XX


Nancy and Godfrey walked home under the starlight in silence.  When
they entered the oaken parlour, Godfrey threw himself into his
chair, while Nancy laid down her bonnet and shawl, and stood on the
hearth near her husband, unwilling to leave him even for a few
minutes, and yet fearing to utter any word lest it might jar on his
feeling.  At last Godfrey turned his head towards her, and their
eyes met, dwelling in that meeting without any movement on either
side.  That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like
the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great
danger--not to be interfered with by speech or action which would
distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose.

But presently he put out his hand, and as Nancy placed hers within
it, he drew her towards him, and said--

"That's ended!"

She bent to kiss him, and then said, as she stood by his side,
"Yes, I'm afraid we must give up the hope of having her for a
daughter.  It wouldn't be right to want to force her to come to us
against her will.  We can't alter her bringing up and what's come of
it."

"No," said Godfrey, with a keen decisiveness of tone, in contrast
with his usually careless and unemphatic speech--"there's debts
we can't pay like money debts, by paying extra for the years that
have slipped by.  While I've been putting off and putting off, the
trees have been growing--it's too late now.  Marner was in the
right in what he said about a man's turning away a blessing from his
door: it falls to somebody else.  I wanted to pass for childless
once, Nancy--I shall pass for childless now against my wish."

Nancy did not speak immediately, but after a little while she asked--
"You won't make it known, then, about Eppie's being your daughter?"

"No: where would be the good to anybody?--only harm.  I must do
what I can for her in the state of life she chooses.  I must see who
it is she's thinking of marrying."

"If it won't do any good to make the thing known," said Nancy, who
thought she might now allow herself the relief of entertaining a
feeling which she had tried to silence before, "I should be very
thankful for father and Priscilla never to be troubled with knowing
what was done in the past, more than about Dunsey: it can't be
helped, their knowing that."

"I shall put it in my will--I think I shall put it in my will.
I shouldn't like to leave anything to be found out, like this of
Dunsey," said Godfrey, meditatively.  "But I can't see anything
but difficulties that 'ud come from telling it now.  I must do what
I can to make her happy in her own way.  I've a notion," he added,
after a moment's pause, "it's Aaron Winthrop she meant she was
engaged to.  I remember seeing him with her and Marner going away
from church."

"Well, he's very sober and industrious," said Nancy, trying to
view the matter as cheerfully as possible.

Godfrey fell into thoughtfulness again.  Presently he looked up at
Nancy sorrowfully, and said--

"She's a very pretty, nice girl, isn't she, Nancy?"

"Yes, dear; and with just your hair and eyes: I wondered it had
never struck me before."

"I think she took a dislike to me at the thought of my being her
father: I could see a change in her manner after that."

"She couldn't bear to think of not looking on Marner as her
father," said Nancy, not wishing to confirm her husband's painful
impression.

"She thinks I did wrong by her mother as well as by her.  She
thinks me worse than I am.  But she _must_ think it: she can never
know all.  It's part of my punishment, Nancy, for my daughter to
dislike me.  I should never have got into that trouble if I'd been
true to you--if I hadn't been a fool.  I'd no right to expect
anything but evil could come of that marriage--and when I shirked
doing a father's part too."

Nancy was silent: her spirit of rectitude would not let her try to
soften the edge of what she felt to be a just compunction.  He spoke
again after a little while, but the tone was rather changed: there
was tenderness mingled with the previous self-reproach.

"And I got _you_, Nancy, in spite of all; and yet I've been
grumbling and uneasy because I hadn't something else--as if I
deserved it."

"You've never been wanting to me, Godfrey," said Nancy, with quiet
sincerity.  "My only trouble would be gone if you resigned yourself
to the lot that's been given us."

"Well, perhaps it isn't too late to mend a bit there.  Though it
_is_ too late to mend some things, say what they will."

XXI


The next morning, when Silas and Eppie were seated at their
breakfast, he said to her--

"Eppie, there's a thing I've had on my mind to do this two year,
and now the money's been brought back to us, we can do it.  I've
been turning it over and over in the night, and I think we'll set
out to-morrow, while the fine days last.  We'll leave the house and
everything for your godmother to take care on, and we'll make a
little bundle o' things and set out."

"Where to go, daddy?"  said Eppie, in much surprise.

