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.



CHAPTER 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 the warm light, uttering no word, but looking round at the
company with his strange unearthly eyes. The long pipes gave a
simultaneous movement, like the antennae of startled insects, and
every man present, not excepting even the sceptical farrier, had an