George Eliot

Silas Marner George Eliot

In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses-and evengreat ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polishedoak-there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of thehills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, lookedlike the remnants of a disinherited race. The shepherd's dog barked fiercely when one ofthese alien-looking men appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; forwhat dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag?-and these pale men rarely stirred abroadwithout that mysterious burden. The shepherd himself, though he had good reason tobelieve that the bag held nothing but flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong linenspun from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weaving, indispensable thoughit was, could be carried on entirely without the help of the Evil One. In that far-off timesuperstition clung easily round every person or thing that was at all unwonted, or evenintermittent and occasional merely, like the visits of the pedlar or the knife-grinder. No oneknew where wandering men had their homes or their origin; and how was a man to beexplained unless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother? To thepeasants of old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region ofvagueness and mystery: to their untravelled thought a state of wandering was a conceptionas dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back with the spring; and even a settler, if he came from distant parts, hardly ever ceased to be viewed with a remnant of distrust, which would have prevented any surprise if a long course of inoffensive conduct on hispart had ended in the commission of a crime; especially if he had any reputation forknowledge, or showed any skill in handicraft. All cleverness, whether in the rapid use ofthat difficult instrument the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to villagers, was initself suspicious: honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly not overwiseor clever-at least, not beyond such a matter as knowing the signs of the weather; and theprocess by which rapidity and dexterity of any kind were acquired was so wholly hidden, that they partook of the nature of conjuring. In this way it came to pass that those scatteredlinen-weavers-emigrants from the town into the country-were to the last regarded asaliens by their rustic neighbours, and usually contracted the eccentric habits which belongto a state of loneline