第77章

"Ah," he said, drawing a long breath, "there's the jail, Eppie;that's just the same: I aren't afraid now.It's the third turning on the left hand from the jail doors--that's the way we must go.""Oh, what a dark ugly place!" said Eppie."How it hides the sky! It's worse than the Workhouse.I'm glad you don't live in this town now, father.Is Lantern Yard like this street?""My precious child," said Silas, smiling, "it isn't a big street like this.I never was easy i' this street myself, but I was fond o' Lantern Yard.The shops here are all altered, I think--I can't make 'em out; but I shall know the turning, because it's the third.""Here it is," he said, in a tone of satisfaction, as they came to a narrow alley."And then we must go to the left again, and then straight for'ard for a bit, up Shoe Lane: and then we shall be at the entry next to the o'erhanging window, where there's the nick in the road for the water to run.Eh, I can see it all.""O father, I'm like as if I was stifled," said Eppie."Icouldn't ha' thought as any folks lived i' this way, so close together.How pretty the Stone-pits 'ull look when we get back!""It looks comical to _me_, child, now--and smells bad.I can't think as it usened to smell so."Here and there a sallow, begrimed face looked out from a gloomy doorway at the strangers, and increased Eppie's uneasiness, so that it was a longed-for relief when they issued from the alleys into Shoe Lane, where there was a broader strip of sky.

"Dear heart!" said Silas, "why, there's people coming out o' the Yard as if they'd been to chapel at this time o' day--a weekday noon!"Suddenly he started and stood still with a look of distressed amazement, that alarmed Eppie.They were before an opening in front of a large factory, from which men and women were streaming for their midday meal.

"Father," said Eppie, clasping his arm, "what's the matter?"But she had to speak again and again before Silas could answer her.

"It's gone, child," he said, at last, in strong agitation--"Lantern Yard's gone.It must ha' been here, because here's the house with the o'erhanging window--I know that--it's just the same; but they've made this new opening; and see that big factory!

It's all gone--chapel and all."

"Come into that little brush-shop and sit down, father--they'll let you sit down," said Eppie, always on the watch lest one of her father's strange attacks should come on."Perhaps the people can tell you all about it."But neither from the brush-maker, who had come to Shoe Lane only ten years ago, when the factory was already built, nor from any other source within his reach, could Silas learn anything of the old Lantern Yard friends, or of Mr.Paston the minister.

"The old place is all swep' away," Silas said to Dolly Winthrop on the night of his return--"the little graveyard and everything.

The old home's gone; I've no home but this now.I shall never know whether they got at the truth o' the robbery, nor whether Mr.Paston could ha' given me any light about the drawing o' the lots.It's dark to me, Mrs.Winthrop, that is; I doubt it'll be dark to the last.""Well, yes, Master Marner," said Dolly, who sat with a placid listening face, now bordered by grey hairs; "I doubt it may.It's the will o' Them above as a many things should be dark to us; but there's some things as I've never felt i' the dark about, and they're mostly what comes i' the day's work.You were hard done by that once, Master Marner, and it seems as you'll never know the rights of it; but that doesn't hinder there _being_ a rights, Master Marner, for all it's dark to you and me.""No," said Silas, "no; that doesn't hinder.Since the time the child was sent to me and I've come to love her as myself, I've had light enough to trusten by; and now she says she'll never leave me, I think I shall trusten till I die."