ruby_ngrams_language_detector 0.0.1

data/.gitignore

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+*.gem
+*.rbc
+.bundle
+.config
+.yardoc
+Gemfile.lock
+InstalledFiles
+_yardoc
+coverage
+doc/
+lib/bundler/man
+pkg
+rdoc
+spec/reports
+test/tmp
+test/version_tmp
+tmp

data/Gemfile

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+source 'https://rubygems.org'
+
+# Specify your gem's dependencies in language_detector.gemspec
+gemspec

data/LICENSE.txt

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+Copyright (c) 2013 cexposito
+
+MIT License
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
+a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
+"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
+without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
+distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
+permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
+the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
+included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
+EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
+MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
+NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE
+LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
+OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
+WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

data/README.md

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+# LanguageDetector
+
+This is a n-gram based language detector (written in ruby) which is based on http://tnlessone.wordpress.com/2007/05/13/how-to-detect-which-language-a-text-is-written-in-or-when-science-meets-human/ and https://github.com/feedbackmine/language_detector
+
+## Installation
+
+Add this line to your application's Gemfile:
+
+    gem 'ruby_ngrams_language_detector'
+
+And then execute:
+
+    $ bundle
+
+Or install it yourself as:
+
+    $ gem install ruby_ngrams_language_detector
+
+## Usage
+
+  require 'language_detector'
+  detector = LanguageDetector.new
+  detector.detect(file.txt)
+
+## Contributing
+
+1. Fork it
+2. Create your feature branch (`git checkout -b my-new-feature`)
+3. Commit your changes (`git commit -am 'Add some feature'`)
+4. Push to the branch (`git push origin my-new-feature`)
+5. Create new Pull Request

data/Rakefile

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+require "bundler/gem_tasks"

data/language_detector.gemspec

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+# -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-
+lib = File.expand_path('../lib', __FILE__)
+$LOAD_PATH.unshift(lib) unless $LOAD_PATH.include?(lib)
+require 'language_detector/version'
+
+Gem::Specification.new do |gem|
+  gem.name          = "ruby_ngrams_language_detector"
+  gem.version       = LanguageDetector::VERSION
+  gem.authors       = ["cexposito"]
+  gem.email         = ["carlosexposito68@gmail.com"]
+  gem.description   = %q{ngram based language detector written in ruby}
+  gem.summary       = %q{ngram based language detector}
+  gem.homepage      = ""
+
+  gem.files         = `git ls-files`.split($/)
+  gem.executables   = gem.files.grep(%r{^bin/}).map{ |f| File.basename(f) }
+  gem.test_files    = gem.files.grep(%r{^(test|spec|features)/})
+  gem.require_paths = ["lib"]
+
+  gem.add_development_dependency "rspec", "~> 2.6"
+end

data/lib/language_detector.rb

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+require "language_detector/version"
+require 'yaml'
+
+module LanguageDetector
+
+  class Detector
+    def detect_language file_name
+      @profiles ||= load_model
+
+      file_words = File.read(file_name).downcase
+
+      input_file_profile = LanguageDetector::Profile.new("")
+      input_file_profile.init_with_string(file_words)
+
+      best_profile_name = 'unknown'
+      best_distance = nil
+
+      @profiles.each {|profile|
+        calculated_distance = profile.compute_distance(input_file_profile)
+
+        if best_distance.nil? || calculated_distance < best_distance
+          best_distance     = calculated_distance
+          best_profile_name = profile.name
+        end
+      }
+
+      return best_profile_name
+    end
+
+    def self.train
+      training_data = [
+        [ "en", "english.txt", "english" ],
+        [ "es", "spanish.txt", "spanish" ]
+      ]
+
+      @profiles = []
+
+      training_data.each {|data|
+        profile = LanguageDetector::Profile.new data[0]
+        profile.init_with_training_file data[1]
+        @profiles << profile
+      }
+
+      filename = File.expand_path(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "model.yml"))
+      File.open(filename, 'w') {|f|
+        YAML.dump(@profiles, f)
+      }
+    end
+
+    def load_model
+      filename = File.expand_path(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "model.yml"))
+      @profiles = YAML.load_file(filename)
+    end
+  end
+end

data/lib/language_detector/profile.rb

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+class LanguageDetector::Profile
+
+  IGNORE_CHARACTERS = [?., ?\,, ?:, ?;, ?\w, ?\n]
+  LIMIT = 2000
+
+  def compute_distance profile
+    distance = 0
+    profile.ngrams.each {|k, v|
+      n = @ngrams[k]
+      if n
+        distance += (v - n).abs
+      else
+        distance += LanguageDetector::Profile::LIMIT
+      end
+    }
+    return distance
+  end
+
+  attr_reader :ngrams, :name
+
+  def initialize(name)
+    @name = name
+    @ignore_characters = {}
+    IGNORE_CHARACTERS.each {|p| @ignore_characters[p] = 1}
+    @ngrams = {}
+  end
+
+  def tokenize line
+    tokens = []
+    new_token = ''
+
+    line.downcase.each_char {|c|
+      if is_valid_character?(c)
+        new_token << c
+      else
+        append_next_token(tokens, new_token)
+        new_token = ''
+      end
+    }
+
+    append_next_token(tokens, new_token)
+    return tokens
+  end
+
+  def append_next_token(tokens, new_token)
+    if !new_token.empty?
+      tokens << new_token
+    end
+  end
+
+  def is_valid_character? char
+    char.match(/[^a-z]/).nil?
+  end
+
+  def init_with_training_file filename
+    ngram_count = {}
+
+    path = File.expand_path(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "training_data/" + filename))
+
+    File.open(path).each_line{ |line|
+      _init_with_string line, ngram_count
+    }
+
+    a = ngram_count.sort {|a,b| b[1] <=> a[1]}
+
+    i = 1
+    a.each {|t|
+      @ngrams[t[0]] = i
+      i += 1
+      break if i > LIMIT
+    }
+  end
+
+  def init_with_string str
+    ngram_count = {}
+
+    _init_with_string str, ngram_count
+
+    a = ngram_count.sort {|a,b| b[1] <=> a[1]}
+    i = 1
+    a.each {|t|
+      @ngrams[t[0]] = i
+      i += 1
+      break if i > LIMIT
+    }
+  end
+
+  def _init_with_string str, ngram_count
+    tokens = tokenize(str)
+    tokens.each {|token|
+      count_ngram token, 2, ngram_count
+      count_ngram token, 3, ngram_count
+      count_ngram token, 4, ngram_count
+      count_ngram token, 5, ngram_count
+    }
+  end
+
+  def count_ngram token, n, counts
+    if n > 1 && token.length >= n
+      token = "_#{token}#{'_' * (n-1)}"
+    end
+
+    i = 0
+    while i + n <= token.length
+
+      s = ''
+      j = 0
+
+      while j < n
+        s << token[i+j]
+        j += 1
+      end
+
+      if counts[s]
+        counts[s] = counts[s] + 1
+      else
+        counts[s] = 1
+      end
+      i += 1
+    end
+    return counts
+  end
+end

