author - "George Eliot"
Good evening."
Adam hastened with long strides, Gyp close to his heels, out of theworkyard, and along the highroad leading away from the village and downto the valley. As he reached the foot of the slope, an elderly horseman,with his portmanteau strapped behind him, stopped his horse when Adamhad passed him, and turned round to have another long look at thestalwart workman in paper cap, leather breeches, and dark-blue worstedstockings.
Adam, unconscious of the admiration he was exciting, presently struckacross the fields, and now broke out into the tune which had all daylong been running in his head:
Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear;
For God's all-seeing eye surveys
Thy secret thoughts, thy works and ways.
Chapter II
The Preaching
About a quarter to seven there was an unusual appearance of excitementin the village of Hayslope, and through the whole length of itslittle street, from the
afore two hourstogether passes my cunning. An' now you put me i' mind," continuedMrs. Tulliver, rising and going to the window, "I don't know where sheis now, an' it's pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I thought so,--wanderin' upan' down by the water, like a wild thing: She'll tumble in some day."
Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook herhead,--a process which she repeated more than once before she returnedto her chair.
"You talk o' 'cuteness, Mr. Tulliver," she observed as she sat down,"but I'm sure the child's half an idiot i' some things; for if I sendher upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she's gone for, an'perhaps 'ull sit down on the floor i' the sunshine an' plait her hairan' sing to herself like a Bedlam creatur', all the while I'm waitingfor her downstairs. That niver run i' my family, thank God! no morenor a brown skin as makes her look like a mulatter. I don't like tofly i' the face o' Providence, but it seems hard as I should have butone gell, an' her s
th five brilliants in it. Dorothea immediately took up the necklace and fastened it round her sister's neck, where it fitted almost as closely as a bracelet; but the circle suited the Henrietta-Maria style of Celia's head and neck, and she could see that it did, in the pier-glass opposite.
"There, Celia! you can wear that with your Indian muslin. But this cross you must wear with your dark dresses."
Celia was trying not to smile with pleasure. "O Dodo, you must keep the cross yourself."
"No, no, dear, no," said Dorothea, putting up her hand with careless deprecation.
"Yes, indeed you must; it would suit you--in your black dress, now," said Celia, insistingly. "You might wear that."
"Not for the world, not for the world. A cross is the last thing I would wear as a trinket." Dorothea shuddered slightly.
"Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it," said Celia, uneasily.
"No, dear, no," said Dorothea, stroking her sister's cheek. "Souls have complexio
o 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
Good evening."
Adam hastened with long strides, Gyp close to his heels, out of theworkyard, and along the highroad leading away from the village and downto the valley. As he reached the foot of the slope, an elderly horseman,with his portmanteau strapped behind him, stopped his horse when Adamhad passed him, and turned round to have another long look at thestalwart workman in paper cap, leather breeches, and dark-blue worstedstockings.
Adam, unconscious of the admiration he was exciting, presently struckacross the fields, and now broke out into the tune which had all daylong been running in his head:
Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear;
For God's all-seeing eye surveys
Thy secret thoughts, thy works and ways.
Chapter II
The Preaching
About a quarter to seven there was an unusual appearance of excitementin the village of Hayslope, and through the whole length of itslittle street, from the
afore two hourstogether passes my cunning. An' now you put me i' mind," continuedMrs. Tulliver, rising and going to the window, "I don't know where sheis now, an' it's pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I thought so,--wanderin' upan' down by the water, like a wild thing: She'll tumble in some day."
Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook herhead,--a process which she repeated more than once before she returnedto her chair.
"You talk o' 'cuteness, Mr. Tulliver," she observed as she sat down,"but I'm sure the child's half an idiot i' some things; for if I sendher upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she's gone for, an'perhaps 'ull sit down on the floor i' the sunshine an' plait her hairan' sing to herself like a Bedlam creatur', all the while I'm waitingfor her downstairs. That niver run i' my family, thank God! no morenor a brown skin as makes her look like a mulatter. I don't like tofly i' the face o' Providence, but it seems hard as I should have butone gell, an' her s
th five brilliants in it. Dorothea immediately took up the necklace and fastened it round her sister's neck, where it fitted almost as closely as a bracelet; but the circle suited the Henrietta-Maria style of Celia's head and neck, and she could see that it did, in the pier-glass opposite.
"There, Celia! you can wear that with your Indian muslin. But this cross you must wear with your dark dresses."
Celia was trying not to smile with pleasure. "O Dodo, you must keep the cross yourself."
"No, no, dear, no," said Dorothea, putting up her hand with careless deprecation.
"Yes, indeed you must; it would suit you--in your black dress, now," said Celia, insistingly. "You might wear that."
"Not for the world, not for the world. A cross is the last thing I would wear as a trinket." Dorothea shuddered slightly.
"Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it," said Celia, uneasily.
"No, dear, no," said Dorothea, stroking her sister's cheek. "Souls have complexio
o 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