 and this advice was sanctioned by Dr Kimble, on the ground that it was as
well to try what could do no harm - a principle which was made to answer for a
great deal of work in that gentleman's medical practice. Silas did not highly
enjoy smoking, and often wondered how his neighbours could be so fond of it; but
a humble sort of acquiescence in what was held to be good, had become a strong
habit of that new self which had been developed in him since he had found Eppie
on his hearth: it had been the only clew his bewildered mind could hold by in
cherishing this young life that had been sent to him out of the darkness into
which his gold had departed. By seeking what was needful for Eppie, by sharing
the effect that everything produced on her, he had himself come to appropriate
the forms of custom and belief which were the mould of Raveloe life; and as,
with reawakening sensibilities, memory also reawakened, he had begun to ponder
over the elements of his old faith, and blend them with his new impressions,
till he recovered a consciousness of unity between his past and present. The
sense of presiding goodness and the human trust which come with all pure peace
and joy, had given him a dim impression that there had been some error, some
mistake, which had thrown that dark shadow over the days of his best years; and
as it grew more and more easy to him to open his mind to Dolly Winthrop, he
gradually communicated to her all he could describe of his early life. The
communication was necessarily a slow and difficult process, for Silas's meagre
power of explanation was not aided by any readiness of interpretation in Dolly,
whose narrow outward experience gave her no key to strange customs, and made
every novelty a source of wonder that arrested them at every step of the
narrative. It was only by fragments, and at intervals which left Dolly time to
revolve what she had heard till it acquired some familiarity for her, that Silas
at last arrived at the climax of the sad story - the drawing of lots, and its
false testimony concerning him; and this had to be repeated in several
interviews, under new questions on her part as to the nature of this plan for
detecting the guilty and clearing the innocent.
    »And yourn's the same Bible, you're sure o' that, Master Marner - the Bible
as you brought wi' you from that country - it's the same as what they've got at
church, and what Eppie's a-learning to read
