
* A Project Gutenberg Canada Ebook *

This ebook is made available at no cost and with very few
restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make
a change in the ebook (other than alteration for different
display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of
the ebook. If either of these conditions applies, please
check gutenberg.ca/links/licence.html before proceeding.

This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be
under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada,
check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER
COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD
OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

Title: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe
Author: Eliot, George [Evans, Mary Anne] (1819-1880)
Illustrator: Thomson, Hugh (1860-1920)
Date of first publication: 1861 [text]; 1907 [illustrations]
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood, 1861
   (first edition) [text];
   London: Macmillan, 1907 [illustrations]
Date first posted: 26 February 2009
Date last updated: 26 February 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #491

This ebook was produced by:
Iona Vaughan, Barbara Watson, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made
available by the Internet Archive/American Libraries




Transcriber's Note: This is a compilation of the original 1861 text and
illustrations by Hugh Thomson that were published in 1907.


[Illustration: Cover]

[Illustration: THE CHILDREN ALWAYS CALLED HIM 'OLD MASTER MARNER.']




                                  SILAS MARNER:

                              THE WEAVER OF RAVELOE


                                       BY
                                  GEORGE ELIOT
                           AUTHOR OF "ADAM BEDE," ETC.





                            "A child, more than all other gifts
                  That earth can offer to declining man,
                  Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts."
                                                             WORDSWORTH.





                           WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
                              EDINBURGH AND LONDON
                                    MDCCCLXI




                                    PART I.

[Illustration]

                                  SILAS MARNER:

                             THE WEAVER OF RAVELOE.




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 folks, 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 idea 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.

[Illustration: TAKE TO THEIR LEGS IN TERROR.]

And Raveloe was a village where many of the old echoes lingered,
undrowned by new voices. Not that it was one of those barren parishes
lying on the outskirts of civilisation--inhabited by meagre sheep and
thinly-scattered shepherds: on the contrary, it lay in the rich central
plain of what we are pleased to call Merry England, and held farms
which, speaking from a spiritual point of view, paid highly-desirable
tithes. But it was nestled in a snug well-wooded hollow, 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 weather-cocks, 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 wheel-wright'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 overwise, for they
went to school in this shell-less state to those who could teach them
more than their neighbours could learn with their five senses and the
parson. And where did Master Marner get his knowledge of herbs from--and
charms, too, if he liked to give them away? Jem Rodney's story was no
more than what might have been expected by anybody who had seen how
Marner had cured Sally Oates, and made her sleep like a baby, when her
heart had been beating enough to burst her body, for two months and
more, while she had been under the doctor's care. He might cure more
folks if he would; but he was worth speaking fair, if it was only to
keep him from doing you a mischief.

[Illustration: _With a heavy bag on his back._]

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; and 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 recognised 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 usually 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: prosecution was held by them to be
forbidden to Christians, even if it had been a case in which there
was no scandal to the community. But they 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 fold of the church. Marner
listened in silence. At last, when every one rose to depart, he went
towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by agitation--

"The last time I remember using my knife, was when I took it out to cut
a strap for you. I don't remember putting it in my pocket again. _You_
stole the money, and you have woven a 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
hill-sides, 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 centering in Lantern Yard, which had once been to him the
altar-place of high dispensations. The white-washed walls; the little
pews where well-known figures entered with a subdued rustling, and where
first one 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 in which he had vainly trusted among the streets and in
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 hooping-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 mere 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 out 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, and accepted 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 merrymakings, 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. When 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. When 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.

[Illustration: _The risk of fording streams._]

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 as 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-by" 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."

"O 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-by,
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've 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."

"Ay, ay," 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 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'll go
to smash, for I've got nothing else to trust to. And you'll have less
pleasure in pulling the house over my head, when your own skull's to be
broken too."

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

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

"Not _it_," said Dunstan. "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.

[Illustration: THE RARER PLEASURE OF SEEING MISS NANCY LAMMETER.]

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.

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

"O, 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.

"O, 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."

[Illustration: AT THE COVERT SIDE.]

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 "staked" his
horse. 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 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 the two or three small coins his fore-finger encountered there
were of too pale a colour to cover that small debt, without payment of
which Jennings 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 owners 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.

[Illustration: _The object of his search._]




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 over-coat, 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 hit 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 twelve 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.

[Illustration: A PRESENT FROM MISS PRISCILLA.]

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 water 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.

[Illustration: _The cry of desolation._]

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,--

[Illustration: THE COMPANY AT THE 'RAINBOW.']

"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--

"Ay, ay; 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 wheel-wright 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."

"Ay, ay," 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."

"Ay, ay," said Mr Macey, in the height of complacency; "our family's
been known for musicianers as far back as anybody can tell. But them
things are dying out, as I tell Solomon every time he comes round;
there's no voices like what there used to be, and there's nobody
remembers what we remember, if it isn't the old crows."

"Ay, you remember when first Mr Lammeter's father came 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; though 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.

"Ay, 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 hearers' 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 got into the vestry, and they begun
to sign their names. But where's the use o' talking?--you can't think
what goes on in a 'cute man's inside."

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

"Ay, I held in tight till I was by mysen wi' Mr Drumlow, and then I out
wi' everything, but respectful, as I allays did. And he made light on
it, and he says, 'Pooh, pooh, Macey, make yourself easy,' he says, 'it's
neither the meaning nor the words--it's the re_ge_ster 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 were 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."

"Ay, 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."

"Ay, but there's more going on in the stables than what folks see by
daylight, eh, Mr Macey?" said the landlord.

"Ay, ay; go that way of a dark night, that's 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 a-going to ventur near it for a matter o' ten pound."

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

"Thank you! I'm obliged to you," said 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."

