Silas Marner by George Eliot (free children's online books .txt) 📕

“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 countryside, 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 wagons, 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