Dunstan Cass, setting off in the raw morning, at the judiciously¹ quiet pace of a man who is obliged to ride to cover on his hunter, had to take his way along the lane which, at its farther extremity², passed by the piece of unenclosed ground called the Stone-pit, where stood the cottage, once a stone-cutter's shed, now for fifteen years inhabited by Silas Marner. The spot looked very dreary³ at this season, with the moist trodden clay about it, and the red, muddy water high up in the deserted⁴ quarry⁵. That was Dunstan's first thought as he approached it; the second was, that the old fool of a weaver⁶, whose loom⁷ he heard rattling⁸ already, had a great deal of money hidden somewhere. How was it that he, Dunstan Cass, who had often heard talk of Marner's miserliness, had never thought of suggesting to Godfrey that he should frighten or persuade the old fellow into lending the money on the excellent security of the young Squire's prospects¹¹? The resource occurred to him now as so easy and agreeable, especially as Marner's hoard¹² was likely to be large enough to leave Godfrey a handsome surplus beyond his immediate¹³ needs, and enable him to accommodate his faithful brother, that he had almost turned the horse's head towards home again. Godfrey would be ready enough to accept the suggestion: he would snatch eagerly at a plan that might save him from parting with Wildfire. But when Dunstan's

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