"Ay, but there's this in it, Dowlas," said the landlord, speaking in a
tone of much candour and tolerance. "There's folks, i' my opinion, they
can't see ghos'es, not if they stood as plain as a 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 antenn of startled insects, and every man present,
not excepting even the sceptical farrier, had an impression that he
saw, not Silas Marner in the flesh, but an apparition; for the door by
which Silas had entered was hidden by the high-screened seats, and no
one had noticed his approach. Mr Macey, sitting a long way off the
ghost, might be supposed to have felt an argumentative triumph, which
would tend to neutralise his share of the general alarm. Had he not
always said that when Silas Marner was in that strange trance of his,
his soul went loose from his body? Here was the demonstration:
nevertheless, on the whole, he would have been as well contented
without it. For a few moments there was a dead silence, Marner's want
of breath and agitation not allowing him to speak. The landlord, under
the habitual sense that he was bound to keep his house open to all
company, and confident in the protection of his unbroken neutrality,
at last took on himself the task of adjuring the ghost.

[Illustration: _The long pipes._]

"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.

"Ay, 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."

"Ay, ay, 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."

"Ay, ay," 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 wakened
by these words. With a movement of compunction, as new and strange to
him as everything else within the last hour, he started from his chair
and went close up to Jem, looking at him as if he wanted to assure
himself of the expression in his face.

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

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

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

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

"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
primises; 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 footmarks, 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.

[Illustration: HAD MADE HER BLOOD CREEP.]

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.

[Illustration: _He was seen setting off._]

"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, but
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 went out and had 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."

[Illustration: 'RING THE BELL FOR MY ALE, WILL YOU.']

"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 out-lying 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 most
unfavourable for his own disclosure. But he must go on, now he had
begun.

"It's worse than breaking the horse's knees--he's been staked and
killed," he said, as soon as his father was silent, and had begun to
cut his meat. "But I wasn't thinking of asking you to buy me another
horse; I was only thinking I'd lost the means of paying you with the
price of Wildfire, as I'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 loth 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."

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

"No," said Marner.

"I doubted it was so," said Mr Macey. "Now, let me advise you to get
a Sunday suit: there's Tookey, he's a poor creatur, but he's got my
tailoring business, and some o' my money in it, and he shall make a suit
at a low price, and give you trust, and then you can come to church, and
be a bit neighbourly. Why you've never 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
wheel-wright'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 sickroom 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 arm-chair 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.

"O 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.

[Illustration: _Aaron peeping._]

"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 on 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 cake and
seated himself absently--drearily unconscious of any distinct benefit
towards which the cake 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?"

"O 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' Theirn."

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 goodwill
by offering the lad a bit of lard-cake. Aaron shrank back a little, and
rubbed his head against his mother's shoulder, but still thought the
piece of cake worth the risk of putting his hand out for it.

"O, 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.

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

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

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

[Illustration: THE "CARRIL."]

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.

"O, 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-by,
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-by, 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 divine faith 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.

[Illustration: ARRIVALS AT THE RED HOUSE.]

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.

"O, 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 with the servant, for then
she would have contrived that Mr Godfrey should have lifted off
Priscilla first, and, in the mean time, she would have persuaded her
father to go round to the horseblock 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 skullcap 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.

[Illustration: _Wheeled her round._]

"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."

[Illustration: 'THE FIELD'S LENGTH YOU'D GO.']

"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."

"O, 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 patronising: the large silver snuff-box was in active service, and
was offered without fail to all neighbours from time to time, however
often they might have declined the favour. At present, the Squire had
only given an express welcome to the heads of families as they
appeared; but always as the evening deepened, his hospitality rayed out
more widely, till he had tapped the youngest guests on the back and
shown a peculiar fondness for their presence, in the full belief that
they must feel their lives made happy by their belonging to a parish
where there was such a hearty man as Squire Cass to invite them and wish
them well. Even in this early stage of the jovial mood, it was natural
that he should wish to supply his son's deficiencies by looking and
speaking for him.

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

[Illustration: _His hospitality rayed out._]

Mrs Crackenthorp--a small blinking woman, who fidgeted incessantly with
her lace, ribbons, and gold chain, turning her head about and making
subdued noises, very much like a guinea-pig, that twitches its nose and
soliloquises in all company indiscriminately--now blinked and fidgeted
towards the Squire, and said, "O 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 (county 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.

[Illustration: DR. KIMBLE MAKING HIMSELF AGREEABLE TO HIS FEMININE
PATIENTS.]

"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 the 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 insistance 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.

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

So Solomon, holding his white head on one side, and playing vigorously,
marched forward at 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--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.

[Illustration: THE GAY PROCESSION.]

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 co-existed 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 beyond 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 shuttlecock?"

[Illustration: _Holding his son Aaron between his knees._]

"Hush, lad, hush; that's the way the ladies dress theirselves, that
is," said the father, adding, however, in an under-tone 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."

[Illustration: THE YOUNG SQUIRE LEADING OFF WI' MISS NANCY FOR
PARTNERS.]

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 fault 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 sweet-hearting, 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.

"O 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 make 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. 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.

[Illustration: _Godfrey's wife._]

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 bar-maid'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 did not yet relax 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 stranger-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.

[Illustration: _In perfect contentment._]

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 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.

[Illustration: _Silas fell on his knees._]

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.

[Illustration: INVITING SILAS WITH MUCH CHUCKLING.]




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 faade 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?"

[Illustration: _All eyes were bent on Silas Marner._]

"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 boddice. "I'll tell
one o' the girls to fetch it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"O, 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?"

"O, 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 recognised: those were not days of active inquiry and wide
report; and as for the registry of their marriage, that was a long way
off, buried in unturned pages, away from every one's interest but his
own. Dunsey might betray him if he came back; but Dunsey might be won to
silence.

And when events turn out so much better for a man than he has had
reason to dread, is it not a proof that his conduct has been less
foolish and blameworthy than it might otherwise have appeared? When we
are treated well, we naturally begin to think that we are not 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 surprising 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."

[Illustration: _Beset by mothers._]

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?"

[Illustration: _Sat on Dolly's knee._]

"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
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 mid-day, 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.

[Illustration: _Some favourite bank._]

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 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.

[Illustration: HERE SAT EPPIE.]

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!"

[Illustration: '_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 them 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 for her, 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 out-lying
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 outdoor 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.

[Illustration: LIKE LITTLE DOGS FACE TO FACE.]

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 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 suspicions. Was he very uneasy in the mean time 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 who
are brought up in luxury.

[Illustration: A CHANCE MEETING.]

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, where 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 II.




