But along with that question, and
almost thrusting it away, there was a vision of the old home and the
old streets leading to Lantern Yard- and within that vision another,
of the thoughts which had been present with him in those far-off
scenes. The thoughts were strange to him now, like old friendships
impossible to revive; and yet he had a dreamy feeling that this
child was somehow a message come to him from that far-off life: it
stirred fibres that had never been moved in Raveloe- old quiverings of
tenderness- old impressions of awe at the presentiment of some Power
presiding over his life; for his imagination had not yet extricated
itself from the sense of mystery in the child's sudden presence, and
had formed no conjectures of ordinary natural means by which the event
could have been brought about.
But there was a cry on the hearth: the child had awakened, and
Marner stooped to lift it on his knee. It clung round his neck, and
burst louder and louder into that mingling of inarticulate cries
with 'mammy' by which little children express the bewilderment of
waking. Silas pressed it to him, and almost unconsciously uttered
sounds of hushing tenderness, while he bethought himself that some
of his porridge, which had got cool by the dying fire, would do to
feed the child with if it were only warmed up a little.
He had plenty to do through the next hour. The porridge,
sweetened with some dry brown sugar from an old store which he had
refrained from using for himself, stopped the cries of the little one,
and made her lift her blue eyes with a wide gaze at Silas, as he put
the spoon into her mouth.
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