
marrying her — and to give your reasons?"

** Hold your tongue, and don't worry me. 1
can see Nancy's eyes, just as they will look at
me, and feel her hand in mine already."

But Anxiety went on, though in noisy
Christmas company, refusing to be utterly
quieted even by much drinking.

154

CHAPTER XL

Some women, I grant, would not appear to
advantage seated on a pillion, and attired in a
drab Joseph and a drab beaver bonnet, with
a crown resembling a small stevvpan ; for a
garment suggesting a coachman's greatcoat, cut
out under an exiguity of cloth that would
only allow of miniature capes, is not well
adapted to conceal deficiencies of contour, nor
is drab a colour that will throw sallow cheeks
into lively contrast. It was all the greater
triumph to Miss Nancy Lammeter's beauty that
she looked thoroughly bewitching in that costume,
as, seated on the pillion behind her tall, erect
father, she held one arm round him, and
looked down, with open-eyed anxiety, at the
treacherous snow-covered pools and puddles,
which sent up formidable splashings of mud
under the stamp of Dobbin's foot. A painter
would, perhaps, have preferred her in those
moments when she was free from self-conscious-
ness ; but certainly the bloom on her cheeks
was at its highest point of contrast with the
surrounding drab when she arrived at the door
of the Red House, and saw Mr. Godfrey Cass
ready to lift her from the pillion.

She wished her sister Priscilla had come up

X55

at the same time behind the servant, for then
she would have contrived that Mr. Godfrey
should have lifted off Priscilla first, and, in
the meantime, she would have persuaded her
father to go round to the horseblock instead of
alighting at the doorsteps. It was very pain-
ful, when you had made it quite clear to a
young man that you were determined not to
marry him, however much he might wish it,
that he would still continue to pay you marked
attentions ; besides, why didn't he always show
the same attentions, if he meant them sincerely,
instead of being so strange as Mr. Godfrey |si
Cass was, sometimes behaving as if he didn't
want to speak to her, and taking no notice ^
of her for weeks and weeks, and then, all on
a sudden, almost making love again? More- t^
over, it was quite plain he had no real love '^
for her, else he would not let people have
thai to say of him which they did say. Did f^
he suppose that Miss Nancy Lammeter was 't
to be won by any man, squire or no squire, ^'>
who led a bad life? That was not what she If
had been used to see in her own father, who ^
was the soberest and best man in that country- ^
side, only a little hot and hast}^ now and then, t
if things were not done to the minute. ^i

All these thoughts rushed through Miss
Nancy's mind, in their habitual succession, in l^
the moments between her first sight of Mr. *

156

Godfrey Cass .standing at the door and her own

arrival there. Happily, the Squire came out

too, and gave a loud greeting to her father, so

that, somehow, under cover of this noise she

seemed to find concealment for her confusion

and neglect of any suitably formal behaviour,

while she was being lifted from the pillion by

strong arms which seemed tn find her ridiculously

small and light. And there was the best reason

for hastening into the house at once, since the

snow was beginning to fall again, threatening

in unpleasant journey for such guests as were

still on the road. These were a small minority ;

or already the afternoon was beginning to

lecline, and there would not be too much time

or the ladies who came from a distance to attire

hemselves in readiness for the early tea which

vas to inspirit them for the dance.

There was a buzz of voices through the house,

s Miss Nancy entered, mingled v^^ith the scrape

f a fiddle preluding in the kitchen ; but the

ammeters were guests whose arrival had evi-

ently been thought of so much that it had

leen watched for from the windows, for Mrs.

Nimble, who did the honours at the Red House

n these great occasions, came forward to meet

liss Nancy in the hall, and conduct her up-

tairs. Mrs. Kimble was the Squire's sister,

s well as the doctor's wife- — a double dignity,

nth which her diameter was in direct proportion ;
i s.M. 157 F

so that, a journey upstairs being rather fatiguing
to her, she did not oppose Miss Nancy's request
to be allowed to find her way alone to the
Blue Room, where the Misses Lammeter's band-
boxes had been deposited on their arrival in
the morning.

There was hardly a bedroom in the house
where feminine compliments were not passing
and feminine toilettes going forward, in various
stages, in space made scanty by extra beds
spread upon the floor; and Miss Nancy, as she
entered the Blue Room, had to make her little
formal curtsy to a group of six. On the one
hand, there were ladies no less important than
the two Misses Gunn, the wine merchant's
daughters from Lytherly, dressed in the height
of fashion, with the tightest skirts and the
shortest waists, and gazed at by Miss Ladbrook
(of the Old Pastures) with a shyness not un-
sustained by inward criticism. Partly, Miss
Ladbrook felt that her own skirt must be
regarded as unduly lax by the Misses Gunn, and
partly that it w^as a pity the Misses Gunn didk
not show that judgment which she herseli \nj
would show if she were in their place, by \a,
stopping a little on this side of the fashion. Jsj
On the other hand, Mrs. Ladbrook was standing
in skull-cap and front, with her turban in he;
hand, curtsying and smiling blandly, and saying
"After you, ma'am," to another lady in simila

158

circumstances, who had politely offered the
precedence at the looking-glass.

But Miss Nancy had no sooner made her
curtsy than an elderly lady came forward,
whose full white muslin kerchief and mob-cap
round her curls of smooth gray hair were in
daring contrast with the puffed yellow satins
and top-knotted caps of her neighbours. She
approached Miss Nancy with much primness,
and said, with a slow, treble suavity —

*' Niece, I hope I see you well in health.^*
Miss Nancy kissed her aunt's cheek dutifully,
and answered, with the same sort of amiable
primness, '' Quite well, I thank you, aunt ; and
I hope I see you the same."

*' Thank you, niece; I keep my health for
:he present. And how is my brother-in-law?"

These dutiful questions and answers were
•lontinued until it was ascertained in detail that
isihe Lammeters were all as well as usual, and
4he Osgoods likewise, also that niece Priscilla
linust certainly arrive shortly, and that travelling
i4n pillions in snowy weather was unpleasant,
hough a Joseph was a great protection. Then
^ancy was formally introduced to her aunt's
isitors, the Misses Gunn, as being the daughters
inlf a mother known to their mother, though now
he )r the first time induced to make a journey
ito these parts ; and these ladies were so taken
y surprise at finding such a lovely face and

159

ila

fig'ure in an out-of-the-way country place, tliat
they beg-an to feel some curiosity about the
dress she would put on when she took off her
Joseph. Miss Nancy, whose thoughts were
always conducted with the propriety and modera-
tion conspicuous in her manners, remarked to
herself that the Misses Gunn were rather hard-
featured than otherwise, and that such very
low dresses as they wore might have been
attributed to vanity if their shoulders had been
pretty, but that, being as they were, it was not
reasonable to suppose that they showed their i
necks from a love of display, but rather from
some obligation not inconsistent with sense and
modesty. She felt convinced, as she opened
her box, that this must be her aunt Osgood'st
opinion, for Miss Nancy's mind resembled her i
aunt's to a degree that everybody said wasjn
surprising, considering the kinship was on

Mr. Osgood's side ; and though you might not
have supposed it from the formality of thei;
greeting, there was a devoted attachment anc
mutual admiration between aunt and niece
Even Miss Nancy's refusal of her cousin, Gilber it
Osgood (on the ground solely that he was hek
cousin), though it had grieved her aunt greatly ac^
had not in the least cooled the preference whicl
had determined her to leave Nancy several o
her hereditary ornaments, let Gilbert's futur

wife be whom she might.

i6o

Three of the ladies quickly retired, but the
Misses Gunn were quite content that Mrs.
Osgood's inclination to remain with her niece
gave them also a reason for staying to see the
rustic beauty's toilette. And it was really a
pleasure — from the first opening of the band-
box, where everything smelt of lavender and
rose-leaves, to the clasping of the small coral
necklace that fitted closely round her little white
leck. Everything belonging to Miss Nancy was
)f delicate purity and nattiness : not a crease
vas where it had no business to be, not a bit
)f her linen professed whiteness without fulfilling
ts profession ; the very pins on her pincushion
vere stuck in after a pattern from which she
vas careful to allow no aberration ; and as for
lier own person, it gave the same idea of perfect
.slnvarying neatness as the body of a little bird.
" t is true that her light-brown hair was cropped
>ehind like a boy's, and was dressed in front in
number of flat rings that lay quite away from
er face ; but there was no sort of coiffure that
ould make Miss Nancy's cheek and neck look
therwise than pretty ; and when at last she
tood complete in her silvery twilled silk, her
ice tucker, her coral necklace and coral ear-
rops, the Misses Gunn could see nothing to
liticise except her hands, which bore the traces
f butter-making, cheese-crushing, and even still

IDarser work. But Miss Nancy was not ashamed
i6i

of that, for while she was dressing she narrated
to her aunt how she and Priscilla had packed
their boxes yesterday, because this morning was
baking morning, and since they were leaving
home, it was desirable to make a good supply
of meat-pies for the kitchen ; and as she con-
cluded this judicious remark, she turned to
the Misses Gunn that she might not commit
the rudeness of not including them in the
conversation.

The Misses Gunn smiled stiffly, and thought
what a pity it was that these rich country people,
who could afford to buy such good clothes (really
Miss Nancy's lace and silk were very costly),
should be brought up in utter ignorance and
vulgarity. She actually said *' mate " for *' meat,"
*' 'appen " for " perhaps," and " 'oss" for '* horse,"
which, to young ladies living in good Lytherly
society, who habitually said 'orse, even in
domestic privacy, and only said 'appen on th3
right occasions, was necessarily shocking. Miss
Nancy, indeed, had never been to any school
higher than Dame Tedman's : her acquaintance
with profane literature hardly went beyond the
rhymes she had worked in her large sampler fc[
under the lamb and the shepherdess ; and in
order to balance an account, she was obligee
to effect her subtraction by removing visible ^a
metallic shillings and sixpences from a visible

metallic total. There is hardly a servant-mai

162

in these davs who is not better informed than

Miss Nancy ; yet she had the essential attributes

of a lady — high veracity, delicate honour in

her dealings, deference to others, and refined

personal habits — and lest these should not suffice

to convince grammatical fair ones that her feel-

ngs can at all resemble theirs, I will add that

she was slightly proud and exacting, and as

constant in her affection towards a baseless

opinion as tovv'ards an erring lover.

The anxiety about sister Priscilla, which had

§;"rown rather active by the time the coral

lecklace was clasped, was happily ended by

:he entrance of that cheerful-looking lady her-

elf, with a face made blowsy by cold and

lamp. After the first questions and greetings,

ihe turned to Nancy, and surveyed her from head

o foot — then wheeled her round, to ascertain

hat the back view was equally faultless.

^'What do you think o' these gowns, aunt

Osgood?'' said Priscilla, while Nancy helped

ler to unrobe.

'/ Very handsome indeed, niece," said Mrs.

)sgood, with a slight increase of formality.

>he always thought niece Priscilla too rough.

^'I'm obliged to have the same as Nancy,

ou know, for all I'm five years older, and it

lakes me look yallow ; for she never imll have

nything without I have mine just like it,

ecause she wants us to look like sisters. And

163

I tell her, folks 'nil tliink it's my weakness
makes me fancy as I siiall look pretty in wbat
she looks pretty in. For I am n^ly — there's
no denying that : I feature my father's family.
But, law! I don't mind, do you?" Priscilla
here turned to the Misses Gunn, rattling on in
too much preoccupation with the delight of
talking, to notice that her candour was not
appreciated. *' The pretty uns do for fly-
catchers— they keep the men off us. I've no
opinion o' the men. Miss Gunn — I don't know
what you have. And as for fretting and stew-
ing about what they'll think of you from
morning till night, and making your life uneasy
about what they're doing when they're out o'
your sight — as I tell Nancy, it's a folly no
woman need be guilty of, if she's got a good
father and a good home : let her leave it tc
them as have got no fortin, and can't help them-
selves. As I say, Mr. Have-your-own-way is th(i
best husband, and the only one I'd ever promisJ
to obey. T know it isn't pleasant, when you'vj
been used to living in a big way, and managin^j
hogsheads and all that, to go and put your nos(
in by somebody else's fireside, or to sit dowr
by yourself to a scrag or a knuckle ; but, thanl
God ! my father's a sober man and likely tc
live ; and if you've got a man by the chimney*
corner, it doesn't matter if he's childish — the

business needn't be broke up.". \

164

olo

The delicate process of getting her narrow
gown over her head without injury to her smooth
curls, obliged Miss Priscilla to pause in this
rapid survey of life, and Mrs. Osgood seized
the opportunity of rising and saying —

*^ Well, niece, you'll follow us. The Misses

^unn will like to go dovv^n."

"Sister," said Nancy, when they were alone,

you've offended the Misses Gunn, I'm sure."

**What have I done, child?" said Priscilla,
n some alarm.

"Why, you asked them it they minded about
)eing ugly — you're so very blunt."

"Law, did I? Well, it popped out: it's a
nercy I said no more, for I'm a bad un to live
i^ith folks when they don't like the truth. But
s for being ugly, look at me, child, in this
ilver-coloured silk — I told you how it 'ud be
-I look as yallow as a daffadil. Anybody *ud
ay you wanted to make a mawkin of me."

" No, Priscy, don't say so. I begged and
rayed of you not to let us have this silk if
ou'd like another better. I was willing to have
our choice, you know I was," said Nancy, in
nxious self-vindication.

" Nonsense, child I you know you'd set your
eart on this ; and reason good, for you're the
)lour o* cream. It *ud be fine doings for you
► dress yourself to suit my skin. What I find
ult with is that notion o' yours as I must

' 163

dress myself just like you. But you do as you
like with me — you always did from when first
you be£T;"an to walk. If you wanted to go the
field's length, the field's length you'd go ; and
there was no whipping you, for you looked as
prim and innicent as a daisy all the while."

** Priscy," said Nancy gently, as she fastened
a coral necklace, exactly like her own, round
Priscilla's neck, which was very far from being
like her own, *' I'm sure I'm willing to give
way as far as is right, but who shouldn't dress
alike if it isn't sisters? Would you have us
go about looking as if we were no kin to one
another — us that have got no mother and not
another sister in the world? I'd do what was
right, if I dressed in a gown dyed with cheese-
colouring ; and I'd rather you'd choose, and
let me wear what pleases you."

"There you are again! You'd come round
to the same thing if one talked to you from
Saturday night till Saturday morning. It'll
be fine fun to see how you'll master your
husband and never raise your voice above the
singing o' the kettle all the while. I like to
see the men mastered ! "

*^ Don't talk so, Priscy," said Nancy, blushing.
>' You know I don't mean ever to be married."

*^ Oh, you never mean a fiddlestick's end?'

said Priscilla, as she arranged her discarded

dress, and closed her bandbox. *^Who shal

i66

/ have to work for when father's gone, if you
are to go and take notions in your head and
be an old maid, because some folks are no
better than they should be? I haven't a bit
o' patience with you — sitting on an addled egg
for ever, as if there was never a fresh un in the
world. One. old maid's enough out o' two
sisters ; and I shall do credit to a single life,
for God A'mighty meant me for it. Gome, we
can go down now. I'm as ready as a mawkin
ca7t be — there's nothing awanting to frighten
the crows, now IVe got my ear-droppers in."

As the two Misses Lammeter walked into the
large parlour together, any one who did not
know the character of both might certainly have
supposed that the reason why - the square-
shouldered, clumsy, high-featured Priscilla wore
a dress the facsimile of her pretty sister's, was
either the mistaken vanity of the one, or
the malicious contrivance of the other in order
to set off her own rare beauty. But the good-
natured, self-forgetful cheeriness and common
sense of Priscilla would soon have dissipated
the one suspicion ; and the modest calm of
Nancy's speech and manners told clearly of a
mind free from all disavowed devices.

Places of honour had been kept for the Misses
Lammeter near the head of the principal tea-
table in the wainscoted parlour, now looking

fresh and pleasant Avith handsome branches of

167

liolly, yew, and laurel, from the abundant
growths of the old garden ; and Nancy felt an
inward flutter, that no firmness of purpose
could prevent, when she saw Mr. Godfrey Cass
advancing to lead her to a seat between himself
and Mr. Crackenthorp, while Priscilla was called
to the opposite side between her father and the
Squire. It certainly did make some difference
to Nancy that the lover she had given up was
the young man of quite the highest consequence
in the parish — at home in a venerable and unique
parlour, which was the extremity of grandeur
in her experience, a parlour where she might
one day have been mistress, with the conscious-
ness that she was spoken of as ^' Madam Cass,"
the Squire's wife.

These circumstances exalted her inward drama
in her own eyes, and deepened the emphasis
with which she declared to herself that not the
most dazzling rank should induce her to marry
a man whose conduct showed him careless of
his character, but that, ** love once, love always,'*
was the motto of a true and pure woman, and
no man should ever have any right over her
which would be a call on her to destroy the
dried flowers that she treasured, and always
would treasure, for Godfrey Cass's sake. And
Nancy was capable of keeping her word to
herself under very trying conditions. Nothing

but a becoming blush betrayed the moving

i68

, thoughts that urged themselves upon her as
she accepted the seat next Mr. Crackenthorp ;
, tor she was so instinctively neat and adroit
. in all her actions, and her pretty lips met each
j other with such quiet firmness, that it would
have been difficult for her to appear agitated.

It was not the rector's practice to let a
charming blush pass without an appropriate
compliment. He was not in the least lofty
or aristocratic, but simply a merry-eyed, small-
featured, gray-haired man, with his chin propped
by an ample many-creased white neckcloth which
seemed to predominate over every other point
in his person, and somehow to impress its
peculiar character on his remarks ; so that to
have considered his amenities apart from his
cravat would have been a severe, and perhaps
a dangerous, effort of abstraction.

*'Ha, Miss Nancy," he said, turning his head
within his cravat and smiling down pleasantly
upon her, **when anybody pretends this has
been a severe winter, I shall tell them I saw
the roses blooming on New Year's Eve — eh,
Godfrey, what do you say?'*

Godfrey made no reply, and avoided looking
at Nancy very markedly ; for though these
complimentary personalities were held to be in
excellent taste in old-fashioned Raveloe society,
reverent love has a politeness of its own which *

it teaches to men otherwise of small schooling.

169

But the Squire was rather impatient at Godfrey's
showing himself a dull spark in this way. By
this advanced hour of the day, the Squire was
always in higher spirits than we have seen
him in at the breakfast-table, and felt it quite
pleasant to fulfil the hereditary duty of being
noisily jovial and patronising : the large silver
snuff-box was in active service and was offered
without fail to all neighbours from time to time,
however often they might have declined the
favour. At present, the Squire had only given
an express welcome to the heads of families
as they appeared ; but always as the evening
deepened, his hospitality rayed out more widely,
till he had tapped the youngest guests on the
back and shown a peculiar fondness for their
presence, in the full belief that they must feel
their lives made happy by their belonging to a
parish where there was such a hearty man as
Squire Cass to invite them and wish them
well. Even in this early stage of the jovial
mood, it was natural that he should wish to
supply his son's deficiencies by looking and
speaking for him.

'* Ay, ay," he began, offering his snuff-box
to Mr. Lammeter, who for the second time
bowed his head and waved his hand in stiff
rejection of the offer, *' us old fellows may wish
ourselves young to-night, when we see the

mistletoe-bough in the White Parlour. It's

170

true, most things are gone back'ard in these
last thirty years — the country's going down
since the old king fell ill. But when I look at
Miss Nancy here, I begin to think the lasses
keep up their quality — ding me if I remember
a sample to match her, not when I was a fine
young fellow, and thought a deal about my pig-
tail. No offence to you, madam," he added,
bending to Mrs. Crackenthorp, who sat by
him, ^' I didn't know you when you were as
young as Miss Nancy here."

Mrs. Crackenthorp — a small, blinking woman,
who fidgeted incessantly with her lace, ribbons,
and gold chain, turning her head about and
making subdued noises, very much like a guinea-
pig that twitches its nose and soliloquises in all
company indiscriminately — now blinked and
fidgeted towards the Squire, and said, *' Oh
no — no offence,"

This emphatic compliment of the Squire's to

Nancy was felt by others besides Godfrey to

have a diplomatic significance ; and her father

gave a slight additional erectness to his back,

as he looked across the table at her with

complacent gravity. That grave and orderly

senior was not going to bate a jot of his

dignity by seeming elated at the notion of a

match between his family and the Squire's : he

was gratified by any honour paid to his daughter;

but he must see an alteration in several ways

171

before his consent would be vouchsafed. His
spare but healthy person, and high-featured
firm face, that looked as if it had never been
flushed by excess, was in strong- contrast, not
only with the Squire's, but with the appearance
of the Raveloe farmers generally — in accordance
with a favourite saying of his own, that ** breed
was stronger than pasture."

" Miss Nancy's wonderful like what her mother
was, though; isn't she, Kimble?" said the stout
lady of that name, looking round for her husband.

But Doctor Kimble (country apothecaries in
old days enjoyed that title without authority
of diploma), being a thin and agile man, was
flitting about the room with his hands in his
pockets, making himself agreeable to his feminine
patients, with medical impartiality, and being
welcomed everywhere as a doctor by hereditary
right — not one of those miserable apothecaries
who canvass for practice in strange neighbour-
hoods, and spend all their income in starving
their one horse, but a man of substance, able
to keep an extravagant table like the best of
his patients. Time out of mind the Raveloe
doctor had been a Kimble ; Kimble was inher-
ently a doctor's name ; and it was difficult to
contemplate firmly the melancholy fact that the
actual Kimble had no son, so that his practice
might one day be handed over to a successor
with the incongruous name of Taylor or Johnson.

172

But In that case the wiser people in Raveloe
would employ Dr. Blick of Flitton — as less
unnatural.

'* Did you speak to me, my dear?" said the
luthentic doctor, coming quickly to his wife's
side ; but, as if foreseeing that she would be

00 much out of breath to repeat her remark,
le went on immediately, ''Ha, Miss Priscilla,
he sight of you revives the taste of that super-
jxcellent pork-pie. I hope the batch isn't near
in end."

