CHAPTER XXI

The next morning, when Silas and Eppie were seated at their
breakfast, he said to her--

"Eppie, there's a thing I've had on my mind to do this two year,
and now the money's been brought back to us, we can do it. I've
been turning it over and over in the night, and I think we'll set
out to-morrow, while the fine days last. We'll leave the house and
everything for your godmother to take care on, and we'll make a
little bundle o' things and set out."

"Where to go, daddy?" said Eppie, in much surprise.

"To my old country--to the town where I was born--up Lantern
Yard. I want to see Mr. Paston, the minister: something may ha'
come out to make 'em know I was innicent o' the robbery. And
Mr. Paston was a man with a deal o' light--I want to speak to him
about the drawing o' the lots. And I should like to talk to him
about the religion o' this country-side, for I partly think he
doesn't know on it."

Eppie was very joyful, for there was the prospect not only of wonder
and delight at seeing a strange country, but also of coming back to
tell Aaron all about it. Aaron was so much wiser than she was about
most things--it would be rather pleasant to have this little
advantage over him. Mrs. Winthrop, though possessed with a dim fear
of dangers attendant on so long a journey, and requiring many
assurances that it would not take them out of the region of
carriers' carts and slow waggons, was nevertheless well pleased that
Silas should revisit his own country, and find out if he had been
cleared from that false accusation.

"You'd be easier in your mind for the rest o' your life, Master
Marner," said Dolly--"that you would. And if there's any light
to be got up the yard as you talk on, we've need of it i' this
world, and I'd be glad on it myself, if you could bring it back."

So on the fourth day from that time, Silas and Eppie, in their
Sunday clothes, with a small bundle tied in a blue linen
handkerchief, were making their way through the streets of a great
manufacturing town. Silas, bewildered by the changes thirty years
had brought over his native place, had stopped several persons in
succession to ask them the name of this town, that he might be sure
he was not under a mistake about it.

"Ask for Lantern Yard, father--ask this gentleman with the
tassels on his shoulders a-standing at the shop door; he isn't in a
hurry like the rest," said Eppie, in some distress at her father's
bewilderment, and ill at ease, besides, amidst the noise, the
movement, and the multitude of strange indifferent faces.

"Eh, my child, he won't know anything about it," said Silas;
"gentlefolks didn't ever go up the Yard. But happen somebody can
tell me which is the way to Prison Street, where the jail is.
I know the way out o' that as if I'd seen it yesterday."

With some difficulty, after many turnings and new inquiries, they
reached Prison Street; and the grim walls of the jail, the first
object that answered to any image in Silas's memory, cheered him
with the certitude, which no assurance of the town's name had
hitherto given him, that he was in his native place.

"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. "I
couldn'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."