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diff --git a/old/smarn10.txt b/old/smarn10.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 88152b0..0000000 --- a/old/smarn10.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7534 +0,0 @@ -**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Silas Marner by George Eliot** -#3 in our series by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) - - -Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check -the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! - -Please take a look at the important information in this header. -We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an -electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. - - -**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** - -**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** - -*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* - -Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and -further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* - - - - - -SILAS MARNER - -The Weaver of Raveloe - -by George Eliot -(Mary Anne Evans) - - -1861 - - - "A child, more than all other gifts - That earth can offer to declining man, - Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts." ---WORDSWORTH. - - - - -PART ONE - -CHAPTER I - - -In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses-- -and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their -toy spinning-wheels of polished oak--there might be seen in -districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the -hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny -country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. The -shepherd's dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men -appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; for -what dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag?--and these pale -men rarely stirred abroad without that mysterious burden. The -shepherd himself, though he had good reason to believe that the bag -held nothing but flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong -linen spun from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade of -weaving, indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirely -without the help 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 knowledge, or showed any skill in handicraft. All -cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrument -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 -winnowing-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 pleasant sense of scornful superiority, -drawn from the mockery of its alternating noises, along with the -bent, tread-mill 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 to make them take to their legs in terror. 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 mouth at any boy who happened to be in -the rear? They had, perhaps, heard their fathers and mothers hint -that Silas Marner could cure folks' 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 grey-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 anything you can fancy that you would like to eat?" 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 civilization--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, quite an hour's journey on horseback from any -turnpike, where it was never reached by the vibrations of the -coach-horn, or of public opinion. It was an important-looking -village, with a fine old church and large churchyard in the heart of -it, and two or three large brick-and-stone homesteads, 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 eye that there was no great park -and manor-house in the vicinity, but that there were several chiefs -in Raveloe who could farm badly quite at their ease, drawing enough -money from their bad farming, in those war times, to live in a -rollicking fashion, and keep a jolly Christmas, Whitsun, and Easter -tide. - -It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; -he was then simply a pallid young man, with 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 mysterious peculiarities which -corresponded with the exceptional nature of his occupation, and his -advent from an unknown 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 wheelwright'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 "fit", 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 its nest and back; and that was how folks got over-wise, 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 to keep him from -doing you a mischief. - -It was partly to this vague fear that Marner was indebted for -protecting him from the persecution 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 impressions 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 remained 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 Silas -himself, as well as by his minister and fellow-members, a wilful -self-exclusion from the spiritual significance that might lie -therein. 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 herbs and their preparation--a little store of wisdom -which she had imparted to him as a solemn bequest--but of late -years he had had doubts about the lawfulness of applying this -knowledge, believing that herbs could have no efficacy without -prayer, and that prayer might suffice without herbs; so that the -inherited delight he had in wandering in the fields in search of -foxglove and dandelion and coltsfoot, began to wear to him the -character of a temptation. - -Among the members of his church there was one young man, a little -older than himself, with whom he had long lived in such close -friendship that it was the custom of their Lantern Yard brethren to -call them David and Jonathan. The real name of the friend was -William Dane, and he, too, was regarded as a shining instance of -youthful piety, though somewhat given to over-severity towards -weaker brethren, and to be so dazzled by his own light as to hold -himself wiser than his teachers. But whatever blemishes others -might discern in William, to his friend's mind he was faultless; for -Marner had one of those impressible self-doubting natures which, at -an inexperienced age, admire imperativeness and lean on -contradiction. The expression of trusting simplicity in Marner's -face, heightened by that absence of special observation, that -defenceless, deer-like gaze which belongs to large prominent 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 assurance 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 -the general sympathy towards a brother thus singled out for special -dealings. He observed that, to him, this trance looked more like a -visitation of Satan than a proof of divine favour, and exhorted his -friend to see that he hid no accursed thing within his soul. Silas, -feeling bound to accept rebuke and admonition as a brotherly office, -felt no resentment, but only pain, at his friend's doubts concerning -him; and to this was soon added some anxiety at the perception that -Sarah's manner towards him began to exhibit a strange fluctuation -between an effort at an increased manifestation of regard and -involuntary signs of shrinking and dislike. He asked her if she -wished to break off their engagement; but she denied this: their -engagement was known to the church, and had been recognized in the -prayer-meetings; it could not be broken off without strict -investigation, and Sarah could render no reason that would be -sanctioned by the feeling of the community. At this time the senior -deacon was taken dangerously ill, and, being a childless widower, he -was tended night and day by some of the younger brethren or sisters. -Silas frequently took his turn in the night-watching with William, -the one relieving the other at two in the morning. The old man, -contrary to expectation, seemed to be on the way to recovery, when -one 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. 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 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 man had been cruelly -bruised. _The lots declared that Silas Marner was guilty._ He was -solemnly suspended from church-membership, and called upon to render -up the stolen money: only on confession, as the sign of repentance, -could he be received once more within the folds of the church. -Marner listened in silence. At last, when everyone 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 plot 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 were turned into the anguish of disappointed faith. If -there is an angel who records the sorrows of men as well as their -sins, he knows how many and deep are the sorrows that spring from -false ideas for which no man is culpable. - -Marner went home, and for a whole day sat alone, stunned by despair, -without any impulse to go to Sarah and attempt to win her belief in -his innocence. The second day he took refuge from benumbing -unbelief, by getting into his loom and working away as usual; and -before many hours were past, the minister and one of the deacons -came to him with the message from Sarah, that she held her -engagement to him at an end. Silas received the message mutely, and -then turned away from the messengers to work at his loom again. In -little more than a month from that time, Sarah was married to -William Dane; and not long afterwards it was known to the brethren -in Lantern Yard that Silas Marner 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 whitewashed -walls; the little pews where well-known figures entered with a -subdued rustling, and where first one well-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 influences 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 jogging -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 something not unlike the feeling -of primitive men, when they fled thus, in fear or in sullenness, -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 to work in his loom; and -he went on with this unremittingly, never asking himself why, now he -was come to Raveloe, he worked far on into the night to finish the -tale of Mrs. Osgood's table-linen sooner than she expected-- -without contemplating beforehand the money she would put into his -hand for the work. He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure -impulse, without reflection. Every man's work, pursued steadily, -tends in this way to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over -the loveless chasms of his life. Silas's hand satisfied itself with -throwing the shuttle, and his eye with seeing the little squares in -the cloth complete themselves under his effort. Then there were the -calls of hunger; and Silas, in his solitude, had to provide his own -breakfast, dinner, and supper, to fetch his own water from the well, -and put his own kettle on the fire; and all these immediate -promptings helped, along with the weaving, to reduce his life to the -unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He hated the thought -of the past; there was nothing that called out his love and -fellowship toward the strangers he had come amongst; and the future -was all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him. -Thought was arrested by utter bewilderment, now its old narrow -pathway was closed, and affection seemed to have died under the -bruise that had fallen on its keenest nerves. - -But at last Mrs. Osgood's table-linen was finished, and Silas was -paid in gold. His earnings in his native town, where he worked for -a wholesale dealer, had been after a lower rate; he had been paid -weekly, and of his weekly earnings a large proportion had gone to -objects of piety and charity. Now, for the first time in his life, -he had five bright guineas put into his hand; no man expected a -share of them, and he loved no man that he should offer him a share. -But what were the guineas to him who saw no vista beyond countless -days of weaving? It was needless for him to ask that, for it was -pleasant to him to feel them in his palm, and look at their bright -faces, which were all his own: it was another element of life, like -the weaving and the satisfaction of hunger, subsisting quite aloof -from the life of belief and love from which he had been cut off. -The weaver's hand had known the touch of hard-won money even before -the palm had grown to its full breadth; for twenty years, mysterious -money had stood to him as the symbol of earthly good, and the -immediate object of toil. He had seemed to love it little in the -years when every penny had its purpose for him; for he loved the -_purpose_ then. But now, when all purpose was gone, that habit of -looking towards the money and grasping it with a sense of fulfilled -effort made a loam that was deep enough for the seeds of desire; and -as Silas walked homeward across the fields in the twilight, he drew -out the money and thought it was brighter in the gathering gloom. - -About this time an incident happened which seemed to open a -possibility of some fellowship with his neighbours. One day, taking -a pair of shoes to be mended, he saw the cobbler's wife seated by -the fire, suffering from the terrible symptoms of heart-disease and -dropsy, which he had witnessed as the precursors of his mother's -death. He felt a rush of pity at the mingled sight and remembrance, -and, recalling the relief his mother had found from a simple -preparation of foxglove, he promised Sally Oates to bring her -something that would ease her, since the doctor did her no good. In -this office of charity, Silas felt, for the first time since he had -come to Raveloe, a sense of unity between his past and present life, -which might have been the beginning of his rescue from the -insect-like existence into which his nature had shrunk. But Sally -Oates's disease had raised her into a personage of much interest and -importance among the neighbours, and the fact of her having found -relief from drinking Silas Marner's "stuff" became a matter of -general discourse. When Doctor Kimble gave physic, it was natural -that it should have an effect; but when a weaver, who came from -nobody knew where, worked wonders with a bottle of brown waters, the -occult character of the process was evident. Such a sort of thing -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 Oates'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 that 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 Coulter had. Silas Marner could -very likely do as much, and more; and now it was all clear how he -should have come from unknown parts, and be so "comical-looking". -But Sally Oates must mind and not tell the doctor, for he would be -sure to set his face against Marner: he was always angry about the -Wise Woman, and used to threaten those who went to her that they -should have none of his help any more. - -Silas now found himself and his cottage suddenly beset by mothers -who wanted him to charm away the whooping-cough, or bring back the -milk, and by men who wanted stuff against the rheumatics or the -knots in the hands; and, to secure themselves against a refusal, the -applicants brought silver in their palms. Silas might have driven a -profitable trade in charms as well as in his small list of drugs; -but money on this condition was no temptation to him: he had never -known