"Yes, indeed, it is, doctor," said Priscilla;
'but I'll answer for it the next shall be as
>^ood. My pork-pies don't turn oyt well by
:hance." * " \

"Not as your doctoring does, eh, Kimble? —
because folks forget to take your physic, eh?"
Iiaid the Squire, who regarded physic and doctors
LS many loyal Churchmen regard the Church and
he clergy — tasting a joke against them when he
vas in health, but impatiently eager for their
id when anything was the matter with him.
ie tapped his box, and looked round with a
riumphant laugh.

1 "Ah, she has a quick wit, my friend Priscilla
|ias," said the doctor, choosing to attribute the
pigram to a lady rather than allow a brother-
i-law that advantage over him. "She saves

little pepper to sprinkle over her talk — that's
le reason why she never puts too much inta

^7^

her pies. There's my wife, now, she never has
an answer at her tongue*s end ; but if I offend
her, she's sure to scarify my throat with black
pepper the next day, or else give me the colic
with watery greens. That's an awful tit-for-tat."
Here the vivacious doctor made a pathetic

grimace.

''Did you ever hear the like?" said Mrs.
Kimble, laughing above her double chin with
much good-humour, aside to Mrs. Crackenthorp,
who blinked and nodded, and amiably intended
to smile, but the intention lost itself in small
twitchings and noises.

" I suppose that's the sort of tit-for-tat adopted
in your profession, Kimble, if you've a grudge
against a patient," said the rector.

" Never do have a grudge against our
patients," said Mr. Kimble, ''except when they
leave us ; and then, you see, we haven't the
chance of prescribing for 'em. Ha, Miss
Nancy," he continued, suddenly skipping to
Nancy's side, "you w^on't forget your promise?
You're to save a dance for me, you know.'*

"Come, come, Kimble, don't you be too
for'ard," said the Squire. " Give the young
uns fair-play. There's my son Godfrey '11 be
wanting to have a round with you if you run
off with Miss Nancy. He's bespoke her for the
first dance, I'll be bound. Eh, sir ! what do you
say?" he continued, throwing himself backward,

174

and looking at Godfrey. ** Haven't you asked
Miss Nancy to open the dance with you?"

Godfrey, sorely uncomfortable under this
significant insistence about Nancy, and afraid
to think where it would end by the time his
"ather had set his usual hospitable example of
drinking before and after supper, saw no course
Dpen but to turn to Nancy and say, with as little
awkwardness as possible —

'' No ; I've not asked her yet, but I hope she'll
consent — if somebody else hasn't been before

me."

*' No, I've not engaged myself," said Nancy
quietly, though blushingly. (If Mr. Godfrey
founded any hopes on her consenting to dance
ivith him, he would soon be undeceived ; but
ihere was no need for her to be uncivil.)

"Then I hope you've no objections to dancing

with me," said Godfrey, beginning to lose the

ense that there was anything uncomfortable in
:his arrangement.

"No, no objections," said Nancy, in a cold
:one.

"Ah, well, you're a lucky fellow, Godfrey,"
jaid uncle Kimble ; " but you're my godson,
JO I won't stand in your way. Else I'm not so
/ery old, eh, my dear?" he went on, skipping
o his wife's side again. "You won't mind my
laving a second after you were gone — not if I
:ried a good deal first ? "

^75

**Come, come, take a cup o* tea and stop your
tong-ue, do," said good-humoured Mrs. Kimble,
feeling some pride in a husband who must be
regarded as so clever and amusing by the
company generally. If he had only not been
irritable at cards !

While safe, well-tested personalities were
enlivening the tea in this way, the sound of the
fiddle approaching within a distance at which it
could be heard distinctly, made the young people
look at each other with sympathetic impatience
for the end of the meal.

*' Why, there's Solomon in the hall," said the
Squire, '*and playing my fav'rite tune, /
believe — * The flaxen-headed ploughboy ' — he's
for giving us a hint as we aren't enough in a
hurry to hear him play. Bob," he called out
to his third long-legged son, who was at the
other end of the room, **open the door, and tell
Solomon to come in. He shall give us a tune
here."

Bob obeyed, and Solomon walked in, fiddling
as he walked, for he would on no account break
off in the middle of a tune.

" Here, Solomon," said the Squire, with loud
patronage. " Round here, my man. Ah, I
knew , it was * The flaxen-headed ploughboy ' ;
there's no finer tune."

Solomon Macey, a small, hale old man with

an abundant crop of long white hair reaching

1/6

nearly to his shoulders, advanced to the indicated
spot, bowing reverently while he fiddled, as
much as to say that he respected the company
though he respected the key-note more. As
soon as he had repeated the tune and lowered
his fiddle, he bowed again to the Squire and
the rector, and said, " I hope I see your honour
and your reverence well, and wishing you health
and long life and a happy New Year. And
wishing the same to you, Mr. Lammeter, sir ;
and to the other gentlemen, and the madams,
and the young lasses."

As Solomon uttered the last words, he bowed
in all directions solicitously, lest he should be
wanting in due respect. But thereupon he
immediately began to prelude, and fell into the
tune which he knew would be taken as a special
compliment by Mr. Lammeter.

*^ Thank ye, Solomon, thank ye," said Mr.
Lammeter when the fiddle paused again.
** That's 'Over the hills and far away,' that
is. My father used to say to me, whenever
we heard that tune, ' Ah, lad, / come from
over the hills and far away.' There's a many
tunes I don't make head or tail of; but that
speaks to me like the blackbird's whistle. I
suppose it's the name ; there's a deal in the
name of a tune."

But Solomon was already impatient to prelude

again, and presently broke with much spirit

177

into '*Sir Roger de Coverley," at which there
was a sound of chairs pushed back, and laughing
voices.

**Ay, ay, Solomon, we know what that
means," said the Squire, rising. *' It's time to
begin the dance, eh? Lead the way, then, and
we'll all follow you."

So Solomon, holding his white head on one
side and playing vigorously, marched forward
at tlie head of the gay procession into the
White Parlour, where the mistletoe-bough was
hung, and multitudinous tallow candles made
rather a brilliant effect, gleaming from among
the berried holly-boughs, and reflected in the
old-fashioned oval mirrors fastened in the panels
of the white wainscot. A quaint procession !
Old Solomon, in his seedy clothes and long
white locks, seemed to be luring that decent
company by the magic scream of his fiddle —
luring discreet matrons in turban-shaped caps,
nay, Mrs. Crackenthorp herself, the summit of
whose perpendicular feather was on a level with
the Squire's shoulder — luring fair lasses com-
placently conscious of very short waists and
skirts blameless of front-folds — luring burly
4"athers in large variegated waistcoats, and
ruddy sons, for the most part shy and sheepish,
in short nether garments and very long coat-tails.

Already Mr. Macey and a few other privileged
villagers, who were allow^ed to be spectators on

these great occasions, were seated on benches
placed for them near the door ; and great was
the admiration and satisfaction in that quarter
when the couples had formed themselves for
the dance, and the Squire led off with Mrs.
Crackenthorp, joining hands with the rector and
Mrs. Osgood. That was as it should be — that
was what everybody had been used to- — and the
character of Raveloe seemed to be renewed by
the ceremony. It was not thought of as an
unbecoming levity for the old and middle-aged
people to dance a little before sitting down to
cards, but rather as part of their social duties.
For what were these if not to be merry at ap-
propriate times, interchanging visits and poultry
with due frequency, paying each other old-
established compliments in sound traditional
phrases, passing well-tried personal jokes, urging
your guests to eat and drink too much out of
hospitality, and eating and drinking too much
in your neighbour's house to show that you
liked your cheer? And the parson naturally set
an example in these social duties. For it would
not have been possible for the Raveloe mind,
without a peculiar revelation, to know that a
clergyman should be a pale-faced memento of
solemnities, instead of a reasonably faulty man
whose exclusive authority to read prayers and
preach, to christen, marry, and bury you,

necessarily co-existed with the right to sell you

179

the ground to be buiied in and to take tithe in
kind ; on which last point, of course, there was
a little grumbling, but not to the extent of
irreligion — not of deeper significance than the
grumbling at the rain, which was by no means
accompanied with a spirit of impious defiance,
but with a desire that the prayer for line weather
might be read forthwith.

There was no reason, then, why the rector's
dancing should not be received as part of the
fitness of things quite as much as the Squire's,
or why, on the other hand, Mr. Macey's official
respect should restrain him from subjecting
the parson's performance to that criticism with
which minds of extraordinary acuteness must
necessarily contemplate the doings of their fallible
fellowmen.

** The Squire's pretty springe, considering his

weight," said Mr. Macey, '*and he stamps

uncommon well. But Mr. Lammeter beats 'em

all for shapes : you see he holds his head like

a sodger, and he isn't so cushiony as most o'

the oldish gentlefolks — they run fat in general ;

and he's got a fine leg. The parson's nimble

enough, but he hasn't got much of a leg ; it's

a bit too thick down'ard, and his knees might

be a bit nearer wi'out damage ; but he might

do worse, he might do worse. Though he

hasn't that grand way o' waving his hand as

the Squire has."

i8o

**Talk o' nimbleness, look at Mrs. Osgood,"
said Ben Winthrop, who was holding his son
Aaron between his knees. ''She trips along
with her little steps, so as nobody can see how
she goes — it's like as if she had little w^heels
to her feet. She doesn't look a day older nor
last year ; she's the finest-made woman as is,
let the next be where she will."

" I don't heed how the women are made,'*
said Mr. Macey, with some contempt. "They
wear naythar coat nor breeches ; you can't make
much out o' their shapes."

" Fayder," said Aaron, whose feet were busy
beating out the tune, " how does that big cock's-
feather stick in Mrs. Crackenthorp's yead? Is
there a litde hole for it, like in my shuttlecock?"

*' Hush, lad, hush ; that's the way the ladies

dress theirselves, that is," said the father, adding,

however, in an undertone to Mr. Macey, *'it

does make her look funny, though — partly like

a short-necked bottle wi' a long quill in it. Hey,

by jingo, there's the young Squire leading off

now, wi' Miss Nancy for partners ! There's a

lass for you ! — like a pink-and-white posy —

there's nobody 'ud think as anybody could be

so pritty. I shouldn't wonder if she's Madam

Cass some day, arter all — and nobody more

rightfuller, for they'd make a fine match. You

can find nothing against Master Godfrey's

shapes, Macey, TU bet a penny.'*

i8i

Mr. Macey screwed up his mouth, leaned bis
liead further on one side, and twirled his thumbs
with a presto movement as his eyes followed
Godfrey up the dance. At last he summed up
his opinion.

*' Pretty well down'ard, but a bit too round i'
the shoulder-blades. And as for them coats as
he gets from the Flitton tailor, they're a poor cut
to pay double money for."

*^Ah, Mr. Macey, you and me are two folks,'*
said Ben, slightly indignant at this carping.
"When I've got a pot o' good ale, I like to
swaller it, and do my inside good, i'stead o'
smelling and staling at it to see if I can't find
faut wi' the brewing. I should like you to pick
me out a finer-limbed young fellow nor Master
Godfrey — one as 'ud knock you down easier, or 's
more pleasanter looksed when he's piert and
merry."

" Tchuh ! '* said Mr. Macey, provoked to

increased severity, "he isn't come to his right

colour yet : he's partly like a slack-baked pie.

And I doubt he's got a soft place in his head,

else w^hy should he be turned round the linger

by that offal Dunsey as nobody's seen o' late,

and let him kill that fine hunting boss as was the

talk o' the country? And one while he was allays

after Miss Nancy, and then it all went off again,

like a smell o' hot porridge, as I may say. That

wasn't my way when /went a-coorting."

182

** Ah, but mayhap Miss Nancy hung off, like,
and your lass didn't," said Ben.

**I should say she didn't," said Mr. Macey
significantly. *' Before I said 'sniff,' I took care to
know as she'd say 'snaff,' and pretty quick too.
I wasn't a-going to open my mouth, like a dog
at a fly, and snap it to again, wi' nothing to
swaller."

''Well, I think Miss Nancy's a-coming round
again," said Ben, "for Master Godfrey doesn't
look so down-hearted to-night. And I see he's
for taking her away to sit down, now they're at
the end o' the dance ; that looks like sweethearting,
that does."

The reason why Godfrey and Nancy had left
the dance was not so tender as Ben imagined.
In the close press of couples a slight accident
had happened to Nancy's dress, which, while it
Avas short enough to show her neat ankle in front,
was long enough behind to be caught under the
stately stamp of the Squire's foot, so as to rend
certain stitches at the waist, and cause much
sisterly agitation in Priscilla's mind, as well as
serious concern in Nancy's. One's thoughts may
be much occupied with love-struggles, but hardly
so as to be insensible to a disorder in the general
framework of things. Nancy had no sooner
completed her duty in the figure they were
dancing than she said to Godfrey, with a deep
blush, that she must go and sit down till Priscilla

183

could come to her; for the sisters had already!
exchanged a short whisper and an open-eyed
glance full of meaning. No reason less urgent |
than this could have prevailed on Nancy to give j
Godfrey this opportunity of sitting apart with her.
As for Godfrey, he was feeling so happy and
oblivious under the long charm of the country-
dance with Nancy, that he got rather bold on the
strength of her confusion, and was capable of
leading her straight away, without leave asked,
into the adjoining small parlour, where the
card-tables were set.

^' Oh no, thank you,'* said Nancy coldly, as
soon as she perceived where he was going, " not
in there. I'll wait here till Priscilla's ready to
come to me. I'm sorry to bring you out of the
dance and make myself troublesome."

*' Why, you'll be more comfortable here by
yourself," said the artful Godfrey. " I'll leave
you here till your sister can come." He spoke
in an indifferent tone.

That was an agreeable proposition, and just
what Nancy desired ; why, then, was she a little
hurt that Mr. Godfrey should make it? They
entered, and she seated herself on a chair against
one of the card-tables, as the stiffest and most
unapproachable position she could choose.

" Thank you, sir," she said immediately. ** I
needn't give you any more trouble. I'm sorry
you've had such an unlucky partner.".

*' That's very ill-natured of you,** said Godfrey,
standing by her without any sign of intended
departure, '' to be sorry you've danced with me."

*'Oh no, sir, I don't mean to say what's ill-
natured at all," said Nancy, looking distractedly
prim and pretty. " When gentlemen have so
many pleasures, one dance can matter but very
little."

'' You know that isn't true. You know one
dance with you matters more to me than all the
other pleasures in the world.'*

It was a long, long while since Godfrey had
said anything so direct as that, and Nancy was
startled. But her instinctive dignity and re-
pugnance to any show of emotion made her sit
perfectly still, and only throw a little.more decision
into her voice as she said —

" No, indeed, Mr. Godfrey, that's not known
to me, and I have very good reasons for think-
ing different. But if it's true, I don't wish to
hear it."

** Would you never forgive me, then, Nancy
—never think well of me, let what would happen
— would you never think the present made amends
for the past? Not if I turned a good fellow, and
gave up everything you didn't like?"

Godfrey was half conscious that this sudden

opportunity of speaking to Nancy alone had

driven him beside himself; but blind feeling

had got the mastery of his tongue. Nancy

1S5

really felt much agitated by the possibility
Godfrey's words suggested, but this very
pressure of emotion that she was in danger ol
finding too strong for her, roused all her power
of self-command.

*' I should be glad to see a good change in
anybody, Mr. Godfrey," she answered, with
the slightest discernible difference of tone, ''but
it 'ud be better if no change was wanted."

"You're very hard-hearted, Nancy," said
Godfrey pettishly. "You might encourage me
to be a better fellow. I'm very miserable — but
you've no feeling."

"I think those have the least feeling that act
wrong to begin with," said Nancy, sending out
a flash in spite of herself. Godfrey was delighted
with that little flash, and would have liked to go
on and make her quarrel with him ; Nancy was
so exasperatingly quiet and firm. But she was
not indifl"erent to him yet.

The entrance of Priscilla, bursting forward
and saying, "Dear heart alive, child, let us
look at this gown," cut off Godfrey's hopes of
a quarrel.

" I suppose I must go now," he said to
Priscilla.

" It's no matter to me whether you go or
stay," said that frank lady, searching for some-
thing in her pocket, with a preoccupied brow.

"Do you want me to go?" said Godfrey,!

looking- at Nancy, who was now standing up
by Priscilla's order.

*' As you like," said Nancy, trying to recover
ill her former coldness, and looking down
arefully at the hem of her gown.

''Then I like to stay," said Godfrey, with a
reckless determination to get as much of this
joy as he could to-night, and think nothing of
the morrow.

187

CHAPTER XII

While Godfrey Cass was taking draiif^^'hts of
forgetfulncss from the sweet presence of Nancy,
willinrrlv losino- all sense of that hidden bond
which at other moments galled and fretted him
so as to mingle irritation with the very sunshine,
Godfrey's wife was walking with slow, uncertain
steps through the snow-covered Raveloe lanes,
carrying her child in her arms.

The journey on New Year's Eve was a pre-
meditated act of vengeance which she had kept
in her heart ever since Godfrey, in a fit of
passion, had told her he would sooner die than
acknowledge her as his wife. There would be
a great party at the Red House on New Year's
Eve, she knew : her husband would be smiling
and smiled upon, hiding her existence in the
darkest corner of his heart. But she would
mar his pleasure : she would go in her dingy
rags, with her faded face, once as handsome as
the best, with her little child that had its father's
hair and eyes, and disclose herself to the Squire
as his eldest son's wife. It is seldom that the
miserable can help regarding their misery as a
wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable,
Molly knew that the cause of her dingy rags^

was not her husband's neglect, but the demon

i8S

Opium to whom she was enslaved, body and soul,
except in the lingering mother's tenderness that
refused to give him her hungry child. She knew
this well ; and yet, in the moments of wretched
unbenumbed consciousness, the sense of her want
and degradation transformed itself continually into
bitterness towards Godfrey. Hew3.s well off; and
if she had her rights she would be well off too.
The belief that he repented his marriage, and suf-
fered from it, only aggravated her vindictiveness.
Just and self-reproving thoughts do not come to
us too thickly, even in the purest air and with the
best lessons of heaven and earth; how should
those white-winged delicate messengers make
their way to Molly's poisoned chamber, inhabited
by no higher memories than those of a barmaid's
paradise of pink ribbons and gentlemen's jokes ?

She had set out at an early hour, but had
lingered on the road, inclined by her indolence
to believe that if she waited under a warm shed
the snow would cease to fall. She had waited
longer than she knew, and now that she found
herself belated in the snow-hidden ruggedness
of the long lanes, even the animation of a
vindictive purpose could not keep her spirit
from failing. It was seven o'clock, and by
this time she was not very far from Raveloe,
but she was not familiar enough with those mono-
tonous, lanes to know how near she was to her

journey's end. She needed comfort, and she
s.M. 189 G

knew but one comforter — the familiar demon
in her bosom ; but she hesitated a moment,
after drawing out the black remnant, before
she raised it to her lips. In that moment the
mother's love pleaded for painful consciousness
rather than oblivion — pleaded to be left in aching;
weariness rather than to have the encircling arms
benumbed so that they could not feel the dear
burden. In another momentMolly had flungsome-
thing away, but it was not the black remnant — it
was an empty phial. And she walked on again
under the breaking cloud, from which there came
now and then the light of a quickly-veiled star, for
a freezing wind had sprung up since the snowing
had ceased. But she walked always more and
more drowsily, and clutched more and more
automatically the sleeping child at her bosom.

Slowly the demon was working his will, and
cold and weariness were his helpers. Soon she
felt nothing but a supreme immediate longing
that curtained off all futurity — the longing to
lie down and sleep. She had arrived at a spot
where her footsteps were no longer checked by
a hedgerow, and she had wandered vaguely,
unable to distinguish any objects, notwithstand-
ing the wide whiteness around her and the
growing starlight. She sank down against a
straggling furze bush, an easy pillow enough ;
and the bed of snow, too, was soft. She did

not feel that the bed was cold, and did not

190

heed whether the child would wake and cry for her.
But her arms had not yet relaxed their instinctive
clutch ; and the little one slumbered on as gently
as if it had been rocked in a lace-trimmed cradle.

But the complete torpor came at last : the
fingers lost their tension, the arms unbent ;
then the little head fell away from the bosom,
and the blue eyes opened wide on the cold
starlight. At first there was a little peevish
cry of ** mammy," and an effort to regain the
pillowing arm and bosom ; but mammy's ear
was deaf, and the pillow seemed to be slipping
away backward. Suddenly, as the child rolled
downward on its mother's knees, all wet with
snow, its eyes were caught by a bright glanc-
ing light on the white ground, and, with the
ready transition of infancy, it was immediately
absorbed in watching the bright living thing
running towards it, yet never arriving. That
bright living thing must be caught ; and in
an instant the child had slipped on all fours,
nd held out one little hand to catch the gleam.
But the gleam would not be caught in that
wray, and now the head was held up to see
where the cunning gleam came from. It came
from a very bright place, and the little one,
rising on its legs, toddled through the snow,
he old grimy shawl in which it was wrapped
Tailing behind it, and the queer little bonnet

iane^lingf at its back — toddled on to the open

191 ^

door of Silas Marner's cottage, and right up to
the warm hearth, wher« there was a bright fire
of logs and sticks, which had thoroughly warmed
the old sack (Silas's greatcoat) spread out on
the bricks to dry. The little one, accustomed
to be left to itself for long hours without notice
from its mother, squatted down on the sack,
and spread its tiny hands towards the blaze,
in perfect contentment, gurgling and making
many inarticulate communications to the cheerful
fire, like a new-hatched gosling beginning to find
itself comfortable. But presently the warmth had
a lulling effect, and the little golden head sank
down on the old sack, and the blue eyes were
veiled by their delicate half-transparent lids.

