the smell got to do with it? Did ever a ghost give a man a black eye?
That's what I should like to know. If ghos'es want me to believe in 'em, let 'em
leave off skulking i' the dark and i' lone places - let 'em come where there's
company and candles.«
    »As if ghos'es 'ud want to be believed in by anybody so ignirant!« said Mr.
Macey, in deep disgust at the farrier's crass incompetence to apprehend the
conditions of ghostly phenomena.
 

                                  Chapter VII

Yet the next moment there seemed to be some evidence that ghosts had a more
condescending disposition than Mr. Macey attributed to them; for the pale thin
figure of Silas Marner was suddenly seen standing in the warm light, uttering no
word, but looking round at the company with his strange unearthly eyes. The long
pipes gave a simultaneous movement, like the antennæ of startled insects, and
every man present, not excepting even the sceptical farrier, had an impression
that he saw, not Silas Marner in the flesh, but an apparition; for the door by
which Silas had entered was hidden by the high-screened seats, and no one had
noticed his approach. Mr. Macey, sitting a long way off the ghost, might be
supposed to have felt an argumentative triumph, which would tend to neutralise
his share of the general alarm. Had he not always said that when Silas Marner
was in that strange trance of his, his soul went loose from his body? Here was
the demonstration: nevertheless, on the whole, he would have been as well
contented without it. For a few moments there was a dead silence, Marner's want
of breath and agitation not allowing him to speak. The landlord, under the
habitual sense that he was bound to keep his house open to all company, and
confident in the protection of his unbroken neutrality, at last took on himself
the task of adjuring the ghost.
    »Master Marner,« he said, in a conciliatory tone, »what's lacking to you?
What's your business here?«
    »Robbed!« said Silas, gaspingly. »I've been robbed! I want the constable -
and the Justice - and Squire Cass - and Mr. Crackenthorp.«
    »Lay hold on him, Jem Rodney,« said the landlord, the idea of a ghost
subsiding; »he's off his head, I doubt. He's wet through.«
    Jem Rodney was the outermost man, and sat