The anxiety about sister Priscilla, which had grown rather active by

the time the coral necklace was clasped, was happily ended by the

entrance of that cheerful-looking lady herself, with a face made blowsy

by cold and damp. After the first questions and greetings, she turned

to Nancy, and surveyed her from head to foot—then wheeled her round, to

ascertain that the back view was equally faultless.

“What do you think o’ _these_ gowns, aunt Osgood?” said Priscilla,

while Nancy helped her to unrobe.

“Very handsome indeed, niece,” said Mrs. Osgood, with a slight increase

of formality. She always thought niece Priscilla too rough.

“I’m obliged to have the same as Nancy, you know, for all I’m five

years older, and it makes me look yallow; for she never _will_ have

anything without I have mine just like it, because she wants us to look

like sisters. And I tell her, folks ’ull think it’s my weakness makes

me fancy as I shall look pretty in what she looks pretty in. For I _am_

ugly—there’s no denying that: I feature my father’s family. But, law! I

don’t mind, do you?” Priscilla here turned to the Miss Gunns, rattling

on in too much preoccupation with the delight of talking, to notice

that her candour was not appreciated. “The pretty uns do for

fly-catchers—they keep the men off us. I’ve no opinion o’ the men, Miss

Gunn—I don’t know what _you_ have. And as for fretting and stewing

about what _they_’ll think of you from morning till night, and making

your life uneasy about what they’re doing when they’re out o’ your

sight—as I tell Nancy, it’s a folly no woman need be guilty of, if

she’s got a good father and a good home: let her leave it to them as

have got no fortin, and can’t help themselves. As I say, Mr.

Have-your-own-way is the best husband, and the only one I’d ever

promise to obey. I know it isn’t pleasant, when you’ve been used to

living in a big way, and managing hogsheads and all that, to go and put

your nose in by somebody else’s fireside, or to sit down by yourself to

a scrag or a knuckle; but, thank God! my father’s a sober man and

likely to live; and if you’ve got a man by the chimney-corner, it

doesn’t matter if he’s childish—the business needn’t be broke up.”

The delicate process of getting her narrow gown over her head without

injury to her smooth curls, obliged Miss Priscilla to pause in this

rapid survey of life, and Mrs. Osgood seized the opportunity of rising

and saying—

“Well, niece, you’ll follow us. The Miss Gunns will like to go down.”

“Sister,” said Nancy, when they were alone, “you’ve offended the Miss

Gunns, I’m sure.”

“What have I done, child?” said Priscilla, in some alarm.

“Why, you asked them if they minded about being ugly—you’re so very

blunt.”

“Law, did I? Well, it popped out: it’s a mercy I said no more, for I’m

a bad un to live with folks when they don’t like the truth. But as for

being ugly, look at me, child, in this silver-coloured silk—I told you

how it ’ud be—I look as yallow as a daffadil. Anybody ’ud say you

wanted to make a mawkin of me.”

“No, Priscy, don’t say so. I begged and prayed of you not to let us

have this silk if you’d like another better. I was willing to have

_your_ choice, you know I was,” said Nancy, in anxious

self-vindication.

“Nonsense, child! you know you’d set your heart on this; and reason

good, for you’re the colour o’ cream. It ’ud be fine doings for you to

dress yourself to suit _my_ skin. What I find fault with, is that

notion o’ yours as I must dress myself just like you. But you do as you

like with me—you always did, from when first you begun to walk. If you

wanted to go the field’s length, the field’s length you’d go; and there

was no whipping you, for you looked as prim and innicent as a daisy all

the while.”

“Priscy,” said Nancy, gently, as she fastened a coral necklace, exactly

like her own, round Priscilla’s neck, which was very far from being

like her own, “I’m sure I’m willing to give way as far as is right, but

who shouldn’t dress alike if it isn’t sisters? Would you have us go

about looking as if we were no kin to one another—us that have got no

mother and not another sister in the world? I’d do what was right, if I

dressed in a gown dyed with cheese-colouring; and I’d rather you’d

choose, and let me wear what pleases you.”

“There you go again! You’d come round to the same thing if one talked

to you from Saturday night till Saturday morning. It’ll be fine fun to

see how you’ll master your husband and never raise your voice above the

singing o’ the kettle all the while. I like to see the men mastered!”

“Don’t talk _so_, Priscy,” said Nancy, blushing. “You know I don’t mean

ever to be married.”

“Oh, you never mean a fiddlestick’s end!” said Priscilla, as she

arranged her discarded dress, and closed her bandbox. “Who shall _I_

have to work for when father’s gone, if you are to go and take notions

in your head and be an old maid, because some folks are no better than

they should be? I haven’t a bit o’ patience with you—sitting on an

addled egg for ever, as if there was never a fresh un in the world. One

old maid’s enough out o’ two sisters; and I shall do credit to a single

life, for God A’mighty meant me for it. Come, we can go down now. I’m

as ready as a mawkin _can_ be—there’s nothing awanting to frighten the

crows, now I’ve got my ear-droppers in.”

As the two Miss Lammeters walked into the large parlour together, any

one who did not know the character of both might certainly have

supposed that the reason why the square-shouldered, clumsy,

high-featured Priscilla wore a dress the facsimile of her pretty

sister’s, was either the mistaken vanity of the one, or the malicious

contrivance of the other in order to set off her own rare beauty. But

the good-natured self-forgetful cheeriness and common-sense of

Priscilla would soon have dissipated the one suspicion; and the modest

calm of Nancy’s speech and manners told clearly of a mind free from all

disavowed devices.

Places of honour had been kept for the Miss Lammeters near the head of

the principal tea-table in the wainscoted parlour, now looking fresh

and pleasant with handsome branches of holly, yew, and laurel, from the

abundant growths of the old garden; and Nancy felt an inward flutter,

that no firmness of purpose could prevent, when she saw Mr. Godfrey

Cass advancing to lead her to a seat between himself and Mr.

Crackenthorp, while Priscilla was called to the opposite side between

her father and the Squire. It certainly did make some difference to

Nancy that the lover she had given up was the young man of quite the

highest consequence in the parish—at home in a venerable and unique

parlour, which was the extremity of grandeur in her experience, a

parlour where _she_ might one day have been mistress, with the

consciousness that she was spoken of as “Madam Cass,” the Squire’s

wife. These circumstances exalted her inward drama in her own eyes, and

deepened the emphasis with which she declared to herself that not the

most dazzling rank should induce her to marry a man whose conduct

showed him careless of his character, but that, “love once, love

always,” was the motto of a true and pure woman, and no man should ever

have any right over her which would be a call on her to destroy the

dried flowers that she treasured, and always would treasure, for

Godfrey Cass’s sake. And Nancy was capable of keeping her word to

herself under very trying conditions. Nothing but a becoming blush

betrayed the moving thoughts that urged themselves upon her as she

accepted the seat next to Mr. Crackenthorp; for she was so

instinctively neat and adroit in all her actions, and her pretty lips

met each other with such quiet firmness, that it would have been

difficult for her to appear agitated.

It was not the rector’s practice to let a charming blush pass without

an appropriate compliment. He was not in the least lofty or

aristocratic, but simply a merry-eyed, small-featured, grey-haired man,

with his chin propped by an ample, many-creased white neckcloth which

seemed to predominate over every other point in his person, and somehow

to impress its peculiar character on his remarks; so that to have

considered his amenities apart from his cravat would have been a

severe, and perhaps a dangerous, effort of abstraction.

“Ha, Miss Nancy,” he said, turning his head within his cravat and

smiling down pleasantly upon her, “when anybody pretends this has been

a severe winter, I shall tell them I saw the roses blooming on New

Year’s Eve—eh, Godfrey, what do _you_ say?”

Godfrey made no reply, and avoided looking at Nancy very markedly; for

though these complimentary personalities were held to be in excellent

taste in old-fashioned Raveloe society, reverent love has a politeness

of its own which it teaches to men otherwise of small schooling. But

the Squire was rather impatient at Godfrey’s showing himself a dull

spark in this way. By this advanced hour of the day, the Squire was

always in higher spirits than we have seen him in at the

breakfast-table, and felt it quite pleasant to fulfil the hereditary

duty of being noisily jovial and patronizing: the large silver

snuff-box was in active service and was offered without fail to all

neighbours from time to time, however often they might have declined

the favour. At present, the Squire had only given an express welcome to

the heads of families as they appeared; but always as the evening

deepened, his hospitality rayed out more widely, till he had tapped the

youngest guests on the back and shown a peculiar fondness for their

presence, in the full belief that they must feel their lives made happy

by their belonging to a parish where there was such a hearty man as

Squire Cass to invite them and wish them well. Even in this early stage

of the jovial mood, it was natural that he should wish to supply his

son’s deficiencies by looking and speaking for him.

“Aye, aye,” he began, offering his snuff-box to Mr. Lammeter, who for

the second time bowed his head and waved his hand in stiff rejection of

the offer, “us old fellows may wish ourselves young to-night, when we

see the mistletoe-bough in the White Parlour. It’s true, most things

are gone back’ard in these last thirty years—the country’s going down

since the old king fell ill. But when I look at Miss Nancy here, I

begin to think the lasses keep up their quality;—ding me if I remember

a sample to match her, not when I was a fine young fellow, and thought

a deal about my pigtail. No offence to you, madam,” he added, bending

to Mrs. Crackenthorp, who sat by him, “I didn’t know _you_ when you

were as young as Miss Nancy here.”

Mrs. Crackenthorp—a small blinking woman, who fidgeted incessantly with

her lace, ribbons, and gold chain, turning her head about and making

subdued noises, very much like a guinea-pig that twitches its nose and

soliloquizes in all company indiscriminately—now blinked and fidgeted

towards the Squire, and said, “Oh, no—no offence.”

This emphatic compliment of the Squire’s to Nancy was felt by others

besides Godfrey to have a diplomatic significance; and her father gave

a slight additional erectness to his back, as he looked across the

table at her with complacent gravity. That grave and orderly senior was

not going to bate a jot of his dignity by seeming elated at the notion

of a match between his family and the Squire’s: he was gratified by any

honour paid to his daughter; but he must see an alteration in several

ways before his consent would be vouchsafed. His spare but healthy

person, and high-featured firm face, that looked as if it had never

been flushed by excess, was in strong contrast, not only with the

Squire’s, but with the appearance of the Raveloe farmers generally—in

accordance with a favourite saying of his own, that “breed was stronger

than pasture”.

