"Rainbow"

"Rainbow",Inn at Raveloe, the social centre of the villagers. "It was a place where he was likely to find the powers and dignities of Raveloe ... the bright bar or kitchen on the right hand, where the less lofty customers of the house were in the habit of assembling, the parlour on the left being reserved for the more select society in which Squire Cass frequently enjoyed the double pleasure of conviviality and condescension." "The conversation . . . had, as usual, been slow and intermittent when the company firsi assembled. The pipes began to be puffed in a silence which had an air of severity; the more important customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at each other as if a bet were depending on the first man who winked; while the beerdrinkers, chiefly men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks, kept their eyelids down and rubbed their hands across their mouths, as if their draughts of beer were a funereal duty attended with embarrassing sadness."

<em>Silas Marner</em>

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