than she was about most things - it would be
rather pleasant to have this little advantage over him. Mrs. Winthrop, though
possessed with a dim fear of dangers attendant on so long a journey, and
requiring many assurances that it would not take them out of the region of
carriers' carts and slow waggons, was nevertheless well pleased that Silas
should revisit his own country, and find out if he had been cleared from that
false accusation.
    »You'd be easier in your mind for the rest o' your life, Master Marner,«
said Dolly - »that you would. And if there's any light to be got up the yard as
you talk on, we've need of it i' this world, and I'd be glad on it myself, if
you could bring it back.«
    So on the fourth day from that time, Silas and Eppie, in their Sunday
clothes, with a small bundle tied in a blue linen handkerchief, were making
their way through the streets of a great manufacturing town. Silas, bewildered
by the changes thirty years had brought over his native place, had stopped
several persons in succession to ask them the name of this town, that he might
be sure he was not under a mistake about it.
    »Ask for Lantern Yard, father - ask this gentleman with the tassels on his
shoulders a-standing at the shop door; he isn't in a hurry like the rest,« said
Eppie, in some distress at her father's bewilderment, and ill at ease, besides,
amidst the noise, the movement, and the multitude of strange indifferent faces.
    »Eh, my child, he won't know anything about it,« said Silas; »gentlefolks
didn't ever go up the Yard. But happen somebody can tell me which is the way to
Prison Street, where the jail is. I know the way out o' that as if I'd seen it
yesterday.«
    With some difficulty, after many turnings and new inquiries, they reached
Prison Street; and the grim walls of the jail, the first object that answered to
any image in Silas's memory, cheered him with the certitude, which no assurance
of the town's name had hitherto given him, that he was in his native place.
    »Ah,« he said, drawing a long breath, »there's the jail, Eppie; that's just
the same: I aren't afraid now. It's the third turning on the left hand from the