“When it comes near night she took up the baby an’ walked over to the mine, ready to throw herself on her knees to Philip before them all when he come up out of it, an’ beg him to forgive the temper of her that drove him to take her at her words an’ go down to seek for work that was ill-fitting a gentleman. There was a crowd coming over from the shaft, early as it was, an’ as she come nearer she saw some of the men carrying one between them that looked, by the way the hands hung, as if he had no life in him. There was no need to tell her who it was, there was no call to tell her how it happened, for she knew that it was Philip before they brought him a step nearer. It was no use for the women to come around to comfort her, to tell her ’twas an accident that took the life that was a hundred times better worth saving than her own. Her heart told her ’twas herself killed him by the rage that drove him to take her at her word, an’ it turned to lead in her bosom, an’ ever since she has waited for the punishment that is coming, for she knows that her life will be taken as his was. The same way that others long for life, she longs for death; an’ she dare not take her life with her own hands, or many a time she would have done it, for waiting an’ waiting is a part of her punishment, an’ she will shirk none of it. But, oh! it’s a weary, weary life, an’ it takes patience to bear it.” She rose at the last words, which were uttered in a sort of moan, and, opening the cottage door, walked out into the cloudy darkness, which was not even lighted by stars. Philip, excited by her strange manner and the story he had heard, sprang up as if to follow her, but his grandfather stopped him.
“Let ’er be, lad,” he said; “she goes out often that way nights after you are sleeping, an’ she comes back the better for it, so I never try to hinder her. That was a hard story for her to tell, an’ I’d spared her if she’d let me.”
“But why did she tell it, an’ why did she say I must hear it sometime?” asked Philip, almost in a whisper.
“It was folly in her, sheer folly,” was the answer. “But she had the notion to tell thee; an’ now it is said, thee needs to think no thought about it again.”
“But did I ever see the lass?” persisted the boy curiously.
“If thee did, thee wouldn’t know it,” was the unsatisfactory answer.
“I think she was a rare one to save the men that time,” said Philip.
“Ay, was she, true enough,” said the old man proudly.
“What became of the baby?” asked Philip.
“From the day,” said his grandfather, “that they took the dead body of her husband out of the door to bury him, the poor young widow went down to the mine to work along with the men, an’ till the boy was old enough to run she took him on her back with her, tied in a big shawl. She has a strange notion that she is to meet a violent death down there, the same as her man did. Some folks say she’s crazed with the trouble; but however it is, no one can put her off from believing that, sooner or later, her life must go to pay for his.”