Silas Marner must be a person of the same sort, for how did he
know what would bring back Sally Oates's breath, if he didn't know a
fine sight more than that? The Wise Woman had words that she
muttered to herself, so that you couldn't hear what they were, and
if she tied a bit of red thread round the child's toe the while, it
would keep off the water in the head. There were women in Raveloe,
at that present time, who had worn one of the Wise Woman's little bags
round their necks, and, in consequence, had never had an idiot
child, as Ann Coulter had. Silas Marner could very likely do as
much, and more; and now it was all clear how he should have come
from unknown parts, and be so 'comical-looking'. But Sally Oates
must mind and not tell the doctor, for he would be sure to set his
face against Marner: he was always angry about the Wise Woman, and
used to threaten those who went to her that they should have none of
his help any more.
Silas now found himself and his cottage suddenly beset by mothers
who wanted him to charm away the whooping-cough, or bring back the
milk, and by men who wanted stuff against the rheumatics or the
knots in the hands; and, to secure themselves against a refusal, the
applicants brought silver in their palms. Silas might have driven a
profitable trade in charms as well as in his small list of drugs;
but money on this condition was no temptation to him: he had never
known an impulse towards falsity, and he drove one after another
away with growing irritation, for the news of him as a wise man had
spread even to Tarley, and it was long before people ceased to take
long walks for the sake of asking his aid.
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