who assures him that what does the business is neither the
meaning nor the words, but the register. Mr. Macey then arrives at the
chapter--or rather is gently inducted thereunto by his hearers--of the
ghosts who frequent certain of the Lammeter stables. But ghosts
threatening to prove as pregnant a theme of contention as Durham cows,
the landlord again meditates: "'There's folks i' my opinion, they can't
see ghos'es, not if they stood as plain as a pikestaff before 'em. And
there's reason i' that. For there's my wife, now, can't smell, not if
she'd the strongest o' cheese under her nose. I never seed a ghost
myself, but then I says to myself', "Very like I haven't the smell for
'em." I mean, putting a ghost for a smell or else contrairiways. And so
I'm for holding with both sides.... For the smell's what I go by.'"

The best drawn of the village worthies in "Silas Marner" are Mr. Macey,
of the scene just quoted, and good Dolly Winthrop, Marner's kindly
patroness. I have room for only one more specimen of Mr. Macey. He is
looking on at a New Year's dance at Squire Case's, beside Ben Winthrop,
Dolly's husband.

"'The Squire's pretty springy, considering his weight,' said Mr. Macey,
'and he stamps uncommon well. But Mr. Lammeter beats 'em all for shapes;
you see he holds his head like a sodger, and he isn't so cushiony as
most o' the oldish gentlefolks,--they ran fat in gineral;--and he's got
a fine leg. The parson's nimble enough, but he hasn't got much of a leg:
it's a bit too thick downward, and his knees might be a bit nearer
without damage; but he might do worse, he might do worse. Though he
hasn't that grand way o' waving his hand as the Squire has.'

"'Talk o' nimbleness, look at Mrs. Osgood,' said Ben Winthrop.... 'She's
the finest made woman as is, let the next be where she will.'

"'I don't heed how the women are made,' said Mr. Macey, with some
contempt 'They wear nayther coat nor breeches; you can't make much out
o' their shapes!'"

Mrs. Winthrop, the wheelwright's wife who, out of the fulness of her
charity, comes to comfort Silas in the season of his distress, is in her
way one of the most truthfully sketched of the author's figures. "She
was in all respects a woman of scrupulous conscience, so eager for
duties that life seemed to offer them too scantily unless she rose at
half past four, though this threw a scarcity of work over the more
advanced hours of the morning, which it was a constant problem for