PART ONE
12. CHAPTER XII
(continued)
But the complete torpor came at last: the fingers lost their
tension, the arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the
bosom, and the blue eyes opened wide on the cold starlight. At
first there was a little peevish cry of "mammy", and an effort to
regain the pillowing arm and bosom; but mammy's ear was deaf, and
the pillow seemed to be slipping away backward. Suddenly, as the
child rolled downward on its mother's knees, all wet with snow, its
eyes were caught by a bright glancing light on the white ground,
and, with the ready transition of infancy, it was immediately
absorbed in watching the bright living thing running towards it, yet
never arriving. That bright living thing must be caught; and in an
instant the child had slipped on all-fours, and held out one little
hand to catch the gleam. But the gleam would not be caught in that
way, and now the head was held up to see where the cunning gleam
came from. It came from a very bright place; and the little one,
rising on its legs, toddled through the snow, the old grimy shawl in
which it was wrapped trailing behind it, and the queer little bonnet
dangling at its back--toddled on to the open door of Silas
Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where there was a
bright fire of logs and sticks, which had thoroughly warmed the old
sack (Silas's greatcoat) spread out on the bricks to dry. The
little one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without
notice from its mother, squatted down on the sack, and spread its
tiny hands towards the blaze, in perfect contentment, gurgling and
making many inarticulate communications to the cheerful fire, like a
new-hatched gosling beginning to find itself comfortable. But
presently the warmth had a lulling effect, and the little golden
head sank down on the old sack, and the blue eyes were veiled by
their delicate half-transparent lids.
But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to
his hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child.
During the last few weeks, since he had lost his money, he had
contracted the habit of opening his door and looking out from time
to time, as if he thought that his money might be somehow coming
back to him, or that some trace, some news of it, might be
mysteriously on the road, and be caught by the listening ear or the
straining eye. It was chiefly at night, when he was not occupied in
his loom, that he fell into this repetition of an act for which he
could have assigned no definite purpose, and which can hardly be
understood except by those who have undergone a bewildering
separation from a supremely loved object. In the evening twilight,
and later whenever the night was not dark, Silas looked out on that
narrow prospect round the Stone-pits, listening and gazing, not with
hope, but with mere yearning and unrest.
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