him nothing. For the little bit of
pork was a present from that excellent housewife, Miss Priscilla
Lammeter, to whom he had this day carried home a handsome piece of
linen; and it was only on occasion of a present like this, that Silas
indulged himself with roast-meat. Supper was his favourite meal,
because it came at his time of revelry, when his heart warmed over his
gold; whenever he had roast-meat, he always chose to have it for
supper. But this evening, he had no sooner ingeniously knotted his
string fast round his bit of pork, twisted the string according to rule
over his door-key, passed it through the handle, and made it fast on
the hanger, than he remembered that a piece of very fine twine was
indispensable to his "setting up" a new piece of work in his loom early
in the morning. It had slipped his memory, because, in coming from Mr.
Lammeter's, he had not had to pass through the village; but to lose
time by going on errands in the morning was out of the question. It
was a nasty fog to turn out into, but there were things Silas loved
better than his own comfort; so, drawing his pork to the extremity of
the hanger, and arming himself with his lantern and his old sack, he
set out on what, in ordinary weather, would have been a twenty minutes'
errand. He could not have locked his door without undoing his
well-knotted string and retarding his supper; it was not worth his
while to make that sacrifice. What thief would find his way to the
Stone-pits on such a night as this? and why should he come on this
particular night, when he had never come through all the fifteen years
before? These questions were not distinctly present in Silas's mind;
they merely serve to represent the vaguely-felt foundation of his
freedom from anxiety.

He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done: he
opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had
left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of heat. He
trod about the floor while putting by his lantern and throwing aside
his hat and sack, so as to merge the marks of Dunstan's feet on the
sand in the marks of his own nailed boots. Then he moved his pork
nearer to the fire, and sat down to the agreeable business of tending
the meat and warming himself at the same time.

Any one who had looked at him as the red light shone upon his pale
face, strange straining eyes, and meagre form, would perhaps have
understood the mixture