Chapter III

by George Eliot

　　The greatest man in Raveloe was Squire Cass, who lived in the largered house with the handsome flight of stone steps in front and thehigh stables behind it, nearly opposite the church. He was only oneamong several landed parishioners, but he alone was honoured withthe title of Squire; for though Mr. Osgood's family was alsounderstood to be of timeless origin--the Raveloe imaginationhaving never ventured back to that fearful blank when there were noOsgoods--still, he merely owned the farm he occupied; whereasSquire Cass had a tenant or two, who complained of the game to himquite as if he had been a lord.It was still that glorious war-time which was felt to be a peculiarfavour of Providence towards the landed interest, and the fall ofprices had not yet come to carry the race of small squires andyeomen down that road to ruin for which extravagant habits and badhusbandry were plentifully anointing their wheels. I am speakingnow in relation to Raveloe and the parishes that resembled it; forour old-fashioned country life had many different aspects, as alllife must have when it is spread over a various surface, andbreathed on variously by multitudinous currents, from the winds ofheaven to the thoughts of men, which are for ever moving andcrossing each other with incalculable results. Raveloe lay lowamong the bushy trees and the rutted lanes, aloof from the currentsof industrial energy and Puritan earnestness: the rich ate and drankfreely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriouslyin respectable families, and the poor thought that the rich wereentirely in the right of it to lead a jolly life; besides, theirfeasting caused a multiplication of orts, which were the heirloomsof the poor. Betty Jay scented the boiling of Squire Cass's hams,but her longing was arrested by the unctuous liquor in which theywere boiled; and when the seasons brought round the greatmerry-makings, they were regarded on all hands as a fine thing forthe poor. For the Raveloe feasts were like the rounds of beef andthe barrels of ale--they were on a large scale, and lasted a goodwhile, especially in the winter-time. After ladies had packed uptheir best gowns and top-knots in bandboxes, and had incurred therisk of fording streams on pillions with the precious burden inrainy or snowy weather, when there was no knowing how high the waterwould rise, it was not to be supposed that they looked forward to abrief pleasure. On this ground it was always contrived in the darkseasons, when there was little work to be done, and the hours werelong, that several neighbours should keep open house in succession.So soon as Squire Cass's standing dishes diminished in plenty andfreshness, his guests had nothing to do but to walk a little higherup the village to Mr. Osgood's, at the Orchards, and they found hamsand chines uncut, pork-pies with the scent of the fire in them, spunbutter in all its freshness--everything, in fact, that appetitesat leisure could desire, in perhaps greater perfection, though notin greater abundance, than at Squire Cass's.For the Squire's wife had died long ago, and the Red House waswithout that presence of the wife and mother which is the fountainof wholesome love and fear in parlour and kitchen; and this helpedto account not only for there being more profusion than finishedexcellence in the holiday provisions, but also for the frequencywith which the proud Squire condescended to preside in the parlourof the Rainbow rather than under the shadow of his own darkwainscot; perhaps, also, for the fact that his sons had turned outrather ill. Raveloe was not a place where moral censure was severe,but it was thought a weakness in the Squire that he had kept all hissons at home in idleness; and though some licence was to be allowedto young men whose fathers could afford it, people shook their headsat the courses of the second son, Dunstan, commonly called DunseyCass, whose taste for swopping and betting might turn out to be asowing of something worse than wild oats. To be sure, theneighbours said, it was no matter what became of Dunsey--aspiteful jeering fellow, who seemed to enjoy his drink the more whenother people went dry--always provided that his doings did notbring trouble on a family like Squire Cass's, with a monument in thechurch, and tankards older than King George. But it would be athousand pities if Mr. Godfrey, the eldest, a fine open-facedgood-natured young man who was to come into the land some day,should take to going along the same road with his brother, as he hadseemed to do of late. If he went on in that way, he would lose MissNancy Lammeter; for it was well known that she had looked very shylyon him ever since last Whitsuntide twelvemonth, when there was somuch talk about his being away from home days and days together.There was something wrong, more than