Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (151 page)

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 TWO

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 parishioners who had chosen this bright Sunday morning as eligible for church-going.
 
It was the rural fashion of that time for the more important members of the congregation to depart first, while their humbler neighbours waited and looked on, stroking their bent heads or dropping their curtsies to any large ratepayer who turned to notice them.

Foremost among these advancing groups of well-clad people, there are some whom we shall recognize, in spite of Time, who has laid his hand on them all.
 
The tall blond man of forty is not much changed in feature from the Godfrey Cass of six-and-twenty: he is only fuller in flesh, and has only lost the indefinable look of youth-- a loss which is marked even when the eye is undulled and the wrinkles are not yet come.
 
Perhaps the pretty woman, not much younger than he, who is leaning on his arm, is more changed than her husband: the lovely bloom that used to be always on her cheek now comes but fitfully, with the fresh morning air or with some strong surprise; yet to all who love human faces best for what they tell of human experience, Nancy’s beauty has a heightened interest.
 
Often the soul is ripened into fuller goodness while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere glances can never divine the preciousness of the fruit.
 
But the years have not been so cruel to Nancy.
 
The firm yet placid mouth, the clear veracious glance of the brown eyes, speak now of a nature that has been tested and has kept its highest qualities; and even the costume, with its dainty neatness and purity, has more significance now the coquetries of youth can have nothing to do with it.

Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass (any higher title has died away from Raveloe lips since the old Squire was gathered to his fathers and his inheritance was divided) have turned round to look for the tall aged man and the plainly dressed woman who are a little behind-- Nancy having observed that they must wait for “father and Priscilla”--and now they all turn into a narrower path leading across the churchyard to a small gate opposite the Red House.
 
We will not follow them now; for may there not be some others in this departing congregation whom we should like to see again--some of those who are not likely to be handsomely clad, and whom we may not recognize so easily as the master and mistress of the Red House?

But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marner.
 
His large brown eyes seem to have gathered a longer vision, as is the way with eyes that have been short-sighted in early life, and they have a less vague, a more answering gaze; but in everything else one sees signs of a frame much enfeebled by the lapse of the sixteen years.
 
The weaver’s bent shoulders and white hair give him almost the look of advanced age, though he is not more than five-and-fifty; but there is the freshest blossom of youth close by his side--a blonde dimpled girl of eighteen, who has vainly tried to chastise her curly auburn hair into smoothness under her brown bonnet: the hair ripples as obstinately as a brooklet under the March breeze, and the little ringlets burst away from the restraining comb behind and show themselves below the bonnet-crown.
 
Eppie cannot help being rather vexed about her hair, for there is no other girl in Raveloe who has hair at all like it, and she thinks hair ought to be smooth.
 
She does not like to be blameworthy even in small things: you see how neatly her prayer-book is folded in her spotted handkerchief.

That good-looking young fellow, in a new fustian suit, who walks behind her, is not quite sure upon the question of hair in the abstract, when Eppie puts it to him, and thinks that perhaps straight hair is the best in general, but he doesn’t want Eppie’s hair to be different.
 
She surely divines that there is some one behind her who is thinking about her very particularly, and mustering courage to come to her side as soon as they are out in the lane, else why should she look rather shy, and take care not to turn away her head from her father Silas, to whom she keeps murmuring little sentences as to who was at church and who was not at church, and how pretty the red mountain-ash is over the Rectory wall?

“I wish
we
had a little garden, father, with double daisies in, like Mrs. Winthrop’s,” said Eppie, when they were out in the lane; “only they say it ‘ud take a deal of digging and bringing fresh soil--and you couldn’t do that, could you, father?
 
Anyhow, I shouldn’t like you to do it, for it ‘ud be too hard work for you.”

“Yes, I could do it, child, if you want a bit o’ garden: these long evenings, I could work at taking in a little bit o’ the waste, just enough for a root or two o’ flowers for you; and again, i’ the morning, I could have a turn wi’ the spade before I sat down to the loom.
 
Why didn’t you tell me before as you wanted a bit o’ garden?”

“
I
can dig it for you, Master Marner,” said the young man in fustian, who was now by Eppie’s side, entering into the conversation without the trouble of formalities.
 
“It’ll be play to me after I’ve done my day’s work, or any odd bits o’ time when the work’s slack.
 
And I’ll bring you some soil from Mr. Cass’s garden--he’ll let me, and willing.”

“Eh, Aaron, my lad, are you there?”
 
said Silas; “I wasn’t aware of you; for when Eppie’s talking o’ things, I see nothing but what she’s a-saying.
 
Well, if you could help me with the digging, we might get her a bit o’ garden all the sooner.”

“Then, if you think well and good,” said Aaron, “I’ll come to the Stone-pits this afternoon, and we’ll settle what land’s to be taken in, and I’ll get up an hour earlier i’ the morning, and begin on it.”

“But not if you don’t promise me not to work at the hard digging, father,” said Eppie.
 
“For I shouldn’t ha’ said anything about it,” she added, half-bashfully, half-roguishly, “only Mrs. Winthrop said as Aaron ‘ud be so good, and --”

“And you might ha’ known it without mother telling you,” said Aaron.
 
“And Master Marner knows too, I hope, as I’m able and willing to do a turn o’ work for him, and he won’t do me the unkindness to anyways take it out o’ my hands.”

“There, now, father, you won’t work in it till it’s all easy,” said Eppie, “and you and me can mark out the beds, and make holes and plant the roots.
 
It’ll be a deal livelier at the Stone-pits when we’ve got some flowers, for I always think the flowers can see us and know what we’re talking about.
 
