Silas Marner
taking a drop o’ summat warm when the service come of a cold morning.
And young Mr. Lammeter, he’d have no way but he must be married in
Janiwary, which, to be sure, ’s a unreasonable time to be married in,
for it isn’t like a christening or a burying, as you can’t help; and so
Mr. Drumlow—poor old gentleman, I was fond on him—but when he come to
put the questions, he put ’em by the rule o’ contrairy, like, and he
says, ‘Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded wife?’says he, and then
he says, ‘Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded husband?’ says he.
But the partic’larest thing of all is, as nobody took any notice on it
but me, and they answered straight off ‘yes,’ like as if it had been me
saying ‘Amen’ i’ the right place, without listening to what went
before.”
“But _you_ knew what was going on well enough, didn’t you, Mr. Macey?
You were live enough, eh?” said the butcher.
“Lor bless you!” said Mr. Macey, pausing, and smiling in pity at the
impotence of his hearer’s imagination—“why, I was all of a tremble: it
was as if I’d been a coat pulled by the two tails, like; for I couldn’t
stop the parson, I couldn’t take upon me to do that; and yet I said to
myself, I says, ‘Suppose they shouldn’t be fast married, ’cause the
words are contrairy?’ and my head went working like a mill, for I was
allays uncommon for turning things over and seeing all round ’em; and I
says to myself, ‘Is’t the meanin’ or the words as makes folks fast i’
wedlock?’ For the parson meant right, and the bride and bridegroom
meant right. But then, when I come to think on it, meanin’ goes but a
little way i’ most things, for you may mean to stick things together
and your glue may be bad, and then where are you? And so I says to
mysen, ‘It isn’t the meanin,’ it’s the glue.’ And I was worreted as if
I’d got three bells to pull at once, when we went into the vestry, and
they begun to sign their names. But where’s the use o’ talking?—you
can’t think what goes on in a ’cute man’s inside.”
“But you held in for all that, didn’t you, Mr. Macey?” said the
landlord.
“Aye, I held in tight till I was by mysen wi’ Mr. Drumlow, and then I
out wi’ everything, but respectful, as I allays did. And he made light
on it, and he says, ‘Pooh, pooh, Macey, make yourself easy,’ he says;
‘it’s neither the meaning nor the words—it’s the re_ges_ter does
it—that’s the glue.’ So you see he settled it easy; for parsons and
doctors know everything by heart, like, so as they aren’t worreted wi’
thinking what’s the rights and wrongs o’ things, as I’n been many and
many’s the time. And sure enough the wedding turned out all right, on’y
poor Mrs. Lammeter—that’s Miss Osgood as was—died afore the lasses was
growed up; but for prosperity and everything respectable, there’s no
family more looked on.”
Every one of Mr. Macey’s audience had heard this story many times, but
it was listened to as if it had been a favourite tune, and at certain
points the puffing of the pipes was momentarily suspended, that the
listeners might give their whole minds to the expected words. But there
was more to come; and Mr. Snell, the landlord, duly put the leading
question.
“Why, old Mr. Lammeter had a pretty fortin, didn’t they say, when he
come into these parts?”
“Well, yes,” said Mr. Macey; “but I daresay it’s as much as this Mr.
Lammeter’s done to keep it whole. For there was allays a talk as nobody
could get rich on the Warrens: though he holds it cheap, for it’s what
they call Charity Land.”
“Aye, and there’s few folks know so well as you how it come to be
Charity Land, eh, Mr. Macey?” said the butcher.
“How should they?” said the old clerk, with some contempt. “Why, my
grandfather made the grooms’ livery for that Mr. Cliff as came and
built the big stables at the Warrens. Why, they’re stables four times
as big as Squire Cass’s, for he thought o’ nothing but hosses and
hunting, Cliff didn’t—a Lunnon tailor, some folks said, as had gone mad
wi’ cheating. For he couldn’t ride; lor bless you! they said he’d got
no more grip o’ the hoss than if his legs had been cross-sticks: my
grandfather heared old Squire Cass say so many and many a time. But
ride he would, as if Old Harry had been a-driving him; and he’d a son,
a lad o’ sixteen; and nothing would his father have him do, but he must
ride and ride—though the lad was frighted, they said. And it was a
common saying as the father wanted to ride the tailor out o’ the lad,
and make a gentleman on him—not but what I’m a tailor myself, but in
respect as God made me such, I’m proud on it, for ‘Macey, tailor,’ ’s
been wrote up over our door since afore the Queen’s heads went out on
the shillings. But Cliff, he was ashamed o’ being called a tailor, and
he was sore vexed as his riding was laughed at, and nobody o’ the
gentlefolks hereabout could abide him. Howsomever, the poor lad got
sickly and died, and the father didn’t live long after him, for he got
queerer nor ever, and they said he used to go out i’ the dead o’ the
night, wi’ a lantern in his hand, to the stables, and set a lot o’
lights burning, for he got as he couldn’t sleep; and there he’d stand,
cracking his whip and looking at his hosses; and they said it was a
mercy as the stables didn’t get burnt down wi’ the poor dumb creaturs
in ’em. But at last he died raving, and they found as he’d left all his
property, Warrens and all, to a Lunnon Charity, and that’s how the
Warrens come to be Charity Land; though, as for the stables, Mr.
Lammeter never uses ’em—they’re out o’ all charicter—lor bless you! if
you was to set the doors a-banging in ’em, it ’ud sound like thunder
half o’er the parish.”
“Aye, but there’s more going on in the stables than what folks see by
daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?” said the landlord.
