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Annotsfield ten years ago, paralysed all the Annotsfield mills for months, and ruined some of the manufacturers. But it had given her father a good idea; for the Annotsfield mill-owners began to rent mills in Hudley and other neighbouring towns where there were then no Unions, and Spencer Thwaite, shrewd old manufacturer and warm man that he was, thought that Hudley might learn to make the fine expensive worsted clothtoo; why should Annotsfield have the monopoly? So it all turned out most romantically, thought Mrs. Armistead with pleasure. Young Alfred Armistead had been apprenticed to Spencer Thwaite, and become his smartest traveller, and fallen in love with his motherless only daughter, who returned—oh, how she returned!—his love. And they married, and old Spencer built Blackshaw Mills and put dear Alfred into them and looked about for a suitable partner for him—some responsible man, eager to strike out for himself, who had a little money saved and a considerable practical experience of the Annotsfield trade. He had not far to look; the then minister of the chapel Spencer attended (indeed he had contributed most of the fund required to build it) in Cromwell Street, had a brother-in-law, Henry Hinchliffe, who was just the kind of man required. Old Spencer, so formidable and imposing with his fringe of grizzled whisker, fierce little eyes and big nose, had insisted on Alfred’s living near the new mill, and Blackshaw House was empty and it all fitted in. And then as soon as it was all settled and the deeds signed, her poor father had a stroke and died, and all his money was tied up in South America and couldn’t be got hold of, the Bank of England came into it somehow though Mrs. Armistead never quite understood why; but they were always short of money for running expenses at Blackshaw Mills, as a result. “I must change my will to include Baby,” thought Mrs. Armistead in parenthesis. The house being thus only a couple of hundred yards from the mill, whenever the gas-engines misbehaved, first the explosion terrified Mrs. Armistead’s anxious ears, and then a mill-hand, hurrying down the hill, would cause alarm by appearing at the back-door, panting out a request for brandy—somebody had been hurt, and the teetotaller Hinchliffe would not allow brandy to be kept on the mill premises. Every time this happened, Mrs. Armistead, pale with fright, her pretty eyes dilated, gathered her children to her arms and rushed to the door for news of her beloved husband. The men at the mill were now so well aware of this that themoment they came in sight of the house on this errand they shouted cheerfully: “He’s not hurt—she’s no call to fret.”
    The pictures thus summoned into Mrs. Armistead’s mind of the back-door, the mill, the road and the rough field between, had made her heart beat faster, and roused her to be conscious of the stormy outside world, or perhaps it was the increasing storm which brought the pictures. She stirred and opened her eyes. From her pillows she could see in the chilly twilight the black clouds flying unceasingly across the sombre hills, and the slate roofs of the row of cottages at the bottom of the garden, where Ada’s family lived, streaming with rain. It seemed to her that the wind had certainly increased while she drowsed; its voice was fiercer, more insistent, as it screamed and whistled round the house. Mrs. Armistead raised herself higher on her pillows and gazed out uneasily. The thin gnarled trees fringing the garden were furiously tossing their bare black gleaming branches, the grimy laurel bushes bent before the storm, their leaves turned up relentlessly over their heads. Great gusts tore the smoke from the cottage chimneys into thin wisps, then a moment later rattled the windows of Blackshaw House in a merciless tattoo. Mrs. Armistead could thus judge the instant when a blast would strike the house, and found herself waiting