m every one else, in the centre of the circle and
in the direct rays of the fire. The weaver, too feeble to have any
distinct purpose beyond that of getting help to recover his money,
submitted unresistingly. The transient fears of the company were now
forgotten in their strong curiosity, and all faces were turned towards
Silas, when the landlord, having seated himself again, said--

"Now then, Master Marner, what's this you've got to say--as you've been
robbed? Speak out."

"He'd better not say again as it was me robbed him," cried Jem Rodney,
hastily. "What could I ha' done with his money? I could as easy steal
the parson's surplice, and wear it."

"Hold your tongue, Jem, and let's hear what he's got to say," said the
landlord. "Now then, Master Marner."

Silas now told his story, under frequent questioning as the mysterious
character of the robbery became evident.

This strangely novel situation of opening his trouble to his Raveloe
neighbours, of sitting in the warmth of a hearth not his own, and
feeling the presence of faces and voices which were his nearest promise
of help, had doubtless its influence on Marner, in spite of his
passionate preoccupation with his loss. Our consciousness rarely
registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us:
there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the
smallest sign of the bud.

The slight suspicion with which his hearers at first listened to him,
gradually melted away before the convincing simplicity of his distress:
it was impossible for the neighbours to doubt that Marner was telling
the truth, not because they were capable of arguing at once from the
nature of his statements to the absence of any motive for making them
falsely, but because, as Mr. Macey observed, "Folks as had the devil to
back 'em were not likely to be so mushed" as poor Silas was. Rather,
from the strange fact that the robber had left no traces, and had
happened to know the nick of time, utterly incalculable by mortal
agents, when Silas would go away from home without locking his door,
the more probable conclusion seemed to be, that his disreputable
intimacy in that quarter, if it ever existed, had been broken up, and
that, in consequence, this ill turn had been done to Marner by somebody
it was quite in vain to set the constable after. Why this
preternatural felon should be obliged to wait till the door was left
unlocked, was a question which did not