Silas Marner: Betrayed by a beloved friend and accused of a crime he didn’t commit, awkward Silas Marner is expelled from his beloved religious community — the only community he has ever known. He exiles himself in the remote village of Raveloe. Friendless and without family, set apart from the villagers by their superstition and fear of him, he plies his weaving trade day after day, storing up gold which becomes his idol. When his gold is stolen, he is rescued from despair by the arrival on his lonely hearth of a beautiful little girl, whom he adopts, and through whom he and the other people of the village learn that loving relationships are more fulfilling than material wealth.
y the evening darkness, was more of a screen
than he desired, for it hid the ruts into which his feet were liable to
slip—hid everything, so that he had to guide his steps by dragging his
whip along the low bushes in advance of the hedgerow. He must soon, he
thought, be getting near the opening at the Stone-pits: he should find
it out by the break in the hedgerow. He found it out, however, by
another circumstance which he had not expected—namely, by certain
gleams of light, which he presently guessed to proceed from Silas
Marner's cottage. That cottage and the money hidden within it had been
in his mind continually during his walk, and he had been imagining ways
of cajoling and tempting the weaver to part with the immediate
possession of his money for the sake of receiving interest. Dunstan
felt as if there must be a little frightening added to the cajolery,
for his own arithmetical convictions were not clear enough to afford
him any forcible demonstration as to the advantages of interest; and as
for security, he regarded it vaguely as a means of cheating a man by
making him believe that he would be paid. Altogether, the operation on
the miser's mind was a task that Godfrey would be sure to hand over to
his more daring and cunning brother: Dunstan had made up his mind to
that; and by the time he saw the light gleaming through the chinks of
Marner's shutters, the idea of a dialogue with the weaver had become so
familiar to him, that it occurred to him as quite a natural thing to
make the acquaintance forthwith. There might be several conveniences
attending this course: the weaver had possibly got a lantern, and
Dunstan was tired of feeling his way. He was still nearly
three-quarters of a mile from home, and the lane was becoming
unpleasantly slippery, for the mist was passing into rain. He turned up
the bank, not without some fear lest he might miss the right way, since
he was not certain whether the light were in front o