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 recognise, in spite of Time, who has laid his hand on
them all. The tall blonde man of forty is not much changed in feature
from the Godfrey Cass of six-and-twenty: he is only fuller in flesh, and
has only lost the indefinable look of youth--a loss which is marked even
when the eye is undulled and the wrinkles 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 recognise so easily as the master and mistress of the
Red House?

But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marner. His large brown eyes seem
to have gathered a longer vision, as is the way with eyes that have been
short-sighted in early life, and they have a less vague, a more
answering look; 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?"

"Ay, 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."

"O 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.

[Illustration: EPPIE FRISKING.]

The presence of this happy animal life was not the only change which had
come over this 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."

[Illustration: _Eppie's play._]

Silas had taken to smoking a pipe daily during the last two years,
having been strongly urged to it by the sages of Raveloe, as a practice
"good for the fits;" and this advice was sanctioned by Dr Kimble, on the
ground that it was as well to try what could do no harm--a principle
which was made to answer for a great deal of work in that gentleman's
medical practice. Silas did not highly enjoy smoking, and often wondered
how his neighbours could be so fond of it; but a humble sort of
acquiescence in what was held to be good, had become a strong habit of
that new self which had been developed in him since he had found Eppie
on his hearth: it had been the only clue his bewildered mind could hold
by in cherishing this young life that had 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.

"O 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 famil'ar friend, in whom I
trusted, had lifted up his heel again' me, and worked to ruin me."

"Eh, but he was a bad un--I can't think as there's another such," said
Dolly. "But I'm 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 right 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 niver come out; and for what you talk o' your folks in
your old country niver saying prayers by heart nor saying 'em out of a
book, they must be wonderful 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."

"O, 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."

"O, 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.

"O, 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, arn'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 undercurrent 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 not; 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. O 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 stay 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 settle, 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 lieve 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."

[Illustration: A BEAUTIFUL NAP IN THE GIG.]

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."

"O 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."

"O, 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?"

"O 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 scrutinise her past feelings and actions
with self-questioning solicitude. Her mind not being courted by a great
variety of subjects, she filled the vacant moments by living inwardly,
again and again, through all her remembered experience, especially
through the fifteen years of her married time, in which her life and its
significance had been doubled. She recalled the small details, the
words, tones, and looks, in the critical scenes which had opened a new
epoch for her, by giving her a deeper insight into the relations and
trials of life, or which had called on her for some little effort of
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 was very different--it was much
worse for a man to be disappointed in that way: a woman could always be
satisfied with devoting herself to her husband, but a man wanted
something that would make him look forward more--and sitting by the fire
was 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 arrangement 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, 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 dulness 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.

[Illustration: THE FATHER WHOSE RETURN IS GREETED BY YOUNG VOICES.]

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."

"O, 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.

[Illustration: SHE TURNED FROM THE WINDOW WITH GLADNESS IN HER EYES.]

"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 being 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--O, 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 farther than the robbery. But there are other
things I'm beholden--shall be beholden to you for, Marner."

[Illustration: _She held the door wide._]

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.

"O, 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 would be a great comfort to you in your old age, I
hope, to see her fortune made in that way, after you have 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 lip began to tremble a little at the last words. She retreated
to her father's chair again, and held him round the neck; while Silas,
with a subdued sob, put up his 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 have a claim on you, Eppie--the strongest of all claims. It is my
duty, Marner, to own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She is my
own child--her mother was my wife. I have 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 have made you rejoice in what was
for her good, even if it did call upon you to give up something. You
ought to remember that your own life is uncertain, and that 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
most 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 have 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 houses,
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 a smarting dilation
of the 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?"

[Illustration: "THAT'S ENDED!"]

"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.

[Illustration: TO ASK THE NAME OF THIS TOWN.]

"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."

"O, 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 week-day noon!"

Suddenly he started and stood still with a look of distressed amazement,
that alarmed Eppie. They were before an opening in front of a large
factory, from which men and women were streaming for their mid-day 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.

[Illustration: _The little bridal procession._]

"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."


THE END.



PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.





                    MESSRS BLACKWOOD AND SONS'
                         _PUBLICATIONS_.


                           NEW WORKS.


                In One Volume Octavo, price 16s.

             EGYPT, THE SOUDAN, AND CENTRAL AFRICA.

WITH EXPLORATIONS FROM KHARTOUM ON THE WHITE NILE, TO THE REGIONS
                         OF THE EQUATOR.

           BEING SKETCHES FROM SIXTEEN YEARS' TRAVEL.

                 =By JOHN PETHERICK, F.R.G.S.=
         Her Britannic Majesty's Consul for the Soudan.



                     In Two Volumes Octavo,

                  LIVES OF LORD CASTLEREAGH AND
                      SIR CHARLES STEWART,
           SECOND AND THIRD MARQUESSES OF LONDONDERRY.

    FROM THE ORIGINAL PAPERS OF THE FAMILY, AND OTHER SOURCES.

             =By SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart., D.C.L.=
                Author of "The History of Europe."
                                                       _In the press_.



                     In Two Volumes Octavo,

                     THE MONKS OF THE WEST.

                 =By the COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT.=
                   An Authorised Translation.
                                                       _In the press_.



                     In Two Volumes Octavo,

                HISTORY OF THE GREEK REVOLUTION.

               =By GEORGE FINLAY, LL.D., Athens;=
   Author of the "History of Greece under Foreign Domination."

                                                       _In the press_.



             In Two Volumes, Post Octavo, price 21s.

                  THE PUNJAB AND DELHI IN 1857:

      BEING A NARRATIVE OF THE MEASURES BY WHICH THE PUNJAB
            WAS SAVED AND DELHI RECOVERED DURING THE
                         INDIAN MUTINY.

                 =By the Rev. J. CAVE-BROWNE,=
             Chaplain of the Punjab Movable Column.

_With Plans of the Chief Stations and of the different Engagements._



                        In Crown Octavo,

             THE PAST AND PRESENT LIFE OF THE GLOBE:

      BEING A SKETCH IN OUTLINE OF THE WORLD'S LIFE-SYSTEM.