common--that was quite clear;for Mr. Godfrey didn't look half so fresh-coloured and open as heused to do. At one time everybody was saying, What a handsomecouple he and Miss Nancy Lammeter would make! and if she could cometo be mistress at the Red House, there would be a fine change, forthe Lammeters had been brought up in that way, that they neversuffered a pinch of salt to be wasted, and yet everybody in theirhousehold had of the best, according to his place. Such adaughter-in-law would be a saving to the old Squire, if she neverbrought a penny to her fortune; for it was to be feared that,notwithstanding his incomings, there were more holes in his pocketthan the one where he put his own hand in. But if Mr. Godfreydidn't turn over a new leaf, he might say "Good-bye" to Miss NancyLammeter.It was the once hopeful Godfrey who was standing, with his hands inhis side-pockets and his back to the fire, in the dark wainscotedparlour, one late November afternoon in that fifteenth year of SilasMarner's life at Raveloe. The fading grey light fell dimly on thewalls decorated with guns, whips, and foxes' brushes, on coats andhats flung on the chairs, on tankards sending forth a scent of flatale, and on a half-choked fire, with pipes propped up in thechimney-corners: signs of a domestic life destitute of any hallowingcharm, with which the look of gloomy vexation on Godfrey's blondface was in sad accordance. He seemed to be waiting and listeningfor some one's approach, and presently the sound of a heavy step,with an accompanying whistle, was heard across the large emptyentrance-hall.The door opened, and a thick-set, heavy-looking young man entered,with the flushed face and the gratuitously elated bearing which markthe first stage of intoxication. It was Dunsey, and at the sight ofhim Godfrey's face parted with some of its gloom to take on the moreactive expression of hatred. The handsome brown spaniel that lay onthe hearth retreated under the chair in the chimney-corner."Well, Master Godfrey, what do you want with me?" said Dunsey, ina mocking tone. "You're my elders and betters, you know; I wasobliged to come when you sent for me.""Why, this is what I want--and just shake yourself sober andlisten, will you?" said Godfrey, savagely. He had himself beendrinking more than was good for him, trying to turn his gloom intouncalculating anger. "I want to tell you, I must hand over thatrent of Fowler's to the Squire, or else tell him I gave it you; forhe's threatening to distrain for it, and it'll all be out soon,whether I tell him or not. He said, just now, before he went out,he should send word to Cox to distrain, if Fowler didn't come andpay up his arrears this week. The Squire's short o' cash, and in nohumour to stand any nonsense; and you know what he threatened, ifever he found you making away with his money again. So, see and getthe money, and pretty quickly, will you?""Oh!" said Dunsey, sneeringly, coming nearer to his brother andlooking in his face. "Suppose, now, you get the money yourself,and save me the trouble, eh? Since you was so kind as to hand itover to me, you'll not refuse me the kindness to pay it back for me:it was your brotherly love made you do it, you know."Godfrey bit his lips and clenched his fist. "Don't come near mewith that look, else I'll knock you down.""Oh no, you won't," said Dunsey, turning away on his heel,however. "Because I'm such a good-natured brother, you know.I might get you turned out of house and home, and cut off with ashilling any day. I might tell the Squire how his handsome son wasmarried to that nice young woman, Molly Farren, and was very unhappybecause he couldn't live with his drunken wife, and I should slipinto your place as comfortable as could be. But you see, I don't doit--I'm so easy and good-natured. You'll take any trouble for me.You'll get the hundred pounds for me--I know you will.""How can I get the money?" said Godfrey, quivering. "I haven'ta shilling to bless myself with. And it's a lie that you'd slipinto my place: you'd get yourself turned out too, that's all. Forif you begin telling tales, I'll follow. Bob's my father'sfavourite--you know that very well. He'd only think himself wellrid of you.""Never mind," said Dunsey, nodding his head sideways as he lookedout of the window. "It 'ud be very pleasant to me to go in yourcompany--you're such a handsome brother, and we've always been sofond of quarrelling with one another, I shouldn't know what to dowithout you. But you'd like better for us both to stay at hometogether; I know you would. So you'll manage to get that little sumo' money, and I'll bid you good-bye, though I'm sorry to part."Dunstan was moving off, but Godfrey rushed after him and seized himby the arm, saying, with an oath--"I tell you, I have no money: I can get no money.""Borrow of old Kimble.""I tell you, he won't lend me any