ttered to
herself, so that you couldn't hear what they were, and if she tied a
bit of red thread round the child's toe the while, it would keep off
the water in the head. There were women in Raveloe, at that present
time, who had worn one of the Wise Woman's little bags round their
necks, and, in consequence, had never had an idiot child, as Ann
Coulter had. Silas Marner could very likely do as much, and more; and
now it was all clear how he should have come from unknown parts, and be
so "comical-looking". But Sally Oates must mind and not tell the
doctor, for he would be sure to set his face against Marner: he was
always angry about the Wise Woman, and used to threaten those who went
to her that they should have none of his help any more.

Silas now found himself and his cottage suddenly beset by mothers who
wanted him to charm away the whooping-cough, or bring back the milk,
and by men who wanted stuff against the rheumatics or the knots in the
hands; and, to secure themselves against a refusal, the applicants
brought silver in their palms. Silas might have driven a profitable
trade in charms as well as in his small list of drugs; but money on
this condition was no temptation to him: he had never known an impulse
towards falsity, and he drove one after another away with growing
irritation, for the news of him as a wise man had spread even to
Tarley, and it was long before people ceased to take long walks for the
sake of asking his aid. But the hope in his wisdom was at length
changed into dread, for no one believed him when he said he knew no
charms and could work no cures, and every man and woman who had an
accident or a new attack after applying to him, set the misfortune down
to Master Marner's ill-will and irritated glances. Thus it came to
pass that his movement of pity towards Sally Oates, which had given him
a transient sense of brotherhood, heightened the repulsion between him
and his neighbours, and made his isolation more complete.

Gradually the guineas, the crowns, and the half-crowns grew to a heap,
and Marner drew less and less for his own wants, trying to solve the
problem of keeping himself strong enough to work sixteen hours a-day on
as small an outlay as possible. Have not men, shut up in solitary
imprisonment, found an interest in marking the moments by straight
strokes of a certain length on the wall, until the growth of the sum of
straight strokes, arranged in triangles, has become a master