Silas Marner

Cock-fighting

What was he to do this evening to pass the time? He might as well go to the Rainbow and hear the talk about the cock-fighting; everybody was there, and what else was there to be done? Though, for his own part, he did not care a button for cock-fighting.

The Robbery

While these discussions were going on amongst the group outside the Rainbow, a higher consultation was being carried on within, under the presidency of Mr. Crackenthorp, the rector, assisted by Squire Cass and other substantial parishioners. It had just occurred to Mr. Snell, the landlord — he being, as he observed, a man accustomed to put two and two together — to connect with the tinder-box, which, as deputy-constable, he himself had has the honorable distinction of finding, certain recollections of a peddler who had called to drink at the house about a month before, and had actually stated that he carried a tinder-box about with him to light his pipe. Here, surely, was a clue to be followed out. And as memory, when duly impregnated with ascertained facts, is sometimes surprisingly fertile, Mr. Snell gradually recovered a vivid impression of the effect produced on him by the peddler’s countenance and conversation. He had a “look with his eye” which fell unpleasantly on Mr. Snell’s sensitive organism.

When the robbery was talked of at the Rainbow and elsewhere, in good company, the balance continued to waver between the rational explanation founded on the tinder-box, and the theory of an impenetrable mystery that mocked investigation.