d hot meat for his supper, then?
thought Dunstan. People had always said he lived on mouldy bread, on
purpose to check his appetite. But where could he be at this time, and
on such an evening, leaving his supper in this stage of preparation,
and his door unfastened? Dunstan's own recent difficulty in making his
way suggested to him that the weaver had perhaps gone outside his
cottage to fetch in fuel, or for some such brief purpose, and had
slipped into the Stone-pit. That was an interesting idea to Dunstan,
carrying consequences of entire novelty. If the weaver was dead, who
had a right to his money? Who would know where his money was hidden?
_Who would know that anybody had come to take it away?_ He went no
farther into the subtleties of evidence: the pressing question, "Where
_is_ the money?" now took such entire possession of him as to make him
quite forget that the weaver's death was not a certainty. A dull mind,
once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to
retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started
was purely problematic. And Dunstan's mind was as dull as the mind of
a possible felon usually is. There were only three hiding-places where
he had ever heard of cottagers' hoards being found: the thatch, the
bed, and a hole in the floor. Marner's cottage had no thatch; and
Dunstan's first act, after a train of thought made rapid by the
stimulus of cupidity, was to go up to the bed; but while he did so, his
eyes travelled eagerly over the floor, where the bricks, distinct in
the fire-light, were discernible under the sprinkling of sand. But not
everywhere; for there was one spot, and one only, which was quite
covered with sand, and sand showing the marks of fingers, which had
apparently been careful to spread it over a given space. It was near
the treddles of the loom. In an instant Dunstan darted to that spot,
swept away the sand with his whip, and, inserting the thin end of the
hook between the bricks, found that they were loose. In haste he
lifted up two bricks, and saw what he had no doubt was the object of
his search; for what could there be but money in those two leathern
bags? And, from their weight, they must be filled with guineas.
Dunstan felt round the hole, to be certain that it held no more; then
hastily replaced the bricks, and spread the sand over them. Hardly
more than five minutes had passed since he entered the cottage, but it
seem