data/lib/language_detector/training_data/english.txt

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+In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the
+farmhouses - and even great ladies, clothed in silk and
+thread lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak -
+there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes,
+or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized
+men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked
+like the remnants of a disinherited race.  The shepherd's dog
+barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men
+appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset;
+for what dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag? -
+and these pale men rarely stirred abroad without that
+mysterious burden.  The shepherd himself, though he had
+good reason to believe that the bag held nothing but flaxen
+thread, or else the long rolls of strong linen spun from
+that thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weaving,
+indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirely
+without the help of the Evil One.  In that far-off time
+superstition clung easily round every person or thing that was at
+all unwonted, or even intermittent and occasional merely,
+like the visits of the pedlar or the knife-grinder.  No one
+knew where wandering men had their homes or their origin;
+and how was a man to be explained unless you at least knew
+somebody who knew his father and mother?  To the
+peasant of old times, the world outside their own direct
+experience was a region of vagueness and mystery: to their
+untravelled thought a state of wandering was a conception as
+dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back with
+the spring; and even a settler, if he came from distant parts,
+hardly ever ceased to be viewed with a remnant of distrust,
+which would have prevented any surprise if a long course of
+inoffensive conduct on his part had ended in the commission
+of a crime; especially if he had any reputation for
+knowledge, or showed any skill in handicraft.  All cleverness,
+whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrument the
+tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to villagers, was in
+itself suspicious: honest folk, born and bred in a visible
+manner, were mostly not over-wise or clever - at least, not
+beyond such a matter as knowing the signs of the weather;
+and the process by which rapidity and dexterity of any kind
+were acquired was so wholly hidden, that they partook of the
+nature of conjuring.  In this way it came to pass that those
+scattered linen-weavers - emigrants from the town  into the
+country - were to the last regarded as aliens by their rustic
+neighbours, and usually contracted the eccentric habits
+which belong to a state of loneliness.
+In the early years of this century, such a linen-weaver,
+named Silas Marner, worked at his vocation in a stone cottage
+that stood among the nutty hedgerows near the village
+of Raveloe, and not far from the edge of a deserted stone-pit.
+The questionable sound of Silas's loom, so unlike the natural
+cheerful trotting of the winnowing-machine, or the simpler
+rhythm of the flail, had a half-fearful fascination for the
+Raveloe boys, who would often leave off their nutting or
+bird's-nesting to peep in at the window of the stone cottage,
+counterbalancing a certain awe at the mysterious action of
+the loom, by a pleasant sense of scornful superiority, drawn
+from the mockery of its alternating noises, along with the
+bent, tread-mill attitude of the weaver.  But sometimes it
+happened that Marner, pausing to adjust an irregularity in
+his thread, became aware of the small scoundrels, and,
+though chary of his time, he liked their intrusion so ill that
+he would descend from his loom, and, opening the door,
+would fix on them a gaze that was always enough to make
+them take to their legs in terror.  For how was it possible to
+believe that those large brown protuberant eyes in Silas
+Marner's pale face really saw nothing very distinctly that
+was not close to them, and not rather that their dreadful
+stare could dart cramp, or rickets, or a wry mouth at any boy
+who happened to be in the rear? They had, perhaps, heard
+their fathers and mothers hint that Silas Marner could cure
+folks' rheumatism if he had a mind, and add, still more
+darkly, that if you could only speak the devil fair enough, he
+might save you the cost of the doctor.  Such strange lingering
+echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps even now
+be caught by the diligent listener among the grey-haired
+peasantry; for the rude mind with difficulty associates the
+ideas of power and benignity.  A shadowy conception of
+power that by much persuasion can be induced to refrain
+from inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by the
+sense of the Invisible in the minds of men who have always
+been pressed close by primitive wants, and to whom a life
+of hard toil has never been illuminated by any enthusiastic
+religious faith.  To them pain and mishap present a far
+wider range of possibilities than gladness and enjoyment:
+their imagination is almost barren of the images that feed
+desire and hope, but is all overgrown by recollections that
+are a perpetual pasture to fear.  "Is there anything you can
+fancy that you would like to eat?" I once said to an old
+labouring man, who was in his last illness, and who had
+refused all the food his wife had offered him.  "No," he answered,
+"I've never been used to nothing but common victual,
+and I can't eat that."  Experience had bred no fancies in
+him that could raise the phantasm of appetite.
+And Raveloe was a village where many of the old echoes
+lingered, undrowned by new voices. Not that it was one of
+those barren parishes lying on the outskirts of civilization -
+inhabited by meagre sheep and thinly-scattered shepherds:
+on the contrary, it lay in the rich central plain of what we
+are pleased to call Merry England, and held farms which,
+speaking from a spiritual point of view, paid highly-desirable
+tithes. But it was nestled in a snug well-wooded hollow, quite
+an hour's journey on horseback from any turnpike, where it
+was never reached by the vibrations of the coach-horn, or of
+public opinion. It was an important-looking village, with a
+fine old church and large churchyard in the heart of it, and
+two or three large brick-and-stone homesteads, with well-walled
+orchards and ornamental weathercocks, standing
+close upon the road, and lifting more imposing fronts than
+the rectory, which peeped from among the trees on the other
+side of the churchyard: - a village which showed at once
+the summits of its social life, and told the practised eye that
+there was no great park and manor-house in the vicinity, but
+that there were several chiefs in Raveloe who could farm
+badly quite at their ease, drawing enough money from their
+bad farming, in those war times, to live in a rollicking
+fashion, and keep a jolly Christmas, Whitsun, and Easter
+tide.
+It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to
+Raveloe; he was then simply a pallid young man, with
+prominent, short-sighted brown eyes, whose appearance
+would have had nothing strange for people of average culture
+and experience, but for the villagers near whom he had
+come to settle it had mysterious peculiarities which corresponded
+with the exceptional nature of his occupation, and
+his advent from an unknown region called "North'ard". So
+had his way of life: - he invited no comer to step across his
+door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a
+pint at the Rainbow, or to gossip at the wheelwright's: he
+sought no man or woman, save from the purposes of his calling,
+or in order to supply himself with necessaries; and it
+was soon clear to the Raveloe lasses that he would never
+urge one of them to accept him against her will - quite as if
+he had heard them declare that they would never marry a
+dead man come to life again. This view of Marner's personality
+was not without another ground than his pale face
+and unexampled eyes; for Jem Rodney, the mole-catcher,
+averred that one evening as he was returning homeward he
+saw Silas Marner leaning against a stile with a heavy bag
+on his back, instead of resting the bag on the stile as a man
+in his senses would have done; and that, on coming up to
+him, he saw that Marner's eyes were set like a dead man's,
+and he spoke to him, and shook him, and his limbs were
+stiff, and his hands clutched the bag as if they'd been made
+of iron; but just as he had made up his mind that the
+weaver was dead, he came all right again, like, as you might
+say, in the winking of an eye, and said "Good-night", and
+walked off. All this Jem swore he had seen, more by token
+that it was the very day he had been mole-catching on Squire
+Cass's land, down by the old saw-pit. Some said Marner must
+have been in a "fit", a word which seemed to explain things
+otherwise incredible; but the argumentative Mr Macey, clerk
+of the parish, shook his head, and asked if anybody was ever
+known to go off in a fit and not fall down. A fit was a stroke,
+wasn't it? and it was in the nature of a stroke to partly take
+away the use of a man's limbs and throw him on the parish,
+if he'd got no children to look to. No, no; it was no stroke
+that would let a man stand on his legs, like a horse between
+the shafts, and then walk off as soon as you can say
+"Gee!" But there might be such a thing as a man's soul being
+loose from his body, and going out and in, like a bird out of
+its nest and back; and that was how folks got over-wise, for
+they went to school in this shell-less state to those who could
+teach them more than their neighbours could learn with
+their five senses and the parson. And where did Master
+Marner get his knowledge of herbs from - and charms too,
+if he liked to give them away? Jem Rodney's story was no
+more than what might have been expected by anybody who
+had seen how Marner had cured Sally Oates, and made her
+sleep like a baby, when her heart had been beating enough
+to burst her body, for two months and more, while she had
+been under the doctor's care.  He might cure more folks if
+he would; but he was worth speaking fair, if it was only to
+keep him from doing you a mischief.
+It was partly to this vague fear that Marner was indebted
+for protecting him from the persecution that his singularities
+might have drawn upon him, but still more to the fact
+that, the old linen-weaver in the neighbouring parish of
+Tarley being dead, his handicraft made him a highly welcome
+settler to the richer housewives of the district, and even
+to the more provident cottagers, who had their little stock of
+yarn at the year's end. Their sense of his usefulness would
+have counteracted any repugnance or suspicion which was
+not confirmed by a deficiency in the quality or the tale of
+the cloth he wove for them. And the years had rolled on
+without producing any change in the impressions of the
+neighbours concerning Marner, except the change from
+novelty to habit. At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe
+men said just the same things about Silas Marner as at the
+beginning: they did not say them quite so often, but they
+believed them much more strongly when they did say them.
+There was only one important addition which the years had
+brought: it was, that Master Marner had laid by a fine sight
+of money somewhere, and that he could buy up "bigger men"
+than himself.
+But while opinion concerning him had remained nearly
+stationary, and his daily habits had presented scarcely any