But where was Silas Marner while this strange
visitor had come to his hearth ? He was in the
cottage, but he did not see the child. During
the last few weeks, since he had lost his money,
he had contracted the habit of opening his
door and looking out from time to time, as if
he thought that his money might be somehow
coming back to him, or that some trace, some
news of it might be mysteriously on the road, and
be caught by the listening ear or the straining eye.
It was chiefly at night, when he was not occupied
in his loom, that he fell into this repetition of an
act for which he could have assigned no delinite
purpose, and which can hardly be understood ex-
cept by those who have undergone a bewildering t,

separation from a supremely-loved object. In the
evening twilight, and later whenever the night
was not dark, Silas looked out on that narrow pros-
pect round the Stone-pits, listening and gazing, not
with hope, but with mere yearning and unrest.

This morning he had been told by some of
his neighbours that it was New Year's Eve,
and that he must sit up and hear the old year y
rung out and the new rung in, because that
was good luck, and might bring his money
back again. This was only a friendly Raveloe
kvay of jesting with the half-crazy oddities of a
Tiiser, but it had perhaps helped to throw Silas
nto a more than usually excited state. , Since
;he oncoming of twilight he had opened his
ioor again and again, though only to shut it
mmediately at seeing all distance veiled by the
ailing snow. But the last time he opened it
he snow had ceased, and the clouds were part-
rig here and there. He stood and listened, an-d
azed for a long while — there was really something
n the road coming towards him then, but he

* "1

aught no sign of it; and the stillness and the
nde trackless snow seemed to narrow his solitude,
nd touched his yearning with the chill of despair.,-
le went in again, and put his right hand on the
tch of the door to close it — but he did not close
t : he was arrested, as he had been already since
is loss, by the invisible wand of catalepsy, and
cod like a graven image, with wide but sightless

193

eyes, holding" open his door, powerless to resist
either the good or evil that might enter there.

When Marner's sensibility returned, he con-
tinued the action which had been arrested, and
closed his door, unaware of the chasm in his con-
sciousness, unaware of any intermediate change,
except that the light had grown dim, and that
he was chilled and faint. He thought he had
been too long standing at the door and looking
out. Turning towards the hearth, where the
two logs had fallen apart, and sent forth only
a red, uncertain glimmer, he seated himself on
his fireside chair, and was stooping to push
his logs together, when, to his blurred vision,
it seemed as if there were gold on the floor in |a
front of the hearth. Gold ! — his own gold —
brought back to him as mysteriously as it had
been taken away ! He felt his heart begin to
beat violently, and for a few moments he was
unable to stretch out his hand and grasp the
restored treasure. The heap of gold seemed to
glow and get larger beneath his agitated gaze.
He leaned forward at last, and stretched forth
his hand ; but instead of the hard coin with
the familiar resisting outline, his fingers en-
countered soft, warm curls.

In utter amazement, Silas fell on his knees and

bent his head low to examine the marvel : it wast

a sleeping child — a round, fair thing, with soft of

yellow rings all over its head. Could this be his ^

194

ittle sister come back to him in a dream — his

ittle sister whom he had carried about in his

irms for a year before she died, when he was a

mall boy without shoes or stockings? That

-vas the first thought that darted across Silas's

^lank wonderment. Was it a dream ? He

ose to his feet again, pushed his logs together,

md, throwing on some dried leaves and sticks,

aised a flame; but the flame did not disperse

:he vision — it only lit up more distinctly the

ittle round form of the child, and its shabby

:lothing. It Avas very much like his little sister.

Mlas sank into his chair powerless, under the

iouble presence of an inexplicable surprise and

L hurrying influx of memories. How and when

lad the child come in without his knowledge?

^e had never been beyond the door.

But along with that question, and almost

hrusting it away, there was a vision of the

)ld home and the old streets leading to Lantern

i^ard — and v/ithin that vision another, of the

houghts which had been present with him in

hose far-off scenes. The thoughts were strange

o him now, like old friendships impossible to

evive ; and yet he had a dreamy feeling that

his child was somehow a message come to him

rom that far-off life : it stirred fibres that had j

lever been moved in Raveloe — old quiverings'^

)f tenderness — old impressions of awe at the

)resentiment of some Power presiding over his

195

life ; for his imagination had not yet extricated
itself from the sense of mystery in the child's
sudden presence, and had formed no conjectures
of ordinary natural means by which the event
could have been brouglit about.

But there was a cry on the hearth : the child
had awaked, and Marner stooped to lift it on
liis knee. It clung round his neck, and burst
louder and louder into that mingling of inar-
ticulate cries with " mammy " by which little
children express the bewilderment of waking.
Silas pressed it to him, and almost unconsciously
uttered sounds of hushing tenderness, while he
bethought himself that some of his porridge,
which had got cool by the dying fire, would do |^
to feed the child with if it were only warmed
up a little.

He had plenty to do through the next hour.

The porridge, sweetened with some dry brown

sugar from an old store which he had refrained

from using for himself, stopped the cries ol

the little one, and made her lift her blue eyes

with a wide quiet gaze at Silas, as he put the

spoon into her mouth. Presently she slipped

from his knee and began to toddle about, but

with a pretty stagger that made Silas jump

up and follow her lest she should fall against

anything that would hurt her. But she only

fell in a sitting posture on the ground, and

began to pull at her boots, looking up at

196

]

him with a crying face as if the boots hurt
her. He took her on his knee again, but it
was some time before it occurred to Silas's
dull bachelor mind that the wet boots were
the grievance, pressing on her warm ankles.
He got them off with difficulty, and baby was
It once happily occupied with the primary
Tiystery of her own toes, inviting Silas with
nuch chuckling, to consider the mystery too.

But the wet boots had at last suggested to
5ilas that the child had been walking on the
mow, and this roused him from his entire
)blivion of any ordinary means by which it
ould have entered or been brought into his
LOuse. Under the prompting of this new idea,
,nd without waiting to form conjectures, he
aised the child in his arms, and went to the
Gor. As soon as he had opened it, there
/■as the cry of ** mammy" again, which Silas
ad not heard since the child's first hungry
aking. Bending forward, he could just discern
16 marks made by the little feet on the virgin
low, and he followed their track to the furze
ushes. *^ Mammy!" the little one cried again

d again, stretching itself forward so as almost

) escape from Silas's arms, before he himself

as aware that there was something more than

le bush before him — that there was a human

ody, with the head sunk low in the furze,

id half-covered with the shaken snow.

197

CHAPTER XIII

It was after the early supper-time at the Red
House, and the entertainment was in that stage
when bash fulness itself had passed into easy
jollity, when gentlemen, conscious of unusual
accomplishments, could at length be prevailed
on to dance a hornpipe, and when the Squire
preferred talking loudly, scattering snuff, and
patting his visitors' backs, to sitting longer at
the whist-table — a choice exasperating to uncle
Kimble, who, being always volatile in sober
business hours, became intense and bitter over
cards and brandy, shuffled before his adversary's
deal with a glare of suspicion, and turned up
a mean trump-card with an air of inexpressible
disgust, as if in a world where such things
could happen one might as well enter on a
course of reckless profligacy. When the evening
had advanced to this pitch of freedom and
enjoyment, it was usual for the servants, the
heavy duties of supper being well over, to get
their share of amusement by coming to look on at
the dancing ; so that the back regions of the
house were left in solitude.

There were two doors by which the White
Parlour was entered from the hall, and they
were both standing open for the sake of air|

iqS m

but the lower one was crowded with the servants
and villagers, and only the upper doorway was
left free. Bob Cass was figuring in a hornpipe,
and his father, very proud of this lithe son, whom
he repeatedly declared to be just like himself in
his young days in a tone that implied this to
be the very, highest stamp of juvenile merit,
was the centre of a group who had placed
themselves opposite the performer, not far from
the upper door. Godfrey was standing a little
way off, not to admire his brother's dancing,
but to keep sight of Nancy, who was seated
in the group near her father. He stood aloof,
because he wished to avoid suggesting himself
as a subject for the Squire's fatherly jokes in
connection with matrimony and - Miss Nancy
Lammeter's beauty, which were likely to become
more and more explicit. But he had the prospect
of dancing with her again when the hornpipe
was concluded, and in the meanwhile it was
very pleasant to get long glances at her quite
unobserved.

But when Godfrey was lifting his eyes from
3ne of those long glances, they encountered an
Dbject as startling to him at that moment as if
it had been an apparition from the dead. It
was an apparition from that hidden life which
ies, like a dark by-street, behind the goodly
ornamented fa9ade that meets the sunlight and
:he gaze of respectable admirers. It was his

own child carried in Silas Marner's arms.
That was his instantaneous impression, unac-
companied by doubt, though he had not seen
the child for months past ; and when the hope
was rising that he might possibly be mistaken,
Mr. Crackenthorp and Mr. Lammeter had already
advanced to Silas, in astonishment of this strange
advent. Godfrey joined them immediately, un-
able to rest without hearing every word — trying
to control himself, but conscious that if any one
noticed him, they must see that he was white-
lipped and trembling.

But now all eyes at that end of the room
were bent on Silas Marner ; the Squire himself
had risen, and asked angrily: ^' How's this? —
what's this? — what do you do coming in here
in this way?"

*' I'm come for the doctor — I want the
doctor," Silas had said, in the first moment,
to Mr. Crackenthorp.

*' Why, what's the matter, Marner?" said the
rector. "The doctor's here; but say quietly
what you want him for."

"It's a woman," said Silas, speaking low
and half-breathlessly, just as Godfrey came up.
"She's dead, I think — dead in the snow at the
Stone-pits — not far from my door."

Godfrey felt a great throb : there was one
terror in his mind at that moment : it was, that
the woman might not be dead. That was an

200

evil terror — an ugly inmate to have found a
nestling-place in Godfrey's kindly disposition ;
but no disposition is a security from evil wishes
to a man whose happiness hangs on duplicity.

'' Hush, hush ! " said Mr. Crackenthorp. " Go
out into the hall there. I'll fetch the doctor to
you. Found a woman in the snow — and thinks
she's dead," he added, speaking low, to the
Squire. '' Better say as little about it as possible;
it will shock the ladies. Just tell them a poor
woman is ill from cold and hunger. I'll go
and fetch Kimble."

By this time, however, the ladies had pressed
forward, curious to know what could have brought
the solitary linen-weaver there under such strange
circumstances, and interested in the pretty child,
who, half alarmed and half attracted by the bright-
ness and the numerous company, now frowned
and hid her face, now lifted up her head again
and looked round placably, until a touch or a
coaxing word brought back the frown, and made
her bury her face with new determination.

^^ What child is it?" said several ladies at
once, and, among the rest, Nancy Lammeter,
addressing Godfrey.

** I don't know — some poor woman's who has

been found in the snow, I believe," was the

inswer Godfrey wrung from himself with a terrible

ffort. (*' After all, am I certain?" he hastened

:o add, in anticipation of his own conscience.)

201

** Why, you'd better leave the child here,
then, Master Marner," said <^ood-natured iMrs.
Kimble, hesitating, however, to take those dingy
clothes into contact with her own ornamental
satin bodice. ^'I'll tell one o' the girls to
fetch it."

'' No — no — I can't part with it, I can't let it
go," said Silas abruptly. ^* It's come to me —
I've a right to keep it."

The proposition to take the child from him
had come to Silas quite unexpectedly, and his
speech, uttered under a. strong sudden impulse,
was almost like a revelation to himself: a minute
before, he had no distinct intention about the
child.

'^Did you ever hear the like?" said Mrs.
Kimble, in mild surprise, to her neighbour.

** Now, ladies, I must trouble you to stand
aside," said Mr. Kimble, coming from the card-
room in some bitterness at the interruption, but
drilled by the long habit of his profession into
obedience to unpleasant calls, even when he was
hardly sober.

" It's a nasty business turning out now, eh,
Kimble?" said the Squire. *'He might ha'
gone for your young fellow — the 'prentice, there
— what's his name ? "

''Might? ay — what's the use of talking about
might?" growled uncle Kimble, hastening out
with Marner, and followed by Mr. Crackenthorp

202

and Godfrey. "Get me a pair of thick boots,
Godfrey, will you? And stay, let somebody run
to Winthrop's and fetch Dolly — she's the best
woman to get. Ben was here himself before
supper; is he gone?"

*'Yes, sir; I met him," said Marner ; **but
I couldn't stop to tell him anything, only I
said I was going for the doctor, and he said the
doctor was at the Squire's. And I made haste
and ran, and there was nobody to be seen at the
back o' the house, and so I went in to where the
company was."

The child, no longer distracted by the bright
light and the smiling women's faces, began to
cry and call for '^ mammy," though always
clinging to Marner, who had apparently won
her thorough confidence. Godfrey had come
back with the boots, and felt the cry as if some
fibre were drawn tight within him.

"I'll go," he said hastily, eager for some
movement; "I'll go and fetch the woman —
Mrs. Winthrop."

"Oh, pooh — send somebody else," said uncle
Kimble, hurrying away with Marner.

"You'll let me know if I can be of any use,
Kimble," said Mr. Crackenthorp. But the doctor
was out of hearing.

Godfrey, too, had disappeared : he was gone

to snatch his hat and coat, having just reflection

enough to remember that he must not look like

203

a madman ; but lie ruslicd out of the house into
the snow without heeding his thin shoes.

In a few minutes he was on his rapid way to
the Stone-pits by the side of I3olly, who,
though feeUng that she was entirely in her
place in encountering cold and snow on an
errand of mercy, was much concerned at a
young gentleman's getting his feet wet under
a like impulse.

** You'd a deal better go back, sir," said Dolly,
with respectful compassion. "You've no call to
catch cold ; and I'd ask you if you'd be so good
as tell my husband to come, on your way back
— he's at the Rainbow, I doubt — if you found
him anyway sober enough to be o' use. Or
else, there's Mrs. Snell 'ud happen send the
boy up to fetch and carry, for there may be
things wanted from the doctor's."

" No, I'll stay, now I'm once out — I'll stay
outside here," said Godfrey, when they came
opposite Marner's cottage. "You can come
and tell me if I can do anything."

" Well, sir, you're very good : you've a tender
heart," said Dolly, going to the door.

Godfrey was too painfully preoccupied to feel
a twinge of self-reproach at this undeserved
praise. He walked up and down, unconscious
that he was plunging ankle-deep in snow, un-
conscious of everything but trembling suspense

about what was going on in the cottage, and the

204

effect of each alternative on his future lot. No,
not quite unconscious of everything else. Deeper
down, and half-smothered by passionate desire and
dread, there was the sense that he ought not to
be waiting on these alternatives ; that he ought
to accept the consequences of his deeds, own the
miserable wife, and fulfil the claims of the help-
less child. But he had not moral courage enough
to contemplate that active renunciation of Nancy
as possible for him : he had only conscience and
heart enough to make him for ever uneasy under
the weakness that forbade the renunciation. And
at this moment his mind leaped away from all
restraint towards the sudden prospect of deliver-
ance from his long bondage.

'* Is she dead?" said the voice that pre-
dominated over every other within him. *' If
she is, I may marry Nancy ; and then I shall
be a good fellow in future, and have no secrets,
and the child — shall be taken care of somehow."
But across that vision came the other possibility
— *' She may live, and then it's all up with me."

Godfrey never knew how long it was before
the door of the cottage opened and Mr. Kimble
came out. He went forward to meet his uncle,
prepared to suppress the agitation he must feel,
whatever news he was to hear.

**I waited for you, as I'd come so far," he

said, speaking first.

**Pooh, it was nonsense for you to come out:

205

why didn't you send one of the men? There's
nothing to be done. She's dead — has been dead
for hours, I should say."

'* What sort of woman is she?" said Godfrey,
feeling- the blood rush to his face.

''A young woman, but emaciated, with long
black hair. Some vagrant — quite in rags. She's
got a wedding-ring on, however. They must
fetch her away to the workhouse to-morrow.
Come, come along."

*' I want to look at her," said Godfrey. " I
think I saw such a woman yesterday. I'll
overtake you in a minute or two."

Mr. Kimble went on, and Godfrey turned back
to the cottage. He cast only one glance at the
dead face on the pillow, which Dolly had
smoothed with decent care ; but he remembered
that last look at his unhappy, hated wife so
well, that at the end of sixteen years every line
in the worn face was present to him when he
told the full story of this night.

He turned immediately towards the hearth,
where Silas Marner sat lulling the child. She
was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep — only
soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that
wide-gazing calm which makes us older human
beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain
awe in the presence of a little child, such as
we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in

the earth or sky — before a steady glowing planet,

206

or a fuII-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees
over a silent pathway. The wide-open blue eyes
looked up at Godfrey's without any uneasiness
or sign of recognition : the child could make no
visible, audible claim on its father ; and the father
felt a strange mixture of feelings, a conflict of
regret and joy, that the pulse of that little heart
had no response for the half-jealous yearning in
his own, when the blue eyes turned away from
him slowly, and fixed themselves on the weaver's
queer face, which was bent low down to look at
them, while the small hand began to pull Marner's
withered cheek with loving disfiguration.

*' You'll take the child to the parish to-
morrow?" asked Godfrey, speaking as in-
differently as he could.

* * Who says so ? " said Marner sharply. ^ * Will
they make me take her?"

** Why, you wouldn't like to keep her, should
you — an old bachelor like you ? "

*'Till anybody shows they've a right to take
her away from me," said Marner. ''The
mother's dead, and I reckon it's got no father :
it's a lone thing — and I'm a lone thing. My ' ^
money's gone, I don't know where — and this
is come from I don't know where. I know
nothing — I'm partly mazed."

''Poor little thing!" said Godfrey. *'Let me

give something towards finding it clothes."

He had put his hand in his pocket and found

207

half-a-^uinea, and, thrusting it into Silas's hand,
he hurried out of the cottage to overtake Mr.
Kimble.

*'Ah, I see it's not the same woman I saw,"
he said, as he came up. " It's a pretty little
child : the old fellow seems to want to keep it ;
that's strange for a miser like him. But I
gave him a trifle to help him out : the parish
isn't likely to quarrel with him for the right to
keep the child."

'*No; but I've seen the time when I might
have quarrelled with him for it myself. It's too
late now, though. If the child ran into the fire,
your aunt's too fat to overtake it : she could only
sit and grunt like an alarmed sow. But what
a fool you are, Godfrey, to come out in your
dancing shoes and stockings in this way — and
you one of the beaux of the evening, and at
your own house ! What do you mean by such
freaks, young fellow? Has Miss Nancy been
cruel, and do you want to spite her by spoiling
your pumps? "

'^Oh, everything has been disagreeable to-
night. I was tired to death of jigging and
gallanting, and that bother about the hornpipes.
And I'd got to dance with the other Miss Gunn,'*
said Godfrey, glad of the subterfuge his uncl«
had suggested to him.

The prevarication and white lies, which a mind

that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy

208

under as a great artist under the false touches
that no eye detects but his own, are worn as
lightly as mere trimmings when once the actions
have become a lie.

Godfrey reappeared in the White Parlour with
dry feet, and, since the truth must be told,
with a sense of relief and gladness that was too
strong for painful thoughts to struggle with.
For could he not venture now, whenever oppor-
tunity offered, to say the tenderest things to
Nancy Lammeter — to promise her and himself
that he would always be just what she would
desire to see him? There was no danger that
his dead wife would be recognised : those were
not days of active inquiry and wide report ; and
as for the registry of their marriage, that was a
long way off, buried in unturned pages, away
from every one's interest but his own. Dunsey
might betray him if he came back ; but Dunsey
might be won to silence.

And when events turn out so much better for
a man than he has had reason to dread, is it
not a proof that his conduct has been less foolish
and blameworthy than it might otherwise have
appeared? When we are treated well, we
naturally begin to think that we are not alto-
gether unmeritorious, and that it is only just we
should treat ourselves well, and not mar our
own good fortune. Where, after all, would be

the use of his confessing the past to Nancy

209

Lammeter, and throwing away his happiness?
— nav, hers? for he felt some confidence that
she loved him. As for the child, he would see
that it was cared for ; he would never forsake
it ; he would do everything but own it. Perhaps
it would be just as happy in life without being-
owned by its father, seeing that nobody could
tell how things would turn out, and that — is
there any other reason wanted? — well, then,
that the father would be much happier without
owning his child.

210

CHAPTER XIV

There was a pauper's burial that week in
Raveloe, and up Kench Yard at Batherley it
was known that the dark-haired woman with the
fair child, who had lately come to lodge there,
was gone away again. That was all the express
note taken that Molly had disappeared from
the eyes of men. But the unwept death which,
to the general lot, seemed as trivial as the
summer-shed leaf, was charged with the force
of destiny to certain human lives that we know
of, shaping their joys and sorrows even to the
end.

Silas Marner's determination to keep the
** tramp's child" was matter of hardly less
surprise and iterated talk in the village than
the robbery of his money. That softening of
feeling towards him which dated from his mis-
fortune, that merging of suspicion and dislike
in a rather contemptuous pity for him as lone
and crazy, was now accompanied with a more
active sympathy, especially amongst the women.
Notable mothers, who knew what it was to keep
children " whole and sweet ; " lazy mothers, who
knew what it was to be interrupted in folding
their arms and scratching their elbows by the
mischievous propensities of children just firm

211

on their Icq-s, were equally interested in con-
jecturing how a lone man would manage with
a two-year-old child on his hands, and were
equally ready with their suggestions : the notable
chiefly telling him what he had better do, and
the lazy ones being emphatic in telling him what
he would never be able to do.

Among the notable mothers, Dolly Winthrop
was the one whose neighbourly offices were the
most acceptable to Marner, for they were rendered
without any show of bustling instruction. Silas
had shown her the half-guinea given to him
by Godfrey, and had asked her what he should
do about getting some clothes for the child.

** Eh, Master Marner," said Dolly, ''there's
no call to buy, no more nor a pair o' shoes ;
for I've got the little petticoats as Aaron wore
five years ago, and it's ill spending the money
on them baby-clothes, for the child 'ull grow
like grass i' May, bless it ! — that it will."

