Godfrey's mind was too full of
Nancy Lammeter's looks and behaviour, too full of the exasperation
against himself and his lot, which the sight of her always produced in
him, for him to give much thought to Wildfire or to the
probabilities of Dunstan's conduct.
The next morning the whole village was excited by the story of
the robbery, and Godfrey, like everyone else, was occupied in
gathering and discussing news about it, and in visiting the
Stone-pits. The rain had washed away all possibility of distinguishing
footmarks, but a close investigation of the spot had disclosed, in the
direction opposite to the village, a tinder-box, with a flint and
steel, half sunk in the mud. It was not Silas's tinder-box, for the
only one he had ever had was still standing on his shelf; and the
inference generally accepted was, that the tinder-box in the ditch was
somehow connected with the robbery. A small minority shook their
heads, and intimated their opinion that it was not a robbery to have
much light thrown on it by tinder-boxes, that Master Marner's tale had
a queer look with it, and that such things had been known as a man's
doing himself a mischief, and then setting the justice to look for the
doer. But when questioned closely as to their grounds for this
opinion, and what Master Marner had to gain by such false pretences,
they only shook their heads as before, and observed that there was
no knowing what some folks counted gain; moreover, that everybody
had a right to their own opinions, grounds or no grounds, and that the
weaver, as everybody knew, partly crazy.
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