CHAPTER I.

When Death is present in a household on a Christmas Day, the very

contrast between the time as it now is, and the day as it has often been,

gives a poignancy to sorrow--a more utter blankness to the desolation.

James Leigh died just as the far-away bells of Rochdale Church were

ringing for morning service on Christmas Day, 1836. A few minutes before

his death, he opened his already glazing eyes, and made a sign to his

wife, by the faint motion of his lips, that he had yet something to say.

She stooped close down, and caught the broken whisper, "I forgive her,

Annie! May God forgive me!"

"Oh, my love, my dear! only get well, and I will never cease showing my

thanks for those words. May God in heaven bless thee for saying them.

Thou'rt not so restless, my lad! may be--Oh, God!"

For even while she spoke he died.

They had been two-and-twenty years man and wife; for nineteen of those

years their life had been as calm and happy as the most perfect

uprightness on the one side, and the most complete confidence and loving

submission on the other, could make it. Milton's famous line might have

been framed and hung up as the rule of their married life, for he was

truly the interpreter, who stood between God and her; she would have

considered herself wicked if she had ever dared even to think him

austere, though as certainly as he was an upright man, so surely was he

hard, stern, and inflexible. But for three years the moan and the murmur

had never been out of her heart; she had rebelled against her husband as

against a tyrant, with a hidden, sullen rebellion, which tore up the old

landmarks of wifely duty and affection, and poisoned the fountains whence

gentlest love and reverence had once been for ever springing.

But those last blessed words replaced him on his throne in her heart, and

called out penitent anguish for all the bitter estrangement of later

years. It was this which made her refuse all the entreaties of her sons,

that she would see the kind-hearted neighbours, who called on their way

from church, to sympathize and condole. No! she would stay with the dead

husband that had spoken tenderly at last, if for three years he had kept

silence; who knew but what, if she had only been more gentle and less

angrily reserved he might have relented earlier--and in time?

She sat rocking herself to and fro by the side of the bed, while the

footsteps below went in and out; she had been in sorrow too long to have

any violent burst of deep grief now; the furrows were well worn in her

cheeks, and the tears flowed quietly, if incessantly, all the day long.

But when the winter's night drew on, and the neighbours had gone away to

their homes, she stole to the window, and gazed out, long and wistfully,

over the dark grey moors. She did not hear her son's voice, as he spoke

to her from the door, nor his footstep as he drew nearer. She started

when he touched her.

"Mother! come down to us. There's no one but Will and me. Dearest

mother, we do so want you." The poor lad's voice trembled, and he began

to cry. It appeared to require an effort on Mrs. Leigh's part to tear

herself away from the window, but with a sigh she complied with his

request.

The two boys (for though Will was nearly twenty-one, she still thought of

him as a lad) had done everything in their power to make the house-place

comfortable for her. She herself, in the old days before her sorrow, had

never made a brighter fire or a cleaner hearth, ready for her husband's

return home, than now awaited her. The tea-things were all put out, and

the kettle was boiling; and the boys had calmed their grief down into a

kind of sober cheerfulness. They paid her every attention they could

think of, but received little notice on her part; she did not resist, she

rather submitted to all their arrangements; but they did not seem to

touch her heart.

When tea was ended--it was merely the form of tea that had been gone

through--Will moved the things away to the dresser. His mother leant

back languidly in her chair.

"Mother, shall Tom read you a chapter? He's a better scholar than I."

"Ay, lad!" said she, almost eagerly. "That's it. Read me the Prodigal

Son. Ay, ay, lad. Thank thee."

Tom found the chapter, and read it in the high-pitched voice which is

customary in village schools. His mother bent forward, her lips parted,

her eyes dilated; her whole body instinct with eager attention. Will sat

with his head depressed and hung down. He knew why that chapter had been

chosen; and to him it recalled the family's disgrace. When the reading

was ended, he still hung down his head in gloomy silence. But her face

was brighter than it had been before for the day. Her eyes looked

dreamy, as if she saw a vision; and by-and-by she pulled the Bible

towards her, and, putting her finger underneath each word, began to read

them aloud in a low voice to herself; she read again the words of bitter

sorrow and deep humiliation; but most of all, she paused and brightened

over the father's tender reception of the repentant prodigal.

