But
this evening, he had no sooner ingeniously knotted his string fast
round his bit of pork, twisted the string according to rule over his
door-key, passed it through the handle, and made it fast on the
hanger, than he remembered that a piece of very fine twine was
indispensable to his 'setting up' a new piece of work in his loom
early in the morning. It had slipped his memory, because, in coming
from Mr Lammeter's, he had not had to pass through the village; but to
lose time by going on errands in the morning was out of the
question. It was a nasty fog to turn out into, but there were things
Silas loved better than his own comfort; so, drawing his pork to the
extremity of the hanger, and arming himself with his lantern and his
old sack, he set out on what, in ordinary weather, would have been a
twenty minutes' errand. He could not have locked his door without
undoing his well-knotted string and retarding his supper; it was not
worth his while to make that sacrifice. What thief would find his
way to the Stone-pits on such a night as this? and why should he
come on this particular night, when he had never come through all
the fifteen years before? These questions were not distinctly
present in Silas's mind; they merely serve to represent the
vaguely-felt foundation of his freedom from anxiety.
He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was
done: he opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything
remained as he had left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome
increase of heat.
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