Silas Marner George Eliot (christmas read aloud .TXT) 📖

for he got as he couldn’t sleep; and there he’d stand, cracking his whip and looking at his hosses; and they said it was a mercy as the stables didn’t get burnt down wi’ the poor dumb creaturs in ’em. But at last he died raving, and they found as he’d left all his property, Warrens and all, to a Lunnon Charity, and that’s how the Warrens come to be Charity Land; though, as for the stables, Mr. Lammeter never uses ’em⁠—they’re out o’ all charicter⁠—lor bless you! if you was to set the doors a-banging in ’em, it ’ud sound like thunder half o’er the parish.”

“Aye, but there’s more going on in the stables than what folks see by daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?” said the landlord.

“Aye, aye; go that way of a dark night, that’s all,” said Mr. Macey, winking mysteriously, “and then make believe, if you like, as you didn’t see lights i’ the stables, nor hear the stamping o’ the hosses, nor the cracking o’ the whips, and howling, too, if it’s tow’rt daybreak. ‘Cliff’s Holiday’ has been the name of it ever sin’ I were a boy; that’s to say, some said as it was the holiday Old Harry gev him from roasting, like. That’s what my father told me, and he was a reasonable man, though there’s folks nowadays know what happened afore they were born better nor they know their own business.”

“What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas?” said the landlord, turning to the farrier, who was swelling with impatience for his cue. “There’s a nut for you to crack.”

Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the company, and was proud of his position.

“Say? I say what a man should say as doesn’t shut his eyes to look at a finger-post. I say, as I’m ready to wager any man ten pound, if he’ll stand out wi’ me any dry night in the pasture before the Warren stables, as we shall neither see lights nor hear noises, if it isn’t the blowing of our own noses. That’s what I say, and I’ve said it many a time; but there’s nobody ’ull ventur a ten-pun’ note on their ghos’es as they make so sure of.”

“Why, Dowlas, that’s easy betting, that is,” said Ben Winthrop. “You might as well bet a man as he wouldn’t catch the rheumatise if he stood up to ’s neck in the pool of a frosty night. It ’ud be fine fun for a man to win his bet as he’d catch the rheumatise. Folks as believe in Cliff’s Holiday aren’t agoing to ventur near it for a matter o’ ten pound.”

“If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth on it,” said Mr. Macey, with a sarcastic smile, tapping his thumbs together, “he’s no call to lay any bet⁠—let him go and stan’ by himself⁠—there’s nobody ’ull hinder him; and then he can let the parish’ners know if they’re wrong.”

“Thank you! I’m obliged to you,” said the farrier, with a snort of scorn. “If folks are fools, it’s no business o’ mine. I don’t want to make out the truth about ghos’es: I know it a’ready. But I’m not against a bet⁠—everything fair and open. Let any man bet me ten pound as I shall see Cliff’s Holiday, and I’ll go and stand by myself. I want no company. I’d as lief do it as I’d fill this pipe.”

“Ah, but who’s to watch you, Dowlas, and see you do it? That’s no fair bet,” said the butcher.

“No fair bet?” replied Mr. Dowlas, angrily. “I should like to hear any man stand up and say I want to bet unfair. Come now, Master Lundy, I should like to hear you say it.”

“Very like you would,” said the butcher. “But it’s no business o’ mine. You’re none o’ my bargains, and I aren’t a-going to try and ’bate your price. If anybody’ll bid for you at your own vallying, let him. I’m for peace and quietness, I am.”

“Yes, that’s what every yapping cur is, when you hold a stick up at him,” said the farrier. “But I’m afraid o’ neither man nor ghost, and I’m ready to lay a fair bet. I aren’t a turn-tail cur.”

“Aye, but there’s this in it, Dowlas,” said the landlord, speaking in a tone of much candour and tolerance. “There’s folks, i’ my opinion, they can’t see ghos’es, not if they stood as plain as a pikestaff before ’em. And there’s reason i’ that. For there’s my wife, now, can’t smell, not if she’d the strongest o’ cheese under her nose. I never see’d a ghost myself; but then I says to myself, ‘Very like I haven’t got the smell for ’em.’ I mean, putting a ghost for a smell, or else contrairiways. And so, I’m for holding with both sides; for, as I say, the truth lies between ’em. And if Dowlas was to go and stand, and say he’d never seen a wink o’ Cliff’s Holiday all the night through, I’d back him; and if anybody said as Cliff’s Holiday was certain sure, for all that, I’d back him too. For the smell’s what I go by.”

The landlord’s analogical argument was not well received by the farrier⁠—a man intensely opposed to compromise.

“Tut, tut,” he said, setting down his glass with refreshed irritation; “what’s the smell got to do with it? Did ever a ghost give a man a black eye? That’s what I should like to know. If ghos’es want me to believe in ’em, let ’em leave off skulking i’ the dark and i’ lone places⁠—let ’em come where there’s company and candles.”

“As if ghos’es ’ud want to be believed in by anybody so ignirant!” said Mr. Macey, in deep disgust at the farrier’s crass incompetence to apprehend the conditions of ghostly phenomena.

VII

Yet the next moment there seemed to be some evidence that ghosts had a more condescending disposition than Mr. Macey attributed to them; for the pale thin figure of Silas Marner was suddenly seen standing in