“Miss Nancy’s wonderful like what her mother was, though; isn’t she,

Kimble?” said the stout lady of that name, looking round for her

husband.

But Doctor Kimble (country apothecaries in old days enjoyed that title

without authority of diploma), being a thin and agile man, was flitting

about the room with his hands in his pockets, making himself agreeable

to his feminine patients, with medical impartiality, and being welcomed

everywhere as a doctor by hereditary right—not one of those miserable

apothecaries who canvass for practice in strange neighbourhoods, and

spend all their income in starving their one horse, but a man of

substance, able to keep an extravagant table like the best of his

patients. Time out of mind the Raveloe doctor had been a Kimble; Kimble

was inherently a doctor’s name; and it was difficult to contemplate

firmly the melancholy fact that the actual Kimble had no son, so that

his practice might one day be handed over to a successor with the

incongruous name of Taylor or Johnson. But in that case the wiser

people in Raveloe would employ Dr. Blick of Flitton—as less unnatural.

“Did you speak to me, my dear?” said the authentic doctor, coming

quickly to his wife’s side; but, as if foreseeing that she would be too

much out of breath to repeat her remark, he went on immediately—“Ha,

Miss Priscilla, the sight of you revives the taste of that

super-excellent pork-pie. I hope the batch isn’t near an end.”

“Yes, indeed, it is, doctor,” said Priscilla; “but I’ll answer for it

the next shall be as good. My pork-pies don’t turn out well by chance.”

“Not as your doctoring does, eh, Kimble?—because folks forget to take

your physic, eh?” said the Squire, who regarded physic and doctors as

many loyal churchmen regard the church and the clergy—tasting a joke

against them when he was in health, but impatiently eager for their aid

when anything was the matter with him. He tapped his box, and looked

round with a triumphant laugh.

“Ah, she has a quick wit, my friend Priscilla has,” said the doctor,

choosing to attribute the epigram to a lady rather than allow a

brother-in-law that advantage over him. “She saves a little pepper to

sprinkle over her talk—that’s the reason why she never puts too much

into her pies. There’s my wife now, she never has an answer at her

tongue’s end; but if I offend her, she’s sure to scarify my throat with

black pepper the next day, or else give me the colic with watery

greens. That’s an awful tit-for-tat.” Here the vivacious doctor made a

pathetic grimace.

“Did you ever hear the like?” said Mrs. Kimble, laughing above her

double chin with much good-humour, aside to Mrs. Crackenthorp, who

blinked and nodded, and seemed to intend a smile, which, by the

correlation of forces, went off in small twitchings and noises.

“I suppose that’s the sort of tit-for-tat adopted in your profession,

Kimble, if you’ve a grudge against a patient,” said the rector.

“Never do have a grudge against our patients,” said Mr. Kimble, “except

when they leave us: and then, you see, we haven’t the chance of

prescribing for ’em. Ha, Miss Nancy,” he continued, suddenly skipping

to Nancy’s side, “you won’t forget your promise? You’re to save a dance

for me, you know.”

“Come, come, Kimble, don’t you be too for’ard,” said the Squire. “Give

the young uns fair-play. There’s my son Godfrey’ll be wanting to have a

round with you if you run off with Miss Nancy. He’s bespoke her for the

first dance, I’ll be bound. Eh, sir! what do you say?” he continued,

throwing himself backward, and looking at Godfrey. “Haven’t you asked

Miss Nancy to open the dance with you?”

Godfrey, sorely uncomfortable under this significant insistence about

Nancy, and afraid to think where it would end by the time his father

had set his usual hospitable example of drinking before and after

supper, saw no course open but to turn to Nancy and say, with as little

awkwardness as possible—

“No; I’ve not asked her yet, but I hope she’ll consent—if somebody else

hasn’t been before me.”

“No, I’ve not engaged myself,” said Nancy, quietly, though blushingly.

(If Mr. Godfrey founded any hopes on her consenting to dance with him,

he would soon be undeceived; but there was no need for her to be

uncivil.)

“Then I hope you’ve no objections to dancing with me,” said Godfrey,

beginning to lose the sense that there was anything uncomfortable in

this arrangement.

“No, no objections,” said Nancy, in a cold tone.

“Ah, well, you’re a lucky fellow, Godfrey,” said uncle Kimble; “but

you’re my godson, so I won’t stand in your way. Else I’m not so very

old, eh, my dear?” he went on, skipping to his wife’s side again. “You

wouldn’t mind my having a second after you were gone—not if I cried a

good deal first?”

“Come, come, take a cup o’ tea and stop your tongue, do,” said

good-humoured Mrs. Kimble, feeling some pride in a husband who must be

regarded as so clever and amusing by the company generally. If he had

only not been irritable at cards!

While safe, well-tested personalities were enlivening the tea in this

way, the sound of the fiddle approaching within a distance at which it

could be heard distinctly, made the young people look at each other

with sympathetic impatience for the end of the meal.

“Why, there’s Solomon in the hall,” said the Squire, “and playing my

fav’rite tune, _I_ believe—‘The flaxen-headed ploughboy’—he’s for

giving us a hint as we aren’t enough in a hurry to hear him play. Bob,”

he called out to his third long-legged son, who was at the other end of

the room, “open the door, and tell Solomon to come in. He shall give us

a tune here.”

Bob obeyed, and Solomon walked in, fiddling as he walked, for he would

on no account break off in the middle of a tune.

“Here, Solomon,” said the Squire, with loud patronage. “Round here, my

man. Ah, I knew it was ‘The flaxen-headed ploughboy’: there’s no finer

tune.”

Solomon Macey, a small hale old man with an abundant crop of long white

hair reaching nearly to his shoulders, advanced to the indicated spot,

bowing reverently while he fiddled, as much as to say that he respected

the company, though he respected the key-note more. As soon as he had

repeated the tune and lowered his fiddle, he bowed again to the Squire

and the rector, and said, “I hope I see your honour and your reverence

well, and wishing you health and long life and a happy New Year. And

wishing the same to you, Mr. Lammeter, sir; and to the other gentlemen,

and the madams, and the young lasses.”

As Solomon uttered the last words, he bowed in all directions

solicitously, lest he should be wanting in due respect. But thereupon

he immediately began to prelude, and fell into the tune which he knew

would be taken as a special compliment by Mr. Lammeter.

“Thank ye, Solomon, thank ye,” said Mr. Lammeter when the fiddle paused

again. “That’s ‘Over the hills and far away,’ that is. My father used

to say to me, whenever we heard that tune, ‘Ah, lad, _I_ come from over

the hills and far away.’ There’s a many tunes I don’t make head or tail

of; but that speaks to me like the blackbird’s whistle. I suppose it’s

the name: there’s a deal in the name of a tune.”

But Solomon was already impatient to prelude again, and presently broke

with much spirit into “Sir Roger de Coverley,” at which there was a

sound of chairs pushed back, and laughing voices.

“Aye, aye, Solomon, we know what that means,” said the Squire, rising.

“It’s time to begin the dance, eh? Lead the way, then, and we’ll all

follow you.”

So Solomon, holding his white head on one side, and playing vigorously,

marched forward at the head of the gay procession into the White

Parlour, where the mistletoe-bough was hung, and multitudinous tallow

candles made rather a brilliant effect, gleaming from among the berried

holly-boughs, and reflected in the old-fashioned oval mirrors fastened

in the panels of the white wainscot. A quaint procession! Old Solomon,

in his seedy clothes and long white locks, seemed to be luring that

decent company by the magic scream of his fiddle—luring discreet

matrons in turban-shaped caps, nay, Mrs. Crackenthorp herself, the

summit of whose perpendicular feather was on a level with the Squire’s

shoulder—luring fair lasses complacently conscious of very short waists

and skirts blameless of front-folds—luring burly fathers in large

variegated waistcoats, and ruddy sons, for the most part shy and

sheepish, in short nether garments and very long coat-tails.

Already Mr. Macey and a few other privileged villagers, who were

allowed to be spectators on these great occasions, were seated on

benches placed for them near the door; and great was the admiration and

satisfaction in that quarter when the couples had formed themselves for

the dance, and the Squire led off with Mrs. Crackenthorp, joining hands

with the rector and Mrs. Osgood. That was as it should be—that was what

everybody had been used to—and the charter of Raveloe seemed to be

renewed by the ceremony. It was not thought of as an unbecoming levity

for the old and middle-aged people to dance a little before sitting

down to cards, but rather as part of their social duties. For what were

these if not to be merry at appropriate times, interchanging visits and

poultry with due frequency, paying each other old-established

compliments in sound traditional phrases, passing well-tried personal

jokes, urging your guests to eat and drink too much out of hospitality,

and eating and drinking too much in your neighbour’s house to show that

you liked your cheer? And the parson naturally set an example in these

social duties. For it would not have been possible for the Raveloe

mind, without a peculiar revelation, to know that a clergyman should be

a pale-faced memento of solemnities, instead of a reasonably faulty man

whose exclusive authority to read prayers and preach, to christen,

marry, and bury you, necessarily coexisted with the right to sell you

the ground to be buried in and to take tithe in kind; on which last

point, of course, there was a little grumbling, but not to the extent

of irreligion—not of deeper significance than the grumbling at the

rain, which was by no means accompanied with a spirit of impious

defiance, but with a desire that the prayer for fine weather might be

read forthwith.

There was no reason, then, why the rector’s dancing should not be

received as part of the fitness of things quite as much as the

Squire’s, or why, on the other hand, Mr. Macey’s official respect

should restrain him from subjecting the parson’s performance to that

criticism with which minds of extraordinary acuteness must necessarily

contemplate the doings of their fallible fellow-men.

“The Squire’s pretty springe, considering his weight,” said Mr. Macey,

“and he stamps uncommon well. But Mr. Lammeter beats ’em all for

shapes: you see he holds his head like a sodger, and he isn’t so

cushiony as most o’ the oldish gentlefolks—they run fat in general; and

he’s got a fine leg. The parson’s nimble enough, but he hasn’t got much

of a leg: it’s a bit too thick down’ard, and his knees might be a bit

nearer wi’out damage; but he might do worse, he might do worse. Though

he hasn’t that grand way o’ waving his hand as the Squire has.”

