ke 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 of 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 and 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 sort 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 did he know
what would bring back Sally Oates's breath, if he didn't know a fine
sight more than that? The Wise Woman had words that she mu