And he
sat in his robbed home through the livelong evening, not caring to
close his shutters or lock his door, pressing his head between his
hands and moaning, till the cold grasped him and told him that his
fire was grey.
Nobody in this world but himself knew that he was the same Silas
Marner who had once loved his fellow with tender love, and trusted
in an unseen goodness. Even to himself that past experience had become
dim. But in Raveloe village the bells rang merrily, and the church was
fuller than all through the rest of the year, with red faces among the
abundant dark-green boughs- faces prepared for a longer service than
usual by an odorous breakfast of toast and ale. Those green boughs,
the hymn and anthem never heard but at Christmas- even the
Athanasian Creed, which was discriminated from the others only as
being longer and of exceptional virtue, since it was only read on rare
occasions- brought a vague exulting sense, for which the grown men
could as little have found words as the children, that something great
and mysterious had been done for them in heaven above, and in earth
below, which they were appropriating by their presence. And then the
red faces made their way through the black biting frost to their own
homes, feeling themselves free for the rest of the day to eat,
drink, and be merry, and using that Christian freedom without
diffidence.
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