Silas Marner
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