“Aye, aye; go that way of a dark night, that’s all,” said Mr. Macey,
winking mysteriously, “and then make believe, if you like, as you
didn’t see lights i’ the stables, nor hear the stamping o’ the hosses,
nor the cracking o’ the whips, and howling, too, if it’s tow’rt
daybreak. ‘Cliff’s Holiday’ has been the name of it ever sin’ I were a
boy; that’s to say, some said as it was the holiday Old Harry gev him
from roasting, like. That’s what my father told me, and he was a
reasonable man, though there’s folks nowadays know what happened afore
they were born better nor they know their own business.”
“What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas?” said the landlord, turning to
the farrier, who was swelling with impatience for his cue. “There’s a
nut for _you_ to crack.”
Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the company, and was proud of his
position.
“Say? I say what a man _should_ say as doesn’t shut his eyes to look at
a finger-post. I say, as I’m ready to wager any man ten pound, if he’ll
stand out wi’ me any dry night in the pasture before the Warren
stables, as we shall neither see lights nor hear noises, if it isn’t
the blowing of our own noses. That’s what I say, and I’ve said it many
a time; but there’s nobody ’ull ventur a ten-pun’ note on their ghos’es
as they make so sure of.”
“Why, Dowlas, that’s easy betting, that is,” said Ben Winthrop. “You
might as well bet a man as he wouldn’t catch the rheumatise if he stood
up to ’s neck in the pool of a frosty night. It ’ud be fine fun for a
man to win his bet as he’d catch the rheumatise. Folks as believe in
Cliff’s Holiday aren’t agoing to ventur near it for a matter o’ ten
pound.”
“If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth on it,” said Mr. Macey, with
a sarcastic smile, tapping his thumbs together, “he’s no call to lay
any bet—let him go and stan’ by himself—there’s nobody ’ull hinder him;
and then he can let the parish’ners know if they’re wrong.”
“Thank you! I’m obliged to you,” said the farrier, with a snort of
scorn. “If folks are fools, it’s no business o’ mine. _I_ don’t want to
make out the truth about ghos’es: I know it a’ready. But I’m not
against a bet—everything fair and open. Let any man bet me ten pound as
I shall see Cliff’s Holiday, and I’ll go and stand by myself. I want no
company. I’d as lief do it as I’d fill this pipe.”
“Ah, but who’s to watch you, Dowlas, and see you do it? That’s no fair
bet,” said the butcher.
“No fair bet?” replied Mr. Dowlas, angrily. “I should like to hear any
man stand up and say I want to bet unfair. Come now, Master Lundy, I
should like to hear you say it.”
“Very like you would,” said the butcher. “But it’s no business o’ mine.
You’re none o’ my bargains, and I aren’t a-going to try and ’bate your
price. If anybody ’ll bid for you at your own vallying, let him. I’m
for peace and quietness, I am.”
“Yes, that’s what every yapping cur is, when you hold a stick up at
him,” said the farrier. “But I’m afraid o’ neither man nor ghost, and
I’m ready to lay a fair bet. _I_ aren’t a turn-tail cur.”
“Aye, but there’s this in it, Dowlas,” said the landlord, speaking in a
tone of much candour and tolerance. “There’s folks, i’ my opinion, they
can’t see ghos’es, not if they stood as plain as a pike-staff before
’em. And there’s reason i’ that. For there’s my wife, now, can’t smell,
not if she’d the strongest o’ cheese under her nose. I never see’d a
ghost myself; but then I says to myself, ‘Very like I haven’t got the
smell for ’em.’ I mean, putting a ghost for a smell, or else
contrairiways. And so, I’m for holding with both sides; for, as I say,
the truth lies between ’em. And if Dowlas was to go and stand, and say
he’d never seen a wink o’ Cliff’s Holiday all the night through, I’d
back him; and if anybody said as Cliff’s Holiday was certain sure, for
all that, I’d back _him_ too. For the smell’s what I go by.”
The landlord’s analogical argument was not well received by the
farrier—a man intensely opposed to compromise.
“Tut, tut,” he said, setting down his glass with refreshed irritation;
“what’s the smell got to do with it? Did ever a ghost give a man a
black eye? That’s what I should like to know. If ghos’es want me to
believe in ’em, let ’em leave off skulking i’ the dark and i’ lone
places—let ’em come where there’s company and candles.”
“As if ghos’es ’ud want to be believed in by anybody so ignirant!” said
Mr. Macey, in deep disgust at the farrier’s crass incompetence to
apprehend the conditions of ghostly phenomena.
CHAPTER VII.
Yet the next moment there seemed to be some evidence that ghosts had a
more condescending disposition than Mr. Macey attributed to them; for
the pale thin figure of Silas Marner was suddenly seen standing in the
warm light, uttering no word, but looking round at the company with his
strange unearthly eyes. The long pipes gave a simultaneous movement,
like the antennae of startled insects, and every man present, not
excepting even the sceptical farrier, had an impression that he saw,
not Silas Marner in the flesh, but an apparition; for the door by which
Silas had entered was hidden by the high-screened seats, and no one had
noticed his approach. Mr. Macey, sitting a long way off the ghost,
might be supposed to have felt an argumentative triumph, which would
tend to neutralize his share of the general alarm. Had he not always
said that when Silas Marner was in that strange trance of his, his soul
went loose from his body? Here was the demonstration: nevertheless, on
the whole, he would have been as well contented without it. For a few
moments there was a dead silence, Marner’s want of breath and agitation
not allowing him to speak. The landlord, under the habitual sense that
he was bound to keep his house open to all company, and confident in
the protection of his unbroken neutrality, at last took on himself the
task of adjuring the ghost.
“Master Marner,” he said, in a conciliatory tone, “what’s lacking to
you? What’s your business here?”
“Robbed!” said Silas, gaspingly. “I’ve been robbed! I want the