+visible change, Marner's inward life had been a history and
+a metamorphosis, as that of every fervid nature must be
+when it has fled, or been condemned to solitude. His life,
+before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the movement,
+the mental activity, and the close fellowship, which,
+in that day as in this, marked the life of an artisan early
+incorporated
+in a narrow religious sect, where the poorest layman
+has the chance of distinguishing himself by gifts of
+speech, and has, at the very least, the weight of a silent
+voter in the government of his community. Marner was
+highly thought of in that little hidden world, known to
+itself as the church assembling in Lantern Yard; he was
+believed to be a young man of exemplary life and ardent
+faith; and a peculiar interest had been centred in him ever
+since he had fallen, at a prayer-meeting, into a mysterious
+rigidity and suspension of consciousness, which, lasting for
+an hour or more, had been mistaken for death. To have
+sought a medical explanation for this phenomenon would
+have been held by Silas himself, as well as by his minister
+and fellow-members, a wilful self-exclusion from the spiritual
+significance that might lie therein. Silas was evidently a
+brother selected for a peculiar discipline, and though the
+effort to interpret this discipline was discouraged by the absence,
+on his part, of any spiritual vision during his outward
+trance, yet it was believed by himself and others that its
+effect was seen in an accession of light and fervour. A less
+truthful man than he might have been tempted into the
+subsequent creation of a vision in the form of resurgent
+memory; a less sane man might have believed in such a
+creation; but Silas was both sane and honest, though, as with
+many honest and fervent men, culture had not defined any
+channels for his sense of mystery, and so it spread itself over
+the proper pathway of inquiry and knowledge. He had inherited
+from his mother some acquaintance with medicinal
+herbs and their preparation - a little store of wisdom which
+she had imparted to him as a solemn bequest - but of late
+years he had doubts about the lawfulness of applying
+this knowledge, believing that herbs could have no efficacy
+without prayer, and that prayer might suffice without herbs;
+so that his inherited delight to wander through the fields in
+search of foxglove and dandelion and coltsfoot, began to
+wear to him the character of a temptation.
+Among the members of his church there was one young
+man, a little older than himself, with whom he had long
+lived in such close friendship that it was the custom of their
+Lantern Yard brethren to call them David and Jonathan.
+The real name of the friend was William Dane, and he
+too was regarded as a shining instance of youthful piety,
+though somewhat given to over-severity towards weaker
+brethren, and to be so dazzled by his own light as to hold
+himself wiser than his teachers. But whatever blemishes
+others might discern in William, to his friend's mind he was
+faultless; for Marner had one of those impressible self doubting
+natures which, at an inexperienced age, admire
+imperativeness and lean on contradiction. The expression of
+trusting simplicity in Marner's face, heightened by that
+absence of special observation, that defenceless, deer-like
+gaze which belongs to large prominent eyes, was strongly
+contrasted by the self-complacent suppression of inward
+triumph that lurked in the narrow slanting eyes and compressed
+lips of William Dane. One of the most frequent
+topics of conversation between the two friends was Assurance
+of salvation: Silas confessed that he could never
+arrive at anything higher than hope mingled with fear, and
+listened with longing wonder when William declared that
+he had possessed unshaken assurance ever since, in the period
+of his conversion, he had dreamed that he saw the words
+"calling and election sure" standing by themselves on a
+white page in the open Bible. Such colloquies have occupied
+many a pair of pale-faced weavers, whose unnurtured souls
+have been like young winged things, fluttering forsaken in
+the twilight.
+It had seemed to the unsuspecting Silas that the friendship
+had suffered no chill even from his formation of another
+attachment of a closer kind. For some months he had been
+engaged to a young servant-woman, waiting only for a little
+increase to their mutual savings in order to their marriage;
+and it was a great delight to him that Sarah did not object
+to William's occasional presence in their Sunday interviews.
+It was at this point in their history that Silas's cataleptic fit
+occurred during the prayer-meeting; and amidst the various
+queries and expressions of interest addressed to him by his
+fellow-members, William's suggestion alone jarred with the
+general sympathy towards a brother thus singled out for
+special dealings. He observed that, to him, this trance looked
+more like a visitation of Satan than a proof of divine favour,
+and exhorted his friend to see that he hid no accursed thing
+within his soul. Silas, feeling bound to accept rebuke and
+admonition as a brotherly office, felt no resentment, but
+only pain, at his friend's doubts concerning him; and to this
+was soon added some anxiety at the perception that Sarah's
+manner towards him began to exhibit a strange fluctuation
+between an effort at an increased manifestation of regard
+and involuntary signs of shrinking and dislike. He asked her
+if she wished to break off their engagement; but she denied
+this: their engagement was known to the church, and had
+been recognized in the prayer-meetings; it could not be
+broken off without strict investigation, and Sarah could
+render no reason that would be sanctioned by the feeling
+of the community. At this time the senior deacon was taken
+dangerously ill, and, being a childless widower, he was
+tended night and day by some of the younger brethren or
+sisters. Silas frequently took his turn in the night-watching
+with William, the one relieving the other at two in the
+morning. The old man, contrary to expectation, seemed to
+be on the way to recovery, when one night Silas, setting up
+by his bedside, observed that his usual audible breathing had
+ceased. The candle was burning low, and he had to lift it to
+see the patient's face distinctly. Examination convinced him
+that the deacon was dead - had been dead for some time,
+for the limbs were rigid. Silas asked himself if he had been
+asleep, and looked at the clock: it was already four in the
+morning. How was it that William had not come? In much
+anxiety he went to seek for help, and soon there were several
+friends assembled in the house, the minister among them,
+while Silas went away to his work, wishing he could have
+met William to know the reason of his non-appearance. But
+at six o'clock, as he was thinking of going to seek his friend,
+William came, and with him the minister. They came to
+summon him to Lantern Yard, to meet the church members
+there; and to his inquiry concerning the cause of the summons
+the only reply was, "You will hear." Nothing further
+was said until Silas was seated in the vestry, in front of the
+minister, with the eyes of those who to him represented
+God's people fixed solemnly upon him. Then the minister,
+taking out a pocket-knife, showed it to Silas, and asked him
+if he knew where he had left that knife? Silas said, he did
+not know that he had left it anywhere out of his own pocket
+- but he was trembling at this strange interrogation. He
+was then exhorted not to hide his sin, but to confess and
+repent. The knife had been found in the bureau by the departed
+deacon's bedside - found in the place where the little
+bag of church money had lain, which the minister himself
+had seen the day before. Some hand had removed that bag;
+and whose hand could it be, if not that of the man to whom
+the knife belonged? For some time Silas was mute with
+astonishment: then he said, "God will clear me: I know
+nothing about the knife being there, or the money being
+gone. Search me and my dwelling; you will find nothing
+but three pound five of my own savings, which William
+Dane knows I have had these six months." At this William
+groaned, but the minister said, "The proof is heavy against
+you, brother Marner. The money was taken in the night
+last past, and no man was with out departed brother but you,
+for William Dane declares to us that he was hindered by
+sudden sickness from going to take his place as usual, and
+you yourself said that he had not come; and, moreover, you
+neglected the dead body."
+"I must have slept," said Silas. Then, after a pause, he
+added, "Or I must have had another visitation like that
+which you have all seen me under, so that the thief must
+have come and gone while I was not in the body, but out of
+the body. But, I say again, search me and my dwelling, for I
+have been nowhere else."
+The search was made, and it ended - in William Dane's
+finding the well-known bag, empty, tucked behind the chest
+of drawers in Silas's chamber! On this William exhorted his
+friend to confess, and not to hide his sin any longer. Silas
+turned a look of keen reproach on him, and said, "William,
+for nine years that we have gone in and out together, have
+you ever known me tell a lie? But God will clear me."
+"Brother," said William, "how do I know what you may
+have done in the secret chambers of your heart, to give Satan
+an advantage over you?"
+Silas was still looking at his friend. Suddenly a deep flush
+came over his face, and he was about to speak impetuously,
+when he seemed checked again by some inward shock, that
+sent the flush back and made him tremble. But at last he
+spoke feebly, looking at William.
+"I remember now - the knife wasn't in my pocket."
+William said, "I know nothing of what you mean." The
+other persons present, however, began to inquire where Silas
+meant to say that the knife was, but he would give no
+further explanation: he only said, "I am sore stricken; I can
+say nothing. God will clear me."
+On their return to the vestry there was further deliberating
+Any resort to legal measures for ascertaining the culprit
+was contrary to the principles of the church in Lantern
+Yard, according to which prosecution was forbidden to
+Christians, even had the case held less scandal to the
+community. But the members were bound to take other
+measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on
+praying and drawing lots. This resolution can be a ground of
+surprise only to those who are unacquainted with that
+obscure religious life which has gone on in the alleys of our
+towns. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own
+innocence being certified by immediate divine interference,
+but feeling that there was sorrow and mourning behind for
+him even then - that his trust in man had been cruelly
+bruised.
+The lots declared that Silas Marner was guilty.
+He
+was solemnly suspended from church-membership, and
+called upon to render up the stolen money: only on confession,
+as the sign of repentance, could he be received once
+more within the fold of the church. Marner listened in
+silence. At last, when every one rose to depart, he went
+towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by
+agitation -
+"The last time I remember using my knife, was when I
+took it out to cut a strap for you. I don't remember putting it
+in my pocket again.
+You
+stole the money, and you have
+woven a plot to lay the sin at my door. But you may prosper,
+for all that: there is no just God that governs the earth
+righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness against the
+innocent."
+There was a general shudder at this blasphemy.
+William said meekly, "I leave our brethren to judge
+whether this is the voice of Satan or not. I can do nothing
+but pray for you, Silas."
+Poor Marner went out with that despair in his soul - that
+shaken trust in God and man, which is little short of madness
+to a loving nature. In the bitterness of his wounded
+spirit, he said to himself, "
+She
+will cast me
+off too." And he
+reflected that, if she did not believe the testimony against
+him, her whole faith must be upset as his was. To people
+accustomed to reason about the forms in which their religious
+feeling has incorporated itself, it is difficult to enter
+into that simple, untaught state of mind in which the form
+and the feeling have never been severed by an act of
+reflection. We are apt to think it inevitable that a an in
+Marner's position should have begun to question the validity
+of an appeal to the divine judgment by drawing lots; but to
+him this would have been an effort of independent thought
+such as he had never known; and he must have made the
+effort at a moment when all his energies were turned into
+the anguish of disappointed faith. If there is an angel who
+records the sorrows of men as well as their sins, he knows
+how many and deep are the sorrows that spring from false
+ideas for which no man is culpable.
+Marner went home, and for a whole day sat alone, stunned
+by despair, without any impulse to go to Sarah and attempt
+to win her belief in his innocence. The second day he took
+refuge from benumbing unbelief, by getting into his loom
+and working away as usual; and before many hours were
+past, the minister and one of the deacons came to him with
+the message from Sarah, that she held her engagement to
+him at an end. Silas received the message mutely, and then
+turned away from the messengers to work at his loom again.
+In little more than a month from that time, Sarah was
+married to William Dane; and not long afterwards it was
+known to the brethren in Lantern Yard that Silas Marner
+had departed from the town.
+Even people whose lives have been made various by learning,
+sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their
+habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible, nay, on
+the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience,
+when they are suddenly transported to a new land,
+where the beings around them know nothing of their history,
+and share none of their ideas - where their mother
+earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms
+than those on which their souls have been nourished. Minds
+that have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have
+perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile, in which the
+past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished,
+and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with
+no memories. But even
+their
+experience may hardly
+enable
+them thoroughly to imagine what was the effect on a simple
+weaver like Silas Marner, when he left his own country and
+people and came to settle in Raveloe. Nothing could be
+more unlike his native town, set within sight of the widespread
+hillsides, than this low, wooded region, where he felt
+hidden even from the heavens by the screening trees and
+hedgerows. There was nothing here, when he rose in the
+deep morning quiet and looked out on the dewy brambles
+and rank tufted grass, that seemed to have any relation with
+that life centring in Lantern Yard, which had once been to
+him the altar-place of high dispensations. The white-washed
+walls; the little pews where well-known figures entered with
+a subdued rustling, and where first one well-known voice
+and then another, pitched in a peculiar key of petition, uttered
+phrases at once occult and familiar, like the amulet
+worn on the heart; the pulpit where the minister delivered
+unquestioned doctrine, and swayed to and fro, and handled
+the book in a long-accustomed manner; the very pauses between
+the couplets of the hymn, as it was given out, and the
+recurrent swell of voices in song: these things had been the
+channel of divine influences to Marner - they were
+Christianity
+and God's kingdom upon earth. A weaver who finds
+hard words in his hymn-book knows nothing of abstractions;
+as the little child knows nothing of parental love, but
+only knows one face and one lap towards which it stretches
+its arms for refuge and nurture.
+And what could be more unlike that Lantern Yard world
+than the world in Raveloe? - orchards looking lazy with
+neglected plenty; the large church in the wide churchyard,
+which men gazed at lounging at their own doors in service-time;
+the purple-faced farmers jogging along the lanes or
+turning in at the Rainbow; homesteads, where men supped
+heavily and slept in the light of the evening hearth, and
+where women seemed to be laying up a stock of linen for the
+life to come. There were no lips in Raveloe from which a
+word could fall that would stir Silas Marner's benumbed
+faith to a sense of pain. In the early ages of the world, we
+know, it was believed that each territory was inhabited and
+ruled by its own divinities, so that a man could cross the
+bordering heights and be out of the reach of his native gods,
+whose presence was confined to the streams and the groves
+and the hills among which he had lived from his birth. And
+poor Silas was vaguely conscious of something not unlike
+the feeling of primitive men, when they fled thus, in fear or
+in sullenness, from the face of an unpropitious deity. It
+seemed to him that the Power he had vainly trusted in
+among the streets and at the prayer-meetings, was very far
+away from this land in which he had taken refuge, where
+men lived in careless abundance, knowing and needing
+nothing of that trust, which, for him, had been turned to
+bitterness. The little light he possessed spread its beams so
+narrowly, that frustrated belief was a curtain broad enough
+to create for him the blackness of night.
+His first movement after the shock had been to work in
+his loom; and he went on with this unremittingly, never
+asking himself why, now he was come to Raveloe, he worked
+far on into the night to finish the tale of Mrs Osgood's
+table-linen sooner than she expected - without contemplating
+beforehand the money she would put into his hand for the
+work. He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse,
+without reflection. Every man's work, pursued steadily,
+tends in this way to become an end in itself, and so to bridge
+over the loveless chasms of his life. Silas's hand satisfied
+itself with throwing the shuttle, and his eye with seeing the
+little squares in the cloth complete themselves under his
+effort. Then there were the calls of hunger; and Silas, in his
+solitude, had to provide his own breakfast, dinner, and supper,
+to fetch his own water from the well, and put his own
+kettle on the fire; and all these immediate promptings
+helped, along with the weaving, to reduce his life to the
+unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He hated the
+thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his
+love and fellowship toward the strangers he had come
+amongst; and the future was all dark, for there was no Unseen
+Love that cared for him. Thought was arrested by
+utter bewilderment, now its old narrow pathway was closed,
+and affection seemed to have died under the bruise that had
+fallen on its keenest nerves.
+But at last Mrs Osgood's table-linen was finished, and
+Silas was paid in gold. His earnings in his native town, where
+he worked for a wholesale dealer, had been after a lower
+rate; he had been paid weekly, and of his weekly earnings a
+large proportion had gone to objects of piety and charity.
+Now, for the first time in his life, he had five bright guineas
+put into his hand; no man expected a share of them, and he
+loved no man that he should offer him a share. But what
+were the guineas to him who saw no vista beyond countless
+days of weaving? It was needless for him to ask that, for it
+was pleasant to him to feel them in his palm, and look at
+their bright faces, which were all his own: it was another
+element of life, like the weaving and the satisfaction of
+hunger, subsisting quite aloof from the life of belief and love
+from which he had been cut off. The weaver's hand had
+known the touch of hard-won money even before the palm
+had grown to its full breadth; for twenty years, mysterious
+money had stood to him as the symbol of earthly good, and
+the immediate object of toil. He had seemed to love it little
+in the years when every penny had its purpose for him; for
+he loved the
+purpose
+then. But now, when all purpose
+was
+gone, that habit of looking towards the money and grasping
+it with a sense of fulfilled effort made a loam that was deep
+enough for the seeds of desire; and as Silas walked homeward
+across the fields in the twilight, he drew out the money
+and thought it was brighter in the gathering gloom.
+About this time an incident happened which seemed to
+open a possibility of some fellowship with his neighbours.
+One day, taking a pair of shoes to be mended, he saw the
+cobbler's wife seated by the fire, suffering from the terrible
+symptoms of heart-disease and dropsy, which he had witnessed
+as the precursors or his mother's death. He felt a rush
+of pity at the mingled sight and remembrance, and, recalling
+the relief his mother had found from a simple preparation
+of foxglove, he promised Sally Oates to bring her something
+that would ease her, since the doctor did her no good.
+In this office of charity, Silas felt, for the first time since he
+had come to Raveloe, a sense of unity between his past present
+life, which might have been the beginning of his
+rescue from the insect-like existence into which his nature
+had shrunk. But Sally Oates's disease had raised her into a
+personage of much interest and importance among the
+neighbours, and the fact of her having found relief from
+drinking Silas Marner's "stuff" became a matter of general
+discourse. When Doctor Kimble gave physic, it was natural
+that it should have an effect; but when a weaver, who came
+from nobody knew where, worked wonders with a bottle of
+brown waters, the occult character of the process was evident.
+Such a short of thing had not been known since the
+Wise Woman at Tarley died; and she had charms as well as
+"stuff": everybody went to her when their children had fits.
+Silas Marner must be a person of the same sort, for how die
+he know what would bring back Sally Oate's breath, if he
+didn't know a fine sight more than that? The Wise Woman
+had words that she muttered to herself, so that you couldn't
+hear what they were, and if she tied a bit of red thread
+round the child's toe the while, it would keep off the water
+in the head. There were women in Raveloe, at that present
+time, who had worn one of the Wise Woman's little bags
+round their necks, and, in consequence, had never had an
+idiot child, as Ann Coulter had. Silas Marner could very
+likely do as much, and more; and now it was all clear how
+he should have come from unknown parts, and be so
+"comical-looking". But Sally Oates must mind and not tell
+the doctor, for he would be sure to set his face against Marner:
+he was always angry about the Wise Woman, and used
+to threaten those who went to her that they should have
+none of his help any more.
+Silas now found himself and his cottage suddenly beset by
+mothers who wanted him to charm away the whooping-cough, or
