to supply himself with necessaries; and it was soon clear to the Raveloe lasses that he would never urge one of them to accept him against her will quite as if he had heard them declare that they would never marry a dead man come to life again. This view of Marner's personality was not without another ground than his pale face and unexampled eyes; for Jem Rodney, the mole catcher, averred that, one evening as he was returning homeward, he saw Silas Marner leaning against a stile with a heavy bag on his back, instead of resting the bag on the stile, as a 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 spoke to him and shook him, and his limbs were stiff, and his hands clutched the bag as if they'd been made of iron; but just as he had made 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 on Squire Cass's land, down by the old saw pit. Some said Marner must have been in a "fit," a word which seemed to explain things otherwise incredible; but the argumentative Mr. Macey, clerk of the parish, shook his head, and asked if anybody was ever known to go off in a fit and not fall down. A fit was a stroke, wasn't it? and it was in the nature of a stroke to partly take away the use of a man's limbs, and throw him on the parish, if he'd got no children to look to. No, no; it was no stroke that would let a man stand on his legs, like a horse between the shafts, and then walk off as soon as you can say "Gee!" But there might be such. a thing as a man's soul being loose from his body, and going out and in, like a bird out of its nest and back; and that was how folks got overwise, for they went to school in this shell-less state to those who could teach them more than their neighbors could learn with their five senses and the parson. And where did Master Marner get his knowledge of herbs from and charms too, if he liked to give them away? Jem Rodney's story was no more than what might have been expected by anybody who had seen how Marner had cured Sally Oates, and made her sleep like a baby, when her heart had been beating enough to burst her body, for two months and more, while she had been under the doctor's care. He might cure more folks if he would; but he was worth speaking fair, if it was only to keep him from doing you a mischief. It was partly to this vague fear that Marner was indebted for protecting him from the persecution that his singularities might have drawn upon him, but still more to the fact that the old linen weaver in the neighboring parish of Tarley being dead, his handicraft made him a highly welcome settler to the richer housewives of the district, and even to the more provident cottagers, who had their little stock of yarn at the year's end; and their sense of his usefulness would have counteracted any repugnance or suspicion which was not confirmed by a deficiency in the quality or the tale of the cloth he wove for them. And the years had rolled on without producing any change in the impressions of the neighbors concerning Marner, except the change from novelty to habit. Н At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said just the same things about Silas Marner as at the beginning; they did not say them quite so often, but they believed them much more strongly when they did say them. There was only one important addition which the years. had brought; it was, that Master Marner had laid by a fine sight of money somewhere, and that he could buy up "bigger men" than himself. SONG OF THE SHIRT THOMAS HOOD NOTE TO THE PUPIL. - Thomas Hood was born in London in 1799. At the age of twenty he became associate editor of the London Magazine. Later he wrote for the New Monthly. He edited the Comic Annual, Hood's Own, and Hood's Magazine. He was an unequaled humorist, but he was more than that, — a poet of no mean ability. He died in 1845. And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch, Till the stars shine through the roof! It's oh! to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian work! "Work-work-work, Till the brain begins to swim! Till the eyes are heavy and dim ! "Oh! men, with sisters dear! Oh! men, with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives! In poverty, hunger, and dirt Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as a shirt. "But why do I talk of Death, Because of the fasts I keep; O God! that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap! "Work-work-work! My labor never flags; And what are its wages? A bed of straw, A crust of bread and rags. That shattered roof and this naked floor - A table a broken chair And a wall so blank my shadow I thank "Work-work-work! From weary chime to chime! Work-work - work, As prisoners work for crime! Band, and gusset, and seam, Seam, and gusset, and band, Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd, As well as the weary hand. When the weather is warm and bright While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling, As if to show me their sunny backs, "Oh but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet With the sky above my head And the grass beneath my feet! |