Silas Marner
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