an impulse towards falsity, and he drove one after another -away with growing irritation, for the news of him as a wise man had -spread even to Tarley, and it was long before people ceased to take -long walks for the sake of asking his aid. But the hope in his -wisdom was at length changed into dread, for no one believed him -when he said he knew no charms and could work no cures, and every -man and woman who had an accident or a new attack after applying to -him, set the misfortune down to Master Marner's ill-will and -irritated glances. Thus it came to pass that his movement of pity -towards Sally Oates, which had given him a transient sense of -brotherhood, heightened the repulsion between him and his -neighbours, and made his isolation more complete. - -Gradually the guineas, the crowns, and the half-crowns grew to a -heap, and Marner drew less and less for his own wants, trying to -solve the problem of keeping himself strong enough to work sixteen -hours a-day on as small an outlay as possible. Have not men, shut -up in solitary imprisonment, found an interest in marking the -moments by straight strokes of a certain length on the wall, until -the growth of the sum of straight strokes, arranged in triangles, -has become a mastering purpose? Do we not wile away moments of -inanity or fatigued waiting 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 might, if he had had a less intense -nature, have sat weaving, weaving--looking towards the end of his -pattern, or towards the end of his web, till he forgot the riddle, -and everything else but his immediate sensations; but the money had -come to mark off his weaving into periods, and the money not only -grew, but it remained with him. He began to think it was conscious -of him, as his loom was, and he would on no account have exchanged -those coins, which had become his 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, without 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 companion 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 overarched 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 repetition 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 bags, which wasted no room in their resting-place, but lent -themselves flexibly to every corner. How the guineas shone as they -came pouring out of the dark leather mouths! 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 his journeys -through the fields and the lanes to fetch and carry home his work, -so that his steps never wandered to the hedge-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 has 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 handsome 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 -understood to be of timeless origin--the Raveloe imagination -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 extravagant 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 multiplication 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, when 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--everything, 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 of 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 condescended 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! and if she could come -to be mistress at the Red House, there would be a fine change, for -the Lammeters had been brought up 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 -daughter-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 grey light fell dimly on the -walls decorated with guns, whips, and foxes' brushes, on coats and -hats flung on the chairs, on tankards sending forth a scent of flat -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 blond -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 chimney-corner. - -"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 come 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 -drinking 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 o' 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?" - -"Oh!" said Dunsey, sneeringly, coming nearer to his brother and -looking in his face. "Suppose, now, you get the money yourself, -and save me 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, turning 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 -company--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 -speak 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 beating 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 make a 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, quivering, 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 of his side-pockets, and looking at the -floor. That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal -courage, but helped him to no decision when the dangers to be braved -were such as could neither be knocked down nor throttled. His -natural irresolution and moral cowardice were exaggerated by a -position in which dreaded consequences seemed to press equally on -all sides, and his irritation had no sooner provoked him to defy -Dunstan and anticipate all possible betrayals, than the miseries he -must bring on himself by such a step seemed more unendurable to him -than the present evil. The results of confession were not -contingent, they were certain; whereas betrayal was not certain. -From the near vision of that certainty he fell back on suspense and -vacillation 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 favour 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 -without 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 -rather 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 fulfilment of his own threat. But his pride would not let -him recommence the conversation otherwise than by continuing the -quarrel. Dunstan was waiting for this, and took his ale in shorter -draughts than usual. - -"It's just like you," Godfrey burst out, in a bitter tone, "to -talk about my selling Wildfire in that cool way--the last thing -I've got to call my own, and the best bit of horse-flesh I ever had -in my life. And if you'd got a spark of pride in you, you'd be -ashamed to see the stables emptied, and everybody sneering about it. -But it's my belief you'd sell yourself, if it was only for the -pleasure of making somebody feel he'd got a bad bargain." - -"Aye, aye," said Dunstan, very placably, "you do me justice, I -see. You know I'm a jewel for 'ticing people into bargains. For -which reason I advise you to let _me_ sell Wildfire. I'd ride him -to the hunt to-morrow for you, with pleasure. I shouldn't look so -handsome as you in the saddle, but it's the horse they'll bid for, -and not the rider." - -"Yes, I daresay--trust my horse to you!" - -"As you please," said Dunstan, rapping the window-seat again with -an air of great unconcern. "It's _you_ have got to pay Fowler's -money; it's none of my business. You received the money from him -when you went to Bramcote, and _you_ told the Squire it wasn't paid. -I'd nothing to do with that; you chose to be so obliging as to give -it me, that was all. 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 -undertaking 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." - -"Aye, aye," 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. "I'm always lucky in my weather. It -might rain if you wanted to go yourself. You never hold trumps, you -know--I always do. You've got the beauty, you see, and I've got -the luck, so you must keep me by you for your crooked sixpence; -you'll _ne_-ver get along 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 head coming home, and Wildfire might be the worse for it." - -"Make your tender heart easy," said Dunstan, opening the door. -"You never knew me see double when I'd got a bargain 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 him, and left Godfrey to -that bitter rumination on his personal circumstances which was now -unbroken from day to day save by the excitement of sporting, -drinking, card-playing, or the rarer and less oblivious pleasure of -seeing Miss Nancy Lammeter. The subtle and varied pains springing -from the higher sensibility that accompanies higher culture, are -perhaps less pitiable than that dreary absence of impersonal -enjoyment and consolation 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, getting -heavier and heavier in their saddles, and who passed the rest of -their days in the half-listless gratification of senses dulled by -monotony--had a certain pathos in them nevertheless. Calamities -came to _them_ too, and their early errors carried hard -consequences: perhaps the 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 Cass in this -six-and-twentieth year of his life. A movement of compunction, -helped by those small indefinable influences which every personal -relation exerts on a pliant nature, had urged him into a secret -marriage, which was a blight on his life. It was an ugly story of -low passion, delusion, and waking from delusion, which needs not to -be dragged from the privacy of Godfrey's bitter memory. He had long -known that the delusion was partly due to a trap laid for him by -Dunstan, who saw in his brother's degrading marriage the means of -gratifying at once his jealous hate and his cupidity. And if -Godfrey could have felt himself simply a victim, the iron bit that -destiny had put into his mouth would have chafed him less -intolerably. If the curses he muttered half aloud when 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 vicious 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 annulling 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 unresistingly with the family courses, but the need of some -tender permanent affection, the longing for some influence that -would make the good he preferred easy to pursue, caused the -neatness, purity, and liberal orderliness of the Lammeter household, -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 himself; 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 -gratification he was impelled, fitfully, every now and then, after -having passed weeks in which he had avoided her as the far-off -bright-winged prize that only made him spring forward and find his -chain all the more galling. One of those fits of yearning was on -him now, and it would have been strong enough to have persuaded him -to trust Wildfire to Dunstan rather than disappoint the yearning, -even if he had not had another reason for his disinclination towards -the morrow's hunt. That other reason was the fact that the -morning's meet was near Batherley, the market-town where the unhappy -woman lived, whose image became more odious to him every day; and to -his thought the whole vicinage was haunted by her. The yoke a man -creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest -nature; and the good-humoured, affectionate-hearted 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-fighting: -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 unenclosed 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 approached 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 faithful brother, that he -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 -satisfaction 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 with you for that big-boned hack of yours?" -said Bryce, quite aware that he should 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 I've 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 who 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 became more complicated. -It ended in the purchase of the horse by Bryce for a hundred and -twenty, to be paid on the delivery of 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, however, took -one fence too many, and got his horse pierced with a hedge-stake. -His own ill-favoured person, which was quite unmarketable, 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 eager riders in advance, not -troubling themselves 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 to 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 could worry Godfrey into anything. The -idea of Marner's money kept growing in vividness, now the want of it -had become immediate; the prospect of having to make his appearance -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 unprecedented 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 while 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 reduced 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 acquaintance 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 his feet were liable -to slip--hid everything, so that he had to guide his steps by -dragging 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 circumstance 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 was 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, 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 silence 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 pausing 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 brick hearth: he walked in and seated himself -by it at once. There was something in front of the fire, 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 -lived on mouldy bread, on purpose to check his appetite. But where -could he be at this time, and on such an evening, leaving 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 would know that anybody -had come to take it away?_ He went no farther into the subtleties of -evidence: the pressing question, "Where _is_ the money?" now took -such entire possession of him as to make him quite forget that the -weaver's death was not a certainty. A dull mind, once arriving at -an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to retain the -impression that the notion from which the inference started was -purely problematic. And Dunstan's mind was as dull as the mind of a -possible felon usually is. There were only three hiding-places -where he had ever heard of cottagers' hoards being found: the -thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. Marner's cottage had no -thatch; and Dunstan's first act, after a train of thought made rapid -by the stimulus of cupidity, was to go up to the bed; but while he -did so, his eyes travelled eagerly over the floor, where the bricks, -distinct in the fire-light, were discernible under the sprinkling of -sand. But not everywhere; for there was one spot, and one only, -which was quite covered with sand, and sand showing the marks of -fingers, which had apparently been careful to spread it over a given -space. It was near the treddles of the loom. In an instant Dunstan -darted to that spot, swept away the sand with his whip, and, -inserting the thin end of the hook between the bricks, found that -they were loose. In haste he lifted up two bricks, and saw what he -had no doubt was the object of his search; for what could there be -but money in those two leathern bags? And, from their weight, they -must be filled with guineas. Dunstan felt round the hole, to be -certain that it held no more; then hastily replaced the bricks, and -spread the sand over them. Hardly more than five minutes had passed -since he entered the cottage, but it seemed to 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 immediately, 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 - -When Dunstan Cass turned his back on the cottage, Silas Marner was -not more than a hundred yards away from it, plodding along from the -village with a sack thrown round his shoulders as an overcoat, and -with a horn lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind -was at ease, free from the presentiment of change. The sense of -security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction, -and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the -conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse -of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this -logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should -never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added -condition which makes the event imminent. A man will tell you that -he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a -reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is -beginning to sink; and it is often observable, that the older a man -gets, the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing -conception of his own death. This influence of habit was -necessarily strong in a man whose life was so monotonous as Marner's-- -who saw no new people and heard of no new events to keep alive in -him the idea of the unexpected and the changeful; and it explains -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 -indispensable 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 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. - -Any one who had looked at him as the red 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 Marner. 