

                                  George Eliot

                                 Silas Marner,

                              the Weaver of Raveloe

 »A child, more than all other gifts
 That earth can offer to declining man,
 Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts.«
                                                                     Wordsworth.
 

                                     Part I

                                   Chapter I

In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses - and even
great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of
polished oak - there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or
deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side
of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. The
shepherd's dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men appeared on
the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; for what dog likes a figure
bent under a heavy bag? - and these pale men rarely stirred abroad without that
mysterious burden. The shepherd himself, though he had good reason to believe
that the bag held nothing but flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong
linen spun from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weaving,
indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirely without the help of
the Evil One. In that far-off time superstition clung easily round every person
or thing that was at all unwonted, or even intermittent and occasional merely,
like the visits of the pedlar or the knife-grinder. No one knew where wandering
men had their homes or their origin; and how was a man to be explained unless
you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother? To the peasants of
old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region of
vagueness and mystery: to their untravelled thought a state of wandering was a
conception as dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back with the
spring; and even a settler, if he came from distant parts, hardly ever ceased to
be viewed with a remnant of distrust, which would have prevented any surprise if
a long course of inoffensive conduct on his part had ended in the commission of
a crime; especially if he had any reputation for knowledge, or showed any skill
in handicraft. All cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult
instrument the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to villagers, was in
itself suspicious: honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly
not overwise or clever - at least, not beyond such a matter as knowing the signs
of the weather; and the process by which rapidity and dexterity of