more, and I shan't ask him.""Well, then, sell Wildfire.""Yes, that's easy talking. I must have the money directly.""Well, you've only got to ride him to the hunt to-morrow. There'llbe Bryce and Keating there, for sure. You'll get more bids thanone.""I daresay, and get back home at eight o'clock, splashed up to thechin. I'm going to Mrs. Osgood's birthday dance.""Oho!" said Dunsey, turning his head on one side, and trying tospeak in a small mincing treble. "And there's sweet Miss Nancycoming; and we shall dance with her, and promise never to be naughtyagain, and be taken into favour, and --""Hold your tongue about Miss Nancy, you fool," said Godfrey,turning red, "else I'll throttle you.""What for?" said Dunsey, still in an artificial tone, but takinga whip from the table and beating the butt-end of it on his palm."You've a very good chance. I'd advise you to creep up her sleeveagain: it 'ud be saving time, if Molly should happen to take a droptoo much laudanum some day, and make a widower of you. Miss Nancywouldn't mind being a second, if she didn't know it. And you've gota good-natured brother, who'll keep your secret well, because you'llbe so very obliging to him.""I'll tell you what it is," said Godfrey, quivering, and paleagain, "my patience is pretty near at an end. If you'd a littlemore sharpness in you, you might know that you may urge a man a bittoo far, and make one leap as easy as another. I don't know butwhat it is so now: I may as well tell the Squire everything myself--I should get you off my back, if I got nothing else. And, afterall, he'll know some time. She's been threatening to come herselfand tell him. So, don't flatter yourself that your secrecy's worthany price you choose to ask. You drain me of money till I have gotnothing to pacify her with, and she'll do as she threatens someday. It's all one. I'll tell my father everything myself, and youmay go to the devil."Dunsey perceived that he had overshot his mark, and that there was apoint at which even the hesitating Godfrey might be driven intodecision. But he said, with an air of unconcern--"As you please; but I'll have a draught of ale first." Andringing the bell, he threw himself across two chairs, and began torap the window-seat with the handle of his whip.Godfrey stood, still with his back to the fire, uneasily moving hisfingers among the contents of his side-pockets, and looking at thefloor. That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animalcourage, but helped him to no decision when the dangers to be bravedwere such as could neither be knocked down nor throttled. Hisnatural irresolution and moral cowardice were exaggerated by aposition in which dreaded consequences seemed to press equally onall sides, and his irritation had no sooner provoked him to defyDunstan and anticipate all possible betrayals, than the miseries hemust bring on himself by such a step seemed more unendurable to himthan the present evil. The results of confession were notcontingent, they were certain; whereas betrayal was not certain.From the near vision of that certainty he fell back on suspense andvacillation with a sense of repose. The disinherited son of a smallsquire, equally disinclined to dig and to beg, was almost ashelpless as an uprooted tree, which, by the favour of earth and sky,has grown to a handsome bulk on the spot where it first shot upward.Perhaps it would have been possible to think of digging with somecheerfulness if Nancy Lammeter were to be won on those terms; but,since he must irrevocably lose her as well as the inheritance, andmust break every tie but the one that degraded him and left himwithout motive for trying to recover his better self, he couldimagine no future for himself on the other side of confession butthat of "'listing for a soldier"--the most desperate step, shortof suicide, in the eyes of respectable families. No! he wouldrather trust to casualties than to his own resolve--rather go onsitting at the feast, and sipping the wine he loved, though with thesword hanging over him and terror in his heart, than rush away intothe cold darkness where there was no pleasure left. The utmostconcession to Dunstan about the horse began to seem easy, comparedwith the fulfilment of his own threat. But his pride would not lethim recommence the conversation otherwise than by continuing thequarrel. Dunstan was waiting for this, and took his ale in shorterdraughts than usual."It's just like you," Godfrey burst out, in a bitter tone, "totalk about my selling Wildfire in that cool way--the last thingI've got to call my own, and the best bit of horse-flesh I ever hadin my life. And if you'd got a spark of pride in you, you'd beashamed to see the stables emptied, and everybody sneering about it.But it's my belief you'd sell yourself, if it was only for thepleasure of making somebody feel he'd got a bad bargain.""Aye, aye," said