ons of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation of
an end towards which the functions tended. The same sort of process
has perhaps been undergone by wiser men, when they have been cut off
from faith and love--only, instead of a loom and a heap of guineas,
they have had some erudite research, some ingenious project, or some
well-knit theory. Strangely Marner's face and figure shrank and bent
themselves into a constant mechanical relation to the objects of his
life, so that he produced the same sort of impression as a handle or a
crooked tube, which has no meaning standing apart. The prominent eyes
that used to look trusting and dreamy, now looked as if they had been
made to see only one kind of thing that was very small, like tiny
grain, for which they hunted everywhere: and he was so withered and
yellow, that, though he was not yet forty, the children always called
him "Old Master Marner".

Yet even in this stage of withering a little incident happened, which
showed that the sap of affection was not all gone. It was one of his
daily tasks to fetch his water from a well a couple of fields off, and
for this purpose, ever since he came to Raveloe, he had had a brown
earthenware pot, which he held as his most precious utensil among the
very few conveniences he had granted himself. It had been his
companion for twelve years, always standing on the same spot, always
lending its handle to him in the early morning, so that its form had an
expression for him of willing helpfulness, and the impress of its
handle on his palm gave a satisfaction mingled with that of having the
fresh clear water. One day as he was returning from the well, he
stumbled against the step of the stile, and his brown pot, falling with
force against the stones that overarched the ditch below him, was
broken in three pieces. Silas picked up the pieces and carried them
home with grief in his heart. The brown pot could never be of use to
him any more, but he stuck the bits together and propped the ruin in
its old place for a memorial.

This is the history of Silas Marner, until the fifteenth year after he
came to Raveloe. The livelong day he sat in his loom, his ear filled
with its monotony, his eyes bent close down on the slow growth of
sameness in the brownish web, his muscles moving with such even
repetition that their pause seemed almost as much a constraint as the
holding of his breath. But at night came his revelry: at night he
closed