“Talk o’ nimbleness, look at Mrs. Osgood,” said Ben Winthrop, who was

holding his son Aaron between his knees. “She trips along with her

little steps, so as nobody can see how she goes—it’s like as if she had

little wheels to her feet. She doesn’t look a day older nor last year:

she’s the finest-made woman as is, let the next be where she will.”

“I don’t heed how the women are made,” said Mr. Macey, with some

contempt. “They wear nayther coat nor breeches: you can’t make much out

o’ their shapes.”

“Fayder,” said Aaron, whose feet were busy beating out the tune, “how

does that big cock’s-feather stick in Mrs. Crackenthorp’s yead? Is

there a little hole for it, like in my shuttle-cock?”

“Hush, lad, hush; that’s the way the ladies dress theirselves, that

is,” said the father, adding, however, in an undertone to Mr. Macey,

“It does make her look funny, though—partly like a short-necked bottle

wi’ a long quill in it. Hey, by jingo, there’s the young Squire leading

off now, wi’ Miss Nancy for partners! There’s a lass for you!—like a

pink-and-white posy—there’s nobody ’ud think as anybody could be so

pritty. I shouldn’t wonder if she’s Madam Cass some day, arter all—and

nobody more rightfuller, for they’d make a fine match. You can find

nothing against Master Godfrey’s shapes, Macey, _I_’ll bet a penny.”

Mr. Macey screwed up his mouth, leaned his head further on one side,

and twirled his thumbs with a presto movement as his eyes followed

Godfrey up the dance. At last he summed up his opinion.

“Pretty well down’ard, but a bit too round i’ the shoulder-blades. And

as for them coats as he gets from the Flitton tailor, they’re a poor

cut to pay double money for.”

“Ah, Mr. Macey, you and me are two folks,” said Ben, slightly indignant

at this carping. “When I’ve got a pot o’ good ale, I like to swaller

it, and do my inside good, i’stead o’ smelling and staring at it to see

if I can’t find faut wi’ the brewing. I should like you to pick me out

a finer-limbed young fellow nor Master Godfrey—one as ’ud knock you

down easier, or ’s more pleasanter-looksed when he’s piert and merry.”

“Tchuh!” said Mr. Macey, provoked to increased severity, “he isn’t come

to his right colour yet: he’s partly like a slack-baked pie. And I

doubt he’s got a soft place in his head, else why should he be turned

round the finger by that offal Dunsey as nobody’s seen o’ late, and let

him kill that fine hunting hoss as was the talk o’ the country? And one

while he was allays after Miss Nancy, and then it all went off again,

like a smell o’ hot porridge, as I may say. That wasn’t my way when _I_

went a-coorting.”

“Ah, but mayhap Miss Nancy hung off, like, and your lass didn’t,” said

Ben.

“I should say she didn’t,” said Mr. Macey, significantly. “Before I

said ‘sniff,’ I took care to know as she’d say ‘snaff,’ and pretty

quick too. I wasn’t a-going to open _my_ mouth, like a dog at a fly,

and snap it to again, wi’ nothing to swaller.”

“Well, I think Miss Nancy’s a-coming round again,” said Ben, “for

Master Godfrey doesn’t look so down-hearted to-night. And I see he’s

for taking her away to sit down, now they’re at the end o’ the dance:

that looks like sweethearting, that does.”

The reason why Godfrey and Nancy had left the dance was not so tender

as Ben imagined. In the close press of couples a slight accident had

happened to Nancy’s dress, which, while it was short enough to show her

neat ankle in front, was long enough behind to be caught under the

stately stamp of the Squire’s foot, so as to rend certain stitches at

the waist, and cause much sisterly agitation in Priscilla’s mind, as

well as serious concern in Nancy’s. One’s thoughts may be much occupied

with love-struggles, but hardly so as to be insensible to a disorder in

the general framework of things. Nancy had no sooner completed her duty

in the figure they were dancing than she said to Godfrey, with a deep

blush, that she must go and sit down till Priscilla could come to her;

for the sisters had already exchanged a short whisper and an open-eyed

glance full of meaning. No reason less urgent than this could have

prevailed on Nancy to give Godfrey this opportunity of sitting apart

with her. As for Godfrey, he was feeling so happy and oblivious under

the long charm of the country-dance with Nancy, that he got rather bold

on the strength of her confusion, and was capable of leading her

straight away, without leave asked, into the adjoining small parlour,

where the card-tables were set.

“Oh no, thank you,” said Nancy, coldly, as soon as she perceived where

he was going, “not in there. I’ll wait here till Priscilla’s ready to

come to me. I’m sorry to bring you out of the dance and make myself

troublesome.”

“Why, you’ll be more comfortable here by yourself,” said the artful

Godfrey: “I’ll leave you here till your sister can come.” He spoke in

an indifferent tone.

That was an agreeable proposition, and just what Nancy desired; why,

then, was she a little hurt that Mr. Godfrey should make it? They

entered, and she seated herself on a chair against one of the

card-tables, as the stiffest and most unapproachable position she could

choose.

“Thank you, sir,” she said immediately. “I needn’t give you any more

trouble. I’m sorry you’ve had such an unlucky partner.”

“That’s very ill-natured of you,” said Godfrey, standing by her without

any sign of intended departure, “to be sorry you’ve danced with me.”

“Oh, no, sir, I don’t mean to say what’s ill-natured at all,” said

Nancy, looking distractingly prim and pretty. “When gentlemen have so

many pleasures, one dance can matter but very little.”

“You know that isn’t true. You know one dance with you matters more to

me than all the other pleasures in the world.”

It was a long, long while since Godfrey had said anything so direct as

that, and Nancy was startled. But her instinctive dignity and

repugnance to any show of emotion made her sit perfectly still, and

only throw a little more decision into her voice, as she said—

“No, indeed, Mr. Godfrey, that’s not known to me, and I have very good

reasons for thinking different. But if it’s true, I don’t wish to hear

it.”

“Would you never forgive me, then, Nancy—never think well of me, let

what would happen—would you never think the present made amends for the

past? Not if I turned a good fellow, and gave up everything you didn’t

like?”

Godfrey was half conscious that this sudden opportunity of speaking to

Nancy alone had driven him beside himself; but blind feeling had got

the mastery of his tongue. Nancy really felt much agitated by the

possibility Godfrey’s words suggested, but this very pressure of

emotion that she was in danger of finding too strong for her roused all

her power of self-command.

“I should be glad to see a good change in anybody, Mr. Godfrey,” she

answered, with the slightest discernible difference of tone, “but it

’ud be better if no change was wanted.”

“You’re very hard-hearted, Nancy,” said Godfrey, pettishly. “You might

encourage me to be a better fellow. I’m very miserable—but you’ve no

feeling.”

“I think those have the least feeling that act wrong to begin with,”

said Nancy, sending out a flash in spite of herself. Godfrey was

delighted with that little flash, and would have liked to go on and

make her quarrel with him; Nancy was so exasperatingly quiet and firm.

But she was not indifferent to him _yet_, though—

The entrance of Priscilla, bustling forward and saying, “Dear heart

alive, child, let us look at this gown,” cut off Godfrey’s hopes of a

quarrel.

“I suppose I must go now,” he said to Priscilla.

“It’s no matter to me whether you go or stay,” said that frank lady,

searching for something in her pocket, with a preoccupied brow.

“Do _you_ want me to go?” said Godfrey, looking at Nancy, who was now

standing up by Priscilla’s order.

“As you like,” said Nancy, trying to recover all her former coldness,

and looking down carefully at the hem of her gown.

“Then I like to stay,” said Godfrey, with a reckless determination to

get as much of this joy as he could to-night, and think nothing of the

morrow.

CHAPTER XII.

While Godfrey Cass was taking draughts of forgetfulness from the sweet

presence of Nancy, willingly losing all sense of that hidden bond which

at other moments galled and fretted him so as to mingle irritation with

the very sunshine, Godfrey’s wife was walking with slow uncertain steps

through the snow-covered Raveloe lanes, carrying her child in her arms.

This journey on New Year’s Eve was a premeditated act of vengeance

which she had kept in her heart ever since Godfrey, in a fit of

passion, had told her he would sooner die than acknowledge her as his

wife. There would be a great party at the Red House on New Year’s Eve,

she knew: her husband would be smiling and smiled upon, hiding _her_

existence in the darkest corner of his heart. But she would mar his

pleasure: she would go in her dingy rags, with her faded face, once as

handsome as the best, with her little child that had its father’s hair

and eyes, and disclose herself to the Squire as his eldest son’s wife.

It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a

wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable. Molly knew that the

cause of her dingy rags was not her husband’s neglect, but the demon

Opium to whom she was enslaved, body and soul, except in the lingering

mother’s tenderness that refused to give him her hungry child. She knew

this well; and yet, in the moments of wretched unbenumbed

consciousness, the sense of her want and degradation transformed itself

continually into bitterness towards Godfrey. _He_ was well off; and if

she had her rights she would be well off too. The belief that he

repented his marriage, and suffered from it, only aggravated her

vindictiveness. Just and self-reproving thoughts do not come to us too

thickly, even in the purest air, and with the best lessons of heaven

and earth; how should those white-winged delicate messengers make their

way to Molly’s poisoned chamber, inhabited by no higher memories than

those of a barmaid’s paradise of pink ribbons and gentlemen’s jokes?

She had set out at an early hour, but had lingered on the road,

inclined by her indolence to believe that if she waited under a warm

shed the snow would cease to fall. She had waited longer than she knew,

and now that she found herself belated in the snow-hidden ruggedness of

the long lanes, even the animation of a vindictive purpose could not

keep her spirit from failing. It was seven o’clock, and by this time

she was not very far from Raveloe, but she was not familiar enough with

those monotonous lanes to know how near she was to her journey’s end.

She needed comfort, and she knew but one comforter—the familiar demon

in her bosom; but she hesitated a moment, after drawing out the black

remnant, before she raised it to her lips. In that moment the mother’s

love pleaded for painful consciousness rather than oblivion—pleaded to

be left in aching weariness, rather than to have the encircling arms

benumbed so that they could not feel the dear burden. In another moment

Molly had flung something away, but it was not the black remnant—it was

an empty phial. And she walked on again under the breaking cloud, from

which there came now and then the light of a quickly veiled star, for a

freezing wind had sprung up since the snowing had ceased. But she

walked always more and more drowsily, and clutched more and more

automatically the sleeping child at her bosom.

