Silas Marner

George Eliot

Description

Silas Marner is accused of stealing funds from his small Christian congregation. Presumed guilty by his community and rejected by the woman he loves, Silas leaves and lives as a recluse near Raveloe village. He takes refuge only in working and attaining wealth, until his precious gold is stolen from him. But a child, her mother found dead in the snow, is thrust into his life, changing it completely. Ultimately, Silas Marner is a redeeming story of love and loyalty.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775416173
• Langue: English

Extrait

SILAS MARNER
THE WEAVER OF RAVELOE
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GEORGE ELIOT
 
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Silas Marner The Weaver of Raveloe First published in 1861.
ISBN 978-1-775416-17-3
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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PART ONE Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV PART TWO Chapter XVI Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Conclusion.
 
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"A child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts." —WORDSWORTH.
PART ONE
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Chapter I
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In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses—and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had theirtoy spinning-wheels of polished oak—there might be seen indistricts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of thehills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawnycountry-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. Theshepherd's dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking menappeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; forwhat dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag?—and these palemen rarely stirred abroad without that mysterious burden. Theshepherd himself, though he had good reason to believe that the bagheld nothing but flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of stronglinen spun from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade ofweaving, indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirelywithout the help of the Evil One. In that far-off time superstitionclung easily round every person or thing that was at all unwonted,or even intermittent and occasional merely, like the visits of thepedlar or the knife-grinder. No one knew where wandering men hadtheir homes or their origin; and how was a man to be explainedunless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother?To the peasants of old times, the world outside their own directexperience was a region of vagueness and mystery: to theiruntravelled thought a state of wandering was a conception as dim asthe winter life of the swallows that came back with the spring; andeven a settler, if he came from distant parts, hardly ever ceased tobe viewed with a remnant of distrust, which would have prevented anysurprise if a long course of inoffensive conduct on his part hadended in the commission of a crime; especially if he had anyreputation for knowledge, or showed any skill in handicraft. Allcleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrumentthe tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to villagers, was initself suspicious: honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner,were mostly not overwise or clever—at least, not beyond such amatter as knowing the signs of the weather; and the process by whichrapidity and dexterity of any kind were acquired was so whollyhidden, that they partook of the nature of conjuring. In this wayit came to pass that those scattered linen-weavers—emigrants fromthe town into the country—were to the last regarded as aliens bytheir rustic neighbours, and usually contracted the eccentric habitswhich belong to a state of loneliness.
In the early years of this century, such a linen-weaver, named SilasMarner, worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood amongthe nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far fromthe edge of a deserted stone-pit. The questionable sound of Silas'sloom, so unlike the natural cheerful trotting of thewinnowing-machine, or the simpler rhythm of the flail, had ahalf-fearful fascination for the Raveloe boys, who would often leaveoff their nutting or birds'-nesting to peep in at the window of thestone cottage, counterbalancing a certain awe at the mysteriousaction of the loom, by a pleasant sense of scornful superiority,drawn from the mockery of its alternating noises, along with thebent, tread-mill attitude of the weaver. But sometimes it happenedthat Marner, pausing to adjust an irregularity in his thread, becameaware of the small scoundrels, and, though chary of his time, heliked their intrusion so ill that he would descend from his loom,and, opening the door, would fix on them a gaze that was alwaysenough to make them take to their legs in terror. For how was itpossible to believe that those large brown protuberant eyes in SilasMarner's pale face really saw nothing very distinctly that was notclose to them, and not rather that their dreadful stare could dartcramp, or rickets, or a wry mouth at any boy who happened to be inthe rear? They had, perhaps, heard their fathers and mothers hintthat Silas Marner could cure folks' rheumatism if he had a mind, andadd, still more darkly, that if you could only speak the devil fairenough, he might save you the cost of the doctor. Such strangelingering echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps even now becaught by the diligent listener among the grey-haired peasantry; forthe rude mind with difficulty associates the ideas of power andbenignity. A shadowy conception of power that by much persuasioncan be induced to refrain from inflicting harm, is the shape mosteasily taken by the sense of the Invisible in the minds of men whohave always been pressed close by primitive wants, and to whom alife of hard toil has never been illuminated by any enthusiasticreligious faith. To them pain and mishap present a far wider rangeof possibilities than gladness and enjoyment: their imagination isalmost barren of the images that feed desire and hope, but is allovergrown by recollections that are a perpetual pasture to fear."Is there anything you can fancy that you would like to eat?" Ionce said to an old labouring man, who was in his last illness, andwho had refused all the food his wife had offered him. "No," heanswered, "I've never been used to nothing but common victual, andI can't eat that." Experience had bred no fancies in him thatcould raise the phantasm of appetite.
And Raveloe was a village where many of the old echoes lingered,undrowned by new voices. Not that it was one of those barrenparishes lying on the outskirts of civilization—inhabited bymeagre sheep and thinly-scattered shepherds: on the contrary, it layin the rich central plain of what we are pleased to call MerryEngland, and held farms which, speaking from a spiritual point ofview, paid highly-desirable tithes. But it was nestled in a snugwell-wooded hollow, quite an hour's journey on horseback from anyturnpike, where it was never reached by the vibrations of thecoach-horn, or of public opinion. It was an important-lookingvillage, with a fine old church and large churchyard in the heart ofit, and two or three large brick-and-stone homesteads, withwell-walled orchards and ornamental weathercocks, standing closeupon the road, and lifting more imposing fronts than the rectory,which peeped from among the trees on the other side of thechurchyard:—a village which showed at once the summits of itssocial life, and told the practised eye that there was no great parkand manor-house in the vicinity, but that there were several chiefsin Raveloe who could farm badly quite at their ease, drawing enoughmoney from their bad farming, in those war times, to live in arollicking fashion, and keep a jolly Christmas, Whitsun, and Eastertide.
It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe;he was then simply a pallid young man, with prominent short-sightedbrown eyes, whose appearance would have had nothing strange forpeople of average culture and experience, but for the villagers nearwhom he had come to settle it had mysterious peculiarities whichcorresponded with the exceptional nature of his occupation, and hisadvent from an unknown region called "North'ard". So had his wayof life:—he invited no comer to step across his door-sill, and henever strolled into the village to drink a pint at the Rainbow, orto gossip at the wheelwright's: he sought no man or woman, save forthe purposes of his calling, or in order to supply himself withnecessaries; and it was soon clear to the Raveloe lasses that hewould never urge one of them to accept him against her will—quiteas if he had heard them declare that they would never marry a deadman come to life again. This view of Marner's personality was notwithout another ground than his pale face and unexampled eyes; forJem Rodney, the mole-catcher, averred that one evening as he wasreturning homeward, he saw Silas Marner leaning against a stile witha heavy bag on his back, instead of resting the bag on the stile asa man in his senses would have done; and that, on coming up to him,he saw that Marner's eyes were set like a dead man's, and he spoketo him, and shook him, and his limbs were stiff, and his handsclutched the bag as if they'd been made of iron; but just as he hadmade up his mind that the weaver was dead, he came all right again,like, as you might say, in the winking of an eye, and said"Good-night", and walked off. All this Jem swore he had seen,more by token that it was the very day he had been mole-catching onSquire Cass's land, down by the old saw-pit. Some said Marner musthave been in a "fit", a word which seemed to explain thingsotherwise incredible; but the argumentative Mr. Macey, clerk of theparish, shook his head, and asked if anybody was ever known to gooff in a fit and not fall down. A fit was a stroke, wasn't it? andit was in the nature of a stroke to partly take away the use of aman's l