1861
                                  SILAS MARNER
                                by George Eliot
                         PART ONE

                       CHAPTER ONE

IN the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the
farmhouses- and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace,
had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak- there might be seen, in
districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills,
certain pallid undersized men, who,