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 on him, and confirmed more -and more the monotonous 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 images, -which is still distinct from madness, because it is capable of being -dissipated by the external fact. Silas got 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 thief -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 fire 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, but he felt that 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. He 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. He 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 were in the habit of assembling, the parlour on the left being -reserved for the more select society in which Squire Cass frequently -enjoyed the double pleasure of conviviality and condescension. But -the parlour was dark to-night, the chief personages who ornamented -its circle being all at Mrs. Osgood's birthday dance, as Godfrey -Cass was. And in consequence of this, the party on the -high-screened seats in the kitchen was more numerous than usual; -several personages, who would otherwise have been admitted into the -parlour and enlarged the opportunity of hectoring and condescension -for their betters, being content this evening to vary their -enjoyment by taking their spirits-and-water where they could -themselves hector and condescend 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-- - -"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 in as severely as -before. - -"Was it a red Durham?" said the farrier, taking up the thread of -discourse after the lapse of a few minutes. - -The farrier looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at the -butcher, as the person who must take the responsibility of -answering. - -"Red it was," said the butcher, in his good-humoured husky treble-- -"and a Durham it was." - -"Then you needn't tell _me_ who you bought it of," said the -farrier, looking round with some triumph; "I know who it is has got -the red Durhams o' this country-side. And she'd a white star on her -brow, I'll bet a penny?" The farrier leaned forward with his hands -on his knees as he put this question, and his eyes twinkled -knowingly. - -"Well; yes--she might," said the butcher, slowly, considering -that he was giving a decided affirmative. "I don't say -contrairy." - -"I knew that very well," said the farrier, throwing himself -backward again, and speaking defiantly; "if _I_ don't know -Mr. Lammeter's cows, I should like to know who does--that's all. -And as for the cow you've bought, bargain or no bargain, I've been -at the drenching of her--contradick me who will." - -The farrier looked fierce, and the mild butcher's conversational -spirit was roused a little. - -"I'm 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 _I_ 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 contradick none--not if a man was to swear -himself black: he's no meat o' mine, nor none o' my bargains. All 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 cow'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. Lammeter's father come into these parts, and took the Warrens?" - -Mr. Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter of which functions -rheumatism had of late obliged him to share with a small-featured -young man who sat opposite him, held his white head on one side, and -twirled his thumbs with an air of complacency, slightly seasoned -with criticism. He smiled pityingly, in answer to the landlord's -appeal, and said-- - -"Aye, aye; I know, I know; but I let other folks talk. I've laid -by now, and gev up to the young uns. Ask them as have been to -school at Tarley: they've learnt pernouncing; that's come up since -my day." - -"If you're pointing at me, Mr. Macey," said the deputy clerk, with -an air of anxious propriety, "I'm nowise a man to speak out of my -place. As 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 tune, when it's set for -you; if you're for prac_tis_ing, I wish you'd prac_tise_ that," -said a large jocose-looking man, an excellent wheelwright in his -week-day capacity, but on Sundays leader of the choir. He winked, -as he spoke, at two of the company, who were known officially as the -"bassoon" and the "key-bugle", in the confidence that he was -expressing the sense of the musical profession in Raveloe. - -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." - -"Aye, aye," said Mr. Macey, who felt very well satisfied with this -attack on youthful presumption; "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 infirmities -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. I 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." - -"Aye, aye," 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." - -"Aye, 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 heared 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 strange 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 was well looked on by everybody. And the young man-- -that's the Mr. Lammeter as now is, for he'd niver a sister-- -soon begun 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. _I_ 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. - -"Aye, and a partic'lar thing happened, didn't it, Mr. Macey, so as -you were likely to remember 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 was allays uncommon for turning things over and -seeing all round 'em; and I says to myself, "Is't the meanin' or the -words as makes folks fast i' wedlock?" For the parson meant right, -and the bride and bridegroom meant right. But then, when I come to -think on it, meanin' goes but a little way i' most things, for you -may mean to stick things together and your glue may be bad, and then -where are you? And so I says to mysen, "It isn't the meanin', 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. - -"Aye, 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; "it's neither the meaning nor the words--it's the -re_ges_ter 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 -words. But there was more to come; and Mr. Snell, the landlord, -duly put the leading question. - -"Why, old Mr. Lammeter had a pretty fortin, didn't they say, when -he come into these parts?" - -"Well, yes," said Mr. Macey; "but I daresay it's as much as this -Mr. Lammeter's done to keep it whole. For there was allays a talk -as nobody could get rich on the Warrens: though he holds it cheap, -for it's what they call Charity Land." - -"Aye, and there's few folks know so well as you how it come to be -Charity Land, eh, Mr. Macey?" said the butcher. - -"How should they?" said the old clerk, with some contempt. -"Why, my grandfather made the grooms' livery for that Mr. Cliff as -came and built the big stables at the Warrens. Why, they're stables -four times as big as Squire Cass's, for he thought o' nothing but -hosses and hunting, Cliff didn't--a Lunnon tailor, some folks -said, as had gone mad wi' cheating. For he couldn't ride; lor bless -you! they said he'd got no more grip o' the hoss than if his legs -had been cross-sticks: my grandfather heared old Squire Cass say so -many and many a time. But ride he would, as if Old Harry had been -a-driving him; and he'd a son, a lad o' sixteen; and nothing would -his father have him do, but he must ride and ride--though the lad -was frighted, they said. And it was a common saying 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 proud 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 hosses; and they said it was a -mercy as the stables didn't get burnt 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." - -"Aye, but there's more going on in the stables than what folks see -by daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?" said the landlord. - -"Aye, aye; go that way of a dark night, that's all," said -Mr. Macey, winking mysteriously, "and then make believe, if you -like, as you didn't see lights i' the stables, nor hear the stamping -o' the hosses, nor the cracking o' the whips, and howling, too, if -it's tow'rt daybreak. "Cliff's Holiday" has been the name of it -ever sin' I were a boy; that's to say, some said as it was the -holiday Old Harry gev him from roasting, like. That's what my -father told me, and he was a reasonable man, though there's folks -nowadays know what happened afore they were born better nor they -know their own business." - -"What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas?" said the landlord, turning -to the farrier, who was swelling with impatience for his cue. -"There's a nut for _you_ to crack." - -Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the company, and was proud of -his position. - -"Say? I say what a man _should_ say as doesn't shut his eyes to -look at a finger-post. I say, as I'm ready to wager any man ten -pound, if he'll stand out wi' me any dry night in the pasture before -the Warren stables, as we shall neither see lights nor hear noises, -if it isn't the blowing of our own noses. That's what I say, and -I've said it many a time; but there's nobody 'ull ventur a ten-pun' -note on their ghos'es as they make so sure of." - -"Why, Dowlas, that's easy betting, that is," said Ben Winthrop. -"You might as well bet a man as he wouldn't catch the rheumatise if -he stood 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 agoing 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 the farrier, with a snort -of scorn. "If folks are fools, it's no business o' mine. _I_ -don't want to make out the truth about ghos'es: I know it a'ready. -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?" replied 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 'll 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. _I_ aren't a turn-tail cur." - -"Aye, 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 -pike-staff before 'em. And there's reason i' 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 was certain sure, for all that, I'd back -_him_ too. For the smell's what I go by." - -The landlord's analogical argument was not 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. - - - -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, uttering 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 neutralize -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 on 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!" 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. - -"Aye, Master Marner, what do you 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 you. -Give it me back, and I'll let you--I'll let you have a guinea." - -"Me stole your money!" said Jem, angrily. "I'll pitch this can -at your eye if you talk o' _my_ stealing your money." - -"Come, come, Master Marner," said the landlord, now rising -resolutely, and seizing Marner by the shoulder, "if you've got any -information to lay, speak it out sensible, and show as you're in -your right mind, if you expect anybody to listen to you. You're as -wet as a drownded rat. Sit down and dry yourself, and speak -straight forrard." - -"Ah, to be sure, man," said the farrier, who began to feel that he -had not been quite on a par with himself and the occasion. "Let's -have no more staring and screaming, else we'll have you strapped for -a madman. That was why I didn't speak at the first--thinks I, the -man's run mad." - -"Aye, aye, make him sit down," said several voices at once, well -pleased that the reality of ghosts remained still an open question. - -The landlord forced Marner to take off his coat, and then to sit -down on a chair aloof from every one else, in the centre of the -circle and in the direct rays of the fire. The weaver, too feeble -to have any distinct purpose beyond that of getting help to recover -his money, submitted unresistingly. The transient fears of the -company were now forgotten in their strong curiosity, and all faces -were turned towards Silas, when the landlord, having seated himself -again, said-- - -"Now then, Master Marner, what'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. "What could I ha' done with his money? I could -as easy steal the parson's surplice, and wear it." - -"Hold your tongue, Jem, and let's hear what he's got to say," said -the landlord. "Now then, Master Marner." - -Silas now told his story, under frequent questioning as the -mysterious character of the robbery became evident. - -This strangely novel situation of opening his trouble to his Raveloe -neighbours, of sitting in the warmth of a hearth not his own, and -feeling the presence of faces and voices which were his nearest -promise of help, had doubtless its influence on Marner, in spite of -his passionate preoccupation with his loss. Our consciousness -rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than -without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we -detect the smallest sign of the bud. - -The slight suspicion with which his hearers at first listened to -him, gradually melted away before the convincing simplicity of his -distress: it was impossible for the neighbours to doubt that Marner -was telling the truth, not because they were capable of arguing at -once from the nature of his statements to the absence of any motive -for making them falsely, but because, as Mr. Macey observed, "Folks -as had the devil to back 'em were not likely to be so mushed" as -poor Silas was. Rather, from the strange fact that the robber had -left no traces, and had happened to know the nick of time, utterly -incalculable by mortal agents, when Silas would go away from home -without locking his door, the more probable conclusion seemed to be, -that his disreputable intimacy in that quarter, if it ever existed, -had been broken up, and that, in consequence, this ill turn had been -done to Marner by somebody it was quite in vain to set the