In fact, there was a general feeling in the
village, that for the clearing-up of this robbery there must be a
great deal done at the Rainbow, and that no man need offer his wife an
excuse for going there while it was the scene of severe public duties.
Some disappointment was felt, and perhaps a little indignation
also, when it became known that Silas Marner, on being questioned by
the Squire and the parson, had retained no other recollection of the
pedlar than that he had called at his door, but had not entered his
house, having turned away at once when Silas, holding the door ajar,
had said that he wanted nothing. This had been Silas's testimony,
though he clutched strongly at the idea of the pedlar's being the
culprit, if only because it gave him a definite image of a
whereabout for his gold, after it had been taken away from its
hiding-place: he could see it now in the pedlar's box. But it was
observed with some irritation in the village, that anybody but a
'blind creatur' like Marner would have seen the man prowling about,
for how came he to leave his tinder-box in the ditch close by, if he
hadn't been lingering there? Doubtless, he had made his observations
when he saw Marner at the door. Anybody might know- and only look at
him- that the weaver was a half-crazy miser. It was a wonder the
pedlar hadn't murdered him; men of that sort, with rings in their
ears, had been known for murderers often and often; there had been one
tried at the 'sizes, not so long ago but what there were people living
who remembered it.
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