Transcribed from the 1896 Smith, Elder and Co. edition ,email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk.
When Death is present in a household on a Christmas Day, the verycontrast between the time as it now is, and the day as it has oftenbeen, gives a poignancy to sorrow—a more utter blankness to thedesolation. James Leigh died just as the far-away bells of RochdaleChurch 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 hehad yet something to say. She stooped close down, and caught thebroken whisper, “I forgive her, Annie! May God forgive me!”
“Oh, my love, my dear! only get well, and I will never ceaseshowing my thanks for those words. May God in heaven bless theefor 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 ofthose years their life had been as calm and happy as the most perfectuprightness on the one side, and the most complete confidence and lovingsubmission on the other, could make it. Milton’s famousline might have been framed and hung up as the rule of their marriedlife, for he was truly the interpreter, who stood between God and her;she would have considered herself wicked if she had ever dared evento think him austere, though as certainly as he was an upright man,so surely was he hard, stern, and inflexible. But for three yearsthe moan and the murmur had never been out of her heart; she had rebelledagainst her husband as against a tyrant, with a hidden, sullen rebellion,which tore up the old landmarks of wifely duty and affection, and poisonedthe fountains whence gentlest love and reverence had once been for everspringing.
But those last blessed words replaced him on his throne in her heart,and called out penitent anguish for all the bitter estrangement of lateryears. It was this which made her refuse all the entreaties ofher sons, that she would see the kind-hearted neighbours, who calledon their way from church, to sympathize and condole. No! she wouldstay with the dead husband that had spoken tenderly at last, if forthree years he had kept silence; who knew but what, if she had onlybeen more gentle and less angrily reserved he might have relented earlier—andin time?
She sat rocking herself to and fro by the side of the bed, whilethe footsteps below went in and out; she had been in sorrow too longto have any violent burst of deep grief now; the furrows were well wornin her cheeks, and the tears flowed quietly, if incessantly, all theday long. But when the winter’s night drew on, and the neighbourshad gone away to their homes, she stole to the window, and gazed out,long and wistfully, over the dark grey moors. She did not hearher son’s voice, as he spoke to her from the door, nor his footstepas he drew nearer. She started when he touched her.
“Mother! come down to us. There’s no one but Willand me. Dearest mother, we do so want you.” The poorlad’s voice trembled, and he began to cry. It appeared torequire an effort on Mrs. Leigh’s part to tear herself away fromthe window, but with a sigh she complied with his request.
The two boys (for though Will was nearly twenty-one, she still thoughtof him as a lad) had done everything in their power to make the house-placecomfortable 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’sreturn home, than now awaited her. The tea-things were all putout, and the kettle was boiling; and the boys had calmed their griefdown into a kind of sober cheerfulness. They paid her every a