                    =By DAVID PAGE, F.G.S.=
               Author of "Text-Books of Geology."
                                                       _In the press_.



           In Large Octavo, with numerous Engravings,

                  THE BOOK OF FARM BUILDINGS:

              THEIR ARRANGEMENT AND CONSTRUCTION.

                 =By HENRY STEPHENS, F.R.S.E.=
                     =And R. SCOTT BURN.=
                                                       _In the press_.



                     RECENT PUBLICATIONS.


=The Past and Future of British Relations in China.=
    By Captain SHERARD OSBORN, C.B., R.N.
With a Map of China and Chart of the Poiho from the Entrance to Pekin.
In Crown Octavo, price 5s.


=Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan.=
      By LAURENCE OLIPHANT,
      Private Secretary to Lord Elgin.
In Two Volumes Octavo, price 2, 2s. Illustrated with numerous
    Engravings in Chromo-Lithography, Maps, and Engravings on Wood,
    from Original Drawings and Photographs.


=A Cruise in Japanese Waters.=
      By Captain SHERARD OSBORN, C.B.,
      Author of "Leaves from an Arctic Journal," "Quedah," &c.
A New Edition, Crown Octavo, price 5s.


=Wellington's Career.=
      A MILITARY AND POLITICAL SUMMARY.
      By EDWARD BRUCE HAMLEY,
      Captain R.A., and Lieut.-Colonel; Professor of Military History
         and Art at the Staff College; Author of "The Campaign of
         Sebastopol."
Foolscap Octavo, price 2s.


=Patriots and Filibusters; or, Incidents of Political and
      Exploratory Travel.=
      By LAURENCE OLIPHANT,
      Author of "Lord Elgin's Mission to China and Japan," "Minnesota
         and the Far West," &c.
In Crown Octavo, price 5s.


=Tales from "Blackwood."=
Complete in Twelve Volumes. The Volumes are sold separately, price 1s.
    6d.; and may be had of most Booksellers, in Six Volumes, handsomely
    half-bound in red morocco.

                       _CONTENTS._

  Vol. I. The Glenmutchkin Railway.--Vanderdecken's Message Home.--The
Floating Beacon.--Colonna the Painter.--Napoleon.--A Legend of
Gibraltar.--The Iron Shroud.

  Vol. II. Lazaro's Legacy.--A Story without a Tail.--Faustus and
Queen Elizabeth.--How I became a Yeoman.--Devereux Hall.--The
Metempsychosis.--College Theatricals.

  Vol. III. A Reading Party in the Long Vacation.--Father Tom and the
Pope.--La Petite Madelaine.--Bob Burke's Duel with Ensign Brady.--The
Headsman: A Tale of Doom.--The Wearyful Woman.

  Vol. IV. How I stood for the Dreepdaily Burghs.--First and Last.--The
Duke's Dilemma: A Chronicle of Niesenstein.--The Old Gentleman's
Teetotum.--"Woe to us when we lose the Watery Wall."--My College
Friends: Charles Russell, the Gentleman Commoner.--The Magic Lay of the
One-Horse Chay.

  Vol. V. Adventures in Texas.--How we got Possession of the
Tuileries.--Captain Paton's Lament.--The Village Doctor.--A Singular
Letter from Southern Africa.

  Vol. VI. My Friend the Dutchman.--My College Friends--No II.: Horace
Leicester.--The Emerald Studs.--My College Friends--No III.: Mr W.
Wellington Hurst.--Christine: A Dutch Story.--The Man in the Bell.

  Vol. VII. My English Acquaintance.--The Murderer's Last Night.--
Narration of Certain Uncommon Things that did formerly happen to Me,
Herbert Willis, B.D.--The Wags.--The Wet Wooing: A Narrative of '98.--
Ben-na-Groich.

  Vol. VIII. The Surveyor's Tale. By Professor Aytoun.--The Forrest-Race
Romance.--Di Vasari: A Tale of Florence.--Sigismund Fatello.--The Boxes.

  Vol. IX. Rosaura: A Tale of Madrid.--Adventure in the North-West
Territory.--Harry Bolton's Curacy.--The Florida Pirate.--The Pandour and
his Princess.--The Beauty Draught.

  Vol. X. Antonio di Carara.--The Fatal Repast.--The Vision of
Cagliostro.--The First and Last Kiss.--The Smuggler's Leap.--The Haunted
and the Haunters.--The Duellists.

  Vol. XI. The Natolian Story-Teller.--The First and Last Crime.--John
Rintoul.--Major Moss.--The Premier and his Wife.

  Vol. XII. Tickler among the Thieves!--The Bridegroom of Barna.--The
Involuntary Experimentalist.--Lebrun's Lawsuit.--The Snowing-up of
Strath Lugas.--A Few Words on Social Philosophy.


=Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century.=
    By D. M. MOIR.
Third Edition, Foolscap Octavo, price 5s.


=The Campaign of Garibaldi in the Two Sicilies.=
    A PERSONAL NARRATIVE.
    By CHARLES STEWART FORBES,
    Commander R.N.
Post Octavo. With Plans of the Engagements, and Portraits of Garibaldi
  and the King of Naples. 12s.


=The Poetical Works of Thomas Aird.=
Complete Edition. Foolscap Octavo, price 6s.



=Cheap Editions of Popular Works.=

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SCOTTISH LIFE. Foolscap 8vo, 3s. cloth.

THE TRIALS OF MARGARET LYNDSAY. By the Author of "Lights and Shadows of
    Scottish Life." Foolscap 8vo, 3s. cloth.

THE FORESTERS. By the Author of "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life."
    Foolscap 8vo, 3s. cloth.

TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. Complete in One Volume, Foolscap 8vo, 4s. cloth.

THE CRUISE OF THE MIDGE. By the Author of "Tom Cringle's Log." In One
    Volume, Foolscap 8vo, 4s. cloth.

THE LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH, TAILOR IN DALKEITH. Foolscap 8vo, 3s. cloth.

THE SUBALTERN. By the Author of "The Chelsea Pensioners." Foolscap 8vo,
    3s. cloth.

PENINSULAR SCENES AND SKETCHES. By the Author of "The Student of
    Salamanca." Foolscap 8vo, 3s. cloth.