Dunstan, very placably, "you do me justice, Isee. You know I'm a jewel for 'ticing people into bargains. Forwhich reason I advise you to let me sell Wildfire. I'd ride himto the hunt to-morrow for you, with pleasure. I shouldn't look sohandsome as you in the saddle, but it's the horse they'll bid for,and not the rider.""Yes, I daresay--trust my horse to you!""As you please," said Dunstan, rapping the window-seat again withan air of great unconcern. "It's you have got to pay Fowler'smoney; it's none of my business. You received the money from himwhen you went to Bramcote, and you told the Squire it wasn't paid.I'd nothing to do with that; you chose to be so obliging as to giveit me, that was all. If you don't want to pay the money, let italone; it's all one to me. But I was willing to accommodate you byundertaking to sell the horse, seeing it's not convenient to you togo so far to-morrow."Godfrey was silent for some moments. He would have liked to springon Dunstan, wrench the whip from his hand, and flog him to within aninch of his life; and no bodily fear could have deterred him; but hewas mastered by another sort of fear, which was fed by feelingsstronger even than his resentment. When he spoke again, it was in ahalf-conciliatory tone."Well, you mean no nonsense about the horse, eh? You'll sell himall fair, and hand over the money? If you don't, you know,everything 'ull go to smash, for I've got nothing else to trust to.And you'll have less pleasure in pulling the house over my head,when your own skull's to be broken too.""Aye, aye," said Dunstan, rising; "all right. I thought you'dcome round. I'm the fellow to bring old Bryce up to the scratch.I'll get you a hundred and twenty for him, if I get you a penny.""But it'll perhaps rain cats and dogs to-morrow, as it didyesterday, and then you can't go," said Godfrey, hardly knowingwhether he wished for that obstacle or not."Not it," said Dunstan. "I'm always lucky in my weather. Itmight rain if you wanted to go yourself. You never hold trumps, youknow--I always do. You've got the beauty, you see, and I've gotthe luck, so you must keep me by you for your crooked sixpence;you'll ne-ver get along without me.""Confound you, hold your tongue!" said Godfrey, impetuously."And take care to keep sober to-morrow, else you'll get pitched onyour head coming home, and Wildfire might be the worse for it.""Make your tender heart easy," said Dunstan, opening the door."You never knew me see double when I'd got a bargain to make; it'ud spoil the fun. Besides, whenever I fall, I'm warranted to fallon my legs."With that, Dunstan slammed the door behind him, and left Godfrey tothat bitter rumination on his personal circumstances which was nowunbroken from day to day save by the excitement of sporting,drinking, card-playing, or the rarer and less oblivious pleasure ofseeing Miss Nancy Lammeter. The subtle and varied pains springingfrom the higher sensibility that accompanies higher culture, areperhaps less pitiable than that dreary absence of impersonalenjoyment and consolation which leaves ruder minds to the perpetualurgent companionship of their own griefs and discontents. The livesof those rural forefathers, whom we are apt to think very prosaicfigures--men whose only work was to ride round their land, gettingheavier and heavier in their saddles, and who passed the rest oftheir days in the half-listless gratification of senses dulled bymonotony--had a certain pathos in them nevertheless. Calamitiescame to them too, and their early errors carried hardconsequences: perhaps the love of some sweet maiden, the image ofpurity, order, and calm, had opened their eyes to the vision of alife in which the days would not seem too long, even withoutrioting; but the maiden was lost, and the vision passed away, andthen what was left to them, especially when they had become tooheavy for the hunt, or for carrying a gun over the furrows, but todrink and get merry, or to drink and get angry, so that they mightbe independent of variety, and say over again with eager emphasisthe things they had said already any time that twelvemonth?Assuredly, among these flushed and dull-eyed men there were somewhom--thanks to their native human-kindness--even riot couldnever drive into brutality; men who, when their cheeks were fresh,had felt the keen point of sorrow or remorse, had been pierced bythe reeds they leaned on, or had lightly put their limbs in fettersfrom which no struggle could loose them; and under these sadcircumstances, common to us all, their thoughts could find noresting-place outside the ever-trodden round of their own pettyhistory.That, at least, was the condition of Godfrey Cass in thissix-and-twentieth year of his life. A movement of compunction,helped by those small indefinable influences which every personalrelation exerts on a pliant nature, had urged