constable -after. Why this preternatural felon should be obliged to wait till -the door was left unlocked, was a question which did not present -itself. - -"It isn't Jem Rodney as has done this work, Master Marner," said -the landlord. "You mustn't be a-casting your eye at poor Jem. -There may be a bit of a reckoning against Jem for the matter of a -hare or so, if anybody was bound to keep their eyes staring open, -and niver to wink; but Jem's been a-sitting here drinking his can, -like the decentest man i' the parish, since before you left your -house, Master Marner, by your own account." - -"Aye, aye," said Mr. Macey; "let'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 -awakened 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." - -"Aye, aye, 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. - -"Pooh! why, they'd be none so heavy to carry. Some tramp's been -in, that's all; and as for the no footmarks, and the bricks and the -sand being all right--why, your eyes are pretty much like a -insect's, Master Marner; they're obliged to look so close, you can't -see much at a time. It's my opinion as, if I'd been you, or you'd -been me--for it comes to the same thing--you wouldn't have -thought you'd found everything as you left it. But what I vote is, -as two of the sensiblest o' the company should go with you to Master -Kench, the constable's--he's ill i' bed, I know that much--and -get him to appoint one of us his deppity; for that's the law, and I -don't think anybody 'ull take upon him to contradick me there. It -isn't much of a walk to Kench's; and then, if it's me as is deppity, -I'll go back with you, Master Marner, and examine your premises; and -if anybody's got any fault to find with that, I'll thank him to -stand up and say it out like a man." - -By this pregnant speech the farrier had re-established his -self-complacency, and waited with confidence to hear himself named -as one of the superlatively sensible men. - -"Let us see how the night is, though," said the landlord, who also -considered himself personally concerned in this proposition. "Why, -it rains heavy still," he said, returning from the door. - -"Well, I'm not the man to be afraid o' the rain," said the -farrier. "For it'll look 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 _nolo 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 farrier being of course -indisposed to renounce the quality of doctor, but contending that a -doctor could be a constable if he liked--the law meant, he needn't -be one if he didn't like. Mr. Macey thought this was nonsense, -since the law was not likely to be fonder of doctors than of other -folks. Moreover, if it was in the nature of doctors more than of -other men not to like being constables, how came Mr. Dowlas to be so -eager to act in that capacity? - -"_I_ 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 en_vy_ing 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 consented 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". - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -When Godfrey Cass returned from Mrs. Osgood's party at midnight, he -was not much surprised to learn that Dunsey had not come home. -Perhaps he had not sold Wildfire, and was waiting 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 -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 somehow 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 farther, 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 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 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 substantial 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 had -actually stated that he carried a tinder-box 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 pedlar's countenance -and conversation. He had a "look 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 ear-rings?" 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 ear-rings, he appeared to give -up the effort, and said, "Well, he'd got ear-rings 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." - -Mr. Snell was correct in his surmise, that somebody else would -remember the pedlar's ear-rings. 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 ear-rings 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_ -ear-rings, immediately had an image of him _with_ ear-rings, larger -or smaller, as the case might be; and the image was presently taken -for a vivid recollection, so that the glazier'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 ear-rings, 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 Rainbow to be -exhibited there. In fact, there 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 nothing. This had been Silas's testimony, -though he clutched strongly at the idea of the pedlar's being the -culprit, if only because it gave him a definite image of a -whereabout for his gold after it had been taken away from its -hiding-place: he could see it now in the pedlar's box. But it was -observed with some irritation in the village, that anybody but a -"blind creatur" like Marner would have seen the man prowling -about, for how came he to leave his tinder-box in the ditch close -by, if he hadn't been lingering there? Doubtless, he had made his -observations when he saw Marner at the door. Anybody might know-- -and only look at him--that the weaver was a half-crazy miser. It -was a wonder the pedlar hadn't murdered him; men of that sort, with -rings in their ears, had been known for murderers often and often; -there had been one tried at the 'sizes, not so long ago but what -there were people living who remembered it. - -Godfrey Cass, indeed, entering the Rainbow during one of Mr. Snell's -frequently repeated recitals of his testimony, had treated it -lightly, stating that he himself had bought a pen-knife 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 give 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 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." - -"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." - -"Well, 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 -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, turning 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. "I _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 withheld the rest, Dunstan would be -sure to come back shortly, and, finding that he must bear the brunt -of his father's anger, would tell the whole story out of spite, even -though he had nothing to gain by it. There was one step, perhaps, -by which 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 much 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 consequences 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 will bent in the direction of a complete -avowal to 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. 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 unrelentingness, 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 back--the old shrinking from the -thought of 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. - - - -CHAPTER IX - -Godfrey rose and took his own breakfast earlier than usual, but -lingered in the wainscoted parlour till his younger brothers had -finished their meal and gone out; awaiting his father, who always -took a walk with his managing-man before breakfast. Every one -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 consciousness 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 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 breakfast, 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 exclusively the period of folly, and that their aged -wisdom was constantly in a state of endurance mitigated by sarcasm. -Godfrey waited, before he spoke again, until the ale had been -brought 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 Squire had delivered this speech in a coughing and interrupted -manner, but with no pause long enough for Godfrey to make it a -pretext for taking up the word again. He felt that his father meant -to ward off any request for money on the ground of the misfortune -with 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 utmost 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'd 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. - -"The truth is, sir--I'm very sorry--I was quite to blame," -said Godfrey. "Fowler did pay that hundred pounds. He paid it to -me, when I was over there one day last month. 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 whole 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 do a dishonest trick, sir." - -"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 falsehoods, 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, 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 slight -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 while to pry into young men's fooleries: it -wouldn't have made any difference 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 -grandfather 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 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?" - -"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." - -"I'd rather let it be, please sir, at present," said Godfrey, in -alarm. "I think she's a little offended with me just now, and I -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. - -"I'd rather let the thing be, at present, sir," said Godfrey. "I -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 prevarication 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 to Mr. Lammeter he should be -thrown into the embarrassment of being obliged 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. -And in this point of trusting to some throw of fortune's dice, -Godfrey can hardly be called specially old-fashioned. Favourable -Chance, I fancy, 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 will 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 forthcoming. -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 Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend -will never know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue -the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, -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 brings forth a crop after its kind. - - - -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 -without 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 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 -imagination 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 amusement of tormenting his -elder brother. Even if any brain in Raveloe had put the said two -facts together, I doubt whether 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 and elsewhere, in good -company, the balance continued 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 inexplicable 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 concerning the -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 in reality it had been an eager life, filled with -immediate purpose which fenced him in from the wide, cheerless -unknown. It had been a clinging life; and though the object round -which its fibres had clung was a dead disrupted thing, it satisfied -the need for clinging. But now the fence was broken down--the -support was snatched away. Marner's thoughts could no longer move -in their old round, and were baffled 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 the cloth; but the bright treasure in the hole under 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 craving. The -thought of the money he would get by his actual work could bring no -joy, for its meagre image was only a fresh reminder of his loss; and -hope was too heavily crushed by the sudden blow for his imagination -to dwell on 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, and moaned very low--not as one who seeks to -be heard. - -And yet he was not utterly forsaken in his trouble. The repulsion -Marner 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 wind, it was the season when -superfluous 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 but verbal -consolation to give showed a disposition not only to greet Silas and -discuss his misfortune at some length when they 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' lost your money, nor to ha' kep 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, like, 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 christening 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 without 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 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 daylight, 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--why, 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 continued 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." - -"Aye, aye, 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 heared -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 questioning 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. - -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 godfathers 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 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 -slightly 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 wholesome 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 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 him 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 as a 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 a 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 the armchair a few inches as a sign 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 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 misunderstanding 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 it," repeated Dolly, -who did not lightly forsake a serviceable phrase. She looked at -Silas pityingly as she went on. "But you didn't hear the -church-bells this morning, Master Marner? I 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, 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'd 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 wonderment. 