NIGHTS AT MESS, SIR FRIZZLE PUMPKIN, AND OTHER TALES. Foolscap 8vo, 3s.
    cloth.

THE YOUTH AND MANHOOD OF CYRIL THORNTON. By the Author of "Men and
    Manners in America." Foolscap 8vo, 4s. cloth.

VALERIUS: A ROMAN STORY. Foolscap 8vo, 3s. cloth.

REGINALD DALTON. By the Author of "Valerius." Foolscap 8vo, 4s. cloth.

SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF ADAM BLAIR, AND HISTORY OF MATTHEW WALD.
    By the Author of "Valerius." Foolscap 8vo, 4s. cloth.

ANNALS OF THE PARISH, AND AYRSHIRE LEGATEES. By John Galt. Foolscap 8vo,
    4s. cloth.

SIR ANDREW WYLIE. By John Galt. Foolscap 8vo, 4s. cloth.

THE PROVOST, AND OTHER TALES. By John Galt. Foolscap 8vo, 4s. cloth.

THE ENTAIL. By John Galt. Foolscap 8vo, 4s. cloth.

LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. By G. F. Ruxton. A New Edition. Foolscap 8vo, 4s.
    cloth.


=Prayers for Social and Family Worship.=
      Prepared by a Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of
          Scotland, and specially designed for the use of Soldiers,
          Sailors, Colonists, Sojourners in India, and other Persons,
          at Home or Abroad, who are deprived of the Ordinary Services
          of a Christian Ministry. Published by Authority of the
          Committee.
In Crown Octavo, bound in cloth, price 4s.


=Prayers for Social and Family Worship.=
      Being a Cheap Edition of the above.
Price 1s. 6d.


=Theism:=
      THE WITNESS OF REASON AND NATURE TO AN ALL-WISE AND
          BENEFICENT CREATOR.--(Burnett Prize Treatise.)
      By the Rev. J. TULLOCH, D.D.,
      Principal and Primarius Professor of Theology, St Mary's College,
          St Andrews.
Crown Octavo, price 10s. 6d.


=Complete Library Edition of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton's Novels.=

In Volumes of a convenient and handsome form. Printed in a large
   readable type. Published monthly, price 5s. Sixteen Volumes are
   published.

"It is of the handiest of sizes; the paper is good; and the type, which
seems to be new, is very clear and beautiful. There are no pictures. The
whole charm of the presentment of the volume consists in its handiness,
and the tempting clearness and beauty of the type, which almost converts
into a pleasure the mere act of following the printer's lines, and
leaves the author's mind free to exert its unobstructed force upon the
reader."--_Examiner_.


=The Novels of George Eliot.=

In Six Volumes, uniformly printed, price 1, 16s.
        SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. Third Edition. 2 vols., price 12s.
        ADAM BEDE. Eighth Edition. 2 vols., price 12s.
        THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. A new Edition. In 2 vols., price 12s.


=St Stephen's: A Poem.=
      OR, ILLUSTRATIONS OF PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY.

_Comprising_--Pym--Vane--Strafford--Halifax--Shaftesbury--St John--Sir
    R. Walpole--Chesterfield--Carteret--Chatham--Pitt--Fox--Burke--
    Sheridan--Wilberforce--Wyndham--Conway--Castlereagh--William Lamb
    (Lord Melbourne)--Tierney--Lord Grey--O'Connell--Plunkett--Shiel--
    Follett--Macaulay--Peel.
Second Edition. Crown Octavo, price 5s.


=Lady Lee's Widowhood.=
      By Lieut.-Colonel E. B. HAMLEY.
With Engravings. Third Edition. Crown Octavo, price 6s.


=Works of Samuel Warren, D.C.L.=
Uniform Edition, Five Vols., price 24s.

    The following are sold separately:--
        DIARY OF A LATE PHYSICIAN. 5s. 6d.
        TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR. Two vols., 9s.
        NOW AND THEN. 2s. 6d.
        MISCELLANIES. 5s.


=The Poetical Works of D. M. Moir= ([Greek: capital letter delta])
      (OF MUSSELBURGH).
A New Edition, with a Memoir by THOMAS AIRD, and Portrait.
    In Two Vols., price 12s.


=The Sketcher.=
      By the Rev. JOHN EAGLES, A.M., Oxon.
Originally published in _Blackwood's Magazine_.
In Post Octavo, price 10s. 6d.

"There is an earnest and vigorous thought about them, a genial and
healthy tone of feeling, and a flowing and frequently eloquent style of
language, that make this book one of the most pleasant companions that
you can take with you, if you are bound for the woodland or pastoral
scenery of rural England, especially if you go to study the picturesque,
whether as an observer or as an artist."


=Essays.=
      By the Rev. JOHN EAGLES, A.M., Oxon.
Originally published in _Blackwood's Magazine_.
Post Octavo, price 10s. 6d.

_Contents:_ Church Music, and other Parochials.--Medical Attendance,
    and other Parochials.--A few Hours at Hampton Court.--Grandfathers
    and Grandchildren.--Sitting for a Portrait.--Are there not great
    Boasters among us?--Temperance and Teetotal Societies.--Thackeray's
    Lectures: Swift.--The Crystal Palace.--Civilisation: the Census.--
    The Beggar's Legacy.


=Sea-side Studies.=
      By GEORGE HENRY LEWES,
      Author of "Physiology of Common Life," &c.
Crown Octavo, price 6s. 6d.


=The Moor and the Loch.=
    CONTAINING MINUTE INSTRUCTIONS IN ALL HIGHLAND SPORTS, WITH
      WANDERINGS OVER CRAG AND CORREI, FLOOD AND FELL.
      By JOHN COLQUHOUN, Esq.
Third Edition, in Octavo, with Illustrations, price 12s. 6d.


=Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, and other Poems.=
      By W. EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN, D.C.L.
      Professor of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres in the University of
        Edinburgh.
Twelfth Edition, price 7s. 6d.