And the same day Dolly brought her bundle,
and displayed to Marner, one by one, the tiny
garments in their due order of succession, most
of them patched and darned, but clean and
neat as fresh-sprung herbs. This was the intro-
duction to a great ceremony with soap and
water, from which Baby came out in new
beauty, and sat on Dolly's knee, handling her
toes, and chuckling and patting her palms
together with an air of having made several

212

discoveries about herself, which she communi-
cated by alternate sounds of ** gng-gug-g^ug '*
and *^ mammy." The ** mammy" was not a
cry of need or uneasiness : Baby had been
used to utter it without expecting either tender
sound or touch to follow.

*' Anybody 'ud think the angils in heaven
couldn't be prettier," said Dolly, rubbing the
golden curls and kissing them. **And to think
of it's being covered wi' them dirty rags — and
the poor mother — froze to death ; but there's
Them as took care of it, and brought it to
your door. Master Marner. The door was open,
and it walked in over the snow, like as if it
had been a little starved robin. Didn't you
say the door was open ? '*

**Yes," said Silas meditatively. ** Yes — the
door was open. The money's gone I don't
know where, and this is come from I don't
know where."

He had not mentioned to any one his uncon-
sciousness of the child's entrance, shrinking
from questions which might lead to the fact he
himself suspected — namely, that he had been in
one of his trances.

**Ah," said Dolly, with soothing gravity,

** it's like the night and the morning, and the

sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the

harvest — one goes and the other comes, and we

know nothing how nor where. We may strive

213

and scrat and fend, but it's little we can do
arter all — the big" things come and go wi' no
striving- o' our'n — they do, that they do ; and
I think you're in the right on it to keep the
little un, Master Marner, seeing as it's been
sent to you, though there's lolks as thinks
different. You'll happen to be a bit moithered
with it while it's so little ; but I'll come, and
welcome, and see to it for you ; I've a bit o'
time to spare most days, for when one gets up
betimes i' the morning, the clock seems to stan'
still tow'rt ten, afore it's time to go about the
victual. So, as I say, I'll come and see to the
child for you, and welcome."

** Thank you . . . kindly,*' said Silas, hesi-
tating a little. ''I'll be glad if you'll tell me
things. But," he added uneasily, leaning forward
to look at Baby with some jealousy, as she was
resting her head backward against Dolly's arm,
and eyeing him contentedly from a distance —
"but I want to do things for it myself, else
it may get fond o* somebody else, and not fond
o' me. I've been used to fending for myself in
the house — I can learn, I can learn."

*' Eh, to be sure," said Dolly gently. ** I've

seen men as are wonderful handy wi' children.

The men are awk'ard and contrairy mostly, God

help 'em — but when the drink's out of 'em, they

aren't unsensible, though they're bad for leeching

and bandaging — so fiery and unpatient. You see

214

this goes first, next the skin," proceeded Dolly,
taking up the little shirt, and putting it on.

**Yes,'* said Marner docilely, bringing his
eyes very close, that they might be initiated in
the mysteries ; whereupon Baby seized his head
with both her small arms, and put her lips
against his face with purring noises.

**See there," said Dolly, with a woman's tender
tact, ** she's fondest o' you. She wants to go
o* your lap, I'll be bound. Go then : take her.
Master Marner; you can put the things on,
and then you can say as you've done for her
from the first of her coming to you."

Marner took her on his lap, trembling with
an emotion mysterious to himself, at something
unknown dawning on his life. Thought and
feeling were so confused within him, that if he
had tried to give them utterance, he could only
have said that the child was come instead of
the gold — that the gold had turned into the
child. He took the garments from Dolly, and
put them on under her teaching ; interrupted,
of course, by Baby's gymnastics.

*' There, then ! why, j'-ou take to it quite easy,
Master Marner," said Dolly; **but what shall
>rou do when you're forced to sit in your loom?
For she'll get busier and mischievouser every
day — she will, bless her. It's lucky as you've
^ot that high hearth i'stead of a grate, for that

I seeps the fire more out of her reach : but if
215

youVe g-ot anything as can be split or broke,
or as is fit to cut her finders off, she'll be at it
— and it is but right you should know."

Silas meditated a little while in some per-
plexity. *' I'll tie her to the leg o' the loom,"
he said at last, **tie her with a good long strip
o' something."

** Well, mayhap that'll do, as it's a litde gell,
for they're easier persuaded to sit i' one place
nor the lads. I know what the lads are ; for
I've had four — four I've had, God knows — and
if you was to take and tie 'em up, they'd make
a fighting and a crying as if you was ringing
the pigs. But I'll bring you my little chair,
and some bits o' red rag and things for her to
play wi' ; an' she'll sit and chatter to 'em as if
they was alive. Eh, if it wasn't a sin to the
lads to wish 'em made different, bless 'em, I jri
should ha' been glad for one of 'em to be a -
little gell ; and to think as I could ha* taught
her to scour, and mend, and the knitting, and I
everything. But I can teach 'em this little 'un.
Master Marner, when she gets old enough.'*

^'But she'll be my little un,** said Marner
rather hastily. ** She'll be nobody else's.** \

** No, to be sure ; you'll have a right to her,
if you're a father to her, and bring her up In
according. But," added Dolly, coming to a ie
point which she had determined beforehand to \
touch upon, ^^you must bring her up like in

216

christened folks*s children, and take her to
church, and let her learn her catechise, as my
little Aaron can say off — the ^ I believe,' and
everything, and * hurt nobody by word or deed '
— as well as if he was the clerk. That's what
y^ou must do, Master Marner, if you'd do the
right thing by the orphin child."

Marner's pale face flushed suddenly under a
aew anxiety. His mind was too busy trying
:o give some definite bearing to Dolly's words
*or him to think of answering her.

**And it's my belief," she went on, **as the
DOor little creature has never been christened,
md it's nothing but right as the parson should
>e spoke to ; and if you was noways unwilling,
■'d talk to Mr. Macey about it this very day.
i^or if the child ever went anyways wrong, and
^ou hadn't done your part by it. Master Marner
— 'noculation, and everything to save it from
larm — it 'ud be a thorn i' your bed for ever o*
his side the grave ; and I can't think as it 'ud
)e easy lying down for anybody when they'd
;^ot to another world, if they hadn't done their
>art by the helpless children as come wi'out
heir own asking."

Dolly herself was disposed to be silent for

ome time now, for she had spoken from the

epths of her own simple belief, and was much

oncerned to know whether her words would pro-

uce the desired effect on Silas. He was puzzled

217

and anxious, for Dolly's word ** christened " con-
veyed no distinct meanin<^ to him. He had JE
only heard of baptism, and had only seen the
baptism of grown-up men and women.

** What is it as you mean by * christened?' **
he said at last timidly. " Won't folks be good I
to her without it?"

*'Dear, dear! Master Marner," said Dolly, f
with gentle distress and compassion. ** Hadi
you never no father nor mother as taught you Q
to say your prayers, and as there's good words f
and good things to keep us from harm I "

** Yes," said Silas, in a low voice; ** I know
a deal about that — used to, used to. But your
ways are different; my country was a good wayfc
off.'* He paused a few moments, and then w
added, more decidedly, *^ But I want to do d
everything as can be done for the child. And o
whatever's right for it i' this country, and you
think 'ull do it good, I'll act according, if you'll |j:
tell me."

<* Well, then, Master Marner," said Dolly,
inwardly rejoiced, *' I'll ask Mr. Macey to speakji
to the parson about it ; and you must fix on a u
name for it, because it must have a name giv'
it when it's christened."

** My mother's name was Hephzibah," saidj«
Silas, **and my little sister was named after her."

*^Eh, that's a hard name," said Dolly. ''I
partly think it isn't a christened, name."

218

**It's a Bible name," said Silas, old ideas
ecurring.

*'Then Pve no call to speak again* it," said
Dolly, rather startled by Silas's knowledge on
his head; **but you see I'm no scholard, and
'm slow at catching the words. My husband
ays I'm allays like as if I was putting the haft
or the handle — that's what he says — for he's
ery sharp, God help him. But it was awk'ard
ailing your little sister by such a hard name,
V hen you'd got nothing big to say, like — wasn't
t, Master Marner?"

*' We called her Eppie," said Silas.

** Well, if it was noways wrong to shorten the
lame, it 'ud be a deal handier. And so I'll go
low, Master Marner, and I'll speak about the
hristening afore dark; and I wish you the best
•' luck, and it's my belief as it'll come to you,
f you do what's right by the orphin child ; —
nd there's the 'noculation to be seen to ; and
s to washing its bits o' things, you need look
0 nobody but me, for I can do 'em wi' one hand
irhen I've got my suds about. Eh, the blessed
ngil I You'll let me bring my Aaron one o'
hese days, and he'll show her his little cart as
lis father's made for him, and the black-and-
/hite pup as he's got a-rearing."

Baby was christened, the rector deciding that

double baptism was the lesser risk to incur ;
nd on this occasion Silas, making himself as

2IQ

L/1 V^ V iV^ Hi

1 by th|
'ate witj
.rison a

clean and tidy as he could, appeared for tlie
first time within the church, and shared in tlu
observances held sacred by his neighb(^urs. He
was quite unable, by means of anything he hearc
or saw, to identify the Raveloe religion with hij
old faith ; if he could at any time in his previouj
life have done so, it must have been by t
aid of a strong feeling ready to vibrate
sympathy, rather than by a com pa
phrases and ideas ; and now for long year
that feeling had been dormant. He had n<
distinct idea about the baptism and the church
going, except that Dolly had said it was fo
the good of the child ; and in this way, as th«
weeks grew to months, the child created fresl
and fresh links between his life and the live;
from which he had hitherto shrunk continually
into narrower isolation. Unlike the gold whicl
needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close
locked solitude — which was hidden away from thi
daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and startec
to no human tones — Eppie was a creature o
endless claims and ever-growing desires, seeking
and loving sunshine, and living sounds, am
living movements ; making trial of everything
with trust in new joy, and stirring the humai
kindness in all eyes that looked on her.

The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever
repeated circle, leading to nothing beyond itself
but Eppie was an object compacted of change

220

^ nd hopes that forced his thoughts onward, and
.' :arried them far away from their old eager pacing
towards the same blank limit — carried them away
to the new things that would come with the
coming years, when Eppie would have learned
to understand how her father Silas cared for her ;
and made him look for images of that time in
the ties and charities that bound together the
families of his neighbours. The gold had asked
that he should sit weaving longer and longer,
deafened and blinded more and more to all
things except the monotony of his loom and the
repetition of his web ; but Eppie called him
away from his weaving, and made him think
all its pauses a holiday, re-awakening his senses
with her fresh life, even to the old winter-flies
that came crawling forth in the early spring
sunshine, and warming him into joy because
she had joy.

And when the sunshine grew strong and
lasting, so that the buttercups were thick in
the meadows, Silas might be seen in the sunny
midday, or in the late afternoon when the
shadows were lengthening under the hedge-
rows, strolling out with uncovered head to
carry Eppie beyond the Stone-pits to where
the flowers grew, till they reached some favourite
bank where he could sit down, while Eppie
toddled to pluck the flowers, and make remarks
to the winged things that murmured happily

S.M. 221 H

above the bright petals, calling ** Dad-dad's '*
attention continually by bringing him tla
flowers. Then she would turn her ear to somd
sudden bird-note, and Silas learned to please
her by making signs of hushed stillness, that
they might listen for the note to come again :
so that when it came, she set up her small back
and laughed with gurgling triumph. Sitting
on the banks in this way, Silas began to look
--for the once familiar herbs again ; and as the
leaves, with their unchanged outline and
markings, lay on his palm, there was a
sense of crowding remembrances from which'
he turned away timidly, taking refuge in,
Eppie's little world, that lay lightly on his
enfeebled spirit.

/ As the child's mind was growing into know-
ledge, his mind was growing into memory : as
j her life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a
TX)ld, narrow prison, was unfolding too, and
trembling gradually into full consciousness.

It was an influence which must gather force |o
with every new year : the tones that stirred
Silas's heart grew articulate, and called for
more distinct answers ; shapes and sounds |o
grew clearer for Eppie's eyes and ears, and
there was more that ''Dad-dad" was impera-
tively required to notice and account for. Also,
by the time Eppie was three years old, she Ice
developed a fine capacity for mischief, and for th

222

devising ingenious ways of being troublesome,
which found much exercise, not only for Silas's
patience, but for his watchfulness and penetration.
Sorely was poor Silas puzzled on such occasions
by the incompatible demands of love. Dolly
Winthrop told him that punishment was good
for Eppie, and that, as for rearing a child
ivithout making it tingle a little in soft and
safe places now and then, it was not to be done.

**To be sure, there's another thing you might
io, Master Marner," added Dolly meditatively:
''you might shut her up once i' the coal-hole.
That was what I did wi' Aaron ; for I was that
silly wi' the youngest lad, as I could never bear
:o smack him. Not as I could find i' my heart to
et him stay i' the coal-hole more than a minute,
3ut it was enough to colly him all over, so as he
nust be new washed and dressed, and it was as
>"ood as a rod to him — that was. But I put it
ipo' your conscience, Master Marner, as there's
)ne of 'em you must choose — ayther smacking
)r the coal-hole — else she'll get so masterful,
here'll be no holding her."

Silas was impressed with the melancholy truth

)f this last remark ; but his force of mind failed

Defore the only two penal methods open to him,

lot only because it was painful to him to hurt

ippie, but because he trembled at a moment's

•ontention with her, lest she should love him

he less for it. Let even an affectionate Goliath

223

get himself tied to a small tender thing, dreading
to hurt it by pulling, and dreading still more to
snap the cord, and which of the two, pray, will
be master? It was clear that Eppie, with her
short toddling steps, must lead father Silas a
pretty dance on any fine morning when
circumstances favoured mischief.

For example. He had wisely chosen a broad
strip of linen as a means of fastening her to
his loom when he was busy : it made a broad
belt round her waist, and was long enough to
allow of her reaching the truckle-bed and sitting
down on it, but not long enough for her to
attempt any dangerous climbing. One bright
summer's morning Silas had been more en-
grossed than usual in ^* setting up" a new piece
of work, an occasion on which his scissors
were in requisition. These scissors, owing to
an especial warning of Dolly's, had been kept
carefully out of Eppie's reach ; but the click
of them had had a peculiar attraction for her
ear, and, watching the results of that click, she
had derived the philosophic lesson that the
same cause would produce the same effect.

Silas had seated himself in his loom, and

the noise of weaving had begun ; but he had

left his scissors on a ledge which Eppie's arm

was long enough to reach ; and now, like a

small mouse, watching her opportunity, she stole

quietly from her corner, secured the scissors,

224

and toddled to the bed again, setting up her

back as a mode of concealing the fact. She

had a distinct intention as to the use of the

scissors ; and having cut the linen strip in a

agged but effectual manner, in two moments

she had run out at the open door where the

sunshine was inviting her, while poor Silas

Delieved her to be a better child than usual.

t was not until he happened to need his

icissors that the terrible fact burst upon him :

ippie had run out by herself — had perhaps

alien into the Stone-pit. Silas, shaken by the

vorst fear that could have befallen him, rushed

ut, calling ''Eppie!" and ran eagerly about

le uninclosed space, exploring the dry cavities

nto which she might have falleji, and then

;^azing with questioning dread at the smooth

ed surface of the water.

The cold drops stood on his brow. How long
ad she been out? There was one hope — that
he had crept through the stile and got into
le fields, where he habitually took her to stroll.
Jut the grass was high in the meadow, and
lere was no descrying her, if she were there,
xcept by a close search that would be a trespass
n Mr. Osgood's crop. Still, that misdemeanour
lust be committed ; and poor Silas, after
eering all round the hedgerows, traversed the
rass, beginning with perturbed vision to see

ppie behind every group of red sorrel, and

to see her moving always farther off as hv
approached. The meadow was searched in vain ;
and he got over the stile into the next field,
looking with dying hope towards a small pond
which was now reduced to its summer shallow-
ness, so as to leave a wide margin of good
adhesive mud. Here, however, sat Eppie,
discoursing cheerfully to her own small boot,
which she was using as a bucket to convey
the water into a deep hoof-mark, while her
little naked foot was planted comfortably on a
cushion of olive-green mud. A red-headed calf
was observing her with alarmed doubt through
the opposite hedge.

Here was clearly a case of aberration in a
christened child which demanded severe treat-
ment ; but Silas, overcome with convulsive joy
at finding his treasure again, could do nothing
but snatch her up, and cover her with half-
sobbing kisses. It was not until he had carried
her home, and had begun to think of the
necessary washing, that he recollected the need f
that he should punish Eppie, and "make her
remember." The idea that she might run away
again and come to harm gave him unusual
resolution, and for the first time he determined
to try the coal-hole — a small closet near the
hearth.

''Naughty, naughty Eppie!" he suddenlyf'
began, holding her on his knee, and pointing

226

to her muddy feet and clothes, ** naughty to
cut with the scissors and run away. Eppie
must go into the coal-hole for being naughty.
Daddy must put her in the coal-hole."

He half expected that this would be shock
enough, and that Eppie would begin to cry.
But instead of that, she began to shake herself
on his knee, as if the proposition opened a
pleasing novelty. Seeing that he must proceed
to extremities, he put her into the coal-hole,
ind held the door closed, with a trembling
sense that he was using a strong measure. For
I moment there w^as silence, but then came a
ittle cry, ''Opy, opy ! " and Silas let her out
igain, saying, *' Now Eppie 'uU never be
laughty again, else she must go in the coal-hole
—a black, naughty place."

The weaving must stand still a long while
his morning, for now Eppie must be washed,
nd have clean clothes on ; but it was to be
loped that this punishment would have a
isting effect, and save time in future — though,

Ierhaps, it would have been better if Eppie
ad cried more.
In half an hour she was clean again, and
ilas, having turned his back to see what he
Quid do with the linen band, threw it down
gain, with the reflection that Eppie would be
ood without fastening for the rest of the

lorning. He turned round again, and was

227

going to place her in her little chair near the
loom, when she peeped out at him with black
face and hands again, and said, '* Kppie in de
toal-hole ! "

This total failure of the coal-hole discipline
shook Silas's belief in the efficacy of punishment.
*' She'd take it all for fun," he observed to Dolly,
*' if I didn't hurt her, and that I can't do, Mrs.
Winthrop. If she makes me a bit o' trouble,
I can bear it. And she's got no tricks but what
she'll grow out of."

**Well, that's partly true, Master Marner,'*
said Dolly sympathetically; *'and if you can't
bring your mind to frighten her off touching
things, you must do what you can to keep 'em
out of her way. That's what I do wi' the pups
as the lads are allays a-rearing. They will worry
and gnaw — worry and gnaw they will, if it was
one's Sunday cap as hung anywhere so as they
could drag it. They know no difference, God
help 'em ; it's the pushing o' the teeth as sets
'em on, that's what it is."

So Eppie was reared without punishment, the
burden of her misdeeds being borne vicariously
by father Silas. The stone hut was made a soft
nest for her, lined with downy patience : and
also in the world that lay beyond the stone hut
she knew nothing of frowns and denials.

Notwithstanding the difficulty of carrying her

and his yarn or linen at the same time, Silas

228

took her with him in most of his journeys to
the farm-houses, unwilling to leave her behind
at Dolly Winthrop's, who was always ready
to take care of her ; and little curly-headed
Eppie, the weaver's child, became an object of
interest at several outlying homesteads, as well
as in the village. Hitherto he had been treated
very much as if he had been a useful gnome or
brownie — a queer and unaccountable creature,
who must necessarily be looked at with wonder-
ing curiosity and repulsion, and with whom
one would be glad to make all greetings and
bargains as brief as possible, but who must be
dealt with in a propitiatory way, and occasion-
Uy have a present of pork or garden-stuff to
carry home with him, seeing that without him
there was no getting the yarn woven. But now
Silas met with open smiling faces and cheerful
questioning, as a person whose satisfactions and
iifficulties could be understood. Everywhere
16 must sit a little and talk about the child, and
,vords of interest were always ready for him :
*Ah, Master Marner, you'll be lucky if she
akes the measles soon and easy I" — or, **Why,
here isn't many lone men 'ud ha' been wishing
0 take up with a little un like that : but I reckon
he weaving makes you handier than men as do
utdoor work — you're partly as handy as a
/Oman, for weaving comes next to spinning."

Elderly masters and mistresses, seated

229

observantly in larg^e kitchen arm-chairs, shook
their heads over the difficuhies attendant on
rearing cliildren, felt Eppie's round arms and
legs, and pronounced them remarkably i'lrm,
and told Silas that, if she turned out well
(which, however, there was no telling), it would
be a fine thing for him to have a steady lass to
do for him when he got helpless. Servant
maidens were fond of carrying her out to look
at the hens and chickens, or to see if any
cherries could be shaken down in the orchard ;
and the small boys and girls approached her
slowly, with cautious movement and steady
gaze, like little dogs face to face with one of
their own kind, till attraction had reached the
point at which the soft lips were put out for
a kiss. No child was afraid of approaching
Silas when Eppie was near him : there was no
repulsion around him now, either for young or
old ; for the little child had come to link him
once more with the whole world. There was love
between him and the child that blent them into one,
and there was love between the child and the world
— from men and women with parental looks and
tones, to the red lady-birds and the round pebbles.
Silas began now to think of Raveloe life
entirely in relation to Eppie : she must have
everything that was a good in Raveloe ; and he
listened docilely, that he might come to under-
stand better what this life was, from which, fof

230

fifteen years, he had stood aloof as from a
strange thing, wherewith he could have no
communion : as some man who has a precious
plant to which he would give a nurturing home
in a new soil, thinks of the rain, and the sun-
shine, and all influences, in relation to his
nursling, and asks industriously for all know-
ledge that will help him to satisfy the wants
of the searching roots, or to guard leaf and
bud from invading harm. The disposition to
hoard had been utterly crushed at the very
first by the loss of his long-stored gold : the
coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant
as stones brought to complete a house suddenly
buried by an earthquake ; the sense of bereave-
ment was too heavy upon him for the old thrill
of satisfaction to arise again at the touch of the
newly-earned coin. And now something had
come to replace his hoard which gave a growing
purpose to the earnings, drawing his hope and
joy continually onward beyond the money.

