Silas Marner
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