+bring back the milk, and by men who wanted stuff
+against the rheumatics or the knots in the hands; and, to
+secure themselves against a refusal, the applicants brought
+silver in their palms. Silas might have driven a profitable
+trade in charms as well as in his small list of drugs; but
+money on this condition was no temptation to him: he had
+never known an impulse towards falsity, and he drove one
+after another away with growing irritation, for the news of
+him as a wise man had spread even to Tarley, and it was
+long before people ceased to take long walks for the sake of
+asking his aid. But the hope in his wisdom was at length
+changed into dread, for no one believed him when he said
+he knew no charms and could work no cures, and every man
+and woman who had an accident or a new attack after
+applying to him, set the misfortune down to Master Marner's
+ill-will and irritated glances. Thus it came to pass that
+his movement of pity towards Sally Oates, which had given
+him a transient sense of brotherhood, heightened the repulsion
+between him and his neighbours, and made his isolation
+more complete.
+Gradually the guineas, the crowns, and the half-crowns,
+grew to a heap, and Marner drew less and less for his own
+wants, trying to solve the problem of keeping himself strong
+enough to work sixteen hours a-day on as small an outlay as
+possible. Have not men, shut up in solitary imprisonment,
+found an interest in marking the moments by straight
+strokes of a certain length on the wall, until the growth of
+the sum of straight strokes, arranged in triangles, has become
+a mastering purpose? Do we not wile away moments of
+inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement
+or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which
+in incipient habit? That will help us to understand how the
+love of accumulating money grows an absorbing passion in
+men whose imaginations, even in the very beginning of their
+hoard, showed them no purpose beyond it. Marner wanted
+the heaps to ten to grow into a square, and then into a larger
+square; and every added guinea, while it was itself a satisfaction,
+bred a new desire. In this strange world, made a hopeless
+riddle to him, he might, if he had a less intense
+nature, have sat weaving, weaving - looking towards the end
+of his pattern, or towards the end of his web, till he forgot
+the riddle, and everything else but his immediate sensations;
+but the money had come to mark off his weaving into
+periods, and the money not only grew, but it remained with
+him. He began to think it was conscious of him, as his loom
+was, and he would on no account have exchanged those
+coins, which had become his familiars, for other coins with
+unknown faces. He handled them, he counted them, till
+their form and colour were like the satisfaction of a thirst
+to him; but it was only in the night, when his work was done,
+that he drew them out to enjoy their companionship. He
+had taken up some bricks in his floor underneath his loom,
+and here he had made a hole in which he set the iron pot
+that contained his guineas and silver coins, covering the
+bricks with sand whenever he replaced them. Not that the
+idea of being robbed presented itself often or strongly to his
+mind: hoarding was common in country districts i those
+days; there were old labourers in the parish of Raveloe who
+were known to have their savings by them, probably inside
+their flock-beds; but their rustic neighbours, though not all
+of them as honest as their ancestors in the days of King
+Alfred, had not imaginations bold enough to lay a plan of
+burglary. How could they have spent the money in their
+own village without betraying themselves? They would be
+obliged to "run away" - a course as dark and dubious as a
+balloon journey.
+So, year after year, Silas Marner had lived in this solitude,
+his guineas rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and
+hardening itself more and more into a mere pulsation of
+desire and satisfaction that had no relation to any other
+being. His life had reduced itself to the functions of weaving
+and hoarding, without any contemplation of an end towards
+which the functions tended. The same sort of process has
+perhaps been undergone by wiser men, when they have been
+cut off from faith and love - only, instead of a loom and a
+heap of guineas, they have had some erudite research, some
+ingenious project, or some well-knit theory. Strangely Marner's
+face and figure shrank and bent themselves in to constant
+mechanical relation to the objects of his life, so that he
+produced the same sort of impression as a handle or a
+crooked tube, which has no meaning standing apart. The
+prominent eyes that used to look trusting and dreamy, now
+looked as if they had been made to see only one kind of
+thing that was very small, like tiny grain, for which they
+hunted everywhere: and he was so withered and yellow,
+that, though he was not yet forty, the children always called
+him "Old Master Marner".
+Yet even in this stage of withering a little incident happened,
+which showed that the sap of affection was not all
+gone. It was one of his daily tasks to fetch his water from a
+well a couple of fields off, and for this purpose, ever since he
+came to Raveloe, he had had a brown earthenware pot,
+which he held as his most precious utensil among the very
+few conveniences he had granted himself. It had been his
+companion for twelve years, always standing on the same
+spot, always lending its handle to him in the early morning,
+so that its form had an expression for him of willing helpfulness,
+and the impress of its handle on his palm gave a satisfaction
+mingled with that of having the fresh clear water.
+One day as he was returning from the well, he stumbled
+against the step of the stile, and his brown pot, falling with
+force against the stones that overarched the ditch below
+him, was broken in three pieces. Silas picked up the pieces
+and carried them home with grief in his heart. The brown
+pot could never be of use to him any more, but he stuck the
+bits together and propped the ruin in its old place for a
+memorial.
+This is the history of Silas Marner until the fifteenth year
+after he came to Raveloe. The livelong day he sat in his
+loom, his ear filled with its monotony, his eyes bent close
+down on the slow growth of sameness in the brownish web,
+his muscles moving with such even repetition that their
+pause seemed almost as much a constraint as the holding of
+his breath. But at night came his revelry: at night he closed
+his shutters, and made fast his doors, and drew forth his
+gold. Long ago the heap of coins had become too large for
+the iron pot to hold them, and he had made for them two
+thick leather bags, which wasted no room in their resting
+place, but lent themselves flexibly to every corner. How the
+guineas shone as they came pouring out of the dark leather
+mouths! The silver bore no large proportion in amount to
+the gold, because the long pieces of linen which formed his
+chief work were always partly paid for in gold, and out of
+the silver he supplied his own bodily wants, choosing always
+the shillings and sixpences to spend in this way. He loved
+the guineas best, but he would not change the silver - the
+crowns and half-crowns that were his own earnings, begotten
+by his labour; he loved them all. He spread them out in
+heaps and bathed his hands in them; then he counted them
+and set them up in regular piles, and felt their rounded outline
+between his thumb and fingers, and thought fondly of
+the guineas that were only half-earned by the work in his
+loom, as if they had been unborn children - thought of the
+guineas that were coming slowly through the coming years,
+through all his life, which spread far away before him, the
+end quite hidden by countless days of weaving. No wonder
+his thoughts were still with his loom and his money when he
+made his journeys through the fields and the lanes to fetch
+and carry home his work, so that his steps never wandered
+to the hedge-banks and the lane-side in search of the once
+familiar herbs; these too belonged to the past, from which
+his life had shrunk away, like a rivulet that has sunk far
+down from the grassy fringe of its old breadth into a little
+shivering thread, that cuts a groove for itself in the barren
+sand.
+But about the Christmas of that fifteenth year, a second
+great change came over Marner's life, and his history became
+blent in a singular manner with the life of his neighbours.
+The greatest man in Raveloe was Squire Cass, who lived in
+the large red house with the handsome flight of stone steps
+in front and the high stables behind it, nearly opposite the
+church. He was only one among several landed parishioners,
+but he along was honoured with the title of Squire; for
+though Mr Osgood's family was also understood to be of
+timeless origin - still, he merely owned the farm he occupied;
+whereas Squire Cass had a tenant or two, who complained of
+the game to him quite as if he had been a lord.
+It was still that glorious war-time which was felt to be a
+peculiar favour of Providence towards the landed interest,
+and the fall of prices had not yet come to carry the race of
+small squires and yeomen down that road to ruin for which
+extravagant habits and bad husbandry were plentifully
+anointing their wheels. I am speaking now in relation to
+Raveloe and the parishes that resembled it; for our old-fashioned
+country life had many different aspects, as all life
+must have when it is spread over a various surface, and
+breathed on variously by multitudinous currents from the
+winds of heaven to the thoughts of men, which are for ever
+moving and crossing each other with incalculable results.
+Raveloe lay low among the bushy trees and the rutted lanes,
+aloof from the currents of industrial energy and Puritan
+earnestness: the rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout
+and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable
+families, and the poor thought that the rich were entirely in
+the right of it to lead a jolly life; besides, their feasting
+caused a multiplication of orts, which were the heirlooms of
+the poor.  Betty Jay scented the boiling of Squire Cass's
+hams, but her longing was arrested by the unctuous liquor in
+which they were boiled; and when the seasons brought
+round the great merry-makings, they were regarded on all
+hands as a fine thing for the poor. For the Raveloe feasts
+were like the rounds of beef and the barrels of ale - they
+were on a large scale, and lasted a good while, especially in
+the winter-time. After ladies had packed up their best gowns
+and top-knots in bandboxes, and had incurred the risk of
+fording streams on pillions with the precious burden in rainy
+or snowy weather, when there was no knowing how high the
+water would rise, it was not to be supposed that they looked
+forward to a brief pleasure. On this ground it was always
+contrived in the dark seasons, when there was little work to
+be done, and the hours were long, that several neighbours
+should keep open house in succession. So soon as Squire
+Cass's standing dishes diminished in plenty and freshness,
+his guests had nothing to do but walk a little higher up
+the village to Mr Osgood's, at the Orchards, and they found
+hams and chines uncut, pork-pies with the scent of the fire
+in them, spun butter in all its freshness - everything, in
+fact, that appetites at leisure could desire, in perhaps greater
+perfection, though not in greater abundance, than at Squire
+Cass's.
+For the Squire's wife had died long ago, and the Red