Slowly the demon was working his will, and cold and weariness were his

helpers. Soon she felt nothing but a supreme immediate longing that

curtained off all futurity—the longing to lie down and sleep. She had

arrived at a spot where her footsteps were no longer checked by a

hedgerow, and she had wandered vaguely, unable to distinguish any

objects, notwithstanding the wide whiteness around her, and the growing

starlight. She sank down against a straggling furze bush, an easy

pillow enough; and the bed of snow, too, was soft. She did not feel

that the bed was cold, and did not heed whether the child would wake

and cry for her. But her arms had not yet relaxed their instinctive

clutch; and the little one slumbered on as gently as if it had been

rocked in a lace-trimmed cradle.

But the complete torpor came at last: the fingers lost their tension,

the arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the

blue eyes opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was a

little peevish cry of “mammy,” and an effort to regain the pillowing

arm and bosom; but mammy’s ear was deaf, and the pillow seemed to be

slipping away backward. Suddenly, as the child rolled downward on its

mother’s knees, all wet with snow, its eyes were caught by a bright

glancing light on the white ground, and, with the ready transition of

infancy, it was immediately absorbed in watching the bright living

thing running towards it, yet never arriving. That bright living thing

must be caught; and in an instant the child had slipped on all-fours,

and held out one little hand to catch the gleam. But the gleam would

not be caught in that way, and now the head was held up to see where

the cunning gleam came from. It came from a very bright place; and the

little one, rising on its legs, toddled through the snow, the old grimy

shawl in which it was wrapped trailing behind it, and the queer little

bonnet dangling at its back—toddled on to the open door of Silas

Marner’s cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where there was a

bright fire of logs and sticks, which had thoroughly warmed the old

sack (Silas’s greatcoat) spread out on the bricks to dry. The little

one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without notice from

its mother, squatted down on the sack, and spread its tiny hands

towards the blaze, in perfect contentment, gurgling and making many

inarticulate communications to the cheerful fire, like a new-hatched

gosling beginning to find itself comfortable. But presently the warmth

had a lulling effect, and the little golden head sank down on the old

sack, and the blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent

lids.

But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his

hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child. During the

last few weeks, since he had lost his money, he had contracted the

habit of opening his door and looking out from time to time, as if he

thought that his money might be somehow coming back to him, or that

some trace, some news of it, might be mysteriously on the road, and be

caught by the listening ear or the straining eye. It was chiefly at

night, when he was not occupied in his loom, that he fell into this

repetition of an act for which he could have assigned no definite

purpose, and which can hardly be understood except by those who have

undergone a bewildering separation from a supremely loved object. In

the evening twilight, and later whenever the night was not dark, Silas

looked out on that narrow prospect round the Stone-pits, listening and

gazing, not with hope, but with mere yearning and unrest.

This morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was New

Year’s Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung out and

the new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring his money

back again. This was only a friendly Raveloe-way of jesting with the

half-crazy oddities of a miser, but it had perhaps helped to throw

Silas into a more than usually excited state. Since the on-coming of

twilight he had opened his door again and again, though only to shut it

immediately at seeing all distance veiled by the falling snow. But the

last time he opened it the snow had ceased, and the clouds were parting

here and there. He stood and listened, and gazed for a long while—there

was really something on the road coming towards him then, but he caught

no sign of it; and the stillness and the wide trackless snow seemed to

narrow his solitude, and touched his yearning with the chill of

despair. He went in again, and put his right hand on the latch of the

door to close it—but he did not close it: he was arrested, as he had

been already since his loss, by the invisible wand of catalepsy, and

stood like a graven image, with wide but sightless eyes, holding open

his door, powerless to resist either the good or the evil that might

enter there.

When Marner’s sensibility returned, he continued the action which had

been arrested, and closed his door, unaware of the chasm in his

consciousness, unaware of any intermediate change, except that the

light had grown dim, and that he was chilled and faint. He thought he

had been too long standing at the door and looking out. Turning towards

the hearth, where the two logs had fallen apart, and sent forth only a

red uncertain glimmer, he seated himself on his fireside chair, and was

stooping to push his logs together, when, to his blurred vision, it

seemed as if there were gold on the floor in front of the hearth.

Gold!—his own gold—brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been

taken away! He felt his heart begin to beat violently, and for a few

moments he was unable to stretch out his hand and grasp the restored

treasure. The heap of gold seemed to glow and get larger beneath his

agitated gaze. He leaned forward at last, and stretched forth his hand;

but instead of the hard coin with the familiar resisting outline, his

fingers encountered soft warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on

his knees and bent his head low to examine the marvel: it was a

sleeping child—a round, fair thing, with soft yellow rings all over its

head. Could this be his little sister come back to him in a dream—his

little sister whom he had carried about in his arms for a year before

she died, when he was a small boy without shoes or stockings? That was

the first thought that darted across Silas’s blank wonderment. _Was_ it

a dream? He rose to his feet again, pushed his logs together, and,

throwing on some dried leaves and sticks, raised a flame; but the flame

did not disperse the vision—it only lit up more distinctly the little

round form of the child, and its shabby clothing. It was very much like

his little sister. Silas sank into his chair powerless, under the

double presence of an inexplicable surprise and a hurrying influx of

memories. How and when had the child come in without his knowledge? He

had never been beyond the door. But along with that question, and

almost thrusting it away, there was a vision of the old home and the

old streets leading to Lantern Yard—and within that vision another, of

the thoughts which had been present with him in those far-off scenes.

The thoughts were strange to him now, like old friendships impossible

to revive; and yet he had a dreamy feeling that this child was somehow

a message come to him from that far-off life: it stirred fibres that

had never been moved in Raveloe—old quiverings of tenderness—old

impressions of awe at the presentiment of some Power presiding over his

life; for his imagination had not yet extricated itself from the sense

of mystery in the child’s sudden presence, and had formed no

conjectures of ordinary natural means by which the event could have

been brought about.

But there was a cry on the hearth: the child had awaked, and Marner

stooped to lift it on his knee. It clung round his neck, and burst

louder and louder into that mingling of inarticulate cries with “mammy”

by which little children express the bewilderment of waking. Silas

pressed it to him, and almost unconsciously uttered sounds of hushing

tenderness, while he bethought himself that some of his porridge, which

had got cool by the dying fire, would do to feed the child with if it

were only warmed up a little.

He had plenty to do through the next hour. The porridge, sweetened with

some dry brown sugar from an old store which he had refrained from

using for himself, stopped the cries of the little one, and made her

lift her blue eyes with a wide quiet gaze at Silas, as he put the spoon

into her mouth. Presently she slipped from his knee and began to toddle

about, but with a pretty stagger that made Silas jump up and follow her

lest she should fall against anything that would hurt her. But she only

fell in a sitting posture on the ground, and began to pull at her

boots, looking up at him with a crying face as if the boots hurt her.

He took her on his knee again, but it was some time before it occurred

to Silas’s dull bachelor mind that the wet boots were the grievance,

pressing on her warm ankles. He got them off with difficulty, and baby

was at once happily occupied with the primary mystery of her own toes,

inviting Silas, with much chuckling, to consider the mystery too. But

the wet boots had at last suggested to Silas that the child had been

walking on the snow, and this roused him from his entire oblivion of

any ordinary means by which it could have entered or been brought into

his house. Under the prompting of this new idea, and without waiting to

form conjectures, he raised the child in his arms, and went to the

door. As soon as he had opened it, there was the cry of “mammy” again,

which Silas had not heard since the child’s first hungry waking.

Bending forward, he could just discern the marks made by the little

feet on the virgin snow, and he followed their track to the furze

bushes. “Mammy!” the little one cried again and again, stretching

itself forward so as almost to escape from Silas’s arms, before he

himself was aware that there was something more than the bush before

him—that there was a human body, with the head sunk low in the furze,

and half-covered with the shaken snow.

CHAPTER XIII.

It was after the early supper-time at the Red House, and the

entertainment was in that stage when bashfulness itself had passed into

easy jollity, when gentlemen, conscious of unusual accomplishments,

could at length be prevailed on to dance a hornpipe, and when the

Squire preferred talking loudly, scattering snuff, and patting his

visitors’ backs, to sitting longer at the whist-table—a choice

exasperating to uncle Kimble, who, being always volatile in sober

business hours, became intense and bitter over cards and brandy,

shuffled before his adversary’s deal with a glare of suspicion, and

turned up a mean trump-card with an air of inexpressible disgust, as if

in a world where such things could happen one might as well enter on a

course of reckless profligacy. When the evening had advanced to this

pitch of freedom and enjoyment, it was usual for the servants, the

heavy duties of supper being well over, to get their share of amusement

by coming to look on at the dancing; so that the back regions of the

house were left in solitude.

There were two doors by which the White Parlour was entered from the

hall, and they were both standing open for the sake of air; but the

lower one was crowded with the servants and villagers, and only the

upper doorway was left free. Bob Cass was figuring in a hornpipe, and

his father, very proud of this lithe son, whom he repeatedly declared

to be just like himself in his young days in a tone that implied this

to be the very highest stamp of juvenile merit, was the centre of a

group who had placed themselves opposite the performer, not far from

the upper door. Godfrey was standing a little way off, not to admire

his brother’s dancing, but to keep sight of Nancy, who was seated in

the group, near her father. He stood aloof, because he wished to avoid

suggesting himself as a subject for the Squire’s fatherly jokes in

connection with matrimony and Miss Nancy Lammeter’s beauty, which were

likely to become more and more explicit. But he had the prospect of

dancing with her again when the hornpipe was concluded, and in the

meanwhile it was very pleasant to get long glances at her quite

unobserved.

But when Godfrey was lifting his eyes from one of those long glances,

they encountered an object as startling to him at that moment as if it

had been an apparition from the dead. It _was_ an apparition from that

hidden life which lies, like a dark by-street, behind the goodly

ornamented facade that meets the sunlight and the gaze of respectable

admirers. It was his own child, carried in Silas Marner’s arms. That

was his instantaneous impression, unaccompanied by doubt, though he had

not seen the child for months past; and when the hope was rising that

he might possibly be mistaken, Mr. Crackenthorp and Mr. Lammeter had

already advanced to Silas, in astonishment at this strange advent.