In old days there were angels who came and
took men by the hand and led them away from
the city of destruction. We see no white-winged
angels now. But yet men are led away from
threatening destruction : a hand is put into
theirs, which leads them forth gently towards
a calm and bright land, so that they look no
pore backward ; and the hand may be a little

child's.

231

CHAPTER XV

There was one person, as you will believe,

who watched with keener though more hidden

interest than any other, the prosperous growth

of Eppie under the weaver's care. He dared

not do anything that would imply a stronger

interest in a poor man's adopted child than

could be expected from the kindliness of the

young Squire, when a chance meeting suggested

a little present to a simple old fellow whom j

others noticed with good-will ; but he told him- j

self that the time would come when he might j

do something towards farthering the welfare of j

his daughter without incurring suspicion. Was

he very uneasy in the meantime at his inability i

to give his daughter her birthright? I cannot j

say that he was. The child was being taken care J

of, and would very likely be happy, as people in [

humble stations often were — happier, perhaps, <

than those who are brought up in luxury.

That famous ring that pricked its owner when

he forgot duty and followed desire — I wonder

if it pricked very hard when he set out on the i

chase, or whether it pricked but lightly then,

and only pierced to the quick when the chase

had long been ended, and hope, folding her

wings, looked backward and became regret?

232

Godfrey Cass's cheek and eye were brighter
than ever now. He was so undivided in his
aims, that he seemed like a man of firmness.
No Dunsey had come back : people had made
up their minds that he was gone for a soldier,
or gone '^out of the country," and no one cared
to be specific in their inquiries on a subject
delicate to a respectable family. Godfrey had
ceased to see the shadow of Dunsey across
his path ; and the path now lay straight forward
to the accomplishment of his best, longest-
cherished wishes. Everybody said Mr. Godfrey
had taken the right turn; and it was pretty
clear what would be the end of things, for
there were not many days in the week that he
was not seen riding to the Warrens. Godfrey
himself, when he was asked jocosely if the
day had been fixed, smiled with the pleasant
consciousness of a lover who could say *^ Yes,'*
if he liked. He felt a reformed man, delivered
from temptation ; and the vision of his future
life seemed to him as a promised land for which
he had no cause to fight. He saw himself with
all his happiness centred on his own hearth,
while Nancy would smile on him as he played
with the children.

And that other child, not on the hearth —
he would not forget it ; he would see that it
was well provided for. That was a father's
duty.

233

PART SECOND

CHAPTER XVI

It was a brii^ht autumn Sunday, sixteen years
after Silas Manner had found his new treasure
on the hearth. The bells of the old Raveloe
church were ringing- the cheerful peal which told
that the morning service was ended ; and out
of the arched doorway in the tower came slowly,
retarded by friendly greetings and questions,
the richer parishioners who had chosen this
bright Sunday morning as eligible for church-
going. It was the rural fashion of that time
for the more important members of the congre-
gation to depart first, while their humbler
neighbours waited and looked on, stroking
their bent heads or dropping their curtsies to
any large ratepayer who turned to notice them.

Foremost among these advancing groups of
well-clad people, there are some whom we shall
recognise, in spite of Time, who has laid his
hand on them all. The tall blonde man of
forty is not much changed in feature from the
Godfrey Cass of six-and-twenty : he is only
fuller in flesh, and has only lost the indefinable
look of youth — a loss which is marked even

when the eye is undulled and the wrinkles

234

are not yet come. Perhaps the pretty woman,
not much younger than he, who is leaning
on his arm, is more changed than her husband :
the lovely bloom that used to be always on her
cheek now comes but fitfully, with the fresh
morning air or with some strong surprise ;
yet to all who love human faces best for what
they tell of human experience, Nancy's beauty
has a heightened interest. Often the soul is
ripened into fuller goodness while age has spread
an ugly film, so that mere glances can never
divine the preciousness of the fruit. But the
years have not been so cruel to Nancy. The
firm yet placid mouth, the clear veracious glance
of the brown eyes^ speak now of a nature that
has been tested and has kept its highest qualities ;
and even the costume, with its dainty neatness and
purity, has more significance now the coquetries
of youth can have nothing to do with it.

Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass (any higher title
has died away from Raveloe lips since the old
Squire was gathered to his fathers and his
inheritance was divided) have turned round to
look for the tall aged man and the plainly
dressed woman who are a little behind — Nancy
having observed that they must wait for *' father
and Priscilla" — and now they all turn into a
narrower path leading across the churchyard
to a small gate opposite the Red House. We
will not follow them now ; for may there not

235

be some others in this departing congregation
whom we should like to see again — some of
those who are not likely to be handsomely clad,
and whom we may not recognise so easily as
the master and mistress of the Red House?

But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marner.
His large brown eyes seem to have gathered
a longer vision, as is the way with eyes that
have been short-sighted in early life, and they
have a less vague, a more answering gaze ; but
in everything else one sees signs of a frame i
much enfeebled by the lapse of the sixteen 1
years. The weaver's bent shoulders and white
hair give him almost the look of advanced age, \
though he is not more than five-and-fifty ; butj
there is the freshest blossom of youth close by
his side — a blonde dimpled girl of eighteen,
who has vainly tried to chastise her curly
auburn hair into smoothness under her brown
bonnet: the hair ripples as obstinately as a
brooklet under the March breeze, and the little
ringlets burst away from the restraining comb
behind and show themselves below the bonnet-
crown. Eppie cannot help being rather vexed
about her hair, for there is no other girl in
Raveloe who has hair at all like it, and she
thinks hair ought to be smooth. She does
not like to be blameworthy even in small
things : you see how neatly her Prayer-book

is folded in her spotted handkerchief.

236

That good-looking young fellow, In a new
fustian suit, who walks behind her, is not
quite sure upon the question of hair in the
abstract, when Eppie puts it to him, and
thinks that perhaps straight hair is the best
in general, but he doesn't want Eppie's hair
to be different. She surely divines that there is
someone behind her who is thinking about her
very particularly, and mustering courage to come
to her side as soon as they are out in the lane,
else why should she look rather shy, and take
care not to turn away her head from her father
Silas, to whom she keeps murmuring little
sentences as to who was at church, and who
was not at church, and how pretty the red
mountain-ash is over the Rectory wall ?

** I wish we had a little garden-, father, with
double daisies in, like Mrs. Winthrop's," said
Eppie, when they were out in the lane; '^only
they say it 'ud take a deal of digging and
bringing fresh soil — and you couldn't do that,
could you, father? Anyhow, I shouldn't like
you do it, for it 'ud be too hard work for you."

** Yes, I could do it, child, if you want a bit
0* garden : these long evenings, I could work
at taking in a little bit o' the waste, just enough
for a root or two of flowers for you ; and again,
i' the morning, I could have a turn with the spade
before I sat down to the loom. Why didn't you
tell me before as you wanted a bit o' garden?"

237

*' / can dii^ it for you, Master Marner," said
the young man in fustian, who was now by
Eppie's side, entering into the conversation
without the trouble of formalities. '* It'll be
play to me after I've done my day's work, or
any odd bits o' time when the work's slack.
And I'll bring you some soil from Mr. Cass's
garden — he'll let me, and willing."

"Eh, Aaron, my lad, are you there?" said
Silas ; ** I wasn't aware of you ; for when
Eppie's talking o' things, I see nothing but
what she's a-saying. Well, if you could help
me with the digging, we might get her a bit
■ o' garden all the sooner."

''Then, if you think well and good," said
Aaron, '' I'll come to the Stone-pits this after-
noon, and we'll settle what land's to be taken
in, and I'll get up an hour earlier i' the morning,
and begin on it."

'* But not if you don't promise me not to
work at the hard digging, father," said Eppie.
''For I shouldn't ha' said anything about it,"
she added half-bashfuUy, half-roguishly, "only
Mrs. Winthrop said as Aaron 'ud be so good,
and "

"And you might ha' known it without mother

telling you," said Aaron. "And Master Marner

knows, too, I hope, as I'm able and willing to do

a turn o' work for him, and he won't do me the

unkindness to anyways take it out o' my hands."

238

"There, now, father, you won't work in it
till it's all easy," said Eppie, "and you and
me can mark out the beds, and make holes
and plant the roots. It'll be a deal livelier at
the Stone-pits when we've got some flowers,
for I always think the flowers can see us and
know what we're talking about. And I'll have
a bit o' rosemary, and bergamot, and thyme,
because they're so sweet-smelling ; but there's
no lavender only in the gentlefolks' gardens,
I think.'*

"Tliat's no reason why you shouldn't have
some," said Aaron, "for I can bring you slips
of anything ; I'm forced to cut no end of 'em
when I'm gardening, and throw 'em away
mostly. There's a big bed o' lavender at the
Red House : the missis is very fond of it."

"Well," said Silas gravely, "so as you don't
make free for us, or ask for anything as is
worth much at'the Red House: for Mr. Cass's
been so good to us, and built us up the new
end o' the cottage, and given us beds and things,
as I couldn't abide to be imposin' for garden-stuff
or anything else."

" No, no, there's no imposin'," said Aaron ;
** there's never a garden in all the parish but
what there's endless waste in it for want o'
somebody as could use everything up. It's
what I think to myself sometimes, as there
need nobody run short o' victuals if the land

239

was made the most on, and there was never a
morsel but what could fmd its way to a mouth.
It sets one thinkin,£T o' that — gardening does.
But I must go back now, else mother 'ull be
in trouble as 1 aren't there."

** Bring her with you this afternoon, Aaron,"
said Eppie ; '* I shouldn't like to fix about the
garden, and her not know everything from the
first — should yoti, father?"

** Ay, bring her if you can, Aaron," said Silas ;
** she's sure to have a word to say as'U help us
to set things on their right end."

Aaron turned back up the village, while vSilas
and Eppie went on up the lonely sheltered lane.

** Oh, daddy ! " she began, when they were in
privacy, clasping and squeezing Silas's arm, and
skipping round to give him an energetic kiss.
*'My little old daddy! I'm so glad. I don't
think I shall want anything else when we've got
a little garden ; and I knew Aaron would dig it
for us," she went on with roguish triumph, *' I
knew that very well."

** You're a deep little puss, you are," said
Silas, with the mild passive happiness of love-
crowned age in his face; *^but you'll make
yourself fine and beholden to Aaron."

**Oh no, I shan't," said Eppie, laughing and
frisking; '* he likes it."

** Come, come, let me carry your Prayer-book,

else you'll be dropping it, jumping i' that way."

240

Eppie was now aware that her behaviour
was under observation, but it was only the
observation of a friendly donkey, browsing
with a log fastened to his foot — a meek
donkey, not scornfully critical of human trivi-
alities, but thankful to share in them, if possible,
by getting his nose scratched ; and Eppie did
not fail to gratify him with her usual notice,
though it was attended with the inconvenience
of his following them, painfully, up to the ver}^
door of their home.

But the sound of a sharp bark inside, as Eppie
put the key in the door, modified the donkey's
views, and he limped away again without
bidding. The sharp bark was the sign of an
excited welcome that was awaiting them from a
knowing brown terrier, who, after dancing at
their legs in a hysterical manner, rushed with a
worrying noise at a tortoise-shell kitten under
the loom, and then rushed back with a sharp
bark again, as much as to say, *'I have done
my duty by this feeble creature, you perceive ; '*
while the lady-mother of the kitten sat sunning
her white bosom in the window, and looked
round with a sleepy air of expecting caresses,
though she was not going to take any trouble
for them.

The presence of this happy animal life was not

the only change which had come over the interior

of the stone cottage. There was no bed now in

241

the living-room, and the small space was well
filled with decent furniture, all bright and clean
enough to satisfy Dolly Winthrop's eye. The
oaken table and three-cornered oaken chair were
hardly what was likely to be seen in so poor a
cottage : they had come, with the beds and other
things, from the Red House ; for Mr. Godfrey
Cass, as every one said in the village, did very
kindly by the weaver ; and it was nothing but
right a man should be looked on and helped
by those who could afford it, when he had
brought up an orphan child, and been father
and mother to her — and had lost his money too,
so as he had nothing but what he worked for
week by week, and when the weaving was going
down too — for there was less and less flax spun —
and Master Marner was none so young. Nobody
was jealous of the weaver, for he was regarded
as an exceptional person, whose claims on
neighbourly help were not to be matched in
Raveloe. Any superstition that remained con-
cerning him had taken an entirely new colour;
and Mr. Macey, now a very feeble old man of
fourscore and six, never seen except in his
chimney-corner or sitting in the sunshine at his
door-sill, was of opinion that when a man had
done what Silas had done by an orphan child,
it was a sign that his money would come to ■]
light again, or leastwise that the robber would ■{
be made to answer for it — for, as Mr, Macey

242

observed of himself, his faculties were as strong
as ever.

Silas sat down now and watched Eppie with
a satisfied gaze as she spread the clean cloth,
and set on it the potato-pie, warmed up slowly
in a safe vSunday fashion, by being put into a
dry pot over a slowly-dying fire, as the best
substitute for an oven. For Silas would not
consent to have a grate and oven added to his
conveniences : he loved the old brick hearth as
he had loved his brown pot — and was it not
there when he had found Eppie? The gods of
the hearth exist for us still ; and let all new
faith be tolerant of that fetishism, lest it bruise
its own roots.

Silas ate his dinner more silently than usual,
soon laying down his knife and fork, and
watching half-abstractedly Eppie's play with
Snap and the cat, by which her own dining was
made rather a lengthy business. Yet it was a
sight that might well arrest wandering thoughts :
Eppie, with the rippling radiance of her hair and
the whiteness of her rounded chin and throat
set off by the dark blue cotton gown, laughing
merrily as the kitten held on with her four claws
to one shoulder, like a design for a jug-handle,
while Snap on the right hand and Puss on the
other put up their paws towards a morsel which
she held out of the reach of both — Snap occasion-
ally desisting in order to remonstrate with the

243

cat by a cogent worrying growl on the greediness
and futility of her conduct; till Fppie relented,
caressed them both, and divided the morsel
between them.

But at last Eppie, glancing at the clock,
checked the play, and said, *'Oh daddy, you're
wanting to go into the sunshine to smoke your
pipe. But I must clear away first, so as the
house may be tidy when godmother comes. I'll
make haste — I won't be long."

Silas had taken to smoking a pipe daily during
the last two years, having been strongly urged
to it by the sages of Raveloe, as a practice ** good
for the fits ; " and this advice was sanctioned by
Dr. Kimble, on the ground that it was as well
to try what could do no harm — a principle which
was made to answer for a great deal of work in
that gentleman's medical practice. Silas did not
highly enjoy smoking, and often wondered how
his neighbours could be so fond of it ; but a
humble sort of acquiescence in what was held to
be good had become a strong habit of that new
self which had been developed in him since he
had found Eppie on his hearth ; it had been the
only clue his bewildered mind could hold by in
cherishing this young life that had oeen sent to
him out of the darkness into which his gold
had departed. By seeking what was needful
for Eppie, by sharing the effect that every-
thing produced on her, he had himself come to

244

appropriate the .forms of custom and belief which
were the mould of Raveloe life; and as, with re-
awakening sensibilities, memory also re-awakened,
he had begun to ponder over the elements of his
old faith, and blend them with his new impressions,
till he recovered a consciousness of unity between
his past and present. The sense of presiding
goodness and the human trust which come with
all pure peace and joy, had given him a dim
impression that there had been some error, some
mistake, which had thrown that dark shadow
over the days of his best years ; and as it grew
more and more easy to him to open his mind
to Dolly Winthrop, he gradually communicated
to her all he could describe of his early life.

The communication was necessarily a slow
and difficult process, for Silas's meagre power
of explanation was not aided by any readiness
of interpretation in Dolly, whose narrow outward
experience gave her no key to strange customs,
and made every novelty a source of wonder that
arrested them at every step of the narrative. It
was only by fragments, and at intervals which
left Dolly time to revolve what she had heard
till it acquired some familiarity for her, that
Silas at last arrived at the climax of the sad
story — the drawing of lots, and its false testi-
mony concerning him ; and this had to be
repeated in several interviews, under new
questions on her part as to the nature of this

245

plan for detecting the guilty and clearing the
innocent.

'* And yourn's the same Bible, you're sure of
that, Master Manner — the Bible as you brought
wi' you from that country — it's the same as what
they've got at church, and what Eppie's a-learning
to read in ? "

"Yes," said Silas, ''every bit the same; and
there's drawing o' lots in the Bible, mind you,"
he added in a lower tone.

'* Oh dear, dear," said Dolly in a grieved voice,
as if she were hearing an unfavourable report
of a sick man's case. She was silent for some
minutes ; at last she said —

"There's wise folks, happen, as know how
it all is ; the parson knows, I'll be bound, but
it takes big words to tell them things, and such
as poor folks can't make much out on. I can
never rightly know the meaning o' what I hear
at church, only a bit here and there, but I know
it's good words — I do. But what lies upo' your
mind — it's this. Master Marner : as, if Them
above had done the right thing by you. They'd
never ha' let you be turned out for a wicked thief
when you was innicent."

"Ah!" said Silas, who had now come to
understand Dolly's phraseology, "that was w^hat
lell on me like as if it had been red-hot iron ;
because, you see, there was nobody as cared
for me or clave to me above nor below. And

2^6

him as I'd gone out and in wi' for ten year and
more, since when we was lads and went halves
— mine own famil'ar friend, in whom I trusted,
had lifted up his heel again' me, and worked to

ruin me."

'*Eh, but he was a bad un — I can't think as
there's another such," said Dolly. ^* But I'm
overcome, Master Marner ; I'm like as if I'd
waked and didn't know whether it was night
or morning. I feel somehow as sure as I do
when I've laid something up though I can justly
put my hand on it, as there was a rights in what
happened to you, if one could but make it out ;
and you'd no call to lose heart as you did. But
we'll talk on it again ; for sometimes things come
into my head when I'm leeching or poulticing,
or such, as I could never think on when I was
sitting still."

Dolly was too useful a woman not to have
many opportunities of illumination of the kind
she alluded to, and she was not long before she
recurred to the subject.

** Master Marner," she said, one day that she

came to bring home Eppie's washing, *' I've

been sore puzzled for a good bit wi' that trouble

o' yourn and the drawing o' lots ; and it got

twisted back'ards and for'ards, as I didn't know

which end to lay hold on. But it come to me

all clear like, that night when I was sitting up

wi' poor Bessy Fawkes, as is dead and left her

247

children behind, God help 'em — it come to me
as clear as daylight; but whether I've got hold
on it now, or can anyways bring it to my
tongue's end, that I don't know. For I've often
a deal inside me as '11 niver come out ; and for
what you talk o' your folks in your old country
niver saying prayers by heart nor saying 'em
out of a book, they must be wonderful diver;
for if I didn't know ' Our Father,' and little bits
o' good w^ords as I can carry out o' church wi'
me, I might down o' my knees every night, but
nothing could I say."

" But you can mostly say something as I can
make sense on, Mrs. Winthrop," said Silas.

'^Well, then, Master Marner, it come to me
snmmat like this : I can make nothing o' the
drawing o' lots and the answer coming wrong ;
it 'ud mayhap take the parson to tell that, and
he could only tell us i' big words. But what
come to me as clear as the daylight, it was when
I was troubling over poor Bessy Fawkes, and
it allays comes into my head when I'm sorry
for folks, and feel as I can't do a power to help
'em, not if I was to get up i' the middle o' the
night — it comes into my head as Them above
has got a deal tenderer heart nor what I've got
— for I can't be anyways better nor Them as
made me ; and if anything looks hard to me,
it's because there's things I don't know on ; and
for the matter o' that, there may be plenty of

248

■

things I don't know on, for it's little as I know

— that it is. And so, while I was thinking o'

that, you come into my mind. Master Marner,

and it all come pouring in — if / felt i' my

inside what was the right and just thing by

you, and them as prayed and drawed the lots,

all but that wicked un, if they'6. ha' done the

right thing by you if they could, isn't there

Them as was at the making on us, and knows

better and has a better will ? And that's all

as ever I can be sure on, and everything else

is a big puzzle to me when I think on it. For

there was the fever come and took off them as

were fuU-growed, and left the helpless children ;

and there's the breaking o' limbs ; and them

as 'ud do right and be sober have to suffer by

them as are contrairy — eh, there's trouble i'

this world, and there's things as we can niver

make out the rights on. And all as we've got

to do is to trusten. Master Marner — to do the

right thing as fur as we know, and to trusten.

For if us as knows so little can see a bit o' good

and rights, we may be sure as there's a good

and a rights bigger nor what we can know — I

leel it i' my own inside as it must be so. And

if you could but ha' gone on trustening. Master

Marner, you wouldn't ha' run away from your

fellow-creaturs and been so lone."

**Ah,but that'ud ha'been hard, "said Silas, in an

undertone; "it 'ud ha' been hard to trusten then."

249

** And so it would," said Dolly, almost with
compunction; **them things are easier said nor
done ; and I'm partly ashamed o' talking."

**Nay, nay," said Silas, ** you're i' the right,
Mrs. Winthrop — you're i' the right. There's
good i' this world — I've a feeling o' that now;
and it makes a man feel as there's a good more
nor he can see, i' spite o' the trouble and the
wickedness. That drawing o' the lots is dark ;
but the child was sent to me ; there's dealings
with us — there's dealings."

This dialogue took place in Eppie*s earlier

years, when Silas had to part with her for two

hours every day, that she might learn to read

at the dame school, after he had vainly tried

himself to guide her in that first step to learning.

Now that she was grow^n up, Silas had often

been led, in those moments of quiet outpouring

which come to people who live together in perfect

love, to talk with her too of the past, and how

and w^hy he had lived a lonely man until she

had been sent to him. For it would have been

impossible for him to hide from Eppie that she

was not his own child : even if the most delicate

reticence on the point could have been expected

from Raveloe gossips in her presence, her own

questions about her mother could not have been

parried, as she grew up, without that complete

shrouding of the past which would have made a

painful barrier between their minds. So Eppie.