+House was without that presence of the wife and mother
+which is the fountain of wholesome love and fear in parlour
+and kitchen; and this helped to account not only for there
+being more profusion than finished excellence in the holiday
+provisions, but also for the frequency with which the
+proud Squire condescended to preside in the parlour or the
+Rainbow rather than under the shadow of his own dark
+wainscot; perhaps, also, for the fact that his sons had turned
+out rather ill. Raveloe was not a place where moral censure
+was severe, but it was thought a weakness in the Squire that
+he had kept all his sons at home in idleness; and though
+some licence was to be allowed to young men whose fathers
+could afford it, people shook their heads at the courses of the
+second son, Dunstan, commonly called Dunsey Cass, whose
+taste for swopping and betting might turn out to be a sowing
+of something worse than wild oats. To be sure, the
+neighbours said, it was no matter what became of Dunsey -
+a spiteful jeering fellow, who seemed to enjoy his drink the
+more when other people went dry - always provided that his
+doings did not brink trouble on a family like Squire Cass's,
+with a monument in the church and tankards older than
+King George. But it would be a thousand pities if Mr Godfrey,
+the eldest, a fine open-faced good-natured young man
+who was to come into the land some day, should take to
+going along the same road with his brother, as he had
+seemed to do of late. If he went on in that way, he would
+lose Miss Nancy Lammeter; for it was well known that she
+had looked very shyly on him ever since last Whitsuntide
+twelvemonth,when there was so much talk about his being
+away from home days and days together. There was something
+wrong, more than common - that was quite clear; for
+Mr Godfrey didn't look half so fresh-coloured and open as
+he used to. At one time everybody was saying, What a
+handsome couple he and Miss Nancy Lammeter would
+make! and if she could come to be mistress at the Red
+House, there would be a fine change, for the Lammeters had
+been brought up in that way, that they never suffered a
+pinch of salt to be wasted, and yet everybody in their household
+had of the best, according to his place. Such a daughter-in-law
+would be a saving to the old Squire, if she never
+brought a penny to her fortune; for it was to be feared that,
+notwithstanding his incomings, there were more holes in his
+pocket than the one where he put his own hand in. But if
+Mr Godfrey didn't turn over a new leaf, he might say
+"Good-bye" to Miss Nancy Lammeter.
+It was the once hopeful Godfrey who was standing, with
+his hands in his side-pockets and his back to the fire, in the
+dark wainscoted parlour, one late November afternoon in
+that fifteenth year of Silas Marner's life at Raveloe. The
+fading grey light fell dimly on the walls decorated with
+guns, ships, and foxes' brushes, on coats and hats flung on
+the chairs, on tankards sending forth a scent of flat ale, and
+on a half-choked fire, with pipes propped up in the
+chimney-corners: signs of a domestic life destitute of any
+hallowing charm, with which the look of gloomy vexation
+on Godfrey's blond face was in sad accordance. He seemed
+to be waiting and listening for some one's approach, and
+presently the sound of a heavy step, with an accompanying
+whistle, was heard across the large empty entrance-hall.
+The door opened, and a thick-set, heavy-looking young
+man entered, with the flushed face and the gratuitously
+elated bearing which mark the first of intoxication. It
+was Dunsey, and at the sight of him Godfrey's face parted
+with some of its gloom to take on the more active expression
+of hatred. The handsome brown spaniel that lay on the
+hearth retreated under the chair in the chimney-corner.
+"Well, Master Godfrey, what do you want with me?" said
+Dunsey, in a mocking tone. "You're my elders and betters,
+you know; I was obliged to come when you sent for me."
+"Why, this is what I want - and just shake yourself sober
+and listen, will you?" said Godfrey, savagely. He had himself
+been drinking more than was good for him, trying to turn
+his gloom into uncalculating anger. "I want to tell you, I
+must hand over that rent of Fowler's to the Squire, or else tell
+him I gave it you; for he's threatening to distrain for it,
+and it'll all be out soon, whether I tell him or not. He said,
+just now, before he went out, he should send word to Cox to
+distrain, if Fowler didn't come and pay up his arrears this
+weak. The Squire's short o' cash, and in no humour to stand
+any nonsense; and you know what he threatened,
+found you making away with his money again. So, see and
+get the money, and pretty quickly, will you?"
+"Oh!" said Dunsey, sneeringly, coming nearer to his
+brother and looking in his face. "Suppose, now, you get the
+money yourself, and save me the trouble, eh? Since you was
+so kind as to hand over to me, you'll not refuse me the
+kindness to pay it back for me: it was your brotherly love
+made you do it, you know."
+Godfrey bit his lips and clenched his fist. "Don't come
+near me with that look, else I'll knock you down."
+"O no, you won't," said Dunsey, turning away on his heel,
+however. "Because I'm such a good-natured brother, you
+know. I might get you turned out of house and home, and
+cut off with a shilling any day. I might tell the Squire how
+his handsome son was married to that nice young woman,
+Molly Farren, and was very unhappy because he couldn't
+live with his drunken wife, and I should slip into your place
+as comfortable as could be. But you see, I don't do it - I'm
+so easy and good-natured. You'll take any trouble for
+me. You'll get the hundred pounds for me - I know you
+will."
+"How can I get the money?" said Godfrey, quivering. "I
+haven't a shilling to bless myself with. And it's a lie that
+you'd slip into my place: you'd get yourself turned out too,
+that's all. For if you begin telling tales, I'll follow. Bob's my
+father's favourite - you know that very well. He'd only think
+himself well rid of you."
+"Never mind," said Dunsey, nodding his head sideways as
+he looked out of the window. "It 'ud be very pleasant to me
+to go in your company - you're such a handsome brother,
+and we've always been fond of quarrelling with one another,
+I shouldn't know what to do without you. But you'd
+like better for us both to stay at home together; I know you
+would. So you'll manage to get that little sum o' money, and
+I'll bid you good-bye, though I'm sorry to part."
+Dunstan was moving off, but Godfrey rushed after him
+and seized him by the arm, saying, with an oath,
+"I tell you, I have no money: I can get no money."
+"Borrow of old Kimble."
+"I tell you, he won't lend me any more, and I shan't ask
+him."
+"Well, then, sell Wildfire."
+"Yes, that's easy talking. I must have the money directly."
+"Well, you've only got to ride him to the hunt to-morrow.
+There'll be Bryce and Keating there, for sure. You'll get
+more bids than one."
+"I daresay, and get back home at eight o'clock, splashed
+up to the chin. I'm going to Mrs Osgood's birthday dance."
+"Oho!" said Dunsey, turning his head on one side, and trying
+to speak in a small mincing treble. "And there's sweet
+Miss Nancy coming; and we shall dance with her, and
+promise never to be naughty again, and be taken into
+favour, and -"
+"Hold your tongue about Miss Nancy, you fool," said Godfrey,
+turning red, "else I'll throttle you."
+"What for?" said Dunsey, still in an artificial tone, but
+taking a whip from the table and beating the butt-end of it
+on his palm. "You've a very good chance. I'll advise you to
+creep up her sleeve again: it 'ud be saving time,if Molly
+should happen to take a drop too much laudanum some day,
+and make a widower of you. Miss Nancy wouldn't mind
+being a second, if she didn't know it. And you've got a good-natured
+brother, who'll keep your secret well, because you'll
+be so very obliging to him."
+"I'll tell you what it is," said Godfrey, quivering, and pale
+again. "My patience is pretty near at an end. If you'd a little
+more sharpness in you, you might know  that you may urge
+a man a bit too far, and make one leap as easy as another.
+I don't know but what it is so now: I may as well tell the
+Squire everything myself - I should get you off my back, if
+I got nothing else. And, after all, he'll know some time.
+She's been threatening to come herself and tell him. So,
+don't flatter yourself that your secrecy's worth any price you
+choose to ask. You drain me of money till I have got nothing
+to pacify
+her
+with, and she'll do as she threatens some
+day. It's all one. I'll tell my father everything myself, and
+you may go to the devil."
+Dunsey perceived that he had overshot his mark, and that
+there was a point at which even the hesitating Godfrey
+might be driven into decision. But he said, with an air of
+unconcern,
+"As you please; but I'll have a draught of ale first." And
+ringing the bell, he threw himself across two chairs, and
+began to rap the window-seat with the handle of his
+whip.
+Godfrey stood, still with his back to the fire, uneasily
+moving his fingers among the contents of his side-pockets,
+and looking at the floor. That big muscular frame of his
+held plenty of animal courage, but helped him to no
+decision when the dangers to be braved were such as could
+neither be knocked down nor throttled. His natural irresolution
+and moral cowardice were exaggerated by a position
+in which dreaded consequences seemed to press equally on
+all sides, and his irritation had no sooner provoked him to
+defy Dunstan and anticipate all possible betrayals, than the
+miseries he must bring on himself by such a step seemed
+more unendurable to him than the present evil. The results
+of confession were not contingent, they were certain; whereas
+betrayal was not certain. From the near vision of that
+certainty he fell back on suspense and vacillation with a
+sense of repose. The disinherited son of a small squire,
+equally disinclined to dig and to beg, was almost as helpless
+as an uprooted tree, which, by the favour of earth and
+sky, has grown to a handsome bulk on the spot where it first
+shot upward. Perhaps it would have been possible to think
+of digging with some cheerfulness if Nancy Lammeter
+were to be won on those terms; but, since he must irrevocably
+lose
+her
+as well as the inheritance, and must break
+every tie but the one that degraded him and left him without
+motive for trying to recover his better self, he could
+imagine no future for himself on the other side of confession
+but that of "listing for a soldier" - the most desperate
+step, short of suicide, in the eyes of respectable families.
+No! he would rather trust to casualties than to his own
+resolve - rather go on sitting at the feast and sipping the
+wine he loved, though with the sword hanging over him and
+terror in his heart, than rush away into the cold darkness
+where there was no pleasure left. The utmost concession to
+Dunstan about the horse began to seem easy, compared with
+the fulfilment of his own threat. But his pride would not let
+him recommence the conversation otherwise than by continuing
+the quarrel. Dunstan was waiting for this, and took
+his ale in shorter draughts than usual.
+"It's just like you," Godfrey burst out, in a bitter tone, "to
+talk about my selling Wildfire in that cool way - the last
+thing I've got to call my own, and the best bit of horse-flesh
+I ever had in my life. And if you'd got a spark of pride in
+you, you'd be ashamed to see the stables emptied, and everybody
+sneering about it. But it's my belief you'd sell yourself,
