beginning to sink; and it is often observable, that the older a man
gets, the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing
conception of his own death. This influence of habit was
necessarily strong in a man whose life was so monotonous as Marner's--
who saw no new people and heard of no new events to keep alive in
him the idea of the unexpected and the changeful; and it explains
simply enough, why his mind could be at ease, though he had left his
house and his treasure more defenceless than usual. Silas was
thinking with double complacency of his supper: first, because it
would be hot and savoury; and secondly, because it would cost him
nothing. For the little bit of pork was a present from that
excellent housewife, Miss Priscilla Lammeter, to whom he had this
day carried home a handsome piece of linen; and it was only on
occasion of a present like this, that Silas indulged himself with
roast-meat. Supper was his favourite meal, because it came at his
time of revelry, when his heart warmed over his gold; whenever he
had roast-meat, he always chose to have it for supper. But this
evening, he had no sooner ingeniously knotted his string fast round
his bit of pork, twisted the string according to rule over his
door-key, passed it through the handle, and made it fast on the
hanger, than he remembered that a piece of very fine twine was
indispensable to his "setting up" a new piece of work in his loom
early in the morning. It had slipped his memory, because, in coming
from Mr. Lammeter's, he had not had to pass through the village; but
to lose time by going on errands in the morning was out of the
question. It was a nasty fog to turn out into, but there were
things Silas loved better than his own comfort; so, drawing his pork
to the extremity of the hanger, and arming himself with his lantern
and his old sack, he set out on what, in ordinary weather, would
have been a twenty minutes' errand. He could not have locked his