their own business.'
'What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas?' said the landlord, turning to the farrier, who was swelling with impatience for his cue. 'There's a nut for you to crack.'
Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the company, and was proud of his position.
'Say? I say what a man should say as doesn't shut his eyes to look at a finger-post. I say, as I'm ready to wager any man ten pound, if he'll stand out wi' me any dry night in the pasture before the Warren stables, as we shall neither see lights nor hear noises, if it isn't the blowing of our own noses. That's what I say, and I've said it many a time; but there's nobody 'ull ventur a ten-pun' note on their ghos'es as they make so sure of.'
'Why, Dowlas, that's easy betting, that is,' said Ben Winthrop. 'You might as well bet a man as he wouldn't catch the rheumatise if he stood up to 's neck in the pool of a frosty night. It 'ud be fine fun for a man to win his bet as he'd catch the rheumatise. Folks as believe in Cliff's Holiday aren't agoing to ventur near it for a matter o' ten pound.'
'If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth on it,' said Mr. Macey, with a sarcastic smile, tapping his thumbs together, 'he's no call to lay any bet--let him go and stan' by himself--there's nobody 'ull hinder him; and then he can let the parish'ners know if they're wrong.'
'Thank you! I'm obliged to you,' said the farrier, with a snort of scorn. 'If folks are fools, it's no business o' mine. I don't want to make out the truth about ghos'es: I know it a'ready. But I'm not against a bet--everything fair and open. Let any man bet me ten pound as I shall see Cliff's Holiday, and I'll go and stand by myself. I want no company. I'd as lief do it as I'd fill this pipe.'
'Ah, but who's to watch you, Dowlas, and see you do it? That's no fair bet,' said the butcher.
'No fair bet?' replied Mr. Dowlas, angrily. 'I should like to hear any man stand up and say I want to bet unfair. Come now, Master Lundy, I should like to hear you say it.'
'Very like you would,' said the butcher. 'But it's no business o' mine. You're none o' my bargains, and I aren't a-going to try and 'bate your price. If anybody 'll bid for you at your own vallying, let him. I'm for peace and quietness, I am.'
'Yes, that's what every yapping cur is, when you hold a stick up at him,' said the farrier. 'But I'm afraid o' neither man nor ghost, and I'm ready to lay a fair bet. I aren't a turn-tail cur.'
'Aye, but there's this in it, Dowlas,' said the landlord, speaking in a tone of much candour and tolerance. 'There's folks, i' my opinion, they can't see ghos'es, not if they stood as plain as a pike-staff before 'em. And there's reason i' that. For there's my wife, now, can't smell, not if she'd the strongest o' cheese under her nose. I never see'd a ghost myself; but then I says to myself, 'Very like I haven't got the smell for 'em.' I mean, putting a ghost for a smell, or else contrairiways.
And so, I'm for holding with both sides; for, as I say, the truth lies between 'em.
And if 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 7
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 impression that he saw, not Silas Marner in the flesh, but an apparition; for the door by which Silas had entered was hidden by the high-screened seats, and no one had noticed his approach. Mr. Macey, sitting a long way off the ghost, might be supposed to have felt an argumentative triumph, which would tend to neutralize his share of the general alarm. Had he not always said that when Silas Marner was in that strange trance of his, his soul went loose from his body? Here was the demonstration: nevertheless, on the whole, he would have been as well contented without it. For a few moments there was a dead silence, Marner's want of breath and agitation not allowing him to speak. The landlord, under the habitual sense that he was bound to keep his house open to all company, and confident in the protection of his unbroken neutrality, at last took on himself the task of adjuring the ghost.
'Master Marner,' he said, in a conciliatory tone, 'what's lacking to you? What's your business here?'
'Robbed!' said Silas, gaspingly. 'I've been robbed! I want the constable--and the Justice--and Squire Cass--and Mr. Crackenthorp.'
'Lay hold on him, Jem Rodney,' said the landlord, the idea of a ghost subsiding;
'he's off his head, I doubt. He's wet through.'
Jem Rodney was the outermost man, and sat conveniently near Marner's standing-place; but he declined to give his services.
'Come and lay hold on him yourself, Mr. Snell, if you've a mind,' said Jem, rather sullenly. 'He's been robbed, and murdered too, for what I know,' he added, in a muttering tone.
'Jem Rodney!' said Silas, turning and fixing his strange eyes on the suspected man.
'Aye, Master Marner, what do you want wi' me?' said Jem, trembling a little, and seizing his drinking-can as a defensive weapon.
'If it was you stole my money,' said Silas, clasping his hands entreatingly, and raising his voice to a cry, 'give it me back-- and I won't meddle with you. I won't set the constable on you. Give it me back, and I'll let you--I'll let you have a guinea.'
'Me stole your money!' said Jem, angrily. 'I'll pitch this can at your eye if you talk o' my stealing your money.'
'Come, come, Master Marner,' said the landlord, now rising resolutely, and seizing Marner by the shoulder, 'if