So passed the Christmas evening in the Upclose Farm.

The snow had fallen heavily over the dark waving moorland before the day

of the funeral. The black storm-laden dome of heaven lay very still and

close upon the white earth, as they carried the body forth out of the

house which had known his presence so long as its ruling power. Two and

two the mourners followed, making a black procession, in their winding

march over the unbeaten snow, to Milne Row Church; now lost in some

hollow of the bleak moors, now slowly climbing the heaving ascents. There

was no long tarrying after the funeral, for many of the neighbours who

accompanied the body to the grave had far to go, and the great white

flakes which came slowly down were the boding forerunners of a heavy

storm. One old friend alone accompanied the widow and her sons to their

home.

The Upclose Farm had belonged for generations to the Leighs; and yet its

possession hardly raised them above the rank of labourers. There was the

house and out-buildings, all of an old-fashioned kind, and about seven

acres of barren unproductive land, which they had never possessed capital

enough to improve; indeed, they could hardly rely upon it for

subsistence; and it had been customary to bring up the sons to some

trade, such as a wheelwright's or blacksmith's.

James Leigh had left a will in the possession of the old man who

accompanied them home. He read it aloud. James had bequeathed the farm

to his faithful wife, Anne Leigh, for her lifetime, and afterwards to his

son William. The hundred and odd pounds in the savings bank was to

accumulate for Thomas.

After the reading was ended, Anne Leigh sat silent for a time and then

she asked to speak to Samuel Orme alone. The sons went into the back

kitchen, and thence strolled out into the fields regardless of the

driving snow. The brothers were dearly fond of each other, although they

were very different in character. Will, the elder, was like his father,

stern, reserved, and scrupulously upright. Tom (who was ten years

younger) was gentle and delicate as a girl, both in appearance and

character. He had always clung to his mother and dreaded his father.

They did not speak as they walked, for they were only in the habit of

talking about facts, and hardly knew the more sophisticated language

applied to the description of feelings.

Meanwhile their mother had taken hold of Samuel Orme's arm with her

trembling hand.

"Samuel, I must let the farm--I must."

"Let the farm! What's come o'er the woman?"

"Oh, Samuel!" said she, her eyes swimming in tears, "I'm just fain to go

and live in Manchester. I mun let the farm."

Samuel looked, and pondered, but did not speak for some time. At last he

said--

"If thou hast made up thy mind, there's no speaking again it; and thou

must e'en go. Thou'lt be sadly pottered wi' Manchester ways; but that's

not my look out. Why, thou'lt have to buy potatoes, a thing thou hast

never done afore in all thy born life. Well! it's not my look out. It's

rather for me than again me. Our Jenny is going to be married to Tom

Higginbotham, and he was speaking of wanting a bit of land to begin upon.

His father will be dying sometime, I reckon, and then he'll step into the

Croft Farm. But meanwhile--"

"Then, thou'lt let the farm," said she, still as eagerly as ever.

"Ay, ay, he'll take it fast enough, I've a notion. But I'll not drive a

bargain with thee just now; it would not be right; we'll wait a bit."

"No; I cannot wait; settle it out at once."

"Well, well; I'll speak to Will about it. I see him out yonder. I'll

step to him and talk it over."

Accordingly he went and joined the two lads, and, without more ado, began

the subject to them.

"Will, thy mother is fain to go live in Manchester, and covets to let the

farm. Now, I'm willing to take it for Tom Higginbotham; but I like to

drive a keen bargain, and there would be no fun chaffering with thy

mother just now. Let thee and me buckle to, my lad! and try and cheat

each other; it will warm us this cold day."

"Let the farm!" said both the lads at once, with infinite surprise. "Go

live in Manchester!"

When Samuel Orme found that the plan had never before been named to

either Will or Tom, he would have nothing to do with it, he said, until

they had spoken to their mother. Likely she was "dazed" by her husband's

death; he would wait a day or two, and not name it to any one; not to Tom

Higginbotham himself, or may be he would set his heart upon it. The lads

had better go in and talk it over with their mother. He bade them good-

day, and left them.