+if it was only for the pleasure of making somebody feel he'd
+got a bad bargain."
+"Ay, ay," said Dunstan, very placably, "you do me justice,
+I see. You know I'm a jewel for 'ticing people into bargains.
+For which reason I advise you to let
+me
+sell Wildfire.
+I'd ride him to the hunt tomorrow for you, with pleasure. I
+shouldn't look so handsome as you in the saddle, but it's the
+horse they'll bid for, and not the rider."
+"Yes, I daresay - trust my horse to you!"
+"As you please," said Dunstan, rapping the window-seat
+again with an air of great unconcern. "It's
+you
+have got to pay Fowler's money; it's none of my business. You received
+the money from him when you went to Bramcote, and
+you
+told the Squire it wasn't paid. I'd nothing to do with that;
+you chose to be so obliging as give it me, that was all. If you
+don't want to pay the money, let it alone; it's all one to me.
+But I was willing to accommodate you by undertaking to
+sell the horse, seeing it's not convenient to you to go so far
+tomorrow."
+Godfrey was silent for some moments. He would have
+liked to spring on Dunstan, wrench the whip from his hand,
+and flog him to within an inch of his life; and no bodily
+fear could have deterred him; but he was mastered by another
+sort of fear, which was fed by feelings stronger even
+than his resentment. When he spoke again, it was in a
+half-conciliatory tone.
+"Well, you mean no nonsense about the horse, eh? You'll
+sell him all fair, and hand over the money? If you don't, you
+know, everything 'll go to smash, for I've got nothing else
+to trust to. And you'll have less pleasure in pulling the house
+over my head, when your own skull's broken too."
+"Ay, ay," said Dunstan, rising, "all right. I thought you'd
+come round. I'm the fellow to bring old Bryce up to the
+scratch. I'll get you a hundred and twenty for him, if I get
+you a penny."
+"But it'll perhaps rain cats and dogs tomorrow, as it did
+yesterday, and then you can't go." said Godfrey, hardly
+knowing whether he wished for that obstacle or not.
+"Not
+it
+," said Dunstan. "I'm always lucky in my
+weather.
+It might rain if you wanted to go yourself. You never hold
+trumps, you know - I always do. You've got the beauty, you
+see, and I've got the luck, so you must keep me by you for
+your crooked sixpence; you'll
+ne
+-ver get along without
+me."
+"Confound you, hold your tongue!" said Godfrey, impetuously.
+"And take care to keep sober tomorrow, else you'll get
+pitched on your head coming home, and Wildfire might be
+the worse for it."
+"Make your tender heart easy," said Dunstan, opening the
+door. "You never know me see double when I'd got a bargain
+to make; it 'ud spoil the fun. Besides, whenever I fall, I'm
+warranted to fall on my legs."
+With that, Dunstan slammed the door behind him, and
+left Godfrey to that bitter rumination on his personal
+circumstances which was now unbroken from day to day save
+by the excitement of sporting, drinking, card-playing, or the
+rarer and less oblivious pleasure of seeing Miss Nancy Lammeter.
+The subtle and varied pains springing from the higher
+higher sensibility that accompanies higher culture, are perhaps
+less pitiable than that dreary absence of impersonal
+enjoyment and consolation which leaves ruder minds to the
+perpetual urgent companionship of their own griefs and
+discontents. The lives of those rural fore-fathers, whom we
+are apt to think very prosaic figures - men whose only work
+was to ride round their land, getting heavier and heavier in
+their saddles, and who passed the rest of their days in the
+half-listless gratification of senses dulled by monotony -
+had a certain pathos in them nevertheless. Calamities came to
+them
+too, and their early errors carried hard
+consequences:
+perhaps the love of some sweet maiden, the image of purity,
+order, and calm, had opened their eyes to the vision of a
+life in which the days would not seem too long, even without
+rioting; but the maiden was lost, and the vision passed
+away, and then what was left to them, especially when they
+had become too heavy for the hunt, or for carrying a gun
+over the furrows, but to drink and get merry, or to drink
+and get angry, so that they might be independent of variety,
+and say over again with eager emphasis the things they had
+said already any time that twelvemonth? Assuredly, among
+these flushed and dull-eyed men there were some whom -
+thanks to their native human-kindness - even riot could
+never drive into brutality; men who, when their cheeks were
+fresh, had felt the keen point of sorrow or remorse, had
+been pierced by the reeds they leaned on, or had lightly
+put their limbs in fetters from which no struggle could
+loose them; and under these sad circumstances, common to
+us all, their thoughts could find no resting-place outside the
+ever-trodden round of their own petty history.
+That, at least, was the condition of Godfrey Cass in this
+six-and-twentieth year of his life. A movement of compunction,
+helped by those small indefinable influences which
+every personal relation exerts on a pliant nature, had urged
+him into a secret marriage, which was a blight on his life.
+It was an ugly story of low passion, delusion, and waking
+from delusion, which needs not to be dragged from the
+privacy of Godfrey's bitter memory. He had long known
+that the delusion was partly due to a trap laid for him by
+Dunstan, who saw in his brother's degrading marriage the
+means of gratifying at once his jealous hate and his cupidity
+And if Godfrey could have felt himself simply a victim,
+the iron bit that destiny had put into his mouth would
+have chafed him less intolerably. If the curses he muttered
+half aloud when he was alone had had no other  object than
+Dunstan's diabolical cunning, he might have shrunk less
+from the consequences of avowal. But he had something else
+to curse - his own vicious folly, which now seemed as mad
+and unaccountable to him as almost all our follies and vices
+do when their promptings have long passed away. For four
+years he had thought of Nancy Lammeter, and wooed her
+with tacit patient worship, as the woman who made him
+think of the future with joy: she would be his wife, and
+would make home lovely to him, as his father's home had
+never been; and it would be easy, when she was always near,
+to shake off those foolish habits that were no pleasures, but
+only a feverish way of annulling vacancy. Godfrey's was an
+essentially domestic nature, bred up in a home where the
+hearth had no smiles, and where the daily habits were not
+chastised by the presence of household order. His easy disposition
+made him fall in unresistingly with the family
+courses, but the need of some tender permanent affection,
+the longing for some influence that would make the good he
+preferred easy to pursue, caused the neatness, purity, and
+liberal orderliness of the Lammeter household, sunned by
+the smile of Nancy, to seem like those fresh bright hours of
+the morning when temptations go to sleep and leave the
+ear open to the voice of the good angel, inviting industry,
+sobriety, and peace. And yet the hope of this paradise had
+not been enough to save him from a course which shut him
+out of it for ever. Instead of keeping fast hold of the strong
+silken rope by which Nancy would have drawn him safe to
+the green banks where it was easy to step firmly, he had let
+himself be dragged back into mud and slime, in which it
+was useless to struggle. He had made ties for himself which
+robbed him of all wholesome motives and were a constant
+exasperation.
+Still, there was one position worse than the present: it was
+the position he would be in when the ugly secret was disclosed;
+and the desire that continually triumphed over every
+other was that of warding off the evil day, when he would
+have to bear the consequences of his father's violent resentment
+for the wound inflicted on his family pride - would
+have, perhaps, to turn his back on that hereditary ease and
+dignity which, after all, was a sort of reason for living, and
+would carry with him the certainty that he was banished
+for ever from the sight and esteem of Nancy Lammeter.
+The longer the interval, the more chance there was of
+deliverance from some, at least, of the hateful consequences
+to which he had sold himself; the more opportunities remained
+for him to snatch the strange gratification of
+seeing Nancy, and gathering some faint indications of
+her lingering regard. Towards this gratification he was
+impelled, fitfully, every now and then, after having passed
+weeks in which he had avoided her as the far-off bright-winged
+prize that only made him spring forward and find
+his chain all the more galling. One of those fits of yearning
+was on him now, and it would have been strong enough to
+have persuaded him to trust Wildfire to Dunstan rather than
+disappoint the yearning, even if he had not had another
+reason for his disinclination towards the morrow's hunt.
+The other reason was the fact that the morning's meet was
+near Batherley, the market-town where the unhappy woman
+lived, whose image became more odious to him every day;
+and to his thought the whole vicinage was haunted by her.
+The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will
+breed hate in the kindliest nature; and the good-humoured,
+affectionate-hearted Godfrey Cass was fast becoming a bitter
+man, visited by cruel wishes, that seemed to enter, and
+depart, and enter again, like demons who had found in him
+a ready-garnished home.
+What was he to do this evening to pass the time? He
+might as well go to the Rainbow, and hear the talk about the
+cock-fighting: everybody was there, and what else was there
+to be done? Though, for his own part, he did not care a
+button for cock-fighting. Snuff, the brown spaniel, who had
+placed herself in front of him, and had been watching him
+for some time, now jumped up in impatience for the expected
+caress. But Godfrey thrust her away without looking
+at her, and left the room, followed humbly by the unresenting
+Snuff - perhaps because she saw no other career open
+to her.
+DUNSTAN CASS, setting off in the raw morning, at the
+judiciously quiet pace of a man who is obliged to ride to
+cover on his hunter, had to take his way along the lane
+which, at its farther extremity, passed by the piece of unenclosed
+ground called the Stone-pit, where stood the cottage,
+once a stone-cutter's shed, now for fifteen years inhabited by
+Silas Marner. The spot looked very dreary at this season,
+with the moist trodden clay about it, and the red, muddy
+water high up in the deserted quarry. That was Dunstan's
+first thought as he approached it; the second was, that the old
+fool of a weaver, whose loom ha heard rattling already, had
+a great deal of money hidden somewhere. How was it that
+he, Dunstan Cass, who had often heard talk of Marner's
+miserliness, had never thought of suggesting to Godfrey that
+he should frighten or persuade the old fellow into lending
+the money on the excellent security of the young Squire'd
+prospects? The resource occurred to him now as so easy and
+agreeable, especially as Marner's hoard was likely to be
+large enough to leave Godfrey a handsome surplus beyond
+his immediate needs, and enable him to accommodate his
+faithful brother, that he had almost turned the horse's head
+towards home again. Godfrey would be ready enough to
+accept the suggestion: he would snatch eagerly at a plan
+that might save him from parting with Wildfire. But when
+Dunstan's meditation reached this point, the inclination to
+go on grew strong and prevailed. He didn't want to give