him into a secretmarriage, which was a blight on his life. It was an ugly story oflow passion, delusion, and waking from delusion, which needs not tobe dragged from the privacy of Godfrey's bitter memory. He had longknown that the delusion was partly due to a trap laid for him byDunstan, who saw in his brother's degrading marriage the means ofgratifying at once his jealous hate and his cupidity. And ifGodfrey could have felt himself simply a victim, the iron bit thatdestiny had put into his mouth would have chafed him lessintolerably. If the curses he muttered half aloud when he was alonehad had no other object than Dunstan's diabolical cunning, he mighthave shrunk less from the consequences of avowal. But he hadsomething else to curse--his own vicious folly, which now seemedas mad and unaccountable to him as almost all our follies and vicesdo when their promptings have long passed away. For four years hehad thought of Nancy Lammeter, and wooed her with tacit patientworship, as the woman who made him think of the future with joy: shewould be his wife, and would make home lovely to him, as hisfather's home had never been; and it would be easy, when she wasalways near, to shake off those foolish habits that were nopleasures, but only a feverish way of annulling vacancy. Godfrey'swas an essentially domestic nature, bred up in a home where thehearth had no smiles, and where the daily habits were not chastisedby the presence of household order. His easy disposition made himfall in unresistingly with the family courses, but the need of sometender permanent affection, the longing for some influence thatwould make the good he preferred easy to pursue, caused theneatness, purity, and liberal orderliness of the Lammeter household,sunned by the smile of Nancy, to seem like those fresh bright hoursof the morning when temptations go to sleep and leave the ear opento the voice of the good angel, inviting to industry, sobriety, andpeace. And yet the hope of this paradise had not been enough tosave him from a course which shut him out of it for ever. Insteadof keeping fast hold of the strong silken rope by which Nancy wouldhave drawn him safe to the green banks where it was easy to stepfirmly, he had let himself be dragged back into mud and slime, inwhich it was useless to struggle. He had made ties for himselfwhich robbed him of all wholesome motive, and were a constantexasperation.Still, there was one position worse than the present: it was theposition he would be in when the ugly secret was disclosed; and thedesire that continually triumphed over every other was that ofwarding off the evil day, when he would have to bear theconsequences of his father's violent resentment for the woundinflicted on his family pride--would have, perhaps, to turn hisback on that hereditary ease and dignity which, after all, was asort of reason for living, and would carry with him the certaintythat he was banished for ever from the sight and esteem of NancyLammeter. The longer the interval, the more chance there was ofdeliverance from some, at least, of the hateful consequences towhich he had sold himself; the more opportunities remained for himto snatch the strange gratification of seeing Nancy, and gatheringsome faint indications of her lingering regard. Towards thisgratification he was impelled, fitfully, every now and then, afterhaving passed weeks in which he had avoided her as the far-offbright-winged prize that only made him spring forward and find hischain all the more galling. One of those fits of yearning was onhim now, and it would have been strong enough to have persuaded himto trust Wildfire to Dunstan rather than disappoint the yearning,even if he had not had another reason for his disinclination towardsthe morrow's hunt. That other reason was the fact that themorning's meet was near Batherley, the market-town where the unhappywoman lived, whose image became more odious to him every day; and tohis thought the whole vicinage was haunted by her. The yoke a mancreates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliestnature; and the good-humoured, affectionate-hearted Godfrey Cass wasfast becoming a bitter man, visited by cruel wishes, that seemed toenter, and depart, and enter again, like demons who had found in hima ready-garnished home.What was he to do this evening to pass the time? He might as wellgo to the Rainbow, and hear the talk about the cock-fighting:everybody was there, and what else was there to be done? Though,for his own part, he did not care a button for cock-fighting.Snuff, the brown spaniel, who had placed herself in front of him,and had been watching him for some time, now jumped up in impatiencefor the expected caress. But Godfrey thrust her away withoutlooking at her, and left the room, followed humbly by theunresenting Snuff--perhaps because she saw no other career open toher.