rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than
without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we
detect the smallest sign of the bud.

The slight suspicion with which his hearers at first listened to
him, gradually melted away before the convincing simplicity of his
distress: it was impossible for the neighbours to doubt that Marner
was telling the truth, not because they were capable of arguing at
once from the nature of his statements to the absence of any motive
for making them falsely, but because, as Mr. Macey observed, "Folks
as had the devil to back 'em were not likely to be so mushed" as
poor Silas was. Rather, from the strange fact that the robber had
left no traces, and had happened to know the nick of time, utterly
incalculable by mortal agents, when Silas would go away from home
without locking his door, the more probable conclusion seemed to be,
that his disreputable intimacy in that quarter, if it ever existed,
had been broken up, and that, in consequence, this ill turn had been
done to Marner by somebody it was quite in vain to set the constable
after. Why this preternatural felon should be obliged to wait till
the door was left unlocked, was a question which did not present
itself.

"It isn't Jem Rodney as has done this work, Master Marner," said
the landlord. "You mustn't be a-casting your eye at poor Jem.
There may be a bit of a reckoning against Jem for the matter of a
hare or so, if anybody was bound to keep their eyes staring open,
and niver to wink; but Jem's been a-sitting here drinking his can,
like the decentest man i' the parish, since before you left your
house, Master Marner, by your own account."