Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Lizzie Leigh Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Book Excerpt: ...t 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..