And I’ll have a bit o’ rosemary, and bergamot, and thyme, because they’re so sweet-smelling; but there’s no lavender only in the gentlefolks’ gardens, I think.”

“That’s no reason why you shouldn’t have some,” said Aaron, “for I can bring you slips of anything; I’m forced to cut no end of ‘em when I’m gardening, and throw ‘em away mostly.
 
There’s a big bed o’ lavender at the Red House: the missis is very fond of it.”

“Well,” said Silas, gravely, “so as you don’t make free for us, or ask for anything as is worth much at the Red House: for Mr. Cass’s been so good to us, and built us up the new end o’ the cottage, and given us beds and things, as I couldn’t abide to be imposin’ for garden-stuff or anything else.”

“No, no, there’s no imposin’,” said Aaron; “there’s never a garden in all the parish but what there’s endless waste in it for want o’ somebody as could use everything up.
 
It’s what I think to myself sometimes, as there need nobody run short o’ victuals if the land was made the most on, and there was never a morsel but what could find its way to a mouth.
 
It sets one thinking o’ that-- gardening does.
 
But I must go back now, else mother ‘ull be in trouble as I aren’t there.”

“Bring her with you this afternoon, Aaron,” said Eppie; “I shouldn’t like to fix about the garden, and her not know everything from the first--should
you
, father?”

“Aye, bring her if you can, Aaron,” said Silas; “she’s sure to have a word to say as’ll help us to set things on their right end.”

Aaron turned back up the village, while Silas and Eppie went on up the lonely sheltered lane.

“O daddy!”
 
she began, when they were in privacy, clasping and squeezing Silas’s arm, and skipping round to give him an energetic kiss.
 
“My little old daddy!
 
I’m so glad.
 
I don’t think I shall want anything else when we’ve got a little garden; and I knew Aaron would dig it for us,” she went on with roguish triumph--”I knew that very well.”

“You’re a deep little puss, you are,” said Silas, with the mild passive happiness of love-crowned age in his face; “but you’ll make yourself fine and beholden to Aaron.”

“Oh, no, I shan’t,” said Eppie, laughing and frisking; “he likes it.”

“Come, come, let me carry your prayer-book, else you’ll be dropping it, jumping i’ that way.”

Eppie was now aware that her behaviour was under observation, but it was only the observation of a friendly donkey, browsing with a log fastened to his foot--a meek donkey, not scornfully critical of human trivialities, but thankful to share in them, if possible, by getting his nose scratched; and Eppie did not fail to gratify him with her usual notice, though it was attended with the inconvenience of his following them, painfully, up to the very door of their home.

But the sound of a sharp bark inside, as Eppie put the key in the door, modified the donkey’s views, and he limped away again without bidding.
 
The sharp bark was the sign of an excited welcome that was awaiting them from a knowing brown terrier, who, after dancing at their legs in a hysterical manner, rushed with a worrying noise at a tortoise-shell kitten under the loom, and then rushed back with a sharp bark again, as much as to say, “I have done my duty by this feeble creature, you perceive”; while the lady-mother of the kitten sat sunning her white bosom in the window, and looked round with a sleepy air of expecting caresses, though she was not going to take any trouble for them.

The presence of this happy animal life was not the only change which had come over the interior of the stone cottage.
 
There was no bed now in the living-room, and the small space was well filled with decent furniture, all bright and clean enough to satisfy Dolly Winthrop’s eye.
 
The oaken table and three-cornered oaken chair were hardly what was likely to be seen in so poor a cottage: they had come, with the beds and other things, from the Red House; for Mr. Godfrey Cass, as every one said in the village, did very kindly by the weaver; and it was nothing but right a man should be looked on and helped by those who could afford it, when he had brought up an orphan child, and been father and mother to her--and had lost his money too, so as he had nothing but what he worked for week by week, and when the weaving was going down too--for there was less and less flax spun--and Master Marner was none so young.
 
Nobody was jealous of the weaver, for he was regarded as an exceptional person, whose claims on neighbourly help were not to be matched in Raveloe.
 
Any superstition that remained concerning him had taken an entirely new colour; and Mr. Macey, now a very feeble old man of fourscore and six, never seen except in his chimney-corner or sitting in the sunshine at his door-sill, was of opinion that when a man had done what Silas had done by an orphan child, it was a sign that his money would come to light again, or leastwise that the robber would be made to answer for it--for, as Mr. Macey observed of himself, his faculties were as strong as ever.

Silas sat down now and watched Eppie with a satisfied gaze as she spread the clean cloth, and set on it the potato-pie, warmed up slowly in a safe Sunday fashion, by being put into a dry pot over a slowly-dying fire, as the best substitute for an oven.
 
For Silas would not consent to have a grate and oven added to his conveniences: he loved the old brick hearth as he had loved his brown pot--and was it not there when he had found Eppie?
 
The gods of the hearth exist for us still; and let all new faith be tolerant of that fetishism, lest it bruise its own roots.

Silas ate his dinner more silently than usual, soon laying down his knife and fork, and watching half-abstractedly Eppie’s play with Snap and the cat, by which her own dining was made rather a lengthy business.
 
Yet it was a sight that might well arrest wandering thoughts: Eppie, with the rippling radiance of her hair and the whiteness of her rounded chin and throat set off by the dark-blue cotton gown, laughing merrily as the kitten held on with her four claws to one shoulder, like a design for a jug-handle, while Snap on the right hand and Puss on the other put up their paws towards a morsel which she held out of the reach of both--Snap occasionally desisting in order to remonstrate with the cat by a cogent worrying growl on the greediness and futility of her conduct; till Eppie relented, caressed them both, and divided the morsel between them.