"Mr Aytoun's _Lays_ are truly beautiful, and are perfect poems of their
class, pregnant with fire, with patriotic ardour, with loyal zeal, with
exquisite pathos, with noble passion. Who can hear the opening lines
descriptive of Edinburgh after the great battle of Flodden, and not feel
that the minstrel's soul has caught the genuine inspiration?"--_Morning
Post_.


=Bothwell: A Poem.=
      By the same Author.
Third Edition, price 7s. 6d.


=The Ballads of Scotland.=
      Edited by Professor AYTOUN.
Second Edition. Two Volumes, price 12s.

"No country can boast of a richer collection of Ballads than Scotland,
and no Editor for these Ballads could be found more accomplished than
Professor Aytoun. He has sent forth two beautiful volumes which range
with _Percy's Reliques_--which for completeness and accuracy, leave
little to be desired--which must henceforth be considered as the
standard edition of the Scottish Ballads, and which we commend as a
model to any among ourselves who may think of doing like service to the
English Ballads."--_The Times_.


=Firmilian; or, the Student of Badajoz:=
      A SPASMODIC TRAGEDY.
Price 6s.

"Without doubt, whether we regard it as a satire or as a complete
drama, _Firmilian_ is one of the most finished poems of the day.
Unity is preserved, and the intensity of the 'spasmodic' energy thrown
into the narrative carries the reader through every page; while the
graces of poetic fancy, and the touches of deep thought scattered
throughout, challenge comparison with selections from most modern
poems."--_Liverpool Albion_.


=The Book of Ballads.=
      Edited by BON GAULTIER.
Fifth Edition, with numerous Illustrations by DOYLE, LEECH, and
  CROWQUILL.
Gilt Edges, price 8s. 6d.


=Poems and Ballads of Goethe.=
      Translated by Professor AYTOUN and THEODORE MARTIN.
Second Edition, price 6s.

"There is no doubt that these are the best translations of Goethe's
marvellously-cut gems which have yet been published."--_The Times_.


=Diversities of Faults in Christian Believers.=
      By the Very Rev. E. B. RAMSAY, M.A., F.R.S.E.
      Dean of the Diocese of Edinburgh.
In Foolscap Octavo, price 4s. 6d.


=Diversities of Christian Character.=
      Illustrated in the Lives of the Four Great Apostles.
      By the same Author.
Uniform with the above, price 4s. 6d.


=Religion in Common Life:=
      A Sermon preached in Crathie Church, October 14, 1855, before Her
         Majesty the Queen and Prince Albert. Published by Her Majesty's
         Command.
      By the Rev. JOHN CAIRD, D.D.
Bound in Cloth, 8d. Cheap Edition, 3d.


=Sermons.=
      By the Rev. JOHN CAIRD, D.D.
      Minister of West Park Church, Glasgow.
In Post Octavo, price 7s. 6d. Tenth Thousand.


=The Course of Time: A Poem.=
      By ROBERT POLLOK, A.M.
      With a MEMOIR of the Author.
In Foolscap Octavo, price 5s.


=The Autobiography of the Rev. Dr Alexander Carlyle,=
      Minister of Inveresk.
      CONTAINING MEMORIALS OF THE MEN AND EVENTS OF HIS TIME.
Second Edition. Octavo, with Portrait, price 14s.

"The grandest demigod I ever saw was Dr Carlyle, minister of
Musselburgh, commonly called _Jupiter Carlyle_, from having sat more
than once for the king of gods and men to Gavin Hamilton; and a shrewd,
clever old carle was he."--SIR W. SCOTT.


=Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland,=
      FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT.
      By the late Very Rev. JOHN LEE, D.D., L.L.D.,
      Principal of the University of Edinburgh.
With Notes and Appendices from the Author's Papers.
      Edited by his Son, the Rev. WILLIAM LEE.
In Two Volumes Octavo, price 21s.


=Works of Thomas M'Crie, D.D.=
      Edited by his son, Professor M'CRIE.
Uniform Edition, in Four Vols. Crown Octavo, price 24s.

  The following are sold separately--viz.:
      LIFE OF JOHN KNOX. 6s.
      LIFE OF ANDREW MELVILLE. 6s.
      HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN ITALY. 4s.
      HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN SPAIN. 3s. 6d.
      REVIEW OF "TALES OF MY LANDLORD," AND SERMONS. 6s.


=Lives of the Queens of Scotland=,
      AND ENGLISH PRINCESSES CONNECTED WITH THE REGAL SUCCESSION.
      By AGNES STRICKLAND.

Containing the Lives of--
      MARGARET TUDOR, Queen of James IV.
      MAGDALENE OF FRANCE, First Queen of James V.
      MARY OF LORRAINE, Second Queen of James V.
      THE LADY MARGARET DOUGLAS, Mother of Darnley.
      QUEEN MARY STUART.
      ELIZABETH STUART, First Princess-Royal.
      SOPHIA, Electress of Hanover.

With Portraits and Historical Vignettes. Complete in Eight Vols.,
    price 4, 4s.


=The Eighteen Christian Centuries.=
      By the Rev. JAMES WHITE.
Third Edition, with Analytical Table of Contents, and a Copious Index.
    Post Octavo, price 7s. 6d.

"He goes to work upon the only true principle, and produces a picture
that at once satisfies truth, arrests the memory, and fills the
imagination. When they (Index and Analytical Contents) are supplied, it
will be difficult to lay hands on any book of the kind more useful and
more entertaining."--_Times_, Review of first edition.

"At once the most picturesque and the most informing volume on Modern
History to which the general reader could be referred."--_Nonconformist_.


=History of France,=
      FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE YEAR 1848.
      By the Rev. JAMES WHITE,
      Author of the "Eighteen Christian Centuries."
Second Edition, Post Octavo, price 9s.

"Mr White's 'History of France,' in a single volume of some 600 pages,
contains every leading incident worth the telling, and abounds in
word-painting whereof a paragraph has often as much active life in it as
one of those inch-square etchings of the great Callot, in which may be
clearly seen whole armies contending in bloody arbitrament, and as many
incidents of battle as may be gazed at in the miles of canvass in the
military picture-galleries at Versailles."--_Athenum_.

"An excellent and comprehensive compendium of French History, quite
above the standard of a school-book, and particularly well adapted for
the libraries of literary institutions."--_National Review_.


