But she seemed much as usual the next day; the lingering gravity and sadness, and the occasional absence of mind, were not unnatural symptoms in the early days of grief. And almost in proportion to her re-establishment in health, was her father’s relapse into his abstracted musings upon the wife he had lost, and the past era in his life that was closed to him for ever.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
UNION NOT ALWAYS STRENGTH.
“The steps of the bearers, heavy and slow,
The sobs of the mourners, deep and low.”
Shelley.
At the time arranged the previous day, they set out on their walk to see Nicholas Higgins and his daughter. They both were reminded of their recent loss, by a strange kind of shyness in their new habiliments, and in the fact that it was the first time, for many weeks, that they had deliberately gone out together. They drew very close to each other in unspoken sympathy.
Nicholas was sitting by the fire-side in his accustomed corner; but he had not his accustomed pipe. He was leaning his head upon his hand, his arm resting on his knee. He did not get up when he saw them, though Margaret could read the welcome in his eye.
“Sit ye down, sit ye down. Fire’s welly out,” said he, giving it a vigorous poke, as if to turn attention away from himself. He was rather disorderly, to be sure, with a black unshaven beard of several days’ growth, making his pale face look yet paler, and a jacket which would have been all the better for patching.
“We thought we should have a good chance of finding you, just after dinner-time,” said Margaret.
“We have had our sorrows too, since we saw you,” said Mr. Hale.
“Ay, ay. Sorrows is more plentiful than dinners just now; I reckon, my dinner hour stretches all o’er the day; yo’re pretty sure of finding me.”
“Are you out of work?” asked Margaret.