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-- - -"Well, Master Marner, it's niver too late 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 presumptuous -familiarity. He remained silent, not feeling inclined to assent to -the part of Dolly's speech which he fully understood--her -recommendation 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 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 -good-will 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, Aaron, stan' up and sing the -carril to Master Marner, 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 Savior -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 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 -quarrelling, 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 hammer-like 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 fly away, nobody knows where, -like the white frost. And you'll excuse me being 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-- -relieved 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 of -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 or lock his door, pressing his head between his -hands and moaning, till the cold grasped him and told him that his -fire was grey. - -Nobody in this world but himself knew that he was the same Silas -Marner who had once loved his fellow with 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 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 anecdotes 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 accompanied 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 -mind. This was the occasion when all the society of Raveloe and -Tarley, whether old acquaintances 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 -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 any -rate, there's one pleasure for me close at hand: Nancy is coming." - -"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. I 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. - - - -CHAPTER XI - -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 stew-pan; 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-consciousness; 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 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 horse-block instead of -alighting at the door-steps. It was very painful, 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 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? -Moreover, it was quite plain he had no real love for her, else he -would not let people have _that_ to say of him which they did say. -Did he suppose that Miss Nancy Lammeter was to be won by any man, -squire or no squire, who led a bad life? That was not what she 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 hasty now and then, -if things were not done to the minute. - -All these thoughts rushed through Miss Nancy's mind, in their -habitual succession, in the moments between her first sight of -Mr. 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 to 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 an -unpleasant journey for such guests as were still on the road. These -were a small minority; for already the afternoon was beginning to -decline, and there would not be too much time for the ladies who -came from a distance to attire themselves in readiness for the early -tea which was to inspirit them for the dance. - -There was a buzz of voices through the house, as Miss Nancy entered, -mingled with the scrape of a fiddle preluding in the kitchen; but -the Lammeters were guests whose arrival had evidently been thought -of so much that it had been watched for from the windows, for -Mrs. Kimble, who did the honours at the Red House on these great -occasions, came forward to meet Miss Nancy in the hall, and conduct -her up-stairs. Mrs. Kimble was the Squire's sister, as well as the -doctor's wife--a double dignity, with which her diameter was in -direct proportion; so that, a journey up-stairs 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 Miss -Lammeters' bandboxes 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 Miss Gunns, 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 unsustained by -inward criticism. Partly, Miss Ladbrook felt that her own skirt -must be regarded as unduly lax by the Miss Gunns, and partly, that -it was a pity the Miss Gunns did not show that judgment which she -herself would show if she were in their place, by stopping a little -on this side of the fashion. On the other hand, Mrs. Ladbrook was -standing in skull-cap and front, with her turban in her hand, -curtsying and smiling blandly and saying, "After you, ma'am," to -another lady in similar 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 grey 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 the present. And how is my -brother-in-law?" - -These dutiful questions and answers were continued until it was -ascertained in detail that the Lammeters were all as well as usual, -and the Osgoods likewise, also that niece Priscilla must certainly -arrive shortly, and that travelling on pillions in snowy weather was -unpleasant, though a joseph was a great protection. Then Nancy was -formally introduced to her aunt's visitors, the Miss Gunns, as being -the daughters of a mother known to _their_ mother, though now for -the first time induced to make a journey into these parts; and these -ladies were so taken by surprise at finding such a lovely face and -figure in an out-of-the-way country place, that they began 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 moderation conspicuous in her manners, remarked to -herself that the Miss Gunns 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 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's opinion, for Miss Nancy's mind resembled her aunt's to a -degree that everybody said was surprising, considering the kinship -was on Mr. Osgood's side; and though you might not have supposed it -from the formality of their greeting, there was a devoted attachment -and mutual admiration between aunt and niece. Even Miss Nancy's -refusal of her cousin Gilbert Osgood (on the ground solely that he -was her cousin), though it had grieved her aunt greatly, had not in -the least cooled the preference which had determined her to leave -Nancy several of her hereditary ornaments, let Gilbert's future wife -be whom she might. - -Three of the ladies quickly retired, but the Miss Gunns 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 -bandbox, where everything smelt of lavender and rose-leaves, to the -clasping of the small coral necklace that fitted closely round her -little white neck. Everything belonging to Miss Nancy was of -delicate purity and nattiness: not a crease was where it had no -business to be, not a bit of her linen professed whiteness without -fulfilling its profession; the very pins on her pincushion were -stuck in after a pattern from which she was careful to allow no -aberration; and as for her own person, it gave the same idea of -perfect unvarying neatness as the body of a little bird. It is true -that her light-brown hair was cropped behind like a boy's, and was -dressed in front in a number of flat rings, that lay quite away from -her face; but there was no sort of coiffure that could make Miss -Nancy's cheek and neck look otherwise than pretty; and when at last -she stood complete in her silvery twilled silk, her lace tucker, her -coral necklace, and coral ear-drops, the Miss Gunns could see -nothing to criticise except her hands, which bore the traces of -butter-making, cheese-crushing, and even still coarser work. But -Miss Nancy was not ashamed of that, for even 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 concluded this judicious -remark, she turned to the Miss Gunns that she might not commit the -rudeness of not including them in the conversation. The Miss Gunns -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 the 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 under the lamb -and the shepherdess; and in order to balance an account, she was -obliged to effect her subtraction by removing visible metallic -shillings and sixpences from a visible metallic total. There is -hardly a servant-maid in these days 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 feelings 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 towards an -erring lover. - -The anxiety about sister Priscilla, which had grown rather active by -the time the coral necklace was clasped, was happily ended by the -entrance of that cheerful-looking lady herself, with a face made -blowsy by cold and damp. After the first questions and greetings, -she turned to Nancy, and surveyed her from head to foot--then -wheeled her round, to ascertain that the back view was equally -faultless. - -"What do you think o' _these_ gowns, aunt Osgood?" said -Priscilla, while Nancy helped her to unrobe. - -"Very handsome indeed, niece," said Mrs. Osgood, with a slight -increase of formality. She always thought niece Priscilla too -rough. - -"I'm obliged to have the same as Nancy, you know, for all I'm five -years older, and it makes me look yallow; for she never _will_ have -anything without I have mine just like it, because she wants us to -look like sisters. And I tell her, folks 'ull think it's my -weakness makes me fancy as I shall look pretty in what she looks -pretty in. For I _am_ ugly--there's no denying that: I feature my -father's family. But, law! I don't mind, do you?" Priscilla here -turned to the Miss Gunns, 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 stewing 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 to them as have got -no fortin, and can't help themselves. As I say, -Mr. Have-your-own-way is the best husband, and the only one I'd ever -promise to obey. I know it isn't pleasant, when you've been used to -living in a big way, and managing hogsheads and all that, to go and -put your nose in by somebody else's fireside, or to sit down by -yourself to a scrag or a knuckle; but, thank God! my father's a -sober man and likely to 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." - -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 Miss Gunns will like to go -down." - -"Sister," said Nancy, when they were alone, "you've offended the -Miss Gunns, I'm sure." - -"What have I done, child?" said Priscilla, in some alarm. - -"Why, you asked them if they minded about being ugly--you're so -very blunt." - -"Law, did I? Well, it popped out: it's a mercy I said no more, for -I'm a bad un to live with folks when they don't like the truth. But -as for being ugly, look at me, child, in this silver-coloured silk-- -I told you how it 'ud be--I look as yallow as a daffadil. -Anybody 'ud say you wanted to make a mawkin of me." - -"No, Priscy, don't say so. I begged and prayed of you not to let -us have this silk if you'd like another better. I was willing to -have _your_ choice, you know I was," said Nancy, in anxious -self-vindication. - -"Nonsense, child! you know you'd set your heart on this; and -reason good, for you're the colour o' cream. It 'ud be fine doings -for you to dress yourself to suit _my_ skin. What I find fault -with, is that notion o' yours as I must dress myself just like you. -But you do as you like with me--you always did, from when first -you begun 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 go 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 shall -_I_ 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. Come, -we can go down now. I'm as ready as a mawkin _can_ be--there's -nothing awanting to frighten the crows, now I've got my ear-droppers -in." - -As the two Miss Lammeters 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 Miss Lammeters near the head -of the principal tea-table in the wainscoted parlour, now looking -fresh and pleasant with handsome branches of holly, 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 consciousness 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 -thoughts that urged themselves upon her as she accepted the seat -next to Mr. Crackenthorp; for she was so instinctively neat and -adroit in all her actions, and her pretty lips met each 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, grey-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. 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 patronizing: 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. - -"Aye, aye," 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 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 pigtail. 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 soliloquizes 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 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 neighbourhoods, 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 inherently -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. 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 authentic doctor, coming -quickly to his wife's side; but, as if foreseeing that she would be -too much out of breath to repeat her remark, he went on immediately-- -"Ha, Miss Priscilla, the sight of you revives the taste of that -super-excellent pork-pie. I hope the batch isn't near an end." - -"Yes, indeed, it is, doctor," said Priscilla; "but I'll answer -for it the next shall be as good. My pork-pies don't turn out well -by chance." - -"Not as your doctoring does, eh, Kimble?--because folks forget -to take your physic, eh?" said the Squire, who regarded physic and -doctors as many loyal churchmen regard the church and the clergy-- -tasting a joke against them when he was in health, but impatiently -eager for their aid when anything was the matter with him. He -tapped his box, and looked round with a triumphant laugh. - -"Ah, she has a quick wit, my friend Priscilla has," said the -doctor, choosing to attribute the epigram to a lady rather than -allow a brother-in-law that advantage over him. "She saves a -little pepper to sprinkle over her talk--that's the reason why she -never puts too much into 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 seemed to intend a smile, which, by the -correlation of forces, went off 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 won'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'll 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, 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 -father had set his usual hospitable example of drinking before and -after supper, saw no course open 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 with him, he would soon be undeceived; but there 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 sense that there was anything -uncomfortable in this arrangement. - -"No, no objections," said Nancy, in a cold tone. - -"Ah, well, you're a lucky fellow, Godfrey," said uncle Kimble; -"but you're my godson, so I won't stand in your way. Else I'm not -so very old, eh, my dear?" he went on, skipping to his wife's side -again. "You wouldn't mind my having a second after you were gone-- -not if I cried a good deal first?" - -"Come, come, take a cup o' tea and stop your tongue, 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, _I_ 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 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, _I_ -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 into "Sir Roger de Coverley", at which -there was a sound of chairs pushed back, and laughing voices. - -"Aye, aye, 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 the 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 complacently conscious of very short -waists and skirts blameless of front-folds--luring burly fathers -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 -allowed 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 charter 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 appropriate 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 -coexisted with the right to sell you the ground to be buried 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 fine 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 fellow-men. - -"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." - -"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 wheels 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 nayther 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 little hole for it, like in my shuttle-cock?" - -"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, _I_'ll bet a penny." - -Mr. Macey screwed up his mouth, leaned his head 