250

lad long known how her mother had died on the
jnowy ground, and how she herself had been
bund on the hearth by father Silas, who had
aken her golden curls for his lost guineas
Drought back to him. The tender and peculiar
ove with which Silas had reared her in almost
nseparable companionship with himself, aided
3y the seclusion of their dwelling, had preserved
ler from the lowering influences of the village
alk and habits, and had kept her mind in that
reshness which is sometimes falsely supposed to
De an invariable attribute of rusticity.

Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can

xalt the relations of the least-instructed human

Deings ; and this breath of poetry had surrounded

ppie from the time when she had followed the

Dright gleam that beckoned her to Silas's hearth ;

JO that it is not surprising if, in other things

Desides her delicate prettiness, she was not quite

I common village maiden, but had a touch of

efinement and fervour which came from no other

caching than that of tenderly-nurtured, unvitiated

"eeling. She was too childish and simple for her

magination to rove into questions about her

unknown father ; for a long while it did not even

Dccur to her that she must have had a father ;

ind the first time that the idea of her mother

laving had a husband presented itself to her,

was when Silas showed her the wedding-ring

which had been taken from the wasted finger,

251

and had been carefully preserved by him in a
little lacquered box shaped like a shoe.

He delivered this box into Eppie's charge
when she had grown up, and she often opened
it to look at the ring : but still she thought
hardly at all about the father of whom it was
the symbol. Had she not a father very close
to her, who loved her better than any real fathers
in the village seemed to love their daughters?
On the contrary, who her mother was, and
how she came to die in that forlornness, were
questions that often pressed on Eppie's mind.
Her knowledge of Mrs. Winthrop, who was
her nearest friend next to Silas, made her feel
that a mother must be very precious ; and she
had again and again asked Silas to tell her how
her mother looked, whom she was like, and
how he had found her against the furze bush,
led towards it by the little footsteps and the
outstretched arms. The furze bush was there
still ; and this afternoon, when Eppie came out
with Silas into the sunshine, it was the first
object that arrested her eyes and thoughts.

*' Father," she said, in a tone of gentle

gravity, which sometimes came like a sadder,

slower cadence across her playfulness, ''we

shall take the furze bush into the garden ; it'll

come into the corner, and just against it I'll put

snowdrops and crocuses, 'cause Aaron says they

won't die out, but '11 always get more and more.**

252

*^Ah, child," said Silas, always ready to
talk when he had his pipe in his hand,
apparently enjoying the pauses more than
the puffs, **it wouldn't do to leave out the
furze bush ; and there's nothing prettier to
my thinking, when it's yallow with flowers.
But it's just come into my head what we're
to do for a fence — mayhap Aaron can help us
to a thought ; but a fence we must have, else
the donkeys and things ull come and trample
everything down. And fencing's hard to be
got at, by what I can make out."

**Oh, I'll tell you, daddy," said Eppie,
clasping her hands suddenly, after a minute's
thought. *' There's lots o' loose stones about,
some of 'em not big, and we might lay 'em
atop of one another, and make a wall. You
and me could carry the smallest, and Aaron
'ud carry the rest — I know he would."

"Eh, my precious un," said Silas, "there
isn't enough stones to go all round ; and as
for you carrying, why, wi' your little arms you
couldn't carry a stone no bigger than a turnip.
You're dillicate-made, my dear," he added, with
a tender intonation, "that's what Mrs. Winthrop
says."

"Oh, I'm stronger than you think, daddy,"

said Eppie; "and if there wasn't stones enough

to go all round, why, they'll go part o' the way,

and then it'll be easier to get sticks and things
S.M. 253 I

for the rest. vSec here, round ihe big pit, what
a many stones ! "

She skipped forward to the pit, meaning to
lift one of the stones and exhibit her strengili,
but she started back in surprise.

"Oh, father, just come and look here," siic
exclaimed, " come and see how the water's
gone down since yesterday. Why, yesterday
the pit was ever so full ! "

" Well, to be sure," said Silas, coming to
her side. " Why, that's the draining they've
begun on, since harvest, i' Mr. Osgood's
fields, I reckon. The foreman said to me the
other day, when I passed by 'em, * Master
Marner,' he said, ' I shouldn't wonder if we
lay your bit o' waste as dry as a bone.*
It was Mr. Godfrey Cass, he said, had gone
into the draining : he'd been taking these
fields o' Mr. Osgood."

" How odd it'll seem to have the old pit
dried up ! " said Eppie, turning away, and
stooping to lift rather a large stone. "See,
daddy, I can carry this quite well," she said,
going along with much energy for a few steps,
but presently letting it fall.

"Ah, you're fine and strong, aren't you?"
said Silas, while Eppie shook her aching arms
and laughed. " Come, come, let us go and
sit down on the bank against the stile there,
and have no more lifting. You might hurt

254

yourself, child. You'd need have somebody
to work for you — and my arm isn't over

strong".

Silas uttered the last sentence slowly, as if
it implied more than met the ear ; and Eppie,
when they sat down on the bank, nestled
close to his side, and, taking hold caressingly
of the arm that was not over strong, held
it on her lap, while Silas puffed again dutifully
at the pipe which occupied his other arm.
An ash in the hedgerow behind made a fretted
screen from the sun, and threw happy playful
shadows all about them.

"Father," said Eppie very gently, after they
had been sitting in silence a little while, 'Mf
I was to be married, ought I to be married
with my mother's ring?"

Silas gave an almost imperceptible start,
though the question fell in with the under-
current of thought in his own mind, and then
said, in a subdued tone, *'Why, Eppie, have
you been a-thinking on it?'*

"Only this last week, father," said Eppie
ingenuously, "since Aaron talked to me about

It."

And what did he say?" said Silas, still
in the same subdued way, as if he were anxious
lest he should fall into the slightest tone that
was not for Eppie's good.

" He said he should like to be married,

255

because he was a-going in four-and-twenty,
and had got a deal of gardening work, now
Mr. Mott's given up ; and he goes twice a
week regular to Mr. Cass's, and once to Mr.
Osgood's, and they're going to take him on
at the Rectory."

*' And who is it as he's wanting to marry?'*
said Silas, with rather a sad smile.

" Why, me, to be sure, daddy," said Eppie,
with dimpling laughter, kissing her father's cheek ;
*' as if he'd want to marry anybody else ! "

*'And you mean to have him, do you?'*
said Silas.

**Yes, some time," said Eppie, '*I don't know
when. Everybody's married some time, Aaron
says. But I told him that wasn't true : for, I
said, look at father — he's never been married.'*

*' No, child," said Silas, '*your father was a
lone man till you w^as sent to him."

**But you'll never be lone again, father," said
Eppie tenderly. *'That was what Aaron said —
' I could never think o' taking you away from
Master Marner, Eppie.' And I said, ' It 'ud be
no use if you did, Aaron.' And he wants us all
to live together, so as you needn't work a bit,
father, only what's for your own pleasure ; and
he'd be as good as a son to you — that was what
he said."

** And should you like that, Eppie?" said Silas,

looking- at her.

256

** I shouldn't mind it, father," said Eppie quite
simply. ''And I should like things to be so as
you needn't work much. But if it wasn't foi
that, I'd sooner things didn't change. I'm very
happy : I like Aaron to be fond of me, and come
and see us often, and behave pretty to you — he
always does behave pretty to you, doesn't he,
father?"

''Yes, child, nobody could behave better," said
Silas emphatically. " He's his mother's lad."

"But I don't want any change," said Eppie.
*' I should like to go on a long, long while, just
as we are. Only Aaron does want a change ;
and he made me cry a bit — only a bit — because
he said I didn't care for him, for if I cared for him
I should want us to be married, as -he did."

" Eh, my blessed child," said Silas, laying
down his pipe as if it were useless to pretend
to smoke any longer, "you're o'er young to be
married. We'll ask Mrs. Winthrop — we'll ask
Aaron's mother what she thinks : if there's a
right thing to do, she'll come at it. But there's
this to be thought on, Eppie : things -mill change,
whether we like it or no ; things won't go on for
a long while just as they are and no difference.
I shall get older and helplesser, and be a burden

IDn you, belike, if I don't go away from you
altogether. Not as I mean you'd think me a
burden — I know you wouldn't — but it 'ud be hard
apon you ; and when I look for'ard to that, I like
257

to til ink as you'd have somebody else besides
nie — somebody younf^ and strong, as'll outlast
vour own life, and take care on you to the end.'*
Silas paused, and, resting- his wrists on his knees,
lifted his hands up and down meditatively as he
looked on the ground.

*'Then, would you like me to be married,
father?" said Eppie, with a little trembling in her
voice.

" I'll not be the man to say no, Eppie," said
Silas emphatically; ''but we'll ask your god-
mother. She'll wish the right thing by you and
her son too."

"There they come, then," said Eppie. ** Let
us go and meet 'em. Oh, the pipe ! won't you
have it lit again, father?" said Eppie, lifting that
medicinal appliance from the ground.

"Nay, child," said Silas, "I've done enough
for to-day. I think, mayhap, a little of it does
me more good than so much at once."

258

CHAPTER XVII

While Silas and Eppie were seated on the bank
discoursing in the fleckered shade of the ash-tree,
Miss Priscilla Lammeter was resisting her sister's
arguments, that it would be better to take tea at
the Red House, and let her father have a long
nap, than drive home to the Warrens so soon
after dinner. The family party (of four only)
were seated round the table in the dark wains-
coted parlour, with the Sunday dessert before
them, of fresh filberts, apples, and pears, duly
ornamented with leaves by Nancy's own hand
before the bells had rung for church.

A great change has come over the dark wains-
coted parlour since we saw it in Godfrey's bachelor
days, and under the wifeless reign of the old
Squire. Now all is polish, on which no yester-
day's dust is ever allowed to rest, from the yard's
width of oaken boards round the carpet, to the
old Squire's gun and whips and walking-sticks,
ranged on the stag's antlers above the mantel-
piece. All other signs of sporting and outdoor
[occupation Nancy has removed to another room ;
mt she has brought into the Red House the
[babit of filial reverence, and preserves sacredly in

place of honour these relics of her husband's

leoarted father. The tankards are on the

259

side-table still, but the bossed silver is undimmcd
by handling', and there are no dregs to send
forth unpleasant suggestions : the only prevailing
scent is of the lavender and rose-leaves that fill
the vases of Derbyshire spar. All is purity
and order in this once dreary room, for, fifteen
years ago, it was entered by a new presiding"
spirit.

'' Now, father," said Nancy, "is there any call
for you to go home to tea? Mayn't you just as
well stay with us? — such a beautiful evening as
it's likely to be."

The old gentleman had been talking with
Godfrey about the increasing poor-rate and the
ruinous times, and had not heard the dialogue
between his daughters.

'* My dear, you must ask Priscilla," he said, in
the once firm voice, now become rather broken.
*' She manages me and the farm too."

^*And reason good as I should manage you,
father," said Priscilla, *' else you'd be giving your-
self your death with rheumatism. And as for the
farm, if anything turns out wrong, as it can't but
do in these times, there's nothing kills a man so
soon as having nobody to find fault with but him-
self. It's a deal the best way o' being master, to
let somebody else do the ordering, and keep the
blaming in your own hands. It 'ud save many a
man a stroke, / believe."

*'Well, well, my dear," said her father, with

260

a quiet laugh, ** I didn't say you don't manage
for everybody's good."

**Then manage so as you may stay tea,
Priscilla," said Nancy, putting her hand on
her sister's arm affectionately. ^'Come now;
and we'll go round the garden while father
has his nap."

^^ My dear child, he'll have a beautiful nap in
the gig, for I shall drive. And as for staying
tea, I can't hear of it ; for there's this dairymaid,
now she knows she's to be married, turned
Michaelmas, she'd as lief pour the new milk
into the pig-trough as into the pans. That's
the way with 'em all : it's as if they thought
the world 'ud be new-made because they're to
be married. So come and let me put my bonnet
-cm, and there'll be time for us to walk round
the garden while the horse is being put in."

When the sisters were treading the neatly-
swept garden -walks, between the bright turf
that contrasted pleasantly with the dark cones
and arches and wall-like hedges of yew, Priscilla
said —

** I'm as glad as anything at your husband's

making that exchange o' land with cousin

Osgood, and beginning the dairying. It's a

thousand pities you didn't do it before ; for

it'll give you something to fill your mind.

There's nothing like a dairy if folks want a

bit o' worrit to make the days pass. For as

261

for rubbing furniture, when you can once see
vour face in a table there's notliing else to
look for ; but there's always something fresh
with the dairy ; for even in the depths o' winter
there's some pleasure in conquering the butter,
and making it come whether or no. My dear,"
added Priscilla, pressing her sister's hand
affectionately as they walked side by side,
''you'll never be low when you've got a dairy."

"Ah, Priscilla," said Nancy, returning the
pressure with a grateful glance of her clear
eyes, ''but it won't make up to Godfrey: a
dairy's not so much to a man. And it's only
what he cares for that ever makes me low.
I'm contented with the blessings we have, if
he could be contented."

*'It drives me past patience,'* said Priscilla

impetuously, "that way o' the men — always

wanting and wanting, and never easy with

what they've got : they can't sit comfortable in

their chairs when they've neither ache nor pain,

but ; either they must stick a pipe in their

mouths, to make 'em better than well, or else

they must be swallowing something strong,

though they're forced to make haste before the

next meal comes in. But joyful be it spoken,

our father was never that sort o' man. And

if it had pleased God to make you ugly, like

me, so as the men wouldn't ha' run after you,

we might have kept to our own family, and

262

had nothing to do with folks as have got uneasy
blood in their veins."

** Oh, don't say so, Priscilla," said Nancy,
repenting that she had called forth this outburst ;
*' nobody has any occasion to find fault with
Godfrey. It's natural he should be disappointed
at not having any children : every man likes
to have somebody to work for and lay by for,
and he always counted so on making a fuss
with 'em when they were little. There's many
another man 'ud hanker more than he does.
He's the best of husbands."

" Oh, I know," said Priscilla, smiling sarcasti-
cally, *' I know the way o' wives ; they set one
on to abuse their husbands, and then they turn
round on one and praise 'em as if they wanted
to sell 'em. But father'll be \yaiting for me ;
we must turn now."

The large gig with the steady old gray was
at the front door, and Mr. Lammeter was already
on the stone steps, passing the time in recalling
to Godfrey what very fine points Speckle had
when his master used to ride him.

"I always would have a good horse, you
know," said the old gentleman, not liking that
spirited time to be quite effaced from the memory
of his juniors.

*' Mind you bring Nancy to the Warrens

before the week's out, Mr. Cass," was Priscilla's

parting Injunction, as she took the reins, and

263

shook them gently, by way of friendly incitement
to Speckle.

" I shall just take a turn to the fields against
the Stone-pits, Nancy, and look at the draining,"
said Godfrey.

*' You'll be in again by tea-time, dear?"
" Oh, yes, I shall be back in an hour."
It was Godfrey's custom on a Sunday after-
noon to do a little contemplative farming in
a leisurely walk. Nancy seldom accompanied
him ; for the women of her generation — unless,
like Priscilla, they took to outdoor management
— were not given to much walking beyond their
own house and garden, finding sufficient exercise
in domestic duties. So, when Priscilla was not
with her, she usually sat with Mant's Bible
before her, and after following the text with
her eyes for a little while, she would gradually
permit them to wander as her thoughts had
already insisted on wandering.

But Nancy's Sunday thoughts were rarely
quite out of keeping with the devout and rever-
ential intention implied by the book spread open
before her. She was not theologically instructed
enough to discern very clearly the relation
between the sacred documents of the past which
she opened without method, and her own obscure,
simple life ; but the spirit of rectitude, and
the sense of responsibility for the effect of her

conduct on others, which were strong elements

264

in Nancy's character, had made it a habit with
her to scrutinise her past feelings and actions
with self-questioning solicitude. Her mind not
being courted by a great variety of subjects, she
filled the vacant moments by living inwardly,
again and again, through all her remembered
experience, especially through the fifteen years
of her married time, in which her life and its
significance had been doubled. She recalled
the small details, the words, tones, and looks,
in the critical scenes which had opened a new
epoch for her by giving her a deeper insight into
the relations and trials of life, or which had
called on her for some little effort of forbear-
ance, or of painful adherence to an imagined
or real duty — asking herself continually whether
she had been in any respect blamable.

This excessive rumination and self-questioning
is perhaps a morbid habit inevitable to a mind
of much moral sensibility when shut out from
its due share of outward activity and of practical
claims on its affections — inevitable to a noble-
hearted, childless woman, when her lot is narrow.
** I can do so little — have I done it all well?" is
the perpetually recurring thought ; and there are
no voices calling her away from that soliloquy,
no peremptory demands to divert energy from
vain regret or superfluous scruple.

There was one main thread of painful experi-
ence in Nancy's married life, and on it hung

265

certain deeply-felt scenes, which were the oftenest
revived in retrospect. The short dialof^ue with
Priscilla in the garden had determined the
current of retrospect in that frequent direction
this particular Sunday afternoon. The first
wandering of her thouglit from the text, which
she still attempted dutifully to follow with her
eyes and silent lips, was into an imaginary
enlargement of the defence she had set up for
her husband against Priscilla's implied blame.
The vindication of the loved object is the best
balm affection can find for its wounds: "A
man must have so much on his mind," is the
belief by which a wife oftens supports a cheer-
ful face under rough answers and unfeeling
words. And Nancy's deepest wounds had all
come from the perception that the absence of
children from their hearth was dwelt on in her
husband's mind as a privation to which he could
not reconcile himself.

Yet sweet Nancy might have been expected to
feel still more keenly the denial of a blessing to
which she had looked forward with all the
varied expectations and preparations, solemn
and prettily trivial, which fill the mind of a
loving woman when she expects to become a

mother. Was there not a drawer filled with

the neat work of her hands, all unworn and
untouched, just as she had arranged it there
fourteen years ago — just, but for one little dress,,

.66 i

which had been made the burial-dress? But
under this immediate personal trial Nancy was
so firmly unmurmuring, that years ago she had
suddenly renounced the habit of visiting this
drawer, lest she should in this way be cherishing
a longing for what was not given.

Perhaps it was this very severity towards any
indulgence of what she held to be sinful regret
in herself, that made her shrink from applying
her own standard to her husband. *' It is very
different — it is much worse for a man to be
disappointed in that way : a woman can always
be satisfied with devoting herself to her husband,
but a man wants something that will make him
look forward more — and sitting by the fire is so
much duller to him than to a woman." And
always, when Nancy reached this point in her
meditations — trying, with predetermined sym-
pathy, to see everything as Godfrey saw it —
there came a renewal of self-questioning. Had
she done everything in her power to lighten
Godfrey's privation? Had she really been right
in the resistance which had cost her so much
pain six years ago, and again four years ago —
the resistance to her husband's wish that they
should adopt a child ?

Adoption was more remote from the ideas and
habits of that time than of our own ; still Nancy
had her opinion on it. It was as necessary to
her mind to have an opinion on all topics, not

267

exclusively masculine, that had come under her
notice, as for her to have a precisely marked
place for every article of her personal property :
and her opinions were always principles to be
unwaveringly acted on. They were firm, not
because of their basis, but because she held
them with a tenacity inseparable from her mental
action. On all the duties and proprieties of life,
from filial behaviour to the arrangements of the
evening toilet, pretty Nancy Lammeter, by the
time she was three-and-twenty, had her unalter-
able little code, and had formed every one of her
habits in strict accordance with that code. She
carried these decided judgments within her in
the most unobtrusive way : they rooted them-
selves in her mind, and grew there as quietly
as grass. Years ago, we know, she insisted on
dressing like Priscilla, because " it was right for
sisters to dress alike," and because *'she would
do what was right if she wore a gown dyed
with cheese-colouring." That was a trivial but
typical instance of the mode in which Nancy's
life was regulated.

It was one of those rigid principles, and no
petty egoistic feeling, which had been the ground
of Nancy's difficult resistance to her husband's
wish. To adopt a child, because children of
your own had been denied you, was to try and
choose your lot in spit« of Providence : the
adopted child, she was convinced, would never

268

turn out well, and would be a curse to those
who had wilfully and rebelliously sought what
it was clear that, for some high reason, they
were better without. When you saw a thing
was not meant to be, said Nancy, it was a
bounden duty to leave off so much as wishing
for it. And so far, perhaps, the wisest of men
could scarcely make more than a verbal im-
provement in her principle. But the conditions
under which she held it apparent that a thing
was not meant to be, depended on a more
peculiar mode of thinking. She would have
given up making a purchase at a particular
place if, on three successive times, rain, or
some other cause of Heaven's sending, had
formed an obstacle; and she would have antici-
pated a broken limb or other heavy misfortune
to any one who persisted in spite of such
indictations.

. *^ But why should you think the child would
turn out ill ? " said Godfrey, in his remonstrances.
^' She has thriven as well as child can do with
the weaver; and he adopted her. There isn't
such a pretty little girl anywhere else in the
parish, or one fitter for the station we could
give her. Where can be the likelihood of her
being a curse to anybody ? "

J *;*.yes, my dear Godfrey," said Nancy, who
was sitting with her hands tightly clasped

together, and with yearning, regretful affection

269

in her eyes. **The child may not turn out ill
with the weaver. But, then, he didn't ^^o to
seek her, as we should be doing. It will be
wrong : I feel sure it will. Don't you remember
what that lady we met at the Royston Baths
told us about the child her sister adopted?
That was the only adopting I ever heard of:
and the child was transported when it was
twenty-three. Dear Godfrey, don't ask me to
do what I know is wrong : I should never be
happy again. I know it's very hard (or yoii — it's
easier for me — but it's the will of Providence."

It might seem singular that Nancy — with her
religious theory pieced together out of narrow
social traditions, fragments of church doctrine
imperfectly understood, and girlish reasonings
on her small experience — should have arrived
by herself at a way or thinking so nearly akin
to that of many devout people whose beliefs
are held in the shape of a system quite remote
from her knowledge : singular, if we did not
know that human beliefs, like all other natural
growths, elude the barriers of system.