=Leaders of the Reformation:=
      LUTHER, CALVIN, LATIMER, AND KNOX.
      By the Rev. JOHN TULLOCH, D.D.,
      Principal and Primarius Professor of Theology, St Mary's College,
          St Andrews.
Second Edition, Crown Octavo, price 6s. 6d.

"We are not acquainted with any work in which so much solid information
upon the leading aspects of the great Reformation is presented in so
well-packed and pleasing a form."--_Witness_.

"The idea was excellent, and most ably has it been executed. Each Essay
is a lesson in sound thinking as well as in good writing. The deliberate
perusal of the volume will be an exercise for which all, whether young
or old, will be the better. The book is erudite, and throughout marked
by great independence of thought. We very highly prize the
publication."--_British Standard_.


=History of Europe,=
      FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE
        BATTLE OF WATERLOO.
      By Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart., D.C.L.
A New Library Edition (being the Tenth) including a copious Index,
    embellished with authentic Portraits. 14 vols. Octavo, price 10,
    10s.
Crown Octavo Edition, 20 vols., price 6.
People's Edition, 12 vols., double cols., 2, 8s.; and Index Vol., 3s.


=Continuation of Alison's History of Europe,=
      FROM THE FALL OF NAPOLEON TO THE ACCESSION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON.
      By Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart., D.C.L.
Complete in Nine Vols., price 6, 7s. 6d. Uniform with the Library
    Edition of the Author's "History of Europe, from the Commencement
    of the French Revolution."


=Atlas to Alison's History of Europe.=
Containing 109 Maps and Plans of Countries, Battles, Sieges, and
    Sea-fights. Constructed by A. KEITH JOHNSTON, F.R.S.E. With
    Vocabulary of Military and Marine Terms.
Library Edition, 3, 3s.; People's Edition, 1, 11s. 6d.


=Life of John, Duke of Marlborough.=
      WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES.
      By Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart., D.C.L.
Third Edition, Two Vols. Octavo, Portrait and Maps, 30s.


=History of Greece under Foreign Domination.=
      By GEORGE FINLAY, LL.D., Athens.
Five Volumes Octavo--viz.:
=Greece under the Romans.= B.C. 146 to A.D. 717. A Historical View of
    the condition of the Greek Nation, from its Conquest by the Romans
    until the Extinction of the Roman Power in the East. Second Edition,
    16s.
=History of the Byzantine Empire.= A.D. 716 to 1204; and of the Greek
    Empire of Nica and Constantinople, A.D. 1204 to 1453. Two Volumes,
    1, 7s. 6d.
=Medieval Greece and Trebizond.= The History of Greece, from its
    Conquest by the Crusaders to its Conquest by the Turks, A.D. 1204
    to 1566; and History of the Empire of Trebizond, A.D. 1104 to 1461.
    Price 12s.
=Greece under Ottoman and Venetian Domination.= A.D. 1453 to 1821.
    Price 10s. 6d.

"His book is worthy to take its place among the remarkable works on
Greek history, which form one of the chief glories of English
scholarship. The history of Greece is but half told without
it."--_London Guardian_.

"His work is therefore learned and profound. It throws a flood of light
upon an important though obscure portion of Grecian history. . . . In
the essential requisites of fidelity, accuracy, and learning, Mr Finlay
bears a favourable comparison with any historical writer of our
day."--_North American Review_.


=Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic.=
      Edited by the Rev. H. L. MANSELL, B.D., LL.D.,
      Wynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, Oxford;
      And JOHN VEITCH, M.A.,
      Professor of Logic, Rhetoric, and Metaphysics, St Andrews.

In Four Vols. Octavo, price 2, 8s. Each Course is sold separately--viz.:
      LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. Two Vols., price 1, 4s.
      LECTURES ON LOGIC. Two Vols., price 1, 4s.


=Thorndale; or, the Conflict of Opinions.=
      By WILLIAM SMITH,
      Author of "A Discourse on Ethics," &c.
A New Edition. Crown Octavo, price 10s. 6d.


=Institutes of Metaphysics.=
      THE THEORY OF KNOWING AND BEING.
      By JAMES F. FERRIER, A.B., Oxon.,
      Professor of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy, St Andrews.
Second Edition, Crown Octavo, 10s. 6d.


=Works of Professor Wilson.=
      Edited by his Son-in-Law, Professor FERRIER.
In Twelve Vols. Crown Octavo, price 3, 12s.

    The following are sold separately:--
          NOCTES AMBROSIAN. Four Vols., 24s.
          ESSAYS, CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE. Four Vols., 24s.
          HOMER AND HIS TRANSLATORS. One Vol., 6s.
          RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH. Two Vols., 12s.
          TALES. One Vol., 6s.
          POEMS. One Vol., 6s.



                      NEW GENERAL ATLAS.

_To be completed in Ten Parts (Eight Published), price 10s. 6d. each._


=The Royal Atlas of Modern Geography=:
In a Series of entirely original and authentic Maps, with a special
    Index to each Map, arranged so as to obviate the former inconvenient
    method of reference by Degrees and Minutes of Longitude and Latitude.

      By ALEX. KEITH JOHNSTON, F.R.S.E., F.R.G.S., &c.,
      Geographer in Ordinary to Her Majesty, Author of the "Physical
          Atlas," &c.

_The Concluding Parts will be published early in 1861, forming a handsome
    Volume in Royal Folio._


=The Physical Atlas of Natural Phenomena.=
      By ALEX. KEITH JOHNSTON, F.R.S.E., &c.,
      Geographer to the Queen for Scotland.

A New and Enlarged Edition, consisting of 35 Folio Plates, 27 smaller ones,
    printed in Colours, with 135 pages of Letterpress, and Index.
Imperial Folio, half-bound morocco, 12, 12s.


=The Chemistry of Common Life.=
      By PROFESSOR JOHNSTON.
      A New Edition, Edited by G. H. LEWES.
Illustrated with numerous Engravings. In Two Vols. Foolscap, price 11s. 6d.


=The Physiology of Common Life.=
      By GEORGE H. LEWES.
Illustrated with numerous Engravings. Two Vols., 12s.

