CHAPTER 21: Summary
The next morning, as Silas and Eppie were eating breakfast, Silas told Eppie that there was something he had been meaning to do for a while, which had become achievable because his money had reappeared. He wanted to visit his old home in Lantern Yard and to see if anything ever came to light concerning his innocence and to ask about the ritual of drawing lots. Dolly Winthrop approved of the plan, telling Silas that she hoped he would be at ease once he knew the truth. Silas also wanted to see Mr Peston, the minister of his old faith and discuss with him, whom he still held to be a wise and learned man, the difference between the religion of his native land and that of Raveloe.
Silas and Eppie left the next morning. Four days later they arrived at Silas’s hometown, which was then a big manufacturing city to the north in which Lantern Yard must be located.
Silas could hardly believe that it was the same place. He navigated his way through the sooty, unfamiliar streets from the prison, which was recognisable. When Silas found the spot where Lantern Yard once stood he was horrified as a massive factory building stood there. He and Eppie spent the rest of their visit asking around town whether anyone remembered the days before the factory went up, but no one could tell him of MrPaston or any of the old congregation at Lantern Yard.
Back in Raveloe, Silas told Dolly that he would never get at the truth about the robbery and the drawing of the lots that found him guilty. Dolly said that though he would never know the “rights” of what befell him at Lantern Yard, there still might be a right explanation. He agreed that though he would never know the truth, he had been given enough hope through his relationship with Eppie to accept his ignorance about the fate of Lantern Yard.
Q1. Why did Silas wish to visit Lantern Yard again? Was his visit successful?
Ans. The reappearance of the money in Silas’s life, rather than reviving his interest in gold, allowed him to continue his interest in his own past, by visiting Lantern Yard again and discovering what he could. Silas and Eppie find instead of Lantern Yard, a great manufacturing town, altered in the last thirty years. They were ill at ease on the noisy, crowded streets filled with strangers.
The alteration of Lantern Yard is a key moment in the novel. Change, which the villagers of Raveloe so feared, happened in Lantern Yard. Both Eppie and Silas wish to return to Raveloe and to its isolation, community, and its nature.
Lantern Yard had gone and, with it, Silas’s past and his opportunity to discover whether the truth of his case was ever revealed. Lantern Yard’s disappearance and Silas’s unresolved false accusation force Dolly and Silas to come to terms with those things in life that they could never understand. Silas realised that he could trust again as his faith had been restored by Eppie’s love.
