GEORGE ELIOR , Silas Marner. Part- 16, Chapter 16 the story

 

GEORGE ELIOR , Silas Marner. Part- 16, Chapter 16 the story

haste he lifted up two brick and saw what he had no doubt was the but money in object of his search; for what could there those two leathern bags? And, from be heir weight, they must be filled with guineas. Dunstan olt round the hole, to be certain that it held no more: hen hastily replaoed the bricks, and spread the sand over thenm.

Hardly more than five minutes had passed since he entered the cottage, but it seemed to Dunstan ike a long while: and though he was without any distinct recogniion ot the possIbility that Marner might be alive, and might re-enter the cottage at any moment. he felt an undefinable dread laying hold on him, as he rose to his feet with the bags in his hand. He would hasten out into the darkness, and then consider what he should do with the bags. 

He closed the door behind him immediately, that he might shut in the stream of light: a few steps would be enough to carry him beyond betrayal by the gleams from the shutter-chinks and the latch-hole. The rain and darkness had got thicker, and he was glad of it; though it was awkward walking with both.hands filled, so that it was as much as he coulk do to grasp his whip along with one of the bags. But when he had gone a yard or two, he might take ns stepped forward into the darkness

WHEN DUNSTAN Cass turned his back on the cottage, Sils

was not more than a hundred yards away t from plodding along from the village with a sack thrown his shoulders as an over-co and with a horn in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind was at en

Chapter 5

om the presentiment of change. The sense of  more frequently springs from habit than from conviction and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have been expected to suggest larm. The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged a a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which that he has you makes the event imminent A man will tell worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is beginning to sink, and it is often observable, that the dider a man gets, the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing conception of his own death. 

This influence of habit was necessarily strong in a man whose life was so who saw no new people and monotonous as Marner's heard of no new events to keep alive in him the idea of the unexpected and the changeful; and it explains simply enough, why his mind could be at ease, though he had left his house and his treasure more defenceless than usual Silas was thinking with double complacency of his supper. 

first, because it would be hot and savoury, and secondly, because it would cost him nothing. For the little bit of pork was a present from that excellent housewife, Miss Priscilla Tammeler, to whom he had this day carried home a handarme piece of linen, and it was only on occasion of a present like this, that Silas indulged himself with roast-meak Supper was his favourite meal, because it came at this time of revelry, when his heart warmed over his gold; whenever he had roast-meat, he always chose to have it for saper. 

But this evening, he had no sooner ingeniously kotted his string, fast round his bit of pork, twisted the ring, according to rule over his door-key, passed it though the handle, and made it fast on the hanger, than he membered that a piece of very fine twine was indispens-able to his setting up a new piece of work in his loom early in the morning. It had slipped his memory, because in coming from Mr Lammeter's, he had not had to pass through the village; but to lose time by going on errands in the morning was out of the question. It was a nasty for to turn out into, but there were things Silas loved better than his own comfort; so, drawing his pork to the extremity of the hanger, and arming himself with his lantern and his old sack, he set out on what, in ordinary weather, would have been a twenty minutes' errand. 

He could not have locked his door without undoing his well-knotted string and retarding his supper; it was not worth his while to make that sacrifice. What thief would find his way to the Stone- pits on such a night as this? and why should he come on this particular night, when he had never come through all the fifteen years before? These questions were not distinctly present in Silas's mind; they merely serve to represent the vaguely-felt foundation of his freedom from arviety.

He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done: he opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of heat. He trod about the floor while putting by his lantern and throw- ing aside his hat and sack, so as to merge the marks of Dunstan's feet on the sand in the marks of his own nailed boots. 

Then he moved his pork nearer to the fire. and sat down to the agreeable business of tending the meat and warming himself at the same time. Any one who had looked at him as the red light shone upon his pale face, strange straining eyes, and mongre form, would perhaps have understood the mixture of contemptuous pity, dread, and suspicion with which he was regarded by his neighbours in Raveloe. Yet few mont could be more harmless than poor Mamer. In his truthful simple soul, not even the growing greed and worship of