_Contents_: Hunger and Thirst.--Food and Drink.--Digestion and
    Indigestion.--The Structure and Uses of the Blood.--The
    Circulation.--Respiration and Suffocation.--Why we are Warm, and
    how we keep so.--Feeling and Thinking.--The Mind and the Brain.--Our
    Senses and Sensations.--Sleep and Dreams.--The Qualities we inherit
    from our Parents.--Life and Death.


=Introductory Text-Book of Geology.=
      By DAVID PAGE, F.G.S.
Fourth Edition, with Engravings. In Crown Octavo, price 1s. 6d.

"It has not been often our good-fortune to examine a text-book on
science of which we could express an opinion so entirely favourable
as we are enabled to do of Mr Page's little work."--_Athenum_.


=Advanced Text-Book of Geology=,
    DESCRIPTIVE AND INDUSTRIAL.
      By DAVID PAGE, F.G.S.
Second Edition, Enlarged, with numerous Engravings, 6s.

"An admirable book on Geology. It is from no invidious desire to
underrate other works--it is the simple expression of justice--which
causes us to assign to Mr Page's _Advanced Text-Book_ the very first
place among geological works addressed to students, at least among those
which have come before us. We have read every word of it, with care and
with delight, never hesitating as to its meaning, never detecting the
omission of anything needful in a popular and succinct exposition of a
rich and varied subject."--_Leader_.

"It is therefore with unfeigned pleasure that we record our appreciation
of his _Advanced Text-Book of Geology_. We have carefully read this
truly satisfactory book, and do not hesitate to say that it is an
excellent compendium of the great facts of Geology, and written in a
truthful and philosophic spirit."--_Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_.

"We know of no introduction containing a larger amount of information in
the same space, and which we could more cordially recommend to the
geological student."--_Athenum_.


=Handbook of Geological Terms and Geology.=
      By DAVID PAGE, F.G.S.
In Crown Octavo, price 6s.

"'To the student, miner, engineer, architect, agriculturist, and others,
who may have occasion to deal with geological facts, and yet who might
not be inclined to turn up half a dozen volumes, or go through a course
of geological readings for an explanation of the term in question,' Mr
Page has carried out the object with the most complete success. His book
amply fulfils the promise contained in its title, constituting a
handbook not only of geological terms, but of the science of geology. It
will not only be absolutely indispensable to the student, but will be
invaluable as a complete and handy book of reference even to the
advanced geologist."--_Literary Gazette_.

"There is no more earnest living practical worker in geology than Mr
David Page. To his excellent _Introductory Text-Book of Geology_ and his
_Advanced Text-Book of Geology, Descriptive and Industrial_, he has now
added an admirable system of geological terms, with ample and clearly
written explanatory notices, such as all geological observers, whether
they are able professors and distinguished lecturers, or mere inquirers
upon the threshold of the science, must find to be of the highest
value."--_Practical Mechanics' Journal_.

"But Mr Page's work is very much more than simply a translation of the
language of Geology into plain English; it is a Dictionary, in which not
only the meaning of the words is given, but also a clear and concise
account of all that is most remarkable and worth knowing in the objects
which the words are designed to express. In doing this he has chiefly
kept in view the requirements of the general reader, but at the same
time adding such details as will render the volume an acceptable
Handbook to the student and professed geologist."--_The Press_.


=The Book of the Farm.=
      By HENRY STEPHENS, F.R.S.E.
A New Edition. In Two Volumes, large Octavo, with upwards of 600
    Engravings, price 3, half-bound.


=Book of Farm Implements and Machines.=
      By JAMES SLIGHT and R. SCOTT BURN.
      Edited by HENRY STEPHENS, F.R.S.E.
Illustrated with 876 Engravings. One large Volume, uniform with the "Book
    of the Farm," price 2, 2s.


=The Book of the Garden.=
      By CHARLES M'INTOSH.
In Two large Volumes, Royal Octavo, published separately.

  Vol. I.--On the Formation of Gardens--Construction, Heating, and
Ventilation of Fruit and Plant Houses, Pits, Frames, and other Garden
Structures, with Practical Details, illustrated by 1073 Engravings, pp.
776. Price 2, 10s.

  Vol. II.--PRACTICAL GARDENING--Contains: Directions for the Culture of
the Kitchen Garden, the Hardy-Fruit Garden, the Forcing Garden, and
Flower Garden, including Fruit and Plant Houses, with select Lists of
Vegetables, Fruits, and Plants. Pp. 868, with 279 Engravings. Price 1,
17s. 6d.



                       _ANNUAL PUBLICATION_.


=The Year-Book of Agricultural Facts for 1860.=
      Edited by R. SCOTT BURN.
In Foolscap Octavo, price 5s.
Copies of the Volume for 1859 may be had, price 5s.


=A Handy Book on Property Law.=
      By LORD ST LEONARDS.
A New Edition, Enlarged, with Index, Crown Octavo, price 3s. 6d.


=The Forester.=
A Practical Treatise on the Formation of Plantations, the Planting,
    Rearing, and Management of Forest Trees.
      By JAMES BROWN,
      Wood Manager to the Earl of Seafield, and Surveyor of Woods in
        general.
A Third Edition, Enlarged. In large 8vo, with numerous Engravings on Wood,
    price 1, 10s.




TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

The following changes were made to the original text:

Page 9: changed over-wise to overwise
Page 62: changed Stonepit to Stone-pit
Page 102: changed agoing to a-going
Page 155: changed its nonsense to it's nonsense
Page 158: changed wheelwright's to wheel-wright's
Page 169: changed hisbroad to his broad
Page 200: changed Nancy,in to Nancy, in
Page 208: changed faut to fault
Page 262: changed farm-houses to farmhouses
Page 263: changed out-door to outdoor
Page 341: changed these feeling to these feelings
Page 356: changed weekday to week-day
Page 362: changed its nothing to it's nothing
Page 376: changed Othoman to Ottoman
Page 379: changed amonnt to amount

Other than changing a period to a comma and removing a period, minor
variations in spelling and punctuation have been preserved.




[The end of _Silas Marner_ by George Eliot, illustrated by Hugh Thomson]