Will looked very gloomy, but he did not speak till they got near the

house. Then he said--

"Tom, go to th' shippon, and supper the cows. I want to speak to mother

alone."

When he entered the house-place, she was sitting before the fire, looking

into its embers. She did not hear him come in: for some time she had

lost her quick perception of outward things.

"Mother! what's this about going to Manchester?" asked he.

"Oh, lad!" said she, turning round, and speaking in a beseeching tone, "I

must go and seek our Lizzie. I cannot rest here for thinking on her.

Many's the time I've left thy father sleeping in bed, and stole to th'

window, and looked and looked my heart out towards Manchester, till I

thought I must just set out and tramp over moor and moss straight away

till I got there, and then lift up every downcast face till I came to our

Lizzie. And often, when the south wind was blowing soft among the

hollows, I've fancied (it could but be fancy, thou knowest) I heard her

crying upon me; and I've thought the voice came closer and closer, till

at last it was sobbing out, 'Mother!' close to the door; and I've stolen

down, and undone the latch before now, and looked out into the still,

black night, thinking to see her--and turned sick and sorrowful when I

heard no living sound but the sough of the wind dying away. Oh, speak

not to me of stopping here, when she may be perishing for hunger, like

the poor lad in the parable." And now she lifted up her voice, and wept

aloud.

Will was deeply grieved. He had been old enough to be told the family

shame when, more than two years before, his father had had his letter to

his daughter returned by her mistress in Manchester, telling him that

Lizzie had left her service some time--and why. He had sympathized with

his father's stern anger; though he had thought him something hard, it is

true, when he had forbidden his weeping, heart-broken wife to go and try

to find her poor sinning child, and declared that henceforth they would

have no daughter; that she should be as one dead, and her name never more

be named at market or at meal time, in blessing or in prayer. He had

held his peace, with compressed lips and contracted brow, when the

neighbours had noticed to him how poor Lizzie's death had aged both his

father and his mother; and how they thought the bereaved couple would

never hold up their heads again. He himself had felt as if that one

event had made him old before his time; and had envied Tom the tears he

had shed over poor, pretty, innocent, dead Lizzie. He thought about her

sometimes, till he ground his teeth together, and could have struck her

down in her shame. His mother had never named her to him until now.

"Mother!" said he, at last. "She may be dead. Most likely she is"

"No, Will; she is not dead," said Mrs. Leigh. "God will not let her die

till I've seen her once again. Thou dost not know how I've prayed and

prayed just once again to see her sweet face, and tell her I've forgiven

her, though she's broken my heart--she has, Will." She could not go on

for a minute or two for the choking sobs. "Thou dost not know that, or

thou wouldst not say she could be dead--for God is very merciful, Will;

He is: He is much more pitiful than man. I could never ha' spoken to thy

father as I did to Him--and yet thy father forgave her at last. The last

words he said were that he forgave her. Thou'lt not be harder than thy

father, Will? Do not try and hinder me going to seek her, for it's no

use."

Will sat very still for a long time before he spoke. At last he said,

"I'll not hinder you. I think she's dead, but that's no matter."

"She's not dead," said her mother, with low earnestness. Will took no

notice of the interruption.

"We will all go to Manchester for a twelvemonth, and let the farm to Tom

Higginbotham. I'll get blacksmith's work; and Tom can have good

schooling for awhile, which he's always craving for. At the end of the

year you'll come back, mother, and give over fretting for Lizzie, and

think with me that she is dead--and, to my mind, that would be more

comfort than to think of her living;" he dropped his voice as he spoke

these last words. She shook her head but made no answer. He asked

again--"Will you, mother, agree to this?"

"I'll agree to it a-this-ns," said she. "If I hear and see nought of her

for a twelvemonth, me being in Manchester looking out, I'll just ha'

broken my heart fairly before the year's ended, and then I shall know

neither love nor sorrow for her any more, when I'm at rest in my grave.

I'll agree to that, Will."

"Well, I suppose it must be so. I shall not tell Tom, mother, why we're

flitting to Manchester. Best spare him."