+Godfrey that pleasure: he preferred that Master Godfrey
+should be vexed. Moreover, Dunstan enjoyed the self-important
+consciousness of having a horse to sell, and the
+opportunity of driving a bargain, swaggering, and possibly
+taking somebody in. He might have all the satisfaction
+attendant on selling his brother's horse, and not the less
+have the further satisfaction of setting Godfrey to borrow
+Marner's money. So he rode on to cover.
+Bryce and Keating were there, as Dunstan was quite sure
+they would be - he was such a lucky fellow.
+"Hey-day," said Bryce, who had long had his eye on
+Wildfire, "you're on your brother's horse today: how's
+that?"
+"O, I've swopped with him," said Dunstan, whose delight
+in lying, grandly independent of utility, was not to be
+diminished by the likelihood that his hearer would not
+believe him - "Wildfire's mine now."
+"What! has he swopped with you for that big-boned hack
+of yours?" said Bryce, quite aware that he should get another
+lie in answer.
+"O, there was a little account between us," said Dunsey,
+carelessly, "and Wildfire made it even. I accommodated him
+by taking the horse, though it was against my will, for I'd
+got an itch for a mare o'Jortin's - as rare a bit o'blood as
+ever you threw your leg across. But I shall keep Wildfire, now
+I've got him, though I'd bid of a hundred and fifty for him
+the other day, from a man over at Flitton - he's buying for
+Lord Cromleck - a fellow with a cast in his eye, and a green
+waistcoat. But I mean to stick to Wildfire: I shan't get a
+better at a fence in a hurry. The mare's got more blood, but
+she's a bit too weak in the hind-quarters."
+Bryce of course divined that Dunstan wanted to sell the
+horse, and Dunstan knew that he divined it (horse-dealing is
+only one of many human transactions carried on in this
+ingenious manner); and they both considered that the bargain
+was in its first stage, when Bryce replied ironically -
+"I wonder at that now; I wonder you mean to keep him;
+for I never heard of a man who didn't want to sell his horse
+getting a bid of half as much again as the horse was worth.
+You'll be lucky if you get a hundred."
+Keating rode up now, and the transaction became more
+complicated. It ended in the purchase of the horse by Bryce
+for a hundred and twenty, to be paid on the delivery of
+Wildfire, safe and sound, at the Batherley stables. It did
+occur to Dunsey that it might be wise for him to give up the
+day's hunting, proceed at once to Batherley, and, having
+waited for Bryce's return, hire a horse to carry him home
+with the money in his pocket. But the inclination for a run,
+encouraged by confidence in his luck, and by a draught of
+brandy from his pocket-pistol at the conclusion of the bargain,
+was not easy to overcome, especially with a horse under
+him that would take the fences to the admiration of the
+field. Dunstan, however, took one fence too many, and got
+his horse pierced with a hedge-stake. His own ill-favoured
+person, which was quite unmarketable, escaped without injury,
+but poor Wildfire, unconscious of his price, turned on
+his flank, and painfully panted his last. It happened that
+Dunstan, a short time before, having had to get down to
+arrange his stirrup had muttered a good many curses at this
+interruption, which had thrown him in the rear of the hunt
+near the moment of glory, and under this exasperation had
+taken the fences more blindly. He would soon have been up
+with the hounds again, when the fatal accident happened;
+and hence he was between eager riders in advance, not
+troubling themselves about what happened behind them,
+and far-off stragglers, who were as likely as not to pass quite
+aloof from the line of road in which Wildfire had fallen.
+Dunstan, whose nature it was to care more for immediate
+annoyances than for remote consequences, no sooner recovered
+his legs, and saw that it was all over with Wildfire,
+that he felt a satisfaction at the absence of witnesses to a
+position which no swaggering could make enviable. Reinforcing
+himself, after his shake, with a little brandy and
+much swearing, he walked as fast as he could to a coppice
+on his right hand, through which it occurred to him that he
+could make his way to Batherley without danger of encountering
+any member of the hunt. His first intention was
+to hire a horse there and ride home forthwith, for to walk
+many miles without a gun in his hand and along an ordinary
+road, was as much out of the question to him as to other
+spirited young men of his kind. He did not much mind
+about taking the bad news to Godfrey, for he had to offer
+him at the same time the resource of Marner's money; and
+if Godfrey kicked, as he always did, at the notion of making
+a fresh debt from which he himself got the smallest share
+of advantage, why, he wouldn't kick long: Dunstan felt
+sure he could worry Godfrey into anything. The idea of
+Marner's money kept growing in vividness, now the want of
+it had become immediate; the prospect of having to make
+his appearance with the muddy boots of a pedestrian at
+Batherley, and to encounter the grinning queries of stable
+men, stood unpleasantly in the way of his impatience to be
+back at Raveloe and carry out his felicitous plan; and a
+casual visitation of his waistcoat-pocket, as he was ruminating,
+awakened his memory to the fact that the two or
+three small coins his fore-finger encountered there, were of
+too pale a colour to cover that small debt, without payment
+of which the stable-keeper had declared he would never do
+any more business with Dunsey Cass. After all, according to
+the direction which the run had brought him, he was not
+so very much farther from home than he was from Batherley;
+but Dunsey, not being remarkable for clearness of head,
+was only led to this conclusion by the gradual perception
+that there were other reasons for choosing the unprecedented
+course of walking home. It was now nearly four
+o'clock, and a mist was gathering: the sooner he got into
+the road the better. He remembered having crossed the road
+and seen the finger-post only a little while before Wildfire
+broke down; so, buttoning his coat, twisting the last of his
+hunting-whip compactly round the handle, and rapping the
+tops of his boots with a self-possessed air, as if to assure
+himself that he was not at all taken by surprise, he set off with
+the sense that he was undertaking a remarkable feat of
+bodily exertion, which somehow and at some time he should
+be able to dress up and magnify to the admiration of a select
+circle at the Rainbow. When a young gentleman like Dunsey
+is reduced to so exceptional a mode of locomotion as walking,
+a whip in his hand is a desirable corrective to a too
+bewildering dreamy sense of unwontedness in his position;
+and Dunstan, as he went along through the gathering mist,
+was always rapping his whip somewhere. It was Godfrey's
+whip, which he had chosen to take without leave because it
+had a gold handle; of course no one could see, when Dunstan
+held it, that the name
+Godfrey Cass
+was cut in deep
+letters
+on that gold handle - they could only see that it was a very
+handsome whip. Dunsey was not without fear that he might
+meet some acquaintance in whose eyes he could cut a pitiable
+figure, for mist is no screen when people get close to
+each other; but when he at last found himself in the
+well-known Raveloe lanes without having met a soul, he
+silently remarked that that was part of his usual good-luck.
+But now the mist, helped by the evening darkness, was more
+of a screen than he desired, for it hid the ruts into which his
+feet were liable to slip - hid everything, so that he had to
+guide his steps by dragging his whip along the low bushes
+in advance of the hedgerow. He must soon, he thought, be
+getting near the opening at the Stone-pits: he should find
+it out by the break in the hedgerow. He found it out, however,
+by another circumstance which he had not expected -
+namely, by certain gleams of light, which he presently
+guessed to proceed from Silas Marner's cottage. That cottage
+and the money hidden within it had been in his mind continually
+during his walk, and he had been imagining ways
+of cajoling and tempting the weaver to part with the immediate
+possession of his money for the sake of receiving
+interest. Dunstan felt as if there must be a little frightening
+added to the cajolery, for his own arithmetical convictions
+were not clear enough to afford him any forcible demonstration
+as to the advantages of interest; and as for security,
+he regarded it vaguely as a means of cheating a man by
+making him believe that he would be paid. Altogether, the
+operation on the miser's mind was a task that Godfrey
+would be sure to hand over to his more daring and cunning
+brother: Dunstan had made up his mind to that; and by the
+time he saw the light gleaming through the chinks of Marner's
+shutters, the idea of a dialogue with the weaver had
+become so familiar to him, that it occurred to him as quite a
+natural thing to make the acquaintance forthwith. There
+might be several conveniences attending this course: the
+weaver had possibly got a lantern, and Dunstan was tired of
+feeling his way. He was still nearly three-quarters of a mile
+from home, and the land was becoming unpleasantly slippery,
+for the mist was passing into rain. He turned up the
+bank, not without some fear lest he might miss the right
+way, since he was not certain whether the light  were in
+front or on the side of the cottage. But he felt the ground
+before him cautiously with his whip-handle, and at last
+arrived safely at the door. He knocked loudly, rather enjoying
+the idea that the old fellow would be frightened at
+the sudden noise. He heard no movement in reply: all was
+silence in the cottage. Was the weaver gone to bed, then?
+If so, why had he left a light? That was a strange forgetfulness
+in a miser. Dunstan knocked still more loudly, and,
+without pausing for a reply, pushed his fingers through the
+latch-hole, intending to shake the door and pull the latch-string
+up and down, not doubting that the door was
+fastened. But, to his surprise, at this double motion the door
+opened, and he found himself in front of a bright fire which
+lit up every corner of the cottage - the bed, the loom, the
+three chairs, and the table - and showed him that Marner
+was not there.
+Nothing at that moment could be much more inviting to
+Dunsey than the bright fire on the brick hearth: he walked
+in and seated himself by it at once. There was something
+in front of the fire, too, that would have been inviting to a
+hungry man, if it had been in a different stage of cooking.
+It was a small bit of pork suspended from the kettle-hanger
+by a string passed through a large door-key, in a way unknown
+to primitive housekeepers unpossessed of jacks. But the pork
+had been hung at the farthest extremity of the hanger,
+apparently to prevent the roasting from proceeding too
+rapidly during the owner's absence. The old staring simpleton
+had hot meat for his supper, then? thought Dunstan.
+People had always said he lived on mouldy bread, on purpose
+to check his appetite. But where could he be at this
+time, and on such an evening, leaving his supper in this
+stage of preparation, and his door unfastened? Dunstan's
+own recent difficulty in making his way suggested to him
+fetch in fuel, or for some such brief purpose, and had
+slipped into the Stone-pit. That was an interesting idea to
+Dunstan, carrying consequences of entire novelty. If the
+weaver was dead, who had a right to his money? Who would
+know where his money was hidden?
+