"To my old country--to the town where I was born--up Lantern
Yard.  I want to see Mr. Paston, the minister: something may ha'
come out to make 'em know I was innicent o' the robbery.  And
Mr. Paston was a man with a deal o' light--I want to speak to him
about the drawing o' the lots.  And I should like to talk to him
about the religion o' this country-side, for I partly think he
doesn't know on it."

Eppie was very joyful, for there was the prospect not only of wonder
and delight at seeing a strange country, but also of coming back to
tell Aaron all about it.  Aaron was so much wiser 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 jail doors--that's the way we must go."

"Oh, what a dark ugly place!"  said Eppie.  "How it hides the
sky!  It's worse than the Workhouse.  I'm glad you don't live in
this town now, father.  Is Lantern Yard like this street?"

"My precious child," said Silas, smiling, "it isn't a big street
like this.  I never was easy i' this street myself, but I was fond
o' Lantern Yard.  The shops here are all altered, I think--I can't
make 'em out; but I shall know the turning, because it's the
third."

"Here it is," he said, in a tone of satisfaction, as they came to
a narrow alley.  "And then we must go to the left again, and then
straight for'ard for a bit, up Shoe Lane: and then we shall be at
the entry next to the o'erhanging window, where there's the nick in
the road for the water to run.  Eh, I can see it all."

"O father, I'm like as if I was stifled," said Eppie.  "I
couldn't ha' thought as any folks lived i' this way, so close
together.  How pretty the Stone-pits 'ull look when we get back!"

"It looks comical to _me_, child, now--and smells bad.  I can't
think as it usened to smell so."

Here and there a sallow, begrimed face looked out from a gloomy
doorway at the strangers, and increased Eppie's uneasiness, so that
it was a longed-for relief when they issued from the alleys into
Shoe Lane, where there was a broader strip of sky.

"Dear heart!"  said Silas, "why, there's people coming out o' the
Yard as if they'd been to chapel at this time o' day--a weekday
noon!"

Suddenly he started and stood still with a look of distressed
amazement, that alarmed Eppie.  They were before an opening in front
of a large factory, from which men and women were streaming for
their midday meal.

"Father," said Eppie, clasping his arm, "what's the matter?"

But she had to speak again and again before Silas could answer her.

"It's gone, child," he said, at last, in strong agitation--
"Lantern Yard's gone.  It must ha' been here, because here's the
house with the o'erhanging window--I know that--it's just the
same; but they've made this new opening; and see that big factory!
It's all gone--chapel and all."

"Come into that little brush-shop and sit down, father--they'll
let you sit down," said Eppie, always on the watch lest one of her
father's strange attacks should come on.  "Perhaps the people can
tell you all about it."

But neither from the brush-maker, who had come to Shoe Lane only ten
years ago, when the factory was already built, nor from any other
source within his reach, could Silas learn anything of the old
Lantern Yard friends, or of Mr. Paston the minister.

"The old place is all swep' away," Silas said to Dolly Winthrop on
the night of his return--"the little graveyard and everything.
The old home's gone; I've no home but this now.  I shall never know
whether they got at the truth o' the robbery, nor whether Mr. Paston
could ha' given me any light about the drawing o' the lots.  It's
dark to me, Mrs. Winthrop, that is; I doubt it'll be dark to the
last."

"Well, yes, Master Marner," said Dolly, who sat with a placid
listening face, now bordered by grey hairs; "I doubt it may.  It's
the will o' Them above as a many things should be dark to us; but
there's some things as I've never felt i' the dark about, and
they're mostly what comes i' the day's work.  You were hard done by
that once, Master Marner, and it seems as you'll never know the
rights of it; but that doesn't hinder there _being_ a rights, Master
Marner, for all it's dark to you and me."

"No," said Silas, "no; that doesn't hinder.  Since the time the
child was sent to me and I've come to love her as myself, I've had
light enough to trusten by; and now she says she'll never leave me,
I think I shall trusten till I die."

Conclusion

There was one time of the year which was held in Raveloe to be
especially suitable for a wedding.  It was when the great lilacs and
laburnums in the old-fashioned gardens showed their golden and
purple wealth above the lichen-tinted walls, and when there were
calves still young enough to want bucketfuls of fragrant milk.
People were not so busy then as they must become when the full
cheese-making and the mowing had set in; and besides, it was a time
when a light bridal dress could be worn with comfort and seen to
advantage.