Godfrey joined them immediately, unable to rest without hearing every

word—trying to control himself, but conscious that if any one noticed

him, they must see that he was white-lipped and trembling.

But now all eyes at that end of the room were bent on Silas Marner; the

Squire himself had risen, and asked angrily, “How’s this?—what’s

this?—what do you do coming in here in this way?”

“I’m come for the doctor—I want the doctor,” Silas had said, in the

first moment, to Mr. Crackenthorp.

“Why, what’s the matter, Marner?” said the rector. “The doctor’s here;

but say quietly what you want him for.”

“It’s a woman,” said Silas, speaking low, and half-breathlessly, just

as Godfrey came up. “She’s dead, I think—dead in the snow at the

Stone-pits—not far from my door.”

Godfrey felt a great throb: there was one terror in his mind at that

moment: it was, that the woman might _not_ be dead. That was an evil

terror—an ugly inmate to have found a nestling-place in Godfrey’s

kindly disposition; but no disposition is a security from evil wishes

to a man whose happiness hangs on duplicity.

“Hush, hush!” said Mr. Crackenthorp. “Go out into the hall there. I’ll

fetch the doctor to you. Found a woman in the snow—and thinks she’s

dead,” he added, speaking low to the Squire. “Better say as little

about it as possible: it will shock the ladies. Just tell them a poor

woman is ill from cold and hunger. I’ll go and fetch Kimble.”

By this time, however, the ladies had pressed forward, curious to know

what could have brought the solitary linen-weaver there under such

strange circumstances, and interested in the pretty child, who, half

alarmed and half attracted by the brightness and the numerous company,

now frowned and hid her face, now lifted up her head again and looked

round placably, until a touch or a coaxing word brought back the frown,

and made her bury her face with new determination.

“What child is it?” said several ladies at once, and, among the rest,

Nancy Lammeter, addressing Godfrey.

“I don’t know—some poor woman’s who has been found in the snow, I

believe,” was the answer Godfrey wrung from himself with a terrible

effort. (“After all, _am_ I certain?” he hastened to add, silently, in

anticipation of his own conscience.)

“Why, you’d better leave the child here, then, Master Marner,” said

good-natured Mrs. Kimble, hesitating, however, to take those dingy

clothes into contact with her own ornamented satin bodice. “I’ll tell

one o’ the girls to fetch it.”

“No—no—I can’t part with it, I can’t let it go,” said Silas, abruptly.

“It’s come to me—I’ve a right to keep it.”

The proposition to take the child from him had come to Silas quite

unexpectedly, and his speech, uttered under a strong sudden impulse,

was almost like a revelation to himself: a minute before, he had no

distinct intention about the child.

“Did you ever hear the like?” said Mrs. Kimble, in mild surprise, to

her neighbour.

“Now, ladies, I must trouble you to stand aside,” said Mr. Kimble,

coming from the card-room, in some bitterness at the interruption, but

drilled by the long habit of his profession into obedience to

unpleasant calls, even when he was hardly sober.

“It’s a nasty business turning out now, eh, Kimble?” said the Squire.

“He might ha’ gone for your young fellow—the ’prentice, there—what’s

his name?”

“Might? aye—what’s the use of talking about might?” growled uncle

Kimble, hastening out with Marner, and followed by Mr. Crackenthorp and

Godfrey. “Get me a pair of thick boots, Godfrey, will you? And stay,

let somebody run to Winthrop’s and fetch Dolly—she’s the best woman to

get. Ben was here himself before supper; is he gone?”

“Yes, sir, I met him,” said Marner; “but I couldn’t stop to tell him

anything, only I said I was going for the doctor, and he said the

doctor was at the Squire’s. And I made haste and ran, and there was

nobody to be seen at the back o’ the house, and so I went in to where

the company was.”

The child, no longer distracted by the bright light and the smiling

women’s faces, began to cry and call for “mammy,” though always

clinging to Marner, who had apparently won her thorough confidence.

Godfrey had come back with the boots, and felt the cry as if some fibre

were drawn tight within him.

“I’ll go,” he said, hastily, eager for some movement; “I’ll go and

fetch the woman—Mrs. Winthrop.”

“Oh, pooh—send somebody else,” said uncle Kimble, hurrying away with

Marner.

“You’ll let me know if I can be of any use, Kimble,” said Mr.

Crackenthorp. But the doctor was out of hearing.

Godfrey, too, had disappeared: he was gone to snatch his hat and coat,

having just reflection enough to remember that he must not look like a

madman; but he rushed out of the house into the snow without heeding

his thin shoes.

In a few minutes he was on his rapid way to the Stone-pits by the side

of Dolly, who, though feeling that she was entirely in her place in

encountering cold and snow on an errand of mercy, was much concerned at

a young gentleman’s getting his feet wet under a like impulse.

“You’d a deal better go back, sir,” said Dolly, with respectful

compassion. “You’ve no call to catch cold; and I’d ask you if you’d be

so good as tell my husband to come, on your way back—he’s at the

Rainbow, I doubt—if you found him anyway sober enough to be o’ use. Or

else, there’s Mrs. Snell ’ud happen send the boy up to fetch and carry,

for there may be things wanted from the doctor’s.”

“No, I’ll stay, now I’m once out—I’ll stay outside here,” said Godfrey,

when they came opposite Marner’s cottage. “You can come and tell me if

I can do anything.”

“Well, sir, you’re very good: you’ve a tender heart,” said Dolly, going

to the door.

Godfrey was too painfully preoccupied to feel a twinge of self-reproach

at this undeserved praise. He walked up and down, unconscious that he

was plunging ankle-deep in snow, unconscious of everything but

trembling suspense about what was going on in the cottage, and the

effect of each alternative on his future lot. No, not quite unconscious

of everything else. Deeper down, and half-smothered by passionate

desire and dread, there was the sense that he ought not to be waiting

on these alternatives; that he ought to accept the consequences of his

deeds, own the miserable wife, and fulfil the claims of the helpless

child. But he had not moral courage enough to contemplate that active

renunciation of Nancy as possible for him: he had only conscience and

heart enough to make him for ever uneasy under the weakness that

forbade the renunciation. And at this moment his mind leaped away from

all restraint toward the sudden prospect of deliverance from his long

bondage.

“Is she dead?” said the voice that predominated over every other within

him. “If she is, I may marry Nancy; and then I shall be a good fellow

in future, and have no secrets, and the child—shall be taken care of

somehow.” But across that vision came the other possibility—“She may

live, and then it’s all up with me.”

Godfrey never knew how long it was before the door of the cottage

opened and Mr. Kimble came out. He went forward to meet his uncle,

prepared to suppress the agitation he must feel, whatever news he was

to hear.

“I waited for you, as I’d come so far,” he said, speaking first.

“Pooh, it was nonsense for you to come out: why didn’t you send one of

the men? There’s nothing to be done. She’s dead—has been dead for

hours, I should say.”

“What sort of woman is she?” said Godfrey, feeling the blood rush to

his face.

“A young woman, but emaciated, with long black hair. Some vagrant—quite

in rags. She’s got a wedding-ring on, however. They must fetch her away

to the workhouse to-morrow. Come, come along.”

“I want to look at her,” said Godfrey. “I think I saw such a woman

yesterday. I’ll overtake you in a minute or two.”

Mr. Kimble went on, and Godfrey turned back to the cottage. He cast

only one glance at the dead face on the pillow, which Dolly had

smoothed with decent care; but he remembered that last look at his

unhappy hated wife so well, that at the end of sixteen years every line

in the worn face was present to him when he told the full story of this

night.

He turned immediately towards the hearth, where Silas Marner sat

lulling the child. She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep—only

soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which

makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain

awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some

quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky—before a steady glowing

planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a

silent pathway. The wide-open blue eyes looked up at Godfrey’s without

any uneasiness or sign of recognition: the child could make no visible

audible claim on its father; and the father felt a strange mixture of

feelings, a conflict of regret and joy, that the pulse of that little

heart had no response for the half-jealous yearning in his own, when

the blue eyes turned away from him slowly, and fixed themselves on the

weaver’s queer face, which was bent low down to look at them, while the

small hand began to pull Marner’s withered cheek with loving

disfiguration.

“You’ll take the child to the parish to-morrow?” asked Godfrey,

speaking as indifferently as he could.

“Who says so?” said Marner, sharply. “Will they make me take her?”

“Why, you wouldn’t like to keep her, should you—an old bachelor like

you?”

“Till anybody shows they’ve a right to take her away from me,” said

Marner. “The mother’s dead, and I reckon it’s got no father: it’s a

lone thing—and I’m a lone thing. My money’s gone, I don’t know

where—and this is come from I don’t know where. I know nothing—I’m

partly mazed.”

“Poor little thing!” said Godfrey. “Let me give something towards

finding it clothes.”

He had put his hand in his pocket and found half-a-guinea, and,

thrusting it into Silas’s hand, he hurried out of the cottage to

overtake Mr. Kimble.

“Ah, I see it’s not the same woman I saw,” he said, as he came up.

“It’s a pretty little child: the old fellow seems to want to keep it;

that’s strange for a miser like him. But I gave him a trifle to help

him out: the parish isn’t likely to quarrel with him for the right to

keep the child.”

“No; but I’ve seen the time when I might have quarrelled with him for

it myself. It’s too late now, though. If the child ran into the fire,

your aunt’s too fat to overtake it: she could only sit and grunt like

an alarmed sow. But what a fool you are, Godfrey, to come out in your

dancing shoes and stockings in this way—and you one of the beaux of the

evening, and at your own house! What do you mean by such freaks, young

fellow? Has Miss Nancy been cruel, and do you want to spite her by

spoiling your pumps?”

“Oh, everything has been disagreeable to-night. I was tired to death of

jigging and gallanting, and that bother about the hornpipes. And I’d

got to dance with the other Miss Gunn,” said Godfrey, glad of the

subterfuge his uncle had suggested to him.

The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself

ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false

touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere

trimmings when once the actions have become a lie.

Godfrey reappeared in the White Parlour with dry feet, and, since the

truth must be told, with a sense of relief and gladness that was too

strong for painful thoughts to struggle with. For could he not venture

now, whenever opportunity offered, to say the tenderest things to Nancy

Lammeter—to promise her and himself that he would always be just what

she would desire to see him? There was no danger that his dead wife

would be recognized: those were not days of active inquiry and wide

report; and as for the registry of their marriage, that was a long way

off, buried in unturned pages, away from every one’s interest but his

own. Dunsey might betray him if he came back; but Dunsey might be won

to silence.

