more. He searched in every corner, he
turned his bed over, and shook it, and kneaded it; he looked in his
brick oven; and when there was no other place to be searched, he felt
once more all round the hole.

He could see every object in his cottage, and his gold was not there. He
put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild, ringing scream--
the cry of desolation. Then the idea of a thief began to present itself,
and he entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made
to restore the gold. The robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of
legal authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim
his loss; and the great people in the village--the clergyman, the
constable, and Squire Cass--would make the thief deliver up the stolen
money.

It was to the village inn Silas Marner went, where the parish clerk and
a select company were assembled, and told the story of his loss--L272
12s. 6d. in all. The machinery of the law was set in motion, but no
thief was ever captured, nor could grounds be found for suspicion
against any persons.

What had really happened was that Dunsey Cass, Squire Cass's second
son--a mean, boastful rascal--on his way home on foot from hunting, saw
the light in the weaver's cottage, and knocked, hoping to borrow a
lantern, for the lane was unpleasantly slippery, and the night dark. But
all was silence in the cottage, for the weaver at that moment had not
yet reached home. For a minute Dunsey thought that old Marner might be
dead, fallen over into the stone pits. And from that came the decision
that he must be dead. If so, the question arose, what would become of
the money that everybody said the old miser had put by?

Dunstan Cass was in difficulties for want of money, and he had killed
his brother's horse that day on the hunting-field. Who would know, if
Marner was dead, that anybody had come to take his hoard of money away?

There were only three hiding-places where he had heard of cottagers'
hoards being found: the thatch, the bed, and a hole in the floor. His
eyes travelling eagerly over the floor, noted a spot where the sand had
been more carefully spread.

Dunstan found the hole and the money, now hidden in two leathern bags.
From their weight he judged they must be filled with guineas. Quickly he
hastened out into the darkness with the bags, and Dunstan Cass was seen
no more alive.

At the very moment when he turned his back on the cottage Silas Mar