Godfrey had from the first specified Eppie,

then about twelve years old, as a child suitable

for them to adopt. It had never occurred to

him that Silas would rather part with his life

than with Eppie. Surely the weaver would wish

the best to the child he had taken so much

trouble with, and would be glad that such

270

good fortune should happen to her : she would
always be very grateful to him, and he would
be well provided for to the end of his life —
provided for as the excellent part he had done
by the child deserved. Was it not an appropriate
thing for people in a higher station to take a
charge off the hands of a man in a lower? It
seemed an . eminently appropriate thing to
Godfrey, for reasons that were known only to
himself; and by a common fallacy, he imagined
the measure would be easy because he had
private motives for desiring it. 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 oppor-
tunity, 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

271

feel I was ripfht to say him nay, thouf^h 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 against 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 to 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 had children,

she'd have vexed him in other ways."

This possibility was Nancy's chief comfort ;

and to give it greater strength, she laboured to

make it impossible that any other wife should

have had more perfect tenderness. She had

been forced to vex him by that one denial.

Godfrey was not insensible to her loving effort,

and did Nancy no injustice as to the motives of

her obstinacy. It was impossible to have lived

with her fifteen years and not be aware that

an unselfish clinging to the right, and a sincerity

clear as the flower-born dew, were her main

characteristics ; indeed, Godfrey felt this so

strongly, that his own more wavering nature,

too averse to facing difficulty to be unvaryingly

simple and truthful, was kept in a certain awe

272

of this gentle wife who watched his looks with

a yearning to obey them. It seemed to him

impossible that he should ever confess to her

the truth about Eppie : she would never recover

from the repulsion the story of his earlier

marriage would create, told to her now, after

that long concealment. And the child, too, he

thought, must become an object of repulsion :

the very sight of her would be painful. The

shock to Nancy's mingled pride and ignorance

of the wDrld's evil might even be too much for

her delicate frame. Since he had married her

with that secret on his heart, he must keep it

there to the last. Whatever else he did, he

could not make an irreparable breach between

himself and this long-loved wife.

Meanwhile, why could he not make up his

mind to the absence of children from a hearth

brightened by such a wife? Why did his

mind fly uneasily to that void, as if it were

the sole reason why life was not thoroughly

oyous to him ? I suppose it is the way with

all men and women who reach middle age

without the clear perception that life never can

be thoroughly joyous : under the vague dulness

of the gray hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite

object, and finds it in the privation of an untried

good. Dissatisfaction, seated musingly on a

childless hearth, thinks with envy of the father

whose return is greeted by young voices —

273

seated at the meal where the little heads ris-
one above another like nursery plants, it sec
a black care hoverin^^ behind every one (>
them, and thinks the impulses by which nui
abandon freedom, and seek for ties, are surelv
nothing but a brief madness. In Godfrey's cast
there were further reasons why his thou*^dit«
should be continually solicited by this one point
in his lot : his conscience, never thoroughly easy
about Eppie, now gave his childless home the
aspect of a retribution ; and as the time passed
on, under Nancy's refusal to adopt her, any
retrieval of his error became more and more
difficult.

On this Sunday afternoon it was already
four years since there had been any allusion tc
the subject between them, and Nancy supposed
that it was for ever buried.

" I wonder if he'll mind it less or more as
he gets older," she thought ; '' I'm afraid more.
Aged people feel the miss of children : what
would father do w^ithout Priscilla? And if I
die, Godfrey will be very lonely — not holding
tooether with his brothers much. But I won't
be over-anxious, and trying to make things
out beforehand ; I must do my best for the
present."

With that last thought Nancy roused herself

from her reverie, and turned her eyes again

towards the forsaken page. It had been forsaken

2/4

onger than she imagined, for she was pre-
sently surprised by the appearance of the
servant with the tea-things. It was, in fact,

little before the usual time for tea ; but Tane
lad her reasons.

*' Is your master come into the yard, Jane?"

*' No 'm, he isn't," said Jane, with a slight
emphasis, of. which, however, her mistress took
no notice.

** I don't know whether you've seen 'em, 'm,"
continued Jane, after a pause, *'but there's
folks making haste all one way, afore the
front window. I doubt something's happened.
There's niver a man to be seen i' the yard,
else I'd send and see. I've been up into the
top attic, but there's no seeing anything for
trees. I hope nobody's hurt, that's all."

*' Oh no, I daresay there's nothing much
the matter," said Nancy. ** It's perhaps Mr.
Snell's bull got out again, as he did before."

" I wish he mayn't gore anybody, then, that's
all," said Jane, not altogether despising a
hypothesis which covered a few imaginary
calamities.

**That girl is always terrifying me," thought
Nancy ; "I wish Godfrey would come in."

She went to the front window and looked

'as far as she could see along the road, with

an uneasiness which she felt to be childish,

for there were now no such signs of excitement

275

as Jane had spoken of, and Godfrey woulc
not be likely to return by the village road
but by the fields. She continued to stand,
however, looking- at the placid churchyard with
the long shadows of the gravestones acrosj
the bright green hillocks, and at the glowing
autumn colours of the Rectory trees beyond.
Before such calm external beauty the presence
of a vague fear is more distinctly felt — like
a raven flapping its slow wing across the
sunny air. Nancy wished more and more
that Godfrey would come in.

276

CHAPTER XVIII

Some one opened the door at the other end of the
•oom, and Nancy felt that it was her husband.
She turned from the window with gladness in
ner eyes, for the wife's chief dread was stilled.

*' Dear, I'm so thankful you're come," she said,
going towards him. ^* I began to get — — "

She paused abruptly, for Godfrey was laying
down his hat with trembling hands, and turned
towards her with a pale face and a strange,
unanswering glance, as if he saw her indeed,
but saw her as part of a scene invisible to
herself. She laid her hand on his arm, not
daring to speak again ; but he left the touch
unnoticed, and threw himself into his chair.

Jane was already at the door with the hissing urn.

**Tell her to keep away, will you?" said
Godfrey ; and when the door was closed again
he exerted himself to speak more distinctly.

** Sit down — Nancy — there," he said, pointing
to a chair opposite him. " I came back as soon
as I could, to hinder anybody's telling you but
me. I've had a great shock — but I care most
about the shock it'll be to you."

**It isn't father and Priscilla?" said Nancy,
with quivering lips, clasping her hands together
tightly on her lap.

** No, it's nobody living," said Godfrey,
unequal to the considerate skill with which
he would have wished to make his revelation.
" It's Dunstan — my brother Dunstan, that we
lost sight of sixteen years ago. We've found
him — found his body — his skeleton."

The deep dread Godfrey's look had created
in Nancy made her feel these words a relief.
She sat in comparative calmness to hear what
else he had to tell. He went on —

" The Stone-pit has gone dry suddenly^
from the draining, I suppose ; and there he
lies — has lain for sixteen years, wedged between
two great stones. There's his watch and seals,
and there's my gold-handled hunting-whip, with
my name on : he took it away, without my
knowing, the day he went hunting on Wildfire,
the last time he was seen."

Godfrey paused ; it was not so easy to say
what came next.

^'Do you think he drowned himself?" said
Nancy, almost wondering that her husband
should be so deeply shaken by what had
happened all those years ago to an unloved
brother, of whom worse things had been augured.

'' No, he fell in," said Godfrey, in a low but
distinct voice, as if he felt some deep meaning
in the fact. Presently he added: "Dunstan
was the man that robbed Silas Marner."

The blood rushed to Nancy's face and neck

278

t this surprise and shame, for she had been

)red up to regard even a distant kinship with

rime as a dishonour.
*' Oh, Godfrey ! " she said, with compassion in

ler tone, for she had immediately reflected that

he dishonour must be felt still more keenly by

ler husband.
*^ There was the money in the pit," he con-

inued, ^*all the weaver's money. Everything's
oeen gathered up, and they're taking the skeleton

o the Rainbow. But I came back to tell you :

:here was no hindering it ; you must know."

He was silent, looking on the ground for

two long minutes. Nancy would have said

some words of comfort under this disgrace,

but she refrained, from, an instinctive sense

that there was something behind— that Godfrey

had something else to tell her. Presently he

lifted his eyes to her face, and kept them fixed

on her, as he said —

*' Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner

or later. When God Almighty wills it, our

secrets are found out. I've lived with a secret

on my mind, but I'll keep it from you no longer.

I wouldn't have you know it by somebody else,

and no^ by me — I wouldn't have you find it

out after I'm dead. I'll tell you now. It's

been ' I will, and ' I won't ' with me all my life

— I'll make sure of myself now."

Nancy's utmost dread had returned. The eyes

279

of the husband and wife met with awe in them
as at a crisis which suspended affection.

*' Nancy," said Godfrey slowly, **when
married you, I hid something from you — some
thing I ought to have told you. That womar
Marner found dead in the snow — Eppie's mothe:
— that wretched woman — was my wife : Eppit
is my child."

He paused, dreading the effect of his confes-
sion. But Nancy sat quite still, only that hei
eyes dropped and ceased to meet his. She wa«
pale and quiet as a meditative statue, clasping
her hands on her lap.

''You'll never think the same of me again,*'
said Godfrey, after a little while, with some
tremor in his voice.

She was silent.

*' I oughtn't to have left the child unowned :
I oughtn't to have kept it from you. But I
couldn't bear to give you up, Nancy. I was
led away into marrying her — I suffered for it."

Still Nancy was silent, looking down ; and
he almost expected that she would presently
get up and say she would go to her father's.
How could she have any mercy for faults that
must seem so black to her, with her simple,
severe notions ?

But at last she lifted up her eyes to his again

and spoke. There was no indignation in her

voice — only deep regret.

280

*' Godfrey, if you had but told me this six
years ago, we could have done some of our
duty by the child. Do you think I'd have
refused to take her in, if I'd known she was
yours ? "

At that moment Godfrey felt all the bitterness
of an error that was not simply futile, but had
defeated its own end. He had not measured
this wife with whom he had lived so long. But
she spoke again, with more agitation.

''And — oh, Godfrey — if we'd had her from
the first, if you'd taken to her as you ought,
she'd have loved me for her mother — and you'd
have been happier with me : I could better have
bore my little baby dying, and our life might
have been more like what we used to think it
'ud be."

The tears fell, and Nancy ceased to speak.

''But you wouldn't have married me then,
Nancy, if I'd told you,'^ said Godfrey, urged,
in the bitterness of his self-reproach, to prove
to himself that his conduct had not been utter
folly. "You may think you would now, but
you wouldn't then. With your pride and
your father's, you'd have hated having any-
thing to do with me after the talk there'd have
been."

"I can't say what I should have done about

that, Godfrey. I should never have married

anybody else. But I wasn't worth doing wrong

281

for — nothinf^" is in this world. Nothing is so
£:^ood as it seems beforehand — not even our
marrying" wasn't, you see." There was a faint,
sad smile on Nancy's face as she said the last
words.

" I'm a worse man than you thought I was,
Nancy," said Godfrey rather tremulously. *'Can
you forgive me ever?"

*'The wrong to me is but little, Godfrey:
you've made it up to me — you've been good
to me for fifteen years. It's another you did
the wrong to ; and 1 doubt it can never be all
made up for."

*' But we can take Eppie now," said Godfrey.
" I won't mind the world knowing at last. I'll
be plain and open for the rest o' my life."

"It'll be different coming to us, now she's
grown up," said Nancy, shaking her head sadly.
*' But it's your duty to acknowledge her and
provide for her ; and I'll do my part by her,
and pray to God Almighty to make her love me."

'*Then we'll go together to Silas Marner's this
very night, as soon as everything's quiet at the
Stone-pits.'*

282

CHAPTER XIX

Between eight and nine o'clock that evening,
Eppie and Silas were seated alone in the cottage.
After the great excitement the weaver had under-
gone from the events of the afternoon, he had
felt a longing- for this quietude, and had even
begged Mrs. Winthrop and Aaron, who had
naturally lingered behind every one else, to leave
him alone with his child. The excitement had
not passed away : it had only reached that
stage when the keenness of the susceptibility
makes external stimulus intolerable — when there
is no sense of weariness, but rather an intensity
of inward life, under which sleep. is an impossi-
bility. Any one who has watched such moments
in other men remembers the brightness of the
eyes and the strange definiteness that comes over
coarse features from that transient influence. It
is as if a new fineness of ear for all spiritual
voices had sent wonder-working vibrations
through the heavy mortal frame — as if "beauty
born of murmuring sound " had passed into the
face of the listener.

Silas's face showed that sort of transfiguration,
as he sat in his arm-chair and looked at Eppie.
She had drawn her own chair towards his knees,

and leaned forward, holding both his hands,

283

while she looked up at him. On the table nea
them, lit by a candle, lay the recovered ^n)id—
the old long-loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps
as Silas used to range it in the days when i
was his only joy. He had been telling her hov
he used to count it every night, and how hi
soul was utterly desolate till she was sent to him.

**At first, I'd a sort o' feeling come across m^
now and then," he was saying in a subduet
tone, **as if you might be changed into th-
gold again ; for sometimes, turn my head whicl
way I would, I seemed to see the gold ; and
thought I should be glad if I could feel it, an(
find it was come back. But that didn't las
long. After a bit, I should have thought i
was a curse come again, if it had drove yoi
from me, for I'd got to feel the need o' you
looks and your voice, and the touch o' you
little fingers. You didn't know then, Eppie
when you were such a little un — you didn'
know what your old father Silas felt for you."

^* But I know now, father," said Eppie. '^ I
it hadn't been for you, they'd have taken me tc
the workhouse, and there'd have been nobody tc
love me."

" Eh, my precious child, the blessing waj
mine. If you hadn't been sent to save me, 1
should ha' gone to the grave in my misery.
The money was taken away from me in time

and you see it's been kept — kept till it was

284

wanted for you. It's wonderful — our life is
wonderful."

Silas sat in silence a few minutes, looking- at
the money. ^^It takes no hold of me now,"
he said ponderingly — "the money doesn't. I
wonder if it ever could again — I doubt it might,
if I lost you, Eppie. I might come to think I
was forsaken again, and lose the feeling that
God was good to me."

At that moment there was a knocking at the
door ; and Eppie was obliged to rise without
answering Silas. Beautiful she looked, with the
tenderness of gathering tears in her eyes and a
slight flush on her cheeks, as she stepped to
open the door. The flush deepened when she
saw Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass. She made
her little rustic curtsy, and held the door wide
for them to enter.

''We're disturbing- you very late, my dear,"
said Mrs. Cass, taking Eppie's hand, and looking
in her face with an expression of anxious interest
and admiration. Nancy herself was pale and
tremulous.

Eppie, after placing chairs for Mr. and Mrs.
Cass, went to stand against Silas, opposite to
them.

*' Well, Marner," said Godfrey, trying to speak

with perfect firmness, *'it's a great comfort to

me to see you with your money again, that

you've been deprived of so many years. It was
s.M. ' 285 K

one of my family did you the wrong — the more
grief to me — and I feel bound to make up to
you for it in every way. Whatever I can do
for you will be nothing but paying a debt,
even if I looked no further than the robbery.
But there are other things I'm beholden — shall
be beholden to you for, Marner.'*

Godfrey checked himself. It had been agreed
between him and his wife that the subject of his
fatherhood should be approached very carefully,
and that, if possible, the disclosure should be
reserved for the future, so that it might be made
to Eppie gradually. Nancy had urged this,
because she felt strongly the painful light in
which Eppie must inevitably see the relation
between her father and mother.

Silas, always ill at ease when he was being
spoken to by "betters," such as Mr. Cass —
tall, powerful, florid man, seen chiefly on
horseback — answered with some constraint —

"Sir, I've a deal to thank you for a'ready.
As for the robbery, I count it no loss to me.
And if I did, you couldn't help it : you aren't
answerable for it."

"You may look at it in that way, Marner,

but I never can ; and I hope you'll let me act

according to my own feeling of what's just.

I know you're easily contented ; you've been

a hard-working man all your life."

" Yes, sir, yes," said Marner meditatively.

286

" I should ha' been bad off without my work :
it was what I held by when everything else
was gone from me."

**Ah," said Godfrey, applying Marner's
words simply to his bodily wants, ** it was a
good trade for you in this country, because
there's been a great deal of linen-weaving to
be done. But you're getting rather past such
close work, Marner ; it's time you laid by and
had some rest. You look a good deal pulled
down, though you're not an old man, are
you?"

*' Fifty-five, as near as I can say, sir," said
Silas.

** Oh, why, you may live thirty years longer
— look at old Macey ! And that money on
the table, after all, is but little ; it won't go
far either way — whether it's put out to interest,
or you were to live on k as long as it would
last : it wouldn't go far if you'd nobody to
keep but yourself, and you've had two to keep
for a good many years now."

** Eh, sir," said Silas, unaffected by anything
Godfrey was saying, ^^I'm in no fear o' want.
We shall do very well — Eppie and me 'ull do
well enough. There's few working folks have
got so much laid by as that. I don't know
what it is to gentlefolks, but I look upon it as
a deal — almost too much. And as for us, it's

little we want."

287

** Only the garden, father," said Eppie,
blushing up to tiie ears the moment after.

** You love a garden, do you, my dear?"
said Nancy, thijjking that this turn in the point
of view might help her husband. *' We should
agree in that ; I give a deal of time to the
garden."

*' Ah, there's plenty of gardening at the Red
House," said Godfrey, surprised at the difficulty
he found in approaching a proposition which had
seemed so easy to him in the distance. ** You've
done a good part by Eppie, Marner, for sixteen
years. It 'ud be a great comfort to you to see
her well provided for, wouldn't it? She looks
blooming and healthy, but not fit for any hard-
ships : she doesn't look like a strapping girl come
of working parents. You'd like to see her taken
care of by those who can leave her well off, and
make a lady of her ; she's more fit for it than
for a rough life, such as she might come to
have in a few years' time.'*

A slight flush came over Marner's face, and
disappeared, like a passing gleam. Eppie was
simply wondering Mr. Cass should talk so about
things that seemed to have nothing to do with
reality ; but Silas was hurt and uneasy.

*' I don't take your meaning, sir," he answered,
not having words at command to express the
mingled feelings with which he had heard Mr.
Cass's words.

288

**WeII, my meaning is this, Marner," said
Godfrey, determined to come to the point.
'' Mrs. Cass and I, you know, have no children
— nobody to be the better for our good home
and everything else we have — more than enough
for ourselves. And we should like to have some-
body in the place of a daughter to us — we should
like to have Eppie, and treat her in every way as
our own child. It 'ud be a great comfort to you
in your old age, I hope, to see her fortune made
in that way, after youVe been at the trouble of
bringing her up so well. And it's right you
should have every reward for that. And Eppie,
I'm sure, will always love you and be grateful to
you : she'd come and see you very often, and we
should all be on the look-out to da everything we
could towards making you comfortable."

A plain man like Godfrey Cass, speaking under
some embarrassment, necessarily blunders on
words that are coarser than his intentions, and
that are likely to fall gratingly on susceptible
feelings. While he had been speaking, Eppie
had quietly passed her arm behind Silas's head,
and let her hand rest against it caressingly : she
felt him trembling violently. He was silent
for some moments when Mr. Cass had ended —
powerless under the conflict of emotions, all
alike painful. Eppie's heart was swelling at
the sense that her father was in distress ; and
she was just going to lean down and speak to

289

liim, when one struggling dread at last gained
the mastery over every other in Silas, and he
said faintly —

**Eppie, my child, speak. I won't stand
in your way. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Cass."

Eppie took her hand from her father's head,
and came forward a step. Her cheeks were
flushed, but not with shyness this time ; the
sense that her father was in doubt and suffering
banished that sort of self-consciousness. She
dropped a low curtsy, first to Mrs. Cass and
then to Mr. Cass, and said —

^* Thank you, ma'am — thank you, sir. But I
can't leave my father, nor own anybody nearer
than him. And I don't want to be a lady —
thank you all the same " (here Eppie dropped
another curtsy). ^' I couldn't give up the folks
I've been used to."

Eppie's lip began to tremble a little at the
last words. She retreated to her father's chair
again, and held him round the neck : while
Silas, with a subdued sob, put up his hknd to
grasp hers.

The tears were in Nancy's eyes, but her
sympathy with Eppie was naturally divided
with distress on her husband's account. She
dared not speak, wondering what was going on
in her husband's mind.

Godfrey felt an irritation inevitable to almost

all of us when we encounter an unexpected

290

obstacle. He had been full of his own penitence
and resolution to retrieve his error as far as the
time was left to him ; he was possessed with
all-important feelings, that were to lead to a _p re-
determined course of action which he had fixed
on as the rigEt7~and he was not prepared to enter
with lively appreciation into other people's feelings
counteracting his virtuous resolves. The agitation
w^ith which he spoke again was not quite unmixed
with anger.

** But I've a claim on you, Eppie — the strongest
of all claims. It's my duty, Marner, to own
Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She's
my own child : her mother was my wife. I've
a natural claim on her that must stand before
every other."

Eppie had given a violent start, and turned

quite pale. Silas, on the contrary, who had been

relieved by Eppie's answer from the dread lest

his mind should be in opposition to hers, felt

the spirit of resistance in him set free, not without

a touch of parental fierceness. ** Then, sir,"

he answered, with an accent of bitterness that

had been silent in him since the memorable day

when his youthful hope had perished, ** then,

sir, why didn't you say so sixteen year ago,

and claim her before I'd come to love her, i'stead

o' coming to take her from me now, when you

might as well take the heart out o' my body?

God gave her to me because you turned your

291

back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine ;
you've no right to her I When a man turns a
blessing from his door, it falls to them as take
it in."

*'I know that, Marner. I was wrong. I've
repented of my conduct in that matter,'* said
Godfrey, who could not help feeling the edge
of Silas's words.