And when events turn out so much better for a man than he has had

reason to dread, is it not a proof that his conduct has been less

foolish and blameworthy than it might otherwise have appeared? When we

are treated well, we naturally begin to think that we are not

altogether unmeritorious, and that it is only just we should treat

ourselves well, and not mar our own good fortune. Where, after all,

would be the use of his confessing the past to Nancy Lammeter, and

throwing away his happiness?—nay, hers? for he felt some confidence

that she loved him. As for the child, he would see that it was cared

for: he would never forsake it; he would do everything but own it.

Perhaps it would be just as happy in life without being owned by its

father, seeing that nobody could tell how things would turn out, and

that—is there any other reason wanted?—well, then, that the father

would be much happier without owning the child.

CHAPTER XIV.

There was a pauper’s burial that week in Raveloe, and up Kench Yard at

Batherley it was known that the dark-haired woman with the fair child,

who had lately come to lodge there, was gone away again. That was all

the express note taken that Molly had disappeared from the eyes of men.

But the unwept death which, to the general lot, seemed as trivial as

the summer-shed leaf, was charged with the force of destiny to certain

human lives that we know of, shaping their joys and sorrows even to the

end.

Silas Marner’s determination to keep the “tramp’s child” was matter of

hardly less surprise and iterated talk in the village than the robbery

of his money. That softening of feeling towards him which dated from

his misfortune, that merging of suspicion and dislike in a rather

contemptuous pity for him as lone and crazy, was now accompanied with a

more active sympathy, especially amongst the women. Notable mothers,

who knew what it was to keep children “whole and sweet”; lazy mothers,

who knew what it was to be interrupted in folding their arms and

scratching their elbows by the mischievous propensities of children

just firm on their legs, were equally interested in conjecturing how a

lone man would manage with a two-year-old child on his hands, and were

equally ready with their suggestions: the notable chiefly telling him

what he had better do, and the lazy ones being emphatic in telling him

what he would never be able to do.

Among the notable mothers, Dolly Winthrop was the one whose neighbourly

offices were the most acceptable to Marner, for they were rendered

without any show of bustling instruction. Silas had shown her the

half-guinea given to him by Godfrey, and had asked her what he should

do about getting some clothes for the child.

“Eh, Master Marner,” said Dolly, “there’s no call to buy, no more nor a

pair o’ shoes; for I’ve got the little petticoats as Aaron wore five

years ago, and it’s ill spending the money on them baby-clothes, for

the child ’ull grow like grass i’ May, bless it—that it will.”

And the same day Dolly brought her bundle, and displayed to Marner, one

by one, the tiny garments in their due order of succession, most of

them patched and darned, but clean and neat as fresh-sprung herbs. This

was the introduction to a great ceremony with soap and water, from

which Baby came out in new beauty, and sat on Dolly’s knee, handling

her toes and chuckling and patting her palms together with an air of

having made several discoveries about herself, which she communicated

by alternate sounds of “gug-gug-gug,” and “mammy”. The “mammy” was not

a cry of need or uneasiness: Baby had been used to utter it without

expecting either tender sound or touch to follow.

“Anybody ’ud think the angils in heaven couldn’t be prettier,” said

Dolly, rubbing the golden curls and kissing them. “And to think of its

being covered wi’ them dirty rags—and the poor mother—froze to death;

but there’s Them as took care of it, and brought it to your door,

Master Marner. The door was open, and it walked in over the snow, like

as if it had been a little starved robin. Didn’t you say the door was

open?”

“Yes,” said Silas, meditatively. “Yes—the door was open. The money’s

gone I don’t know where, and this is come from I don’t know where.”

He had not mentioned to any one his unconsciousness of the child’s

entrance, shrinking from questions which might lead to the fact he

himself suspected—namely, that he had been in one of his trances.

“Ah,” said Dolly, with soothing gravity, “it’s like the night and the

morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the

harvest—one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor

where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it’s little we can do

arter all—the big things come and go wi’ no striving o’ our’n—they do,

that they do; and I think you’re in the right on it to keep the little

un, Master Marner, seeing as it’s been sent to you, though there’s

folks as thinks different. You’ll happen be a bit moithered with it

while it’s so little; but I’ll come, and welcome, and see to it for

you: I’ve a bit o’ time to spare most days, for when one gets up

betimes i’ the morning, the clock seems to stan’ still tow’rt ten,

afore it’s time to go about the victual. So, as I say, I’ll come and

see to the child for you, and welcome.”

“Thank you ... kindly,” said Silas, hesitating a little. “I’ll be glad

if you’ll tell me things. But,” he added, uneasily, leaning forward to

look at Baby with some jealousy, as she was resting her head backward

against Dolly’s arm, and eyeing him contentedly from a distance—“But I

want to do things for it myself, else it may get fond o’ somebody else,

and not fond o’ me. I’ve been used to fending for myself in the house—I

can learn, I can learn.”

“Eh, to be sure,” said Dolly, gently. “I’ve seen men as are wonderful

handy wi’ children. The men are awk’ard and contrairy mostly, God help

’em—but when the drink’s out of ’em, they aren’t unsensible, though

they’re bad for leeching and bandaging—so fiery and unpatient. You see

this goes first, next the skin,” proceeded Dolly, taking up the little

shirt, and putting it on.

“Yes,” said Marner, docilely, bringing his eyes very close, that they

might be initiated in the mysteries; whereupon Baby seized his head

with both her small arms, and put her lips against his face with

purring noises.

“See there,” said Dolly, with a woman’s tender tact, “she’s fondest o’

you. She wants to go o’ your lap, I’ll be bound. Go, then: take her,

Master Marner; you can put the things on, and then you can say as

you’ve done for her from the first of her coming to you.”

Marner took her on his lap, trembling with an emotion mysterious to

himself, at something unknown dawning on his life. Thought and feeling

were so confused within him, that if he had tried to give them

utterance, he could only have said that the child was come instead of

the gold—that the gold had turned into the child. He took the garments

from Dolly, and put them on under her teaching; interrupted, of course,

by Baby’s gymnastics.

“There, then! why, you take to it quite easy, Master Marner,” said

Dolly; “but what shall you do when you’re forced to sit in your loom?

For she’ll get busier and mischievouser every day—she will, bless her.

It’s lucky as you’ve got that high hearth i’stead of a grate, for that

keeps the fire more out of her reach: but if you’ve got anything as can

be spilt or broke, or as is fit to cut her fingers off, she’ll be at

it—and it is but right you should know.”

Silas meditated a little while in some perplexity. “I’ll tie her to the

leg o’ the loom,” he said at last—“tie her with a good long strip o’

something.”

“Well, mayhap that’ll do, as it’s a little gell, for they’re easier

persuaded to sit i’ one place nor the lads. I know what the lads are;

for I’ve had four—four I’ve had, God knows—and if you was to take and

tie ’em up, they’d make a fighting and a crying as if you was ringing

the pigs. But I’ll bring you my little chair, and some bits o’ red rag

and things for her to play wi’; an’ she’ll sit and chatter to ’em as if

they was alive. Eh, if it wasn’t a sin to the lads to wish ’em made

different, bless ’em, I should ha’ been glad for one of ’em to be a

little gell; and to think as I could ha’ taught her to scour, and mend,

and the knitting, and everything. But I can teach ’em this little un,

Master Marner, when she gets old enough.”

“But she’ll be _my_ little un,” said Marner, rather hastily. “She’ll be

nobody else’s.”

“No, to be sure; you’ll have a right to her, if you’re a father to her,

and bring her up according. But,” added Dolly, coming to a point which

she had determined beforehand to touch upon, “you must bring her up

like christened folks’s children, and take her to church, and let her

learn her catechise, as my little Aaron can say off—the ‘I believe,’

and everything, and ‘hurt nobody by word or deed,’—as well as if he was

the clerk. That’s what you must do, Master Marner, if you’d do the

right thing by the orphin child.”

Marner’s pale face flushed suddenly under a new anxiety. His mind was

too busy trying to give some definite bearing to Dolly’s words for him

to think of answering her.

“And it’s my belief,” she went on, “as the poor little creatur has

never been christened, and it’s nothing but right as the parson should

be spoke to; and if you was noways unwilling, I’d talk to Mr. Macey

about it this very day. For if the child ever went anyways wrong, and

you hadn’t done your part by it, Master Marner—’noculation, and

everything to save it from harm—it ’ud be a thorn i’ your bed for ever

o’ this side the grave; and I can’t think as it ’ud be easy lying down

for anybody when they’d got to another world, if they hadn’t done their

part by the helpless children as come wi’out their own asking.”

Dolly herself was disposed to be silent for some time now, for she had

spoken from the depths of her own simple belief, and was much concerned

to know whether her words would produce the desired effect on Silas. He

was puzzled and anxious, for Dolly’s word “christened” conveyed no

distinct meaning to him. He had only heard of baptism, and had only

seen the baptism of grown-up men and women.

“What is it as you mean by ‘christened?’” he said at last, timidly.

“Won’t folks be good to her without it?”

“Dear, dear! Master Marner,” said Dolly, with gentle distress and

compassion. “Had you never no father nor mother as taught you to say

your prayers, and as there’s good words and good things to keep us from

harm?”

“Yes,” said Silas, in a low voice; “I know a deal about that—used to,

used to. But your ways are different: my country was a good way off.”

He paused a few moments, and then added, more decidedly, “But I want to

do everything as can be done for the child. And whatever’s right for it

i’ this country, and you think ’ull do it good, I’ll act according, if

you’ll tell me.”

“Well, then, Master Marner,” said Dolly, inwardly rejoiced, “I’ll ask

Mr. Macey to speak to the parson about it; and you must fix on a name

for it, because it must have a name giv’ it when it’s christened.”

“My mother’s name was Hephzibah,” said Silas, “and my little sister was

named after her.”

“Eh, that’s a hard name,” said Dolly. “I partly think it isn’t a

christened name.”

“It’s a Bible name,” said Silas, old ideas recurring.