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 -staring 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 why should -he be turned round the finger by that offal Dunsey as nobody's seen -o' late, and let him kill that fine hunting hoss 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 _I_ went a-coorting." - -"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 was 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 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 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 distractingly 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 -repugnance 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 thinking 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 really felt much agitated by -the possibility Godfrey's words suggested, but this very pressure of -emotion that she was in danger of 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 indifferent to him _yet_, though-- - -The entrance of Priscilla, bustling 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 something 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 all her former -coldness, and looking down carefully 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. - - - -CHAPTER XII - -While Godfrey Cass was taking draughts of forgetfulness from the -sweet presence of Nancy, willingly losing 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. - -This journey on New Year's Eve was a premeditated 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 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. _He_ was well off; and if she had her -rights she would be well off too. The belief that he repented his -marriage, and suffered 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 monotonous lanes to know how near -she was to her journey's end. She needed comfort, and she 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 moment Molly had -flung something 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, notwithstanding 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 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 glancing 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, and held out one little -hand to catch the gleam. But the gleam would not be caught in that -way, 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, the old grimy shawl in -which it was wrapped trailing behind it, and the queer little bonnet -dangling at its back--toddled on to the open door of Silas -Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where 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 definite purpose, and which can hardly be -understood except by those who have undergone a bewildering -separation from a supremely loved object. In the evening twilight, -and later whenever the night was not dark, Silas looked out on that -narrow prospect 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 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-way of -jesting with the half-crazy oddities of a miser, but it had perhaps -helped to throw Silas into a more than usually excited state. Since -the on-coming of twilight he had opened his door again and again, -though only to shut it immediately at seeing all distance veiled by -the falling snow. But the last time he opened it the snow had -ceased, and the clouds were parting here and there. He stood and -listened, and gazed for a long while--there was really something -on the road coming towards him then, but he caught no sign of it; -and the stillness and the wide trackless snow seemed to narrow his -solitude, and touched his yearning with the chill of despair. He -went in again, and put his right hand on the latch of the door to -close it--but he did not close it: he was arrested, as he had been -already since his loss, by the invisible wand of catalepsy, and -stood like a graven image, with wide but sightless eyes, holding -open his door, powerless to resist either the good or the evil that -might enter there. - -When Marner's sensibility returned, he continued the action which -had been arrested, and closed his door, unaware of the chasm in his -consciousness, 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 -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 -encountered soft warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his -knees and bent his head low to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping -child--a round, fair thing, with soft yellow rings all over its -head. Could this be his little sister come back to him in a dream-- -his little sister whom he had carried about in his arms for a -year before she died, when he was a small boy without shoes or -stockings? That was the first thought that darted across Silas's -blank wonderment. _Was_ it a dream? He rose to his feet again, -pushed his logs together, and, throwing on some dried leaves and -sticks, raised a flame; but the flame did not disperse the vision-- -it only lit up more distinctly the little round form of the child, -and its shabby clothing. It was very much like his little sister. -Silas sank into his chair powerless, under the double presence of an -inexplicable surprise and a hurrying influx of memories. How and -when had the child come in without his knowledge? He had never been -beyond the door. But along with that question, and almost thrusting -it away, there was a vision of the old home and the old streets -leading to Lantern Yard--and within that vision another, of the -thoughts which had been present with him in those far-off scenes. -The thoughts were strange to him now, like old friendships -impossible to revive; and yet he had a dreamy feeling that this -child was somehow a message come to him from that far-off life: it -stirred fibres that had never been moved in Raveloe--old -quiverings of tenderness--old impressions of awe at the -presentiment of some Power presiding over his 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 brought -about. - -But there was a cry on the hearth: the child had awaked, and Marner -stooped to lift it on his knee. It clung round his neck, and burst -louder and louder into that mingling of inarticulate 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 of 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 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 at once -happily occupied with the primary mystery of her own toes, inviting -Silas, with much chuckling, to consider the mystery too. But the -wet boots had at last suggested to Silas that the child had been -walking on the snow, and this roused him from his entire oblivion of -any ordinary means by which it could have entered or been brought -into his house. Under the prompting of this new idea, and without -waiting to form conjectures, he raised the child in his arms, and -went to the door. As soon as he had opened it, there was the cry of -"mammy" again, which Silas had not heard since the child's first -hungry waking. Bending forward, he could just discern the marks -made by the little feet on the virgin snow, and he followed their -track to the furze bushes. "Mammy!" the little one cried again -and again, stretching itself forward so as almost to escape from -Silas's arms, before he himself was aware that there was something -more than the bush before him--that there was a human body, with -the head sunk low in the furze, and half-covered with the shaken -snow. - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -It was after the early supper-time at the Red House, and the -entertainment was in that stage when bashfulness 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; 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 one of those long -glances, they encountered an object 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 lies, like a dark by-street, -behind the goodly ornamented facade that meets the sunlight and the -gaze of respectable admirers. It was his own child, carried in -Silas Marner's arms. That was his instantaneous impression, -unaccompanied 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 at this strange advent. Godfrey joined them -immediately, unable 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 -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 brightness 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 answer Godfrey wrung from himself with a -terrible effort. ("After all, _am_ I certain?" he hastened to -add, silently, in anticipation of his own conscience.) - -"Why, you'd better leave the child here, then, Master Marner," -said good-natured Mrs. Kimble, hesitating, however, to take those -dingy clothes into contact with her own ornamented 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? aye--what's the use of talking about might?" growled -uncle Kimble, hastening out with Marner, and followed by -Mr. Crackenthorp 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 a madman; but he rushed 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 Dolly, who, though feeling 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, unconscious of -everything but trembling suspense about what was going on in the -cottage, and the 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 helpless 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 toward the sudden prospect of deliverance from his long -bondage. - -"Is she dead?" said the voice that predominated 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: 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, or a full-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 indifferently 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 half-a-guinea, 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 uncle had suggested to him. - -The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself -ambitiously pure is as uneasy 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 opportunity 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 recognized: 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 -altogether 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 Lammeter, and -throwing away his happiness?--nay, 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 the -child. - - - -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 misfortune, 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 on their legs, were -equally interested in conjecturing 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 introduction 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 discoveries about herself, which -she communicated by alternate sounds of "gug-gug-gug", 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 its 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 unconsciousness 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 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 folks as thinks different. You'll happen 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, hesitating 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 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, you take to it quite easy, Master Marner," -said Dolly; "but what shall you 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 got that high hearth i'stead -of a grate, for that keeps the fire more out of her reach: but if -you've got anything as can be spilt or broke, or as is fit to cut -her fingers off, she'll be at it--and it is but right you should -know." - -Silas meditated a little while in some perplexity. "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 little 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 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 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 according. But," added Dolly, coming to a -point which she had determined beforehand to touch upon, "you must -bring her up like 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 you must do, -Master Marner, if you'd do the right thing by the orphin child." - -Marner's pale face flushed suddenly under a new anxiety. His mind -was too busy trying to give some definite bearing to Dolly's words -for him to think of answering her. - -"And it's my belief," she went on, "as the poor little creatur -has never been christened, and it's nothing but right as the parson -should be spoke to; and if you was noways unwilling, I'd talk to -Mr. Macey about it this very day. For if the child ever went -anyways wrong, and you hadn't done your part by it, Master Marner-- -'noculation, and everything to save it from harm--it 'ud be a -thorn i' your bed for ever o' this side the grave; and I can't think -as it 'ud be easy lying down for anybody when they'd got to another -world, if they hadn't done their part by the helpless children as -come wi'out their own asking." - -Dolly herself was disposed to be silent for some time now, for she -had spoken from the depths of her own simple belief, and was much -concerned to know whether her words would produce the desired effect -on Silas. He was puzzled and anxious, for Dolly's word -"christened" conveyed no distinct meaning to him. He had 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 to her without it?" - -"Dear, dear! Master Marner," said Dolly, with gentle distress and -compassion. "Had you never no father nor mother as taught you to -say your prayers, and as there's good words and good things to keep -us from harm?" - -"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 way off." He paused a few moments, and then added, more -decidedly, "But I want to do everything as can be done for the -child. And whatever's right for it i' this country, and you think -'ull do it good, I'll act according, if you'll tell me." - -"Well, then, Master Marner," said Dolly, inwardly rejoiced, "I'll -ask Mr. Macey to speak to the parson about it; and you must fix on a -name for it, because it must have a name giv' it when it's -christened." - -"My mother's name was Hephzibah," said 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." - -"It's a Bible name," said Silas, old ideas recurring. - -"Then I've no call to speak again' it," said Dolly, rather -startled by Silas's knowledge on this head; "but you see I'm no -scholard, and I'm slow at catching the words. My husband says I'm -allays like as if I was putting the haft for the handle--that's -what he says--for he's very sharp, God help him. But it was -awk'ard calling your little sister by such a hard name, when you'd -got nothing big to say, like--wasn't it, Master Marner?" - -"We called her Eppie," said Silas. - -"Well, if it was noways wrong to shorten the name, it 'ud be a deal -handier. And so I'll go now, Master Marner, and I'll speak about -the christening afore dark; and I wish you the best o' luck, and -it's my belief as it'll come to you, if you do what's right by the -orphin child;--and there's the 'noculation to be seen to; and as -to washing its bits o' things, you need look to nobody but me, for I -can do 'em wi' one hand when I've got my suds about. Eh, the -blessed angil! You'll let me bring my Aaron one o' these days, and -he'll show her his little cart as his father's made for him, and the -black-and-white pup as he's got a-rearing." - -Baby _was_ christened, the rector deciding that a double baptism was -the lesser risk to incur; and on this occasion Silas, making himself -as