 Silas Marner is a respected member of the small 19th Century rural religious community of Lantern Yard, but his world is shaken when he is wrongfully accused of a theft and expelled as a pariah. He settles anonymously in the town of Raveloe in a hermit-like existence in an isolated cottage. His weaving skills and penurious lifestyle help him amass a small fortune over the next fifteen years, but he is devastated when Dunstan Cass, the wastrel son of the local squire, steals his hidden hoard of gold and disappears. Shortly thereafter, the despondent Marner discovers an orphaned little girl whom he adopts as his own. Unbeknownst to him the child s father is Godfrey Cass, Dunstan s brother, who fears the consequences of revealing the child s true paternity.