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"It'll be different coming to us, now she's grown up," said Nancy, shaking her head sadly. "But it's your duty to acknowledge her and provide for her; and I'll do my part by her, and pray to God Almighty to make her love me." "Then we'll go together to Silas Marner's this very night, as soon as everything's quiet at the Stone-pits."
If thine insulter asks concerning thy whereabouts I shall not trouble myself to remember. But what shall keep him from searching for thee and are there any like to defend thee, if he find thee, seeing I am not there? And even if thou art securely hidden, thou hast never dreamed how heavy is the life of the stone-pits, Rachel." "Keep Deborah here," the girl besought him, distressed.
He was remote from any possible interruption from Memphis, and the slaves in the gorge and in the stone-pits had no opportunity to come upon his sacrilege in idle hours. They would be held like prisoners within the limits of the quarries. His sense of security had been strengthened by the renewed activities in Masaarah. With a shovel of tamarisk he cleared the slab of its drift of sand.
The next morning the whole village was excited by the story of the robbery, and Godfrey, like every one else, was occupied in gathering and discussing news about it, and in visiting the Stone-pits.
And when the sunshine grew strong and lasting, so that the buttercups were thick in the meadows, Silas might be seen in the sunny midday, or in the late afternoon when the shadows were lengthening under the hedgerows, strolling out with uncovered head to carry Eppie beyond the Stone-pits to where the flowers grew, till they reached some favourite bank where he could sit down, while Eppie toddled to pluck the flowers, and make remarks to the winged things that murmured happily above the bright petals, calling "Dad-dad's" attention continually by bringing him the flowers.
"Mind you bring Nancy to the Warrens before the week's out, Mr. Cass," was Priscilla's parting injunction, as she took the reins, and shook them gently, by way of friendly incitement to Speckle. "I shall just take a turn to the fields against the Stone-pits, Nancy, and look at the draining," said Godfrey. "You'll be in again by tea-time, dear?" "Oh, yes, I shall be back in an hour."
He could not have locked his door without undoing his well-knotted string and retarding his supper; it was not worth his while to make that sacrifice. What thief would find his way to the Stone-pits on such a night as this? and why should he come on this particular night, when he had never come through all the fifteen years before?
Aaron, an apple-cheeked youngster of seven, with a clean starched frill which looked like a plate for the apples, needed all his adventurous curiosity to embolden him against the possibility that the big-eyed weaver might do him some bodily injury; and his dubiety was much increased when, on arriving at the Stone-pits, they heard the mysterious sound of the loom.
The stone-pits were active again after the lapse of half a century. "By the grace of the mutable Hathors," the young man muttered as he dropped back into his seat, "my father may yet decorate a temple to Set, but by the same favor, it seems that I shall be snatched from the brink of a sacrilege." He permitted his boat to drift while he contemplated his predicament.
Since Israel had died in droves by hard labor in the brick-fields and along the roadways and canals, in what numbers and with what dire speed would not Israel perish in the dreaded stone-pits! Just outside the doorway of their shelter, Deborah and Rachel overlooked the troubled camp. "Moses comes in time," Rachel said, speaking in a low tone, "for Israel is in sore straits.
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