Happily the sunshine fell more warmly than usual on the lilac tufts
the morning that Eppie was married, for her dress was a very light
one.  She had often thought, though with a feeling of renunciation,
that the perfection of a wedding-dress would be a white cotton, with
the tiniest pink sprig at wide intervals; so that when Mrs. Godfrey
Cass begged to provide one, and asked Eppie to choose what it should
be, previous meditation had enabled her to give a decided answer at
once.

Seen at a little distance as she walked across the churchyard and
down the village, she seemed to be attired in pure white, and her
hair looked like the dash of gold on a lily.  One hand was on her
husband's arm, and with the other she clasped the hand of her father
Silas.

"You won't be giving me away, father," she had said before they
went to church; "you'll only be taking Aaron to be a son to you."

Dolly Winthrop walked behind with her husband; and there ended the
little bridal procession.

There were many eyes to look at it, and Miss Priscilla Lammeter was
glad that she and her father had happened to drive up to the door of
the Red House just in time to see this pretty sight.  They had come
to keep Nancy company to-day, because Mr. Cass had had to go away to
Lytherley, for special reasons.  That seemed to be a pity, for
otherwise he might have gone, as Mr. Crackenthorp and Mr. Osgood
certainly would, to look on at the wedding-feast which he had
ordered at the Rainbow, naturally feeling a great interest in the
weaver who had been wronged by one of his own family.

"I could ha' wished Nancy had had the luck to find a child like
that and bring her up," said Priscilla to her father, as they sat
in the gig; "I should ha' had something young to think of then,
besides the lambs and the calves."

"Yes, my dear, yes," said Mr. Lammeter; "one feels that as one
gets older.  Things look dim to old folks: they'd need have some
young eyes about 'em, to let 'em know the world's the same as it
used to be."

Nancy came out now to welcome her father and sister; and the wedding
group had passed on beyond the Red House to the humbler part of the
village.

Dolly Winthrop was the first to divine that old Mr. Macey, who had
been set in his arm-chair outside his own door, would expect some
special notice as they passed, since he was too old to be at the
wedding-feast.

"Mr. Macey's looking for a word from us," said Dolly; "he'll be
hurt if we pass him and say nothing--and him so racked with
rheumatiz."

So they turned aside to shake hands with the old man.  He had looked
forward to the occasion, and had his premeditated speech.

"Well, Master Marner," he said, in a voice that quavered a good
deal, "I've lived to see my words come true.  I was the first to
say there was no harm in you, though your looks might be again' you;
and I was the first to say you'd get your money back.  And it's
nothing but rightful as you should.  And I'd ha' said the "Amens",
and willing, at the holy matrimony; but Tookey's done it a good
while now, and I hope you'll have none the worse luck."

In the open yard before the Rainbow the party of guests were already
assembled, though it was still nearly an hour before the appointed
feast time.  But by this means they could not only enjoy the slow
advent of their pleasure; they had also ample leisure to talk of
Silas Marner's strange history, and arrive by due degrees at the
conclusion that he had brought a blessing on himself by acting like
a father to a lone motherless child.  Even the farrier did not
negative this sentiment: on the contrary, he took it up as
peculiarly his own, and invited any hardy person present to
contradict him.  But he met with no contradiction; and all
differences among the company were merged in a general agreement
with Mr. Snell's sentiment, that when a man had deserved his good
luck, it was the part of his neighbours to wish him joy.

As the bridal group approached, a hearty cheer was raised in the
Rainbow yard; and Ben Winthrop, whose jokes had retained their
acceptable flavour, found it agreeable to turn in there and receive
congratulations; not requiring the proposed interval of quiet at the
Stone-pits before joining the company.

Eppie had a larger garden than she had ever expected there now; and
in other ways there had been alterations at the expense of Mr. Cass,
the landlord, to suit Silas's larger family.  For he and Eppie had
declared that they would rather stay at the Stone-pits than go to
any new home.  The garden was fenced with stones on two sides, but
in front there was an open fence, through which the flowers shone
with answering gladness, as the four united people came within sight
of them.

"O father," said Eppie, "what a pretty home ours is!  I think
nobody could be happier than we are."