"As thou wilt," said she, sadly, "so that we go, that's all."

Before the wild daffodils were in flower in the sheltered copses round

Upclose Farm, the Leighs were settled in their Manchester home; if they

could ever grow to consider that place as a home, where there was no

garden or outbuilding, no fresh breezy outlet, no far-stretching view,

over moor and hollow; no dumb animals to be tended, and, what more than

all they missed, no old haunting memories, even though those remembrances

told of sorrow, and the dead and gone.

Mrs. Leigh heeded the loss of all these things less than her sons. She

had more spirit in her countenance than she had had for months, because

now she had hope; of a sad enough kind, to be sure, but still it was

hope. She performed all her household duties, strange and complicated as

they were, and bewildered as she was with all the town necessities of her

new manner of life; but when her house was "sided," and the boys come

home from their work in the evening, she would put on her things and

steal out, unnoticed, as she thought, but not without many a heavy sigh

from Will, after she had closed the house-door and departed. It was

often past midnight before she came back, pale and weary, with almost a

guilty look upon her face; but that face so full of disappointment and

hope deferred, that Will had never the heart to say what he thought of

the folly and hopelessness of the search. Night after night it was

renewed, till days grew to weeks, and weeks to months. All this time

Will did his duty towards her as well as he could, without having

sympathy with her. He stayed at home in the evenings for Tom's sake, and

often wished he had Tom's pleasure in reading, for the time hung heavy on

his hands as he sat up for his mother.

I need not tell you how the mother spent the weary hours. And yet I will

tell you something. She used to wander out, at first as if without a

purpose, till she rallied her thoughts, and brought all her energies to

bear on the one point; then she went with earnest patience along the

least-known ways to some new part of the town, looking wistfully with

dumb entreaty into people's faces; sometimes catching a glimpse of a

figure which had a kind of momentary likeness to her child's, and

following that figure with never-wearying perseverance, till some light

from shop or lamp showed the cold strange face which was not her

daughter's. Once or twice a kind-hearted passer-by, struck by her look

of yearning woe, turned back and offered help, or asked her what she

wanted. When so spoken to, she answered only, "You don't know a poor

girl they call Lizzie Leigh, do you?" and when they denied all knowledge,

she shook her head, and went on again. I think they believed her to be

crazy. But she never spoke first to any one. She sometimes took a few

minutes' rest on the door-steps, and sometimes (very seldom) covered her

face and cried; but she could not afford to lose time and chances in this

way; while her eyes were blinded with tears, the lost one might pass by

unseen.

One evening, in the rich time of shortening autumn-days, Will saw an old

man, who, without being absolutely drunk, could not guide himself rightly

along the foot-path, and was mocked for his unsteadiness of gait by the

idle boys of the neighbourhood. For his father's sake, Will regarded old

age with tenderness, even when most degraded and removed from the stern

virtues which dignified that father; so he took the old man home, and

seemed to believe his often-repeated assertions, that he drank nothing

but water. The stranger tried to stiffen himself up into steadiness as

he drew nearer home, as if there some one there for whose respect he

cared even in his half-intoxicated state, or whose feelings he feared to

grieve. His home was exquisitely clean and neat, even in outside

appearance; threshold, window, and windowsill were outward signs of some

spirit of purity within. Will was rewarded for his attention by a bright

glance of thanks, succeeded by a blush of shame, from a young woman of

twenty or thereabouts. She did not speak or second her father's

hospitable invitations to him to be seated. She seemed unwilling that a

stranger should witness her father's attempts at stately sobriety, and

Will could not bear to stay and see her distress. But when the old man,

with many a flabby shake of the hand, kept asking him to come again some

other evening, and see them, Will sought her downcast eyes, and, though

he could not read their veiled meaning, he answered, timidly, "If it's

agreeable to everybody, I'll come, and thank ye." But there was no

answer from the girl, to whom this speech was in reality addressed; and

Will left the house, liking her all the better for never speaking.

