Then he fell into that sleep which God gives to his beloved, and when he awoke it was the dayshine. The light streamed in through the eastern windows, there was a robin singing on his window sill, and there was no trouble in his heart but what he could face.
His business was now urging him to be diligent, and his business—being that of so many others, he durst not neglect it. Jane he did not see. Her maid said she had been ill all night and had fallen asleep at the dawning, and John left her a written message and went earlier to the mill than usual. But Greenwood was there, busily examining bales of cotton and singing and scolding alternately as he worked. John joined him and they had a hard morning's work together, throughout which only one subject occupied both minds—the mill and cotton to feed its looms.
In the afternoon Greenwood took up the more human phase of the question. He told John that six of their unmarried men had gone to America. "They think mebbe they'll be a bit better off there, sir. I don't think they will."
"Not a bit."
"And while you were away Jeremiah Stokes left
his loom forever. It didn't put him out any. It was a stormy night for the flitting—thunder and lightning and wind and rain—but he went smiling and whispering,
"There is a land of pure delight!"
"The woman, poor soul, had a harder journey."
"Who was she?"
"Susanna Dobson. You remember the little woman that came from Leeds?"