“Then I’ve no call to speak again’ it,” said Dolly, rather startled by

Silas’s knowledge on this head; “but you see I’m no scholard, and I’m

slow at catching the words. My husband says I’m allays like as if I was

putting the haft for the handle—that’s what he says—for he’s very

sharp, God help him. But it was awk’ard calling your little sister by

such a hard name, when you’d got nothing big to say, like—wasn’t it,

Master Marner?”

“We called her Eppie,” said Silas.

“Well, if it was noways wrong to shorten the name, it ’ud be a deal

handier. And so I’ll go now, Master Marner, and I’ll speak about the

christening afore dark; and I wish you the best o’ luck, and it’s my

belief as it’ll come to you, if you do what’s right by the orphin

child;—and there’s the ’noculation to be seen to; and as to washing its

bits o’ things, you need look to nobody but me, for I can do ’em wi’

one hand when I’ve got my suds about. Eh, the blessed angil! You’ll let

me bring my Aaron one o’ these days, and he’ll show her his little cart

as his father’s made for him, and the black-and-white pup as he’s got

a-rearing.”

Baby _was_ christened, the rector deciding that a double baptism was

the lesser risk to incur; and on this occasion Silas, making himself as

clean and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time within the

church, and shared in the observances held sacred by his neighbours. He

was quite unable, by means of anything he heard or saw, to identify the

Raveloe religion with his old faith; if he could at any time in his

previous life have done so, it must have been by the aid of a strong

feeling ready to vibrate with sympathy, rather than by a comparison of

phrases and ideas: and now for long years that feeling had been

dormant. He had no distinct idea about the baptism and the

church-going, except that Dolly had said it was for the good of the

child; and in this way, as the weeks grew to months, the child created

fresh and fresh links between his life and the lives from which he had

hitherto shrunk continually into narrower isolation. Unlike the gold

which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked

solitude—which was hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the song

of birds, and started to no human tones—Eppie was a creature of endless

claims and ever-growing desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and

living sounds, and living movements; making trial of everything, with

trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness in all eyes that

looked on her. The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated

circle, leading to nothing beyond itself; but Eppie was an object

compacted of changes and hopes that forced his thoughts onward, and

carried them far away from their old eager pacing towards the same

blank limit—carried them away to the new things that would come with

the coming years, when Eppie would have learned to understand how her

father Silas cared for her; and made him look for images of that time

in the ties and charities that bound together the families of his

neighbours. The gold had asked that he should sit weaving longer and

longer, deafened and blinded more and more to all things except the

monotony of his loom and the repetition of his web; but Eppie called

him away from his weaving, and made him think all its pauses a holiday,

reawakening his senses with her fresh life, even to the old

winter-flies that came crawling forth in the early spring sunshine, and

warming him into joy because _she_ had joy.

And when the sunshine grew strong and lasting, so that the buttercups

were thick in the meadows, Silas might be seen in the sunny midday, or

in the late afternoon when the shadows were lengthening under the

hedgerows, strolling out with uncovered head to carry Eppie beyond the

Stone-pits to where the flowers grew, till they reached some favourite

bank where he could sit down, while Eppie toddled to pluck the flowers,

and make remarks to the winged things that murmured happily above the

bright petals, calling “Dad-dad’s” attention continually by bringing

him the flowers. Then she would turn her ear to some sudden bird-note,

and Silas learned to please her by making signs of hushed stillness,

that they might listen for the note to come again: so that when it

came, she set up her small back and laughed with gurgling triumph.

Sitting on the banks in this way, Silas began to look for the once

familiar herbs again; and as the leaves, with their unchanged outline

and markings, lay on his palm, there was a sense of crowding

remembrances from which he turned away timidly, taking refuge in

Eppie’s little world, that lay lightly on his enfeebled spirit.

As the child’s mind was growing into knowledge, his mind was growing

into memory: as her life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold

narrow prison, was unfolding too, and trembling gradually into full

consciousness.

It was an influence which must gather force with every new year: the

tones that stirred Silas’s heart grew articulate, and called for more

distinct answers; shapes and sounds grew clearer for Eppie’s eyes and

ears, and there was more that “Dad-dad” was imperatively required to

notice and account for. Also, by the time Eppie was three years old,

she developed a fine capacity for mischief, and for devising ingenious

ways of being troublesome, which found much exercise, not only for

Silas’s patience, but for his watchfulness and penetration. Sorely was

poor Silas puzzled on such occasions by the incompatible demands of

love. Dolly Winthrop told him that punishment was good for Eppie, and

that, as for rearing a child without making it tingle a little in soft

and safe places now and then, it was not to be done.

“To be sure, there’s another thing you might do, Master Marner,” added

Dolly, meditatively: “you might shut her up once i’ the coal-hole. That

was what I did wi’ Aaron; for I was that silly wi’ the youngest lad, as

I could never bear to smack him. Not as I could find i’ my heart to let

him stay i’ the coal-hole more nor a minute, but it was enough to colly

him all over, so as he must be new washed and dressed, and it was as

good as a rod to him—that was. But I put it upo’ your conscience,

Master Marner, as there’s one of ’em you must choose—ayther smacking or

the coal-hole—else she’ll get so masterful, there’ll be no holding

her.”

Silas was impressed with the melancholy truth of this last remark; but

his force of mind failed before the only two penal methods open to him,

not only because it was painful to him to hurt Eppie, but because he

trembled at a moment’s contention with her, lest she should love him

the less for it. Let even an affectionate Goliath get himself tied to a

small tender thing, dreading to hurt it by pulling, and dreading still

more to snap the cord, and which of the two, pray, will be master? It

was clear that Eppie, with her short toddling steps, must lead father

Silas a pretty dance on any fine morning when circumstances favoured

mischief.

For example. He had wisely chosen a broad strip of linen as a means of

fastening her to his loom when he was busy: it made a broad belt round

her waist, and was long enough to allow of her reaching the truckle-bed

and sitting down on it, but not long enough for her to attempt any

dangerous climbing. One bright summer’s morning Silas had been more

engrossed than usual in “setting up” a new piece of work, an occasion

on which his scissors were in requisition. These scissors, owing to an

especial warning of Dolly’s, had been kept carefully out of Eppie’s

reach; but the click of them had had a peculiar attraction for her ear,

and watching the results of that click, she had derived the philosophic

lesson that the same cause would produce the same effect. Silas had

seated himself in his loom, and the noise of weaving had begun; but he

had left his scissors on a ledge which Eppie’s arm was long enough to

reach; and now, like a small mouse, watching her opportunity, she stole

quietly from her corner, secured the scissors, and toddled to the bed

again, setting up her back as a mode of concealing the fact. She had a

distinct intention as to the use of the scissors; and having cut the

linen strip in a jagged but effectual manner, in two moments she had

run out at the open door where the sunshine was inviting her, while

poor Silas believed her to be a better child than usual. It was not

until he happened to need his scissors that the terrible fact burst

upon him: Eppie had run out by herself—had perhaps fallen into the

Stone-pit. Silas, shaken by the worst fear that could have befallen

him, rushed out, calling “Eppie!” and ran eagerly about the unenclosed

space, exploring the dry cavities into which she might have fallen, and

then gazing with questioning dread at the smooth red surface of the

water. The cold drops stood on his brow. How long had she been out?

There was one hope—that she had crept through the stile and got into

the fields, where he habitually took her to stroll. But the grass was

high in the meadow, and there was no descrying her, if she were there,

except by a close search that would be a trespass on Mr. Osgood’s crop.

Still, that misdemeanour must be committed; and poor Silas, after

peering all round the hedgerows, traversed the grass, beginning with

perturbed vision to see Eppie behind every group of red sorrel, and to

see her moving always farther off as he approached. The meadow was

searched in vain; and he got over the stile into the next field,

looking with dying hope towards a small pond which was now reduced to

its summer shallowness, so as to leave a wide margin of good adhesive

mud. Here, however, sat Eppie, discoursing cheerfully to her own small

boot, which she was using as a bucket to convey the water into a deep

hoof-mark, while her little naked foot was planted comfortably on a

cushion of olive-green mud. A red-headed calf was observing her with

alarmed doubt through the opposite hedge.

Here was clearly a case of aberration in a christened child which

demanded severe treatment; but Silas, overcome with convulsive joy at

finding his treasure again, could do nothing but snatch her up, and

cover her with half-sobbing kisses. It was not until he had carried her

home, and had begun to think of the necessary washing, that he

recollected the need that he should punish Eppie, and “make her

remember”. The idea that she might run away again and come to harm,

gave him unusual resolution, and for the first time he determined to

try the coal-hole—a small closet near the hearth.

“Naughty, naughty Eppie,” he suddenly began, holding her on his knee,

and pointing to her muddy feet and clothes—“naughty to cut with the

scissors and run away. Eppie must go into the coal-hole for being

naughty. Daddy must put her in the coal-hole.”

He half-expected that this would be shock enough, and that Eppie would

begin to cry. But instead of that, she began to shake herself on his

knee, as if the proposition opened a pleasing novelty. Seeing that he

must proceed to extremities, he put her into the coal-hole, and held

the door closed, with a trembling sense that he was using a strong

measure. For a moment there was silence, but then came a little cry,

“Opy, opy!” and Silas let her out again, saying, “Now Eppie ’ull never

be naughty again, else she must go in the coal-hole—a black naughty

place.”

The weaving must stand still a long while this morning, for now Eppie

must be washed, and have clean clothes on; but it was to be hoped that

this punishment would have a lasting effect, and save time in

future—though, perhaps, it would have been better if Eppie had cried

more.

In half an hour she was clean again, and Silas having turned his back

to see what he could do with the linen band, threw it down again, with

the reflection that Eppie would be good without fastening for the rest

of the morning. He turned round again, and was going to place her in

her little chair near the loom, when she peeped out at him with black

face and hands again, and said, “Eppie in de toal-hole!”

This total failure of the coal-hole discipline shook Silas’s belief in

the efficacy of punishment. “She’d take it all for fun,” he observed to

Dolly, “if I didn’t hurt her, and that I can’t do, Mrs. Winthrop. If

she makes me a bit o’ trouble, I can bear it. And she’s got no tricks

but what she’ll grow out of.”

“Well, that’s partly true, Master Marner,” said Dolly, sympathetically;

“and if you can’t bring your mind to frighten her off touching things,

you must do what you can to keep ’em out of her way. That’s what I do

wi’ the pups as the lads are allays a-rearing. They _will_ worry and

gnaw—worry and gnaw they will, if it was one’s Sunday cap as hung

anywhere so as they could drag it. They know no difference, God help

’em: it’s the pushing o’ the teeth as sets ’em on, that’s what it is.”

