door without undoing his well-knotted string and retarding his
supper; it was not worth his while to make that sacrifice. What
thief would find his way to the Stone-pits on such a night as this?
and why should he come on this particular night, when he had never
come through all the fifteen years before? These questions were not
distinctly present in Silas's mind; they merely serve to represent
the vaguely-felt foundation of his freedom from anxiety.

He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done:
he opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as
he had left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of
heat. He trod about the floor while putting by his lantern and
throwing aside his hat and sack, so as to merge the marks of
Dunstan's feet on the sand in the marks of his own nailed boots.
Then he moved his pork nearer to the fire, and sat down to the
agreeable business of tending the meat and warming himself at the
same time.

Any one who had looked at him as the red light shone upon his pale
face, strange straining eyes, and meagre form, would perhaps have
understood the mixture of contemptuous pity, dread, and suspicion
with which he was regarded by his neighbours in Raveloe. Yet few
men could be more harmless than poor Marner. In his truthful simple
soul, not even the growing greed and worship of gold could beget any
vice directly injurious to others. The light of his faith quite put
out, and his affections made desolate, he had clung with all the
force of his nature to his work and his money; and like all objects
to which a man devotes himself, they had fashioned him into
correspondence with themselves. His loom, as he wrought in it
without ceasing, had in its turn wrought on him, and confirmed more