SILAS MARNER

The Weaver of Raveloe

by George Eliot
(Mary Anne Evans)


1861


"A child, more than all other gifts
That earth can offer to declining man,
Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts."
--WORDSWORTH.




PART ONE

CHAPTER I


In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses--
and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their
toy spinning-wheels of polished oak--there might be seen in
districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the
hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny
country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. The