So Eppie was reared without punishment, the burden of her misdeeds

being borne vicariously by father Silas. The stone hut was made a soft

nest for her, lined with downy patience: and also in the world that lay

beyond the stone hut she knew nothing of frowns and denials.

Notwithstanding the difficulty of carrying her and his yarn or linen at

the same time, Silas took her with him in most of his journeys to the

farmhouses, unwilling to leave her behind at Dolly Winthrop’s, who was

always ready to take care of her; and little curly-headed Eppie, the

weaver’s child, became an object of interest at several outlying

homesteads, as well as in the village. Hitherto he had been treated

very much as if he had been a useful gnome or brownie—a queer and

unaccountable creature, who must necessarily be looked at with

wondering curiosity and repulsion, and with whom one would be glad to

make all greetings and bargains as brief as possible, but who must be

dealt with in a propitiatory way, and occasionally have a present of

pork or garden stuff to carry home with him, seeing that without him

there was no getting the yarn woven. But now Silas met with open

smiling faces and cheerful questioning, as a person whose satisfactions

and difficulties could be understood. Everywhere he must sit a little

and talk about the child, and words of interest were always ready for

him: “Ah, Master Marner, you’ll be lucky if she takes the measles soon

and easy!”—or, “Why, there isn’t many lone men ’ud ha’ been wishing to

take up with a little un like that: but I reckon the weaving makes you

handier than men as do out-door work—you’re partly as handy as a woman,

for weaving comes next to spinning.” Elderly masters and mistresses,

seated observantly in large kitchen arm-chairs, shook their heads over

the difficulties attendant on rearing children, felt Eppie’s round arms

and legs, and pronounced them remarkably firm, and told Silas that, if

she turned out well (which, however, there was no telling), it would be

a fine thing for him to have a steady lass to do for him when he got

helpless. Servant maidens were fond of carrying her out to look at the

hens and chickens, or to see if any cherries could be shaken down in

the orchard; and the small boys and girls approached her slowly, with

cautious movement and steady gaze, like little dogs face to face with

one of their own kind, till attraction had reached the point at which

the soft lips were put out for a kiss. No child was afraid of

approaching Silas when Eppie was near him: there was no repulsion

around him now, either for young or old; for the little child had come

to link him once more with the whole world. There was love between him

and the child that blent them into one, and there was love between the

child and the world—from men and women with parental looks and tones,

to the red lady-birds and the round pebbles.

Silas began now to think of Raveloe life entirely in relation to Eppie:

she must have everything that was a good in Raveloe; and he listened

docilely, that he might come to understand better what this life was,

from which, for fifteen years, he had stood aloof as from a strange

thing, with which he could have no communion: as some man who has a

precious plant to which he would give a nurturing home in a new soil,

thinks of the rain, and the sunshine, and all influences, in relation

to his nursling, and asks industriously for all knowledge that will

help him to satisfy the wants of the searching roots, or to guard leaf

and bud from invading harm. The disposition to hoard had been utterly

crushed at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold: the

coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant as stones brought to

complete a house suddenly buried by an earthquake; the sense of

bereavement was too heavy upon him for the old thrill of satisfaction

to arise again at the touch of the newly-earned coin. And now something

had come to replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to the

earnings, drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money.

In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led

them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels

now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is

put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and

bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a

little child’s.

CHAPTER XV.

There was one person, as you will believe, who watched with keener

though more hidden interest than any other, the prosperous growth of

Eppie under the weaver’s care. He dared not do anything that would

imply a stronger interest in a poor man’s adopted child than could be

expected from the kindliness of the young Squire, when a chance meeting

suggested a little present to a simple old fellow whom others noticed

with goodwill; but he told himself that the time would come when he

might do something towards furthering the welfare of his daughter

without incurring suspicion. Was he very uneasy in the meantime at his

inability to give his daughter her birthright? I cannot say that he

was. The child was being taken care of, and would very likely be happy,

as people in humble stations often were—happier, perhaps, than those

brought up in luxury.

That famous ring that pricked its owner when he forgot duty and

followed desire—I wonder if it pricked very hard when he set out on the

chase, or whether it pricked but lightly then, and only pierced to the

quick when the chase had long been ended, and hope, folding her wings,

looked backward and became regret?

Godfrey Cass’s cheek and eye were brighter than ever now. He was so

undivided in his aims, that he seemed like a man of firmness. No Dunsey

had come back: people had made up their minds that he was gone for a

soldier, or gone “out of the country,” and no one cared to be specific

in their inquiries on a subject delicate to a respectable family.

Godfrey had ceased to see the shadow of Dunsey across his path; and the

path now lay straight forward to the accomplishment of his best,

longest-cherished wishes. Everybody said Mr. Godfrey had taken the

right turn; and it was pretty clear what would be the end of things,

for there were not many days in the week that he was not seen riding to

the Warrens. Godfrey himself, when he was asked jocosely if the day had

been fixed, smiled with the pleasant consciousness of a lover who could

say “yes,” if he liked. He felt a reformed man, delivered from

temptation; and the vision of his future life seemed to him as a

promised land for which he had no cause to fight. He saw himself with

all his happiness centred on his own hearth, while Nancy would smile on

him as he played with the children.

And that other child—not on the hearth—he would not forget it; he would

see that it was well provided for. That was a father’s duty.

PART 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 recognize, in spite of Time, who has laid his hand

on them all. The tall blond man of forty is not much changed in feature

from the Godfrey Cass of six-and-twenty: he is only fuller in flesh,

and has only lost the indefinable look of youth—a loss which is marked

even when the eye is undulled and the wrinkles are not yet come.

Perhaps the pretty woman, not much younger than he, who is leaning on

his arm, is more changed than her husband: the lovely bloom that used

to be always on her cheek now comes but fitfully, with the fresh

morning air or with some strong surprise; yet to all who love human

faces best for what they tell of human experience, Nancy’s beauty has a

heightened interest. Often the soul is ripened into fuller goodness

while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere glances can never

divine the preciousness of the fruit. But the years have not been so

cruel to Nancy. The firm yet placid mouth, the clear veracious glance

of the brown eyes, speak now of a nature that has been tested and has

kept its highest qualities; and even the costume, with its dainty

neatness and purity, has more significance now the coquetries of youth

can have nothing to do with it.

Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass (any higher title has died away from Raveloe

lips since the old Squire was gathered to his fathers and his

inheritance was divided) have turned round to look for the tall aged

man and the plainly dressed woman who are a little behind—Nancy having

observed that they must wait for “father and Priscilla”—and now they

all turn into a narrower path leading across the churchyard to a small

gate opposite the Red House. We will not follow them now; for may there

not be some others in this departing congregation whom we should like

to see again—some of those who are not likely to be handsomely clad,

and whom we may not recognize so easily as the master and mistress of

the Red House?

But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marner. His large brown eyes seem

to have gathered a longer vision, as is the way with eyes that have

been short-sighted in early life, and they have a less vague, a more

answering gaze; but in everything else one sees signs of a frame much

enfeebled by the lapse of the sixteen years. The weaver’s bent

shoulders and white hair give him almost the look of advanced age,

though he is not more than five-and-fifty; but there is the freshest

blossom of youth close by his side—a blonde dimpled girl of eighteen,

who has vainly tried to chastise her curly auburn hair into smoothness

under her brown bonnet: the hair ripples as obstinately as a brooklet

under the March breeze, and the little ringlets burst away from the

restraining comb behind and show themselves below the bonnet-crown.

Eppie cannot help being rather vexed about her hair, for there is no

other girl in Raveloe who has hair at all like it, and she thinks hair

ought to be smooth. She does not like to be blameworthy even in small

things: you see how neatly her prayer-book is folded in her spotted

handkerchief.

That good-looking young fellow, in a new fustian suit, who walks behind

her, is not quite sure upon the question of hair in the abstract, when

Eppie puts it to him, and thinks that perhaps straight hair is the best

in general, but he doesn’t want Eppie’s hair to be different. She

surely divines that there is some one behind her who is thinking about

her very particularly, and mustering courage to come to her side as

soon as they are out in the lane, else why should she look rather shy,

and take care not to turn away her head from her father Silas, to whom

she keeps murmuring little sentences as to who was at church and who

was not at church, and how pretty the red mountain-ash is over the

Rectory wall?

“I wish _we_ had a little garden, father, with double daisies in, like

Mrs. Winthrop’s,” said Eppie, when they were out in the lane; “only

they say it ’ud take a deal of digging and bringing fresh soil—and you

couldn’t do that, could you, father? Anyhow, I shouldn’t like you to do

it, for it ’ud be too hard work for you.”

“Yes, I could do it, child, if you want a bit o’ garden: these long

evenings, I could work at taking in a little bit o’ the waste, just

enough for a root or two o’ flowers for you; and again, i’ the morning,

I could have a turn wi’ the spade before I sat down to the loom. Why

didn’t you tell me before as you wanted a bit o’ garden?”

“_I_ can dig it for you, Master Marner,” said the young man in fustian,

who was now by Eppie’s side, entering into the conversation without the

trouble of formalities. “It’ll be play to me after I’ve done my day’s

work, or any odd bits o’ time when the work’s slack. And I’ll bring you

some soil from Mr. Cass’s garden—he’ll let me, and willing.”

“Eh, Aaron, my lad, are you there?” said Silas; “I wasn’t aware of you;

for when Eppie’s talking o’ things, I see nothing but what she’s

a-saying. Well, if you could help me with the digging, we might get her

a bit o’ garden all the sooner.”

“Then, if you think well and good,” said Aaron, “I’ll come to the

Stone-pits this afternoon, and we’ll settle what land’s to be taken in,

and I’ll get up an hour earlier i’ the morning, and begin on it.”

“But not if you don’t promise me not to work at the hard digging,

father,” said Eppie. “For I shouldn’t ha’ said anything about it,” she

added, half-bashfully, half-roguishly, “only Mrs. Winthrop said as

Aaron ’ud be so good, and—”

“And you might ha’ known it without mother telling you,” said Aaron.

“And Master Marner knows too, I hope, as I’m able and willing to do a

turn o’ work for him, and he won’t do me the unkindness to anyways take

it out o’ my hands.”