clean and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time within -the church, and shared in the observances held sacred by his -neighbours. He was quite unable, by means of anything he heard or -saw, to identify the Raveloe religion with his old faith; if he -could at any time in his previous life have done so, it must have -been by the aid of a strong feeling ready to vibrate with sympathy, -rather than by a comparison of phrases and ideas: and now for long -years that feeling had been dormant. He had no distinct idea about -the baptism and the church-going, except that Dolly had said it was -for the good of the child; and in this way, as the weeks grew to -months, the child created fresh and fresh links between his life and -the lives from which he had hitherto shrunk continually into -narrower isolation. Unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must -be worshipped in close-locked solitude--which was hidden away from -the daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and started to no human -tones--Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing -desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, and living -movements; making trial of everything, with trust in new joy, and -stirring the human 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 changes -and hopes that forced his thoughts onward, and carried 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, -reawakening 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 hedgerows, 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 above the bright petals, calling -"Dad-dad's" attention continually by bringing him the flowers. -Then she would turn her ear to some 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 knowledge, his mind was growing -into memory: as her life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a -cold narrow prison, was unfolding too, and trembling gradually into -full consciousness. - -It was an influence which must gather force with every new year: the -tones that stirred Silas's heart grew articulate, and called for -more distinct answers; shapes and sounds grew clearer for Eppie's -eyes and ears, and there was more that "Dad-dad" was imperatively -required to notice and account for. Also, by the time Eppie was -three years old, she developed a fine capacity for mischief, and for -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 -without 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 do, 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 to smack him. Not as I -could find i' my heart to let him stay i' the coal-hole more nor a -minute, but it was enough to colly him all over, so as he must be -new washed and dressed, and it was as good as a rod to him--that -was. But I put it upo' your conscience, Master Marner, as there's -one of 'em you must choose--ayther smacking or the coal-hole-- -else she'll get so masterful, there'll be no holding her." - -Silas was impressed with the melancholy truth of this last remark; -but his force of mind failed before the only two penal methods open -to him, not only because it was painful to him to hurt Eppie, but -because he trembled at a moment's contention with her, lest she -should love him the less for it. Let even an affectionate Goliath -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 engrossed 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, 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 jagged but effectual manner, in two moments she had -run out at the open door where the sunshine was inviting her, while -poor Silas believed her to be a better child than usual. It was not -until he happened to need his scissors that the terrible fact burst -upon him: Eppie had run out by herself--had perhaps fallen into -the Stone-pit. Silas, shaken by the worst fear that could have -befallen him, rushed out, calling "Eppie!" and ran eagerly about -the unenclosed space, exploring the dry cavities into which she -might have fallen, and then gazing with questioning dread at the -smooth red surface of the water. The cold drops stood on his brow. -How long had she been out? There was one hope--that she had crept -through the stile and got into the fields, where he habitually took -her to stroll. But the grass was high in the meadow, and there was -no descrying her, if she were there, except by a close search that -would be a trespass on Mr. Osgood's crop. Still, that misdemeanour -must be committed; and poor Silas, after peering all round the -hedgerows, traversed the grass, beginning with perturbed vision to -see Eppie behind every group of red sorrel, and to see her moving -always farther off as he 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 -shallowness, 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 treatment; 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 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 suddenly began, holding her on his -knee, and pointing 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, and held the door closed, with a trembling sense that he -was using a strong measure. For a moment there was silence, but -then came a little cry, "Opy, opy!" and Silas let her out again, -saying, "Now Eppie 'ull never be naughty again, else she must go in -the coal-hole--a black naughty place." - -The weaving must stand still a long while this morning, for now -Eppie must be washed, and have clean clothes on; but it was to be -hoped that this punishment would have a lasting effect, and save -time in future--though, perhaps, it would have been better if -Eppie had cried more. - -In half an hour she was clean again, and Silas having turned his -back to see what he could do with the linen band, threw it down -again, with the reflection that Eppie would be good without -fastening for the rest of the morning. He turned round again, and -was 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, "Eppie -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 took her with him in most of his journeys to -the farmhouses, 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 wondering 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 -occasionally 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 difficulties could -be understood. Everywhere he must sit a little and talk about the -child, and words of interest were always ready for him: "Ah, Master -Marner, you'll be lucky if she takes the measles soon and easy!"-- -or, "Why, there isn't many lone men 'ud ha' been wishing to take -up with a little un like that: but I reckon the weaving makes you -handier than men as do out-door work--you're partly as handy as a -woman, for weaving comes next to spinning." Elderly masters and -mistresses, seated observantly in large kitchen arm-chairs, shook -their heads over the difficulties attendant on rearing children, -felt Eppie's round arms and legs, and pronounced them remarkably -firm, 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 understand better what this -life was, from which, for fifteen years, he had stood aloof as from -a strange thing, with which 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 sunshine, and all -influences, in relation to his nursling, and asks industriously for -all knowledge 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 bereavement 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 more backward; and the -hand may be a little child's. - - - -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 -others noticed with goodwill; but he told himself that the time -would come when he might do something towards furthering the welfare -of his daughter without incurring suspicion. Was he very uneasy in -the meantime at his inability to give his daughter her birthright? -I cannot say that he was. The child was being taken care of, and -would very likely be happy, as people in humble stations often were-- -happier, perhaps, than those 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 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? - -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. - - - - -PART TWO - - -CHAPTER XVI - -It was a bright autumn Sunday, sixteen years after Silas Marner 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 congregation 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 recognize, in spite of Time, who has laid his -hand on them all. The tall blond 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 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 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 -recognize 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 much enfeebled by the lapse of the sixteen 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; but 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. - -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 some one -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 to do it, for it 'ud be too hard work for you." - -"Yes, I could do it, child, if you want a bit o' garden: these long -evenings, I could work at taking in a little bit o' the waste, just -enough for a root or two o' flowers for you; and again, i' the -morning, I could have a turn wi' the spade before I sat down to the -loom. Why didn't you tell me before as you wanted a bit o' -garden?" - -"_I_ can dig 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 afternoon, 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-bashfully, 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." - -"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." - -"That'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 was made the most on, and there was never a morsel but what -could find its way to a mouth. It sets one thinking o' that-- -gardening does. But I must go back now, else mother 'ull be in -trouble as I 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 _you_, father?" - -"Aye, bring her if you can, Aaron," said Silas; "she's sure to -have a word to say as'll help us to set things on their right end." - -Aaron turned back up the village, while Silas and Eppie went on up -the lonely sheltered lane. - -"O 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." - -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 trivialities, 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 very 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 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 concerning 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 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 Sunday 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 occasionally -desisting in order to remonstrate with the cat by a cogent worrying -growl on the greediness and futility of her conduct; till Eppie -relented, caressed them both, and divided the morsel between them. - -But at last Eppie, glancing at the clock, checked the play, and -said, "O 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 clew his bewildered mind could hold by in cherishing this -young life that had been 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 everything produced on her, he had himself -come to appropriate the forms of custom and belief which were the -mould of Raveloe life; and as, with reawakening sensibilities, -memory also reawakened, 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 testimony concerning him; and this had to be -repeated in several interviews, under new questions on her part as -to the nature of this plan for detecting the guilty and clearing the -innocent. - -"And yourn's the same Bible, you're sure o' that, Master Marner-- -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 what fell 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 him as I'd gone out and in wi' for -ten year and more, since when we was lads and went halves--mine -own familiar 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 o'ercome, 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't 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 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'll never 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 cliver; for if I didn't know "Our Father", and little bits -o' good words 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 summat 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 o' -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 _I_ 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_'d 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 -full-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 feel 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 under-tone; -"it 'ud ha' been hard to trusten then." - -"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 grown 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 why 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 had long known how her mother had died on the snowy ground, -and how she herself had been found on the hearth by father Silas, -who had taken her golden curls for his lost guineas brought back to -him. The tender and peculiar love with which Silas had reared her -in almost inseparable companionship with himself, aided by the -seclusion of their dwelling, had preserved her from the lowering -influences of the village talk and habits, and had kept her mind in -that freshness which is sometimes falsely supposed to be an -invariable attribute of rusticity. Perfect love has a breath of -poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human -beings; and this breath of poetry had surrounded Eppie from the time -when she had followed the bright gleam that beckoned her to Silas's -hearth; so that it is not surprising if, in other things besides her -delicate prettiness, she was not quite a common village maiden, but -had a touch of refinement and fervour which came from no other -teaching than that of tenderly-nurtured unvitiated feeling. She was -too childish and simple for her imagination to rove into questions -about her unknown father; for a long while it did not even occur to -her that she must have had a father; and the first time that the -idea of her mother having had a husband presented itself to her, was -when Silas showed her the wedding-ring which had been taken from the -wasted finger, and had been carefully preserved by him in a little -lackered 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'll always get more and more." - -"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 for the -rest. See here, round the big pit, what a many stones!" - -She skipped forward to the pit, meaning to lift one of the stones -and exhibit her strength, but she started back in surprise. - -"Oh, father, just come and look here," she 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 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, "if 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, 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 was -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. - -"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 for 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 _will_ 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 on 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 upon you; and when I look for'ard to -that, I like to think as you'd have somebody else besides me-- -somebody young and strong, as'll outlast your 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 godmother. 