*' I'm glad to hear it, sir," said Marner, with
gathering excitement; **but repentance doesn't
alter what's been going on for sixteen year.
Your coming now and saying 'I'm her father'
doesn't alter the feelings inside us. It's me
she's been calling her father ever since she
could say the word."

" But I think you might look at the thing
more reasonably, Marner," said Godfrey, un-
expectedly awed by the weaver's direct truth-
speaking. *' It isn't as if she was to be taken
quite away from you, so that you'd never see
her again. She'll be very near you, and come
to see you very often. She'll feel just the same
towards you."

*'Just the same?" said Marner, more bitterly

than ever. ** How'll she feel just the same for

me as she does now, when we eat o' the same

bit, and drink o' the same cup, and think o' the

same things from one day's end to another?

Just the same ! that's idle talk. You'd cut us

i' two."

292

Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern
the pregnancy of Marner's simple words, felt
rather angry again. It seemed to him that the
weaver was very selfish (a judgment readily
passed by those who have never tested their
own power of sacrifice) to oppose what was
undoubtedly for Eppie's welfare ; and he felt
himself called upon, for her sake, to assert his
authority.

** I should have thought, Marner," he said
severely, ** I should have thought your affection
for Eppie would make you rejoice in what was
for her good, even if it did call upon you to
give up something. You ought to remember
your own life's uncertain, and she's at an age
now when her lot may soon be fixed in a way
very different from what it would be in her
father's home: she may marry some low working-
man, and then, whatever I might do for her,
I couldn't make her well off. You're putting
yourself in the way of her welfare ; and though
I'm sorry to hurt you after what you've done,
and what I've left undone, I feel now it's my
duty to insist on taking care of my own daughter.
I want to do my duty."

It would be difficult to say whether it were
Silas or Eppie that was more deeply stirred by
this last speech of Godfrey's. Thought had been
very busy in Eppie as she listened to the contest
between her old long-loved father and this new

293

unfamiliar father who had suddenly come to
fill the place of that black, featureless shadow
which had held the ring and placed it on her
mother's finger. Her imagination had darted
backward in conjectures, and forward in pre-
visions, of what this revealed fatherhood implied ;
and there were words in Godfrey's last speech
which helped to make the previsions especially
definite. Not that these thoufj;^hts, either of past
or future, determined her resolution — that was
determined by the feelings which vibrated to
every word Silas had uttered ; but they raised,
even apart from these feelings, a repulsion towards
the offered lot and the new^ly-revealed father.

Silas, on the other hand, was again stricken
in conscience, and alarmed lest Godfrey's accusa-
tion should be true — lest he should be raising
his own will as an obstacle to Eppie's good.
For many moments he was mute, struggling
for the self-conquest necessary to the uttering of
the difficult words. They came out tremulously.

" I'll say no more. Let it be as you will.
Speak to the child. I'll hinder nothing."

Even Nancy, with all the acute sensibility

of her own affections, shared her husband's

view, that Marner was not justifiable in his wish

to retain Eppie, after her real father had avowed

himself. She felt that it was a very hard trial

for the poor weaver, but her code allowed nd

question that a father by blood must have a

294

claim above that of any foster-father. Besides,
Nancy, used all her life to plenteous circum-
stances and the privileges of '* respectability,"
could not enter into the pleasures which early
nurture and habit connect with all the little
aims and efforts of the poor who are born poor :
to her mind, Eppie, in being restored to her
birthright, was entering on a too long withheld
but unquestionable good. Hence she heard
Silas's last words with relief, and thought, as
Godfrey did, that their wish was achieved.

** Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at
his daughter, not without some embarrassment,
under the sense that she was old enough to
judge him, ** it'll always be our wish that you
should show your love and gratitude to one
who's been a father to you so many years, and
we shall want to help you to make him com-
fortable in every way. But we hope you'll come
to love us as well ; and though I haven't been
what a father should ha' been to you all these
years, I wish to do the utmost in my power
for you for the rest of my life, and provide for
you as my only child. And you'll have the
best of mothers in my wife — that'll be a blessing
you haven't known since you were old enough
to know it."

** My dear, you'll be a treasure to me," said

Nancy, in her gentle voice. '*We shall want

for nothing when we have our daughter."

295

Eppie did not come forward and curtsy,
as she had done before. She held Silas's hand
in hers, and grasped it firmly — it was a weaver's
hand, with a palm and finger-tips that were
sensitive to such pressure — while she spoke
with colder decision than before.

** Thank you, ma'am — thank you, sir, for
your offers — they're very great, and far above
my wish. For I should have no delight i'
life any more if I was forced to go away from
my father, and knew he was sitting at home,
a-thinking of me and feeling lone. We've been
used to be happy together every day, and I
can't think o' no happiness without him. And
he says he'd nobody i' the world till I was sent
to him, and he'd have nothing when I was gone.
And he's took care of me and loved me from
the first, and I'll cleave to him as long as he
lives, and nobody shall ever come between him
and me."

*' But you must make sure, Eppie," said Silas,
in a low voice, **you must make sure as you
won't ever be sorry, because you've made your
choice to stay among poor folks, and with poor
clothes and things, when you might ha' had
everything o' the best."

His sensitiveness on this point had increased
as he listened to Eppie's words of faithful affection.

*'I can never be sorry, father," said Eppie.

** I shouldn't know what to think on or to wish

296

for with fine things about me, as I haven't been
used to. And it 'ud be poor work for me to
put on things, and ride in a gig, and sit in
a place at church, as 'ud make them as I'm
fond of, think me unfitting company for 'em.
What could / care for then ? "

Nancy looked at Godfrey with a pained,
questioning glance. But his eyes were fixed
on the floor, where he was moving the end
of his stick, as if he were pondering on some-
thing absently. She thought there was a word
which might, perhaps, come better from her
lips than from his.

*^ What you say is natural, my dear child —
it's natural you should cling to those who've
brought you up," she said mildly ; *^ but there's
a duty you owe to your lawful father. There's
perhaps something to be given up on more
sides than one. When your father opens his
home to you, I think it's right you shouldn't
turn your back on it."

*' I can't feel as I've got any father but one,"
said Eppie impetuously, while the tears gathered,
** I've always thought of a little home where
he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend and
do everything for him ; I can't think o' no other
home. I wasn't brought up to be a lady, and
I can't turn my mind to it. I like the working-
folks, and their victuals, and their ways. And,"

she ended passionately, while the tears fell,

297

*' I'm promised to marry a working"-man, as'll
live with father, and help me to take care of
him."

Godfrey looked up at Nancy with a flushed
face and smarting, dilated eyes. This frustra-
tion of a purpose towards which he had set out
under the exalted consciousness that he was
about to compensate in some degree for the
greatest demerit of his life, made him feel the
air of the room stifling.

*' Let us go," he said, in an undertone.

*' We won't talk of this any longer now,"
said Nancy, rising. *' We're your well-wishers,
my dear — and yours too, Marner. We shall
come and see you again. It's getting late now.'*

In this way she covered her husband's abrupt
departure, for Godfrey had gone straight to the
door, unable to say more.

298

CHAPTER XX

Nancy and Godfrey walked home under the
starlight in silence. When they entered the
oaken parlour, Godfrey threw himself into his
chair, while Nancy laid down her bonnet
and shawl, and stood on the hearth near her
husband, unwilling to leave him even for a
few minutes, and yet fearing to utter any word
lest it might jar on his feeling. At last God-
frey turned his head towards her, and their
eyes met, dwelling in that meeting without any
movement on either side. That quiet mutual
gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the
first moment of rest or refuge from a great
weariness or a great danger — not to be interfered
with by speech or action which would distract the
sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose.

But presently he put out his hand, and as
Nancy placed hers within it, he drew her towards
him and said —

*' That's ended!"

She bent to kiss him, and then said, as she

stood by his side, ^*Yes, I'm afraid we must

give up the hope of having her for a daughter.

It wouldn't be right to want to force her to

come to us against her will. We can't alter

her bringing up, and what's come of it."

299

** No," said Godfrey, with a keen decisive-
ness of tone, in contrast with his usually care-
less and unemphatic speech, '* there's debts we
can't pay like money debts, by payin^^ extra
for the years that have slipped by. While I've
been putting off and putting off, the trees have
been growing — it's too late now. Marner was
in the right in what he said about a man's
turning away a blessing from his door : it
falls to somebody else. I wanted to pass for
childless once, Nancy — I shall pass for childless
now against my wish."

Nancy did not speak immediately, but after
a little while she asked, "You won't make
it known, then, about Eppie's being your
daughter?"

*'No; where would be the good to anybody?
— only harm. I must do what I can for her
in the state of life she chooses. I must see
who it is she's thinking of marrying."

"If it won't do any good to make the thing
known," said Nancy, who thought she might
now allow herself the relief of entertaining a
feeling which she had tried to silence before,
" I should be very thankful for father and
Priscilla never to be troubled with knowing
what was done in the past, more than about
Dunsey : it can't be helped, their knowing that."

" I shall put it in my will — I think I shall

put it in my will. I shouldn't like to leave

300

anything to be found out, like this about
Dunsey," said Godfrey meditatively. *' But I
can't see anything but difficulties that 'ud come
from telling it now. I must do what I can to
make her happy in her own way. I've a
notion," he added, after a moment's pause,
** it's Aaron Winthrop she meant she was
engaged to. I remember seeing him with her
and Marner going away from church."

"Well, he's very sober and industrious," said
Nancy, trying to view the matter as cheerfully
as possible.

Godfrey fell into thoughtfulness again.
Presently he looked up at Nancy sorrowfully,
and said —

** She's a very pretty, nice girl, isn't she,
Nancy?"

*^Yes, dear; and with just your hair and
eyes : I wondered it had never struck me
before."

" I think she took a dislike to me at the
thought of my being her father : I could see
a change in her manner after that."

**She couldn't bear to think of not looking on
Marner as her father," said Nancy, not wishing
to confirm her husband's painful impression.

"She thinks I did wrong by her mother as
well as by her. She thinks me worse than I
am. But she must think it ; she can never
know all. It's part of my punishment, Nancy,

for my daughter to dislike me. I should never
have got into that trouble if I'd been true to
you — if I hadn't been a fool. I'd no right to
expect anything but evil could come of that
marriage — and when I shirked doing a father's
part too."

Nancy was silent : her spirit of rectitude would
not let her try to soften the edge of what she
felt to be a just compunction.

He spoke again after a little while, but the
tone was rather changed : there was tenderness
mingled with the previous self-reproach.

"And I got yoti, Nancy, in spite of all; and
yet I've been grumbling and uneasy because
I hadn't something else — as if I deserved it."

** You've never been wanting to me, Godfrey,'*
said Nancy, with quiet sincerity. *' My only
trouble would be gone if you resigned yourself
to the lot that's been given us."

*' Well, perhaps it isn't too late to mend a
bit there. Though it zs too late to mend some
things, say what they will.'*

302

and

CHAPTER XXI '^^

The next morning, when vSilas and Eppie were
seated at their breakfast, he said to her —

*^ Eppie, there's a thing .'ve had on my mind
to do this two year, and now the money's been
brought back to us, we can do it. I've been
turning it over and over in the night, and I
think we'll set out to-morrow, while the fine
days last. We'll leave the house and everything
for your godmother to take care on, and we'll
make a little bundle o' things and set out."

*' Where to go, daddy?" said Eppie, in much
surprise.

*^ To my old country — to the town were I was
born — up Lantern Yard. I want to see Mr.
Paston, the minister : something may ha' come
out to make 'em know I was innicent o' the
robbery. And Mr. Paston was a man with a
deal o' light — I want to speak to him about the
drawing o' the lots. And I should like to talk
to him about the religion o' this countryside,
for I partly think he doesn't know on it."

Eppie was very joyful, for there was the
prospect not only of wonder and delight at
seeing a strange country, but also of coming
back to tell Aaron all about it. Aaron was so
much wiser than she was about most things —

303

for fould be rather pleasant to have this little

have^iitage over him. Mrs. Winthrop, though

yo3ssessed of a dim fear of dangers attendant^

♦bn so long a journey, and requiring many

assurances that it would not take them out of

the region of carriers' carts and slow wagons,

was nevertheless well pleased that Silas should

re-visit his own country, and find out if he had

been cleared from that false accusation.

** You'd be easier in your mind for the rest
o' your life, Master Marner," said Dolly, "that
you would. And if there's any light to be got
up the Yard, as you talk on, we've need of it i*
this world, and I'd be glad on it myself, if you
could bring it back."

So, on the fourth day from that time, Silas
and Eppie, in their Sunday clothes, with a small
bundle tied in a blue linen handkerchief, were
making their way through the streets of a great
manufacturing town. wSilas, bewildered by the
changes thirty years had brought over his native
place, had stopped several persons in succession
to ask them the name of this town, that he
might be sure he was not under a mistake
about it.

"Ask for Lantern Yard, father — ask this
gentleman with the tassels on his shoulders a-
standing at the shop door ; he isn't in a hurry
like the rest," said Eppie, in some distress at
her father's bewilderment, and ill at ease,

304

be:

isr

besides, amidst the noise, the movement, and
the multitude of strange, indifferent faces.

'^ Eh, my child, he won't know anything about
it,*' said Silas; ** gentlefolks didn't ever go up
the Yard. But happen somebody can tell me
which is the way to Prison Street, where the
jail is. I know the way out o' that as if I'd
seen it yesterday."

With some difficulty, after many turnings and
new inquiries, they reached Prison Street ; and
the grim walls of the jail, the first object that
answered to any image in Silas's memory,
cheered him with the certitude, which no
assurance of the town's name had hitherto
given him, that he was in his native place.

** Ah," he said, drawing a long breath, ** there's
the jail, Eppie ; that's just the same : I aren't
afraid now. It's the third turning on the left
hand from the jail doors — that's the way we
must go."

*'Oh, what a dark, ugly place!" said Eppie.
**How it hides the sky! It's worse than the
Workhouse. I'm glad you don't live in this town
now, father. Is Lantern Yard like this street?"

** My precious child," said Silas, smiling, *'it
isn't a big street like this. I never was easy i'
this street myself, but I was fond o' Lantern
Yard. The shops here are all altered, I think
—I can't make 'em out ; but I shall know the
turning, because it's the third."

305

** Here it is,'* he said, in a tone of satisfaction,
as they came to a narrow alley. ** And then
we must go to the left ag-ain, and then straight
for'ard for a bit, up Shoe Lane : and then we
shall be at the entry next to the o'erhanging
window, where there's the nick in the road for
the water to run. Eh, I can see it all."

^*Oh, father, I'm like as if I was stifled," said
Eppie. ^*I couldn't ha' thought as any folks
lived i' this way, so close together. How pretty
the Stone-pits 'uU look when we get back ! "

*^ It looks comical to me, child, now — and smells
bad. I can't think as it usened to smell so."

Here and there a sallow, begrimed face looked
out from a gloomy doorway at the strangers,
and increased Eppie's uneasiness, so that it was
a longed-for relief when they issued from the
alleys into Shoe Lane, where there was a broader
strip of sky.

*' Dear heart!" said Silas, **why, there's
people coming out o' the Yard as if they'd
been to chapel at this time o' day — a week-day
noon ! "

Suddenly he started and stood still with a look
of distressed amazement that alarmed Eppie.
They were before an opening in front of a large
factory, from which men and women were
streaming for their midday meal.

*' Father," said Eppie, clasping his arm,

*' what's the matter?"

306

But she had to speak again and again berore
Silas could answer her.

*^ It's gone, child," he said at last, in strong
agitation, ** Lantern Yard's gone. It must ha'
been here, because here's the house with the
o'erhanging window — I know that — it's just the
same ; but they've made this new opening ;
and see that big factory ! It's all gone — chapel
and all."

*'Come into that little brush-shop and sit
down, father — they'll let you sit down," said
Eppie, always on the watch lest One of her
father's strange attacks should come on. ** Per-
haps the people can tell you all about it."

But neither from the brushmaker, who had
come to Shoe Lane only ten years ago, when
the factory was already built, nor from any other
source within his reach, could Silas learn any-
thing of the old Lantern Yard friends, or of
Mr. Paston, the minister.

** The old place is all swep' away," Silas said
to Dolly Winthrop on the night of his return ;
*'the little graveyard and everything. The old
home's gone ; I've no home but this now. I
shall never know whether they got at the truth
o' the robbery, nor whether Mr. Paston could
ha' given me any light about the drawing o'
the lots. It's dark to me, Mrs. Winthrop, that
is ; I doubt it'll be dark to the last."

*' Well, yes, Master Marner," said Dolly, who

307

sat witli a placid, listening face, now bordered
by gray hairs; *' I doubt it may. It's the will
o' Them above as a many things should be dark
to us ; but there's some things as I've never fell
i' the dark about, and they're mostly what comes
i' the day's work. You were hard done by that
once, Master Marner, and it seems as you'll never
know the rights of it ; but that doesn't hinder
there being a rights, Master Marner, for all it's
dark to you ahH^e."

*'No," said Silas, **no; that doesn't hinder.
Since the time the child was sent to me and I've
come to love her as myself, I've had light enough
to trusten by; and now she says she'll never leave
me, I think I shall trusten till I die."

CONCLUSION.

There was one time of the year which was held

in Raveloe to be especially suitable for a wedding.

It was when the great lilacs and laburnums in

the old-fashioned gardens showed their golden

and purple wealth above the lichen-tinted walls,

and when there were calves still young enough

to want bucketfuls of fragrant milk. People were

not so busy then as they must become when the

full cheese-making and the mowing had set in ;

and besides, it was a time when a light bridal

dress could be worn with comfort and seen to

advantage.

308

nappuy me sunsriine leii more warmiy man
usual on the lilac tufts the morning" that Eppie
was married, for her dress was a very light one.
She had often thought, though with a feeling of
renunciation, that the perfection of a wedding-
dress would be a white cotton, with the tiniest
pink sprig at wide intervals ; so that when
Mrs. Godfrey Cass begged to provide one,
and asked Eppie to choose what it should be,,
previous meditation had enabled her to give a
decided answer at once.

Seen at a little distance as she walked across
the churchyard and down the village, she seemed
to be attired in pure white, and her hair looked
like the dash of gold on a lily. One hand was
on her husband's arm, and with the other she
clasped the hand of her father Silas.

*' You won't be giving me away, father," she
had said before they went to church ; ^' you'll
only be taking Aaron to be a son to .you."

Dolly Winthrop walked behind with her
husband ; and there ended the little bridal
procession.

There were many eyes to look at it, and Miss

Priscilla Lammeter was glad that she and her

father had happened to drive up to the door of

the Red House just in time to see this pretty

sight. They had come to keep Nancy company

to-day, because Mr. Cass had had to go away to

Lytherley, for special reasons. That seemed to be

309

a pity, for otherwise he might have gone, as Mr.
Crackenthorp and Mr. Osgood certainly would,
to look on at the wedding-feast which he had
ordered at the Rainbow, naturally feeling a
great interest in the weaver who had been
wronged by one of his own family.

** I could ha' wished Nancy had had the luck
to find a child like that and bring her up,"
said Priscilla to her father, as they sat in
the gig; *' I should ha' had something young
to think of then, besides the lambs and the
calves."

"Yes, my dear, yes," said Mr. Lammeter ;
"one feels that as one gets older. Things look
dim to old folks ; they'd need have some young
eyes about 'em, to let 'em know the world's the
same as it used to be."

Nancy came out now to welcome her father
and sister ; and the wedding group had passed
on beyond the Red House to the humbler part
of the village.

Dolly Winthorp was the first to divine that old
Mr. Macey, who had been set in his arm-chair
outside his own door, would expect some special
notice as they passed, since he was too old to
be at the wedding-feast.

"Mr. Macey's looking for a word from us,"

said Dolly; ** he'll be hurt if we pass him and

say nothing — and him so racked with rheumatiz."

So they turned aside to shake hands with the

310

the

trit
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sai
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ha'
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luc

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stii
tim
enj
hac
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the
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But
difi,

H
k

old man. He had looked forward to the occasion,
and had his premeditated speech.

^'Well, Master Marner," he said, in a voice
that quavered a good deal, ** I've lived to see
my words come true, I was the first to say-
there was no harm in you, though your looks
might be again' you ; and I was the first to
say you'd get your money back. And it's
nothing but rightful as you should. And I'd
ha' said the ^Amens,' and willing, at the holy
matrimony ; but Tookey's done it a good while
now, and I hope you'll have none the worse
luck.'*

In the open yard before the Rainbow the party
of guests were already assembled, though it was
still nearly an hour before the appointed feast-
time. But by this means they could not only
enjoy the slow advent of their pleasure ; they
had also ample leisure to talk of Silas Marner's
strange history, and arrive by due degrees at
the conclusion that he had brought a blessing
on himself by acting like a father to a lone,
motherless child. Even the farrier did not
negative this sentiment : on the contrary, he
took it up as peculiarly his own, and invited
any hardy person present to contradict him.
But he met with no contradiction ; and all
differences among the company were merged in
a general agreement with Mr. Snell's sentiment,

that when a man had deserved his good luck,

311

it was the part of his neighbours to wish hin
joy. f

As the bridal group approached, a heart)
cheer was raised in the Rainbow yard ; anc
Ben Winthorp, whose jokes had retained thei
acceptable flavour, found it agreeable to turn ir
there and receive congratulations ; not requiring
the proposed interval of quiet at the Stone-pit*
before joining the company.

Eppie had a larger garden* than she hac
ever expected there now ; and in other way*
there had been alterations at the expense o
Mr. Cass, the landlord, to suit Silas's largei
family. For he and Eppie had declared thai
they would rather stay at the Stone-pits than
go to any new home. The garden was fenced
with stones on two sides, but in front there
was an open fence, through which the flowers
shone with answering gladness, as the four
united people came within sight of them.

" Oh, father," said Eppie, ** what a pretty home
ours is ! I think nobody could be happier than

we are.**

312

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PR Eliot, Georg
^670 Silas Marner
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Sig. 5am.

SIGMUM) SAMUEL LIBRAKT

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