He thought about her a great deal for the next day or two; he scolded

himself for being so foolish as to think of her, and then fell to with

fresh vigour, and thought of her more than ever. He tried to depreciate

her: he told himself she was not pretty, and then made indignant answer

that he liked her looks much better than any beauty of them all. He

wished he was not so country-looking, so red-faced, so broad-shouldered;

while she was like a lady, with her smooth, colourless complexion, her

bright dark hair, and her spotless dress. Pretty or not pretty she drew

his footsteps towards her; he could not resist the impulse that made him

wish to see her once more, and find out some fault which should unloose

his heart from her unconscious keeping. But there she was, pure and

maidenly as before. He sat and looked, answering her father at cross-

purposes, while she drew more and more into the shadow of the chimney-

corner out of sight. Then the spirit that possessed him (it was not he

himself, sure, that did so impudent a thing!) made him get up and carry

the candle to a different place, under the pretence of giving her more

light at her sewing, but in reality to be able to see her better. She

could not stand this much longer, but jumped up and said she must put her

little niece to bed; and surely there never was, before or since, so

troublesome a child of two years old, for though Will stayed an hour and

a half longer, she never came down again. He won the father's heart,

though, by his capacity as a listener; for some people are not at all

particular, and, so that they themselves may talk on undisturbed, are not

so unreasonable as to expect attention to what they say.

Will did gather this much, however, from the old man's talk. He had once

been quite in a genteel line of business, but had failed for more money

than any greengrocer he had heard of; at least, any who did not mix up

fish and game with green-grocery proper. This grand failure seemed to

have been the event of his life, and one on which he dwelt with a strange

kind of pride. It appeared as if at present he rested from his past

exertions (in the bankrupt line), and depended on his daughter, who kept

a small school for very young children. But all these particulars Will

only remembered and understood when he had left the house; at the time he

heard them, he was thinking of Susan. After he had made good his footing

at Mr. Palmer's, he was not long, you may be sure, without finding some

reason for returning again and again. He listened to her father, he

talked to the little niece, but he looked at Susan, both while he

listened and while he talked. Her father kept on insisting upon his

former gentility, the details of which would have appeared very

questionable to Will's mind, if the sweet, delicate, modest Susan had not

thrown an inexplicable air of refinement over all she came near. She

never spoke much; she was generally diligently at work; but when she

moved it was so noiselessly, and when she did speak, it was in so low and

soft a voice, that silence, speech, motion, and stillness alike seemed to

remove her high above Will's reach into some saintly and inaccessible air

of glory--high above his reach, even as she knew him! And, if she were

made acquainted with the dark secret behind of his sister's shame, which

was kept ever present to his mind by his mother's nightly search among

the outcast and forsaken, would not Susan shrink away from him with

loathing, as if he were tainted by the involuntary relationship? This

was his dread; and thereupon followed a resolution that he would withdraw

from her sweet company before it was too late. So he resisted internal

temptation, and stayed at home, and suffered and sighed. He became angry

with his mother for her untiring patience in seeking for one who he could

not help hoping was dead rather than alive. He spoke sharply to her, and

received only such sad deprecatory answers as made him reproach himself,

and still more lose sight of peace of mind. This struggle could not last

long without affecting his health; and Tom, his sole companion through

the long evenings, noticed his increasing languor, his restless

irritability, with perplexed anxiety, and at last resolved to call his

mother's attention to his brother's haggard, careworn looks. She

listened with a startled recollection of Will's claims upon her love. She

noticed his decreasing appetite and half-checked sighs.

"Will, lad! what's come o'er thee?" said she to him, as he sat listlessly

gazing into the fire.

"There's nought the matter with me," said he, as if annoyed at her

remark.

"Nay, lad, but there is." He did not speak again to contradict her;

indeed, she did not know if he had heard her, so unmoved did he look.

"Wouldst like to go to Upclose Farm?" asked she, sorrowfully.

"It's just blackberrying time," said Tom.

Will shook his head. She looked at him awhile, as if trying to read that

expression of despondency, and trace it back to its source.

"Will and Tom could go," said she; "I must stay here till I've found her,

thou knowest," continued she, dropping her voice.

He turned quickly round, and with the authority he at all times exercised

over Tom, bade him begone to bed.

When Tom had left the room, he prepared to speak.