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." - - - -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 wainscoted 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 wainscoted 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 yesterday'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 mantelpiece. All other signs -of sporting and outdoor occupation Nancy has removed to another -room; but she has brought into the Red House the habit of filial -reverence, and preserves sacredly in a place of honour these relics -of her husband's departed father. The tankards are on the -side-table still, but the bossed silver is undimmed 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 yourself 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 himself. 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, _I_ believe." - -"Well, well, my dear," said her father, with 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 on, 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 for rubbing -furniture, when you can once see your face in a table there's -nothing 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 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 sarcastically, "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 waiting for me; we must turn now." - -The large gig with the steady old grey 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 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 afternoon 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 reverential 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 in -Nancy's character, had made it a habit with her to scrutinize 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 -forbearance, 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 experience in Nancy's married -life, and on it hung certain deeply-felt scenes, which were the -oftenest revived in retrospect. The short dialogue with Priscilla -in the garden had determined the current of retrospect in that -frequent direction this particular Sunday afternoon. The first -wandering of her thought 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 -often supports a cheerful 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, 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 sympathy, 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 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 toilette, pretty Nancy Lammeter, by the time she was -three-and-twenty, had her unalterable 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 themselves 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 spite of -Providence: the adopted child, she was convinced, would never 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 improvement 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 anticipated a broken limb or other -heavy misfortune to any one who persisted in spite of such -indications. - -"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?" - -"Yes, my dear Godfrey," said Nancy, who was sitting with her hands -tightly clasped together, and with yearning, regretful affection in -her eyes. "The child may not turn out ill with the weaver. But, -then, he didn't go 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 for _you_--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 of 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 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 opportunity, even if he had -had the power, of entering intimately into all that was exceptional -in the weaver's experience. It was only the want of adequate -knowledge that could have made it possible for Godfrey deliberately -to entertain an unfeeling project: his natural kindness had outlived -that blighting time of cruel wishes, and Nancy's praise of him as a -husband was not founded entirely on a wilful illusion. - -"I was right," she said to herself, when she had recalled all -their scenes of discussion--"I feel I was right to say him nay, -though it hurt me more than anything; but how good Godfrey has been -about it! Many men would have been very angry with me for standing -out 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 me an unkind word. It's only what he can't hide: everything -seems so blank to him, I know; and the land--what a difference it -'ud make to him, when he goes to see after things, if he'd children -growing up that he was doing it all for! But I won't murmur; and -perhaps if he'd married a woman who'd have had children, she'd have -vexed him in other ways." - -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 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 world'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 joyous 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 dullness of -the grey 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--seated at the meal where the -little heads rise one above another like nursery plants, it sees a -black care hovering behind every one of them, and thinks the -impulses by which men abandon freedom, and seek for ties, are surely -nothing but a brief madness. In Godfrey's case there were further -reasons why his thoughts 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 to 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 without Priscilla? And if I die, Godfrey will -be very lonely--not holding together 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 longer than she imagined, for she was presently surprised -by the appearance of the servant with the tea-things. It was, in -fact, a little before the usual time for tea; but Jane had 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 as Jane had spoken -of, and Godfrey would 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 across -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. - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -Some one opened the door at the other end of the room, and Nancy -felt that it was her husband. She turned from the window with -gladness in her 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 at this surprise and -shame, for she had been bred up to regard even a distant kinship -with crime as a dishonour. - -"O Godfrey!" she said, with compassion in her tone, for she had -immediately reflected that the dishonour must be felt still more -keenly by her husband. - -"There was the money in the pit," he continued--"all the -weaver's money. Everything's been gathered up, and they're taking -the skeleton to the Rainbow. But I came back to tell you: there 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 not 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 of the husband and wife -met with awe in them, as at a crisis which suspended affection. - -"Nancy," said Godfrey, slowly, "when I married you, I hid -something from you--something I ought to have told you. That -woman Marner found dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--that -wretched woman--was my wife: Eppie is my child." - -He paused, dreading the effect of his confession. But Nancy sat -quite still, only that her eyes dropped and ceased to meet his. She -was 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. - -"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 anything 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 for-- -nothing is in this world. Nothing is so good 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 I 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." - - - -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 undergone 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 impossibility. 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, while she -looked up at him. On the table near them, lit by a candle, lay the -recovered gold--the old long-loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps, -as Silas used to range it in the days when it was his only joy. He -had been telling her how he used to count it every night, and how -his soul was utterly desolate till she was sent to him. - -"At first, I'd a sort o' feeling come across me now and then," he -was saying in a subdued tone, "as if you might be changed into the -gold again; for sometimes, turn my head which way I would, I seemed -to see the gold; and I thought I should be glad if I could feel it, -and find it was come back. But that didn't last long. After a bit, -I should have thought it was a curse come again, if it had drove you -from me, for I'd got to feel the need o' your looks and your voice -and the touch o' your little fingers. You didn't know then, Eppie, -when you were such a little un--you didn't know what your old -father Silas felt for you." - -"But I know now, father," said Eppie. "If it hadn't been for -you, they'd have taken me to the workhouse, and there'd have been -nobody to love me." - -"Eh, my precious child, the blessing was mine. If you hadn't been -sent to save me, I 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 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 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 men, 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. "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 it 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." - -"Only the garden, father," said Eppie, blushing up to the ears the -moment after. - -"You love a garden, do you, my dear?" said Nancy, thinking 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 hardships: 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. - -"Well, my meaning is this, Marner," said Godfrey, determined to -come to the point. "Mrs. Cass and I, you know, have no children-- -nobody to benefit by our good home and everything else we have-- -more than enough for ourselves. And we should like to have somebody -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 you've 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 -do 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 him, 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 lips 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 hand 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 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 predetermined course of action which he had fixed -on as the right, and he was not prepared to enter with lively -appreciation into other people's feelings counteracting his virtuous -resolves. The agitation with 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 is 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 -back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you've no right to -her! 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, unexpectedly 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." - -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 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 -previsions, 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 thoughts, 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 newly-revealed father. - -Silas, on the other hand, was again stricken in conscience, and -alarmed lest Godfrey's accusation 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 no question that a father by blood must have a claim above -that of any foster-father. Besides, Nancy, used all her life to -plenteous circumstances 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 comfortable 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." - -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 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 -_I_ 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 something 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, "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 frustration 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 under-tone. - -"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. - - - -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 Godfrey 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." - -"No," said Godfrey, with a keen decisiveness of tone, in contrast -with his usually careless and unemphatic speech--"there's debts -we can't pay like money debts, by paying 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 anything to be found out, like this of -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 _you_, 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 -_is_ too late to mend some things, say what they will." - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -The next morning, when Silas and Eppie were seated at their -breakfast, he said to her-- - -"Eppie, there's a thing I'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 where 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 country-side, 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--it would be rather pleasant to have this little -advantage over him. Mrs. Winthrop, though possessed with a dim fear -of dangers attendant on so long a journey, and requiring many -assurances that it would not take them out of the region of -carriers' carts and slow waggons, was nevertheless well pleased that -Silas should revisit 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. Silas, 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, 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." - -"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 again, 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." - -"O 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 'ull 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 weekday -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?" - -But she had to speak again and again before 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. "Perhaps the people can -tell you all about it." - -But neither from the brush-maker, 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 anything 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 sat with a placid -listening face, now bordered by grey 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 felt 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 and me." - -"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. - -Happily the sunshine fell more warmly than 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 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 Winthrop 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 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, it was the part of his neighbours to wish him joy. - -As the bridal group approached, a hearty cheer was raised in the -Rainbow yard; and Ben Winthrop, whose jokes had retained their -acceptable flavour, found it agreeable to turn in there and receive -congratulations; not requiring the proposed interval of quiet at the -Stone-pits before joining the company. - -Eppie had a larger garden than she had ever expected there now; and -in other ways there had been alterations at the expense of Mr. Cass, -the landlord, to suit Silas's larger family. For he and Eppie had -declared that 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. - -"O father," said Eppie, "what a pretty home ours is! I think -nobody could be happier than we are." - - - - - - -End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of by Silas Marner by George Eliot - |